I have been thinking a lot about the issues on our front pages and feed for some time now, the interesting parallel with Passover and the campus protests - especially the one most recently in my diocese at the University of Texas. The issues we confront are complex and not easily reconcilable.
We must face the reality that we are seeing a rise in antisemitic behaviour on campuses along with a rise in violence against Jews in the US and in Israel; we are dealing with the reality of mass destruction of Palestinian Christian and Muslim lives in Gaza. As a Christian bishop, neither is acceptable as a global people created by our shared Abrahamic God.
(This rise is happening in the midst of the rise of hate groups and violence against people of colour combined with a deadly mix of xenophobia.)
The above is the most difficult thing for us to grasp. What we as Christians must work towards is realizing that each human being, by God's very creation, is beloved of God. The proper response is grief, sadness, and the ignominy of our human condition to right the wrongs of our forebearers. Moreover, our own citizenship actually benefits from the world as it is and in which we live.
The UT protests today and the blanket call for a violent response recall the complexity of our time and harken to Kent and other generational mistakes. This is often too quickly boiled down into a pro-Israel or pro-Palestine fight - but that is oversimplified.
The real question we face at UT is a rather more disturbing reality. We need to ask why is it that free speech of the Patriot Front and other white supremacist organizations are allowed at UT without a call for police, while a peaceful protest by those who disagree with Christian nationalism’s support of Israel due to their false apocalyptical far Christian right beliefs about the Holy Land deserves the present response by the state? Here is a juxtaposition that we know and remember, but nobody is speaking out loud.
We need to ask more questions about Christian Nationalism in this country. How it affects women, people of colour, and our approach to the wider global community. God has no country but the cosmos, no one people but humanity, no nation-state but the world. Remember the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. This is not about shelter but in our context needs to be read immediately as a revelation of God's ultimate concern for all people of every tribe and nation.
As for Israel and Palestine, we as Christians need to focus our efforts on the security of Israelis and the self-determination of the Palestinian people for a free, enduring and durable state in the future, focusing on the day after the war, where a just and lasting peace may be maintained.
