Confronting Christian Zionism
Part 1 of 3.
View the first webinar in a series of three which addresses the topic of “Confronting Christian Zionism.” Presented by the PC(USA)’s Christian Zionism working group, which includes PC(USA) national staff from World Mission’s Middle East and Europe office, the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, the Office of Public Witness, and members of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network, the 90-minute session discussed how the Zionism ideology contributes to the violence Palestinians have experienced and the consequences of the settler colonial experience.
Episode 1 (this video)
The second webinar in this series will focus on nationalism and Christian Zionism and explore reasons for heightened nationalism around the globe. The discussion will recognize the chasm in church theology and ask: Are we a church that cares about the poor and oppressed, or are we an “empire” church? How have Christian Zionist ideologies led to giving Zionism — a political ideology — a pass by mainline churches? How are Americans complicit in the impunity Zionism enjoys today, which has led to the demonization of an entire people — Palestinians — who are now paying for European sins against their own Jewish populations?
This webinar is moderated by the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Holder Rich and will feature panelists the Rev. Jermaine Ross-Allam, Director Office of Repairs of Historic Harms, PC(USA), the Rev. Addie Domske, Steering Committee of the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the PC(USA), and Jonathan Kuttab, international human rights attorney and executive director of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA).
In the third and final webinar of the series we address how this flawed theology manifests in today’s oft-highly politicized faith practices.
Christian nationalism, whether in the U.S. or in other global contexts, brings together two seemingly unrelated identities—one’s faith in Jesus and one’s citizenship in a nation state—and grants these equal importance in a person’s life. In the U.S., Christian nationalism powerfully motivates some Christians, including some Presbyterians, to see the modern state of Israel as the homeland of God’s chosen people, which can move people to exclude any consideration of compassion for the indigenous Palestinians who, according to Christian nationalists and Christian Zionists, are living on land that is not theirs. Additionally, for U.S. Christians, discomfort about painful parts of U.S. history as a settler colonial state too often move us to ignore settler colonial acts in our modern time—particularly those of the modern state of Israel, which is seen through a Christian Zionist lens as the same as the ancient Israel referenced in the Bible.
This webinar is moderated by the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Holder Rich and will feature panelists the Rev. Jermaine Ross-Allam, Director Office of Repairs of Historic Harms, PC(USA), the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, founder and president of the Dar Al-Kalima University in Bethlehem and Lutheran pastor and the Rev. Dr. Laurie Lyter Bright, executive director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.