THE EDITOR, Sir:
THERE IS a deafening silence from the Jamaican churches concerning the events in the Middle East. Hundreds of people are killed in lands considered by millions of Christians around the world to be Holy and yet it does not trigger uproar in our local context. Why is this so? Even in radical Rastafarian theology that is so strongly Afro-centric, its music that communicates its theology, does not take seriously the events in the Middle East. Why is this so? Is it that the worldview of the Church in Jamaica is strongly influenced by the political theology of the USA?
The crisis in the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians is more than an issue about land. Their different religious worldview is the fuel that nurtures the intractable conflict. The situation with over 200 Palestinian militants with their guns, taking refuge in the Church of the Nativity surrounded by heavily-armed Israeli soldiers speaks volumes about the sad state of affairs when people of faith have no regard for the faith that they profess. What is so sad is to hear religious persons from the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths defending the right of Israelis or Palestinians to kill each other. They justify the use of terror in the name of God who called them to be his "chosen people."
Chosen for a purpose - not status!
Jamaican Christians have been consistently fed with a strong pro-Israel religious sentiment. The missionary theology from Europe and more recently, the nationalistic theology from American Christianity have created local churches and Christians that will defend at all cost their belief that Israel alone is God's chosen nation. Little time has been invested in seeking to understand the biblical teaching. The Bible has never taught that Israel (or any other nation) was chosen because of her ethnic purity or any other status-related qualifications. The word 'election' often conjures up the thought of God's preferential option for Israel. However, God's electing activity throughout the Bible is always associated with purpose rather than status! (1 Pet 1:2) God's choice of Abram was not meant to be interpreted that he rejected the rest of the human race of that time (Gen 14:18-20) God's choice of Isaac was not meant to be interpreted that he rejected Ishmael! Ishmael also received God's promise of blessing and multiplied descendants (Gen. 17:17-27).
Euro-American pietistic missionary Christianity has embedded into the Jamaican religious worldview a deep love for the State of Israel and consequently, by default a lesser love for the other peoples of the region. The Jamaican religious culture does not have the sharp ideological divide between evangelicals and liberals as present in the USA. Most Jamaican Christians are conservative in their beliefs. This conservatism is nurtured through the use of scriptures. In most of our Bibles - printed in the USA - we are presented with maps about the holy land that are designed to reinforce the view that the Biblical lands all belong to the Jewish people. This narrow-half truth teaching was further reinforced in our Sunday school rooms. Anywhere Jesus walked and taught was considered to be part of the promised land of Israel. The Bible therefore became an ideological tool to defend Israel's interest.
For our younger churches that give greater urgency to the biblical teachings on end times, much of their prophetic utterances are ideologically predetermined to ensure that Israel remains safe and secure to herald the return of Jesus. It was there Jesus ascended to heaven and it is from that place he will return. Israel for conservative Christians constitutes the beginning and the end of history! Listen to our local and American radio and TV Bible teachers and you will be left in no doubt that Israel is the cornerstone of their carefully-designed end-of-time script. The world got a taste of it two years ago when many of the Bible teachers went into overtime to communicate that the millennium would herald the return of Jesus. The script was well researched and presented like a full-length Hollywood movie. The star in this main event is the State of Israel. Without Israel everything in the end time scenario falls apart.
Many Jamaican Christians would be surprised to learn that the Palestinians are not all Muslims. A significant number are Christians. Bethlehem is a part of Palestine... not Israel! Majority of the Palestinians are Muslims. The fallout from the September 11, 2001 terror attack on the USA and the continuing use of Palestinian militants in sending suicide-bombers to attack Israeli citizens have resulted in their cause receiving an overwhelming negative press. However, the desperate moves by Israel in reoccupying Palestinian towns and cities in order to stop the bombers will not work.
This evil strategy by the Palestinians may in the end hasten the dawn of a state of their own but at what price? Their use of children and young people to unleash terror on the Israelis will in the long-run damage their national development. After making peace with Israel the Palestinians militants will turn on their own leaders and get rid of them with suicide-bombers!
What is common to the interest of the USA and Israel is that they both feel vulnerable in the present world order. People who feel that they cannot use the western instruments of war to fight systematic acts of injustice perpetrated by USA foreign policy and Israel's aggression against Palestinians will stop at nothing in their quest for justice. In the long run the leaders of Israel will have to give to the Palestinians what is rightfully theirs. They will have to live and work together as neighbours or experience mutually assured destruction. In less than 20 years Palestinians may constitute the majority in Israel and the West Bank because their birth rate averages about six children per family much more than the Jewish birth rate per family. It is only a matter of time. For that reason alone it is necessary for Israel to reach a political settlement with the Palestinians so that they can live together as two independent states at peace with each other.
The Jamaican churches must not allow themselves to be bullied by the political theology of fundamentalist American Christianity into supporting the neurotic fear and hatred that Israeli and the Palestinian leadership have of each other. What the Israelis see is not Palestinians but 22 Arab dictatorships, some armed with unconventional weapons. What the Palestinians see is not Israel at peace with its neighbours but an uncontrollable state that does what it pleases because it has been given the licence by the USA to neutralise the Palestinian people.
I am, etc.,
Rev. Dr. RODERICK R. HEWITT
Hope United Church
221 Old Hope Road
Kingston 6
