Over 70 American Christian leaders and faith-based organizations have signed a declaration opposing the war in Gaza that accuses Western Christians who support Israel of using Zionism to justify the oppression of Palestinians.
The coalition of pastors, theologians, scholars and activists released the letter amid the 2025 Church at the Crossroads conference in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, which ran from Thursday through Saturday.
According to the signatories, Palestinian Christians are “deeply grieved” by Western Christians’ support for Israel, claiming that they’re ignoring Palestinians and “this war’s roots in Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian land and ethnic cleansing beginning in 1948.”
“Our siblings lament that our response to this war compromises our witness to Jesus’ gospel and harms the unity of his body,” the letter states. “They cry out for an immediate ceasefire, return of all Israeli and Palestinian hostages, unimpeded entry of aid for Gaza, and accountability for Israel’s unjust actions.”
In response to an inquiry from The Christian Post, a spokesperson for the Church at the Crossroads said the event and declaration are a response to two open letters issued by Palestinian and Middle East church leaders in October 2023 and August 2024.
“Our aim is to provide a space to learn from Palestinian Christians, hear about their lived experiences, identify where we have knowingly or unknowingly contributed to their suffering, repent when our complicity has harmed them, and engage in a time of lament and participation in the suffering of other members of the body of Christ,” the spokesperson said.
Among those who signed the document are several progressive Christian activists, scholars and thinkers. Signatories include author and activist Shane Claiborne, Sojourners President Adam Taylor, bestselling author Jemar Tisby, VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer, “Theology in the Raw” host Preston Sprinkle and the Rev. Mae Elise Cannon, executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace. Peter Beinart, a Jewish author and well-known critic of Israel, also signed and endorsed the letter.
The signatories called for an end to the war, which began after the terror group Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, slaughtered at least 1,200 people and abducted over 240 others, including 40 Americans, in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza to eradicate the terror group and recover the hostages. The Hamas-run Gaza health authorities say over 64,000 people have died since the war began.
“Our Palestinian Christian siblings are telling us that they are devastated by the extreme violence the Israeli military and Israeli settlers have inflicted upon their people since Hamas’ unjust attack on October 7, 2023,” the letter claims. “Israel’s military has killed or maimed tens of thousands of children and innocents; leveled entire cities; destroyed hospitals, schools, and places of worship; displaced millions of people; and deprived the population of food and water.”
“We confess that many of us have used the Bible in ways that excuse oppression, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and other forms of violence while ignoring the teachings of Jesus,” the letter continues. “We have justified the strong and abandoned Christ’s call to the vulnerable.”
As a sign of “repentance in action,” the signatories vowed to challenge Christian Zionism, a theological view that affirms God’s covenantal relationship with the Jewish people and their providential connection to the land of Israel. The document argues that beliefs like Christian Zionism justify harming Palestinians, contending that these views damage Christian witness.
The Philos Project, a pro-Israel nonprofit organization promoting Christian engagement in the Middle East, contends that Christian Zionists are often grouped with Jews and Israelis as scapegoats because the position is seen as unpopular.
In its statement to CP, the nonprofit asserts that Christian Zionism is not in the minority “among most Americans of goodwill.”
“In whatever ways Israel acts — perfectly or imperfectly — there is one truth that is too often overlooked: Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christians not only survive but are free to worship, to vote, to serve in government, and to contribute openly to society. However complex the political situation, this reality cannot be dismissed,” The Philos Project stated.
“No true Christian Zionist — and the case can be made that the phrase is redundant — would ever use the gospel for the sake of unjust violence, nor would they embrace the ideology of pacifism as an absolute, since such an approach is not consistent with a fully Christian disposition.”
Jonathan Kuttab, a Palestinian Christian who grew up in Bethlehem and is the executive director of Friends of Sabeel North America, argued that Christians in places like Gaza have had their houses and churches bombed or their lands stolen.
“My hope is for Christians to be Christians, to follow the teachings of Christ. Somehow, Christian Zionism takes a political ideology, Zionism, and dresses it up in religious language,” Kuttab told CP. “But if we were to follow Christ rather than Zionism, then we have to show love to everyone. We have to favor peace, not war.”
The Palestinian also believes that Christian Zionism conflicts with the Bible, which teaches that “God loves the whole world.”
“God does not favor a particular tribe or a particular people over others. His love and compassion [are] for all his creatures,” Kuttab added.
Anton Deik, a Palestinian theologian, also criticized Zionism, claiming that the purpose “is to establish an exclusively Jewish state on lands inhabited by others, in this case, the Palestinians.”
“How could that be done? Surely not by flowers and balloons, but by forcibly displacing people and ethnic cleansing,” declared, who believes Christians are safer in Jordan or Lebanon than in Israel, which he claimed is “not a place of flourishing for Christians.”
The Rev. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian pastor, claimed that the Jews came to the area not as refugees, saying, “It was clear that they came as colonizers.”
“My simple question is, what would it look like to put yourself in the shoes of Palestinians? Someone is making it clear that they’re coming to colonize your land. And then the world decides, let’s divide the land: you take half of it,” Isaac told CP. “Let them establish a state on your homeland, and we’re just supposed to say, ‘Yeah, of course.’ So how would you respond to that? Impossible.”
The Philos Project maintains that criticism of Israel is quick to arise whenever there is tension between Palestinian Christians and Israeli settlers.
“[Meanwhile], the widespread persecution of Christians in places like Syria or Egypt is often met with silence. The gravest challenges for Christians in the Middle East do not come from Israel, but from the pressures of living as a vulnerable minority within majority-Muslim societies,” The Philos Project declared.
“This is one of the chief reasons Christianity is in such steep decline across the region,” the group continued. “It is an ‘open secret’ that Palestinian Christians cannot safely speak the full truth about their circumstances.”
Regarding reports on the number of casualties throughout the war in Gaza, Deik said that the count is unreliable and acknowledged that the Palestinian government lacks the resources to find and report the exact number of casualties. However, he believes that the actual casualty figures are higher than what has been reported.
CP has previously published articles detailing reports of Hamas conducting military operations and storing weapons in civilian areas, in addition to reports of Hamas stealing aid from Gazans.
Legal experts with UK Lawyers for Israel and urban warfare experts like John Spencer have also raised concerns about the reliability of casualty reports from sources like the Gaza Health Ministry, which they, and others, have noted is controlled by Hamas. Experts have also noted that casualty data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Kuttab said that the death count in Gaza is difficult to obtain but expressed confidence in the ministry’s data, describing it as reliable.
“Now, the Israeli saying [is] that they [Hamas’ Ministry of Health] don’t distinguish between fighters and civilians. That’s true, because we don’t know who’s a fighter, who’s a civilian, and Israelis will be right to question whether our designation of a certain person as a combatant or non-combatant is correct,” Kuttab stated. “But they do designate who are women, and who are children, and what are the ages of the victim. So in that respect, the Palestinian health ministry figures are very reliable.”
In response to CP’s question about how a ministry controlled by Hamas could be considered a reliable source of information, Kuttab argued that politics shouldn’t matter.
“Regarding numbers, we’re evaluating the quality of the facts, not the political orientation of the people doing the counting,” he said. “We are interested in the accuracy of the documentation.”
“The same with the Israelis — we ask the same questions of them,” the Palestinian Christian added. “Are they reporting accurately, or are they lying? We want to see the facts, not evaluate whether we like their politics or not.”
Those who oppose Zionism and Israel’s existence as a Jewish state typically argue that the Jews have no historical connection to the land.
Archaeological and historical evidence shows that Israel was under Jewish leadership over 3,000 years ago.
Even after the Romans exiled the Jews in 70 A.D., there were Jews who remained in Israel, and Jewish people throughout the world maintained a connection to the land, hoping that they would one day return.
Multiple empires, including the Ottomans and the British, occupied the land throughout history, but after the Holocaust, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 in November 1947 that proposed dividing the land into two, granting an independent State to Jews and Arabs.
Jewish leaders accepted, while Arab leaders rejected the plan. Following the declaration of Israel’s independence in May 1948, Israel’s Arab neighbors attacked. After Israel won the war for its independence, over 100,000 Arabs remained and became Israeli citizens, while an estimated 700,000 were displaced, many of them leaving at the urging of Arab leaders.
Arab countries did not integrate these refugees or give them rights.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
