Dr Yousef AlKhouri, Academic Dean of Bethlehem Bible College, calls our attention to the fact that Palestinians, especially Palestinian Christians, are experiencing not just a humanitarian crisis, but a theological crisis, as Zionism and Christian Zionism have weaponized the Bible to justify genocide.

For over a century, Zionists — Jewish and Christian, and even Muslims — have used biblical stories to theologize their settler-colonialism of Palestine. Colonial powers have turned conquest into a biblical enterprise. Theologians, church leaders, pastors, scholars and Christian politicians have rationalized the Zionist genocide theologically by reimagining ancient biblical stories into two destructive meta-narratives: stories of love (chosenness, promise, election) used to claim divine entitlement to land, and stories of hate that cast Palestinians as ancient enemies, providing theological cover for violence and dehumanization.

These stories have not just abused the Bible as a sacred text and turned it into a blueprint for genocide, they have also made God its mastermind and commander-in-chief. But we can — and must — “un-theologize” the genocide, because genocide cannot be rationalized by biblical stories. The God we encounter in the Bible through the person of Christ is the one who incarnates solidarity with the oppressed and even experiences brutal death with them. This God is incompatible with genocide.

We must be prophetic in the face of injustice, as German Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer urged us during WWII: “To delay or fail to make decisions may be more sinful than to make wrong decisions out of faith and love. And in this case, it really is now or never. Too late means never. Let us shake off our fear of this world: the cause of Christ is at stake. Are we to be found sleeping?”

We must resist theologies and ideologies of settler-colonialism, looking to those, such as Palestinian Christians, who have offered an example of faithful commitment to Jesus and God’s kingdom. We must resist all forms of demonization and dehumanization, and instead proclaim liberty for all. We are in a crisis moment, and Christ can redeem it into a kairos moment.