In the past few weeks, attacks on the Christ at the Checkpointconference have intensified exponentially. These attacks are not new and we have always thought that our best defense is the nature of the conference itself, and that we should not get involved in meaningless internet debates.

However, since we have been receiving some requests and inquiries regarding these attacks, we decided to briefly respond to some of them.

Many of the attacks we deemed not worthy of response, since they mainly focused on selected speakers from the first conference. These sorts of attacks targeted certain speakers and their views, which were not relevant to the conference. Even though these attacks are, in most cases, unfair and out of context, the point is that those making the accusations totally ignored the fact that the conference includes open forums and encourages that varying opinions be heard. None of the critics, for example, mentioned that, at the first conference, two of the main speakers were committed dispensationalists and committed supporters of the State of Israel. The conference also included Messianic Jews and Christian Zionists; they were invited to share in order to create theological balance at the conference.

The conference was a free and open forum for all participants to express their perspectives in the spirit of love and understanding. Those who demonize the conference obviously did not attend it. At the coming conference, Messianic Jews, dispensationalists, and Christian Zionists will be invited to speak to the whole assembly. They will be free to express their opinions.

What has been surprising, however, is the lack of credibility in these articles that attacked the conference. One writer, who is a "Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science" at a certain University in the United States, falsely claimed that this is conference is organized by the World Council of Churches, that it is actually the third conference and not the second, and that the conference will use the document "The BethlehemCall" as a platform! All these statements are false, and are indicators of the lack of simple research by this author. This author probably relied on information from another article, written by an Italian journalist, for Arutz Sheva; a radio station and web site located in a West Bank settlement that describes itself as a religious Zionist station and the "voice of the settlers". In the past, the Israeli government outlawed the radio station. It is amazing how some Christian writers picked up this article and trusted it for basic information about the conference, instead of simply visiting the conference website itself!

The Bethlehem Call, which some of the attacks referred to, is a document written by the Kairos group at the second anniversary of Kairos Palestine. This document has nothing to do with the Christ at the Checkpoint conference. In addition, Bethlehem Bible College is not affiliated with the World Council of Churches. The "Kairos Palestine" document and the Bethlehem Call are worthy of study. Yet most people from the first conference were not even familiar with that document.

Some critical articles have been titled "Conference to Demonize Israel." This cannot be further from the truth. The purpose of the Christ at the Checkpoint conference is not to demonize Israel, but rather to help and empower the Palestinian Church and to help her find hope in the midst of this conflict. In addition, the conference aims to create a forum where International Evangelicals, Messianic Jews, and Palestinian Christians can openly discuss the challenges facing the Palestinian Church in the Holy Land within the current political context.

This is the second Christ at the Checkpoint conference. Those who are in doubt about our intentions can go to our website and read all of the lectures from the previous conference. The reader will discover that all of the speeches were balanced and there was no demonization of Israel. It is not fair for one to assume that any criticism of Israel should be considered an act of demonization. Old Testament prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah were quite critical of the behavior of ancient Israel and yet, Biblical scholars do not classify them as demonizers of Israel. In addition, the conference committee has drawn a small document called “The Seven Affirmations”, in which we stated clearly what the conference stands for.

In reality, many of these attacks are made by extreme fundamentalists groups or writers who do not have any tolerance for a view that differs from their own. For these writers, any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism, and any view regarding Israel's place in end times that is different than theirs, is replacement theology. If any demonization is taking place, it is the demonization of all Palestinians and Arabs. One of the critics, a notable “prophecy expert,” who for years made one false prediction after another, repeated the infamous statement that Palestinians are an invented people!

We invite the writers of these articles to attend our second conference in March 2012 in order to reflect accuracy instead of inventing fiction when they write another assessment of the Christ at the Checkpoint conference. They may or may not agree with what will be said, but they will certainly hear all voices and many different points of view. The least they can do is report accurately, and stop making general false accusations about Bethlehem Bible College, Christ at the Checkpoint, and Palestinian Christians.

In the end, we would like to restate of the goal of the conference: “The aim of Christ at the Checkpoint is to provide an opportunity for evangelical Christians who take the Bible seriously to prayerfully seek a proper awareness of issues of peace, justice, and reconciliation.”

Munther Isaac & Alex Awad
Conference Committee Members