The following is a guest post from Philip Church. Philip serves as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Theology at Laidlaw College. Philip completed an MCS from Regent College in 1983 and an ACT MTh in 1996, both in New Testament Studies. He was the Registrar of the former Tyndale College from 1985 until 2000 as well as being a regular tutor for the College. He was appointed Academic Registrar of the Tyndale Graduate School of Theology in 2002. He is a Chartered Accountant and was employed in a large New Zealand company prior to joining the staff of TGST in 2002. Philip is currently working on a PhD in New Testament Studies through Otago University.

I was privileged to travel to Bethlehem to attend the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference (www.christatthecheckpoint.com) organized by the Bethlehem Bible College (BBC) and its partner organisation the Holy Land Trust from 12-17 March. About 150 people were there and the array of presenters was very impressive. The Israeli authorities were invited but declined. However, the keynote addresses were streamed live on the internet and broadcast on local TV. Of course the authorities were watching, and they called in some of the presenters for interrogation. The Palestinian Prime Minister came and addressed us as did the ambassador to France, a graduate of BBC.
There were some high points at the conference, but it would take too long to detail them all. The papers are on the website and in time there will be videos to watch. Lynne Hybels spoke movingly of her journey as she has become a passionate advocate for Palestinian children; Tony Campolo reminded us as only Tony Campolo can that even though it is [Easter] Friday, [Easter] Sunday is coming; Colin Chapman spoke on Christianity and Islam, giving a necessary balance to some of the strident voices too often heard on that topic; Manfred Kohl traced the origins of the holocaust to German Pietism and drew parallels with the uncritical support of US evangelicals for Israel, warning of another holocaust on the horizon; and Naim Ateek and Mitri Rehab, presented a contextualised Palestinian theology. Two presenters spoke from a dispensational perspective. Neither was able to convince me that dispensationalism has a contribution to make to the very pressing issues in Israel and Palestine, and both gave readings of the NT that I find inadequate.
I found the visits where we saw with our own eyes the living conditions of Palestinians in the occupied territories to be as significant as the conference itself. While I have thought and spoken and published on these issues in the past, my thinking has now been challenged and refined by the opportunity to do theology “at the checkpoint.”
The day we visited a checkpoint all was quiet since the authorities had closed off the West Bank and were not letting people in or out. Normally people start queuing at 2:00 AM, so as to get to their workplace at a reasonable hour. On most days there are around 1,000 people in the queue at 6:00 AM, but we saw very few. The checkpoint is an opening in the eight metre high wall being built on Palestinian land, separating people from their communities and their livelihoods. Houses are bulldozed and olive trees that have been nurtured for hundreds of years are uprooted to make way for this wall. Some of us joined a non-violent protest where the wall was being extended, and I watched as unarmed Palestinians, often depicted in our media as terrorists, sat peacefully on the road in front of heavily armed teenagers with American accents and dressed in Israeli army uniforms. I saw the people dispersed with stun grenades, or sound bombs as they call them.
We visited a refugee camp where around 5,000 people live in less than one square kilometre. The children were playing in the streets because the olive tree park where they used to play is now behind that wall. We also went to an Israeli settlement and sat in their synagogue listening to three Jewish men with American accents telling of the deep sense in their hearts that this land belonged to them by divine right.
The contrast between the refugee camp and the settlement could not have been greater. Those who live in the refugee camp were removed from their homes in 1948 and have not been permitted to return. Their symbol is a key with 194 written on the shank, referring to UN Resolution 194, Article 11 of which says:
… the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.
Israel has refused to comply, and the refugees have been holding on to their keys for 62 years.
The settlers have mostly emigrated from the West, and it became clear to me that these settlements (“colonies” is a better term) are a slice of upmarket North American suburbia picked up and dropped into the Middle East. These people have their swimming pools, their pizza huts and their Curves gym. The children have nice playgrounds, and there are armed guards at the gate to keep undesirable people out. The Jewish man with the American accent remarked,
“When all the surrounding countries are democracies [meaning, “When they are like us”] we will have peace in this region.”
But stealing land (for that is what it is) and building walls and stationing armed guards don’t make for peace. Building bridges between communities, and working hard for peace and justice might.
Palestinian homes have black tanks on the roof to collect rainwater and grey tanks in the roof to store what we call “mains” water. The homes in the Israeli colonies don’t have any tanks. All the water comes from aquifers within Palestine. It comes to the Palestinian homes once every 2-3 weeks and they store it in the grey tank on the roof until it runs out. And then they wait for it to be turned on again. The Israeli settlements have water for their swimming pools and water in their taps 24/7. Fixing this injustice might be a good step in the direction of peace.
One of the conference presenters reminded us that when Jesus walked in this land it was occupied by Rome, and he drew a powerful analogy with today’s occupying power, also marching around in battledress. The only difference is that today the occupier has a religious name that evokes great support from many western Christians. But the NT makes it clear that faith in Jesus rather than ethnicity is the mark of the people of God since the coming of Jesus. Moreover, Jesus refused to identify himself with those who sought the downfall of Rome, offering instead a much greater freedom. I was deeply impressed with the grace of the Palestinian people, refusing to resort to violence; waiting for God to intervene and end this occupation. “How long, O Lord,” they ask like the Psalmist did before them. But their pacifism is not passivism, as they proactively work for peace and justice. And Christians in the West have largely ignored their plight.
Colin Chapman reminded us that the Muslim call to prayer, broadcast from the local mosques five times each day, was a call for us to pray. I have prayed in the past on hearing the prayer call, but then I had identified it as a forceful reminder that Islam is the dominant religious power in the region. Previously I prayed for the day when every mosque would be silenced, and every knee would bend to Jesus. I still pray along that, but now I also pray that God will set these people free from oppression and injustice.
At the end of his talk the Jewish man with the American accent read Isaiah 2:2-4 to us. It goes like this:
In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. ”
There was no discussion as this came at the end of the meeting. But there were questions I wanted to ask.
· 1. This man read the text as though the NT had never been written, as you might expect. He was Jewish. Interestingly, one of those presenting a dispensational perspective at the Conference also read it to us in the same way. He should have known better. A Christian reading of this text recognises that it was fulfilled in Jesus. Of course, when Isaiah want to speak about God coming to dwell with his people he had to speak in terms that he knew, and the temple, or “the mountain of the Lord’s house” expressed that supremely. Then Jesus came and spoke of the destruction of the temple and its replacement with “the temple of his body” (John 2:21). He is the mountain of the Lord’s house, exalted high over all; the nations stream to him, and from him they learn how to walk in the paths of the Lord. After his life and death in Jerusalem, instruction went out from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (to the ends of the earth, Acts 1:8). He alone can bring the peace that the Palestinian people long for. Peace will come not when the Arab countries are democracies; it will come when Jesus the prince of peace is acknowledged, and justice is once more seen in this land.
· 2. This text actually appears more than once in the Bible. Isaiah appears to be quoting his contemporary, Micah who probably composed it for Mic 4:1-4. In Micah, however, this prophetic oracle of blessing appears in the context of an oracle of judgment, with which it dovetails closely. The oracle of judgment reads like this:
Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob and chiefs of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong! Its rulers give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets give oracles for money; yet they lean upon the Lord and say, “Surely the Lord is with us! No harm shall come upon us.” Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.
I would have liked to ask the Jewish man with the American accent to read his text in Micah instead of Isaiah and reflect on its context in Micah. This oracle of judgment is a stark reminder that this oppressed land is God’s land, and that those who claim to be God’s people in God’s land are required live under God’s rule and with God’s standards. Those who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong in these days may face the same fate, and the third temple that they long for (along with many western Christians) may yet turn out to be a heap of ruins, and the mountain of that house may end up a wooded height.
At the end of the Conference we issued “The Bethlehem Evangelical Affirmation.” It has its own website (www.bethlehemaffirmation.com). Please visit the site, endorse the affirmation (we are looking for 10,000 endorsements), and join the Facebook group. Then click on the link and go to the conference website to download some of papers and read them. And put a note in your diary for 5-12 March 2012 when the second Christ at the Checkpoint conference will be happening. And start saving. I was the only Kiwi there, it would be great to have a delegation at the next one.