If you are not appalled by what is happening in Gaza, if you are not shaken to your core, there is something wrong with your humanity
New Delhi, Dec. 27:
In a Christmas message on December 23, 2023, Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, Evangelical Lutheran Pastor in Bethlehem called the spade a spade when he said in no uncertain terms what is happening in Gaza is ‘an annihilation’, ‘a genocide’, ‘a sin’ and ‘a darkness you willingly embrace’. The Middle East Eye, which first broke this news, also released a video of Rev. Isaac, which is now available on its X account.
A verbatim transcript of Rev. Isaac’s message is hereunder:
Christ under the rubble. We are angry. We are broken. This would have been a time of joy. Instead, we are mourning. We are fearful. More than 20,000 are killed. Thousands are still under the rubble. Close to 9,000 children killed in the most brutal ways. Day after day, 1.9 million displaced. Hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed. Gaza, as we know, it no longer exists. This is an annihilation. This is a genocide.
The world is watching. Churches are watching. The people of Gaza are sending live images of their own execution. Maybe the world cares. But it goes on. We are asking here, could this be our fate in Bethlehem? In Ramallah? In Jenin? Is this our destiny too?
We are tormented by the silence of the world. Leaders of the so-called free, lined up one after the other to give the green light for this genocide against a captive population. They gave the cover. Not only did they make sure to pay the bill in advance. They failed the truth and context, providing the political cover.
This was confirmed to us that the world does not see us as equal. Maybe it’s the colour of our skins. Maybe it is because we are on the wrong side of a political equation. Even our kingship in Christ did not shield us. So they say if it takes killing 100 Palestinians to get the single Hamas militant, then so be it. We are not humans in their eyes, but in God’s eyes, no one can tell us that.
The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling. They always take the word of Palestinians with suspicion and qualification. No, we’re not treated equally. Yet on the other side, despite the clear track record of misinformation, lies, their words are almost always deemed infallible.
To our European friends, I never ever want to hear you lecture us on human rights or international law again. And I mean this. We are not white I guess, it does not apply to us according to your own logic. In this war, the many Christians and the Western world made sure the Empire has the theology needed. It is thus self-defence. We were told, and I continued to ask, how was the killing of 9,000 children self-defence? How was the displacement of 1.9 million Palestinians self-defence?
In the shadow of the Empire, they turned the coloniser into the victim and the colonised into the aggressor. Have we forgotten? Have we forgotten that the state they talk to at that state was built on the ruins of the towns and villages of those very same Gazans. Have they forgotten that?
We are outraged by the complicity of the church. Let it be clear friends, silence is complicity. And empty calls for peace without a ceasefire and end of occupation and the shallow words of empathy without direct action, all under the banner of complicity.
So here is my message. Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell before October 7th and the world was silent. Should we be surprised that they’re silent now? If you are not appalled by what is happening in Gaza, if you are not shaken to your core, there is something wrong with your humanity.
And if we as Christians are not outraged by the genocide, by the weaponisation of the Bible to justify it, that is something wrong with our Christian witness. And we are compromising the credibility of our gospel message.
If you fail to call this a genocide, that is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace.
