Theologian's 'Christ in Rubble' sermon wake-up call for West's church of empire

Rev Munther Isaac’s Christmas Liturgy of Lament in Bethlehem dishes out a searing critique of Western hypocrisy amid genocide in Gaza.

Reverend Munther Isaac addresses the faithful at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. (Photo: Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church)

Reverend Munther Isaac’s ‘Christ in the rubble’ sermon at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem was as authentic a gospel message as you will come across in your life time.

During his Liturgy of Lament on December 23, the Palestinian theologian condemned the world’s indifference to the genocide taking place in Gaza and those complicit in it.

“We are tormented by the silence of the world,” he said.

In particular, he called out what he termed the church of empire, as well as Western leaders’ hypocrisy over human rights and democracy and did so profoundly, in the direst of circumstances, at the most pertinent of times and places. 

As Christians in the West celebrated with Christmas festivities, Israel stepped up its industrial scale killing of Gazans 45 miles from the birthplace of Jesus Christ, in a land where He also lived under occupation.

At least 20,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed so far under conditions of siege as the Israeli army follows its Dahiya doctrine of targeting civilians in a campaign of widespread destruction with the help of an AI program obscenely called The Gospel.  

Approximately 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced, forced close to the Egyptian border as Israel creates a catastrophic situation the logic of which dictates Palestinians be cast into the Sinai desert for the UN to deal with.

The West’s political class have been well aware of this ethnic-cleansing endgame since the Hamas attack on Israel settlements and military bases on October 7. A leaked Israeli policy paper outlined options on what to do with displaced Gazans.

In his address to the faithful, Rev Isaac rightly accused Western leaders of giving a diplomatic pass for the mass killings, continuing to watch it play out while falsely claiming it a war against Hamas in defence of statehood.

“Not only did they make sure to pay the bill in advance, they veiled the truth and context, providing political cover,” he said.

Having their authority bound up in the temporal power of Western states, religious denominations took refuge in meaningless platitudes and empty words of empathy, with little in the way of action to confront US-led ‘rules-based’ international order and stop the Gaza onslaught.

In allowing Israel’s genocide, the West and its ‘churches of empire’ have decisively embraced an era reminiscent of The Dark Ages, a time of political and moral decay, which Rev Isaac, as well as many secular observers, say they will not recover from.

 “Even our kinship in Christ didn’t save us. The hypocrisy and racism of the Western world is transparent and appalling,” he said.

“To our European friends, I never ever want to hear you lecture us in human rights or international law again and I mean this… Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world. Gaza was hell before October 7 and the world was silent. Should we be surprised by their silence 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, there 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 it is on you. It is a sin and a darkness you willingly embrace. Some have not even called for a ceasefire… For those who are complicit, I feel sorry for you. You will you never recover from this this. Your charity and words of shock after the genocide won’t make a difference. We will not accept your apology after the genocide. What has been done has been done.”

Theological justification for status quo

 Rev Isaac pointed to a “state theology” at play in the West, which he said South Africans under apartheid had “defined as the theological justification of the status quo with its racism, capitalism and totalitarianism”.

University of Otago's Professor of Theology and Public Issues, David Tombs, told In Context Rev Isaacs was referencing the Kairos document, written in 1985.

“It powerfully exposed the ways that state theology legitimised and even sanctified state violence,” he said.

“Regarding church theology it offered a devastating critique of church theology that presented itself as a moral alternative that exhorted peace but failed to address the reality of the situation through clear-sighted social analysis.

“I do think that what is happening – and the critique offered by Rev Munther Isaac – demonstrates the need for theology that does not rely on easy platitudes, but which is willing to embrace historical and social analysis and then speak honestly and with courage in light of the Bible.

“The Kairos document calls this ‘prophetic theology’ and it is embedded in the Hebrew Bible as well as the New Testament.”

Rev Isaac’s own theology is grounded in a tradition that can be traced from the 1960s, loosely called liberation theology.

“I do think liberation theology has much to offer for thinking about how churches and church leaders might appropriately respond,” Tombs said.

Liberation theology a Christian response to Gaza

After the 1968 Medellin Conference in Colombia called to implement the Second Vatican Council within the context of Latin America, Catholic priests and laity went out into the world in service of people struggling to win self-determination and social justice within a system of neo-colonialism imposed by Western nations after World War II.

Religious base communities were established, where clergy accompanied the faithful in their economic and personal struggles. The movement spread worldwide.

Liberation theology focused on not only freeing people from personal sin, but also from the “structural sin” of empire, capitalism and any system that instrumentalised and exploited people, imposing poverty and suffering, which was seen as a grave affront to both God and human dignity.  Its message was a simple and powerful one - God stands unequivocally on the side of the oppressed.

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim talks with Fr Gustavo Gutierrez at the Catholic University of Peru in Lima, Peru on July 3, 2013. (Photo: Dominic Chavez/World Bank via Creative Commons)

This reinterpretation of the gospel message – the ‘preferential option for the poor’ - was given fullest expression in Fr Gustavo Gutierrez’s A Theology of Liberation, first published in English 50 years ago. It was taken up by other religious denominations.

It was a far cry from the church many of us have become accustomed to - of pious platitudes, zealous religious devotion, steeped in Western privilege and co-opted into an unjust social and political order.

It was also something the US government and Church authorities saw as a serious threat to power. Many exponents of liberation theology were martyred, including six Jesuit priests murdered by the US-backed Salvadoran army in 1989. Others were marginalised, like Leonardo Boff, silenced twice in the 1980s by then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later to be Pope Benedict XVI).

Could the world’s outrage at Palestinian martyrdom offer liberation theology the opportunity to rise from the ashes while the church of empire’s authority remains buried beneath the rubble after the Gazan genocide is complete? Could it offer the spiritual anecdote to “state theology”?

The power of Rev Isaac’s words certainly points to its potential and may be a harbinger to what is to come in 2024, as people of faith question how they reorientate themselves in light of the West’s mask of moral superior slipping and as its support for Israel’s genocide sinks in.

Themes of liberation, solidarity and justice were profoundly centred in his Bethlehem liturgy. By invoking Jesus’ words “in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me,” Rev Isaac reminded those in the West of their abject failure in the face of a genocide they failed to adequately confront, in stark contrast to the nature of Christ himself.

“The majesty of the incarnation lies in its solidarity with the marginalised,” Rev Isaac said.

“This is the very same child who rose up from the midst of pain, destruction, darkness and death to challenge empires and speak truth to power and deliver an everlasting victory over death and darkness.”

Fate of occupied West Bank

Palestinians across the West Bank, in Jenin and Bethlehem, now wonder if they will face a similar genocidal onslaught to the one Gazans are enduring, a sickening fear relayed by Bethlehem University vice chancellor Brother Peter Bray to In Context back in October. The signs are ominous.

For the Israeli apartheid regime, ethnic cleansing remains the final solution to its Palestinian problem, both in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. An independent Palestinian state envisaged under the Oslo peace accords of the 1990s was jettisoned as a viable solution years ago, made impossible by accelerated illegal settlement building, while absorbing Palestinians into Israel would be a demographic nightmare for Zionists, threatening the very nature of their apartheid state.

The West Bank’s Palestinian Christians are beginning to see they may not be spared similar treatment to their Muslim brothers and sisters too.

The Missionaries of Charity convent located on the compound of Holy Family Parish, after being by a tank shell on December 16. (Photo: Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem)

In October Bray said Christians in the West Bank watched livestreamed daily Masses in the Holy Family Church compound in Gaza because it was the only way they could see if their loved ones were present and still alive.

On December 16, the Latin patriarchate announced an IDF sniper murdered “in cold blood” Nahida Anton and her daughter Samar Anton at the Holy Family Parish as they walked to the Missionaries of Charity convent at the compound. Seven others were wounded. About 600 Christians had sought refuge in the Parish buildings. It said an IDF tank also targeted the convent, which cared for 54 disabled people, destroying the means to reside there.

Pope Francis was compelled to call the acts “terrorism”, although he failed to call out the genocide.

The presence of Christians in Gaza, who make up some of the oldest Christian communities in the world, exposes the propaganda presenting Hamas as a hateful ISIS-like entity that cannot tolerate other religious peoples. Equally, Rev Isaac’s sermon is testimony to the fact Christian and Muslim Palestinians stand in painful solidarity as one people.

When In Context approached the Catholic Bishop’s Conference in New Zealand for a comment after the Holy Family shootings in mid-December, its head, Bishop of Auckland Stephen Lowe, said he supported an immediate ceasefire and “meaningful work towards the two-state permanent solution”.

 “The conflict in the Holy Land requires urgent and serious moves towards finding a just and peaceful outcome for the peoples of Israel and Palestine, but particularly for the Palestinians, whose long years of turmoil, occupation, blockading (as in Gaza) impoverishment and this current war are a blight on the region and indeed on humanity," he said.

For Tombs, Christian leaders should be calling for a long-term ceasefire followed by a “meaningful political process to reach a just and sustainable peace”.

“A military response based on strength will never be successful as a pathway to peace and justice for all and is much more likely to fuel future violence and continuing blood-shed.”