Friends,
Save the Date! On Sunday, June 9 at 1:00, St. Mark will host a documentary film entitled, “True Believer.” Brian McLaren describes “True Believer” as “an insider account, supported by a wide array of experts and informants, who brings us along on [a] journey of discovery and departure from white, right-wing Evangelicalism.” St. Mark member Robin Voss is one of the film’s Executive Producers and we will have a panel discussion following the film with Diana Butler Bass, Lisa Sharon Harper, Julie Ingersoll, and Randall Balmer, as well as Kristen Irving, the movie’s subject and director. More details and an opportunity to register are forthcoming. For now, I encourage you to save the date and plan to attend.
Over the last two weeks, I have had a number of experiences that remind me of both the challenges and the opportunities that face us as we seek to do justice in our world.
Last Thursday I attended a webinar on “Confronting Christian Zionism” that was sponsored by the Presbyterian Church (USA) Christian Zionism working group. In 2004, the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church approved active opposition to Christian Zionism and called on churches to engage with it in study and advocacy. Many of our mission partners in the Middle East are asking us to put more energy into that calling, and a similar overture will be brought to the floor of the General Assembly when it meets this summer.
The webinar had a three-person panel and was hosted by Rev. Dr. Cynthia Holder Rich, a Presbyterian pastor and member of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network. The panelists were Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Christian pastor and theologian who is the academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College and pastor of the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem; Rabbi Brant Rosen, leader of Tzedek Chicago and co-founder of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council; and Rev. Marietta Macy, Associate Pastor for Christian Education at First Presbyterian Church in Charleston, West Virginia.
You can read a summary of the 90-minute webinar here, and watch it by clicking here.
Dr. Isaac was particularly passionate in querying why more Christians are not raising their voices in response to the utter destruction that is taking place in Gaza and made several references to a book by Dr. Mitri Raheb, who has spoken here at St. Mark in the past, entitled Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible. You can find the book here. What impacted me the most was Rabbi Rosen’s comments. He was in complete agreement with Dr. Isaac and disclosed his own personal struggle to operate within the bounds of his rabbinical order, because of his opposition to Zionism. I found his remarks to be very candid and authentic.
Likewise, I was part of a discussion on Passover last week with a Jewish peace activist. She told about a special Passover Seder written especially to call her people to seek justice in Palestine, in light of the Jewish liberation story of Passover. While there are many Jewish persons who are supportive of the attacks on Gaza, those two voices last week reminded me how I often underestimate the spectrum of opinions that exists among people of faith.
Another case in point came to light when I sat down with three different Evangelical faith leaders from Orange County to discuss my concerns about Christian Nationalism and to let them know that we would be hosting a film that is critical of it. I anticipated that two of them might differ with me strongly, but all three of them agreed that they were quite concerned about the encroachment that many Evangelical pastors have made into politics and that many politicians have made into Evangelicalism. While it is easy to imagine that Evangelicals and Christian Nationalists are all one and the same, there is a spectrum within that faith community as well. And doors that can open for fruitful dialogue.
Oh, my friends, there are many difficult roads to navigate to be faithful in these times,
Mark of St. Mark
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