On October 22, 2023, two days after the Israeli attack on St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza, the Palestinian theologian and pastor Munther Isaac, seeking to comfort his congregation for the death of loved ones, preached: “In this land, even God is a victim of oppression, death, the war machine, and colonialism” (199).1 Jesus was incarnated as a Jew under Roman imperial rule. He was sentenced to death on a cross, with his last words reflecting Palestinian cries for God: “Why have you forsaken me? Why do you let me be tortured?” (199). God, embodied in Jesus, shares the fate of Palestinians, exhibiting solidarity with the oppressed. Lamenting the US-backed Israeli genocide, which has been legitimized in the name of God, and “many Western Christians and churches have been complicit in it, whether by supporting and justifying it or by remaining silent” (137), Isaac protested and responded: “In Gaza today, God is under the rubble” (211). Isaac offered his reflections as assurance that God walks alongside humanity while they endure pain. The evils of this world cannot separate humanity from God’s comforting presence. The promise of God is not for deliverance; instead, it is presence. Holding onto this promise requires faith.Christ in the Rubble is a threefold attempt at announcing the solidarity of God with Gazans, reclaiming the humanity of slain children, and speaking for the voiceless and marginalized. This book answers an urgent call to challenge Jewish and Christian Zionist theological legitimizations of the genocide in Gaza through appeals to scriptures. Since Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, Christian theology has persistently authorized and sanctioned brutal violence—a legacy that extends to our present day. Isaac highlights that this theological heritage of domination is particularly evident in the context of Western colonial quests in Palestine, where Christian Zionist political support was instrumental in establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. Isaac argues that this theological and political support is not rooted in honest repentance from Christian antisemitism; rather, it is offering up Palestinian land and lives as a form of atonement for Western guilt.Throughout this book, Isaac engages with religious tropes and theologies that have shaped political responses to the question of Palestine, particularly in a time of genocide. Yet, he firmly insists that the conflict is not fundamentally a religious one. Instead, he proposes one model for understanding the intersection of “religion” and “politics” through a matrix of coloniality, racism, and empire theology. In this way, the book contributes to the broader decolonial task of liberating Palestinians from Israeli settler colonialism by unearthing the violent theological sediments found in Western support for the State of Israel.Isaac builds upon the movement of Palestinian Liberation Theology (PLT), which seeks, among other aims, to confront and denounce Christian Zionist hermeneutics. Decolonial Palestinian theologians have conceptualized PLT as an alternative approach to articulate Christian theology and faith through highlighting the centrality of God’s universality and commitment to justice while remaining aware of the material and political consequences theology has for Palestinian life (Munayer and Munayer 2022). By recovering what he holds as the correct mode of theological interpretation, one that centers the experiences of the oppressed and adheres to nonviolence, Isaac locates the Christian faith as a locus for liberation and repentance rather than complicity in oppression.To promote his argument, Isaac addresses three key questions central to his analysis. First, how should we understand and narrate the October 7 attacks? Second, why have Western countries and Western Christians remained silent, if not overtly supportive of Israeli genocidal violence in Gaza? Third, where is God amidst this genocide? To answer these questions, Isaac integrates theoretical moves informed by journalistic reports and historical scholarship on Palestine, theological argumentations, along with deeply personal first-person accounts of witnessing the genocide as a Palestinian Christian theologian and pastor.The first three chapters of the book address the sociopolitical context that encompasses the current war. Isaac argues that context matters, and that the war did not start on October 7. The Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel cannot be fathomed in the absence of the geopolitical history that led to this operation. Isaac posits the current military onslaught on Gaza as a continuation of the Zionist colonization of Palestine, aiming at the systematic eradication of the Palestinian people, natives of the land, by displacement and ethnic cleansing. The reality of Palestine is not one of conflict between two equal parties, but rather one of settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. In doing so, Isaac is certain to delineate the State of Israel and its founding colonial movement, namely Zionism, from Jews and Judaism.While Isaac advocates for reading the October 7 attacks in the context of occupation, he maintains a strict ethical position that rejects violent armed resistance, hence condemning the massacre of Israeli civilians. Isaac insists that the majority of Palestinian Christian theologians follow the nonviolent and loving ethics of Jesus, a Palestinian Jew resisting a ruthless occupation, as shown in scriptures. In contradistinction to many Western Christian supporters of Israel, Isaac thinks that war is not the solution; rather, Israelis should abandon their Jewish supremacy and colonial policies as a step leading to reconciliation with Palestinians in order to live in peace.In chapters four, five, and six, Isaac argues that the “matrix” of intertwining factors explains Western support, both Christian and secular, to the State of Israel. These factors are coloniality, racism, and empire theology. “Coloniality is based on racism” (103). Racism is “the belief that some people groups have less dignity and worth than others” (103). Empire theology “justifies and gives legitimacy to the sins of coloniality and racism” (103). In these chapters, Isaac focuses on the “colonial narrative” (107) disseminated in media coverage and political discourse as well as examples of empire theology, wherein Christian and Israeli figures supported the war using biblical narratives and in the name of God. An infamous example is the case of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoting 1 Samuel. In this biblical reference, God instructs the Israelites to annihilate the Amalek in the process of inheriting the land. In addressing the Israeli public and army forces using this reference, Netanyahu reads the State of Israel into the scriptures and identifies modern-day Palestinians with Amalek, the eternal enemy whom God instructed to be utterly destroyed. This example, using the biblical Amalek reference, was preceded by the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ), a prominent Evangelical Christian Zionist organization. To reinforce the belief that only Jews have a rightful claim to the land and to vilify those who challenge this theological claim, the ICEJ vice president accused such individuals of possessing the spirit of Amalek. Isaac argues that Zionists misinterpret and abuse the Bible in ways that distort the message of the gospel, ultimately positioning God in favor of the empire and legitimizing systems of domination.Isaac builds on the work of the Palestinian theologian Mitri Raheb who argues that empires function through both “hardware” and “software.” In the case of Israel, artillery and theological constructs provided by Western countries and theologians, respectively, sustain materially and legitimize theologically the violent settler colonial project in Palestine (Raheb 2023).Much of the literature on Christian Zionism highlights the central role of doctrine and biblical interpretation in shaping Christian worldviews that designate a special, divinely ordained role to the Jews in the history of salvation, both in the present and eschatologically. These theologies have often influenced political action in support of the State of Israel. Isaac defines Christian Zionism as “a pro-Israeli theologized ideology” present not only in American Evangelicalism but also across various Christian denominations (128). In this context, theology operates as a form of ideology—one that constructs illusory narratives to justify and protect Israeli oppression of Palestinians (131).Isaac’s intervention is a polemical critique of Christian Zionism, both ethically and theologically, at a dire moment in Palestinian history. He shows how colonial narratives and empire theology work together to racialize and dehumanize Palestinian bodies, fabricating the context of the war as a battle between liberal democracy and Muslim terrorism. Isaac declares, “This is the power of empire. These are the mechanisms of coloniality” (117). This distortion serves to shield the Israeli state from accountability and uphold imperial interests.While not all churches openly endorse Zionism, Isaac urges all churches to take moral responsibility by standing in solidarity with the marginalized, to speak out against the genocide, and demand an immediate and lasting ceasefire. Isaac observed that most church statements that he inspected never mention the horrors Palestinians experience, nor condemn the Israeli perpetrators. Isaac introduces the church’s silence and neutrality as “church diplomacy” (154). Even when motivated by good intentions, many churches, through their prayers that lack any concrete call for action, are siding with Zionist theology and narratives. Whether through direct endorsement or indirect silent complicity, Isaac asserts that Christian support for the genocide places the credibility and integrity of the Christian witness to the gospel at stake.In chapters seven and eight, Isaac illuminates his decolonial contextual reading of the Christmas story. His theological reflection emerges from wrestling with God, in anger but earnestly seeking comfort. During the Christmas season, Isaac led the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem that he pastors, in his words, “to rediscover the true meaning of Christmas” (202). Through practical embodiment of lament, Isaac, alongside families and their children, built a manger of rubble, placing the wrapped baby Jesus in a kufiyah at the center. The picture of the scene and Isaac’s following Christmas sermon went viral. Isaac argued that Jesus was born under very similar circumstances to Roman occupation (203). In his Christmas sermon, Isaac asserted that “if Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble” in Gaza as the manger exhibits (205). Through this sign, God challenges the silence of the world and churches in the face of genocide. God is not silent, contrary to common belief or feelings. Instead, Isaac proclaimed God’s solidarity with the oppressed. Through this icon, Isaac urged Christians around the world to see Jesus in the children of Gaza, as one of them.Isaac grounds the ethical imperative of speaking truth to power in recognition of the image of God in every Gazan. This theological anchor motivates Isaac’s advocacy to speak on behalf of children, those marginalized, and to advocate for the genocidal war to stop. By quoting Jesus’s words, “you did it to me,” Isaac appeals to Christian audiences, urging them to stand in solidarity with Gazans (206). Although rooted in the Christian tradition, Isaac notes that this appeal resonated with non-Christians as well, for it underscored the importance of “morality, ethics, and humanity in public discourse” (224).Ultimately, Isaac warns that humanity is at stake when mass killing of children and genocidal wars go unchallenged, especially when public responses are lacking in empathy and compassion. Christ in the rubble becomes, then, a call for humanity to reclaim itself. For Isaac, this is an invitation “for humanity to embrace love and compassion as elements of what it means to be truly human” (225).Christ in the Rubble is a courageous attempt at calling out Western Christian support for and complicity in the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza. Throughout this book and his various social media appearances, Munther Isaac addresses the general public in the West, and particularly the Christians, with clear ethical and theological imperatives, imploring them to turn away from Zionist theologies, racism, and coloniality. Isaac contributes to Palestinian decolonial efforts in asserting Palestinian agency on narrative telling, by recounting the story from Palestinian eyes while not compromising on his ethical nonviolent stances. He does well in asserting original Palestinian theological interpretation, as he pastorally speaks to Palestinian sorrow while many religious leaders remained silent in naming the horrors in public.However, his discussion of “coloniality” in the fourth chapter would be further enriched by engaging more directly with established theoretical discussions on the concept, particularly those that explore the relationship between the material and symbolic. Incorporating these perspectives could deepen the analysis of how the state, the market, and theology are positioned within and shaped by the colonial matrix of power.2 That said, Isaac’s discussion on theology operating as ideology within his proposed matrix of intertwining factors expanded the conceptual space to take seriously the impacts of theology materially and politically.Lastly, among the numerous religious engagements with Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid, Munther Isaac represents a balanced Palestinian Christian perspective that is morally poignant and reflexive. Distinct from other works of PLT, this book speaks directly to Western churches—explicitly naming their complicity in the genocide and exhorting them toward repentance. Although writing from a Christian standpoint, Isaac engages with the Muslim faith as embodied by Gazans, granting them respect and affirming their humanity, even while articulating a Christ-centered theology. The icon of Christ in the Rubble may raise questions over divine agency especially when read from Palestinian eyes, alongside pictures of dead bodies pulled from under the rubble. Yet, Christ in the Rubble is an important and powerful intervention in confronting the racism and coloniality of Christian Zionism.
Marah Sarji (Sun,) studied this question.
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