Christian Solidarity and the Middle East Conflict: Reflection on the one year anniversary of October 7

I am not a Middle East expert! I doubt that many of us are. I think that’s important to state. While I lack the credentials of an Alan Cooperman (Pew Research Center), Tarek Masoud (Harvard University), or Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Hoover Institute), I have committed myself to listening well. Not simply to the sound bites of cable news pundits, but to friends who call the Middle East home. Those who were born into this conflict. Those who have lost family members to the violence of war. Those who have lived in a state of hyper-vigilance while raising children in the West Bank and those who know the fear of bunkering in Jerusalem while an onslaught of missiles bombards their beloved city. My listening has led me to one great and humbling truth…so much of my historical perspective has been shortsighted, oversimplified, far too narrow, and, at times, unchristian.

What I mean is that, like many, I have been told that the narrative for this 75-year-old conflict is quite straightforward and uncomplicated. As the story goes, there are two opposing sides: Arab Muslims versus Israeli Jews. Furthermore, I have been taught that as Christians, we support Israel no matter what because, after all, they are God’s chosen people, and there is no room for sympathy for Palestinians (or Iranians or Egyptians or Syrians, for that matter). While we must acknowledge the fact that Israel is surrounded by many nations who desperately want to see her destroyed and that her existence continues to defy the odds and the deepest desires of her enemies, there is far more than this to the unfolding saga of the Holy Land.

The stories of Christians are often missed in this bifurcated and abridged narrative of this very complex region of the world. Rarely, if ever, do we hear the voices of Messianic Jews who proudly call Israel their homeland or Arab Christians who have proud Palestinian blood coursing through their veins. Our Arab and Israeli brothers and sisters in Christ are the invisible casualties of this devastating war, in spite of the fact that their existence in the land dates back to the time of Christ and the Apostles.

The misconceptions that I and many others have believed have caused us to miss the cries of Palestinian Christians in places like Gaza and the West Bank. These believers have experienced profound suffering; friends like Pastor Nihad and his wife Salwa, who are Global Partners supported by Woodside, who are doing incredible gospel work in Bethlehem. Their community has seen tanks and soldiers and almost nightly raids, which have led to the death of hundreds since the horrific events of October 7, 2023. We have also failed to hear the stories of pain and heartache from Israeli Christians like Michael Rydelnik, my friend and colleague at Moody Bible Institute, whose family’s home burned from the ballistic missiles that Iran levied in an unrelenting attack on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

To the rest of the world, these Christ-followers may be a religious minority, lacking political power and public prowess, and whose voices are too small to merit our attention. But to us who know the Gospel, they are our spiritual family.  In Ephesians 2:13-14 we are told, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…” Christians cannot afford to adopt superficial and truncated narratives on the Middle East because, by doing so, we diminish the finished work of the cross. When we see the Holy Land simply as a battleground for Muslims and Jews, we neglect our union with Christ and communion with the saints throughout all ages and the world over. 

As I reflect on this one-year anniversary of Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel and Israel’s unprecedented and devastating retaliation on Gaza, I am more convinced than ever that what our Christian brothers and sisters in the Middle East need from us is our solidarity. They need us to remind them that they are family while the world wants to put them against one another in an increasingly irresolvable conflict. They need us to pray earnestly for their courage and comfort while they live through a war that lacks compassion. Most of all, they need us to maintain our confidence in the supernatural power of the Gospel to bring both vertical and horizontal reconciliation between God and man and between Palestinian and Israeli Christians.

The love that we share in Christ compels us to long for the healing of the broken hearts of Arab believers and the peace of Jerusalem that our Messianic Jewish friends so desperately desire. I am grateful that Woodside is committed to advancing the Gospel in the Middle East and demonstrating unwavering solidarity to our spiritual family, who call the Holy Land home regardless of their ethnic background. We are one in Christ, united by faith and eagerly awaiting the return of the Prince of Peace, who will, upon his return, make all things new.

Editors Note: Over the next few weeks, Pastor Chris will sit down with some individuals directly affected by these events on “The Link.” We’ll hear their stories and learn directly from them. Stay tuned for these to air later this month.