People of Faith Speak Out (6)
On September 9, my good friend Jack Wald (from 1970s seminary days) and I took a train to Washington, DC to deliver letters protesting US policy vis à vis Israel to our elected representatives. In particular, we were urging them to vote against sending any more weapons to Israel, as they have been using them in their brutal war in Gaza. As things stand now, we are entirely complicit in this genocide.
We had chosen this date because since last December, we have made common cause with a national network of Mennonites who since the Oct. 7, 2023 Gaza War organized various protests and “disruptive nonviolent actions” under the name Mennonite Action. Though in the end we were not able to connect with others in our group, we still had excellent exchanges with the young aides in these offices, even in Senator John Fetterman’s office (who as a Democrat remains a staunch supporter of Israel), and especially with our two respective representatives, Chrissy Houlahan and Mary Gay Scanlon. They assured us that personal visits by constituents carry a lot of weight for senators and representatives.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the Mennonite Action members from neighboring Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania engaged in a peaceful sit-in, singing hymns and chanting in front of Virginia Senator Mark Warner’s office (see photo above). They called for him to come out and talk with them. He declined, but they were able to sing and chant for ten to fifteen minutes before being arrested.
Mennonites, Amish, Church of the Brethren, Quakers, and others all come from the Anabaptist tradition that broke off from the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Besides their disagreement about baptism (they don’t practice it), these Christians suffered intense persecution from the Reformed churches because they remained staunchly pacifist—refusing to bear arms. So it is not surprising that they energetically protested after the start of this war.
Many other people of faith have sprung into action to stop this war and the unconscionable killing, maiming and starving of Gaza’s two million people. I have so much material on this that I can only offer some highlights.
I’ll start with Muslims—you would expect a loud chorus of condemnation from them on this issue. After all, Jerusalem is Islam’s third holiest site after Mecca and Medina, and over 99 percent of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are Muslim. Then for Christians, if you are only familiar with the United States, you might be forgiven for assuming that all evangelicals are Zionists (they are not), but among mainline Protestants, Presbyterians stand out for their longstanding support for BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) as a tool to bring down the Israeli occupation. Among Catholics, Pope Leo is following in his predecessor’s footsteps. I will devote the next and last installment in this series to American Jews. Contrary to what might hear in the media, most of them are pushing for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a two-state solution to the conflict.
Muslims speak out
Yemen’s Arab Houthis are the only ones to actually fight for the Palestinians, whether you agree with their methods or not. In the Substack newsletter “Palestine Will Be Free,” we read about a speech by Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida in July 2025, in which he “issued a scathing indictment of Islamic and Arab leadership.” At one point he moans,
“You are the adversaries of every orphaned child, every grieving mother, every displaced, homeless, wounded, devastated, and starving person. Your necks are burdened with the blood of tens of thousands of innocents who were betrayed by your silence.”
Then the speaker shifts gears, declaring that “it is one thing to be a silent observer in the face of injustice, especially against one’s own,” but Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s two holiest sites, “has been caught red-handed acting as a conduit for the weapons that are annihilating the Palestinians in Gaza.” This month, however, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), with 57 members (including 48 Muslim-majority nations) called for an urgent meeting on the war in Gaza. “The Joint Statement on Developments in the Gaza Strip” (September 8) demands that Israel immediately cease its assault on Gaza and calls for “an end to the ongoing violations committed by the occupation forces against civilians and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.” And of course, it appeals for unconditional access to food and medicines for the Gaza’s starving people.
Words are cheap, naturally, but Muslim peoples have often been in the streets protesting this war. In the United States, the first Ramadan after the beginning of the war (April 2024), turned into mighty collective and even sacrificial action in support of the Gazan population. Muslim Americans made their displeasure known to their elected officials, they scaled back many of the traditional festivities that accompany Ramadan, and they organized numerous fundraisers on behalf of Palestine. And all this, even though the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and ensuing war doubled the number of bias incidents against Muslim Americans, as reported by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). 7.5 percent of those incidents were alleged hate crimes.
Catholics speak out
The Vatican has consistently called for a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whereby two states function independently side by side in peace—ever since the 1970s, in fact. Pope Leo XIV spoke with Israel’s president Isaac Herzog when the latter attended his inauguration in Rome; and then he invited again on Sept. 4, 2025, specifically to discuss “how to secure a future for the Palestinian people,” according to Vatican sources. Pope Leo’s advocacy for the Palestinians is seen as a continuation of his predecessor’s deep commitment to reactivating serious peace negotiations between Israelis and Hamas, and with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories as a whole. Throughout this war, Pope Francis would call the Holy Family Parish, the only Catholic church in Gaza, once a week. His successor is just as committed to the cause of peace.
Pope Leo has issued several calls for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza War and in July he made this appeal: “I appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and respect the obligation to protect civilians as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations.” The pope is the only Christian leader with the kind of moral and political authority to issue this kind of statement on the global stage.
The Jesuit journal, America, published this last April an interview with Jesuit priest and longtime resident of Jerusalem David Newhaus, S.J., who was one of the signatories of a document by Christian scholars and activists in Israel-Palestine just made public (“Out of the depths I cry out to you”). These Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Lutherans, and evangelicals recently formed an ecumenical (meaning, inclusive of most Christian traditions) think tank that stands in solidarity with suffering Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank—a voice that picks up the voices of those who are voiceless and amplifies them in order to challenge those worldwide “who see our wounds but do not speak out.” The newly formed think tank is called A Jerusalem Voice for Justice.
Protestants speak out
Besides the largest international body uniting evangelical churches, the World Evangelical Alliance (membership of 600 million), which has a robust Global Advocacy arm focused on peace, justice and human rights, the global missionary organization, the Lausanne Movement, includes a similar arm. It teamed up with the Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East for an online Day of Prayer for Peace in the Holy Land on Sept. 10, 2025. This 90-minute session was “an online prayer vigil” with guest speakers leading participants in “petition and lament, together for an end to all war and conflict in the Middle East. You will remember from my first post in this series that a large majority of evangelicals in the US are Christian Zionists (much less so globally). Such events as these, besides the obvious goal of united prayer and lament, serve to share information and perspectives that challenge the Zionist position which often dehumanizes Palestinians.
In this spirit, a wide coalition of scholars, clergy and activists gathered in Glen Ellyn, IL (September 11-13, 2025) to recognize “that the church stands at a defining moment—Jesus is urgently calling us back to the narrow way of the cross.” Hence, the title of this conference: Church at the Crossroads:
“As violence escalates in Israel and Palestine, and some in the Church use Scripture to justify war, occupation, or silence, we must ask: Have we traded the gospel of peace for the false promises of security and comfort?
At this crossroads, the Church must choose. Will we follow the political idols of our day—or Jesus, who disarmed the powers and made peace through His blood?
Rooted in Scripture and led by Palestinian Christian leaders—alongside pastors and peacemakers from across North America—this conference invites American Christians to engage in honest reckoning, prophetic reflection, and faithful action. Through worship, prayer, teaching, and fellowship, we are called to repentance, renewal, and courageous discipleship. This is a space to confront harmful theologies, rediscover the gospel of the Kingdom, and stand with all who seek justice in the land.”
Among the American “pastors and peacemakers” mentioned above you might recognize the names of Jemar Tisby, Shane Claiborne, May Elise Cannon (executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace), Lisa Sharon Harper and Brian Zahnd. But seven others are all authors in the edited book that just came out (including one of its editors, Bruce N. Fisk), Being Christian After the Desolation of Gaza. The last phrase of the book’s description leaves us with the heart-wrenching question, “It may be too late to save Gaza's millions from starvation, amputation, displacement, and death. Is it too late to repent of our complicity? Too late to save our own souls? How should we be Christian after the desolation of Gaza?”
Veteran evangelical social justice advocate, Jim Wallis, published an OpEd in Religion News Service in August, “As Gaza starves, churches must lead on Palestinian Recognition.” Now the Archbishop Desmond Tutu chair and director of the Georgetown University’s Center for Faith and Justice, has the ear of many mainline Protestant churches (think Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran and Episcopal) and members of Congress.
In my last post in this series, I stated that there could be no peace without BDS. The university student protests in 2023 and 2024 were all focused on this. Among churches, it’s the mainline Protestant churches showing the way—and in particular, the Presbyterian Church (USA), whose 2024 General Assembly voted “to divest from Israel bonds and begin the process of encouraging two companies it believes are contributing to human rights abuses against Palestinians in the occupied territories to quit their practices.” The first of those companies is General Electric which sells fighter jet engines to Israel’s air force, and the second is Palantir Technologies which sells Israel its Artificial Intelligence technology which enables it to surveil every detail of Palestinian lives.
For US citizens to move back the needle of unconditional US support for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza and its planned ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, the BDS strategy—as it was for Apartheid South Africa—is essential. In this installment, I added two more legs to this 3-legged stool: pressure on our elected officials and advocacy among American Christians, especially evangelical Christian Zionists.
I close with the “peace churches” I mentioned in the beginning. Read here about the Friends (or Quaker) Committee on National Legislation. The director of this small lobby in Washinton that pushes Congressional representatives to call for a ceasefire in the current war, says, “We’re clearly being outspent, but I think the saving grace is that our ideas are just more popular.” Clearly, the tide is turning, but the battle is still very much uphill.