The Gaza hospital where at least 500 people died in an Oct. 17 blast once was managed by Southern Baptist Convention missionaries. Al-Ahli Hospital has been in operation since 1882 and was founded by the Church Mission Society of the…
‘The moment we allow our hearts to go numb to the deaths of any children is the moment we shut down our humanity’
As someone whose ancestors immigrated to the United States from Lebanon, the faces of children suffering in the war in Israel remind me of my own children. The limp body of a 5-year-old girl being carried through the rubble, and…
Now comes the darkness. Perhaps new hope lies beyond
A week ago, I sat with a Palestinian shopkeeper in a country bordering Israel, drinking tea and watching nonstop Arab TV coverage of Israel’s retaliatory pounding of Gaza. Gazans ran in panic. Rescue workers screamed for ambulances and pulled dust-covered…
Unlike American evangelicals, religious bodies from Quakers to Catholics urge care for Palestinians and Jews alike
As Southern Baptists and other evangelicals rally support for Israel in its retaliatory war with Hamas, they are outliers compared to most other Christian groups in America — from Quakers to Catholics. Other denominations and religious leaders have expressed more…
More violence will not produce peace
I am concerned about the current war in Gaza, Israel and Palestine because I care about life, justice, truth and peace as a follower, ordained minister and pastor of a congregation of people whose faith and living are inspired by…
Holding two truths together
Words fail to express thanks for the prayers and messages to me and our group traveling in Israel as war broke out. About half our intended group of 30 did not make it to Israel because the war broke out…
A Christian response to the war in Israel/Palestine
The war between Israel and Hamas has been front and center over the past week. The world watched as violent terrorists shot rockets into Israel, kidnapped civilians and beheaded children in an act of barbarism the world has not seen…
On building walls
There are many famous walls from our world history. We are familiar with the Great Wall of China, built 770 to 476 BCE. It was a fortification built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and imperial China…
‘I’m a Palestinian American Christian, and I don’t hear my story in any of the narratives’
This current horrific and deadly confrontation between Israel’s powerful military and Palestinian resistance is a vivid example of reality versus propaganda. Listening to the drone of media describing the heart-breaking situation in Gaza is not enough. In addition, as a…