The Christian case against Gaza's War

In December 2023, Munther Isaac’s moving Christmas sermon titled 'Christ in the Rubble' attracted a great deal of attention, particularly in Christian circles. The Palestinian pastor had arranged a nativity scene in his church in Bethlehem; the figure of Jesus was wrapped in the Palestinian kufiya.

Now, the Lutheran-Evangelical pastor has published a book under the same title. It includes that his sermon and is an important contribution to the debate on Israel and Palestine.

Munther Isaac, pastor and writer, grew up as a Palestinian Christian in the West Bank under Israeli occupation. His background has had a strong influence on his theological and political thinking.

In "Christ in the Rubble", Isaac discusses political and religious questions related to the dramatic events in Gaza as well as the preceding attack on October 7th 2023, when fighters from the Gaza Strip infiltrated Israel and attacked military and civilian targets.

Conflict with a history

Isaac examines the events leading up to October 7th, neither trivialising them nor denying their significance. He guides the reader through Palestinian history and discusses occupation, displacement and war, while drawing on the latest findings of Israeli and international research as well as publications from the UN and Israeli and international NGOs.

The first three chapters are full of definitions and references as well as dense in information; despite this, they read fluently. Much of it will be familiar to those well-read on the topic, but the introduction in particular will be of great value to newcomers.

Isaac makes it clear that the majority of the population there is made up of families who were expelled from their ancestral territories when the state of Israel was founded and who are still denied the right of return today.

He recalls the massacres committed by the Israeli army in Gaza after its brief conquest in 1956; the sea, air and land blockade of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army since 2007, and Israel's four military campaigns in the Gaza Strip since Hamas came to power: in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021.

Isaac acknowledges that Israel and Hamas blame each other for these escalations. At the same time, he outlines the asymmetry in their ability to use force, which clearly lies in Israel's favour.

For Isaac, this is confirmed by the relative numbers of casualties since the start of the current Israeli ground offensive. According to Palestinian figures, over 56,000 Gazans were killed by the end of June 2025, including over 13,000 children, while around 435 soldiers were killed on the Israeli side during the same period. A recent academic study suggests that the number of Palestinian casualties may actually be much higher.

Palestinian liberation theology

Munther Isaac's ideas are rooted in Palestinian liberation theology, an approach which emerged during the first Palestinian intifada in 1987. The protestant pastor Naim Atiq first outlined this in his 1989 book "Justice, and only Justice: A Palestinian Theology for Liberation".

Thanks in large part to Pastor Mitri Raheb, who received his doctorate in theology from the University of Marburg in 1988, the ideas behind Palestinian liberation theology are also widespread in Germany. Raheb and his colleagues went on to establish several educational institutions back in Palestine, most notably the Bethlehem Bible College. There they further developed ideas of liberation theology and disseminated them, in particular during the annual conference "Christ at the Checkpoint".

As a committed Christian and pastor, Isaac can hardly be suspected of being a Hamas sympathiser; he criticises their interpretation of state and religion. In addition, he writes memorably and thought-provoking. In one paragraph he states for example: "If people are genuine in their desire to destroy Hamas, I suggest we begin by getting rid of the occupation and apartheid."

Isaac also aims harsh criticism at Western Christians who have aligned themselves with the modern nation- state of Israel, equating it with the biblical people of Israel.

According to Isaac, this so-called "Christian Zionism" is rooted in "bad theology" because the Bible speaks of Israel as a historical people, not as "a secular state of the 21st century".

Here, Isaac draws on his extensive theological knowledge to present the reader with an interpretation of the Bible in which God is just and doesn't favour certain groups on the basis of race or ethnicity while excluding others from his goodness and his message.

He outrightly rejects the instrumentalisation of the Bible as a means to justify interests of US "imperialism" or to oppress those who oppose its power interests; according to Isaac, Palestinian Christians find it deeply disturbing when the Bible is used to justify their oppression. 

He notes with deep anger and disappointment that Western churches have largely committed themselves to a one-sided, pro-Israeli position, a position which Isaac and other Palestinian Christians view as a betrayal.

"Christian Zionists want us to accept that a Jew born in Brooklyn, New York, by virtue of being Jewish, is entitled to settle in Palestine and enjoy more rights than Palestinians, even displacing Palestinians if necessary, because 'the Bible says so'."

Isaac's theology is morally unambiguous

With this stirring and powerful work, that is rich in pointed language, the author addresses a Western audience, and particularly, a Christian one. Gaza, Isaac writes, has become the world's "moral compass", dividing the world not on the basis of religion, ethnicity or politics, but by moral.

Whoever reads Isaac can no longer claim to be unaware of the war crimes committed in Gaza or of the suffering of the Gazan people. The facts he presents are solid and indisputable.

His theology is morally unambiguous, his position is clear: he accuses the church in the West of being complicit through their silence in the face of what Isaac describes, citing several sources, as the "genocide" resulting from the actions of the Israeli army in Gaza.

In times like these, engaging with an important intellectual voice from the occupied West Bank such as Isaac's, is essential. His views are polarising, without being  destructive. Rather, he challenges his readers to think, and to question long-held beliefs and supposed truths. Engaging with his theology is worthwhile; his body of work has a strong contribution to offer the debate in Germany, especially among Christians.

"Christ in the Rubble. Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza"
Munther Isaac (with a foreword by Willie James Jennings)
March 2025
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
279 pages

This is an edited translation of the German original. Translated by Louise East.