REUPLOAD - Stones Cry Out Documentary (2013) What Happened to the Palestinian Christians

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Palestinian Christians are often called the ‘living stones’ of Christianity as they can
trace their history to the birth of the Church in this land 2,000 years ago. Ancestors of some families have been in the Holy Land ever since, while others migrated there in later centuries. Therefore they should be understood to be indigenous people of the Holy Land, not immigrants and not recent converts. In fact, they are the oldest Christian population on earth.
Unfortunately many Christians in other countries do not even know there are Christians in Palestine and view the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a religious conflict between Muslims and Jews, rather than the struggle over land it truly is. Yet Christians around the world owe much to these indigenous believers and their faithful stewardship of the holiest sites of Christianity.

Once a major portion of the population in this region, today Palestinian Christians make up about 2% or less of the Palestinian population in the occupied territories, while they may comprise as much as 10% of the Palestinian people worldwide. The majority are members of Orthodox churches, second most are Roman Catholic, and then Anglican, Lutheran, and others denominations. They enjoy a respected place in Palestinian society, and a status in government, culture and business that belies their tiny percentage of the population.

These Christians strongly identify as Palestinians with the same culture and history as their Muslim sisters and brothers. In this land, Christians and Muslims have lived together peacefully for many generations. Today they suffer together under the brutal Israeli occupation and all that it entails: checkpoints, travel restrictions, confiscation of land, destruction of homes, abuse of children, beatings, killings, and more.

One of the most painful restrictions of the occupation are the limits on their freedom to worship. Tourists from around the world can visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, believed to be the site of Jesus’ burial tomb, yet Palestinian Christians who live only a few miles away cannot reach it without a special permit that they can rarely obtain, even during the Easter season.

For decades, they have been struggling nonviolently for their freedom. In the landmark Kairos Palestine Document – which has been signed by thousands of Palestinian Christians and endorsed by all the Heads and Patriarchs of the Jerusalem Churches – these Christians have issued a powerful call for justice that will lead to real peace.

As Desmond Tutu wrote to them on the occasion of the launching of Kairos Palestine in Bethlehem, December of 2009: “We are reminded by Holy Scripture that ‘when one part of the Body suffers, we all suffer’…. You are in my prayers as you launch this very special document. It is filled with grace, where it could have been filled with anger. It is filled with profound and prophetic words, and our God who neither slumbers nor sleeps will hear your cry and will be your Emmanuel.”

In that grace-filled landmark document, the Palestinian Christians’ message to fellow believers is this: “The word of God is a word of love for all His creation. God is not the ally of one against the other, nor the opponent of one in the face of the other. God is the Lord of all and loves all, demanding justice from all and issuing to all of us the same commandments. We ask our sister Churches not to offer a theological cover-up for the injustice we suffer, for the sin of the occupation imposed upon us. Our question to our brothers and sisters in the Churches today is: Are you able to help us get our freedom back, for this is the only way you can help the two peoples attain justice, peace, security and love?

They are keenly aware of their dwindling presence in the land where Christianity began, and are appalled by the brand of Christian theology that supports Zionist claims to their ancestral home, threatens their existence, and ignores their suffering and their rights as human beings and children of God.

“We also declare that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is a sin against God and humanity because it deprives the Palestinians of their basic human rights, bestowed by God. It distorts the image of God in the Israeli who has become an occupier just as it distorts this image in the Palestinian living under occupation. We declare that any theology, seemingly based on the Bible or on faith or on history, that legitimizes the occupation, is far from Christian teachings, because it calls for violence and holy war in the name of God Almighty, subordinating God to temporary human interests, and distorting the divine image in the human beings living under both political and theological injustice.”

They also have repeatedly refuted the messaging, propagated the State of Israel and Zionist organizations, that would suggest they are suffering at the hands of their Muslim neighbors (sometimes identified in coded language as “Palestinian nationalism”) and that that is the cause of their high rate of emigration from Palestine – rather than the true cause, the ongoing oppression of the Israeli occupation.

Those that have remained in the Holy Land are steadfast in their faith and their hope which lies in God:

“In the absence of all hope, we cry out our cry of hope. We believe in God, good and just. We believe that God’s goodness will finally triumph over the evil of hate and of death that still persist in our land. We will see here “a new land” and “a new human being”, capable of rising up in the spirit to love each one of his or her brothers and sisters.”