The Greek Orthodox
The Greek Orthodox were historically the largest Christian community in Palestine. By and large, they were the descendants of the Gentile Christian population which had been the majority until well after the Muslim conquest. Of all the Christian communities, they were the most rural and dispersed, and also the most assimilated into Muslim society. It was mainly Orthodox Arabs, for example, who joined in the Nabi Musa celebration with the Muslim community. (Nabi Musa was "one of the most important Muslim pilgrimages in Palestine.")[1] Their national feelings were the most profound and spontaneous. They were also the most likely to send their children to Ottoman state schools (as opposed to Protestant mission schools). Historically they had a general feeling of hostility towards Western Christendom dating back to the schism between the Latin Catholic and Orthodox churches of 1054, reinforced by the Crusades.
They were also the most dysfunctional. In 1923, W.P. Livingstone wrote; “As a whole these Christian Churches were corrupt and superstitious. The priests were often illiterate and degraded; their chief duty was not the care or cure of souls, but the management of the hospices, shrines, and other buildings associated with their religion, and attendance at the endless formal ceremonies and processions carried on in a spirit of coarse materialism. Both Jews and Moslems regarded Christianity, as they knew it, as infinitely inferior to their own faith: it seemed to them little better than heathenism.”[2] Mitri Raheb commented about his grandfather; “He missed the sermons, pastoral care and instruction – conditions in the Greek Orthodox had degenerated greatly.”[3] Naim Khoury, a Baptist pastor in Bethlehem, likewise writes of growing up in the Greek Orthodox Church; “I’d never read the Bible because I’d never had a Bible.”[4]
For this community, the central
question for the past 100 years has concerned their ethnic identity[5]
– who were they? This question had
two contradictory answers. Were they essentially Greeks who had been Arabicised
after the Arab Conquest of the Levant, or Arabs who had been Hellenised? The
clergy maintained that the laity were ethnically
Greeks who had forgotten who they were. The laity demanded that they were
ethnically and culturally 'Arab.'[6] In the preface to her 1862 book, Mary
Rogers opines; “but I may here mention, that the Christians of the land are
said to be of pure Syrian origin, while the Moslems are chiefly descended from
the Arabians who settled in the towns and villages of Syria and Palestine in
the seventh and eighth centuries.”[7] Likewise in 1852, Hollingsworth had noted that; “in many of the ruined cities
and villages there exists also, a limited number of Christian families,
uncivilized, and not knowing correctly from what race they derive their origin.
Poor, and without influence, they tremblingly hold their miserable possessions
from year to year, without security, and without wealth, in a land which they
confess is not their own.”[8] Mark Durie writes that “Other dhimmi communities steadily declined,
gradually becoming assimilated into the Islamic community. Some changed their
language and culture, like the Aramaic, Coptic and Greek speaking peoples of
Syria, Palestine and Egypt, who adopted Arabic, and ultimately embraced Arabic
identity in the twentieth century.”[9]
While it has deeper roots, the problem took centre stage in the 16th century, when the Ottomans, for bureaucratic ease, combined the four existing Patriarchates into one administrative unit, headed by the patriarchate of Constantinople. From 1662 onwards, the head of the Jerusalem Patriarchate was thereby appointed from Constantinople and was an ethnic Greek. Indeed, “an Arab presence in the patriarchate in earlier times was concealed. Removal from the prayers of all names of the Arab patriarchs that had served before the 16th century is but one example.”[10]
Interestingly, in Cappadocia and elsewhere within the Ottoman
Empire, many Greek Orthodox Greeks spoke only Turkish (“there are many Greek
villages where the inhabitants have forgotten the speech of their race.”[11]),
and during the final decades of the nineteenth century, a process of
“linguistic re-hellenization”[12] did occur. This was implemented through a vastly expanded Ottoman Greek
schooling system, developed and run by Greek Orthodox clergy. The Athens based
Association for the Propagation of Greek Letters helped in this nationalistic
awakening. At the same time, the Arab peoples within the (Turkish) empire were
also experiencing their own awakening and promoting Arab language and
nationalistic movements. Palestinian Greek Orthodox were therefore being pulled
in two directions as to their national identity and language, and the distance
from Greece and pre-existing usage of Arabic determined the outcome. Being
Greek offered no advantages to this community as compared with being Arab.[13]
For the local Palestinian Greek Orthodox, their big problem was that all of their higher clergy were appointed from Greece, preached in Greek, and local Orthodox were actually prohibited by law from becoming clergy. This caused real difficulties even in Ottoman times, and these were exacerbated during the Mandate. Equally, the reasonable push from the laity for the full or partial Arabization of the clergy fed easily into a support for a wider Arab nationalism. Generally speaking, Orthodox Arabs were the most fervent nationalists of Palestine's Christians. Even in Ottoman times, many Orthodox leaders were prominent in the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement. Local agitation against Greek language and leadership were linked to nationalistic movements in Albania and Bulgaria, and in 1893, the Arab laity of Antioch followed these examples by placing an Arab as Patriarch for the first time since the 16th century, a development hailed as “the first real victory of Arab nationalism.”[14] Note also the comment by George Antonius, in his famous Arab Awakening; “The educational activities of the American missionaries in that early period had, among many virtues, one outstanding merit; they gave pride of place to Arabic.”[15]
This Orthodox Arab fight with their Greek clergy led to a neglect of communal religious life. Many villages and even towns were without a priest. Mutual boycotts and Orthodox infighting led many to emigrate, while about 1/3 joined other denominations (mainly Melkite and Anglican). With little spiritual teaching, their community became more and more political. The Arab Orthodox movement “remade their religious community as a political entity.”[16] They still valued their communal life and wanted to remain together. A British report in 1926 stated; “Like all young men of their time, they are full of the idea of nationalism. … They do not wish to abandon their church; on the contrary they are attached to its traditions and its rites.”[17]But both Muslims and some of their own number thought that converting to Islam would be the best thing for them.[18] A tragic indictment!
Note the development here – the Greek clergy preached Greek nationalism – language/culture etc. – they did not preach Jesus! It was not then that the local community failed to hear their message, it was rather that they did!! What they took away was that nationalism, language, culture, these were of prime importance. That this community then neglected spiritual matters and relentlessly pursued political/nationalistic matters is therefore hardly surprising – it was what their church had taught them!! Indeed, it could be said that the Arab Orthodox got the message from their church that nationalism was more important than belief; they simply chose a different nationality. Luke 16:13 "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”
This early adoption of nationalism meant that initially, their nationalistic impact within the wider Arabic community far outweighed their actual numbers (being about ten percent of the population). Importantly, 19 out of the 25 Arabic newspapers in 1908 were Orthodox Christian owned. Filastin, the most important newspaper in Palestine, was owned and run by Arab Orthodox and articulated a Palestinian Arab nationalism opposed to both the Greek clergy and Zionism. Writing of Filastin, and another early Orthodox Arab Palestinian newspaper, Al-Karmil, Rashid Khalidi characterized them as "instrumental in shaping early Palestinian national consciousness and in stirring opposition to Zionism." Khalidi contended that almost immediately after the publication of its first issue in December 1908, al-Karmil "became the primary vehicle of an extensive campaign against Zionist settlement in Palestine."[19] Al-Karmil was later owned by Arab Anglicans.[20]
On their part, from the beginning, the Greek clergy were less concerned with Zionism than with the movement for the Arabisation of the Patriarchate. A few years into the Mandate, in an effort to resolve its financial crisis, the Patriarchate began selling church properties to Jews. The Arab laity objected strongly,[21] and as a result, in 1922, it opposed the appointment of the Bishop Cleopas as Metropolitan of Nazareth. The importance of this dispute cannot be over-emphasised. “The land sales made the task of gaining Arab political ascendancy in the church seem immediately essential; Orthodox lay leaders, desiring to participate in the Arab politics … could not afford to be associated with an institution supportive of large-scale Jewish immigration and British imperial control. The Arab Orthodox now began to depict their Greek church hierarchy as a foreign oppressor (like Zionism) and to employ nationalist and anti-imperialist language in their struggle against the Patriarchate.”[22] As they would phrase it; “does the church belong to the Greek expatriates or to the Arab majority?”[23] In stark contrast, the Jerusalem Patriarch, Damianos believed that the Greek Orthodox were, like the Jewish community, a minority, and that they should cooperate. He was regarded as a friend by the Jewish community and described by Frederick Kisch as “a man of goodwill.”[24]
Tensions between the laity and the Patriarchy worsened in the early 1920s when the Greek patriarchate issued a statement of support for Zionism.[25] The metamorphosis of the Orthodox laity into a largely political entity can be briefly traced through the Arab Orthodox Congresses (distinct from the Arab Palestinian Congresses of the same era). The first Congress (in Haifa, July 1923), defined itself as a political movement, using nationalistic terminology. It called for the “full Arabisation of their church”,[26] a 1-year ban on land sale to Zionists and castigated the Patriarchy for selling them land. They “re-wrote their communities goals into anti-Zionism and anti-Imperialism.[27] Katz and Kark note the “dismay” of the first Orthodox Arab Congress with the patriarch, due to his; “friendly relations with Zionist leaders and favourable statements issued in regard to the Zionist movement.”[28]
Protests eventually gave way to a second congress, held in Ramallah in June of 1926, under the presidency of ‘Isa al ‘Isa, the proprietor of Filastin. By now the Orthodox cause was defined almost exclusively in nationalist terms. Among the resolutions passed was the demand that an Arab patriarch be elected, and that the Arab laity should participate in the election. In November 1927, the Orthodox People's Party was founded, which pledged itself "to restore the Arabs' national rights usurped by the Greeks."[29]
The Second Arab Orthodox Congress, in 1931 again called for Arab clergy. The Islamic Congress in Jerusalem, being held at the same time, and headed by Haj Al Husseini, responding to an appeal from them, congratulated them and acknowledged the Arab Orthodox cause as part of the broader Arab nationalist movement.[30]
This disconnect between the clerical leadership and the laity is why statements from the Palestinian Orthodox community are generally made by its secular leaders such as ‘Isa al-‘Isa, Sakakini and George Antonius, rather than by the clergy. In 1929, the Orthodox Youth Club of Jerusalem again protested the continuing Orthodox land sales to the Zionists.
For many Orthodox Arabs, the 'Arab Orthodox' cause, the nationalist cause, and the fight against Zionism were all part of the same struggle. Their struggle for the Arabisation of the Patriarchate was only one part of the larger struggle for Arab independence. They believed that their own communal goals would be realised in fulfilling Arab nationalist aspirations.[31]
More broadly, Orthodox Arabs regarded themselves as the Christian community closest to the Muslims, and in many respects, this perception was reciprocated. The fact that Orthodox Arabs defined their struggle in nationalistic terms significantly aided this feeling of empathy. Many Muslim organisations strongly supported the Orthodox cause. The 6th Palestinian Arab Congress indeed recognised the Orthodox issue as part of the broader national cause. This greatly helped the Orthodox relations with the Muslim community (who had not been entirely convinced of the Orthodox commitment to the nationalist cause), especially since they were largely accommodating of the British Mandate. Having been used to support from Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, many Orthodox indeed initially looked to Britain to fill that now vacant role. For others, the loss of Russian support meant they were largely on their own and they became even more nationalistic.
By 1935 Orthodox infighting between clergy and laity and mutual boycotts led to increased emigration as well as further defections to other denominations (mainly Melkite and Anglican). By 1943, many villages and even towns were without a priest.[32] In 1946, the Executive Orthodox Committee declared; “The aim of the Orthodox … [is] to become a strong community with a definite and clear Arab influence, and so as to be able to deliver its national message in a full and suitable manner.”[33] They then addressed the Arab League; “We as Arabs and our case being both nationally and politically an Arab affair … an indivisible part of the general Palestinian case.”
As seen, the Orthodox were early advocates of anti-Zionism.[34] “The Orthodox community would, over the course of the Mandate, prove to be the [Christian community] most committed to the nationalist cause; Latin Catholics, arguably the least.”[35] In 1921, for example, the Orthodox-run newspaper Filastin published in translated form the infamous anti-Semitic tract; The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[36] On August 5, 1922, al-Karmil published a song denouncing the Balfour Declaration and the danger of the Jews getting hold of the Christian and Muslim holy places (a highly incendiary topic!!). In 1923, ‘Isa al-‘Isa used Filastin to attack “Jews, using anti-Semitic attributes.” In 1931, six weeks before Passover, the paper even published a “blood libel” against the Jaffa Jewish community!![37]
The Arab Orthodox community had made their choice. In 1947, at a meeting of Arab Orthodox clergy in Jerusalem, the Reverend Ya’qub al-Hanna declared; “the hour has struck to participate with the people in repelling the dangers encircling the dear homeland.” They sent out 3 telegrams; the first was to the Arab Higher Executive, led by Haj Amin al-Husseini expressing their “absolute confidence in its leadership” and announcing “to the whole world the cooperation of the Arab Orthodox Community in weal and woe, with its sister, the dear Muslim community.” The third, to the British High Commissioner, stated that the Orthodox community “supports the faithful leaders and the Arab Higher Executive, and rejects partition categorically, announcing its preparedness to safeguard Palestine’s Arabism and the Holy Places at any cost.”[38]
Their fight to be defined as Arab led finally to this step of full support for the Muslim community and for its Mufti, the war criminal Haj Amin al-Husseini. They rejected peace with the Jewish community and subordinated what remained of their faith to their nationalism.
Postscript, The present Patriarch of Jerusalem, Atallah Hanna, a Palestinian, has been viewed as a prime example of the “fusion between Orthodox fidelity, Palestinian identity, and opposition to the modern state of Israel.”[39] Atallah Hanna, as a spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, called for “Christian Arabs and Palestinians to join the opposition against Israeli occupation, in every necessary form.”[40] He has also applauded suicide bombers as “Arab heroes,” while denouncing peace efforts: “Israel is the Great Satan, and therefore one is not allowed to negotiate with Israel or even consider a cease-fire. Any kind of peace with Israel means making concessions, and that defeats the Arab strategy to resist and oppose the Jewish state.”[41] No repentance here.
Greek Catholics (Melkites)
The Greek Catholics claimed to be the only wholly Arab
Christian community in Palestine, one whose entire hierarchy and lay community
was and had always been ethnically and linguistically Arab. Their clergy had a
vigorous role in nationalist activity. During the Mandate, Bishop Hajjar was
the only prelate who took part in nationalist activity. Though Greek Catholic
support for the nationalist cause was determined in large part by a genuine
sense of being 'Arab,’ as with Latin Catholics, it was also shaped by an
antipathy towards Zionism.
Early evangelical Protestant, Chalil Jamal was born into the Melkite church in 1840. He and his family converted to Protestantism through the teaching of the missionary, John Bowen. Jamal wrote that “[he] preached to us Christ and him crucified and explained the pure word of God to the family circle.”[43] He would later write; “I won’t give up the Bible, and am willing to part with any tradition that may be contrary to God’s precious word.”[44] He always opened and closed his Bible studies with prayer. For Jamal, the entire Bible was inspired and authoritative for matters of faith and practice. The problem was that there was a “dearth of Biblical knowledge.”[45] He also consistently witnessed to Muslims. Other early Protestants, Seraphim Boutaji and Michael Kawar were also from the Melkite church. Kawar mentioned in one letter a conversation he had with someone, which “led him to leave all the traditions of the Greek church and to follow the way of salvation as revealed in the pure word of God.”[46]
Latin
Catholics
Luke 23:12 “That day Herod and Pilate became friends--before this they had been enemies.”
The Roman Catholic, or Latin, community in
Palestine is a paradox. Historically, most of its members were foreign monks
and nuns etc., and indeed, the community was not even recognized as indigenous
by the Ottomans, both because of its foreign makeup, and also due to historic
antagonisms; both Christian/Christian (Greek Orthodox vs. Catholics[47]), and Christian/Muslim,
(the [Catholic] Crusades). They thus formed a somewhat isolated community, who
mainly looked out for themselves. They had little to do
with Muslims and were largely concerned with their status as a separate
community. Nevertheless, they emerged from the Mandate period
with greater political capital, and far closer to the rest of the Arab
community than they had ever been before.
The Roman Catholic Church underwent a rapid expansion
in British mandate Palestine. This was fuelled by a massive increase in their
local, lay membership due largely to conversions from the Greek Orthodox
community. The institutions destroyed during the First World War were rebuilt,
and twelve new Roman Catholic parishes were constructed to minister to
Palestine’s growing Roman Catholic population.[48] In an atmosphere of political stability, the Jesuits opened a Jerusalem branch
of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, and a number of churches, monasteries,
schools and hospitals were erected in Haifa, Jaffa, Nazareth and Jerusalem.
Latin Catholics were poorly represented in nationalist organisations; indeed, their participation in the latter was generally discouraged by the Latin Patriarch. Once relations between Britain and the Vatican improved, Latin Catholic involvement in the nationalist movement diminished even further.[49] This, combined with their previous isolation, should have distanced them even further from the wider Arab community. In spite of all of this however, as noted, they emerged from the Mandate period with greater political capital, and far closer to the rest of the Arab community than they had ever been before.
This was because, while not interested in local politics, their leadership reflected the anti-Zionist attitudes of the Vatican, and of Catholic circles in general. After some early ambivalence regarding Zionism, the Vatican had adopted a strong position against the Balfour Declaration from the day of its announcement. The Vatican initially also opposed the British Mandate as a Protestant power pursuing a Zionist policy.[50] British Catholics also opposed Balfour Declaration.[51] On July 16, 1921, the New York-based Catholic journal The Tablet, ran a report under the heading "Christians are Menaced by Jews" which cited emigration statistics proving that Christians were leaving Palestine because they were "tired of Jewish interference.”[52] The Pope was warmly thanked by the 6th Arab Palestinian Congress on 27 June 1923. In November 1924, the Pope openly expressed his fear of the decline of Christianity as a result of the promise of a Jewish National Home.[53]
The Vatican's own position on Zionism was very much shaped by a theologically-based anti-Semitism. Their view was that the Jews had been dispersed as punishment for their having rejected the Messiah and bore collective responsibility for His crucifixion. That they might become reconstituted as a nation without having accepted Jesus as the Messiah was considered theologically untenable. An article appearing in the Catholic newspaper, Civilita Cattolica in 1887, the same year as the first Zionist Congress stated: “One thousand, eight hundred and twenty-seven years have passed since the prediction of Jesus of Nazareth was fulfilled, namely that Jerusalem would be destroyed ... As for a rebuilt Jerusalem, which might become the centre of a reconstituted state of Israel, we must add that this is contrary to the predictions of Christ himself who foretold that “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24), that is...until the end of the world.” The Church could not support the ultimate aims of the Zionist movement.[54]
In 1904 Merry del Val, the Vatican Secretary of State, explained to Herzl, since the Jews had denied the divinity of Christ, “How can we, without abandoning our highest principles, agree to their being given possession of the Holy Land again?”[55] The Pope agreed. “We cannot give approval to the movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctioned by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church, I cannot tell you anything different.”[56] “If you come to Palestine to settle your people there, we shall have churches and priests ready to baptize all of you.”[57] “we cannot recognize the Jewish people. Jerusalem cannot be placed in Jewish hands.”
From Herzl’s visit forward, the Vatican came to believe that political Zionism posed a greater danger to its interests in Palestine than did any other Christian group or the Ottomans. On May 4, 1917 Pacelli (the future pope) indicated that the reserved area the Vatican sought, which would be off-limits to Zionist claims, was to extend well beyond the Holy Places themselves and would cover Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and its surroundings, as well as Tiberias and Jericho.[58] In concluding, he added that it was “difficult to take a piece of our hearts away from the Turks in order to give it to the Zionists.”[59] In January 1919 Cardinal Bourne sent a letter to the British prime minister and to the foreign secretary, writing that Zionism had not received the approval of the Holy See, and if the Jews would "ever again dominate and rule the country, it would be an outrage to Christianity and its Divine founder." When Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann requested an audience with Pius XI in 1934 the pope declined to receive him, stating; “we cannot stand on the side of the Zionists.”[60] Such sentiments could not but influence how Palestinian Catholics reacted to the Arab Revolt against Jewish immigration two years later.
All this also affected how the local Catholic population was viewed in Palestine. The Latin patriarch, Louis Barlassina, was an outsider appointed from the Vatican in March 1920. In his Pastoral letter soon after, he feared that Palestine was coming under the servitude of the Zionists, a worse yoke that the Turks.[61] As a result, he received praise throughout the Arab community for his political views.[62] The German ambassador at the Holy See noted in 1922 that Barlassina did "not miss any opportunity to speak out against the Jewish settlements and openly support the Arabs.”[63] During his visit to Rome 11 May 1922, Barlassina “openly attacked the Zionist movement in an extreme tone.”[64] The Arab delegation in London warmly congratulated him.[65] Inside Palestine, during 1921-2, he incited his community not to cooperate with the official education schemes on the grounds they were pro-Zionist. He also started a diocesan paper which attacked the Balfour Declaration. He was the only head of a religious community who abstained from official ceremonies. Did not attend the swearing in of the High Commissioner, or the Kings Birthday.[66] He opposed nationalism but encouraged his community in anti-Zionism.
More than most other Arab denominations, the Latin Catholic community showed strong anti-Semitic tendencies. Like that of their leadership, their opposition to Zionism often seemed more due to their disdain for Jews than the fact that it posed an obstacle to achieving nationalist aims. Generally speaking, Palestine's local Latin Catholics did support Arab nationalism, though their level of commitment always had a certain ambiguity to it. Latin Catholic support for Arab nationalism was largely motivated by their anti-Semitism and consequent anti-Zionism rather than by nationalist feelings as such. Indeed, Catholic protestations often came across more as an extension of the Vatican's anti-Zionist position than as something derived from organic nationalistic sentiment.[67] This is important to recognise, as today many Christian denominations couch their anti-Israel rhetoric with the explanation that they are simply responding to the cry of their Palestinian Christian brethren.
Palestinian Catholic outlets often carried anti-Jewish articles. On January 15, 1926, the Latin Arabic periodical Raqib Sahyun published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (already translated by the Greek Orthodox editor of Filastin, ‘Isa al-‘Isa in 1921). In October 1926, the Supreme Muslim Council published an article based on the article in Raqib Sahyun. Thanks to these Palestinian Christians, The Protocols are now popular across the Muslim world.[68]
So, almost against their will the Latin Catholics
became closer to the Arab community due to the anti-Zionism of the Vatican and
the increase in their local laity. Palestinian rights were seen as a tool
against Zionism, so the Latin community was encouraged to identify with that
community.
There is a long-standing, mutually abusive/destructive
marriage of convenience between Palestinian Christians and Western
denominations. Each use the other for their own ends; Palestinian Christians
want western political support in order to make themselves valuable to their
Muslim majority, while many western denominations have latched on to
Palestinian Christians as a convenient, 'virtuous' mask for their own
theological anti-Semitism. Both sides of this abuse continue to this day.
Interestingly, when the Vatican 2 council debated
responding to the Holocaust by a statement repudiating Catholic anti-Semitism,
specifically, by stating that the present Jewish people were not responsible
for the death of Jesus, in Nostra Aetate, the Arab League objected
strenuously.[69]
This was because the Vatican based its rejection of Zionism on the idea that
the Jewish people could not regain statehood because they were guilty of
the death of Jesus. A Vatican renunciation of that doctrine would therefore
presumably weaken its opposition to Zionism. The objections of the Arab League
are interesting because Islam demands that Jesus was not crucified. Logic left
the building as the Muslim delegates basically declared that "Jesus was
not crucified, and the Jews did it." The Eastern Orthodox and Melkites
also saw it as potentially weakening Catholic opposition to the Jewish state,
and likewise petitioned Vatican 2 not to change its traditional
anti-Semitism.[70] Catholic anti-Semitism
formed the theoretical basis for its anti-Zionism, Arab anti-Zionism formed the
practical basis of its support for Catholic anti-Semitism. The links between
the two are again seen. – the Catholic Church didn’t care about the
Palestinians, but did oppose a Jewish state, and so the Palestinians were happy
to make common cause with them. Disgracefully, “The Arab Evangelical Church
Council endorsed a statement opposing attempts by ‘Christian heads in the West’
to absolve Jews of the responsibility for the crucifixion of Christ.”[71] That is, Eastern Orthodox,
Melkites and Arab Evangelical leaders all supported continued Catholic
anti-Semitism precisely because this strengthened the anti-Zionism common to
all. They publicly supported the continuation of Jew hatred!
The Druze
All this creates an interesting
contrast with another small Arab community which also traditionally kept to
itself. The Druze started the Mandate closer than the western catholic
community to the rest of the Arab population but remained aloof throughout the
Mandate and ended it as allies of the Israelis.[72]
The main difference between these communities here was the intense theological
and social anti-Semitism of the Catholic community and its leaders.
Anti-Semitism is the glue holding the various Palestinian communities together.
Armenians
They did at times make common cause with the larger
Christian community in their opposition to Zionism, which they saw as a threat
to their more narrowly defined interests.
Maronites
Their tendency to dissociate from the
larger Arab community arguably reflected a great deal more on the larger
Christian community and its overall commitment to the nationalist cause. They
showed that, under certain circumstances, other alternatives were possible. Maronites
were not especially sympathetic to the Palestinian nationalist cause; neither
to the idea of a pan-Arab state. During the latter part of the Mandate, in
fact, many Zionists came to consider the Maronites their natural allies. From
the perspective of Muslim-Christian relations, this raised uncomfortable
questions concerning the basis of Christian loyalty. In the one place [Lebanon]
where they made up the vast majority and the population was relatively
homogenous the Christians themselves had likewise called for their own state.
An obvious implication of this was that Christian loyalty was entirely
dependent on there being a lack of any viable alternative. Given the underlying
relationships between the Muslim majorities and local Christians, and the communal
massacres of Christians by the Muslim majority across the late Ottoman Empire
(see later sections), this is hardly surprising.
By the end of the Mandate, what had become increasingly evident was that the only Arab whose identity as such went unquestioned was a Muslim one. The fact of the matter was that, for many of the reasons noted above, an Arab national identity that emphasised the Arabs' ties with Islam resonated much more strongly with the great majority of Palestine's Arabs than one which tried to craft a more secular or ecumenical definition.[73] This again will be discussed in more detail later on.
Protestants/Anglicans
Origins; Evangelical and pro-Jewish
Protestants were the most recent Palestinian
Christian community. The first Anglican work started in 1833, when John Nicholyson (with London Jews
Society) established a work at Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem.[74] The Church Missionary Society (CMS) joined the work in 1842.[75] The initial focus of this work was the mission to the
Jews.
Indeed, the Prussian King Wilhelm IV, who was greatly interested and supportive
of the mission, suggested that they name their church “The Consolation or
Comfort of Israel,” or “Messiah’s Church.”[76] When the Ottomans regained dominion over Palestine due to British and western
help, this enabled the establishment of a Protestant Anglican bishopric in
Jerusalem. Influential in this was Lord Ashley, the Earl of Shaftsbury. His
enthusiasm for this was based in his belief, drawn from the study of the
prophetic Scriptures, that the Jews were to return to the Holy Land and there
accept their Messiah.
Early Opposition – An exaggerated
Ecumenicalism, elevated above the preaching of the Gospel!
The establishment of the bishopric was opposed by the [High Church Anglican] Oxford movement, as an encroachment on the Eastern and Catholic churches, and indeed its establishment was the cause for John Newman (of that movement) to leave the Anglican church and join the Catholic, where he eventually became a Cardinal.[77] Concerns about demarcation and ecumenical manners would persist, to its overwhelming detriment! Note that the first Bishop in Jerusalem was instructed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to focus solely on the Jews, and that he should not interfere in any way in the affairs of the Eastern churches.[78] It was indeed envisaged as a “Hebrew bishopric,” using the Hebrew language and traditions.[79] The “supreme motive” for the establishment of an Anglican work in Palestine “was the conversion of the Jews. … There was a widespread belief that if the Jews were converted and gathered in Palestine, this would signal the near approach of the second coming of Christ.”[80] The first bishop in Jerusalem, bishop Michael Solomon Alexander, “shared in the Protestant Biblical interpretation, stressing prophecies based in both the Old and New Testaments.”[81] “When he spoke of the revival of Israel in the future, his heart overflowed with warmth.”[82]
The Gospel breaks out and reaches the
Gentiles!
With the appointment of the second bishop in Jerusalem
in 1846, Bishop Samuel Gobat from Prussia, there was a change in emphasis,
though not necessarily in goals. While he believed in the return of the Jews to
Palestine, and in their conversion to Christ, he re-directed his work towards what
were termed the “fallen” Eastern churches. “I was a debtor not only to the
Jews, but also to the ignorant Greeks, Romanists, Armenians, Turks.”[83] His desire was to revive the Eastern churches through Bible distribution and
evangelism. This has to be seen as a profoundly
positive and Christian impulse. It is what Paul did in Acts 18:26, we are
likewise instructed to “teach and admonish one another” (Colossians 3:16) and
indeed, to “spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” (Hebrews
10:24). No fault can therefore be found in this Godly desire to aid these
churches.
This arouses Opposition, both in Palestine
and in the home Church
Gobat’s appointment was bitterly and publicly opposed
by the Oxford movement. The CMS however were keen to aid the Greek Orthodox
Church through Christian education, and the founding of Christian schools to
this purpose. These schools, around fifty in number, were built in other
Christian populated cities such as Beit Jala, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Ramla and
Nablus.[84] The Greek Orthodox
refused any assistance and were hostile to bishop Gobat. At first, he told
Orthodox members who accepted Bibles and then asked for Bible teachers to
simply remain within their church and continue reading the Bible. Sadly, his
desire to have a mutually beneficial relationship with the Eastern Churches was
rebuffed. Unlike Apollos, they were not willing to be taught. They expelled
those they should have cherished; Acts 17:11.
It is revealing that rather than responding
spiritually, the ancient churches chose to respond institutionally; “Indeed, it
is impossible to understand the basis for the reestablishment of the Latin
Patriarchate in 1847 and the return of the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem
after years of residence in Constantinople without recognising the competition
and religious and political motivations that followed the establishment of the
Protestant Bishopric in 1841.”[85] Rather than welcoming the
arrival of a few keen new Christians who
were eager to help the spiritual growth of their congregations, with a few
noble exceptions, they responded like institutions whose monopoly or copyright
had been threatened. In this and in other ways (Cardinal Newman, the Oxford
Movement etc) “Protestant missionary activity and its associated religious
institutions were one of the key constitutive elements that transformed the
religious context of Palestine before 1917.”[86]
A desire for the Gospel creates an Arab
Anglican Communion
The majority of Gobat’s efforts soon centred on the schooling system and Bible distribution among the Orthodox. Converting Muslims was outlawed by the Ottomans, and a separate work for Jewish mission soon developed, underlining the change in Anglican focus. In light of these occurrences, the CMS would finally, reluctantly turn to proselytising local Christians, especially the dysfunctional Greek Orthodox. This however does not seem to have been their initial objective, but rather an undesired outcome. Writing back in 1815, William Jowett of CMS hoped that through education in the Bible, the children of Eastern Christians “would resume the duty, abandoned by their fathers for centuries, of converting the Muslims.”[87] The CMS believed that its calling was that by “journeys, by press and by education, to disseminate the knowledge of Scriptural truth, in order, by God’s grace, to raise the tone of Christian doctrine and practice.” Indeed, Bishop Gobat found that the distribution of Bibles and tracts “had produced its effect, and a good many members of the Eastern Churches were seeking more light.”[88] In 1850, he wrote that he did not interfere in other churches, and that while receiving requests from various parts of the country for teachers, and wished to come under his spiritual direction, he could not establish churches for them, and requested them to persevere in the reading of the Scriptures, and to remain in their churches.[89]
He had hoped that the encouragement of Bible reading
would elicit a revival within the Eastern Churches. When Orthodox
priests instead excommunicated any who read the Bible and would receive them
back only if they promised never to read the Bible again, and kissed an icon,
reluctantly, Gobat accepted them into the Anglican church, “as they believed in
the truth as it is in the Bible.”[90] As he wrote to King Frederick William IV; “And now, what am I to do? I have
never wished to make converts from the old churches, but only to lead to the
Lord and the knowledge of His truth as many as possible. From henceforth I
shall be obliged to receive into our communion such as are excluded for the
Bible-truth’s sake from other churches: and I trust that in doing so, even
though men should blame me for it, the Lord will grant his blessing.”[91] Gobat stated that he could not refuse pastoral care for those whose own
churches had excommunicated them. Again, no fault can be found in this.
As a result, the early Anglican churches soon became
comprised almost entirely of converts from the Greek Orthodox community. This gave them ties to the larger Arab community, a strong nationalist
Arab identity, and a history of opposing their own leadership. St
Georges, built 1898, is still centre of Arab Anglican life in Jerusalem. In
stark contrast to the Greek Orthodox, the Anglicans poured their energies into
raising and training local clergy and leaders. They were
frequently accused by other Arabs of being pro-British (dangerous during
Ottoman times, and also during the British Mandate, but for vastly different
reasons), accusations they deeply resented and which they fought
hard to erase. They were the best educated and most westernized within
the Christian community (who themselves were far better educated
than the Muslim community). They were also generally at
odds with their mother [British] community (again, similar to the Greek
Orthodox!).
In 1876, bishop Gobat handed over most of the
schools he had established to the CMS. The CMS still wanted to encourage the
Eastern churches through Bibles and teaching but did not wish for their members
to join them. They ran a theological college and trained up a local clergy.
From 1905 they began to hand over control to these clergy to the newly created
PCNN (see below). Hopes for Hebrew congregations were not immediately
fulfilled, and the diocese became based on Arab congregations, closely linked
to the CMS.
A divide between the Jewish vision
and Arab membership (clergy and laity) begins.
Though he tried, the next Protestant bishop, Joseph
Barclay (1879-1881) was unable to bridge the growing divide between Jewish and
Arab converts. These divisions are described as being “linguistic and
national.”[92] Farah writes[93] of the expat missionaries being divided between supporters of the British
Consul, James Finn, who was interested in encouraging Jews to settle in
Palestine and witness to them, and bishop Gobat, who while sympathetic, was
more focused on reviving the eastern churches. Again, we find there was a
sizable missionary component who longed to aid and bless the returning Jewish
people. Finn even established a farming community to help teach and show by
example how to farm, the very thing many Jews both from Jerusalem[94] and those returning wanted to know!
The early Arab Anglicans were therefore entering a
community which taught about and longed for the return of the Jews, and which
was engaged in positive, practical steps to aid/bless this. Not only that, but
these early hopes for a Jewish return to their land were also being realised
before their eyes, yet with all of this, the vast majority of Arab Anglicans
seemingly from early on rejected one of the central tenets of the group they
chose to join! It may be that a sizable Jewish return started only in the
second/third generation of Arab Anglicans, and that by then, the early zeal of
their parents had cooled, and they also wished closer relations with their
larger original community, and a shared Arab nationalism facilitated this
desire. The call of their own flesh was seemingly too strong.
The shameful triumph of ecumenicalism
(and the High Church) over the Gospel
The afore mentioned Bishop Barclay also started up a correspondence with an American society which wished to evangelise the Jews, with the hope of opening up an evangelistic work among them in Galilee. With Barclay’s death in 1881, the English High Church party again wished to end the entire endeavour. As it was, the bishopric was reconstituted in 1887, with an explicit instruction not to proselytize.[95] In this spirit, the next bishop, George Blyth (1887-1914) “put his foot on proselytism.”[96] This meant not witnessing to the local Christian communities, Orthodox, Catholic etc. He remained however committed to the evangelization of non-Christians. He also built schools and hospitals for Arabs and for Jews. On the 18th of October, 1898, he preached at the consecration of St Georges, he spoke of the Apostolic command to preach to the Jew first and also to the Gentiles, and noted that, when the Eastern church was disobedient to this command, its missionary zeal died down.[97] He stressed the need for mission work among the Jews of Bible lands, and noted that “this does not exclude mission work among Moslems.”[98]
The more evangelical CMS and LJS refused his oversight.
The CMJ trusted him, however, as he regarded the mission to the Jews as
central.[99] In 1898 he preached on the urgency of missionary work among the Jews and
believed that the Anglican church should take the initiative in recognising
their duty towards them. He believed both that the Jewish people would
“return to their ancient prerogatives” and that, their return to Christ could
be the key to Christian renewal and unity.[100] In
1897, he wrote a circular which was sent to the clergy of the Anglican communion.
It was titled; “The Jews and their Claim in 1897;”
“It is difficult to overstate the urgency of the
work which concerns the Jews at the present day … the return of the Jews to the
Land that is theirs (and which the Turks have owned, is God’s land in their
trust) …and what are we, the mere handful that is here, that we should be able
to reclaim from amongst them the “Church of the Hebrews” … at present the
papers are full of the movement of the Jewish race … they have a very defined
intention before them with reference to Palestine.”
He believed that the return of the Jews to
Palestine was “a sign to prophecies that are not yet fulfilled.”[102] That is, this bishop saw the return of the Jews as God directed, saw the need
for Gentile Christians in the land to witness to them, and the universal
blessings that would flow from all of this! Farah[103] also notes an Arab Christian, rev Joseph Jamal, who was active and successful
in missionary work amongst the Jewish community. Such hoped for participation
does not seem to have been widely emulated.
In general, Blyth fought with the CMS for better
conditions for local Arab pastors and establishing congregations for them but
was also against their witnessing to Orthodox people. Given the spiritual
poverty within that church, this was a very serious error. It saw spiritually
hungry people abandoned to a church he publicly acknowledged as having failed
to keep the clear commands of Jesus. He saw his two main responsibilities as
the evangelization of the Jews, and Christian unity.
Palestinian Protestantism
Almost from the start, Palestinian Protestantism was
stridently nationalistic. In 1905 (while still under an Ottoman rule which
frowned upon Arab nationalism) Arab priests wanting greater self-government and
more Arabization formed the Palestinian Native (later changed to National) Church
Council (PNCC) as an Arab body to self-govern under CMS spiritual
guidance. Their 1905 regulations excluded all non-Arabs, the English-speaking
expats, and specifically, the tiny congregations of “Hebrew Christians.”
Again, a curious reverse-image of Galatians 2:11-12!
At the same time, and against the wishes of the Greek
ecclesiastical hierarchy, there were continuing close, friendly relations
between the local Anglican and Orthodox communities. A
large number of Orthodox children attended Anglican schools, and Anglican Arab
priests supported the Orthodox laity against the Greek clergy.
In all, it was an uneven, haphazard descent. 1907, at
a CMS (Arab) conference in Jerusalem, a book critical of liberal scholarship,
James Orr’s “The Problem with the Old Testament” was discussed. Stalder’s
comments about this are interesting. He states that these Palestinian
Christians had no difficulty with the Old Testament. “For them, it was the Word
of God. It was infallible, inerrant and contained an anticipation of the
Gospel. It was sufficient in all matters pertaining to salvation and matters of
church polity. If there was a ‘problem’ of the Old Testament, it was that it
was not read by Palestine’s inhabitants.” He also notes that in this, they
“were different from Palestinian Christians after 1917 and 1948.”
The absence of any British oversight during WW1 led to
even greater self-sufficiency, and a far more awkward relationship after 1917,
when the returning British Anglicans were then identified in the popular mind
with the new British Mandate, and the Balfour Declaration. The growing Arab
Anglican community “found it important to defend the national claims of the
Palestinians and to participate in the political struggle against British
Mandate policies and against Zionist aggressive plans.”
The final triumph of Ecumenicalism - 1
Corinthians 11:18-19
Appallingly, during this tumultuous time, the head
office again intervened to again close Heaven’s doors to the Orthodox
community. Wanting a seat at the big table, “in December, 1919, the Archbishop
of Canterbury appointed an official Committee to take cognizance of Eastern
Church affairs.”[106]
The price of admission was no proselyting, and as a result, the Arab Anglican
church once more ceased its work among the Greek Orthodox. As seen, this policy
had already been largely in place within Palestine, and now was extended
universally. “And how can they
believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without
someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14) To its shame, the CMS (again, as
seen) largely went along with this apostacy. The clear commands of Jesus and
Paul were ignored, and Greek Orthodox people, who had no priests or sermons or
gospel, once more had the doors of the Anglican church closed to them. In 1922,
for example, 800 Arab Orthodox from Bayt Sahur wanted to join the Anglican
church but were refused!![107] Stalder writes that “a growing ecumenical ethos pervaded MacInnes bishopric
[1914-1931].”[108] In 1930, secretary of the CMS in Palestine, Wilson Cash, wrote to the
Archbishop of Canterbury; “During the past ten years … there have been
practically no transfers from the Greek Church to the Native Anglican Church of
the country.”[109] Likewise in 1932, a CMS official was “impressed[!!]
by the disappearance of the desire to proselytize to the different sects.”[110]
This is profoundly opposed to the clear commands of
God!
Isaiah 55:1 “Come, all you who are
thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!”
Matthew 28:18-20 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in
heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything
I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the
age.”
2Timothy 4:1-2 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will
judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I
give you this charge: 2 Preach the Word;
Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will
enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is
in heaven.”
Acts 5:29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey
God rather than men!”
Evangelism
abandoned; nationalism chosen in its place.
Jeremiah
2:11-12 “But my people
have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. Be appalled at this, O heavens,
and shudder with great horror,” declares the LORD.
Relations between local Arabs who were members of the
Native Church Council and the CMS, which was its parent organization, were far
from ideal: by 1906, “The English missionaries treated the native church
members and clergy as children in need of guidance and supervision, while the
locals wished to run their own affairs and did not regard it as their duty to
engage in proselytizing.”[111] Indeed, “during the years between
1917 and 1948, Arab national sentiment began to pervade the ranks of the
Protestant Church in Palestine more and more.”
As Bishop Rennie MacInnes noted; “The national question preoccupied the native
population far more than confessional details.”[113] Prior
to arriving in Palestine, he saw the aims of the Anglican church there as
Christian unity (no witnessing to Orthodox) and outreach to Jews and Muslims.
Due to their CMS heritage, the Palestinian Anglicans
remained self-consciously Low church, valuing lay participation, and
anti-ritualistic. They continued to describe themselves as “evangelical” in
their literature. From 1924 they sought independence to maintain CMS
evangelical traditions[115] and opposed high church British influence. Specifically, they opposed the
British bishop’s attempts to appoint High Church (Anglo-Catholic) priests.
With the loss of missionary fervour however, their
first love died. It was replaced by what they had brought with them from the
spiritually moribund Orthodox; political and nationalistic activism. “Arab
Protestant community, itself carved out from the Orthodox Community with
similar distribution in towns and more advanced rural areas, retained the
features of the national attitudes and activities of its mother community.”[116] They became in effect
Orthodox mark 2, except now with the access and vocabulary to influence western
Christianity about what they were most passionate about; Palestinian political
causes. They had avoided the High church only to opt for a lifeless
liberalism. Tragically, the prior radicalization of their own converts
(owing to their previous lack of spiritual teaching), and the forsaking of the
proclamation of the Gospel combined to create Palestinian Anglicanism which
claimed to be evangelical, but which preached only nationalism. Afraid of
Muslims, hostile to Jews and uninterested in the spiritual life of the local
Christians of other denominations, theirs became a barren, pointless existence.
Refusing to preach the Gospel, to their shame they settled rather for preaching
politics and Arab nationalism.
During the Mandate they strove to define themselves as
authentically Palestinian Arab rather than as members of an English
denomination. This was their passion, what they threw their energy into. Given
that the bishop was still appointed from London, this was a hard objective to
sell to the wider Arab community. It also contained curious resonances with the
early Marcionite movement, which insisted that being a Christian in no way tied
them to the Jewish community. In any event, they defined themselves primarily
by their flesh, and not by the Gospel. They retreated from their baptism, and
back into their ethnicity. They developed a self-consciously Arab
ecclesiastical organization. The Palestine Native (now National) Church Council
(PNCC) acted as the head of the Arab Episcopal Church and promoted an
autonomous church independent of the British Jerusalem bishopric. They wanted
to be recognised as a genuinely Arab Palestinian institution free from foreign
influence. They defined themselves as a “Palestinian Arab” section of the
Anglican church. They also rejected the designation 'Anglican' in favour of the
title 'Evangelical Episcopal Arab Community,' a semantic change similarly
adopted by the American Anglicans after the War of Independence, and for
similar reasons. They also rejected integration with British and Hebrew
Anglicans – “the PNCC did not want to belong to a global Anglican body; it
wanted to be recognized as the head of an independent Palestinian Arab
church.”
The fruit of this failure would soon become apparent.
“As early as 1922, the CMS was expressing concern about the extent to which
Arab priests were engaged in nationalist politics.”[118] The CMS missionary conference 1922 passed a resolution “deprecating association
of pastoral and political work, and urging paramount importance of whole time
be given to spiritual work.”[119] In 1923, the Rev MacIntyre noted that; “missionaries, as Britishers, are
thought to side with the British government, against the native [Arab]
population, and the later are not disposed to listen to advice or council
from the former.” In 1924, the PNCC considered pan Arab Protestant church,
which would have been a union including Arab Presbyterians, Lutherans and
Quakers. This failed to materialize, but in 1931, MacInnes reported to
Canterbury that the PNCC had; “become very active, almost aggressive owing to
the Nationalist Movement among the Arabs in Palestine.”[120] British missionaries were [often falsely]
associated with the Mandate government, and its perceived policy of
pro-Zionism. Many British missionaries were actually opposed to Zionism
and came into conflict with the government on a number of occasions over Jewish
migration.
During this time, the Arab Anglicans continued to grow
numerically, going from 1,279 in 1922 to 1,843 in 1931.[121] That is, they remained a
tiny (less than ½ of 1%) component of the Palestinian population.
Relationship with Jewish community
Where there is no
vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29:18)
The Anglican church had been founded for the express
purpose of showing God’s love for the Jewish people, and the early bishops all
believed that God would restore the Jewish people to Palestine. Their
‘inclusion of the Gentiles’ was, as seen, largely accidental and sadly resisted
on false ecumenical grounds. Those Arabs who joined however, joined a group desirous
and longing for the return of the Jewish people. They did so for the sake of
the Gospel more generally, but that does not negate that love of the Jewish
people remained a founding tenet of this society. On top of that, other British
Christians such as James Finn gave early example of practical ways to encourage
and bless the Jewish people. Beyond even all this, the very thing their
spiritual fathers had been proclaiming, the wider return of the Jewish people
as a fulfilment of prophecy, actually happened. Given all of these
encouragements, the Arab Anglicans could have been a vital meeting point
between the two communities. Tragically, this did not happen. The blessing that
they could have been to both communities remained unrealised. The breach in the
dividing wall between Jews and Arabs, that the Arab Christians should have incarnated
as a direct consequence of their faith was rejected by them, as they collectively
turned their backs on the Gospel.
This need not have been the case! In 1918, the CMS
reacted to the British advance into Palestine, and the Balfour Declaration:
“The fact that Jerusalem and Bethlehem are now in
Christian hands dominates all other events. … Fresh hope has been aroused that
we are now on the eve of a great spiritual advance. Perhaps nothing has done
more to inspire this new hope than the government’s declaration in favour of
the establishment in Palestine of a ‘national home for the Jewish people.’
The miraculous preservation of the Jewish race, no
less than prophecy, has produced a deep-seated conviction that the Chosen
People are destined to be one of God’s chief instruments in working out his
divine purpose for the human race. If these dreams are to materialise, a
sustained effort must be put forward by the Christian Church to bring Israel
into the fold of Christ.”
After 85 years of waiting and hoping and praying, the
chief purpose for which they had been established was materializing before
them! Under Christian auspices, the Jewish people were returning and the CMS
“were like those who dream.” (Psalm 126:1)
The ecclesiastical hierarchy in Jerusalem had however cooled in zeal. On December 13, 1919, Bishop MacInnes (who continued to believe in the Jewish return and conversion) met with Chaim Weizmann. The Bishop wanted to “Assure Dr. Weizmann of his sympathetic and friendly attitude towards the Jews.”[123] He told him that he “strongly hoped for the great future of the Jewish people and that a thrill of interest went through British Christians at the idea of a return of the Jews to Palestine.” He then proceeded to object “to certain features of current Zionism that had led to uneasiness among Palestinian people.”[124] He did not want the Jews to return by “tens of thousands at a time[U1] ,” and he was also concerned about a Jewish campaign against mission schools. The Jewish community were boycotting them, and exerting pressure upon any Jewish families who sent their children to them. Dr. Weizmann in turn well-articulated the Jewish case against sending their children to such schools; “You must remember our position. For two thousand years we have been persecuted, kept down, tortured. We entrench ourselves, we fight; our trenches are our Hebrew language, our Hebrew schools, our Hebrew families and children; anyone going over from us while we are fighting is like a traitor to the cause; every child we lose is a national loss …now after two thousand years we think we see a hope. But here in our own country, we find the process of attrition still going on … after we have our hopes, our home, perhaps an entente, I know not.”[125]
What a tragedy! The Jewish people are finally coming home, as he professes to believe, but rather than just rejoicing with Weizmann, and perhaps asking how they might be of assistance, he starts laying down rules, he does not want Jews returning in tens of thousands and complains that the Jewish people don’t want their children converted in Christian schools. He is vainly trying to put new wine into old wineskins! The Jewish people were not returning to Palestine only to be told by Christians what to do. For the first time in 2000 years, they considered themselves to be free, and they were not about to let themselves “be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1) Christians could rejoice with and help, and yes, most definitely share their faith, but not from an attitude of colonial superiority or religious superiority. Christians are supposed to embody humility!
Proverbs 18:17 “The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.”
Did MacInnes ever consider the Jewish case? It is a grief that 85 years after being established to bring the Gospel to the Jewish people, the Anglican bishop and his successors seemingly had no interest in or knowledge of the harsh realities of Jewish life outside Palestine. Did he visit Poland or Germany to ascertain some facts for himself? They are surrounded by people who have fled from the coming apocalypse in Europe, yet there only concern is for any disruption this rescue mission might have on the comfort of the local Arab community. Jewish lives mean nothing in the face of Arab inconvenience. Writing in the 1930s, the French author A. Londres (who did visit both Poland and Palestine) also noted the drastic change and “noisiness” of the Palestinian Jewish community; “your restless, impassioned spirit brushed aside twenty centuries with a flip of the mind … you had enough of living under a boot.”[126] After 2000 years of humiliation, they were home, and drunk on freedom. Why was there no understanding or compassion for their case also?
Mission schools were unquestionably conceived of as having both an educational and a missionary function. One can therefore understand the Jewish community not wishing to have its children attend such institutions. These institutions themselves also, like the rest of the Anglican effort, suffered an ongoing decay in their own missionary zeal. “The value of Jewish enrolment in Christian institutions appears to have been some-what mixed from the standpoint of the institutions themselves. [Susannah] Emery [of the (Anglican) Jerusalem Girl’s College] expressed her frustration with the non-Christian elements in 1935: ‘one third non-Christian is quite enough and the school is full enough’. ‘There are too many Jews’, wrote Emery again in 1941, ‘especially in the highest classes.’ Of the students to whom she refused entry in May 1942, all were Jews, again an indication that despite the small numbers, demand on the part of Jews for this type of education met or exceeded supply.”[127] In 1920, MacInnes wrote of the “failure of missionary work among Jews.”
In any event, the bishop’s early, provisional welcome soon wilted. Stalder comments that by the end of his bishopric “his disapproval of Zionist policies overshadowed his endorsement of their ideals.”[128] Eight months after the 1921 Jaffa riots, he wrote in a circular; “Palestine is so unhappily disturbed by the unjust and intolerable demands of the Zionists.”[129] Indeed, MacInnes seems to have blamed the Jews for both the Arab riots in Jaffa in 1921, and the wider Arab violence of 1929 (including the massacre of the Jewish community of Hebron), on the Jews themselves.[130] The Archbishop of Canterbury defended this letter to Churchill. MacInnes then wrote to the Archbishop; “we have noticed that their Zionism is generally political very often sordid and always noisy … I am forced to the opinion that Zionism has been weighed I the balance and found wanting.”[131] His canon, S. Waddy stated that Jews should not be given any powers of government over Palestine.[132] MacInnes even wrote a pamphlet justifying hostility towards Judaism as the result of the crucifixion of Jesus!![133]
Mark 14:37 "Simon, are
you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?
MacInnes had adopted a Manichean perspective on the Jewish return. Either it was 100% perfect from conception, or it was not of God, and should be rejected. How would he have coped with the less than perfect situation of the first return as recorded in Nehemiah Ezra and Haggai? Books that were in his Bible. How did he cope with his own church, which was clearly less than perfect? How did he cope with himself, a sinner saved by grace, and still not perfect? Why was it only the return of the Jews which must be immediately flawless? Equally, a friend, someone who had proved to be trustworthy, who rejoiced with the returning Jews, delighted in there presence, and was doing all in their power to aid them, might well have been able to occasionally offer helpful advice, and even used their own resources (their experience on the ground, their contacts with the Arab community and their finances) to help smooth the inevitable disruptions the return would cause, rather than almost immediately using the very existence of that disruption to denounce the entire project. The “sympathetic and friendly attitude” which he proclaimed to Weizmann was in reality dead on arrival.
Arab and British expat Anglicans oppose the Jewish return.
MacInnes therefore quickly turned to publicly supporting the Palestinian cause. Jews, he believed, were responsible for the hostility against them in Palestine. Through his mediation, the Muslim-Christian Association appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury to support their struggle against Jewish immigration, and the promise of a national home. Arab Nationalist circles were encouraged by his attitude. Miss Frances Newton (an extreme anti-Zionist ex missionary)[134] became an advisor to a Muslim-Christian association in 1920. At the very moment when the prophecies they claimed to believe in were coming true, their faith and love cooled. The voice the Jewish (and Arab) people needed to hear was silenced by lack of faith, just as John the Baptist fathers’ had been in the Temple long ago.
Having rejected the narrative under which they were founded, the wider Arab Anglican community took the reality of the Balfour Declaration hard. Given that it was a British initiative, this also complicated their relationship with the new imperial power, which would otherwise have been much closer. During the late 1930s “British Anglican support in the metropole [England] for the Zionist project in Palestine caused a major breach between the Palestinian Episcopal community and its British parent church.”[135] Many Arab Episcopalians broke with the British mission institutions, some emigrated, others abandoned their faith entirely. That is, the Anglican response to Zionism was a huge issue for the Arab Anglican community. One has to wonder, did none of those who supported Zionism in England from a Biblical view think to examine how the Bible might view the presence of local gentile believers in that process? Within Palestine, did any of the British or local Anglican clergy search the Scriptures to discern what the role of Arab believers might be in regard to the Biblical restoration of the Jewish people (looking for example at Romans 11:31) and then explain this lovingly to them?? Did none of the Arab Anglicans recall the teaching and example of the early bishops and their Godly, Scriptural love for the Jewish people? Especially as the very thing they had hoped for and preached about was literally coming to pass?
In any event, the Arab Anglican community responded according to their ethnicity, rather than their faith. They were joined in this apostacy by increasing numbers of the British clergy there, who rather than bringing the Gospel to them, adopted instead the political views of the Arab community they had come to serve. In 1936 the PNCC sponsored a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (when news of Nazi atrocities was already widely known in Palestine) requesting him to intervene with the British government to stop Jewish immigration; the “best solution to the present impasse is the immediate cessation of immigration.” This use of a church forum to promote nationalism concerned many British. But “many British missionaries in Palestine in both the CSM and the bishopric” agreed with the PNCC. Wilson Cash of the CMS wrote to the PNCC; “I think you have presented the case fairly, honestly and with great restraint … as you know, my sympathies in this controversy have all along been pro-Arab.”[136] By 1936, the PNCC “had unambiguously aligned itself with the cause of Arab nationalism and the point of view of the Muslim majority.”[137]
Theirs was not the moral stance they believed it to be. It was simply the stance of the Muslim community, adopted by the local Christian community, eager to find common cause with their own historic oppressors.
Christian Doctrines Affected.
All of this had theological consequence. Passages of
Scripture which seemed to hold out hope and comfort to the Jewish people would
now be regarded with suspicion and distain.[138] Theological solutions,
both old (historic Christian anti-Semitism) and new (liberalism and its
rejection of Scriptural authority) would now be explored, as the British and
Arab Anglicans in Palestine sought solidarity with the anti-Jewish Muslim
majority rather than fidelity to God’s word. Religion became the handmaid of
nationalism. Both Bishops MacInnes and Brown, whose tenures covered the period
1914-1943 opposed Zionism. MacInnes especially communicated his deep resentment
of his government’s support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. They would
continue their involvement in Palestinian causes both from a secular level and
a theological one. Eventually the activism of the Arab clergy would lead it
into partial conflict with their British colleagues.
While Bishop MacInnes had expressed some vague support
for the return of the Jews to Palestine, his successor, Bishop Francis
Graham Brown (1932-1942), moved to a clear theological rejection of such.
Lack of love and compassion had fatally white-anted Biblical doctrine and led
to a church looking for ways to abandon God’s word, and to conform to this
world. A church begun with such high hopes and faith fell to the point that it
actively partitioned the government not to allow Jews fleeing the already
unfolding Holocaust to find sanctuary among them.
Bishop Graham Brown was a constant critic of Zionism; “I have frequently expressed in public my views as to the unwisdom of many Zionist statements and actions.”[139] On October 12, 1936 he wrote to the Times in London stating that “Jewish immigration must be suspended.” He also contacted others in London at this time, seeking support for the stopping of Jewish immigration.[140] Like MacInnes before him, he also sought to justify his position theologically. On October 1936 he wrote to the Jerusalem and East Mission; “does not his [Jesus] teaching of a spiritual Israel really deny the basis of a ‘National home’ in Palestine? … the establishment of a national home in Palestine cannot be made to depend on the prophecies of the Old Testament.” He sent a similar letter on the 24th of October to the World Missionary Conference. Mission leader (involved with the World Missionary Conference) Willian Paton replied; “I agree entirely … a Christian can hardly accept the view that Palestine is destined by the will of God to be a home for the Jews. … the promises of God were fulfilled in Christ … we cannot therefore as Christians accept the view that in endeavouring to make Palestine a Jewish home we are faithful to the revealed will of God.”[141] In 1937 (!) the bishop again wrote (in “Some Christian Considerations in regard to the partition problem” which was co-authored with Warburton, Bridgeman and Stewart) “The Jewish claim to Palestine on the basis of prophecy is declared throughout the New Testament to have been abrogated.”[142] In 1939, he again wrote to the Times; “It is the affirmation of the N.T. that ancient Israel, ‘Israel after the flesh’ has forfeited its claims to the promises … the prophecies were fulfilled spiritually with the coming of the Messiah.”[143]
Brown’s successor, Bishop Weston Henry Stewart
(co-author of the above statement) wrote to the Anglo-American Committee in
March 1946 that “there was no truth to the Zionist claims to Palestine, based
on Old Testament history and prophecies. As far as the Christian understanding
is concerned, the church became the new spiritual Israel and heir to the
promises, where racial and other barriers are broken down.”[144] The
Bishop did however protest a pro-Arab document circulated by the Christian
Church Union in Palestine that claimed the Christian community was “in complete
agreement both in principle and in deed with the Moslems[sic]” and was signed
by members of the Arab-Anglican community.[145]
This fine distinction between opposing Zionism and
supporting Arab nationalism was lost on the majority of local Anglicans,
especially as the bishop’s anti-Zionism was often expressed in what were
essentially Arab Nationalist forms such as opposing Jewish immigration. “In
addition non-Anglican Arab Christians from upper class families, such as Khalil
Sakakini, studied at Anglican institutions and joined the general discourse of
activism found among their peers. The fact that these anti-Zionist Arab-Anglicans
also received support rather than reprimands from the local English clergy can
only mean that they were not only sympathetic but that anti-Zionism may have
been a pre-requisite for advancement in the church.”[146] Najib
Nassar, editor of al-Karmil in Haifa was also a convert to Protestantism.
Looking further ahead, in 1954, Bishop Stewart would,
along with the Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, object to references to
“Israel”, and Jesus as “the hope of Israel” being made in the WCC Second
Assembly. [Jesus as the "hope of Israel" is in fact
a New Testament title, Acts 28:20 - Stewart was going against the New as well
as the Old Testaments, both the revealed will of God!] Also
at this Assembly, the Lebanese Christian Dr Charles Mallik was quoted as
denying that the return of the Jews to Israel was “associated with the
fulfilment of Christian hope.”[147] Here also, the representative of the Coptic Church in Egypt stated that it
would both be a disservice to the cause of the World Council in the Near East
to mention Israel, and that it would not be politically expedient to mention
Israel. The motion eliminating references to Israel was carried 195 to 150.
Palestinian Anglicans adopt replacement theology.
Palestinian Anglicans often adopted positions quite at
odds with their 'mother’ churches. As seen however, the bishops sent from these
mother churches increasingly pandered and found theological excuses for their
weaknesses, rather than acting like Paul in Acts 20:20 “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that
was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, … 27
For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.”
Many Protestants worldwide were sympathetic to Zionism,
which the Protestant Arabs adamantly opposed. “One might have anticipated that
Protestant Arabs would be more amenable towards Zionism in keeping with the
pro-Zionist tendencies of their broader Protestant communities. Quite the
opposite was in fact the case. … Few
were prepared to sacrifice their nationalist aspirations in order that Biblical
prophecies concerning the 'homecoming' of the Jews might be fulfilled.”[149] Protestant Arabs tended to be highly fluent in English and well acquainted with
sections of the British public, on account of which, they were often strongly
represented in delegations sent to London for the purpose of representing the
Arab cause before the British public and government.
While it was generally unusual to hear strong expressions
of anti-Semitism among Western Protestants, the same did not hold true for
Protestant Arabs. During a nationalist gathering in Nazareth held in March
1920, for example, the resident Anglican priest, As'ad Mansur, gave a speech in
which he explained that the Jews had no right to Palestine as it had been taken
from them on account of their having rejected the Messiah.[150] This was not just nationalism – it was Replacement theology by Christians in
the land of Israel. They had thought about it, and decided they had a vested
interest in denying the Jews a homeland! A few years later, the Evangelical
Youth Club in Haifa would invite a Muslim speaker to deliver a talk along the
same lines.
Protestant Arab scholars themselves, rather than also
addressing this urgent and central question from a Biblical point of view,
sought rather to glory in and turn the spotlight onto their own ethnicity. They
focused on Palestinian folk culture to “showcase the centrality of
Palestinian Arab Christian communities to the history of Christianity rather
than highlighting the Biblical [Jewish] sites that were a more typical
focus of Western Christian interest.”[151] Note that over the past 30 years, the term “living stones” to describe
Palestinian Christians, first popularised by Elias Chacour, has likewise become
a central element of the Palestinian Christian narrative to Western churches.
In the 20s and 30s the PNCC agitated to be recognized as an indigenous religious community This remains a problem to this day, as the Protestant community demand to be recognised as fully Arab. The CMS and bishopric considered this to be a backward step spiritually and opposed it as “primitive.” The Arab Episcopalians however wanted to make their ethnic and cultural commitment to Palestinian Arabism clear. They did not want to be associated with British or Zionist interests.
This need to be recognised and accepted by the wider Arab (Muslim) population was heightened during the 36 Revolt. In his submission to the Peel Commission in 1937, Graham Brown, the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem wrote that the local Christians were not afraid of the educated Muslims, but the revolt was a religious war by the peasantry against Christians as well as Jews.[152] “But they have come to realize that the zeal shown by the Fellahin in the late disturbances was religious and fundamentally in the nature of a Holy War against a Christian Mandate and against Christian people as well as against the Jews.”[153] The Arab Anglicans believed that they needed to be seen to be fully Arab for their own safety, rather than trusting in Christ alone.
An address to the House of Lords by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang
In 1937, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang gave an address to the House of Lords in which he expressed moderate support for the Jewish National Home based on sympathy for Jewish victims of anti-Semitism in Germany, and a theological interpretation of the Jewish return to the Holy Land. He also stated his belief that parts of the city of Jerusalem should be included in the new Jewish state.[154] In the same speech he also expressed sympathy for the Arab population, although he did qualify that he believed them to be at fault in the concurrent Revolt;
how can we fail to
sympathise with the ideals of Zionism? When we consider the history of that most remarkable race,
one of the most remarkable in the world; when we think of the position they
have occupied for centuries as, at the best, an unwelcome and sometimes a
persecuted minority in many countries, and of the way in which, in spite of
all, they have cherished their national ideals; when we think of their
determination to find some means of securing for themselves a place of cultural
influence and of political strength, can we wonder that they should long to
have a home of their own in the original home land of their race? On the other hand, is it not equally
possible to sympathise with the Arabs?
Certainly some episodes have been most blameworthy. I need
not speak of the outbreak of the armed rebellion of 1936. I can but note the strictures passed by the
Commission on the Mufti in Jerusalem with whom I had conversations some
time ago. Here I must, in contrast, pay
tribute to the extraordinary patience and self-restraint of the Jews during
that most difficult time. [concerning] the position of Jerusalem itself. I am bound to say that it
seems to me extremely difficult to justify fulfilling the ideals of Zionism by
excluding them from any place in Zion. How is it possible for us not to
sympathise in this matter with the Jews? We all remember their age-long resolve,
lament, and longing: ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand
forget its cunning.’
They cannot forget Jerusalem in any terms of partition, and, as has been pointed out, the actual population of Jerusalem at the present time is 76,000. Of these, 72,000—one-fifth of the present population of Palestine—dwell within that portion of Jerusalem which is outside the old city walls, outside the region for which the Mandatory Power must undertake special responsibility. There are only 4,000 Jews living within that area. Is it quite inconceivable that that large modern suburb, with these 72,000 people, and containing, I suppose, as it would, the great Hebrew University, should not be assigned to the Jewish State with access to the British Corridor? I feel quite certain, if that could be done, that the objections and difficulties of the Jews might be largely met.[155]
The consequences of abandoning the Gospel for Nationalism
This speech caused a serious rift with the Arab Anglican community. The PNCC letter said they were “sorry for the painful effect the words of his grace have had on the Arabs and especially on the Christians of Palestine … the Christians of Palestine [view these views] with abhorrence.”[156] Arab Episcopalians met with Bishop Graham Brown to object to the term “minority” to describe them – “the Christian Arabs are part of the Arab community.” The Women’s Arab Society also protested the speech. Tawfik Kana’an, in his pamphlet “The Palestine Arab Cause” wrote, “We Arab Christians … are those who at present hate most bitterly the unchristian policy of Great Britain.”[157]
At the same time, that is, during the Arab Revolt, the Arab Episcopalians strengthened their ties with Haj Husseini. In 1937 Ilyas Marmura (Cannon of St Pauls and chairman of the PNCC) went at his request to London to the 50th celebration of the Jerusalem Diocese to present the Arab case. He also wrote to Lang that “some ten thousand Arab Christian men are thinking of going over to Islam.”[158] It is of interest that he did not want the Partition ended because Arab Christians would be abandoned to Muslim or Jewish overlordship. What he wanted was a continued Mandate with much reduced Jewish immigration. “But for many Arab Episcopalians, the damage was done. Rather than engage in further political activity through the church, they began to consider the more radical possibilities of conversion to Islam or emigration … One of Graham Brown’s Palestinian friends told the bishop that the idea of ‘accepting Islam’ was being much discussed … In his own house in the last week, Christians had said it was their opinion that they must face the possibility.” Marmura, in a letter to Lambeth Palace “related that there was a movement of Arab Christians toward converting to Islam as a mode of joining in the nationalist movement.” He wrote “they urged Christians to unite with Moslems under the banner of Islam.”[159] “Although firm evidence is lacking on the question of precisely how many Palestinian Episcopalians may have converted to Islam, the frequency with which this theme occurs suggests that conversion to Islam had genuinely become a possible response to the situation in which the community found itself.”[160]
Four things stand out here. Husseini is at this time leading a violent revolt which has already seen many Jews murdered, and here this Anglican church official is happy to do his bidding. His letter to Lang states that “10,000” Arab Anglican men are prepared to abandon their faith over the issue. This confirms that their primary loyalty is to their nationalism/ethnicity, not to Jesus! This is no “going beyond the city gate” but rather a mass apostacy. That he wants the Mandate continued is interesting. While doing their bidding, he is also fearful of being ruled by the Muslim community! Given that millions of Christians had already been massacred by Muslims in the surrounding areas (Turkey, Iraq, Syria etc), and that this would continue right up until the present, such fears were well founded. They do however undermine the “we have always got on well” narrative proposed by so many Palestinian Christians. Finally, as will be shown, well educated, urban Christian leaders such as Ilyas were well informed as to events in Europe. Knowing that Jews are being terrorised in Nazi Germany, his response as a Christian was to offer them no room in the inn. No Arab hospitality here.
British Anglicans in Palestine; in the absence of their sharing to Gospel with the Arabs, the Arabs shared their own nationalism with them
British Anglicans in Palestine also objected to Lang’s speech. Graham Brown objected to its negative view of Husseini (!!) and to the idea of West Jerusalem in a Jewish state. With other senior British Anglicans in Palestine, he wrote a memo outlining the bishopric’s view on Partition. In “Some Christian considerations in regard to the partition problem” by Graham Brown, 1937 he wrote; “For many leading British Anglicans in Palestine, Zionism and the idea of a Jewish state seems to threaten Christian interests in the Holy Land.”[161] Graham Brown wrote to Lang in 1937; “Christian Arabs are under no illusion as to their possible ultimate fate. Although they realise that under an Arab National Government it might mean submergence or at least discrimination and persecution, yet they would prefer an Arab regime to a Jewish one.”[162] Mabel Warburton, the Middle East Adviser in London to Rev A C MacInnes, and Secretary of the mission likewise wrote; “of course immigration should have been suspended long ago. … I am very sorry for the Christian Arabs who find themselves in a great dilemma between their Christian principles and their national feelings.”[163]
Here again, ideas of Muslim/Christian harmony are discredited by the senior British Anglicans in Palestine at the time. Lang specified the Jewish new Jerusalem in his speech as being realistically belonging within the Jewish state. On what basis the British Anglicans objected to this are not clear. If Mable Warburton reflects wider British Anglican sentiment about the virtue of suspending Jewish immigration from Nazi Germany, this is again utterly shameful.
Their support however “could not undo the damage inflicted by Lang’s speech.”[164] Nicola Saba wrote to the CMS; “to end this note without some reference to the sufferings our congregations have to undergo on account of the theory now and anon expounded by certain dignitaries of the Church of England relating to the return of the Jews to Palestine. Although as individuals we do not believe this doctrine agrees with our interpretation of the New Testament, there can be no doubt that, being in communion with the Church of England we are as a body suspected of holding the same view. What makes it worse for us is that some of the missionary workers in Palestine stick to what is termed to be the declared doctrine of the Church of England.”[165] “In many people’s minds missionaries are regarded as political agents – associated with the move to make Palestine a National Home for the Jews …” This letter makes clear that the idea of the Biblical return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel was still being preached by some Anglican missionaries to the Palestinian church [and largely rejected by them] even during the 1930s.
April 1947, the PNCC sent a telegram to the UN referencing Palestine’s Christian history to call on Christians to support the Palestinian cause. “In the name of Christianity and from the city of Christ … declare Palestine an independent country.”[166]
Conclusion
“You were
running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?”
(Galatians 5:7)
The Anglican church began their work in Palestine with
attitudes and a Biblical basis light years ahead of the ancient churches
already there. A mission to the Jewish people, a belief that the Jewish people
would return to the land of Israel, and a conviction that God would use this
(Anglican) ministry to preach Jesus to them, as part of the prophetic plan of
God as revealed in both the Old and New Testaments, was utterly foundational to
the existence of Anglicanism in Palestine.[167] Rightly added to this came a desire to encourage and strengthen the ancient
churches. How then did it all go so terribly wrong? Nearly killed off by the
High Church, they nevertheless made the fatal mistake of placing High Church
ecumenicalism over the clear demands of the Gospel. Once they did this, and deliberately
with-held the life-giving waters from Orthodox people desperate for it, they
largely ceased to have any reason or right to exist.
Faced with this self-imposed spiritual roadblock,
with nowhere else to direct their energies, second and third generation
Palestinian Anglicans reverted to the sins of their Orthodox ancestors; an
obsession with political activism in the service of Arab nationalism. This in
itself demanded a rejection of God’s promises to the Jewish people, and thus a
further degradation of their original mandate. At present they expend their
energies defending their own ethnicity, and Palestinian rejection of Jewish
rights in the foolish hope that this will endear them to the Muslim majority.
They act only in the interests of their own community.
Having rejected evangelism, they now celebrate their impotence. They refuse to share the Gospel with Muslims, Jews or even other Christians. Arab Anglicans essentially abandoned their baptism and defined themselves almost exclusively by their ethnicity, their flesh. This selfish and barren policy has been utterly destructive and needs to be repented of and rejected.
2 Corinthians 6:14-17 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." 17 "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you."
What followed was a virtual masterclass in the distortion of Scripture (2 Peter 3:16). Scripture was declared to only be the word of God when it affirmed their flesh! Any that challenged or convicted them were ignored or twisted. Given that the Holy Spirit came to convict the world of sin and righteousness, this would constitute blasphemy of the Holy Spirit! All they had to do was to welcome the stranger, the refugee fleeing pogroms and persecution. Beyond that, as Christians, they should have been aware of God’s promises, and also of the Jewish genealogy of Jesus. They could have taken comfort from the promises of God, seeing in the Jewish return proof of the faithfulness of their God. Like Pharaoh, they could have said, we love Jesus, we are so thankful to his family of the flesh, here, come and live with us, come, share, we want to bless you.
Genesis 45:16-20 When the news reached Pharaoh's palace that Joseph's brothers had come, Pharaoh and all his officials were pleased. 17 Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Tell your brothers, 'Do this: Load your animals and return to the land of Canaan, 18 and bring your father and your families back to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you can enjoy the fat of the land.' 19 "You are also directed to tell them, 'Do this: Take some carts from Egypt for your children and your wives, and get your father and come. 20 Never mind about your belongings, because the best of all Egypt will be yours.' "
Jewish settlement was not intended to drive Arabs away, they bought the land legally, the local Christian population could have helped them, taught them farming etc, and forged a bond of friendship, such as the Druze have. Instead, they chose to side with the Muslim majority, often motivated by fear of Muslim violence against themselves, hoping thereby to ingratiate themselves and so avoid persecution. Given that Muslim communities murdered over 1.5 million Christians within the wider Ottoman Empire from 1886-1923 (crucial years for the creation of Jewish-Christian relationships within Palestine), and given that some of these massacres occurred in Lebanon and Damascus, this fear was solidly based, but a community of faith would have prayed for the strength to be faithful and do good. Beyond all this, they could have found in Scripture great purpose and destiny for their own community.
Romans 11:30-32 Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. 32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Rather than demanding that Christian Zionism had no place for them, they could have prayed, read and wrestled with this issue (it was of vital importance to them!) and discovered that God planned to use Gentile believers to show mercy to the Jewish people, and thereby save them. What an incredible responsibility and privilege could have been theirs, but they chose to ally with the very people who were massacring Christians across the Middle East, and to resist and reject the gracious words of Scripture to them.
Many Arab Anglicans indeed chose emigration. Although Protestant Arabs tended to associate themselves with the West to a greater degree than did other Christians Arabs, they were also among the most ardent of nationalists. As the new kids, they wanted to show they belonged – they chose not to witness, and rather to stress Arab nationalism. They chose who they belonged to. The last, best chance was gone.
Palestinian Lutherans
[very incomplete]
Regarding the
Lutheran church, the Jerusalem church/congregation went by the name “The
Palestinian Lutheran Church of Jerusalem” while the Bethlehem church was called
“The Lutheran Arab Church of Bethlehem.” According to Lutheran Palestinian
Mitri Raheb, the names illustrate “how strong the self-awareness of the Arab
Christian community had become. Both congregations highlighted their
Arab identity, and the former showed “its sympathy with the Palestinian
national movement.”[168]
In 1936, the Arab Lutheran pastor, Hanna Bachut, who
had previously translated Martin Luther’s Prefaces to the Old Testament
into Arabic, organised, along with others, a number of “Protestant Evenings” to
discuss some of the questions that concerned the community at this time. They
were held every second Thursday at the Arab Lutheran congregation in Bethlehem
to examine “contemporary issues from the standpoint of a Protestant
Interpretation of Scripture and understanding of Revelation.”[169] Among the topics discussed were; “Zionism and the prophets of the Old
Testament”, “Luther’s view of Old Testament Prophecy,” “Luther and Judaism,”
“Christ and Nationalism,” and “How did Jesus relate to his native land.”
This would seem to be an excellent undertaking, seeking to better understand God’s will for the present by examining the Scriptures. Exactly what we would want them to be doing! As Mitri Raheb wrote, “The Arab Protestant Church could not remain unaffected by the incessant waves of Jewish immigration, the determination of the British Mandate to establish a Jewish ‘national homeland’ in Palestine and [conversely,] the strengthening of the Palestinian national movement.”[170]
The problems emerge on several fronts; in the 1930s, German Lutherans were still positive about Luther’s views on Jews.[171] They were thus imbibing poison from a trusted source, a source beyond reproach. Mitri Raheb continues that, before Bachut’s sermon on the Old Testament, “numerous American and English missionaries had infiltrated the countryside and had heralded the influx of Jews to Palestine as a fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy and a sign of ‘one of the last stages of God’s plan of salvation.’” That is, the truth was being proclaimed, and they chose to reject it!
Bachut’s studies were delivered into this context and sought to repudiate these claims as an abuse of the word of God. Bachut preached that the prophecies were “a thing of the past.” The Old Testament was not applicable to the present context but had ceased to be of any relevance. To maintain that these prophecies still had relevance was “as if Christ had not appeared, and as if the Christian Churches did not have a second part in their Bible.”[172] Concerningly, Stalder notes “the ease with which they [Palestinian Lutherans] drew strength from the Lutheran tradition.” If the PNCC were on the brink of losing their faith, the Arab Lutherans had no such problem. “They had no qualms about accepting and highlighting the tradition in which they were reared. They were stanch Lutherans.” They therefore concluded that “the Jews should not feel that they were heirs of the Holy Land.”[173]
“He [Jesus] must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.” (Acts 3:20-21)
“For I tell you
that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth, to
confirm the promises made to the patriarchs” (Romans 15:8)
[1] Rivka Gonen, Contested Holiness: Jewish, Muslim,
and Christian Perspectives on the Temple, KTAV Publishing House 2003 p.138.
[2] A Galilee doctor being a sketch of the career of
Dr. D. W. Torrance of Tiberias by W. P. Livingstone
Published 1923, 51.
[3] Robson 230.
[4] Stalder, 46, Julia Fisher, 92.
[5] This question itself is problematic
– we might have hoped that their primary identity was in Christ, and their
passion was exploring this, not their ethnic origins.
[6] Freas 125-6.
[7]
Mary Rogers, Domestic Life in Palestine, 1862, Preface.
[8] Arthur
George Harper Hollingsworth. Remarks
on the present condition and future prospects of the Jews in Palestine,
1852, 4.
[9] Mark Durie, The Third Way, 179.
[10]
Katz and Kark, The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and Its
Congregation, 516.
[12] Morris and Ze’evi, 25.
[13]
Note also the efforts of the Russian government to “Arabize” the Greek
Orthodox, from the 1840s onwards. Part of their ongoing
battle with the Greeks and the West. Edwar Makhoul, The role of
Palestinian Christians in the Arab National Movement, 13.
[14] Robson 77, William L. Cleveland, The Making of an Arab Nationalist.
125.
[15] Stadler, 87.
[16] Robson, 75.
[17] Robson, 85.
[18] To quote from later in the paper, “At
the extreme, in 1926 Khalil al-Sakakini urged Palestinian Christians to convert
to Islam for the sake of unity in the national movement. On October 5 of 1930,
the editor of al-Karmil, Najib Nassar
likewise wrote a series of articles asserting that the only solution to the
'disputes' between Muslims and Christians was that "the Christians adopt
the Islamic faith. In this way the
constant conflicts which hinder the development of the national movement
[would] be brought to an end.” Arab Orthodox Khalil Iskandar al-Qubrus in 1931
issued a pamphlet entitled “A Call on the Christian Arabs to Embrace Islam.” In
it, he denounced European Christianity as a corrupt religion and accused European
monks and missionaries of sowing discord between Palestine's Muslims and
Christians. By contrast, he described Islam as a benevolent and egalitarian
religion, and concluded by calling on all Arab Christians to become Muslim
"in order to free them from the trivialities of the foreigners and to rid
them of their corruption.” Note that calls, or threats that Palestinian
Christians will convert to Islam if Western churches are not more anti-Zionist
have continued from then, through the 30s and 40s up to the present. It is the
attitude of those who do not know the Gospel (Mark 10:28, Philippians 3:8).
They needed to choose the praises of God not men! To their shame, they chose
rather to conform to this world. Friendship with this world does not work! In
their 1937 “Letter to the bishops of London,” the Anglican PNCC wrote; “After
the fate of the Armenians, the Greeks of Asia Minor, the Assyrians, the
Abyssinians and the Arabs of Palestine, the faith of our Christians is also
being shaken … in the value of Christianity itself …we are greatly afraid that
the tide of nationality will carry many off their feet into unbelief or
apostacy. … Palestine has become a theatre of politics where people have little
thought for anything else. This is making the work of the Church well-nigh
impossible.” Stalder, 164.
And “In 1937 Ilyas Marmura (Cannon of St Pauls and
chairman of the PNCC) went at his request to London to the 50th
celebration of the Jerusalem Diocese to present the Arab case. He
also wrote to Lang that “some ten thousand Arab Christian men are thinking of
going over to Islam.”
[20] Robson, Church
versus Country, 53. Khalidi, Rashid (1997), Palestinian Identity: The Construction of
Modern National Consciousness, Columbia
University Press,
217.
[21] This dispute continues to the
present – see Hatuqa, Dalia. Holy Land for Sale
Foreign Policy January 7, 2019. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/07/holy-land-for-sale/
[22] Robson, 80.
[23] Stalder, 67.
[24]
Kisch, Palestine Diary, 39.
[25] Robson, 80. No documentation for
this statement is provided by Robson. In The Greek Orthodox
Patriarchate of Jerusalem and Its Congregation: Dissent over Real Estate, Itamar
Katz and Ruth Kark, 519 reference Tsimhoni, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate,
102. Tsimhoni in turn references Kisch, Palestine Diary, for the
favourable view, and al Karmel, Feb 28, 1923 presumably for the
statements. The Patriarch was Damian I (or Damianos), 1897-1931. It is of
interest that the Protestant bishop of Jerusalem, Joseph Barclay (1879-1881)
was a close friend of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, who came in person to
welcome him when he arrived at Jaffa, Rafiq Farah, 47. In 1887 the Greek
Orthodox Patriarch indeed wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning his
“fervent desire” (Rafiq Farah, 63) to see the Protestant bishopric
re-established after a brief interregnum. The fourth bishop, George Blyth,
(1887-1914) “believed that the Anglican churches should take the initiative in
recognising the duty towards the Jews; their returning to Christ, will receive
back their ancient prerogatives which they lost, and through their return to
Christ, Christians will perhaps find the key to their unity and renewal.” Rafiq Farah, In Troubled Waters, 71. The Patriarch’s favourable
view of Zionism may then have been influenced by the early Anglican bishops, or
simply an expression of his generous spirit.
[26] Haidoc-Dale, 30.
[27] Robson, 81.
[28] Katz
and Kark, 519.
[29] Freas, 222. This congress seems not
to have had the official status of the congresses of 1923 and 31.
[30] Robson, 89.
[31] Freas 130.
[32] Robson, 97.
[33] Robson, 99.
[34] Haiduc-Dale 33.
[35] Freas 6.
[36] Freas 120.
[37] Kisch,
390. For a much fuller
discussion of this topic, see the section on “blood libels” in Christian
Discrimination against Jews later in the book.
[38] Robson, 99.
[39] Stalder, 67.
[40] Gershon
Nerel, Anti-Zionism in the “Electronic Church” of Palestinian Christianity, 29.
[41] Aviel Schneider, “Greek Orthodox Priest: ‘Israel is the
Great Satan,’” Israel Today, no. 50 (Mar. 2003): 9.
For a more general example, see https://forward.com/fast-forward/430889/canada-priest-fired-anti-israel-judaism/ and also https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-palestinian-christmas-tree-for-terrorists/
[42] Freas, 122.
[43] Stalder, 112.
[44] Stalder, 115.
[45] Stalder, The quote is Stalder’s
interpretation of Jamal’s viewpoint.
[46] Stalder, 130.
[47] These struggles centered on control
of the “holy sites.” These struggles were decided by the Ottoman government,
which under western pressure, issue a firman (a
decree) to secure precedence for the Catholic and the Greek Orthodox Churches
in the holy Christian sites of Jerusalem. Edwar Makhoul, 16. 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 exposes the shame of such
behaviour.
[48] Adriano
E. Ciani, The Vatican, American Catholics and the Struggle for Palestine,
1917-1958: A Study of Cold War Roman Catholic Transnationalism https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1501&context=etd,
80.
[49] Freas, 113.
[50] Tsimhoni 95.
[51] Tsimhoni, 95.
[52] Freas, 116.
[53] Tsimhoni 239-40., Freas, 116.
[55] Ciani,
27.
[56] Ciani,
27.
[57] Ciani,
27.
[58] Ciani,
32.
[59] Ciani,
36.
[61] Tsimhoni, 85.
[62] Haiduc-Dale,
31.
[63] Freas, 118.
[64] Tsimhoni, 85.
[65] Tsimhoni, 85.
[66] Tsimhoni, 86.
[67] Freas, 112 plus fn. 106.
[68] Tsimhoni, 79.
[69] The Vatican Council and the Jews, 221,
298.
[70]
“Patriarch Maximos VI Saigh of Antioch had requested the Pope on behalf of the
bishops of his patriarchate to withdraw the Jewish declaration.” The Vatican Council and the Jews,
145. “Speaking for himself and 5 other middle East Patrirchs, Ignace Gabriel Cardinal
Tappouni, Patriarch of Antioch offered his ‘solemn opposition to the document’
the Melchite Patriarchal Vicar Joseph Tawil of Damascus also called for the
rejection of the document since ‘the benevolence it shows to the Jews might
alienate many Arabs expelled from Palestine.’” Rev. Gregory Blum explained such
strong Eastern opposition to the Jewish statement was not ‘simply due to Arab
pressure’ but ‘We must admit that anti-Jewish sentiment is ancient and deep in
the life of the Church. In particular, certain Eastern liturgies perpetuate the
deicide myth and pronounce dreadful curses on the Jews. Some of the Eastern
bishops have declared that if their faithful were suddenly told that the Jews
were not guilty of deicide, and not an accursed people, they might falter in
their faith, feeling that the teaching in the liturgy is no longer to be
trusted.” 152. after it passed, Maximos asserted that “personal interest” had
guided the vote of many Council Fathers.
… pity due to the massacre of millions of Jews by Nazism and …the fact
that the greater number of Americans have commercial interests with the Jews.”
He added their certainly remains on the foreheads of the Jewish people … the
stain of shame.” Maximos intended that the Jewish people be characterized as a
shamed and reprobate people. He concluded, “Israel can be defeated.” 172-3. The
Vatican Council and the Jews,
[72]
See Haiduc-Dale, (2015)
81-84.
[73]
Freas, 21.
[74] Farah, 18. Note, Robson places it at
1826. Church verses Country, 51.
[75] It should be noted that the American
ABCFM established a mission from 1821 to 1844 in Palestine, under the
missionaries Fisk and Parsons. Stalder, 93.
[76] Farah, 20.
[77] “a
superficial and unfortunate scheme for setting up a joint Lutheran and Anglican
Bishopric in Jerusalem seemed to Newman the last straw to his waning
allegiance. With a breaking heart he left the English Church, and in 1845 he
joined the Church of Rome.” http://anglicanhistory.org/england/misc/bell_oxford1933.html
“a dilemma was posed for the friends of the Oxford
Movement by the joint determination of England and Prussia to place a
Protestant bishop in Jerusalem in 1841. As this was a step motivated both by
Prussian-English desire to counter growing Russian influence in the Middle East
and by a missionary interest, on what grounds might Newman and his circle take
objection? In a word, it was prejudicial to the existing claims to Christian jurisdiction
in that region exercised by Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions (which
actually had adherents there). Moreover, this arrangement drew the Church of
England into formal cooperation with Lutheranism, a movement that they
abhorred. The case of the Jerusalem bishopric is important to the story of the
Oxford Movement for what it forced into public view: the religious instincts of
the movement were other-than-Protestant and contrary to Britain’s growing
imperial aspirations.” http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/review/the-oxford-movement-europe-and-the-wider-world-18301930
[78] Farah, 32.
[79] Farah, 23.
[80]
Farah, 24. Written under duress.
[81] Farah, 25.
[82] Farah, 31.
[83] Farah, 32.
[84] Makhoul, 17.
[85] Stalder, 91, fn41. See also
Farah, 30; it was the establishment of this Protestant bishopric which
occasioned the re-establishment of the Latin (Catholic) Patriarchate of
Jerusalem in 1848, the first such since 1187.
[86] Stalder, 91.
[87] Stalder, 97.
[88] Stalder, 98.
[89] Farah, 38.
[90] Farah, 38.
[91]
Quoted in Stalder, 104.
[92] Stalder, 105.
[93] Farah, 47.
[94] See for example, Ya’ari, The Goodly Heritage, 55, 65+.
[95] Farah, 67.
[96] Stalder, 107.
[97] Farah, 72.
[98] Farah, 72.
[99] Farah, 74.
[100]
Farah, 71.
[101]
Farah, 71.
[102]
Farah, 72.
[103]
Farah, 74.
[104]
Stalder, 134.
[105]
Farah, 65.
[107]
Robson, 131.
[108]
Stalder, 155.
[109]
Stalder, 153.
[110]
Robson, 135.
[111]
Tsimhoni, 48+ 138.
[112]
Stalder, 159.
[113]
Roland Loffler, quoted in
Stalder, 159.
[114]
Farah, 82.
[115]
See Stalder, 160.
[116]
Tsimhoni, 1976, 86.
[117]
Robson, 137.
[118]
Robson, 140.
[119]
Robson, 199.
[120]
Robson, 241.
[121]
Census of Palestine, 1922; Census of Palestine, 1931., quoted in Frantzman, S.,
Glueckstadt, B. W., and Kark, R., “The Anglican Church in Palestine and Israel:
Colonialism, Arabization and Land ownership, 6.
[122]
Farah86.
[123]
Farah, 87.
[124]
Farah, 87.
[125]
Farah, 88.
[127]
Liora Halperin, The Battle over Jewish Students in the Christian Missionary
Schools of Mandate Palestine (Middle Eastern Studies, 2014) 4.
[128]
Stalder, 154.
[129]
Farah, 91.
[130]
Farah, 101. Compare Farah’s
own description of these events with that of Hillel Cohen, 1929; Year Zero
of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
[131]
Farah, 92.
[132]
Tsimhoni, Daphne, ‘The Arab Christians and the Palestinian Arab National
Movement During the Formative Stage’, in Ben- Dor (ed.), The Palestinians and
the Middle East Conflict, 1978 pp. 73–98, 87.
[133]
Tsimhoni, Daphne; 1978, 87.
[134]
Farah, 83.
[135]
Robson, 128.
[136]
Robson, 152, Robson, Church
verses Country, 57, Stalder, 163.
[137]
Stalder, 164.
[138]
See also the section “Biblical issues” for more on this topic.
[139]
Farah, 98.
[140]
Farah, 111.
[141]
Robson, 152., Farah, 111-2.
[142]
Farah, 115.
[143]
Farah, 112.
[144]
Farah, 124.
[145]
Frantzman, Glueckstadt, Kark, 7.
[146]
Frantzman, Glueckstadt, Kark,
7.
[147]
Stalder, 183.
[148]
Stalder, 183.
[149]
Freas, 132-3.
[150]
Freas, 147.
[151]
Robson, 142.
[152]
Robson, 151.
[153]
Quoted by Robson, Church verses Country, 237.
[154] Robson, Church,
State, 458.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03086534.2011.598751?scroll=top&needAccess=true
[155] https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/1937-07-20/debates/57eece61-93e4-4731-b020-edb140581d9b/Palestine
[156]
Robson, 152.
[157]
Robson, “Church vs Country,”
58/9.
[158]
Robson, 153.
[159]
Robson, “Church vs Country,”
64.
[161]
Robson, 154.
[162]
Robson, “Church vs Country,”
60.
[163]
Robson, 154.
[164]
Robson 155, Robson, “Church vs
Country,” 62.
[165]
Robson, 155.
[166]
Robson, “Church vs Country,”
64.
[167]
See Farah 25, fn3.
[168]
Stalder, 158.
[169]
Stalder, 167.
[170]
Stalder, 168.
[171]
Contemporary to this, shortly after Kristallnacht, Bishop Martin Sasse
of Thuringia (who had joined the Nazi Party in 1930) published a compendium of
Martin Luther’s anti-Semitic statements. In the forward, he applauded the
burning of the synagogues: “On November 10, 1938, on Luther’s birthday, the
synagogues are burning in Germany.” Within the book itself, he called Luther
“the greatest anti-Semite of his time, the warner of his people against the
Jews.” The bishop further declared that the burning of the synagogues was the
crowning moment in the Führer’s divinely blessed fight for the complete
emancipation of the German people.
In 1543, Luther declared: What shall we Christians do
with this damned, rejected race of Jews?
Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blasphemy and
cursing, we cannot tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies,
curses, and blasphemy. ... Let me give
you my honest advice: First, to
set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man
will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honour of
our LORD and of Christendom.
Bergen states that “Luther’s tract Against the Jews
and their Lies, with its vicious characterizations of Jews as parasites and
its calls to ‘set their synagogues and schools on fire,’ was widely quoted and
circulated in Hitler’s Germany.” When a theological student named Krugel
resigned from the S.A. in protest at the violence, an S.A. official replied:
“It should be realized that the wicked Nazis have simply carried out the
instruction of Luther. The synagogues have been burnt, just as the father of
Protestantism required.” C. Barnes, They Conspire
Against Your People, 271.
[172]
Stalder, 168.
[173]
Stalder, 172.
