Category Archives: Nonviolence

Economic Justice, Nonviolence

Why are these Christians denying that children are starving in Gaza?

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Children are starving in Gaza, with many being malnourished and some losing their hair and will to live.

The image above were taken by the BBC and the one below by the AP. They show five-month-old Siwar and two-year-old Mayar, both severely malnourished due to the food shortage in Gaza.

Worsening hunger in Gaza has sparked global condemnation and intense diplomatic pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow humanitarian aid to reach the over 2 million people trapped in the territory, after aid had been entirely blocked for more than two months in violation of human rights.

On Sunday evening, Netanyahu said the blockade would be lifted, acknowledging that a growing “starvation crisis” was beginning to harm Israel’s international reputation. He said that he would allow a “minimal” amount of aid due to “diplomatic reasons“. According to the UN, the aid Israel now allows is far from sufficient.

Blocking all emergency aid for over two months so that children starve, become malnourished and are forced to eat garbage is a crime against humanity and never, ever okay. Hamas is a terrible terrorist organization that has committed many other crimes against humanity. But forcing children to starve is a crime against humanity and the unauthorized use of starvation as a weapon of war no matter how terrible Hamas is. It is not something that can be done.

It is always wrong to let children starve, and therefore it was wrong for Netanyahu’s government to deliberately and systematically refuse to let in emergency aid so that children began to starve. That doesn’t excuse the crimes Hamas commits, just as Hamas’ crimes are also no excuse for Netanyahu letting children starve.

Yair Golan, head of the opposition Democratic Party and a former deputy chief of the Israeli military, criticized the government’s conduct. He argued that the military campaign had been excessively violent and that much of the harm was already irreversible.

Speaking to Reshet Bet radio, Golan compared Israel’s growing international isolation to that of apartheid-era South Africa.

“A sane country doesn’t engage in fighting against civilians, doesn’t kill babies as a hobby and doesn’t set the expulsion of a population as a goal,” he said.

Over 15,000 children have now died in Gaza, according to Save the Children.

Still, this past week, Christians who support Israel’s war in Gaza have said and written to me:

  • That no children have died in Gaza.
  • That there is no famine in Gaza.
  • That there is famine in Gaza, but you mustn’t talk about it because that’s exactly what Hamas wants.
  • That there is famine in Gaza, but Israel has not blocked food shipments there for over two months.
  • That Israel has blocked food shipments to Gaza for over two months, which has led to famine—but it’s still entirely Hamas’ fault.
  • That Israel has blocked food shipments to Gaza, and that’s completely justified since Israel has no responsibility to feed Gaza’s civilian population, even after the Israeli army destroyed 70 percent of all agricultural land in Gaza.
  • That starving Palestinians are just “reaping what they’ve sown.”
  • That God wants the Palestinian people to be wiped out just like certain nations were exterminated in the Old Testament.

This is insane. It’s as if one has to live in a parallell reality in order to defend Israeli war crimes. Or blatantly support war crimes and genocidal rhetoric, calling for Palestinians to be “wiped out” upfront.

What would Jesus do?

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

Nonviolence

Israeli Soldiers Say They Were Ordered to Kill Civilians and Children in Gaza

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Israeli soldiers are now speaking out about how they have been ordered to kill men, women, and children in Gaza because “no one counts as a civilian,” “everyone is a terrorist.” They have created a “kill zone” that covers a third of all Gaza’s farmland, where every building has been destroyed and every Palestinian is shot at—for instance, when they come to collect food.

These are some of the most horrifying war stories I have ever read. Just a few weeks ago I heard a Pentecostal pastor claim that Israel does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties and that the International Criminal Court’s charge that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested for war crimes should not be taken seriously.

But Israeli soldiers themselves say this is happening. Their accounts appear in a report by Breaking the Silence—an Israeli organization founded by combat veterans—and are corroborated by The Guardian, which conducted its own interviews. The existence of the kill zone—where virtually every building has been razed—can also be confirmed by satellite imagery.

These are very real war crimes.

One soldier, Yotam Vilk, recounts how they were ordered to shoot every Palestinian who entered the kill zone. He personally saw twelve people killed, including a teenage boy.

A sergeant in the Israeli army said they were told to kill every man who entered the zone, while women and children were to be driven away with tank fire. Different units seem to have had different rules. One captain said that every person who entered the kill zone “was considered a threat and sentenced to death,” regardless of whether it was a woman or a child.

Another captain described how the pain of Hamas’s horrific terror attack on 7 October 2023 made Israeli soldiers want to inflict the same pain in return:

“[We] set out on this war out of insult, out of pain, out of anger, out of the sense that we had to succeed. This distinction [between civilians and terrorist infrastructure], it didn’t matter. Nobody cared. We decided on a line … past which everyone is a suspect.”

“A lot of us went there, I went there, because they killed us and now we’re going to kill them. And I found out that we’re not only killing them – we’re killing them, we’re killing their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs. We’re destroying their houses and pissing on their graves.”

Hate breeds more hate, violence breeds more violence. Hamas’s heinous terror attack does not justify Israeli shelling of civilians. There are no winners, no “good” armies in this dreadful war. Let us stand on the side of peace and life in this terrible conflict.

Economic Justice, Nonviolence, Politics, Spirituality

Make America Christian Again

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Since the early 1980s, with the rise of the Moral Majority Movement and the Religious Right, much of the American political and cultural landscape has been dominated by a very specific type of Christian, commonly known as conservative evangelicals (though I think this is a misnomer).

This wing of the Church has successfully taken over much of American media – including radio, television, and the Internet. They have successfully lobbied in politics at every level of government. They were a major force behind the elections of several presidents – Ronald Reagan, both George Bushes, and now Donald Trump. Their version of Christianity and its connections with power and money are all throughout American society. Even in the small town where I grew up, I was once active in a conservative evangelical church in which pamphlets were handed out instructing their congregants how to vote, and I recall another instance at another local church in which the local Republican Party came by for signatures after worship.

This partnership between American big business, politics, and conservative churches seems like it has always been the case. For many of us, the last 40 years feel like a lifetime (and as someone born in the early 90s, it has been a lifetime). However, we must remember that this has not always been this way.

Continue reading Make America Christian Again →
Nonviolence, Spirituality

Fools for Christ: How to Respond to Un-Christ-Like Leaders 

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The day after every U.S. Presidential Inauguration, Washington National Cathedral (of the Episcopal Church) hosts an interfaith National Prayer Service. Normally, this event does not get a lot of attention. It is a mundane tradition of American civic religion. This year was different, however. 

            Bishop Mariann Budde delivered the homily for the service. In her homily, she took a few moments to remind President Trump of the importance of showing mercy to others, especially the most vulnerable and marginalized in our communities. Trump and his supporters responded to this homily by claiming that Bishop Budde was “politicizing” the faith. Trump specifically called her a “so-called Bishop” and “Radical Left hard line Trump hater”. He also demanded an apology from the bishop and the Episcopal Church. 

Continue reading Fools for Christ: How to Respond to Un-Christ-Like Leaders  →
Nonviolence, Politics

Evangelicals Call Jesus “Weak” for Promoting “Liberal Talking Points”

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Russell Moore used to be one of the top officials of the Southern Baptist Convention and is currently the Editor in Chief of Christianity Today. Last year, he was interviewed by NPR and explained why he thinks American Christianity is in crisis:

Russell Moore

It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — “turn the other cheek” — [and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?”

And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the response would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.

I’m sure many want to discard this as some extreme, uncommon view among a very small minority of church goers, in spite of Moore telling us that multiple pastors has told him similar stories. However, the vital question is not how many evangelicals have a heretical view of Jesus’ words and teaching, but how this situation could even arise in the first place.

And it’s not that mysterious when you think about it, is it? Moore himself has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump and what the support for him among white evangelicals has done with their movement. With his adultery, sex with pornstars, constant lies, mocking of disabled people, hate against immigrants, disrespect for the poor and other sins, Trump is extremely unlike Jesus. Yet, he is constantly portrayed by many evangelicals as the one to save the country, sometimes in very blasphemous ways, which Trump himself makes sure to capitalize on:

And so, it’s not strange that when some evangelicals who are told over and over again that a Christian champion looks like Trump cannot recognize the true Jesus. As Russell Moore said in the very same interview:

I think if we’re going to get past the blood and soil sorts of nationalism or all of the other kinds of kinds of totalizing cultural identities, it’s going to require rethinking what the church is. And I don’t think that’s something new. I think it’s very old. I think it’s recovering a first-century understanding of what it means to be the church.

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

Nonviolence, Politics

The United States of Assassinations

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Assassination attempts are always horrendous, evil and sinful, and we condemn the attempted murder of Donald Trump in the strongest terms. No political disagreement is an excuse for violence. Yet, the United States has a dark history of political assassinations – Lincoln, Kennedy, Luther King – as well as assassination attempts. And before Trump, there was Pence.

In this election cycle, many seem to have forgotten the attempted assassinations of Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress on the January 6th storming in 2021 when Trump supporters tried to overturn the results from the 2020 presidential election. Some of them had even made a noose, shouting that it was time to hang Mike Pence for accepting the election results.

Trump has repeatedly supported the January 6th rioters, calling them great patriots, and has even expressed support for those who shouted “Hang Mike Pence” according to his White House chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows.

Of course, this does in no way legitimize or excuse the assassination attempt of Trump. As a peace organization, we reject all typs of violence, both when it comes from Trump’s camp as well as when its directed towards it.

Violence is all too often a vicious cycle: sin that leads to sin that leads to sin. After Trump had been hit and the Secret Service had killed the attacker, his bodyguards wanted to immediately take him to a safe area but the former president ordered them to wait so that he could raise his fist to the audience and shout: “Fight!”

The audience loved it, and even some in the non-MAGA crowd have called it “badass”. At the Republican convention where Trump was nominated as presidential candidate in spite of being a convicted felon, the audience shouted “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as he entered the stage with a damaged ear from the attack.

This conflict narrative of fighting is strangely combined with calls for unity, primarily directed at political opponents. Trump’s speech at the convention, which was his first after the assassination attempt, called for unity and respect for a couple of minutes only to then go after the Democrats for over an hour, calling them dangerous and a threat to democracy that uses the justice system for illegitimate “witch hunts”. Meanwhile, president Joe Biden was asked by reporter Lester Holt to stop pointing out facts about Trump in the name of unity, including when Trump welcomed and laughed about a political opponent being attacked with a hammer.

Do you see the double standards here? Trump and many of his supporters have welcomed political violence and threats of violence multiple times, but when political violence is aimed at Trump the demand is not only that his critics should denounce the violence (which, of course, they should) but also denounce factually correct statements that are critical of Trump, such as him being a threat to democracy with his disdain for election results that don’t go his way. And if calls for unity is incompatible with talking about threats to democracy, why don’t Trump’s supporters criticize him when he described the Democrats as a threat to democracy?

Because of the very fact that we’re against all violence, we feel obliged to remind everyone that the Trump movement is in no way foreign to assassination attempts and deadly threats. Violence begets more violence – what’s needed is the way of the Prince of Peace who tells us to love our enemies and reject all kinds of killing.

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

Nonviolence, Politics

Choosing Another Messiah

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by Ramone Romero.

I did not die so that you could defeat,
steal from, kill and destroy your enemies.
I died so that you would love them
as I loved you while you were My enemies.

What do you want, My children?

Do you want Me and My kingdom
or do you want Barabbas
and what he fought and killed for?
You cannot have both.

Woe! Woe! Woe!
My people are choosing Barabbas,
following him, and teaching his ways!
They reject Me for another ‘Jesus’!

Turn, My people!
Turn from your ways and be saved!
For the path you are choosing
leads only to death!

I give life through the Cross
—not through the sword!
If you live by the sword,
you will die by the sword.

*****

Ramone Romero is an artist based in Osaka, Japan. 

—

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

(art: “The Release of Barabbas” and “Follow the Lamb”, by Ramone Romero)

Nonviolence

What if Jesus Entered Gaza?

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by Sune Fahlgren.

This advent, Matthew 21 will be read in churches all over the globe, telling the story of when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Let us imagine Jesus instead approaching Gaza City… The Prince of Peace has heard the cries from over two million people, completely without future and hope. What happens when he rides into war-torn Gaza?

A gigantic humanitarian disaster is already a fact. Jesus knows this and therefore chooses to see reality with his own eyes during a few days of temporary ceasefire.

The disciples have rushed ahead to arrange permission through the now only possible border crossing at Rafah, a place that Jesus passed with his parents during their flight to Egypt. The disciples present Jesus as the supreme leader of the approximately 300 Christians remaining. They want to celebrate the advent of hope with Jesus’s radical message of peace at the center.

The stir is great at Rafah during the temporary ceasefire, with both prisoner exchanges and queues of long-haul trucks with aid. Like everyone else – diplomats, healthcare, and aid workers, truck drivers – Jesus must go through security procedures. Even his sandals are x-rayed. However, he is completely unarmed. Jesus and three of his disciples are allowed in.

Inside the Gaza Strip, which is no larger than Las Vegas, some young boys offer Jesus a donkey to ride on. Cars exist, but gasoline is now lacking. Lamps exist, but there is no longer electricity. Water exists in springs, but it is not drinkable.

Jesus’s path goes through a moonscape. Old monasteries and Christian memorials from desert fathers and mothers are now just grains of sand. Israeli military operations in 2008, 2012, 2014, and now 2023 have dropped tens of thousands of bombs, causing devastation of unimaginable proportions. Every teenager in Gaza has been traumatized multiple times.

The closer Jesus gets to Gaza City, the stronger the sewage stench from the Mediterranean. There are no longer any functioning purification plants. All sewage is flushed into the sea. Even the once beautiful beaches with fishing boats are now a ticking bomb.

Jesus rides slowly into Gaza City, which has become a “ghost town”. He recites aloud the old prophetic words: “Prepare the way for the Lord in the wilderness, make a straight path in the desert for our God…” Then Jesus begins to pronounce names of places where violence has triumphed in modern times: Guernica, Oradour, Babij Jar, Katyń, Lidice, Sharpeville, Treblinka, Hanoi, Rwanda… “And in advent 2023, we must add Gaza,” says Jesus with sorrow in his voice.

The remaining people in Gaza City have heard about the unusual visit and come running. In the absence of anything else, they lay their t-shirts on the ground. Some have made palm leaves out of bomb scrap. Some young men dance dabke in front of the donkey ride, and children sing along the way “Biladi, ya ardi” (“My homeland, my earth”). Jesus is hailed as a prophet, a liberator.

The disciples start to get worried. Surely Jesus shouldn’t be this political? He could be killed as a supporter of Hamas. Silence the children! They are singing the national anthem. But Jesus calms the anxious:

“Strangely enough, there is currently a unique space for action for all involved parties. I want to talk to the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians about their responsibility, and offer a vision of Gaza as a thriving free trade area in the Mediterranean – like Singapore in Asia. I want to meet with Netanyahu, and as a Jew, plead for the peace talks to be resumed for the sake of Israel’s own best.”

Jesus reminds that he has already delivered a speech to humanity known as the “Sermon on the Mount”. A message of bold kindness and radical mercy. It is now the mission of his disciples to turn this manifesto into socio-politics and broad popular movements. Violence must not obliterate politics! The Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt argued that “only through politics does real power and freedom develop.”

Nativity scene in the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, Palestine, Christmas 2023

We, who in thought accompany Jesus into Gaza, probably find it hard to see a solution to the war that is now raging. But still, it is not only the violence and nationalism of the warring parties that prevent a just peace, but the self-absorption of many at political or at “biblical” and other religious positions. My question is therefore: Where are the broad alliances, built on respect for each other, where we dare to seek out the core of the conflict?

Gaza is a microcosm of evil and barbarity in our time, but also of simple people’s distress, courage, and resilience. To imagine Jesus riding into Gaza highlights the horrors of war: the arrogance of power, the ongoing displacement, and the vulnerable situation of civilians.

Sune Fahlgren is associate professor of practical theology at the University College Stockholm, Sweden. This is a modified translation of an article he wrote for the Swedish newspaper Dagen.

Nonviolence

A Prayer for Israel and Gaza

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God, you are the light that darkness cannot overcome. You are the Prince of Peace and the Reconciler, you make the impossible possible.

Protect all those affected by the war between Hamas and Israel. May the horrific acts of terror be stopped, may those taken hostage be freed, may those seeking refuge from rockets and bombs be spared, and may this terrible conflict come to an end.

I pray especially for the children on both sides who are the most vulnerable—hold your hand over them, God, and give them a peaceful future. Amen.

Two things that should be self-evident:

  • Murdering, raping, and kidnapping civilians is not a “fight for liberation”; these are horrific acts of terror that Hamas has committed against Israel and cannot be excused.
  • Stopping the import of food and water to the entire population of Gaza is the wrong way for Israel to respond to these acts of terror; it is a life-threatening collective punishment that violates international humanitarian law.

Half of the population of the Gaza Strip is children. A million children who bear no responsibility for Hamas’s rule and their horrific terror attacks. They are some of the most vulnerable right now in the war.

Doctors Without Borders are on the ground in Gaza and report that most of their patients are children between the ages of 10 and 14. They have called for humanitarian corridors so that food and medicine can reach the most vulnerable.

They also write that they have offered medical support to Israeli hospitals where a very high number of injured are being cared for after Hamas’s terror attacks. So far, the Israeli healthcare system has managed without their support, but they are ready to help there too if needed.

Donate to them here!

All people are created by God, and all suffering on both sides must be prevented. As missionary Heidi Baker wrote the other day on site in Jerusalem: “Pray for peace and for the innocent, no matter their nation or creed.”

Micael Grenholm is a Swedish church historian, author and an editor for PCPJ.

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Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice is a multicultural, gender inclusive, and ecumenical organization that promotes peace, justice, and reconciliation work among Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians around the world. If you like what we do, please become a member!

Nonviolence, Politics

What if the 9/11 attacks hadn’t led to the wars that killed a million people?

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Shane Claiborne just wrote some wise words on Facebook:

It’s been 22 years since the September 11th attacks. It’s an important day to remember how precious life is… and to stand against violence in every form.

On the 10th anniversary I teamed up with my pal Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, and we did an event called “Jesus, Bombs, and Ice Cream” which featured Terry Rockefeller from September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. She, and so many other victims of 9/11 are heroes of mine. These survivors of 9/11 declared:

“Our Grief Is NOT a Cry for War” — and became some of the most credible, passionate voices against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

—

I often wonder how the world might be different if our response to the tragedy of 9/11 had not been more violence — war and retaliation. Nearly 3000 lives were lost here in the US. And it is now estimated that over 1,455,000 lives have been lost in the aftermath of 9/11. Not many of us feel any safer. And it is quite clear that our violence has done more to fuel the fire of extremism than to stop it.

We now know that 15 of the 19 terrorists on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia… yet Iraq and Afghanistan have now been decimated by our response to 9/11. And the US continues to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Lord, help us.

I hope that September 11 becomes a day when we lament all violence, and move forward with a renewed conviction that violence will not rid the world of violence. Violence is the disease, not the cure.

Lord, guide us in the path of peace.

“Don’t repay anyone evil for evil… but overcome evil with good.”
–The Bible, Romans 12

Shane Claiborne is a Red Letter Christian and a founding partner of The Simple Way community, a radical faith community that lives among and serves the homeless in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. He is the co-author, with Chris Haw, of Jesus for President. He has also written Executing Grace: Why It is Time to Put the Death Penalty to Death.