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Faith in the Face of Empire, Part 2

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Erin Grimm

I think that the second part of this book by Mitri Raheb (2014) is most valuable for its explanation of what the Kairos Palestine document calls creative resistance. It is called creative resistance because calling something non-violent resistance in a Palestinian sense seems to imply that Palestinians are by default violent. This is a serious misperception.

As I read the book, part of me became almost inconsolably depressed as I thought about how this hopeful book was written 10 years ago now and the situation has only worsened since then. I just wrote the president thanking him for not sending a shipment to Israel and it occurred to me that maybe I should have just been critical given all the missed opportunities to peace that have happened in the over six months now since the October attacks.

About Christian Minus Christianity

Christian Minus Christianity is a budding community created to challenge imperialism, nationalism, and racism in many forms of US-American Christianity. It is a work of contextual theology created from the perspective of a white Christian of conscience.

Palestinian theologian Dr. Yousef Kamal AlKhouri, academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College, wrote about this project:

“I do think it’s important to dismantle imperial Christianity in a form, and for the reign of God to liberate the oppressed and God’s entire creation from systems of supremacy, exploitation, and destruction. I also believe that every theologian and Christian are doing theology from their own context, wherever they are. All theologies are contextual.”