Munther Isaac’s Christ in the Rubble is a book that speaks powerfully to our present moment. Isaac, a Palestinian theologian and Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem, challenges fellow Christians in the West to come to terms with our own complicity in the historical genocide of the Palestinian people and the total decimation of Gaza since October 2023. For Isaac, theology is a matter of life and death: what we believe about God, how we interpret (or misinterpret) the Bible and how we act (or fail to act) according to our faith have real consequences on the ground.
Following his pastoral vocation to address the political challenges that his congregation faces daily, Isaac writes ‘from an unapologetically Palestinian and Christian perspective’ (p. 3). He affirms his commitment to absolute non-violence and peacemaking as the way of Jesus Christ, and according to this belief, he condemns the October 7 attack on Israelis and acknowledges that Hamas committed war crimes. Also on the basis of this commitment, he calls Christians to lament for the destruction of Gaza and its people, and to repent for turning a blind eye and even actively promoting genocide as retribution. While ‘the suffering of Palestinians is not above other sufferings’ (p. 8), Isaac protests against the failure of his sisters and brothers in faith to see Palestinian lives as precious. If God remains present with those who suffer, the book argues, then Christ can surely be found today amid the rubble of Gaza.
The book weaves together Isaac’s own historical, political, pastoral and theological perspectives on the State of Israel’s war on Gaza. The first three chapters provide readers with the context needed to understand the theological responses that come later. Isaac begins with an account of October 7 and articulates why he uses the term genocide to describe what is happening in Gaza (chapter 1). Then, clarifying that this war did not begin in 2023, he describes the settler-colonial displacement of Palestinians from their land since 1948 (chapter 2) and elucidates how the siege of Gaza in 2007 set the stage for the current war (chapter 3).
The next two chapters indict the skewed theological and biblical interpretations that European and American Christians have employed to uphold racist ideologies, imperialist violence and ethnic cleansing. Chapter 4 compels both evangelical and mainline Christians in the USA to grapple with the ways that American policies have enabled and enacted violence against colonised and occupied people in Palestine and Iraq. According to Isaac, Western Christians have too often excused such violence because of anti-Arab racism while weaponising the Bible to justify oppression. Chapter 5 argues that Christians who directly espouse theologies of genocide and those who remain silent at the killing of tens of thousands of Gazans have ignored Jesus’ countercultural model of non-violent love.
The final three chapters present a different sort of theology, one drawn from the Palestinian Christian experience and informed by sermons Isaac has preached to his congregation, from which he quotes extensively. Chapter 6 calls Western church leaders and theologians to repentance, elevating the voices of Palestinian theologians who issued this same call in an open letter in late October 2023. Chapter 7 explains Isaac’s vision of Christ in the rubble, a theme he first used in a sermon to pastorally express his congregants’ anguish as they sought to make sense of their faith amid severe suffering. For Christmas 2023, the church created a manger scene with the Christ child wrapped in a keffiyeh and lying upon rubble. Claiming that Gaza has become the world’s moral compass, the final chapter poses a haunting question for the global church: ‘Where was I when Gaza was going through a genocide?’ (p. 224). Isaac points out the church’s failure, and yet he still hopes for changes of heart, for acts of solidarity and resistance and for voices that refuse to be silent about Gaza.
Christ in the Rubble is an accessible and informative book for Christian scholars, students, clergy and lay people alike. It offers both theological and pastoral reflection based on first-hand examples, years of ministry under Israeli occupation and the work of other contemporary Palestinian theologians. Isaac writes from a depth of anguish and trauma at witnessing the extent of human loss in Gaza. This is not a neutral account, and indeed the book argues that the church must not remain neutral. Isaac does not intend to make readers feel comfortable but rather to speak truths that he has found many do not want to hear. Isaac’s is a prophetic voice that the church in the West needs today – a voice calling for long-overdue action. This book will undoubtedly provoke some critique and anger, but where readers are open to learning from another perspective and willing to engage in humble self-reflection, it could also inspire transformation.
