In its take on Christ in the Rubble, a public library in New Jersey calls what’s happening in Gaza today, “Zionism’s genocidal project.” It goes on to report that, in his book, author Munther Isaac “calls on Christians to repent of their complicity in the destruction of the Palestinian people.” Yes, this is a cry-from-the-heart “indictment of Western faith communities’ lacklustre response to the conflict,” Publishers Weekly opines. But, a fellow writer insists, “Most of all, it is truthful,” and “a life-changing wake-up call.”
Christians “should be speaking out,” the Middle East Monitor reckons, “yet the same politics and theology that hold the Palestinian narrative and its dissemination hostage, rule over the church….” Isaac’s book “is sobering to note that what should read as common empathy is sorely missing from this world.” “In his book,” the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago affirms, “he challenges mainstream Christians’ uncritical embrace of the modern State of Israel, and challenges us to realign our beliefs and actions with Christ….”
Isaac, who, in the words of the president of California Lutheran University, John Nunes, “lives, prays, weeps, and works for peace in Gaza,” is the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem.
Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza
By Munther Isaac
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2025