Faith in the Face of Empire

I’m still reading Mitri Raheb’s book Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes, and really loved these two quotes:

When I studied in Germany in the 1980s, I went to a gathering of Palestinian students one evening. There was a lively discussion taking place, with the students debating the best way to liberate Palestine from the Israeli occupation. Each faction within the student union had a fixed idea about how freedom would be achieved. Some were calling for negotiations as the means to a permanent and just peace; others sisted, ‘What is taken by force, can only be restored by force.’ Some said that the road to liberation is only possible through Arab unity, and there was one lonely student who espoused, ‘Islam is the only solution.’ In the 1980s there was a still a very active Palestinian Liberation Organization, and Hamas and not yet been created. I have to admit that for me, at that time, the way to liberate Palestine was by finishing my doctoral dissertation and returning to serve my people through the church (74).

Another false assumption I heard ad infinitum from secularists is that most of the problems in the Middle East are connected to religion. Secularists see religion as one of the main reasons for the seemingly intractable problems in the region. They think that getting rid of religion is the grand solution to the conflict. They point to all the forms of fundamentalism connected to the three monotheistic religions. But this is not quite the case. It is true that religion is often part of the problem rather than being part of the solution. And I like to say that in the Middle East we have too much religion and that less would definitely be more in this arena. But I also say that we have too much in the way of politics. The current wave of fundamentalism in the Middle East would not exist if politicians were successful in their work. The politics of the super-powers in the last two centuries and the failure of international governing bodies in creating a just peace have pushed people to religion. When politicians fail the hopes of people, who can blame them for seeking help in God? And when empires get drunk on their own power and behave like deities, people feel they must challenge a mindset with God’s might on their side. When human institutions, which were created to safeguard peace, fail to bring freedom to people enduring one of the longest continuous occupations in modern history, God has to step up demanding, “Let my people go!” (Ex 8:1). (92).