In the 1930s, a group of Christians fighting against the Nazi takeover of their churches wrote the Barmen Declaration. The document, which has become a centerpiece of Protestant theology since World War II, warns Christians not to allow their churches to be used as instruments of the state.

Sadly, a network of pastors in the West Bank and Gaza have failed to heed the warnings of the Barmen Declaration and have handed the symbols of Christianity over to the cause of Palestinian nationalism, with ominous consequences for the Jews of Israel and for Christianity itself. In an effort to serve the cause of Palestinian nationalism, these pastors assert they are the new inheritors of God’s covenant with the Jews and are entitled to the land of Israel. Moreover, some of these pastors have introduced Islamic concepts of jihad and violent martyrdom into their teachings.

To make matters worse, a group of politically motivated pastors in mainline Protestant churches in the U.S. have embraced the narrative of Palestinian Christians in a blatant attempt to delegitimize the state of Israel. In 2004, the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to divest from Israel after listening to Mitri Raheb, a Lutheran pastor from Bethlehem speak at its general assembly. Raheb, a Palestinian nationalist who has wrapped his one-sided condemnations of Israel in the garb of Christian theology for over a decade, has offered Protestants in the U.S. a story of Jewish savagery and Palestinian suffering clearly intended to weaken support for Israel in the U.S.

For example, Raheb condemns the separation barrier that imposes undeniable suffering on Palestinians without acknowledging the terror attacks that made the separation barrier necessary. Moreover, Raheb makes no mention of the oppression of Christians by both the Palestinian Authority and the Muslim majority. Raheb blames Israel – and only Israel – for the suffering of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza when clearly other forces are at work. Despite all these problems, leaders of Protestant denominations in the U.S. have offered the narrative of Palestinian Christians to their followers as the Gospel truth about politics in the Middle East. In some instances, pastors have refused to even let Israel’s defenders speak to their churches. This state of affairs is not only unfair to Israel, it threatens to undermine the prophetic voice of mainline Protestantism in the U.S. Given the impact of Protestant churches on the nation’s conscience, this would be a tragedy.