The Crucifixion of Gaza

Unbelievably Brutal State Terror on Public Display for a Global Audience

Nov 15, 2023

Four pictures of the 2023 devastation of Gaza with THE CRUCIFIXION OF GAZA written across the bottom surrounded by the colors of the Palestinian flag. 1. A man in a black shirt helps a wounded, crying man through the streets of Gaza. 2. A bombed-out building surrounded by rubble. 3. A man sits in shock looking over the ruins of where a missile has landed while a small crowd of people stands around in the aftermath. 4. People walk through an utterly devastated landscape of their former city.

I recently watched a video on Instagram of a dead Palestinian man being lowered to the ground in the dusty rubble of a bombed-out Gaza. He was bound to a plastic EMT stretcher as men standing above on the shattered remnants of a concrete floor used ropes to leverage his dead weight to the men standing on the ground below. His body was limp, awkwardly suspended upside-down by the ropes, covered in a dusty grime, and most heartbreakingly, alone. Whatever dignity he had had in life was gone, snatched away by the bombs built by an empire, and his community was trying to return a shred of it to him at great risk to their own safety.

Was he a member of Hamas? Almost certainly not. Of the over 11,000 confirmed Palestinian death at the time of this writing, roughly 90% are civilians. Almost half are children. The actual leaders of Hamas are safely hidden away in Qatar, not Palestine. Most Hamas fighters are concealed in Gaza’s expansive underground tunnel system. They aren’t out in the open ruins of these cities. They aren’t being crushed by falling buildings. They aren’t risking death by retrieving the bodies of their family, friends, and neighbors for burial.

This is the reality on the ground. It is hell, terror, devastation, catastrophe. The medieval siege has been in place and the bombs have been falling for over a month now. For a historical comparison, the first century CE siege of Jerusalem lasted just under five months and ended with the destruction of the entire city including the Second Temple and the forced expulsion of the Jewish people across the Roman Empire. The Israeli government, with the backing of White evangelicalism’s shadowy influence in the American government, is now doing to the Palestinians of Gaza what the Roman Empire once did to the Jewish people almost 2000 years ago. It was genocide in 70CE, and it is genocide in 2023.

If you haven’t spent much time scrolling through social media profiles run by prominent Western evangelicals (or even not-so-prominent), you might be shocked by the level of inhumanity, vitriol, and hatred directed toward these millions of displaced people trying to stay alive in a concentration camp. The celebratory glee over “enemies” (aka Palestinian civilians) killed in Gaza and the West Bank. The justification of any and all retaliation for 07 October, up to and including war crimes and genocide, ordered by the Israeli government and carried out by the IDF with the full backing of the United States of America.

Tweet 1: There’s only ONE response that Israel has….turn Gaza into a parking lot. Level the whole thing. The “Palestinian oppression” is media propaganda. Destroy the terrorists and take back every inch that God gave you. Tweet 2: As a Christian, it is so hard for me to think this way, but sometimes I do. I know there were instances in the Bible when God told Israel to literally wipe out certain people and take no spoils. In the current circumstances, how do you, biblically, justify Israel taking these people out? Tweet 3: They are evil….it’s simple. — Classic dehumanization of an entire people group. A precursor to genocide

Tweet 1: She’s not from Detroit, she is a resident of Dearborn, 60-70% Middle-Eastern population. She’s from Hamas. Tweet 2: I wonder why Rashida Tlaib won’t condemn Hamas? I thought she was supposed to represent American values in Congress? — Rep. Tlaib is literally Palestinian-American. Speaking up in support of her people is hardly the same thing as being a member of an internationally recognized terrorist group.

It is extremely important to note that this bloodthirsty fervor is largely not being expressed by Jewish Americans, but rather by American evangelicals and fundamentalists who have no familial or cultural ties to Palestine or Israel. There are actually huge numbers of Jewish Americans demanding a ceasefire and being arrested for protesting against the violence of an apartheid state. No, it is the End Times-obsessed evangelicals in the West who are watching this genocide unfold all the while hoping and praying for Armageddon. What so many of them have been taught to want is the massacre of billions of human beings and their subsequent eternity burning in the unquenchable fires of hell. That is what evangelicalism teaches and wholeheartedly believes. And due to the disproportionate power that evangelical true-believers hold in the American government, they have been working tirelessly to bring their visions of Armageddon into the real world for decades.

You have to wonder what kind of theology these churches have been teaching. What Bibles are they reading? Or more often, not reading? I grew up attending churches, youth groups, summer camps, and parachurch organizations within the evangelical bubble. This kind of violent rhetoric was pretty normalized. I also became Catholic 17 years ago and still practice in my own way. For all of its other faults, the Catholic Church in its various forms does not subscribe to this revenge-laden End Times fantasy. I have heard hundreds of evangelical and pentecostal sermons, and I’ve heard hundreds of Catholic homilies and podcasts. My best educated guess is that the partisan-tinged sermons of empire have been poisoning most of evangelicalism’s congregations for decades. The short, simple, reflective homilies at a typical Catholic Mass were far more spirituality fulfilling to me than 45-90 minutes of an angry, sweating, screaming pastor ranting about hell, torture, retribution, and damnation. I stepped away from evangelicalism when I was 20 and had removed myself entirely by the age of 25, but it has still taken decades to unlearn so many of the toxic teachings I was exposed to in my youth.

Tweet: When I’ve read Revelation, I couldn’t imagine how it could all happen. Now it’s perfectly clear. — IDK if it’s really all that clear. There are good arguments that Revelation was written about the events of 70CE. Not the 21st century.

For all of the speculation about which denominations are true Christians or who is really saved or if you can lose your salvation by not believing the correct theology, there is only one passage of the canonical Gospels where Jesus directly teaches his followers how to be welcomed into his kingdom. It’s in Matthew 25. The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.

Matthew 25:31-46 (The Message)

“When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.’

“Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’

“Then he will turn to the ‘goats,’ the ones on his left, and say, ‘Get out, worthless goats! You’re good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—

I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.’

“Then those ‘goats’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn’t help?’

“He will answer them, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.’

“Then those ‘goats’ will be herded to their eternal doom, but the ‘sheep’ to their eternal reward.”

The message is that whatever was done - or not done - for the overlooked and the ignored, was done - or not done - to Jesus.

As phrased in The Gospels: A New Translation by Sarah Ruden:

I was starving, you see, and you gave me something to eat,
I was parched, and you gave me something to drink,
I was a foreigner and you took me in.
I was naked and you put clothes on me,
Ailing and you looked in on me,
In prison and you came to me.

We can imagine what a possible next line could be: I was dead and you buried me.

If you were to go back 2000 years and northeast about 75 kilometers, I imagine the scene would be somewhat similar to that Instagram video. A dead man, suspended awkwardly in the air, being lowered to the ground, murdered by an outpost of an empire, his dignity torn away, and the remnants of his community attempting to return at least a shred of it to him. To give him a decent burial. A final goodbye.

Not only does Western evangelicalism largely ignore the ongoing massacre of the Palestinians in Gaza, but a large portion is actually cheering on the slaughter. They have been taught, directly or indirectly, that the Palestinian people are merely in the way of these so-called biblical prophecies. Fascination with dispensationalism outweighs love of humanity. Revenge over mercy. Bloodlust over forgiveness. Violence over peace. Innocent lives sacrificed at the altar of a mythical apocalypticism.

@masonmennenga tweet: a lot of christians think they would have supported victims of genocide in the past but they won’t even support the victims of genocide in the present

Christ’s blessed peacemakers are largely not to be found among the evangelicals of North America, nor among large swathes of Western Christians in general. The peacemakers are much more likely to be found in the Global South and among the poor, stigmatised, and marginalised communities living in the heart of the Western empire. Calls and emails to elected officials. Protests. Marches. Prayers. Demonstrations. Mutual aid. Civil disobedience. Sabotage. These are the tools of peace and justice, and Western Christendom has largely left them all behind. All that is left is the harsh desolation of a militant, rampaging empire.

Tweet 1: And if they can’t take it, it should be war reparations. Genesis 15:18 and Joshua 1:4, the land God gave to Israel included everything from the Nile River in Egypt to Lebanon (south to north) and everything from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River (west to east). Tweet 2: Israel is the Christian Church, which the faithful Jews joined. Those who reject Christ aren’t part of that inheritance. — Those geographical criteria would have the state of Israel seizing land from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and possibly even Turkey. In addition to wiping out the Palestinian territories. An absolutely unhinged, warmongering take.

Most of the rank and file sitting in the pews may have never really thought much about it, but White American evangelicalism is hoping and praying for genocide, for some kind of global authoritarian theocracy overseen by a dictatorial messiah who kills his enemies rather than forgives them. This is not the Jesus of Matthew 25. This is not the Jesus who identifies with the poor, the marginalised, the outcast, the victims of genocide. This Jesus is not “humble and gentle at heart” (Matthew 11:29, NLT). He is a murderous rampaging tyrant. He is the antithesis of Christ. An antichrist.

Tweet 1: Genuinely distorted eschatology if you expect The Prince of Peace to come back with a different personality from The Lamb Who Was Slain, who blesses Peacemakers. And terrible theology to think that He warned us not to rule like the pagans, but wants us to rule the 7 Mountains. Tweet 2: Lol wait till you read how The Prince of Peace is returning and what He’s gonna do to his enemies — First guy makes a bunch of good points. Second guy has clearly bought into the evangelical revenge porn fantasy interpretation of Revelation.

Tweet 1: This whole thing makes me think about the zealots, and also about Jesus and Nicodemus. It’s one thing to hold on to, and to preach about our own values, and morals, but it is another to force those on others. WWJD Tweet 2: Jesus forces His morality on all mankind. — Does he though?? Sounds a bit rapey.

@masonmennenga tweet: just a reminder that evangelicals only support israel because they think it will make jesus come back to save christians

I suppose if you unquestioningly worship a theology that celebrates the apocalyptic slaughter of essentially the entire planet, then the genocide currently taking place in Gaza wouldn’t make you bat an eye. After all, this massacre is merely the overture in evangelicalism’s horrific End Times script. The blueprint for this movement of Western Christianity is not the Beatitudes of Christ but rather the Geneva Ordinances of John Calvin.