A Welcome Shock: A Christian Palestinian Perspective
Gregory Khalil Saturday, 1 December 2007
The Holy Land's Christians received news of the Evangelical Open Letter to President Bush within a climate of looming existential crisis. Ten percent of Bethlehem's nearly 2000 year-old Christian community has emigrated in the last five years alone. Within decades, there will be no indigenous Christian community in the birthplace of Christ—if current trends are allowed to persist.
With talks of reviving the Middle East peace process already underway, a public call by mainstream religious leaders for an evenhanded and engaged American broker was naturally welcomed. Yet the letter also came as a shock: Perhaps ironically, the last place the Holy Land's Christians had come to expect any support from in this latest fight for their faith and their communities was Evangelicals in America.
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