Time would fail to consider all his claims, but it is not feasible to confirm many of the alleged cruelties Nassar mentions. I am loathe to accept his view without independent confirmation,  and there is countervailing testimony on all the things he mentions, which paints things in a far different light. On one other point shall I contradict him. Absent revelation, no one can know the mind of God (1 Cor. 2:16); that is, we cannot certainly know what his will is in historical events (Lk. 13:1-5) unless he tells us (Jn. 9:3). Calamity may be sent as testing, or it may be sent as punishment.

Jack Nassar is ill-pleased with my response to his June letter. Indeed, he accuses me of “wounding” him and, by extension, others, saying:

What stings most is not that Hervey holds opposing views, but that he writes with a presumption of omniscience: as if proximity to Western institutions grants the authority to interpret our pain, our theology, our lived experience. That he does so while accusing me of propaganda is not just ironic—it’s wounding. Not only to me, but to the historic Palestinian Church and believers.

If there be any “presumption of omniscience” in my response, it is because Nassar has imagined it there. I actually said things like this:

If Christ, the only righteous and wise man, yet refused to judge temporal cases concerning material possessions in the incident recounted here [Lk. 12:13-15], may we who are sinful not refuse to judge between differing parties in a foreign land? How much more ought we to be humble and not presume – as almost the entire rest of the world has, for decades – to decide between Jew and Arab in the Levant, instead busying ourselves with our own affairs and those of Christ’s kingdom!

I said we should “not presume,” and yet Nassar somehow finds an arrogant “presumption of omniscience.” As for “the authority to interpret” Nassar’s theology, I find no such thing in Western institutions, but rather in scripture. “Test everything” (1 Thess. 5:21); “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 Jn. 4:1); “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2); “do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment” (Jn. 7:24). Such words are of divine institution, not of Western origin.

If it be claimed that my handling of scripture – that is, taking it in its plain sense, and as having its authority directly from God – is regarded as “Western,” then I rejoin: we received that, as all else, from the East, and if they have long-since buried scripture’s true interpretation in allegory or ecclesiastical tradition, then they should cast such handling of the sacred word aside and do as was done at first, when scripture was received as from the mouth of God. For when the Ethiopian eunuch believed on the road from Gaza to Jerusalem (Acts 8:26-40), he did so apart from all the pomp and ceremony of any church, all which is of human origin. He believed by the word, as explained plainly by Philip, and was baptized in an unnamed source called only “some water” (v. 36), not in a baptistry in a cathedral, decorated with icons, filled with incense, and attended by officiants in vestments, as if the flesh is broken by such sights and smells, and not by the Spirit’s work in the heart.

Note also that there are errors of fact in Nassar’s response. He says “I was stunned to see my theology questioned simply because I quoted secular voices, published in other Christian and non-Christian and secular forums.” I said nothing about him quoting secular sources or publishing in secular outlets. He says “Tom’s words betray a greater concern for semantics—‘disputed territories,’ ‘complex history’—than for the image of God in Gaza’s starving children.” I never used the phrase “complex history,” and as for the larger matter of my alleged concern for “semantics” above “the image of God in Gaza’s starving children,” it is of a piece with Nassar’s tone and method throughout.

For Nassar spares no expense in accounting himself wronged: my article was “a reduction,” that “recast” and “dismissed,” that “stings,” and is “wounding” and “accusing.” It “accuses” and is guilty of “ignoring a suffering Church,” and it “stunned” and “questioned” Nassar and his theology, and made him “feel that unless I disavow everything Palestinian, I cannot be heard as Christian” and “that I must surrender my humanity before I can speak my pain.” Against it, “Israeli Jewish protesters” who “gathered in Tel Aviv, holding signs that demanded a ceasefire, an end to the war, and displayed images and names of Gaza’s starving children . . . though not Christian—echoed Christ’s words more clearly than many within the Church.” My article “reflects a broader failure within the Western Church: the failure to see Palestinians as fully human, fully Christian, fully part of the Body,” and “comforts empire and silences lament,” because “it is not Reformed. It is compromised.” It is implied that it “fear[s] truth,” “weaponize[s] doctrine,” and “choose[s] comfort over Christ,” while being “on the side of silence” rather than “the side of love, mercy, justice—and the everlasting Gospel.” What it “reveals, more than anything, is how deep the misunderstandings and stereotypes still run between Palestinian Christians and some in the global Church,” and that “there is a gaping wound between us, a chasm of theology, culture, history, and pain.”

His article speaks of the West negatively, speaking of “Western ‘civilization’” with snide quotation marks and objecting that his words were ill-received because they were “not sanctioned by Western theological sensibilities.” Elsewhere he has written that “the infiltration of Zionist ideology into Western Christianity poses a grave threat to the purity and integrity of our faith” and that “it is time for Western Christians to engage in a profound reckoning — rejecting the false idols of nationalist Zionism and reclaiming the essence of our Christian heritage.” Also:

By promoting conflict through advocating for policies that unconditionally support Israel’s territorial expansion and racial supremacy, Christian Zionism has funded and contributed to ongoing conflicts, hatred and violence not just in the Middle East but around the globe. It has done so especially by demonizing, dehumanizing and spreading propaganda and stereotypes against Arabs, Iranians, Chinese, Russians, Africans, Latinos, Palestinians, Eastern Christians, Muslims and, in many cases, Jewish people.

Speaking directly of himself and his fellows, he speaks differently: he wishes “not to debate, but to bear witness” and “not to quarrel, but to call the Church to listen with both compassion and discernment,” and “asked for fidelity to the Body of Christ—groaning in Gaza, grieving in Bethlehem, praying in Ramallah.” He says “my faith is not borrowed. It is cruciform” and “let us together refuse to let ideology suffocate empathy,” but rather “let us live as if that Christ is still present—in the rubble, in the refugee camp, in the cry of the oppressed.” He says his response “is a broken hallelujah, a plea born of grief and faith,” and with many such words holds himself and others in his land out as examples of fortitude, charity, resilience, and the like, in spite of being the victims of Western neglect and Jewish oppression. Things such as:

I do not write this response to condemn Tom Hervey. I pray for him. I forgive him.

To summarize, I am guilty by my response, not only against him, but against all professing believers in the region, and the Western church more generally is guilty of neglect and of being complicit in being duped by Zionism, and of perverting the faith. He and his fellows are by contrast paragons of Christian sincerity and virtue, as shown by their suffering and endurance. Indeed, not only are they of ancient lineage (as Nassar says, “I am a baptized Christian in historic Palestine, heir to a 2,000-year-old church that has endured the rise and fall of empires”), but such is their acumen that he can determine what does and does not qualify as “Reformed,” since he can accuse my view of being “not Reformed” but rather “compromised,” and can send forth his article as a “Reformed Appeal for Theological Integrity and Covenantal Solidarity.”

So when I disagree with his initial claims – not least on ground “that he doesn’t understand us,” as I put it then – I am guilty of an arrogant Western “presumption of omniscience.” But when he deigns to dismiss me as being at odds with my own branch of the faith and portrays his own response as putting forth a truly Reformed view, that is not arrogant and presumptuous? Can he wonder why I said that he was a rhetorician espousing propaganda when he portrays things as he has done here? He holds himself and his fellows out as victims, spares no expense lambasting the Western church with strong language, and then turns about and boasts of his ancient lineage, resilience, compassion, etc., and ends by waxing eloquent about how forgiving he is and how I need to learn from the experience of him and other believers in Ramallah and Gaza, etc. In his telling (here and elsewhere), his fellow Arabs are consistently portrayed as being victims, or else exemplars of goodness, and those who differ are consistently portrayed negatively.

Not even the historical accounts of scripture portray believers so uniformly positively. His is a particularly extreme form of hagiography. And it takes great audacity to speak as he has of the Western church – implying we’ll be damned at the Last Day and be on the wrong side of the gospel for disagreeing – and then follow it up with the language of brotherhood. It is a particularly offensive form of sanctimony; ironic, as such an attitude is what he has accused us Westerners of holding.

Time would fail to consider all his claims, but it is not feasible to confirm many of the alleged cruelties Nassar mentions. I am loathe to accept his view without independent confirmation,[1] and there is countervailing testimony on all the things he mentions, which paints things in a far different light. On one other point shall I contradict him. Absent revelation, no one can know the mind of God (1 Cor. 2:16); that is, we cannot certainly know what his will is in historical events (Lk. 13:1-5) unless he tells us (Jn. 9:3). Calamity may be sent as testing, or it may be sent as punishment.

Tell me, Nassar, have you never thought that perhaps all this has come upon your people as divine judgment? You bewail dispossession of land and destruction of churches. But such things are how God deals with the wayward. Have you never read how God himself defiled his own temple because of the sins of his people (Ezek. 8-9)? Or again, how his law threatened defeat, siege, exile, and oppression for his people’s sins (Deut. 28:15-68)? Most of the things mentioned there match your description of your present suffering. Whether such things are judgment or not in your case I cannot say, yet you ought to consider it a possibility (1 Cor. 10:12) and ask wisdom about it (Jas. 1:5). Perhaps in such a case this principle applies: “He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans shall live. He shall have his life as a prize of war, and live” (Jer. 38:2). Perhaps Israel is God’s judgment rod against Christians.

As for what can be known with certainty, while the suffering of civilians is grievous, it is alas inevitable in war, and (be it judgment or not) persecution from Jews is also to be expected. Christ has given us instruction on how to act in such situations: “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next” (Matt. 10:23), which advice was acted upon by the apostles (Acts 14:5-6; 17:13-14) and Christ himself (Jn. 7:1); and before the Romans besieged Jerusalem, he told the disciples to flee said war (Matt. 24:15-16). Granting that flight is not always possible for various reasons, it is the proper recourse, and one which, I am told, many believers in Gaza and elsewhere have often taken. Demanding political solidarity is not Christ’s means, however, so let it not be asked of us further; rather, obey Christ in these matters.

Tom Hervey is a member of Friendship Presbyterian Church in Laurens County, SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation, and helped modernize Volume I of James Hervey’s classic dialogue on evangelical faith, Theron and Aspasio, available now at Monergism.

[1] In viewing a photo of grieving Gazans, I have no way of knowing if they do so because they had relatives who were accidentally killed in an Israeli airstrike, or because they had relatives who were part of Hamas and got their just deserts, or for some other reason.