I am a Semitic Palestinian Christian. I was born under difficult Israeli occupation, baptized in a church that stood centuries before the Reformation, and raised in the land where Christ walked. My worship is in Arabic. My theology is anchored in the early Church. And my grief is profound.

What happens when the land that cradled Christianity vanishes from the conscience of the global Church? What does it mean when believers who trace their faith to Pentecost are erased—not only by violence, but by theological neglect?

I am a Semitic Palestinian Christian. I was born under difficult Israeli occupation, baptized in a church that stood centuries before the Reformation, and raised in the land where Christ walked. My worship is in Arabic. My theology is anchored in the early Church. And my grief is profound.

I write to you, my Reformed brethren, not to accuse, but to awaken.

Because I wonder: Do you know we exist?

The Christian presence in the Holy Land predates your nations, your denominations, even your creeds. It predates Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, and Geneva. It even predates Byzantium. And yet today, that presence is vanishing before your eyes—not by accident, but under the weight of military occupation, systemic dispossession, and the silence of a Western Church that too often looks away.

Many in Reformed circles speak fervently of God’s sovereignty, justice, and mission—yet overlook the living stones of Christ’s Body in Palestine. Some reduce the Holy Land to a political abstraction, conflating biblical Israel with a modern secular state. Others, swayed by flawed eschatology, treat our suffering as a prophetic necessity rather than a violation of divine justice.

But friends, the Gospel is not a political project.
Nor is it a nationalist manifesto.
The Cross is not a flagpole.
And God’s covenant is not a real estate deed.

The facts are not ambiguous.

Since 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—including Christians—have been expelled and forcibly displaced from their homes and cities. Today, under Israeli occupation, we endure military checkpoints, an ugly wall, land seizures, home demolitions, and the daily humiliation of military control that denies us the most basic human rights.

In Gaza, our churches have been bombed by Israel, and more than 40 Christians have been killed since the beginning of the ongoing, terrible war. In Jerusalem, Israeli settlers spit on us and our clergy, assault us for wearing the cross, attack our churches, set them on fire, and desecrate our cemeteries. In Jenin, our homes are demolished. In Bethlehem, our farms and lands are stolen. On Holy Saturday, we are beaten, humiliated, arrested, and locked out of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by Israeli soldiers—the very tomb from which our Lord rose—simply because we wish to pray.

What kind of resurrection is this? What gospel permits such things?

Some Reformed voices have built entire theological frameworks that sanctify displacement, crafting eschatologies that assign divine purpose to our dispossession. But let us be clear: no theology that justifies injustice is worthy of the name Christian. It is not theology—it is idolatry.

The Reformation called us ad fontes—back to the sources. But what happens when the people of Scripture are exiled from your narrative? When orthodoxy defends state power over semper reformanda?

It is time to ask:

• Is your view of the end times blinding you to the cries of the present?
• Does your confession of Christ’s lordship extend to challenging oppression?
• Has your allegiance to Scripture been quietly replaced by allegiance to a political ideology?
• Does your heart that loves Israel also have room for Palestine?
• When you preach Romans 9–11, do you also preach Micah 6:8?

The Apostle Paul reminds us: “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). So I ask:

• When was the last time you and your church prayed for the Palestinian Church?
• When did your theology stretch to include those living under military occupation?
• When did your sermons last name the sin of forces separation?
• When did you last ask, “What does the Gospel demand of me in the face of unwarranted killings?”

God is not glorified in neutrality toward suffering. Christ did not remain abstract when we were perishing. He took on flesh. He entered the pain. He bore the wounds. And Calvin’s Institutes denounced the “shameful cowardice” of those who ignore persecution. Will you, who proclaim soli Deo gloria, let fear or politics mute your voice?

We seek not pity, but Reformed courage.

Will you listen? Will you speak? Will you dare to see the Church in Palestine not as a relic, but as a living, suffering, faithful member of Christ’s Body that needs your voice?

Not slogans, but substance.
Not political statements, but theological courage.

There is still time to remember us.

But memory alone is not enough. Action must follow.

Let your sermons on justice include the occupied and colonized.
Let your prayers for the persecuted name the Palestinians.
Let your theology of the Cross make room for those still nailed to it.
Let your theology reject any “chosenness” that tramples imago Dei.

And perhaps—just perhaps—it is time to revisit those popular frameworks that have turned a land of promise into a land of untoward separation.

Because one day, you may be asked:
“When my Church suffered in the land of Christ, where were you?”

And I hope your answer will be:
“I did not look away.”

Jack Nassar is a Palestinian Christian based in Ramallah, Palestine. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Political Communications from Goldsmiths, University of London, and brings professional expertise across multiple sectors, driving positive change.