A Deafening Silence? U.S. Church Leadership in the Face of Occupation/Genocide

Philip Farah 2026 March-April Posted On February 18, 2026 https://www.wrmea.org/2026-march-april/a-deafening-silence-u.s.-church-leadership-inthe-face-of-occupation/genocide.html

Online Film Salons

By Philip Farah

HAVE CHRISTIAN LEADERS in the United States failed to name and condemn the ongoing Israeli

genocide in Gaza? As a Palestinian Christian with relatives sheltering in their Gaza churches, some of

whom were killed by Israel’s genocidal war of the last two years, the question is deeply personal for

me. The panelists featured in the December 2025 Voices from the Holy Land Online Film Salon, “A

Deafening Silence? U.S. Church Leadership in the Face of Occupation/Genocide,” grappled with this

question. The panel was co-sponsored by Christians for a Free Palestine, a new national ecumenical

organization of Christians that has grown rapidly in the past two years; and the Palestine Justice

Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), or PCUSA.

Rev. Jeff Wright, a Colorado pastor who volunteers as a representative for Kairos Palestine (an

ecumenical movement of Palestinian Christians that raises a prophetic voice against the ongoing

oppression in Palestine), reviewed the record of church organizations’ actions on behalf of Palestinians.

He noted the long list of resolutions adopted by U.S. Christian denominations and organizations,

especially ones divesting church pension funds from companies that profit from Israeli oppression of

the Palestinians, and calling for boycotting Israeli products made in the illegal Israeli settlements built

on stolen Palestinian land. Nevertheless, he acknowledged, many U.S. Christians have expressed

“disappointment—anger, even—at the hesitation, the refusal on the part of many church leaders,

bishops [and] pastors, to name Israel’s campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.

In 2024, Rev. Dr. Frederick D. Haynes III, pastor at the 13,000-member Friendship-West Baptist

Church in Dallas, TX, joined with a coalition of about 1,000 Black pastors in urging then-President Joe

Biden to support a ceasefire in Gaza. This was the first major action by any group of church leaders in

the U.S. to strongly challenge Washington’s support for Israel’s bloody war on the Palestinians in Gaza.

He reminded the online salon audience that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had condemned U.S. crimes in

Vietnam and generally did not shy away from taking “controversial” positions even when that exposed

him to intense criticism. Rev. Haynes said it was time to “declare that silence—to the pain in Palestine

and genocide in Gaza at the hands of an apartheid regime in Israel with the support of the United States

—is betrayal.”

Following the homily, Rev. Addie Domske, a PCUSA pastor and the national field organizer for

Friends of Sabeel, USA (FOSNA), moderated a discussion by three expert panelists about the failure of

most church leaders to speak up against the genocide. FOSNA is affiliated with the Jerusalem-based

Sabeel, representing Palestinians who adhere to Christian Liberation Theology. She quoted Rev.

Munther Isaac, author of Christ in the Rubble, one of the leaders of the Kairos Palestine movement,

who said that “the Christian witness in the world is corroded if it doesn't respond to a genocide.” What

follows are key points raised by each of the three expert panelists:

• Jonathan Brenneman, a co-founder of Christians for a Free Palestine, recounted how leaders in

his Mennonite church resisted a resolution in its 2017 Convention calling for a divestment of

church funds from companies that profit from Israel’s military occupation. However, the

resolution passed with a 98 percent majority—which suggests that standing for justice is

“actually something that people were able to rally around and to feel really good about doing.”

• Rev. Dr. Don Wagner (Presbyterian minister, co-founder and former director of the Palestine

Human Rights Campaign, and an author and expert on Christian Zionism) updated Jesus’

parable in Matthew 25 to make it relevant to current conditions. Instead of “Where were you

when I was hungry? Did you bring me bread? When I was thirsty, did you give me drink? When

I was in prison, did you visit me?” today he would ask church leaders: “When I was enduring a

genocide, were you silent? Did you stand up? Did you call it a genocide, despite being accused

of being anti-Semitic?”

• Rev. Dr. Allison Tanner (national coordinator of the Apartheid-Free Initiative and Pastor of

Public Witness at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland, CA) discussed the problems

with post-Holocaust history that elevates the suffering of European Jews over and against the

suffering of other peoples. While affirming that the Holocaust was a horrific manifestation of

evil, she criticized liberal Christians who associate their support for Israel with an

exceptionalism that is afforded uniquely to the Jewish victims of the Nazis, and who obfuscate

the evils done on the North American continent, which include a genocide that wiped out 90

percent of the Indigenous people and chattel slavery that lasted about 246 years. It’s very

convenient, she noted, to say that the greatest evil ever committed “happened over there with

other people.”

The panelists illustrated the tension between church leaders and the Christian grassroots, but, perhaps

because of the time constraint of the salon, they did not mention some of the most prominent examples

of the failure of U.S. church leaders in responding to the genocide. Here are a few examples:

• Catholic groups like Pax Christi and the Catholic Worker Movement have engaged in powerful

actions for peace and justice in the Holy Land over the past two years. By contrast, at the height

of the Gaza genocide in late 2024, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) published

a 60-plus page document purporting to combat antiSemitism. The original document, entitled

“Translate Hate,” was prepared and published by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and

was really intended to combat the solidarity movement with Palestine. The USCCB simply

added a subtitle, “the Catholic Edition,” adding limited notes on the AJC narrative from the

USCCB’s perspective.

• During the 2024 General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the House of Bishops struck

down a resolution naming Israel as an apartheid state and calling for Boycott, Divestment and

Sanctions. The resolution was supported by a majority of the House of Deputies representing

the grassroots of the Episcopal Church.

• Several Christian leaders, including president of the National Council of Churches Bishop

Vashti Murphy McKenzie and Washington Diocese Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, called

for Hamas to be held accountable for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which they described

using the harshest words. By contrast, they did not call for Israel to be held accountable for its

actions. Even when they expressed “sympathy” for dead and hungry Palestinians, they used the

passive voice, rarely mentioning the Israeli perpetrators.

The salon panelists urged attendees to acquaint themselves with the calls for justice from Palestinian

Christians, especially Kairos Palestine, and to act for justice by, for example, urging their churches to

join the call for Apartheid-Free Communities. Christians can engage with one of the many groups that

are working for a sustainable peace and equal rights for all the people of the Holy Land. Additional

examples include the following:

• Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace is running a campaign to educate American Christians

on the plight of the Palestinians and to “Take a Stand for the Holy Land.”

• Jewish Voice for Peace is running a campaign for divestment from Israeli bonds.

• United Methodist Kairos Response recently voted to shed its investments in Israeli bonds.

• Palestine Portal provides information about numerous national and local groups involved in the

Palestine/Israel solidarity movement, including many that are Christian.

A recording of this Salon can be viewed for free at the VFHL website,

<www.voicesfromtheholyland.org/salonrecordings>, along with recordings of more than 60 other

Online Film Salons. Rev. Jeff Wright’s slides can be downloaded at <https://tinyurl.com/VFHLRevWright-slides>.

Dr. Philip Farah, a founding member of Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace, was born in

Jerusalem and recently retired from a career as an economist in Washington, DC.