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The Light of the World in the Shadow of Empire

The Light of the World in the Shadow of Empire

Last updated on: December 23, 2023 at 12:16 am by Daniel Jean Perrier

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The Light of the World in the Shadow of Empire 2023-12-23T00:16:04-05:00 Daniel Jean Perrier

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Warm light in Bethlehem. Sameeh Karram/Pexels.com

It is a time of reflection and anticipation pointed toward the star above Bethlehem. This year the eruption of violence against the people of Palestine keeps us from facing the birthplace of God joyfully and prompts the evermore prescient reflection of how long that ought to have been true.

Christmas may be canceled in Bethlehem this year, but it’s been happening under colonial occupation for much longer. A colonial occupation backed by radically antisemitic Christian ideology alongside the economic and political interests running the sham of Western democracy.

Bethlehem, then and now

Jesus was born in the same land under the shadow of the Roman Empire, born in a manger because his parents were forced at the whim of their government to march toward the census with no consideration for the trouble this might entail. All housing was filled to the brim by others on this same forced journey, and someone had to be left out in the cold.

At a vigil for peace in D.C. during the temporary ceasefire, Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac questions, “How can we celebrate when we feel this war — that is taking place could resume at any moment?” The sermon is incising and affecting and forces us to face a deep pain and hopelessness that we cannot understand from afar or outside. Isaac finds God “under the rubble in Gaza“.

As Christmas approaches, Palestinian Christians can be reminded that Jesus was born not only on their side of the West Bank Wall but lived to suffer under and struggle against empire. As Dr. Rev. Jack Sara, president of Bethlehem Bible College stated, Immanuel is “God with us”; God has been in the same place, and is there now with Gaza and all suffering under imperialism.

We cannot allow conflict to take away our ability to see and to reenvision. There is light present even in an unending effort to snuff it. The wall that looms over Bethlehem and cuts a line through those who matter casts a constant physical, emotional, and spiritual dominance. Even under this pressure, Palestinians build spaces of peace and connection, joy that rebels against the ever-present reality.

Today amongst the horrific videos that keep crossing our feeds, we still find moments of connection and joy, laughter and sharing meals. This is a rejection of the kind of world raining down in Gaza now, a world showing the worst of itself. Joy and hope bloom in the face of the worst.

What more can we do without death at our doorway?

Terror in the American academy

In the states, this has created a persistent campaign to lay the blame at the feet of Palestine and Hamas, which are always conflated. One piece from Harvard magazine starts with a sense that there are “two sides” to a toxic debate, followed by a strangely foreboding description of previously witnessed support for Palestine on campus that assumes it is widespread. When the crisis point arrives, the piece places the blame for campus tensions on the shoulders of students responding quickly to the attack and signing a letter that “held the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” as “poison[ing]” campus discourse.

The article’s writer makes an interestingly equivocating turn to former Harvard president and current Eliot University Professor Lawrence H. Summers “disillusionment” in the lack of response to these evil, evil students, the author cleverly blames students for the deep tragedy of privileged American feelings. Summers refers to the “Jewish state of Israel”, displaying interesting support for what he is openly calling an ethnoreligious state.

Meanwhile, extreme antisemitism is framed as the majority view on campus while figureheads take a great deal of time to show their unequivocal support for their Jewish colleagues who are, obviously, the most in danger of ethnoreligious violence on campus while this narrative is propagated.

This article fails to mention events such as the 24-hour pro-Palestine protest by a group of Jewish students at University Hall.

There is no safety in empire

We cry on about campus politics and the best we can do is subtly blame pro-Palestine students for hostilities brewed by anti-Arab, anti-Palesstinian, Islamophobic, and antisemitic undercurrents in American politics. Students are scapegoated for a reality built on the need for whiteness in the service of Western interests. The West incorporates Jewish folks into a special form of whiteness that propagates corporate and political interests in the Middle East as a necessary penance for our past fascism and antisemitism which is definitely over so long as we all support Israel. They create a reality where to not care about Israel is to not care for the well-being of the Jewish population worldwide and at home; it is the disposibility of Jewish bodies.

This is untrue on its front. The creation of nations and protection of the “right” regimes in areas of the world the U.S. wants a foothold in has been a long-lasting colonial strategy. And an apartheid state will always be met with violence. To center our conception of antisemitic violence as something created by members of the American public, a disgraceful “past” of European and American fascism misses reality. Military groups formed within that U.S.-backed state committing their own acts of violence will always fail to address the existence of violence.

It begins not with us, not with Palestinians, and not with members of the Israeli public. The Western empire and through it the state of Israel are the central propagator of violence. If you think national boundaries are violent in themselves as I do, the violence will not end until we abolish borders worldwide. But that’s not the point, today. Today there are people who need an urgent response of compassion, an urgent recognition of their humanity in a world that justifies the deaths of thousands under bulldozers to protect a population spread worldwide by others in their name.

Crisis and action

I and other Christians in the U.S. are responsible for taking this crisis moment as a chance to reevaluate the systems we live within and how we challenge and reinforce those systems. And reflections mean nothing if they do not move into action to affect the lives of targets of those systems at home and abroad.

Every Christian must use this time to find the Empire’s voice inside ourselves and to unflinchingly dig them out by the root. And the roots will always be deeper, and new seeds will always be planted. We cannot move forward without unpacking our own anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian, Islamophobic, and antisemitic beliefs each and every day.

Swift and then persistent action is necessary. Reflection comes to us in this season. The solstice passes now, and the light grows again. After reflection, we move into a time of quickening and light. The solstice will return, the star will rise over Bethlehem, and when it does, we can look upon the year we spent, and see if we have spent it well, in the service of anti-imperialism, humanity, and the kingdom of God on Earth.

Above all, we must remember these words from Isaac, “Prayer is not enough. Now is the time for faithful prophetic courage.”

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About Daniel Jean Perrier

Daniel Jean Perrier (he/xe/they) is an independent scholar of religion and an author of horror fiction. He received his Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School in 2019. During his time in the graduate program, his focus was religion, ethics, and politics. You can read more about the author here.

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