Can Christianity Be Saved from Zionism? A Metanoia Conversation

Since the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023, more than 33,000 Palestinians living in Gaza have been killed by Israeli attacks, including over 14,000 children and 9,000 women, with several thousand more missing and trapped under rubble. Nearly the entirety of the 2.3 million people who live in Gaza have been displaced and blockaded by Israel, actions which have cut off access to food, clean water, and medical supplies. Universities, hospitals, schools, and homes have been razed to the ground, with as many as 62% of all buildings in Gaza damaged or destroyed, Gaza City itself being closer to 80%.

Such horrific scales of death and destruction demands us to ask the question raised by Judith Butler: Whose life is grievable? What does the loss of Palestinian life mean in the midst of such an impersonal roll call of statistics?

Yet the story of this ongoing genocide and conflict did not originate on 7 October, nor with the right-wing rule of Benjamin Netanyahu, nor even the founding of Hamas. Instead, a better place to look is 1948 in which the British withdrew from Mandatory Palestine, the State of Israel was established, and 700,000 Palestinians were violently expelled from their homes, many to the area we now call the Gaza Strip. Such actions were undergirded by an ideology known as Zionism, an ideology supported and tied up not merely by Zionist Jews but also Christian Zionists in the West who believe such events represented the fulfilment of biblical prophecy.

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On 29 May at Cityside Baptist Church, Mt Eden, we will be gathering for the first of our “Can Christianity be saved” series to discuss Christian Zionism. What is it, where did it come from, and how is it related to the ongoing conflict and genocide in Gaza?

This conversation, hosted by Metanoia, shall feature guest speakers, Steve Tollestrup and Sophie Fasi-Mohenoa.

More information and RSVP is available here.