Worshipping Jerusalem: Colonial Christianity Among Colonisers and the Colonised

Both Jewish and Palestinian Christians remain separated in Palestine-Israel, as if Paul's promise of church unity in One New Person (Ephesians 2:14–16) was somehow inapplicable to the Middle East. Christian Zionism has erected new walls of hostility, aggravating the traditional antagonisms that separated immigrant, European colonisers from the colonised, Palestinian natives. American evangelicalism, which is dominated by the ideology of Christian Zionism, has a sizeable role to play in confusing these issues and keeping Israelis and Palestinians apart. After interviewing numerous Christian leaders from local churches and examining a messianic Jewish church service in Jerusalem, I explain how American cultural trappings and political posturing — standard features of western, settler–colonial Christianity — continue to obscure the Christian message and work against church unity today in Palestine-Israel.