Faith in the Face of Empire by Mitri Raheb: A Review

Mitri Raheb/Photo Credit: Calvin College

Mitri Raheb is a Palestinian Christian. Raised in a Christian home. Thoroughly credentialed as a pastor and thought leader. (I refer you to his website where you'll find a complete listing of all the awards he's won.)

What makes Dr. Raheb unique is his hermeneutical lens, which is his own history as a Palestinian. He uses this lens to examine the historical and cultural foundation upon which the current existence of Palestine rests in his book FAITH IN THE FACE OF EMPIRE: The Bible Through Palestinian Eyes.

He notes that Palestine has, for the most part, always existed as an occupied territory of one empire or another.

"Oppressed people are likely to stop imagining and stop developing bold ideas; they are caught up in the everyday struggle of providing the daily bread of survival. Reversing this dynamic is true resistance. True resistance is not killing a soldier or civilian or blowing up buildings. These are reactionary measures. Resistance is action, not reaction."

And where was Jesus in all this? For openers, it's helpful to remember that Jesus was a Palestinian Jew.

"In order to understand Jesus' way in terms of liberation we first have to ask what paths he did not choose."

Raheb goes on to observe that Jesus: never had a desire to go to Rome (the center of the then-occupying empire; had no desire to create a political party (he was extremely popular, but didn't align himself with a political party, he could have been king, but refused). The final thing Raheb notes is that "Jesus had no desire whatsoever to be a religious leader... He had the opportunity to become a leader of great renown, but he refused. He simply had a different political agenda to liberate the people of Palestine."

"Jesus believed that liberation started with empowering those who were marginalized," writes Raheb.

One of the key ingredients for liberation, writes Raheb, is spiritual. "In the Middle East there is too much religion and too little spirituality... What type of spirituality therefore, is needed in the face of the empire?"

For Raheb, peace in the Middle East will not come via military aggression. "It is a sad and terribly strange commentary to live in an age where waging war becomes logical and where questioning war is seen as demented. What is truly insane is to spend billions of dollars on arms and military equipment. Spending on military equipment comes at the cost of educating, empowering and employing people. Regions are not safer with all these weapons..."

As for efforts for the US and Israel to force peace terms, Raheb acknowledges that "peace dictated by the empire is not desirable, doable or durable." He goes on to say that "All life in general, and life in the Holy Land in particular, is a matter of living in the tension between the 'the world as it is' with all its ugly and painful realities and the 'world as it could be.'"

And, towards the end of his book, Raheb points to the power of faith in moving forward. But first, he puts forth quite a disclaimer: "Faith that makes people passive, depressive or delusional is not faith but opium."

Given this more inclusive idea of faith, Raheb remains amazingly hopeful. "Without faith, there is no imagination; without imagination, there is no innovation; and without innovation, there is no future. Faith embodies the view that we can imagine something that was not, until the present, part of our history."