Perspective: How should Christians respond to Hamas attack on Israel?

By now, everyone has heard of the shocking atrocities perpetrated by Hamas in Israel after it launched a surprise attack last week. And as the Israeli military continues to bombard the Gaza Strip and prepares for a possible ground invasion, we must brace ourselves for many more deaths and for another flood of images of wounded children and grieving families.

In the face of this horror, how should Christians respond?

First, the New Testament calls on us to mourn with those who mourn. At a time like this, this means grieving with the survivors of Hamas’ attack. And it means mourning, too, with the people in Gaza who must now bear the brunt of the military response to it.

Second, we must pray for peace. To say this may seem like a platitude. But if we believe in God’s power to intervene in history, it remains vital all the same.

Beyond grieving and praying, what else should we do?

From many corners, there are demands for stern action from world leaders. This is more than understandable because of the depth of fury, fear and panic that Israelis feel at being violated in such terrible ways by an organization that has pledged to eradicate their country. The desire for a swift and severe reaction is at the core of our human response to evil. Like many, I have traveled to Israel and the West Bank on several occasions, most recently last year, and have made close friends on both sides of the long-standing conflict in the region. Many of them have spent years working for peace and dialogue in order to overcome the deep-seated hatred in their communities. When I’ve spoken with some of these in the last few days, they describe their incredible pain. They are living through a level of anger and dread of the future that is beyond normal.

In my church community, the Bruderhof, one way that the terror has come close to home is the massacres that took place in kibbutz communities such as Kfar Aza and Be’eri, in which hundreds were killed, including toddlers and babies. The ties of friendship between the the kibbutzim and the Bruderhof as two community movements go back 90 years. Though the Bruderhof is a Christian church and the kibbutzim are Jewish, we share a commitment to a communal way of life and have historical roots in common. Our hearts go out to these communities, and to all who are suffering the anguish of the past few days.

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For my own part as a pastor, I simply do not know what actions the governments involved should take. Nor do I have a suggestion for how other world powers should respond. Government leaders will do what they think best anyway. Let us hope that their decisions in the coming days and weeks are for the well-being and protection of all the people affected, especially the most vulnerable.

But though I don’t know what governments should do, I do know what followers of Jesus are called to do.

The only thing Christians can do with absolute certainty is to testify to Christ’s gospel of peace. Our calling is to pray for peace and for all the victims of violence, to refuse to support violence ourselves and to be peacemakers. As members of his church on earth, we are to be an embassy in the present world of the future peaceable kingdom.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). He taught: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:43-45).

Christians should protest the barbarity of the attacks on Israel and the massacre of children, women and elders. We should speak up against depriving civilians of water and electricity and the bombing of residential targets. We should deplore all war. That is our duty; to be silent is sinful. Especially in moments when the public mood grows bloody-minded and vindictive, we can never cheerlead for violence, however justified it may seem to be.

What force can overcome such evil? Again, Jesus teaches us the answer: Only love can truly win over enemies.

The apostle Paul echoed Jesus’ teaching on peacemaking, writing in his letter to the Romans: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

As a Jewish rabbi, Jesus in his teaching was drawing on the Hebrew scriptures. In commanding his followers to love the enemy, he is calling us to live already now as citizens of the peaceable kingdom foretold by the prophet Isaiah:

As Isaiah tells us, the pathway to that promised kingdom of peace is returning to the Lord. Only in God is there the comfort and hope that terror and fear will not win. It can be easy to lose sight of this at times like these and to reach instead for answers that seem more “realistic.” Yet hard-power responses to enmity are far from reliable, as is evident from the massive military and intelligence failure that left open the door to the Hamas attack. Even when such responses seem effective in the short-term, often enough they end up deepening the problem they set out to solve. In the end, God’s reign of peace is the only truly realistic answer to evil.

We who profess Christ must testify confidently to his command to love rather than to trust in armed force. He taught us that it is our hearts that need to change — that what is crooked, both in ourselves and in the world, needs to become straight. We will have to level our rough places of anger and revenge, raze the mountains of hatred and pride, and lift up the valleys of suffering and pain with love and hope. Only in this way will the day finally arrive when all warfare and violence ceases and finally God’s kingdom comes on earth as in heaven, reconciling all things. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Heinrich Arnold is the senior pastor at Bruderhof.