BETHLEHEM, Pa. — About three dozen people stood in solidarity on Christmas Eve morning.
With a Christmas nativity scene and a 43-foot holiday spruce as a backdrop at Payrow Plaza outside City Hall, and with a large menorah close by, area clergy assembled to make a statement they said was unprecedented.
Calling for more from themselves and their neighbors, Lehigh Valley church leadership demanded Bethlehem never forget its Palestinian namesake city in the West Bank.
Calling especially on fellow Christians this holiday season, 10 clergy out of Bethlehem reflected on what they said was an urgent need for solidarity with Palestine.
“This Advent season, as ever, we eagerly await the arrival of Christ and rejoice that God was made flesh and lived among us," the Very Rev. John Stratton, dean and rector of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in South Bethlehem, read aloud from a statement.
"As clergy in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a city that bears the name of Christ’s birthplace, we know that Jesus’ birth was a concrete event, in a real place.
"This Advent season, we turn our attention to that place — to Palestine. In so doing, we are compelled to confront the horrific violence Palestinians suffer, as well as our churches’ complicity therein."
'Implicated in this violence'
The statement said that since Hamas’ 2023 violent attack on Israelis, the state of Israel, with the support of the United States government, "has responded with a bombing campaign on Palestinian civilians, escalating the long running violence Palestinians have suffered for generations."
"In the last two and half years, Israel has killed over 18,000 children, forcibly displaced Gazans from their homes and caused a famine by denying the population access to food and other aid," Stratton said, reading from the statement.
"We condemn the violence Palestinians — Christian and otherwise — experience at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces, which tramples on the dignity they deserve as human beings created in the image of God."Bethlehem clergy statement
"The United Nation’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found in September that the Israeli state’s actions amount to a genocide against the Palestinian people."
The clergy cited this report — along with other data regarding Palestinian food insecurity, information from the International Rescue Committee and reporting from The Guardian.
The statement from the clergy said that the most recent wave of violence is part of a "much longer history of Palestinian dispossession, going back to British colonial rule over Palestine and the Nakba, the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their lands by the nascent state of Israel in 1948."
"As Christians, we are implicated in this violence," Stratton said, still reading from the statement.
"Members of our churches, past and present, have carried the flame of Christian Zionism, a heretical theology that distorts the message of the Bible in service of war and ethnic cleansing.
"Many Christians have disfigured the liberating message of the Gospel and the loving ministry of Jesus into justification for the oppression of Palestinians, including Palestinian Christians.
"We condemn the violence Palestinians — Christian and otherwise — experience at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces, which tramples on the dignity they deserve as human beings created in the image of God.
"Knowing that Christ is always among 'the least of these,' we affirm the words of the Reverend Dr. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian pastor and theologian, that 'if Jesus were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza.'
"We bear witness to God’s solidarity with the oppressed by standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine. To turn away from the suffering of Palestinians is to turn away from Christ."
'Open door to transformative fellowship'
The statement said Advent "invites us into a spiritual practice of hope."
"Just as the Roman Empire and the Herodian dynasty have crumbled in the centuries since they tormented the Holy Family at Christ’s birth, we know that the powers and principalities of today do not have the last word.
"In this vein, we pray for an end to Israel’s violence against the people of Palestine. We repent of our quietness and our comfort and our fear."
The statement asked that Christians in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, "turn their attention to Palestinian Christian preachers, priests and theologians like Naim Ateek, Leyla King, Mitri Raheb and John and Samuel Munayer."
"Their prophetic voices can help us to understand the ways Christian Zionism warps the message of the Bible in the service of Israel’s occupation and lead us to a truer account of Jesus’ life and ministry," Stratton said, reading from the statement.
The statement concluded by inviting "our siblings in Christ, including members of our congregations, to explore alongside us how we can meet these words with deeds in the years to come.
"That we share a name with the place of Jesus’ birth can be more than a historical accident; it can be an open door to transformative fellowship — if we let it."
The statement was signed by the Revs. Rodney Conn, Wilson Colón, Jane Arrington Bender, Scott Allen, Lindsey Altvater Clifton, Lauren Applegate, Keitha Wiggins-Kennedy, Lindsey Altvater Clifton, Lauren Applegate and Scott Allen.
Also, the Rev. Canon Maryann Philbrook Sturges, pastor Byrnese Craig, the Very Rev. Jon Stratton and the Rev. Canon Maryann Philbrook Sturges.
'Get louder and talk about Palestine'
Local Palestinian activist Nagi Latefa said the announcement is timely, coming just after Hanukkah, right before Christmas and with Ramadan in the coming months.
“Inaction and silence is a form of complicity," Latefa said. "So get louder and talk about Palestine at your [holiday] gatherings.
“This is realizing our humanity, first and foremost, and supporting our rights to live in safety, dignity and in freedom of occupation and oppression.
“But that also means refusing to look away from our suffering and insisting that our lives have the same worth, safety and dignity as anyone else’s lives.
“It also means commitment to listen to Palestinian voices, to name the system of violence and dispossession we face and to stand publicly against this injustice, even when it’s uncomfortable or costly.
“It also means challenging the dehumanization narrative that you see every day. It involves refusing to remain silent in the face of atrocities.”
“Inaction and silence is a form of complicity, so get louder and talk about Palestine at your [holiday] gatherings."Local Palestinian activist Nagi Latefa
Scot J. Dressler said that when he was 1, he moved with his family from small-town Pennsylvania to Beit Hanina, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
Dressler said his parents spent their next 14 years as ministers, serving the local Palestinian Christian community.
Dressler, now a campus and youth minister with the Cathedral Church of the Nativity, said he grew up witnessing the experiences of his Palestinian neighbors firsthand.
“I’m saddened to say that when I look to the church here in the United States, I’m met with a range of weak responses on this topic, to put it mildly," he said.
“For many churches, the path they have chosen to walk is one of silence and of apathy, and in many cases for those Christians who follow the pernicious and heretical ideology of Christian Zionism, they actively celebrate and revel in the destruction of Palestine.
“Let us stand with the Palestinians today and also with our Jewish and Muslim siblings here in the Lehigh Valley, today and every day, in saying no to apartheid, saying no to the violent occupation of Palestinian land and saying no to all forms of ethnic and religious supremacy and to the colonization of Palestine.”
'All too similar'
The Rev. Canon Maryann Philbrook Sturges, also with Nativity Cathedral, said what’s happening now is “all too similar to what was happening when our Lord and Savior was born 2,000 years ago.”
“What is happening now is innocents are being killed,” Sturges said.
“So as Christians, we need to be in solidarity with the Palestinians today — not only our Lord and Savior who was born in Palestine 2,000 years ago.”The Rev. Canon Maryann Philbrook Sturges, with The Cathedral Church of the Nativity in South Bethlehem
“Just as King Herod killed children, there are bombs that are killing children every day in Gaza. Just as Mary and Joseph had to flee from their country, there are people who are having to flee from their homes today.
“So as Christians, we need to be in solidarity with the Palestinians today — not only our Lord and Savior who was born in Palestine 2,000 years ago.”
The emerging Lehigh Valley chapter of Christians for a Free Palestine organized the Christmas Eve event.
“We want people in Bethlehem and across the Lehigh Valley to turn their attention to the original Bethlehem, to Palestine, to understand some of the violence that Palestinians have been experiencing,” CFP-LV organizer John Favini said.
An event release said the group is “an ecumenical, grassroots, nonviolent movement dedicated to mobilizing Christians across the U.S. to take action in solidarity with Palestinians.”
In 2024, and despite push from the public, Bethlehem City Council discussed but never passed a symbolic resolution calling for a ceasefire in Palestine.
On Nov. 29, PBS News reported more than 70,000 Palestinians have died since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, according to figures shared by the Gaza Health Ministry.
