Listening to the voices and life stories of Christians in Palestine – a values based social justice initiative
“ “The history of the world, also in the last two centuries, had unfortunately been a story of too many wars with all the attendant cruelty of humankind against humankind. The twenty-first century, which so many hoped would at last be the century of the triumph of world peace and global caring, has not started too promisingly. Conflicts still plague many areas on the globe, and we have seen the emergence of unilateral superpower military interventions.” ”
Dr. Jude Clark on the 17th of January 2025 posted this quote on Facebook: "The power of story lies in the hands of the storyteller, to see oneself only ever reflected through the eyes of another is to view the self through a distorting lens; this is the shared experience of all whose place in history has been marginalised." Aminata Forna.
There is power in story sharing – when we take ownership of our personal story, take time to share our personal story with others, and allow for others to share their personal stories with us. Through What's Your Story?, a campaign by Heartlines, a South African non-governmental organisation, we used a story-sharing approach called Ask, Listen and Tell.
Through this campaign, we designed and delivered three sessions of three- to four hours. We first shared our personal stories within the group and then together in the larger group watched The stones cry out: voices of Palestinian Christians, by Yasmine Perni. This was followed by discussion and a Q&A. We also drew from Susan Scott and Fierce Conversations to address the work that needs to be done in interrogating reality, provoking learning, tackling challenges, and enriching relationships.
We ran our events in November and December 2024, engaging about 80 participants which included pastors, NGO leaders, faith community members, corporate, business, and educational leaders youth, young adults and elders. Two of our sessions were held at the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF), who partnered with us and generously provided the venue, audio-visual equipment, theatre, and catering. Some community leaders and faith community members had not been to the NMF before. In giving feedback on the screening, one participant shared that they did not know that there are Christians in Palestine, while another shared that they thought the places in the Bible were only from the Bible and not real places with real living people. Some other responses included: “I did not know” and “I am shocked at the similarities that I know from apartheid, what have we done – Senzenina?”.
Another session was held with the Methodist Bishops of Southern Africa at their national and international head offices. Some of the senior executive leaders there were perplexed and shocked to learn about the pains, traumas and tragedies of Christians living in Palestine. Along with those who are ‘raptured and captured’, the leaders found it difficult to think of Israel as an oppressor.
The power of story contributed to building impact for the justice, peace, and solidarity while the film viewing allowed us to deepen our story-listening and learning through the stories of Christian Palestinians. It was our hope to purposefully provide participants with an experiential, conversational and critical learning session.
Other groups that gave their commitment and support in this included the Council of African Independent Churches, the Volmoed Youth Leadership Training Programme, Hope Africa, The What's Your Story Campaign, #churchoutofthebox, #concernedchristians. In this program, we pursued a way to engage with Christians who have been captured by Christian Zionism and are in support of Israel, challenging not religious, but the violence carried out in the name of being the so-called people of God.