Life as a Palestinian Christian with Dr. Munther Isaac

Erin Moon (0:12)

Hello, and welcome to a very special episode of Faith Adjacent. I'm your host and Resident Bible Scholar Erin Moon, and I'm joined today by someone I've wanted to have on the show for a while now, Dr. Munther Isaac, and I'm very excited to introduce him to you, if you aren't already familiar with his work. But before we get started, on Patreon this week, our Faith Adjacent Seminarians got to hear our spicy questions for Dr. Isaac. We've actually had a very fun month over at Faith Adjacent Seminary. We had a spicy Ask a Bible Scholar about denominations.

Evan and I created our own seminary course syllabi. We had spicy, favorite, or forsaken. It's all there. It's always good. It's always fun. So come hang out with us over at patreon.com/faithadjacent and be a part of the most fearfully and wonderfully weird community on the Lord's internet.

So today on the show, we have Dr. Munther Isaac, who is going to introduce himself and his work to you in just a bit. So I won't belabor the point. But Dr. Isaac is a pastor, theologian, educator, and advocate in Palestine. I am very excited that he gave us some of his time today. And I want us to just get into it. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Dr. Munther Isaac.

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Erin Moon (2:04)

Dr. Munther Isaac, welcome to the show. You actually hold the distinction of being one of our most requested guests. So the people have spoken and we are so very thrilled to welcome you to Faith Adjacent.

Munther Isaac (2:19)

Thank you for having me. So I guess I have to ask what took you so long.

Erin Moon (2:24)

We're very, very excited. I've been familiar with your work for a while, ever since I watched your Christ in the Rubble Sermon that you delivered Christmas Eve 2023 And we're going to talk about that in a minute. But before, there are some of our listeners who don't know much about you. And I would love to just kind of get to know you a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit about your upbringing, your education and the current work that you are doing right now?

Munther Isaac (2:52)

Okay. Well, again, grateful for this conversation. I grew up in Bethlehem. I'm a Palestinian Christian. Was born in Bethlehem. And I'm sure that too many, it comes as a surprise that there are Christians in Bethlehem. I grew up in an area called the Shepherds' Field, just outside of Bethlehem.

And was actively involved in an evangelical church since my childhood, even though I grew up mainly, I was born in an orthodox home, traditional orthodox home. But since I was a child, I began attending an evangelical church. And that has been, you know, an important part of my upbringing, knowing the Bible, memorizing, competing to memorize verses with others, reading the Bible cover to cover, and making sure I do the checklist. And that remained with me, actually, until now, you know, this knowledge and love for scripture and the concept of a personal relationship with God.

I originally studied civil engineering in Palestine, thinking that that's the best career. Yet throughout my university times, I was very involved in student ministry. And I realized then that I really have a calling to serve people, to be with people. Especially in Palestine, I saw so much suffering, so much pain, and I thought, what can I do to help? And for some reason, I still think of, you know, I thought I can study theology to help people. And that's, you know, led me to West Minister Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. The church I grew up in had a Presbyterian tradition, so I went to a Presbyterian church, a seminary that was recommended to me, and they were gracious enough to host me, welcome me, and give me a scholarship. So I spent three years in Philadelphia, and I came back in 2005 to Bethlehem, and I've been since then with Bethlehem Bible College, an evangelical college in Bethlehem, yet pretty much interdenominational. It's not specifically a seminary or with a certain church affiliation.

I taught there, I became the academic dean. While there, I did my PhD at the Oxford Center for Mission Studies. I wrote on the promised land theology, it's in England. And I began leading the Conference Christ at the Checkpoint, which the college started in 2010, with the aim of engaging with evangelicals on questions relating to Palestine, Israel, and with the stated goal of shifting the conversation from a focus on eschatology and end times into a focus on peace and justice. So the question is, what would Jesus do if he is to stand in front of a checkpoint today? And maybe one final chapter is that after I received my PhD, I was approached from the Lutheran Church in Palestine, in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. First in Bethlehem, I was ordained there. And in our church tradition, every seven to ten years, you go to a new post. So I am now based in Ramallah, having served for eight years in Bethlehem. And last year, I began a new chapter as the pastor of Hope Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ramallah, also in the West Bank. I wear these two hats of both the academic world and as a pastor and that shaped my ministry, my theology. And since after the war on Gaza, I took this idea of the need to advocate for a need to change the, a change in theology, namely to challenge Western theology regarding Palestine. Given that many pastors and theologians actually supported what's happening in Gaza, that's a genocide.