Chrislamismarxianity: Palestinian Christians Promote A New Antisemitic Religion

The Evangelical anti-Zionist and Antisemitic organization Christ at the Checkpoint (CATC) held its biannual conference in Bethlehem of Judea this past May at Bethlehem Bible College. In 2017, the NGO Monitor reported that “Christ at the Checkpoint seeks to advance the Palestinian nationalist agenda within Evangelical Christian churches while simultaneously reviving theological antisemitic themes such as replacement theology . . . Other anti-Jewish themes promoted at CATC include the de-Judaizing of Jesus and the promotion of a racial theory of Jewish origins.”

This year’s CATC conference pivoted—leapt would be a better description—from its traditional theological foundation of Supersessionism (the false narrative that the church has replaced Israel and Palestinian Christians are the rightful owners of Jewish land). Gone were the old-guard supersessionists like former Wheaton College New Testament theologian Dr. Gary Burge, who denies Jewish ownership of the land of Israel in his book Whose Land, Whose Promise, and on page 176 demands that Israeli Jews who do not convert to Christianity should be burned: “The people of Israel cannot claim to be planted as vines in the land, they cannot be rooted in the vineyard unless first they are grafted into Jesus. Branches that attempt living in the land, the vineyard, which refuse to be attached to Jesus will be cast out and burned.” Murderous language like this evokes the not-too-distant memory of Jews burned in the gas chambers by German Christians who took their Supersessionism to a whole new level by copying the ancient Inquisitors who favored burning Jews alive in Synagogues. It also evokes the recent memory on October 7th, 2023, of Palestinian terrorists—inspired by Supersessionists—who burned to death Jewish men, women, and children. Why is it that Supersessionists like Gary Burge have historically concluded that the final solution to erasing Jewish existence was death by burning?

Daniel Bannoura, a PhD candidate in quranic studies and recent speaker at the Evangelical flagship Wheaton College, explained in his CATC presentation that he wants to “remind Christians of the context of 75 years of [Israeli] Apartheid and oppression and settler colonialism.” He said when Palestinians proclaim, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” what they are calling for is an eradication of the state of Israel and “an annihilation of a racist ideology of one people [Jews] over another [Palestinians]. He went on to argue that “the idea of Israel is an ethnic and racist supremacist state.” Bannoura endorsed the following statement: “The Palestinian has become the Jew, and the Jew has become the new white man.” He also accused Israel of white supremacy:

“I think Palestine is a theological crisis. If you are an American Evangelical and you are having conversations about white supremacy and patriarchy, you have to have conversations about Palestine—these go hand in hand. Palestine is an American Christian issue, just like white nationalism is an American Christian issue. Palestine, by extension, is a theological crisis for the West, just like white supremacy is. Just like racism is. Just like patriarchy is.”

What we are witnessing in Palestinian Christianity is the birth of a new religion. I call it Chrislamismarxianity. It is a mixture of Christianity, radical Islamism, and Marxism. After the October 7th Palestinian murderous rampage of Jewish civilians in southern Israel, the world witnessed pro-Hamas riots on American university campuses. Many have rightly blamed this outburst of campus Antisemitism on the Red and Green alliance—the joining of Palestinian nationalism with Marxism. There is a long tradition in this marriage between these two ideologies. In a September 3, 2022, article in White Rose entitled Palestinianism: An Ideology + An Identity, Victor Rosenthal writes:

“Palestinianism had its origin in the 1960s, when it was created by the cognitive warriors of the Soviet KGB. The Soviets had had an interest for some time in opposing U.S. and British influence in the Middle East, which they did by supporting Arab nationalists like Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. With the decline of pan-Arabism, Palestinianism provided a cause that the Soviets could use to unite all the Arabs of the Middle East against the West. It also provided a reason to oppose Israel. Although Stalin had initially hoped that Israel would join the socialist camp, it became clear to the Soviets by the mid-1950s that Israel was moving more and more in the direction of the West.

Until this time, most Arabs of “Palestine,” that area that had been part of the British Mandate, insofar as they had any national feelings at all, had generally seen themselves as belonging to “southern Syria” (although a specifically Palestinian nationalism did exist to a small extent in the early part of the 20th century, particularly among Christian Arabs).

This was a time of worldwide decolonization, and the KGB promoted the idea that the conflict between the Jews and Arabs for sovereignty in Palestine (or Eretz Yisrael, depending on your point of view) was actually a struggle of national liberation by an indigenous Palestinian people against European colonialists (the Jews!), despite the fact that about half of all Israelis came from the Middle Eastern and African diasporas.”

Christ at the Checkpoint adds the third political idealogy—Christian Palestinianism—to make the unholy trinity complete—Chrislamismarxianity. In this year’s CATC conference, the speakers used Christianized language dripping with Marxist idealogy. The messaging seemed choreographed and boringly monochromatic—scripted: “White patriarchy, Apartheid, settler colonialism, de-centering of whiteness, the work of decolonization, brown colonized Jesus.” The gullible Western Evangelicals in the audience applauded the Christianized Marxist and Islamist themes promoted by the speakers—clueless, it would seem—to the ultimate intention of Hamas, which is the destruction of the Western world. One should take note of the posters produced by Hamas that decorate walls in Gaza: “First the Saturday people (Israeli Jews), then the Sunday people (Christians in the Western world). I suspect this year’s CATC attendees are blind to the endgame of radical Islamists because the Antisemitic and anti-western narrative closely resembles their own.

As well, the speakers at this year’s CATC appeared to be in total submission to Islamism. This is known as “Dhimmitude,” which is the status conferred upon a religious or racial minority in an Islamic country. In order to retain their “Dhimmi” status, CATC leaders must promote Palestinian nationalism—an ideology they willingly and enthusiastically applaud. In essence, they are Palestinians first and Christians second, much like the German Christians who placed National Socialism and Nazisim over their Christian beliefs during the Holocaust.

This subservience to Islamism in the CATC movement does not seem to be born out of a fearful consequence of non-compliance—it’s more fawning. The leaders of CATC are clamoring for power and position within the ranks of the Palestinian Authority, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas. It would not surprise me If the leaders of CATC were on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority.

On October 8, 2023, the day after the October 7 Hamas-led pogrom in southern Israel, Palestinian Christian Pastor and director of CATC, Munther Isaac, said in his sermon at the Evangelical Bethlehem Lutheran Christmas Church: “We were all shocked by what happened yesterday… We were glued to our phones and televisions, following the events firsthand… We were shocked by the strength of the Palestinian man who defied his siege…Frankly, anyone following the events was not surprised by what happened yesterday.”

Pastor Isaac was impressed by the strength of Palestinian terrorists who raped women, burned Jewish babies, and butchered 1,200 innocents. By praising the bestial barbarianism of the Palestinian men responsible for the massacre, Pastor Isaac gained the attention of Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom and former Palestinian Ambassador of the PLO General Delegation to the US. The PLO, of course, has been designated by the US Department of State as a terrorist organization, yet Munther Isaac invited Ambassador Zomlot to speak at this year’s CATC conference. In his remarks, Zomlot—the man who refused to condemn Hamas for the murders on October 7 when questioned by Margaret Brennan on CBS—praised Munther Isaac when he greeted the CATC attendees and welcomed them to “This very important conference organized by the Right Reverend Munther Isaac, pastor of the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Munther is a dear friend and a powerful voice for justice.” What Zomlot really meant was that Isaac is an essential Christian cover for the atrocities of Hamas.

Christian Dhimmis who embrace Marxist Palestinianism and gush over radicalized Islamists have their rewards. Munther Isaac will be touring the United States this summer, speaking in Christian churches and colleges (his first stop was as an honored guest at the Evangelical Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois). He will be promoting his new doctrine of Chrislamismarxianity. By making his Christian brand of Palestinian Marxism the new moral compass of the world, he will most likely become the darling of the woke Evangelical left, and Chrislamismarxianity will become yet another weapon for Christian Antisemites like Munther Isaac, cowering behind the cover of Christianity to erase Jews from existence.