Evangelical Wheaton College Hosts Anti-Zionist Event in Barrows Auditorium

The Billy Graham Center is located on the campus of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Housed within the grand colonial building that was built and donated to Wheaton by Graham is the Cliff Barrows Auditorium. Mr. Barrows was the long-time Choir director for Graham’s meetings. Barrows was a friend of Israel and, in 1970, narrated a documentary film produced by the Billy Graham Association entitled His Land. The film detailed the prophecies in the Bible related to the rebirth of Israel. In the movie, Cliff Barrows states: “Do you recall the uproar on November 29, 1947, when the UN finally voted to declare Israel a new nation? People all over the world who knew what the Bible had to say suddenly realized we had closed a gap of thousands of years on God’s calendar.” Cliff then talks about the word God gave to the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 16:14-15:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where He had driven them. For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.”

Sadly, last month, on March 25, the auditorium named after the Israel-loving Cliff Barrows was used to promote an anti-Israel event. Munther Isaac, the Palestinian pastor of the Bethlehem Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem of Judea, spoke to a packed audience of Wheaton College students and faculty. Pastor Isaac was on another whirlwind speaking tour in the United States. This time, he promoted his new book, Christ in the Rubble—Faith, the Bible, And the Genocide in Gaza. The title of the book describes Isaac’s false narrative that Jesus is a Palestinian nationalist opposed to the Jewish State of Israel, and the cover of the book depicts Jesus wrapped in a keffiyeh—a head scarf popularized by the terrorist Yasser Arafat.

Isaac’s speeches blend 1960s radical Marxist liberation theology with the Palestinian nationalistic agenda. Within this toxic brew, pastor Isaac mixes Christian language to
endorse his commitment to love and justice that masterfully creates a narrative about himself that seems a bit amour propre. In fact, Yale University Divinity Associate Professor Willie Jennings wrote the Foreward to Christ in the Rubble and proclaimed that Pastor Isaac is “committed to nonviolence and just peace.” But is he? On October 8, 2023, the day after Palestinian terrorists raped and murdered 1,400 innocent Israeli citizens, pastor Isaac praised the acts of the perpetrators when he said in his Sunday sermon: “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 masculine strength of Palestinian Islamist terrorists who raped women, burned Jewish babies, and butchered 1,400 innocents. He affirmed the bestial barbarism of the Palestinian men responsible for the massacre while excusing the violence by blaming Israel. So much for Pastor Isaac’s commitment to “non-violence and just peace.”

In an Instagram post yesterday, Isaac recaps his book tour: “I arrive home today from the United States. I have spoken at several universities/theology schools (Wheaton College, Notre Dame University, Lutheran School of Theology Chicago, Harvard Divinity School, Yale Divinity School, Georgetown University), Churches, and the Exiles in Babylon conference. The tour aimed mainly at introducing my new book, “Christ in the Rubble. Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza”. Despite the culture of fear and intimidation in the US these days, the talks were well-attended and very engaging. The US Christian public is thirsty for a different perspective than that of war and ‘might is right.’ The message of ‘Christ in the Rubble’ has resonated with me around the world. I was particularly honored by the interaction with scholars and leaders such as Atalia Omer, Daniel Bannoura, Alexander Massad, Rafael Malpica Padilla, Hillary Rantisi, Willie Jennings, Mira Sawlani-Joyner, Khader Khalilia, Shane Claiborne, Lisa Sharon Harper, Noura Erakat, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush, Mae Elise Cannon, Preston Sprinkle, Soong-Chan Rah, Ben Norquist, Mercy Aiken, and others.”

An obvious question this post raises is that if, in fact, Israel is committing Genocide against the Palestinian people, as pastor Isaac proclaims in his book and in his speeches, why would pastor Isaac, a Palestinian, be so content about returning home to Bethlehem in the middle of a Genocide? Intermixed with the “scholars and leaders” who interacted with him on his US book tour, Isaac mentions three People he is aligned with whose hate-filled radical Antisemitism is noteworthy for someone who sells himself as committed to non-violence and just peace.

First, there is Noura Erakat. Noura is an associate professor of Africana studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey. On October 7th, 2023, the day of the Hamas massacre,
Erakat posted on X to her 175,000 followers: “Any condemnation of violence is vapid if it does not begin and end with a condemnation of Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism, and occupation.”

In other words, before anyone can condemn Hamas for burning Jewish babies and taking 250 hostages captive, they must first declare that Israel is responsible for the murder of its citizens. On October 16, a few days later, Erakat falsely stated that no Jewish babies were beheaded on October 7: “President Biden repeated the lie about beheaded [Israeli] babies [by Hamas], and directed US diplomatic corps to avoid calls for a ceasefire [between Israel and Hamas], and backs Israel’s genocidal warfare [in Gaza]…” In 2020, Erakat led an online workshop with senior Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad, which the Masarat Center, a Palestinian nonprofit, organized.

Secondly, we have Rashida Tlaib. Rashida is the radical Palestinian anti-Zionist congresswoman from Michigan who is known for her violent rhetoric against Jews and her demand for the elimination of the Jewish state. On November 7, 2023, one month after the Hamas attack on southern Israel, Congresswoman Tlaib was censured by the House of Representatives for her violent Antisemitic threats and unbecoming conduct. Congressional censures are extremely rare, and there have only been 28 in history.

The resolution—H.Res.845—says in part: “Whereas Representative Rashida Tlaib, within 24 hours of the October 7 barbaric attack on Jewish citizens of the State of Israel, representing the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, defended the brutal rapes, murders, be-headings, and kidnapping—including of Americans—by Hamas as justified ‘resistance’ to the ‘apartheid state’; Whereas, on November 3, 2023, Representative Tlaib published on social media a video containing the phrase ‘from the river to the sea,’ which is widely recognized as a genocidal call to violence to destroy the state of Israel and its people to replace it with a Palestinian state.” The bill, I might add, had bi-partisan support.

Last but not least is former United States congresswoman Cori Bush. In a letter drafted by St. Louis, Missouri, Jewish organizations and clergy on November 1, 2023, Cori’s position against Israel was challenged: “To accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing as it seeks to defend itself and locate hundreds of hostages still held captive in Gaza—taken only because they were assumed to be Jews—is sickening. The 60,000 Jewish members of the St. Louis community deserve an apology for her lack of decency, disregard for history, and for intentionally fueling antisemitism and hatred. Rep. Bush has shown little outrage against the horrendous attacks by an organization whose very charter calls for the killing of all Jewish people.”

I do not doubt Pastor Isaac is convinced he is committed to the Christian virtues of love and peace. He indeed consistently repeats his belief that he is filled with those virtues. It’s puzzling, though, why he builds bonds with those who use such radically violent Antisemitic discourse, partner with Hamas terrorists, deny the atrocities of 10/7, disregard the facts of history, fuel Antisemitism that ignites violence and hatred, and loudly call for the elimination of the Jewish people.

When Billy Graham’s film studio, World Wide Pictures, released the film His Land, narrated by Cliff Barrows in 1970, millions of Christians viewed it. The American Jewish Committee helped make the film an international phenomenon. By 1971, the AJC screened the movie in Jewish community centers and synagogues around the US, promoting it as “an authentic interpretation” that “strengthens the current inter-religious discussion on the Middle East question.” As a result of the success of His Land, Cliff Barrows became a global voice in communicating God’s heart for the Jewish people and their restoration to the land God had promised them. It’s too bad the auditorium Billy Graham dedicated to his friend, Cliff Barrows, was used to demonize and delegitimize the land Mr. Barrows dearly loved.