Theology in the Raw - Christian Zionism, Gaza, and the Cost of Silence: Dr. Daniel Bannoura

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Dr. Daniel Bannoura (Ph.D. Notre Dame University) is a Palestinian theologian and Director of Public Engagement at the Bethlehem Institute for Peace & Justice. Daniel received his PhD degree in Qur'anic Studies from the University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on the history and redaction of the Qur'an, Christian-Muslim relations, and Palestinian theology. Daniel also host of “Across the Divide”, a podcast that provides a space for thoughtful conversations about Palestine-Israel through the lens of faith and peace-making. Check out the Church at the Crossroads conference in Atlanta, Nov 5-7, 2026 and the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference in Bethlehem, Dec 27th-31st, 2026. Time Stamps: 00:00:00 Intro00:02:29 Why a Palestinian Christian Researches the Qur’an00:05:04 Did Muhommed Actually Exist?00:11:43 Christian assumptions about Muslims in Gaza 00:16:00 Double Standards for Gazan Christian Deaths 00:16:48 Why are People Still Dying during the Ceasefire?00:18:53 The Debate Around Using the Term “Genocide” 00:23:49 The Shrinking Borders Around Gaza 00:25:24 UN Report on Children being Targeted in Gaza00:27:36 Life Expectancy, Malnutrition, and the Hidden Death Toll00:29:16 Why the World Knows but Hasn’t Stopped it 00:45:54 The Shifting Political Landscape00:51:08 Upcoming Conferences in Bethlehem and Atlanta 00:56:34 What can the Church do? 01:04:38 An Appeal to Christian LeadersSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Aside from the political issue here, the issue still remains. It's our siblings, our Christian brothers and sisters, especially evangelicals. The majority of them is still very pro-Israel. We've been down this road before with slavery, with anti-Semitism, with segregation. Christians are always falling behind, and we cannot afford to keep doing this. Can we be at the forefronts of pursuing what is good and pursuing dignity and justice? Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology and Rom. My guest today is my friend, Dr. Daniel Benora, who is a friend,

a Palestinian theologian and director of public engagement at the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice. Daniel received his Ph.D.D.D.m.m. His research focuses on the history and redaction of the Quran, Muslim Christian relations in Palestinian theology. We talk a bit about his research at the beginning of this episode. Daniel also hosts a podcast called Across a Divide. It's a podcast that provides space for thoughtful conversations about Israel, Palestine, through the lens of faith and peacemaking. Also, I want to let you guys know about an awesome conference. You need to check out.

Daniel is hosting it. It's one I spoke at last year. It's called the Church at the Crossroads Conference at Midtown Grace Church in Atlanta, November 5th through the 7th, 2026. Highly, highly recommend you check it out. We talk about this conference at the end. of this episode. So please do stay tuned for our conversation about the conference. Again, I had an amazing time, both as a speaker and an attendee at last year's conference and would highly recommend

that you check it out. All the info is, what is it? Church at the Crossroads. Just Google Church at the Crossroads. It'll take you right to the website where the conference information is all there. So without further ado, please welcome back to the show, the one and only Dr. Daniel Benora. Daniel Benora, actually Dr. Daniel. Yes, doctor. How's it feel? How's that feel? It's anti-climactic, man.

I don't know. It's fine. I got a piece of paper to show for it and that's it. What was your research again? This is Preston. I always love being with you and chatting with you. But we always talk about these heavy hitting. Really, for me, just heart-wrenching and existential conversations about the church.

and about genocide and so on and the conflict and violence. My research is in like the Quran, in chronic studies and the collection and redaction of the text. And if you have any New Testament or Bible nerds here, like the synoptic problem that I'm taking it from the New Testament and applying it to the Quran and historical critical analysis of the redaction of the text, completely removed, completely like super exciting. But we always talk about hard topics here. So just to answer the question, yeah, I spent five years at the University of Notre Dame working on the Quran.

I can explain why as a Palestinian Christian would spend five years studying someone else's text. Still confuses my parents-in-law, why I would spend so much time studying the Quran. They thought I want to be a missionary. and I'm like, no, that's not what I want to do. Yeah, I wanted to be a missionary, but I have a lot of things to say about that right now. But I looked into how the texts came together. There is a traditional narrative of the collection of the Quran. Muslims believe that the angel, Gabriel, appeared to the prophet

throughout a period of 22 years and gave him piecemeal revelations that were copied, were memorized, were in script, were written down on different inscriptions and bones of like camels and leather and papyrus, papyri. And then eventually all of those were collected into the Quran. Very kind of strange narrative and how can you authenticate such material? How do you know that what is written on this bone is actually true? What about bones that were broken? You know, There's a lot of kind of questions that come from that traditional narrative. But that is understood by Muslims to be what happened. And God is sovereign.

God is good. God takes care of his word. This is a very traditional Christian also perception about God. But yeah, so that is God's revelation to the Prophet Muhammad. And then eventually becomes the Quran, the recited text. That's what the word Quran means. But then historical critical analysis kind of questions all of that. We even question the authority and the hystericity of the prophet himself.

We don't really know if he existed. Or even if we would admit that, the sources about him are late. Wait, there's the debate about whether Muhammad even existed? Within Muslim is... Not within Muslim communities, no, but within mostly polemical Christian. And some hypercritical scholarship that... You know, the same scholarship that would question the historicity of Jesus. You know, they said that the price of...

It's more of a fringe. Right, yeah. Yeah, and it's not accepted in the critical scholarship of Islam either. I get... It's some people who tend to be more polemical and anti-Muslim who would want to say this. And it's based on some research that was done where the early non-Muslim responses to Islam, so the first Christians and Jews who knew... of Islam and wrote about Islam never mentioned the Prophet.

They mentioned these tribes that came into Syria and Palestine, and they mostly came for economic reasons, you know, but never kind of have a, that Christian sources never show a clear understanding of a religion that is established around the persona of the Prophet. So the assumption would be, well, if the Christians of the time did not mention the Prophet, well, how do you know that the Prophet existed? So then the earliest historical material about the Prophet appear 100 years after the events. So then there's this kind of suspicion, like was this character invented later by Muslims to approximate what Jews believe about Moses or what Christians believe about Jesus so that they constructed a character afterwards?

So that's kind of a hypercritical approach. but not something that is very serious, but it's still we don't have any physical evidence of the person. That's still the fact, though. We don't have extra non-Muslim literature like we have with Jesus, Eusefus and other kind of historians talking about the Messiah or the Christ, or in this case about the prophet. So that's why there's a kind of a big question mark,

but we kind of take it on face values like, yeah, surely this is a good explanation for how the, Islam came to be. But for me, I don't see a clear connection between that character, the Prophet Muhammad, and the Quran. Like, the Quran doesn't say that it is written by the Prophet. Oh, it doesn't? No, there are some scant references to a person called Muhammad in the Quran, but he's never described as the official author, you know, the Prophet who received the text. only in later traditions what we call the Hadith and the

Sira, the biography of the prophet that developed much later, they give us the narratives where we build our understanding of how the text came together. But the Quran itself doesn't. Oh, wow. So it doesn't have that kind of

the look and introduction, you know, or what have you about the text or... I need to have you back on and talk about it because every time I can have you on, we kind of banter around a little bit about it. I love this stuff. You raise all these questions and I'm like, man, I would love to dive in it.

I know nothing about. I don't want to talk about Palestine and Israel. Well, I do want to talk about that today. But yeah, I'll have you back on because I don't know any Christian experts, like literal experts in the Quran. I'm sure there are others. So before we transition, though, one, evangelicals, I'm assuming the majority few listeners are evangelicals. Do not know much about Islam. and second, as if you tend to be like a Western American Christian,

you have inherited very bad and naive assumptions about Muslims. So there is work to do here as Christians, as faithful believers, who want to commit ourselves, hopefully, to loving our neighbors. There's a lot of work we have to do to disentangle, deconstruct perhaps some of the assumptions and the bad and the negative and fears that we have about Islam and Muslims. So there's a lot of work that has to be done. We can talk about mascaryship all day long,

but also as Christians, we also need to reckon with Islamophobia, just fear and suspicion and hate even, I would say, towards Muslims. And if I want to tie to Palestine, I'm convinced if the people of Gaza were not Muslims, if they were like white Christians, we would not have seen what we have seen in Gaza.

So I think there is an implicit bias that we just do not care about the deal. dignity and the humanity of Muslims. And that is prevalent and we can't talk about the history of anti-Muslim sentiments in the U.S. But that's something that we have to reckon with as believers. Well, speaking to Gaza, let's let's a good segue into talking about Gaza and Palestine as a whole. I've had on a couple of guests in the last few months kind of giving us an update from different perspectives. I would love to hear your perspective, especially since you, you know, obviously grew up in Bethlehem, travel back home quite a bit, but now live in the state. So you have

kind of one foot in the American evangelical scene and still have, you know, a foot in Palestine. So you get, you have this unique situation. I guess, let me start by asking, uh, the question like, what, what? A couple of years, it was a couple years ago? There was a couple of years ago. There was a quote-unquote ceasefire. Was it last fall, right? Last fall, October 12, if I remember correctly, there was a ceasefire agreement

signed, and yet over, last time I checked, over a thousand Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire, which doesn't sound like there's a lot of ceasing of firing.

I don't know the exact number, of Israelis who have been killed by, say, Hamas or Palestinians. So the other direction, I do know the number is over a thousand deaths on the Palestinian side. A good portion are women and children because somebody will say, well, yeah, they're all terrorists. But there might be a couple civilians in there. And other people are like, no, these are not terrorists. And it's just hard to know who to believe, you know, depending on what you get your news from.

So yeah, so just setting it up, can you, from your more personal experience, how have you felt about the last nine months or so since the quote unquote ceasefire and how the church has continued to think through this important issue? Yeah, I want to challenge this issue about, oh, there's a terrorists. Before I can kind of respond to the question. Like, how do we know they're terrorists? like shouldn't we assume that they're innocence before we assume they're like they're guilty and let's assume like do Palestinians deserve due process if Israel says these are terrorists therefore we believe them without seeing the evidence like how do we know like why would we automatically guilt people that language of these are terrorists is is really really harmful and I and I just like Christians do not use that language. What do you mean

so if they're terrorists, therefore we can kill them? They have no humanity, no dignity, no family, no kids. Because when you're saying that let's kill a terrorist, you're actually saying let's kill the children who were standing right next to the terrorists because that's what Israel is doing. I think there's something here really, really

awful when Christians use this language and just kind of swallow this language that is given to us by the belligerent themselves and we just say, yeah, that's what Israel is said, therefore they must be terrorists. How do we know? I think the presumption should be always that anyone who is killed should be presumed to be innocent until proving otherwise. For the Palestinians, that's not the case. You have to establish a case why this person who happened to me maybe a young man has to be someone who's complicit in some kind of crime where he would deserve this kind of brutality and this kind of summary execution without any like justification.

And it's just a very crude, just very inhuman. mean way to think about people. I would also question this language of the terrorist. Like, what is a terrorist? Like, who, is this, is this a person? Like, does this person carry God's image and likeness on them? Like, is it someone who maybe was active? Like, he was a member of the party, the political party in Gaza.

I don't know, he was working as a clerk somewhere, but he has a, he's a card carrying member. He hasn't done anything wrong. He hasn't killed anyone. He hasn't attacked Israel on October 7, but because he belongs to the ruling party, therefore he is fair game. There's just a lot of things we have to interrogate.

What about the term terrorism? This has been used effectively to justify American foreign policy and the destruction of Iraq and, of course, Iran now, and Lebanon and so on. It's been a very effective tool used by the military industry complex to attack people and kill them and destroy their lives. and it's not the language that we should use. One people's group, one people's terrorists is one people's freedom fighters. If we understand anything about the context of oppression and violence,

surely we should interrogate these terms. I was talking to Peter Beiner on my podcast, and I know he's going to come on my podcast soon. Actually, you should listen to, shameless plug, listen to my podcast. He talks about this as a Jewish, South African-American, So he's an American Jew from South African backgrounds. But he was making a very compelling case, comparing the ANC in South Africa, Christian so quote and quote terrorists who were fighting against apartheid in South Africa.

And he made a, I was shocking to me as a Palestinian Christian to hear him as a Jewish Israeli, who is very orthodox, like showing this kind of empathy or at least some kind of understanding of what leads people to commit awful things. if we understand that kind of reality of oppression and violence. Anyway, this is like a tangent here, but we have to interrogate this language that has been used to dehumanize Palestinians. And obviously, to your point, Preston, a thousand innocents, I would still say, civilians, I would say, this is not military.

We do not know if they were military or not. These are thousands civilians who were killed. And there's this, you know, this in the U.S., you say, like, white men are the most persecuted, you know, people. But it's like Palestinian men, I assume to be guilty because they're white, because they're Palestinian men, because they're Muslim men. And it's just really harmful. It's really, really terrible.

And speaking of Islamophobia, I think a year ago, Israel bombed a church in Gaza and three Christians in Gaza were killed. Three Palestinian Christians were killed. And Trump would call Netanyahu and, like, scold him for, like, attacking a church. And people were like, oh, look, Israel is terrible. they're killing Christians. And then for us, Palestinian Christians are like, okay, cool, but why isn't he calling Netanyahu every day?

Because they killed Muslim men, you know, or Muslim children or women. Only the Christian Palestinian is presumed to be this innocent, kind of idle victim or the ideal victim, the idle ideal victim, because we have no voice. We're just kind of speak about us in the third person. So just like this embedded bigotry that exists in the political system by the church, we need to reckon with. The church in the US is just guilty of so much of that.

But anyway, yeah, more than a thousand people killed. I was talking to a friend of mine from Gaza yesterday. He was showing me his, he was showing me the tent and where he was staying. And I'm like, hey, can you turn off the camera?

I cannot see what you're showing me. Like, it was just so heartbreaking for me. He's fighting off, like, mice in his tent and sewage everywhere and garbage everywhere. the owner of the land where he's quote unquote squatting because his house was destroyed. He's living with his wife and his infant baby. And now his wife is pregnant with a second child.

So they have a year old baby and now his wife is pregnant again. And the person there's threatening to kick him off the land because he cannot pay rent. He doesn't have money to pay rent. And he was like almost weeping and he was like, Daniel, can you help us? Like anyway. But yeah, that's the thing. not only is it that thousand humans who carry God's image and likeness have been brutalized. We're talking about two billion people who are living in horrible conditions right now,

the living in tents. There's so much disease and so much just garbage and just famine and everything imaginable that is cruel and dehumanizing and unharmful is existing in Gaza right now. We stop talking about Gaza and again, Palestinians do not matter. And it's just heartbreaking what's happening. So we can mourn the dead, but it's the living who are suffering right now. And we ignore them.

We think there's a quote-un-called ceasefire. And in our imagination, oh, yeah, it's over. There's no more suffering. And it couldn't be further away from the truth. There's barely any humanitarian aid is coming in. Food is super expensive in Gaza. It's very limited. And people are paying 10 times or 20 times what they use.

to pay for basic amenities and basic food. So it's really harsh and it's really cruel what's happening. And we've discussed genocide on the podcast before Preston. And I'm sure someone wants to debate this term again. And still, even though that everyone acknowledges it's a genocide. Actually, I'm interviewing again, sorry for the shameless plug about my podcast. I'm interviewing Amos Goldberg and Israeli Genocide Scholar on my podcast, who's like, hey, I'm a Holocaust expert.

I'm an Israeli. I teach at Hebrew University. I know what the Holocaust looked like, and I can tell you this is a genocide. So, you know, anyway, so even if Holocaust experts are telling us that it's a genocide, Christians are just like, no, no, it's not a genocide.

I don't believe it is, even though the experts and human rights organizations are telling us it is. So anyway, the point is the genocide hasn't ended. Maybe the level of violence and destruction has subdued, but it's an ongoing genocide. It's an ongoing slaughter of the Palestinians, denial of the rights, annexation of the land.

Israel was boasting a few days ago that now they controlled 60% of the Gaza Strip, and they're pushing for 70, I think, right now. So it's just super cruel and just evil, and it's heartbreaking. There's so much to unpack there. Yeah, regarding genocide, there was a study or a document, of over 500 genocide scholars. I want to say this came out like a year ago, and they were asked whether what is happening in Gaza is a genocide or not.

And people can back, check me on this. I can maybe post a link, but it was something like around 80%. It was 75 to 85% of the actual genocide scholars from around the world said this, what's happening, this matches the definition of genocide. For me, the term, it's like, I don't even, it's like there's been a mass slaughter of civilians and an absolute destruction of most of the civilian infrastructure. I mean, just look at it, you can just look at videos online of what Gaza looks like. And it's like, whatever that is, you can call it a genocide, you can call it a whipple snapper. You can call it a freak compound, you know, whatever noise you want to make to describe that, it's absolutely.

evil and immoral. Yeah. So I, I mean, again, I'm not a genocide scholar. I'm just going to go with what the majority say. It's a genocide. Okay. That's, but whatever it is. But also it's not just, we're not just like, we don't want to be like appealed to authority. We're not just going to make any fallacy here. The International Association of Genocide Scholars, I think, is referring to.

And yeah, there's a strong majority who recognize this. the evidence is pretty clear. And so we're not just deferring to the experts. It's not a fallacy. We're just saying all the evidence is showing this that there's a clear intention to target civilians and to destroy the infrastructure for the reason of destroying the people.

And you can read the reports, Amnesty International, human rights watch. Israeli is, I hate that I keep emphasizing this because we need to listen to what Israelis are saying. Israeli human rights organizations are saying the same thing. Those who are the descendants of those who survived the Holocaust are saying this. Petzalim and other Israeli human rights organizations. Like I said, Amos Goldberg, Rasiegel, Omer Bartov, these are heavyweets in the study of the Holocaust.

These are Israeli. Amos, Omar Bertov, is like a Zionist Israeli. And he's saying, I study the Holocaust. I can see the connections here. Similar things happening. So you don't want to listen to the Palestinians because we're so emotional and biased and we're not smart enough. Do you want to listen to the experts? They want to listen to the Israeli historians.

But hey, why do you want to fight this? You have such mounting evidence against you. You have the reports. Have you read the report? Have you read what Amnesty has written? And that's the saying. It's like dumbfounding to me. You want to fight me over the word, but you haven't studied.

You haven't read the, you don't know what the definition is of that term of genocide. You haven't read the reports by the. experts and then Christians, and it's mostly Christians who want to fight us over the term. Yeah, I mean, I get your point, Preston, that, you know, call it whatever you want to call it, but we are truth seekers, supposedly, Christians, we care about truth, we care about the dignity of people. Why are you fighting me over a term when supposedly you care about people? Well, because it's indicted, once, if it can be established as a genocide, then that kind of changes the intent, then anybody who is supportive of what Israel has been doing.

kind of loses all moral ground. You can't. As Christian, you can't support a genocide. It's guilt based. We're good people. We never support the slavery or the ethnic cleansing of the natives or anti-Semitism.

So you don't want to be accused of that again. It's just like, come on. You mentioned, I've been reading this, that the borders around Gaza are getting tighter and tighter and tighter. So at the beginning, I think, is Israel occupied, like, the outer rim? And then it keeps getting closer and closer.

So now, and I did read the same thing you did, that now it's about, they've occupied about 40% of Gaza, meaning Palestinians in Gaza cannot be in that 40%. So now it's already the most densely populated place on Earth. And now 2 million people are crammed into 60% of what? 40%. Israel took 60%. Oh, he took 60. Okay.

So can you, You gave us a little glimpse. Can you give us more of what is, what are, how are people surviving? What's going on? Are people like, you said there's minimal food and aid coming in. I know most of the hospitals have been destroyed. I think there's two still operating or something. And it's hard now for medical personnel to get in because every time international medical doctors go in,

they talk about, you know, sniper shooting kids in the genitals and head. And so it's like they're kind of tired of all these doctors saying, there's massive evil going on here. So now it's harder for international doctors to get in. So this seemed almost worse. I mean, nothing's worse. But I mean, it's just as bad if not worse is what happened in the first couple of years before the quote-unquote cease fire.

And yet nobody's really talking about it, it seems right. Yeah. And also just to not to talk too much about genocide, two or three weeks ago, the UN came out with the report showing that how the targeting of children had been one way that the genocide had been exacted or executed is they're showing evidence that Israel had been targeting children. And then, you know, they looked at some cases where they're using these drones with high-definition cameras and there is, quote-unquote, you know, a terrorist, a militant, Palestinian or whatever. And then the children are visible next to that person.

and the drone would choose to, they would push the button and kill the children. So there is a targeting that is happening of the children. They're not waiting for the children to be away from that person. They're saying, yeah, you are intentionally dumping or dropping a bomb on someone that you kill children. And it shows extensive evidence of the targeting of children and the targeting of their genitals or shootings in the back of their heads. And all of this is documented. And it shows one more example of how the genocide is affecting children,

and we're talking about 22,000 or so children have been killed. And that's one example of how genocide is enacted whenever you're destroying children, because children are the future. And not only just by the killing, and I think the maiming of 60,000, and this is kind of where it just becomes very emotional for me, because I grew up as a child in Palestine, and I know I felt I've experienced the trauma and the anger and even the hatred that I had towards my occupier.

And I have the marks on my body of what it means to be an occupied person. But that's kind of the future. This is the future of the Palestinian people. And when you have 60,000 children maimed or becoming amputees or dealing with trauma, what is that going to do to them in the long term? If so many children who are alive, nothing happened to them, but they lost their parents or their siblings. And now are orphans.

How are they going to grow up with basic needs? Their basic needs are not covered. And also, when I was talking to my friend yesterday, he was telling me everyone is dying left and right just from natural causes. And so the life expectancy in Gaza has dropped dramatically. I don't have numbers. I don't have the data here.

Real quick, natural causes, but causes from the effects of the war. The disease is like lack of nutrition, Lack of medicine, lack of nutrition, just life expectancy went down, and people are just dropping like flies because the effect of that genocide on their bodies and their health. So even though they're not being sniped,

they are dying in a very accelerating rate because of the basic kind of lack of medical care of good food and good health or sanitation. And when you have mice in your tents, It's like you're not going to live a good life. So, you know, and this is where the numbers, you know, a lot of experts are saying, hey, the numbers are probably closer to like 200,000 or maybe even more. If you think about those who are suffering and dying from unintended consequences of the war itself.

So, yeah, I mean, just life is just like, yeah, every time I'm praying, we're like, we just had pizza last night and I'm like, and I had Mike and my kid three years old, And he prayed for the kids in Gaza. And I'm like, man, like, and we're throwing away the, you know, the crusty edge of the pizza. And it's just like, man, like, kids in Gaza would love to have that, like, last bite of the pizza. Just so, so heartbreaking. How is this? I guess this is a million-dollar question, and it's one you've probably asked since you were, like, six months old.

But, like, how is this able to keep happening? I mean, the international community, let's just leave America out of it. We know, yeah, that's a whole other. But, I mean, the international community is very aware of this, right? I mean, is there nothing cumulatively that the international community can do? Or are they kind of, like, moved on and not really been paying attention? I mean, there have been some moves. I mean, just for perspective, the vast majority of the world knows what's happening.

The vast majority of the world supports the Palestinian cause. if you look at UN resolutions against against Israeli policies and the occupation and the wall and the checkpoints and the settlements there's a clear international consensus. There's a clear Palestinian and Arabic consensus about the path forward, which is a two-state solution.

The Palestinians have been asking for that, begging for that since the early 90s. There is a 2002 peace plan by the Arab countries still on the table. We're just telling Israel, hey, give the Palestinians their state over 20% of historic Palestine, just give us the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. All we're asking for, we're rejecting all of our historical claims to the land, and then

we'll normalize relations with you. And Israel has once and over again has rejected all of these claims for peace. So there have been some nice efforts, and you know, you see this at the World Cup with all the Palestinian flags. I don't know if people in the U.S. have not been seeing these flags. I don't know if you noticed the flags at the world. I don't know if you've been watching the game. I don't watch a couple of games.

But every time, if I was watching the Moroccan game, the last Moroccan game, and every time they were showing the Argentinian, was it Argentina or is it France, I think, it would have like this kind of wide angle view of the French fans. And every time you see the Moroccan fans are kind of zoomed in. And it's as if the camera people were hiding the Palestinian people. were hiding the Palestinian flags. I don't know if you notice this. You can see the Palestinian flags from social media,

but they kind of been trying to hide that from people. But there's everywhere. The international community is on the same page here. A lot of European countries recently have recognized the Palestinian state, most famously the UK and France and Ireland and what have you. So there's been that diplomatic shift. UN resolutions are always there where the vast majority of the world is voting for Palestine.

It's just they cannot do anything when you have the big brother, the U.S., with its military force, with its bullying and its sanctions, threatening all these countries. Like even the ICJ and the ICC, they've been sanctioned, and lawyers are losing their access

to their bank accounts because they're investigating Israel. So just everyone is kind of scared about the big bully and they're not trying to do anything more than the symbolic. gestures and the financial support and so on UN resolutions. So as long as the U.S. is supporting Israel, there's not much anybody else can do about it.

And as long as a few billionaires are supporting politicians to support Israel, I mean, it really kind of comes down to that, right? People with power behind the scenes with a lot of money and politicians need money. They need to get votes and they just... I don't say anything else here that is more powerful than the American support for Israel, the American lobby at the UN, all the bullying tactics and the sanctioning and the, that is happening. You have like 30 states in the U.S. that have anti-BDS laws that if you're an American who decides to boycott Israel, you can lose your licenses.

You have a PAC that is shelling millions of millions of dollars. You can boycott America. You can boycott America, but I can't boycott Israel. Yeah, for reference, for friends, BDS is boycott divestments and sanctions. It's a nonviolent creative resistance movement that wants to put economic pressure on Israel through boycotts and divestments. And there are states in the U.S. that prohibit you. And whenever and many companies in those states would have to sign an agreement not to commit to BDS. and now you are not allowed as an American

to boycott Israeli products if you want to get a license or get a, you know, be registered in a certain states, especially Republican states. Idaho is one of those states. So, yeah, I don't know. If you look at the power of APEC and the lobbying that is happening,

you have now a Muslim person running in Michigan and APEC sheld $40,000, $40 million to try to stop this insurgent, democratic Muslim Egyptian physician, wonderful person, if you listen to him. And you see this happening in New York, happening in Texas,

happening in Michigan, happening everywhere in Chicago and Illinois. So yeah, there's millions of dollars of these billionaires that are controlling the political system in the U.S. and they're making sure that pro-Israel politicians are getting their, you know, getting power.

Thomas Massey, I mean... Thomas Massey lost his position. M.T.J. Marjor Taylor Green was pushed out because of her position against Israel. It's very sad, yeah. Yeah. It's just crazy that in this day and age, people can be living in the conditions they are in Gaza.

And there's nothing, is there nothing people can do about it? I mean, it's just, it's a phone call between the president of the U.S. and the prime minister of Israel. You can easily just stop Israel. it's just when you have Mike Hacobie, a Christian Zionist as an ambassador, when you have Marker Rubio, who's a Christian Zionist, when you have Pete Hagezeth, who's a Christian Zionist leading the government. And what do you expect?

Christians, I mean, I would say, like, Preston, like just because this is like a Christian conversation, the biggest reason that Christians, that Palestinians suffer in Gaza is because of Christians. It's mostly because of evangelical Christians, especially American evangelical. American evangelicals are the biggest reason why there is still suffering in Palestine, why there's no peace in the Middle East.

That's just like why. Can you give us some details, like you specific concrete examples of what that looks like? The Christian Zionist lobby? I mean, this is a 150 year legacy of Christian Zionism that is a very active political lobby

that has been pushing governments mostly initially was Britain through the people in the UK, pushing Britain to move Jews to Palestine so that Christ would come back. And then in the 20th century, especially in 1948 and 1967, and the rise of the American right and the moral majority, there's been a very, and then 1967, when Israel took over the all of Palestine, there has been this kind of fervish, Christian support for Israel, especially among dispensationalists and evangelicals and

Pentecostals to support Israel. Obviously, God is with them. Obviously, they took over the land. Obviously, Israel is a fulfillment of prophecy. It's not. And that led to this kind of fervor to support Israel and was connected to American prosperity. If you bless Israel, if you support Israel, America would be stronger. And you have strong lobbying happening since the 60s and 70s to make sure that Israel is protected, that continues its expansion and its control over all of Palestine. And then more recently, you have organizations like Kufi, Christians United for Israel, and so many other Christian Zionist organizations that have so much power in the American political system.

And we can talk about Bush senior, we can talk about Bush Jr. And the kind of lobbying that they have been doing. And Kufai specifically that has been actively recruiting politicians and sending their people to D.C. to lobby politicians. And they're going in hand with these rich Jewish Zionist billionaires who are funding politicians. And it just became the standard that if you are a Christian politician, and you want to be successful, you want to appease the Christian Zionist lobby or the Zionist lobby in general.

And especially a lot of Christian minority politicians, especially black politicians, who maybe were in some kind of weak positions who would want to become Zionists, who want to get that money to support their campaigns, and they become Christian Zionist. And it's a very tragic reality. And so it just becomes the norm that if you want wealth and power, you have to be uncrish. critically pro-Israel. And now the current administration, well, with the first Trump administration, you had Mike Pompeo, a Christian Zionist, and you had people around him that were very clearly Christian Zionists,

and you have the Paula White's and all of those people who hold a lot of power, who are anti-Causal Zionists or evangelical Zionists who held a lot of power in the administration. Trump doesn't care, he's not religious, but these people were around him, and they pushed him in 2017 to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. 2017 is the 50th anniversary of 1967, and the number 50 is a very important number in the Bible. So they thought, oh, hey, this is a symbolic biblical number. So the year of Jubilee and so let's bring the embassy to Jerusalem.

So there's always been that kind of Christian evangelical element that has been pushing that misdemeanor of Jerusalem. Now with this current administration, when you had a very clear Christian Zionist, as an ambassador, you have the Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, and the Defense, sector of Defense, or the Secretary of War now. So all of these people are very hard-line Christian Zionists. So they hold a lot of power, and Trump doesn't care, and he loves the evangelicals because evangelicals gave him power. 80% of evangelicals voted for Trump. So he's doing it for the evangelicals. He's doing it for the rich billionaires

that he surrounds himself with. So it just makes a lot of sense. And of course, this is what the government is going to do because it brings them a lot of power and wealth and they want to keep doing it. That is a harrowing and concise summary that's from what I've looked into all this. It's pretty spot on.

I know I've mentioned it before, but John Meersheimer's book, the Israel Lobby was extremely eye-opening, especially how censured it was and the backlash he got and all the stuff behind the scenes, all the death threats and attacks he got. And if you read the book without, if you just read it without knowing, it's just like, oh, here's a brilliant scholar,

University of Chicago. It's extremely well-sighted, meticulously research. It's just another academic book, you know. But the fact that it, nobody would touch it. He finally got a publisher. And even then, it was like, I mean,

I've heard him talk on podcasts about stuff behind the scenes. And it's just a, it's just a well-documented book about the rise of the Jewish lobby and who's funding it and why and this, that, and what it does. And very old, anyway, it's, but also the Christians,

the Christians, Zionists, you have all of these organizations, Eagle Wings and what's his name, Reverend Robert Stern. just last year they brought a thousand pastors, evangelical pastors, to Israel, and they gave them these certificates to become ambassadors for Israel. Really? Yeah, yeah, and then they were given these certificates,

and there's a clip I watched about one of them is like, I cannot wait to go back to my church and tell them about the good news of Israel. And they're just replacing God Christ with the state of Israel, and they're becoming these ambassadors, and they have these fully funded trips for them. and just taking them on these propaganda trips, just brainwash them into loving Israel. And when someone says, I'm a pastor,

I want to go share the good news about Israel. I'm like, are you toned of? Like, do you know what you're saying? But now still, they're continuing to grow this year. They are targeting 8,000 pastors. People can look up this on the news. It's like public knowledge. 8,000 pastors are going to,

Israel, the Israeli foreign ministry is planning to to bring 8,000 evangelical pastors to Israel this year in 2020, 2020, 26. And there are a lot of efforts to do this. They're also sending a lot of students, evangelical students, through this organization. Actually, I don't want to tell you the name of the organization. They're sending a lot of Christian evangelical students to Israel as well. They're losing the Gen Zs and young Christians.

A lot of them who are just do not care about dispensationalism and all that. nonsense. So they're trying to target them now with these free, lucrative and exciting trips to the Middle East and in a way brainwashing evangelicals to be Zionists. So yeah, this is like a very well-oiled machine with a lot of funds. And a lot of them get their money from non-Christian sources from Zionist donors and who are given a lot of resources and assets. And people love to go to the Holy Land. They love to see Jerusalem and the holy sites. Of course, they're not going to meet a single Palestinian. The only Palestinian they meet is the bus driver,

a Muslim bus driver, they try to evangelize. But they never meet a Palestinian actually and get to hear their stories or meet with the Christian Palestinians. And they are just brain, I mean, also an oppressive you've been on one of those trips as well. And so that it's very targeted and it's very effective and

Christians once again are complicit in just normalizing a lot of evil. I haven't been on one of those trips, but I have lived there and had a very similar experience where the whole occupation is kind of like, it's like hidden from you a bit, you know. Or it's just not, it's weird how you can be so close to it and be so blind to it. I want to make a quick cry.

I think I might have said the Jewish lobby before. It's not, it's the Israel lobby. And Meersheimer makes it clear. And this is a really important distinction to make that it is largely funded by Christians. So because I don't want to fall in the trap of like some Jewish. Kabbal and the Jews or, you know, because people have done that route. Certainly there are wealthy Jewish billionaires who are part of that, but it's not an exclusively Jewish thing. Christians are playing a significant role there. Yeah, thanks for highlighting this. Honestly,

President, I, as a Palestinian Christian, the only Jew I knew was the soldier, was a settler, who took over my people's land and my family's land. And it took me to come to the U.S. and meet a lot of wonderful Jewish thinkers and my colleagues at the University. of Chicago and others who can help me make that distinction. And yeah, and there are a lot of wonderful, incredible Jews and Jewish thinkers and academics and activists. People to remember the encampments, Columbia and Harvard,

these were led by Jewish students who were saying, because of our faith, because of our Judaism, we refuse to be complicit in genocide. And we have a rising, incredibly beautiful and energetic Jewish-American community that it's kind of standing against this. I don't know if you saw this, Preston, to a few weeks, maybe two weeks ago, there was a pulling of American Jews,

and 40% of American Jews voted that Zohran Mamdani is their favorite politician. 40% of American Jews prefer a Muslim politician over Netanyahu. I think Netanyahu got like 20%. So, yeah, this is not about Jews and Judaism. it's about a Zionist ideology of the oppression of the Palestinians. I do wonder, going back to the political scene

and all the Christian Zionists with power, for the first time ever, or a long time, the population has largely shifted, even among Republicans, especially younger Republicans. The only demographic that is percentage-wise more in support of Israel than Palestinians is like older white Republican boomers.

Yeah, older than 65 plus 60 plus who are, who still kind of get their news from cable news, even though most people don't. Other people just go on the, they can go on the internet and look at videos of Gaza that are just completely flattened. They're like, what is this? And then nobody on cable news. Yeah, I mean, also dispensationalism, it's losing its ground.

And people care about these issues. And, yeah, there's a hopeful. I'm kind of hopeful about this. So my question, do you think the political scene could change? Because up until now, the population either didn't care or they were largely in support of Israel. But now it's like, okay, so you have all this power and money on the one hand, but you still have the semblance of a democratic process where you still have to get voted in. And if, you know, 90% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans, whatever it is, it's roughly that, you know, are not in support of Israel. Yeah, but you have the career politicians who, the Ted Cruz is of Congress and others who need to stay in power and they need to keep pushing for this.

And like I said, a lot of whether minority politicians or others who know they can get a lot of money easily from APEC and other Zionist lobbies, they would want to keep supporting Israel. There is a groundswell for sure in the base, but it's going to take a while for this to translate into something meaningful. We're seeing some stuff happening on the left, Rokana and AUC and others like that, and you have new politicians coming into the scene. It's going to be interesting to see what's happening, what's going to happen with the midterms. I think Palestine and Gaza is going to be a big issue. And we've seen this with the primaries as well. So I'm hopeful. yeah, I mean, but maybe we'll have to wait some 10, 15 years for something meaningful to change.

But it's happening, I think. But also, Preston, aside from the political issue here, you know, 10 years is I can do 10 years. If my people can be free in 10 years, I can, I can, I, if my kids could live in a free Palestine and I can see that before I die, I'll be happy. But I think the issue still remains. It's our siblings, our Christian brothers and sisters, especially evangelicals. The majority of them is still very pro-Israel. So I think that's kind of where your platform is important.

That's where the listeners are going to be important. Come on, guys, we need to do better. We've been down this road before with slavery, with anti-Semitism, with segregation. Christians are always falling behind. And we cannot afford to keep doing. doing this. It's like, come on, like, can we not be so cliched about these things as Christians? Can we be at the forefronts of pursuing what is good and pursuing dignity and justice and equality? And we've flattened our faith, man. It's just our Christianity has become this Santa Claus,

Disney religion, take us to heaven, has no real impact on real life many times. I mean, of course, there's a lot of good that a lot of Christians are doing, but we've reduced our faith to this kind of piety, spiritual piety that has no real impact on the world around us in many ways. And Gaza is one of those things that just revealed that ugly belly of a flat and very shallow Christianity that is so focused on the personal and personal salvation and cannot speak to justice and to evil and violence. And you had these decent, sensible evangelicals, ethicists and theologians who are quoting Romans 12 and Genesis 15. to justify all of this.

None of them is quoting Romans, none of them is quoting Matthew 5 about loving the enemy or being a peacemaker. Once again, we're just weaponizing our faith and our Bible and pushing Christ to the side. He's just too weak for us. He's just so relevant. Let's quote Romans 12 to justify, or sorry, Romans 13. I wish they would quote Romans 12.

They should call Romans 12. Oh my gosh, please. Yeah, they're quoting Romans 13 to justify the sword. And like, you know those who live by the sword, what happens to them? And it's just so, like, so sad. So pathetic that the people who claim to take the Bible seriously, to be to proclaim Christ as Lord are the first people to deny His Lordship when it comes to these things.

It's just so sad. I have a few more questions to ask before we go. But before we do, I want to make sure I give you an opportunity to talk about a couple important conferences coming up. One in Atlanta, another in Bethlehem. So tell us all about those. So I mentioned my podcast across a divide.

That podcast is part of this Palestinian Christian led organization called the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice BIPJ.org. Check us out. And this is an evangelical organization, non-profit here in the U.S.,

led by evangelicals like myself and Pastor Munderis Haq. People might know him. He's a prominent Palestinian theologian and pastor and others who are working to come, basically our passion is to see the evangelical church, specifically the American evangelical church walking alongside us in the pursuit of peace and justice in Palestine and in Israel. Christian Zionism is a blight on our faith. It's a scandal in many ways. We've replaced Christ with a political state that is committing awful things. And we've once again, like I said, have used Christ, God's name in vain, literally, to justify evil. And this is a time of reckoning.

This is a time of repentance, I think. It's a time for us as Christians to come together and say, not in our name. That's what Jewish friends of mine are saying, not in our name. We refuse to have Judaism marred by the political state of Israel, and many Christians have to do the same thing. So, BIPJ, we exist to support the evangelical church, especially in the U.S., to come alongside us to throw away this garbage of dispensationalism and Christian Zionism and this political support for this state. And to just go back to the basics of loving God and a loving neighbor and a loving enemy. Hey guys, we need to love the enemy.

So we're doing this two different ways, podcasting, videos, resources, but also conferences. We have two conferences coming up. One, the first one, which is because of the time sensitivity, I wanted to pay attention to. It's called Christ at the Checkpoint, Christ at the Checkpoint.com. It's happening in Bethlehem over Christmas break. So if you want to spend Christmas in Bethlehem, come. If you want to be with your boring family members, it's fine. But if you want to spend Christmas in the town where it all happened, you have a chance to do it.

We would love to welcome you there. I'll be there as well if you want to see me. But the conference is happening on December 27th to the 31st, time of fellowship and learning and conversations. touring around the land, meeting with Palestinian Christians, being in fellowshiping with us, pray and learn and study and kind of doing life together. And also for those who want to spend Christmas in Bethlehem, we have a Christmas package from December 23rd to the 27th that includes celebrating with us in Bethlehem and also

some tours in Hebron and Bethlehem and all the whole, the whole shebang. So that is happening in Bethlehem. if you, this is a moment for you to come and listen and be with Palestinian Christians and evangelical believers in Palestine. This is your chance. Christ at the checkpoint. We're saying, hey, there's a checkpoint. There's occupation in the West Bank. What would Christ do if he sees the checkpoint today, if he comes and lives in our midst? So we're asking Christians by extension, if you come to the land, if you see the political violence and the occupation, how would you respond? How should you respond? So that's a big conference.

in December. The other one, which Preston joined us for last year in Glen Ellen, Illinois, it's called Church at the Crossroads. And this year it's happening on November 5th to the 7th in Grace Midtown Church in Atlanta. And it's, yeah, a wonderful time. I mean, I don't know, Preston, tell us about you experience in a bit, but just kind of, it's the American counterpart of Cross at the Checkpoint. And same thing, Palestinian believers come here and we. I spend the time three days of fellowship and workshops and learning and prayer and also, I don't know, Palestinian cultural experiences and music and really fun time, but also fundamentally, it's a time for believers to come together, to pray, to worship, to learn, to listen and also to

like discern what does God require of me right now to come in alongside Palestinian Christians in the pursuit of peace. It was one of my favorite conferences I've ever been to. I mean, and oftentimes when I'm speaking out of a conference, it's just a different experienced. It's kind of more from the stage, you know, not from the seats. But for this one, I, you know, I came and I sat in, sat in the seats and experienced a conference and also spoke briefly. But it was, it was, it was amazing, man. So gospel centered, so Christ centered. So, so peace focused, you know, like it wasn't, it wasn't people rant and raving about how

you're a terrible person if you're not supporting Palestinians or something. It was just like, who is Jesus and what does peace look like? And how do you? can we do that. How can we love our enemies? How can we cultivate resilience and forgiveness and reconciliation? Yeah, it was amazing, man. I would highly, highly recommend people. I know Bethlehem might be a bit of a trip,

but if you can make it out there, would highly encourage that. But the Atlanta one, that should be easy for a lot of people and would highly recommend people going to that for sure. Preston, I got to clip that and use it for to advertise the conference. What he just said? Go for it. Spread it. Spread it. Loud and wide.

Okay, great. What? Okay. As we kind of start to land a plane, you know, I listen to all this. I know people are listening and it's like, it feels so scourge and handicapped and like it seems like you can't do anything. All these people are just over there just suffering and like you just literally can't do anything. Like what can the church do? So I want to kind of hit various aspects of that question. I want you to address a certain kind of person though. So I talked to quite a number of people that are just, they haven't kept up with the issue. The little they looked in like, yeah, gosh, that's, I think that's terrible what Israel's doing. But they're just, you know, they're pastors with so many other things on their plate.

Their professors writing books on other issues. They're just don't have or haven't taken this space to really invest much thought, time, energy into it. And so they're, you know, and I've got several friends who, you know, would say, I just, I don't, I don't know enough to kind of say anything and, you know, make this an issue. I've got other things in my plate. And yeah, when I look into it, it's like, gosh, this looks terrible, but I, I don't know. Like, I don't know enough to be able to, like, say something publicly or, you know, preach a sermon on it or something. Or if I preach a sermon, I think my church probably just divide my church and I'd lose my job the next day. Not because you just be like, It's just way too divisive, you know, to take a side against genocide. But anyway, right. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to sound harsh here, but that was the attitude of the German church in the 30s. That was the attitude of Americans, mostly evangelicals in the South, in the 50s and 60s.

You know, this is messy. This is, you know, complicated. I'm too busy with my own life and my own church community. there's a movie that it kind of skips my mind now it's about the Holocaust about this kind of German family that was so annoyed by the noise coming out of Auschwitz

this mother was so bothered she had this cute little garden in the backyard and she kept hearing the wailing of the people the zone of interest the zone of interest is the name of the movie highly recommend it and it kind of tell us that story of the banality of evil that are just like yeah

yeah these people are shuner and wailing in Auschwitz, and I'm just like, I have my garden, I need to take care of it. So, yeah, the zone of interest kind of shows that in a very powerful way. Yeah, I just, while I want to sympathize, it's just hard for me to do it. I just think this moment we're in, in history is similar to the 60s, is similar to the, to the Holocaust. I'm sorry, like, similar to slavery, where Christians were like, oh, this is too complicated. They have no power, have nothing to say.

And once again, Christ, I think, calls the church to bear witness, to proclaim the gospel of Christ. That's our vocation as Christians. And it doesn't have to be full time on Palestine, but we have to take a bold position. The one that Dr. King took, the one that we'll have to talk about him,

Dietrich Bonhofer, and all of these people before and after who said, no, I need to stand up. and there's nothing else I can do in this moment. So I just don't, I get it, but I just think when you're seeing genocide is happening, when you're seeing our Bible, this precious book we've been given, is being so easily weaponized to justify awful things. This is a time for us to stand up. Whether we're liked or not, again, I don't want to shame anyone,

but we're complicit. We're paying taxes to our government that is supporting this, the politicians that we're voting for are doing this. So we're complicit. I'm sorry, this is not a faraway issue. This is a faith issue. This is an American issue. So we have to be, thank God for, like,

I'm a migrant to this country and I love this country, mostly because of the freedom it gives. And we have that freedom here. But democracy comes with responsibility, and we have to own up to it. And we have to be responsible citizens. fundamentally, we have to be faithful Christians who are obedient to the Christ, who are obedient to the gospel, who are obedient to the love of God and love of neighbor, and our faith has been

scandalized right now by so many Christians, and we need to stand up. I get people who feel threatened and feel they're too exhausted and stretched thin. I get it, but all you have to do is just listen to a podcast, maybe come to a conference, maybe visit and meet a Palestinian Christian, maybe think of ways where you're not. you can support the Palestinian church. Maybe you can write a letter to your representative. Maybe you can lead a Bible study. Maybe you can read a book. There's a lot of resources out there. So I understand, but we have to understand that this is also irresponsible of us to stay quiet in this moment of time. And this isn't because I could hear people saying, I've heard people said, I've said it myself in the past, like, well, there's just

so many conflicts in the world. I can't, gosh, like, well, there's Russia, Ukraine, there's this, that, there's Boko Haram pursuing Christians in Nigeria. Like, why this issue? But as far as I know, this is the only situation where were it not for the support of the American evangelical church, this would not be happening. Like, once the evangelical church starts supporting Boko Haram killing Christians in Nigeria, Then, yeah, and not to diminish what's going on there or anywhere else, but like, as a Christian, this is uniquely urgent.

Do you know any other? I mean, I don't, the Chinese persecution of the Wigers or whatever. Like, I just go through all the things that come up and it's like, yeah, but even Junkal Church isn't funding that or supporting it or verbally supporting it or theologically supporting it or. Yeah. No, and if people don't want to, if their reason they don't want to pay attention to this is because they're too busy fighting for the Uyghurs or the Nigerian Christians. Okay, cool. I love that for you. Please do it. But if you're using that as a talking point because you don't want to own up to it, then you have to interrogate yourself. Like, why are you trying to distract us? I mean, this is like a red herring. It's obviously, it's obviously, it's obviously you don't care about these issues. You just bring them up because you don't want to. want to take responsibility for what our government is doing. So yeah, this is just a distraction. Again, this is about our faith. This is about the, what kind of gospel are we proclaiming?

But Preston also, there's a theology is an issue here, and I kind of touched on it. We've, we've reduced our faith to, we don't have the language. We don't have the theology. We don't have the resources to help us. And, you know, I grew up in college. I kind of wasn't part of this young, reformed and restless movement. It's like, yeah, I can talk about the five points of Calvinism all day along with you. And I'm like, okay, and then what? Like, what's the point? Like, what are we doing here?

And I was also, there was this kind of creationism and evolution. And I was like, I can't believe I'm saying this publicly, but I used to believe in intelligent design. And I would fight over this for hours. I'm like, who cares? Like, why? This doesn't matter, guys. But then when there's a genocide, oh, I have nothing.

to say, oh, I'm busy. I have practice. I need to go talk about predestinated. Come on. So, yeah, I think there's, our priorities are out of whack here. And we have to, like, our faith has to speak about these issues. If it's not the Christian, who's going to speak up, who will? So yeah, I think this is something that I think, for me, at least, as a believer, this is at the heart of the gospel. Yeah. Dan, I mean, I'm going to have to run, but I want to give this specifically, if there's there's people listening, they're kind of like, ah, yeah, I kind of get it.

Like, you know, you're a pastor, you're a leader, but you've never really talked about this. It's just kind of off your radar. It's something you might see on social media every now and then it feel bad, but you're like, I'm not going to address this. Here's, I guess here's my, and I understand that all this stuff that comes with being a pastor and thank you for pastoring your church and especially your faithfulness and loving people. In no way am I diminishing that.

here's my one plea is if you're at all, whoever you are, if you're at all like, all right, maybe I would be willing to take kind of a next step to kind of like say, okay, what does it look like to step into this conversation a bit more? Then go to the conference in Atlanta.

Just take the commitment. You know, it's a three days. It'll take some money to get there, some sacrifice in your part, you know, but like this will be a really good. Daniel's not,

he didn't know what I was going to say this. He's not paying it. paying me this. Just so you know, this isn't an advertisement. I think it would be a great opportunity for you to take three days. You get to know lots of Palestinian Christians,

on Palestinian Christians. You can hear Peter Beinart. I think he's speaking there, Jewish. So, and it would be just a great place to kind of put your, take just one more step in the conversation in a very embodied gospel-centered place.

So I'll leave it at that. All the infusion, the show notes. Daniel, thank you so much for being on Theology in the Rogan. Thank you, Preston. Thank you.