Christianity in the Holy Land is not thriving, and there s a growing number of Muslims in the Middle East. What does that mean for Christians in general? And why is this happening? Why aren t more Christians in Israel and other Christian countries?
00:00:00.000Good evening. From where I'm standing right now, I can see all around me in a ring, seven Christian churches.
00:00:07.180We're not going to pan to see them. You can see one behind me, but they're all on the ridges of this valley around me.
00:00:14.320We are about 100 yards from the River Jordan and about 150 yards from the spot where Jesus, the Christian Savior, God on earth, was baptized by John the Baptist.
00:00:25.800Famously, the beginning of his ministry and the beginning, really, of the gospel.
00:00:31.080John the Baptist lived famously in the wilderness, eating locusts and honey. That was right here.
00:00:37.120We are in the Holy Land, but on the political map, we're in an overwhelmingly Muslim country, a monarchy called Jordan.
00:00:46.480And that's significant, particularly now, because the question of how Christians are treated in the Holy Land is a political question.
00:00:56.700And it is because much of what happens in this region is funded by the United States, by its taxpayers, military action,
00:01:04.380but also the cultural and religious life of the region is funded to a great extent by American Christian churches.
00:01:11.100And so the question that we've asked for some time now is, what's the outcome?
00:01:16.100How are Christians in the Holy Land doing?
00:01:19.200Are they thriving or are they suffering?
00:01:23.220And the truth has become pretty obvious over the past couple of years, which is, in Israel, they are not thriving.
00:01:35.680But the bottom line is, there are fewer Christians now, far fewer, in absolute numbers, and particularly as percentage of population than there were when the state was founded in 1948.
00:01:47.140And there's a lot of evidence in the last couple of years, particularly since the Gaza War started,
00:01:51.740and the whole tone of the conversation in this area has changed quite a bit, and the rise of extremism, very noticeable,
00:01:58.560that those numbers have gotten even smaller.
00:02:00.440And in Jerusalem, if you follow this at all on the Internet, you see video clip after video clip of Christian clergy being spit at by religious extremists,
00:02:13.680not Muslim religious extremists, but Jewish religious extremists.
00:02:17.000And that's something most Americans didn't know happened, didn't think could happen, particularly since the United States,
00:02:22.520the most important Christian country in the world, is funding this.
00:02:25.800And anyone who's raised this question, this show has done that, has been dismissed out of hand as a liar or an anti-Semite
00:02:35.960or, best of all, a secret jihadi, a secret Muslim.
00:03:23.220The one born in Israel was born, in fact, in Jesus' hometown of Nazareth.
00:03:28.420His father was literally a carpenter, which is kind of hilarious.
00:03:31.460He is now the Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem,
00:03:34.940which is to say he's the representative of the Anglican Church, the global Anglican Church in Jerusalem.
00:03:41.420Whatever you think of the Anglican Church, it's not a small thing, and this is a very well-informed person.
00:03:45.980And you can judge for yourself whether he's telling the truth or not.
00:03:48.940Our view is he absolutely is telling the truth.
00:03:51.740And the story that he's going to tell you in just a minute is pretty shocking if you're a Western Christian,
00:03:56.520because it's a story of Christians being oppressed in Jerusalem by a government that American Christians pay for.
00:04:04.040And the second person we're going to speak to is a businessman who runs a bank here in Jordan from a very prominent Christian family.
00:04:11.500And if you're an American, you may be surprised to learn that in Jordan, a country that is probably 97% Muslim,
00:04:19.400Christians who have been here for, of course, 2,000 years are disproportionately represented at the higher end of the economy,
00:04:26.800which is to say there's a large number of Christian families who are hugely successful in Jordan and have been for a long time,
00:04:34.840since the creation of the state about 100 years ago.
00:04:38.920That's not something you're going to see on CNN.
00:04:42.240How would Christians thrive in a Muslim country?
00:04:45.960And we're not experts on this, of course, being not that well-versed in Islam.
00:04:50.260But we thought it would be worth talking to a sincere Christian whose family's been here for 2,000 years and ask, how did that happen?
00:04:59.680And what does it tell us about our understanding of what's actually happening in the Holy Land, in Jordan, the West Bank, and Israel, which, again, is right there.
00:12:32.000We know what dispensationalism is about.
00:12:36.640I know that, you know, politicians around the world, and especially, like, the colonial thinking of bringing the Jewish people to the Holy Land or to the land of Israel,
00:12:48.080is something that can really kind of fit both agendas.
00:12:52.460But actually, you know, and we have heard this time and time again from many Jewish people who say that this agenda,
00:12:58.900eventually, you know, for all the Jewish people coming to their homelands, you know, becomes, again, a kind of like a trap
00:13:06.240because they're all supposed to convert to Christianity or die.
00:13:11.080So for them, this is an offense, you know, that thinking of Zionist Christian thinking
00:13:17.540and that some narratives would be damaging even to Jewish people and Jewish faith.
00:13:23.020Now, for us as Christians, of course, it's damaging because think about, like, let me tell you a story, a real story.
00:13:32.520I once was in a kind of a community visiting England, and I was speaking about, you know, like, how some Christians who have Zionist approach to the whole politics and agendas,
00:13:47.380you know, can be damaging to us as Christians in the Holy Land.
00:13:52.160I said, you know, because this agenda of money coming from the West, sometimes, you know, like, they enable people, settlers, you know, to confiscate my own land.
00:14:04.640Like, we have lots of examples in Bethlehem where money that comes from around the world is invested in building settlements on Christian land.
00:17:39.280But inside Israel today, there are so many pressures, not only on Christians, Christians or even some Jewish people who are also leaving the country.
00:18:10.520And they're in, especially like in the States, we have the American Friends of the Diocese of Jerusalem, Anglican, and they're doing fantastic support.
00:18:19.260But if you kind of compare the amount of money that comes to the other side, we are talking about a drop in the ocean.
00:18:31.400So Christian churches in the United States send more money to, say, Jewish settlements in the West Bank than they do to Christians in Jesus' hometown of Nazareth?
00:18:50.180Now, Bethlehem is a different challenge there.
00:18:53.320I don't know if you have visited Bethlehem before, but you would see that the city is surrounded by the wall.
00:19:00.420The separation wall that separates, you know, East Jerusalem, Jerusalem from Bethlehem.
00:19:08.080And, you know, the occupation and the kind of the wall that separates the two countries now, and also majors and huge majors of restrictions, of movement.
00:19:21.160And all of that is causing many people to leave the country.
00:19:24.940And now, I think, imagine, like, 100,000 Christians in Bethlehem, let's say 50 years ago or so.
00:20:07.520So, the American Christian churches, broadly speaking, the church, Christians in the United States, is by far the richest in the world and the biggest.
00:20:16.060And why wouldn't they send help to Christians in the town where Jesus was born and the town that he grew up?
00:20:24.820You know, I'm sure that, you know, people may have different answers, but I think my answer would be the kind of the big answer would be, which could be shocking for some people.
00:20:34.460That is that they would be concerned that they send the money and it ends up in the hands of the wrong people.
00:20:42.100You know, like, let's be honest about this.
00:20:44.720Well, if there's, let's just say, and I think that's a concern for everybody giving money to charity.
00:20:48.760It's certainly a concern for me in general.
00:20:50.740But if there's, say, a church, the Church of the Nativity, the one that the IDF shot people in, I've been there and it's kind of falling apart.
00:21:02.480And I remember thinking, where are the Christians around the world to support the Church of the Nativity on the site where Jesus, their Savior, was born?
00:21:13.540You know, I don't understand that either.
00:21:15.460But let me tell you something like, you know, an example, like how charity starts at home.
00:21:22.680You know, we know that our king here in Jordan, King Abdullah, has donated substantial amount of money to the repair of the Nativity and the Holy Sepulchre.
00:21:33.440And the same thing happened also partially with the Palestinian Authority.
00:21:37.360And also there are money that came also from partners from Europe and other places as well.
00:21:44.580But, you know, the amount of money, as you said, like, you know, and the charity that you think that could be given to the Christian community to enforce and, you know, maintain its presence in the Holy Land.
00:21:58.140You don't see that in ways that you could imagine that sisters and brothers in Christ, siblings in Christ around the world would be given to their church.
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00:32:02.500And actually, two days before the war, I was there with bishops, you know, we visited the hospital, and I've been trying to visit the hospital, you know.
00:32:14.140Others were successful, like other heads of churches managed to go there, both patriarchs, but I haven't, unfortunately.
00:32:34.160It is now kind of in a condition that operates on minimal capacity.
00:32:41.820I don't know, I'm sure that people have been following, I don't know how many people know about this, but it was hit at least eight times during the war.
00:32:51.940You know, there are different accusations why it happened.
00:32:54.660You know, I kind of suspect, you know, suspicion about, like, activities in the hospital.
00:33:01.240And every time we asked for people to kind of prove, you know, what was happening there so that we at least know what is going on in our hospital.
00:38:05.820I just, I think, you know, I asked this question, why?
00:38:08.700And in many cases, I have seen that, you know, like in many schools in the Jewish sector, who have, this is the answer that I receive, who have bad flashes of memories of persecution.
00:38:28.920The cross reminds them of persecution and expulsion and what have you.
00:38:35.320So they're teaching their children that the cross is a sign of persecution and they'll spit on Christians?
00:38:41.760And, you know, we know that, you know, there are so many, many, not many, but there are some.
00:38:46.200And these are fringe groups that we have, as heads of churches, spoke about when we, when there's vandalism of churches, when there is a spitting at clergy, when there is doing nasty things to clergy.
00:40:04.420So, in the United States, after 9-11, we were told, and I think it was true, that there were these madrasas, these schools, Islamic schools, that were producing radicalism, true radicalism, against the infidel, Christians and Jews.
00:40:21.340It sounds like something similar is going on in Jerusalem now, and you're the target of it.
00:40:28.740Can you, is there anyone you can talk to about this?
00:40:31.360Yeah, we've talked to the police, we've talked to the government, and there are restrictions, you know, the one thing about this, you know, that we were, say, that told, you know, that spitting on people is not a charge.
00:40:43.680Now, we need to have a law that forbids this, or there will be a kind of punishment to somebody who spits, or something like that.
00:41:29.740I don't have statistics, but, you know.
00:41:31.220No, but in your experience, you live there.
00:41:33.440Quite often, you know, like, it happens, you know, I don't say on a daily basis, but, you know, it happens quite often.
00:41:38.080Even an Israeli channel did actually one time a kind of a secret investigation, and they dressed somebody in a castle with a cross, and they walked into the old city with hidden cameras.
00:41:55.800And, you know, they caught one, like, right there on camera, and then they spoke about it in Israeli channels.
00:42:07.080Yeah, of course, you know, they name some, sometimes, quite often, they name things, but, again, nothing happens.
00:42:12.560That's the problem, like, you know, and that's why we have insisted on talking about reconciliation and building trust within the community, you know, calling the rabbis and, you know, the imams and the Christian leaders, you know, to teach their children about tolerance, about acceptance, and to refrain from incitement.
00:42:34.760You know, an exclusion and alienation and demonizing the other.
00:42:39.580No, Jerusalem is such a beautiful place.
00:42:43.520But we have, you know, like, groups, and talking about, you know, like, you know, extremists, you know, like, in every religion, there is extremists.
00:43:04.760But, you know, that's why, you know, today, I think, in the 21st century, it's important that we reconsider a lot of our views, even as religious people, how we view other people around us.
00:43:19.020And I wish, that's my prayer, you know, we have always said, you know, like, the Holy Land, the Middle East, Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived together here for centuries.
00:43:34.140How to live together or how to manage our relationships.
00:43:37.820You know, but, you know, unfortunately, I don't want to kind of accuse anybody, but outside forces have caused us to fight among ourselves.
00:43:47.520Unfortunately, that's what, that's how we see it.
00:43:49.440So has the extremism in Jerusalem, I mean, just to restate, you were born in the state of Israel, you're an Israeli citizen, so you would know, has it become more pronounced?
00:44:01.120Is there more extremism now, do you think?
00:44:03.840There's more extremism, extremism, and I can see, and that's on every side.
00:44:11.760You see, the thing that, you know, the more you have extremist group on one side, the more you have the response of other extremists on the other side.
00:44:18.040So it happens all across the communities, unfortunately.
00:44:23.440But right now, it seems like there is no Christian extremism.
00:44:26.640I haven't seen any Christian terrorism groups here.
00:44:29.200I wouldn't say, like, terrorist groups Christian, but, you know, there are some who have extremist views.
00:44:38.840But we, as heads of churches, always say and talk to our children, you know, don't forget that you are Christian, and you have to abide by our Christian faith.
00:44:50.860You know, like, any engagement in violence or military or ensignment is something that does not speak about our identity or our faith.
00:46:26.280In the West Bank, I think, you know, and we have seen over the past few weeks especially, and actually not only a few weeks, you know, during, even during the war, the escalation of violence of settlers in the West Bank has risen drastically.
00:46:47.120And not only to kind of Muslim neighborhoods and villages, but also to Christian villages.
00:47:00.220Yeah, I can give you an example of the two recent examples is one in the town of Taipei, where actually you mentioned the ambassador Hacabi.
00:47:11.560He himself went there to visit the village after these attacks of settlers burning and graffiti on walls and going into these farms to harass farmers who are Christian.
00:47:26.280And recently also in Birzeit near Ramallah, where we had an attack of settlers on a woman, they hit her with a stone in the head and then they arrested her son after that.
00:47:50.880How many U.S. administration officials weighed in on this?
00:47:56.720Did Ambassador Hacabi say anything about this?
00:47:59.240No, he, he definitely said something about Taipei.
00:48:02.800I haven't seen anything about the last incident, but he went there in person actually and visited the police.
00:48:09.000But the most recent attack where a Christian woman was attacked by settlers with a rock to the head and her son was arrested for trying to defend her.
00:48:15.820Ambassador Hacabi hasn't said anything about that.
00:48:17.560I didn't see anything myself, but he could later.
00:48:20.740You would know since you're the archbishop in Jerusalem, I think.
00:48:25.600I'm sorry, I just want to, I just want to be very clear about his shameful anti-Christian behavior.
00:48:30.780I just want to be very clear about what I'm saying.
00:48:32.780What Ambassador Hacabi is doing is shameful and he's going to have to answer for it.
00:48:36.360So if that's my opinion, you don't have to ratify that.
00:52:42.260Do you have a message to Christians in the United States?
00:52:46.780No, I have a message, yes, to say that, you know, my dear sisters and brothers, in Christ and in humanity.
00:52:54.720You know, I want you to think about these places as treasures.
00:53:00.320Now, these places, Jordan, Palestine, you know, the Galilee inside what Israel today, these are places that actually embraced the descent and the incarnation of our faith as Christians.
00:53:16.780We need to support the people here, not only Christians.
00:53:20.100I'm not saying, like, we need to be only looking at Christians, but supporting people who live here because your support, you know, ensures the character of these places to be a safe home for all the people who live here, whether they are Jews, Christians, Muslims.
00:54:04.420One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you was even I was amazed to discover how many prominent, like, truly prominent Christian families there are in Jordan.
00:55:32.140So this baptism site, I mean, what most Christians around the world maybe sometimes forget is here we have the clearest manifestation in the Bible of the Holy Trinity.
00:55:44.500Right here, Tucker, where you and I are today.
00:55:47.420You know, if you remember from the Bible, the voice of God.
00:56:30.760I've been to this country before, and I've always felt comfortable here.
00:56:35.100And if you say that, in the West, people are either incredulous or they accuse you of being a secret Muslim or jihadi or something, which I'm not at all.
00:56:46.580But I'm really struck that you said Islam is an integral part of the culture for Christians here.
00:58:03.220There is a whole chapter in the Quran just dedicated for the Virgin Mary.
00:58:09.580So, you can see, and of course, the same prophets, many of the same prophets, whether it's Elijah or Moses or Abraham or, you know, they're in the Quran as they are in the, you know, the New Testament and the Old Testament.
00:58:26.680So, the faith traditions are very similar.
00:58:29.840So, that's why the Muslims are actually very accepting of the Christian faith traditions.
00:58:35.640They are encompassing of the Christian faith traditions.
01:00:12.860No, actually, that's a great question.
01:00:14.760So Christians are very well represented here, as you can imagine.
01:00:20.240They're really part of the social fabric of the economy and the political environment.
01:00:26.400So Christians are represented, you know, in the Senate, in Parliament, in government, in the military, in the private sector, even though we are a minority, right?
01:00:37.360But the representation is everywhere across the world.
01:00:42.040We are, like, probably 2%, 3% at this stage.
01:00:45.200Which, I'm just guessing, but it seems like if you're 2% or 3% of the population, you seem disproportionately represented among the affluent.
01:01:07.020I don't know if there are statistics on that.
01:01:07.900But that's never been a problem, I guess, because you do see minority groups around the world, as you said.
01:01:13.920You know, the Indians in Uganda in the 70s, or name a group, but the minority group often is disproportionately successful, and then they are persecuted for that.
01:01:27.400And there's a reason, I think, it's why it is, I'll tell you, I mean, I was thinking about sort of why is Jordan a special sort of model for that, right?
01:01:38.800Of coexistence, of interfaith harmony.
01:01:59.780You know, so Christians and Muslims here have the same rights, complete equality.
01:02:05.540When it comes to even matters relating to Christian affairs, whether it's marriages and, you know, even some civil affairs, there are Christian courts that are different from the Sharia courts that there are for Muslims.
01:02:17.840So there's, in that sense, there's, you know, this sort of coexistence.
01:02:21.500But when it comes to, of course, civil and commercial and all of those kinds of laws, those apply to all of us equally here in Jordan.
01:02:28.580So constitutional rights are protected.
01:02:36.060I mean, yeah, there's, in the constitution, there's freedom of worship, freedom of religion in the constitution.
01:02:42.520So this is, so very importantly, if you want to protect Christian minorities or any minority in that regard, anywhere in the world, constitutional rights have to be established.
01:03:20.360And, you know, stability is so important, economic stability, political stability, security, stability.
01:03:27.580And that's why it's so sacred, actually, to ensure that there is stability in the region.
01:03:33.160I would say the last thing is leadership.
01:03:37.820You know, we're very fortunate here to have, you know, His Majesty King Abdullah and the Hashemite leadership.
01:03:43.280I mean, truly, really tremendously fortunate because the Hashemites have always been about interfaith dialogue, discourse, meritocracy, compassion, mercy.
01:03:54.940So I think when you have, you know, great leadership, stability, and constitutional rights, yeah, a Christian minority can thrive.
01:04:04.000It's, and my job is not to talk of Jordan, but I've always wondered, and all of your neighbors, I've spent time in all of your neighboring countries, always say the same thing.
01:04:15.520How do you have this country with really no energy resources, it's not inherently rich.
01:04:20.740How do you absorb all these refugees from the creation of Israel in 1948, I mean, enormous number, and then lose a huge part of its territory in 67, absorb more refugees, and then absorb still more refugees through the years, including from the civil war in Syria.
01:04:38.540And now, apparently, are being pushed to absorb still more refugees from Gaza.
01:05:07.180You know, for example, the latest immigration of Syrian refugees, we had, I think, up to 1.5 million Syrian refugees during the Arab Spring.
01:05:44.720You just happen to be surrounded by these larger powers that decide they can use your country as like a place to store the products of their wars.
01:05:52.380Yeah, I mean, it's because it's stable, so we, you know, people say, you know, just move it to Jordan and let them deal with it.
01:05:59.980And to be honest, it's been difficult because the host community, the Jordanians, I mean, they've had to share resources with the refugees.
01:06:19.560So, the original question was, how do you absorb more refugees over the past 80 years than you have people, a lot more, and not fall apart?
01:06:32.700Look, a lot of it is, again, Hashemite leadership.
01:06:38.840It's taking care of the refugees, using our limited resources to support them.
01:06:43.360So, my understanding is we, especially with the last sort of Syrian refugees, we had a lot of support from the international community in the beginning.
01:06:52.180But over time, you know, there is donor fatigue over time.