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2 February 1937—

Following the Way

Only two percent of the people in Israel and the Occupied Territories identify themselves as Christian. The overwhelming majority of their neighbors are Jewish and Muslim. So a Christian Palestinian is apt to feel doubly vulnerable: first as a second-class citizen because of Jewish domination, second as an outsider among his own mainly Muslim people.

The Reverend Naim Ateek knows this vulnerability firsthand and has turned it into a tool with which to promote justice and reconciliation. Born in the Galilee region, he and his family were forcibly relocated by Israeli soldiers to Nazareth in 1948 when their family home was taken over by Jewish settlers. He studied in the United States, was ordained an Episcopal priest, and returned to Nazareth to practice his ministry.

During his many years of parish work, he had ample opportunity to reflect on the parallel between the story of Jesus’ persecution and crucifixion and the ongoing plight of the Palestinian people. Ateek came to see the subordination of Palestinians, especially Christian ones, as a replay of Christ’s passion. Influenced by the liberation theology then being developed by Latin American thinkers, he came to the conclusion that the very vulnerability of Christian Palestinians gave them a vantage point from which to preach Christ’s message of peace, nonviolence, and reconciliation. “We are Palestinian Christians,” he writes. “This is certainly not our only agenda, but if we are not concerned with justice and peace and reconciliation, what is our faith really about? It’s part of our responsibility as Christians—part of being faithful to the truth and to our baptismal covenant—to respect the dignity of every human being and speak out about injustice.”

To help his fellow Palestinian Christians grow into the ministry of justice and peace, Ateek founded the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in 1989. Based in Jerusalem, Sabeel strives to “make the gospel relevant ecumenically and spiritually” by defending the Christ-centered “sanctity of life, justice, and peace.” Through education, advocacy, and public witness, the Sabeel Center’s intent is always to preach a “spirituality based on love, justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation for the different national and faith communities,” and thereby break the cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians on the one hand and Christians, Jews, and Muslims on the other.

Ateek chose the name “Sabeel” carefully. It’s the Arabic word for “the Way,” a reference to what the earliest Christians called the nonviolent teachings of Christ. But it also means “a spring of water,” testifying to Ateek’s deep conviction that nonviolence offers living and revivifying water to a land long parched by conflict.