Tourists in Bethlehem, March 5, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Mussa Qawasma.

Once again, Bethlehem Bible College will host its bi-annual conference, Christ at the Checkpoint (CATC), on May 21-26, 2024, in Bethlehem. CATC is an evangelical organization established in 2010 that is known for its anti-Israel views and advocacy. NGO Monitor exposed the anti-Zionist activities of the organization when it reported that:

CATC seeks to advance the Palestinian nationalist agenda within Evangelical Christian churches while simultaneously reviving theological antisemitic themes such as replacement theology.

… Other anti-Jewish themes promoted at CATC conferences include the de-Judaizing of Jesus and the promotion of a racial theory of Jewish origins.

The language in the online promotional ad for this year’s conference seems balanced, almost benign. It includes words and phrases like “Evangelical spirit, peace, justice, and reconciliation.” But something is troubling, and it begins with the name Christ at the Checkpoint, which creates the absurd optic of Jesus as a Palestinian attempting to enter Israel through an Israeli border checkpoint. This evokes the image of Jesus as a non-Jewish Christian Palestinian blocked from entering his homeland because of the evil Jewish occupation.

The obvious problem with this narrative is that Palestine did not exist in Jesus’ day. In 135 CE, the Romans — in attempting to erase any Jewish existence in, or connection to, the land of their ancestors, spitefully renamed Judea as “Syria Palestina” or “Philistia” in honor of Israel’s ancient extinct enemy, the Philistines (think David vs. Goliath).

By naming their organization Christ at the Checkpoint, the leaders seek to portray Jesus as culturally connected to modern Palestinians — and, in so doing, distort and erase the longstanding Jewish connection to the land of Israel.

Jesus is the powerless Palestinian humiliated at a checkpoint. …  It seems to many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified Palestinians around him. … Palestinian men, women, and children being crucified.

Another speaker at the upcoming CATC conference is Rev. Munther Isaac, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, dean of Bethlehem Bible College, and director of CATC. In 2023, his church featured a nativity scene made not with a wooden manger, but with bricks and rubble that encased a baby Jesus doll dressed in a Palestinian keffiyeh. During his Christmas message , he proclaimed: “If Jesus were born today, he would be born under the rubble in Gaza.” Rev. Isaac creates the perfect non-Jewish Palestinian Jesus, while ignoring the Hamas murder of 1,200 people that led to the Gaza war.

Christ at the Checkpoint is clearly trying to erase and undermine the Jewish connection to the land of Israel. The Romans attempted something similar and failed, and their contempt for Jews consigned them to the dustbin of history.

Aaron David Fruh is a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy at the Woolf Institute at Cambridge University, in the UK, and President of Israel Team Advocates, an Evangelical nonprofit organization dedicated to combating the growing Antisemitism on Evangelical college campuses.