A few days ago, I was at the home of some Jewish friends in Jerusalem for a Seder meal. It was also the first Friday of Ramadan, as well as Good Friday for western Christians. Because I am a priest, I arrived after our congregation’s afternoon worship service wearing black a bronze cross, a gift from a Finnish Christian friend.

After the prescribed four glasses of wine and much singing and the sharing of stories of the Jewish people, one of the dinner guests approached me to ask: “Don’t you think the world would be so much better without religion?”

Still wearing my clergy attire, I wasn’t sure what to say, but I understood his question, and his hope.

There is a way in which the world might be calmer without our religious identities. How many of our wars are rooted in religion? For certain, the conflict in Israel and Palestine might be different if religion were not a part of the conversation.

In Jerusalem, we felt this reality in our bones on Good Friday, when the three major religions in Jerusalem were gathering to honour their different holy days.

Ramadan, Holy Week, and Passover all coincided this year. As my congregation met to walk the Way of the Cross at 6:30 am on Good Friday, we proclaimed “We adore you O Christ and we praise you, for by your holy cross you saved the world” even as we heard stun grenades and gunshots as Israeli authorities entered Al Aqsa mosque, desecrating one of the holiest sites for Muslims.

Later in the day, police placed metal barricades around dour church, creating safe spaces for Jews to pray at the Western Wall and for Christians to have a “funeral” for Jesus at the Holy Sepulchre.

It might seem that the problem in Jerusalem is religious, especially when our three major religions are in conflict on a single day.

But the truth is that this is not a religious war.

There are some who want to frame it as a religious war. They want to see the lives lost, and the land stolen, as an age-old conflict that will only be solved when Jesus returns. They want to say that our troubles are about God.

But hear this: the conflict between Palestine and Israel is about land, privilege, and power. When we listen to our Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers, this is what they tell us again and again. They tell us that when we make this into a religious war (in our minds or in our political advocacy) we diminish our ability to make a difference. The ongoing conflict in this land is affecting Christians because it is affecting Palestinians. Let us not be deceived: This is not a religious war. This is a political conflict.

The truth is that this is a very holy war. This is truly a holy war because when people are killed for being who they are, when the earth, water, and air are desecrated, when children in Ukraine and Palestine are counted as “collateral damage”, when the people in the land where Jesus was born, taught, was crucified and was buried are living in fear, then this is a holy war.

Friends, we don’t want the churches in Israel and Palestine to be museums. We don’t want Jerusalem to appear in the news only when people are dying.

We have a choice. We have power and privilege. We can make an impact today, for the Christians in the Holy Land.

The occupation of Palestine must end, for the sake of Palestinian Christians, for the sake of Israelis, and for the sake of the world.

Let us be the ones who make this difference.

Rev Carrie Ballenger is pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem.

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