Glen Ellyn, Ill. (RNS) — Earlier this year, Lydia El-Sayegh got the good news that her beloved grandmother was able to escape from Gaza.
While thankful her relative was no longer in a war zone, the news was bittersweet. “It’s a blessing and a tragedy,” said the 25-year-old El-Sayegh, sitting on a bench outside of Parkview Community Church in Chicago’s western suburbs on Friday (Sept. 12). “She should never have had to experience all that or had to leave her home in the first place.”
El-Sayegh was one of several Palestinians speaking at the Church at the Crossroads conference, a three-day event held at Parkview this week that aims to rally Christians to speak up for their fellow believers in Gaza.
The hope, organizers said, is to move American Christians from feeling bad about the war in Gaza to taking action to end it.
“We are at the crossroads,” Palestinian theologian Daniel Bannoura told some 800 attendees at the conference’s opening session on Thursday. “There’s a time right now for us to choose. Are we going to choose the path of peace or the path of violence?”
Several of the speakers expressed exasperation at Christians who express sympathy for the suffering in Gaza but offer little beyond thoughts and prayers in response.
Bannoura said that because America has supported Israel’s military operations in Gaza, being passive is not an option. “If you are not doing anything, you are doing something,” he said. “If you are in the U.S., then you are complicit.”
Gary Burge, a New Testament scholar and author of “Wh …