Last October, Ayden Henderson, a senior studying international relations and history, went to Bethlehem with the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities Middle East Studies program. Within just three days of his visit, he witnessed Hamas’ rockets breach the Iron Dome, launching overhead as part of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks.
“We got a little more first-hand experience than we expected,” said Henderson.
A year later, Aljazeera reports that 1,139 Israelis and 43,165 Palestinians are dead. The war in Gaza continues on with no end in sight.
“I don’t think anyone, and certainly any of us who were there, expected the war to be ongoing a year later,” Henderson said. “That would have not necessarily been crazy to imagine. But definitely no one wanted it to be like this.”
When Henderson was in Bethlehem, he recalled talking with both Palestinians and Israelis who then acknowledged that the relationship between the two groups was going to have to get worse before it got better.
“Now we’ve got Israel invading Lebanon and Iran shooting missiles, which are genuine security concerns for the entire Middle East,” Henderson said.
Noah Chapman, a senior studying communication, expressed concern about the security of the Middle East, having grown up in Jordan. He glanced at his phone during an interview with the Record before talking about his response to the war.
“Just checking to see if anything has happened in the past hour,” he said.
Noah voiced growing fear for his family in Jordan as the war has expanded.
“It just doesn’t seem like there’s an end in sight at this point, which is very sad and scary still having family in the region,” he said. “A couple of missiles, fragments of them, ended up in the city where my parents live. That’s terrifying — and they’re not even in the thick of it.”
Reflecting on the Gaza Strip, he mentioned how his parents’s relationship started when his father went to Gaza on a short term trip. Left behind in the United States, his mom realized she wanted him in her life. In a roundabout way, Gaza started their relationship. When his parents married, they decided to move to the Middle East.
“I don’t think I would exist if it weren’t for that place,” he reflected on Gaza. “Now that place is getting wiped off the map.”
Alayna Carlock, a senior studying English and French, lived in Gaza for the first three years of her life and likewise expressed concern for Palestinians as the war continues. After her family was asked to leave Gaza by the Israeli government in 2008, they stayed in Egypt and Cyprus so her dad could commute to continue the relationships he built in Gaza.
Having lived in the tension between Israel and Palestine her whole life, she said she feared the worst when she first heard the news of Oct. 7.
“I felt my stomach drop,” she recalled. “I would define what’s happening in Gaza as a genocide, connected to years of oppression and violence against Palestinians, and that was my immediate fear when Israel retaliated last October. My heart did of course break for the Israeli victims, but I also knew that this would cause absolute devastation for civilians in Gaza.”
In response to the ongoing war, she expressed frustration at the lack of response from Wheaton College. Last year, she helped coordinate a memorial for the loss of Palestinian life at Wheaton.
“I think living in a Christ-like way demands that we see as an atrocity and see what Israel is doing as an atrocity,” she said. “And I think it makes people uncomfortable because they equate the Israel of the Bible with the Israeli government and the Israel nation-state. That is just not the same thing.”
Adam Mikail, a sophomore studying international relations who grew up in Egypt, similarly expressed that he thought Wheaton students should reconsider their potential biases.
“I think it’s just important to have a different lens than what mainstream media might be showing us, open your heart — pray, grieve, lament — those are all things that we can agree are healthy that we should be doing as Christians,” Mikail said.“Remember that we are all created in the image of God, that God is not supportive of attacks on humanity, on children, on innocent people.”
Kalantzis, a professor of theology and expert on peacemaking, also weighed in on the Christian’s obligation in days of war. He mentioned the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the Peacemakers.”
Talking about the Christian’s posture in the ongoing war, he said, “We’re Christians, which means we must always hope or live in hope. Why? Because we believe in the God of peace.”
As bombs keep falling, Kalantzis said that Christians should keep actively engaging in peacemaking. “The biggest problem we often have in Christian circles is we assume that pacifism is passive,” Kalantzis said.
He suggested that students start with prayer. He acknowledged that it sounds trite to a younger generation and clarified that prayer is not the same thing as a dismissive statement such as “thoughts and prayers.” Kalantzis named prayer as an intellectual, spiritual and lived experience — it is action, it prepares the soul for action and it prompts the individual to action.
“The solution is not me, or mine, to give,” Kalantzis said. “I bring the pain and the anguish of my brothers and sisters in front of God.”
By Katie Risley.
