Bethlehem Bible College

And we're here because we have two wonderful friends of mine, Dr. Yusuf Ilhori and Dr. Lama Mansour, who are Palestinian Christians from Palestine, who are here in Aotearoa and have been traveling around sharing their lived experiences.

I met both of these two actually back in 2024 in Bethlehem at Bethlehem Bible College, where Dr. Yusuf works.

He's the academic dean at Bethlehem Bible College.

He's on the board of Kairos Palestine and He currently lives in Bethlehem but grew up in Gaza where his family are currently still sheltering as well amidst the violence and the genocide happening there right now.

And Dr. Lama Mansour is a theologian and writer from up in Nazareth.

Actually, 36 generations of my family were in the priesthood of the Orthodox Church in Palestine.

I grew up during the first Intifada, so I witnessed firsthand the Israeli military occupation of Gaza, which of course includes the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the brutality of the Israeli military in treating Palestinians, children, women, men, with the same weight of dehumanization and demonization of people.

I moved out of Gaza about 17 years ago to the West Bank and the journey led me to where I am right now as an assistant professor of biblical studies and academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College where my interest is on the Palestinian Christianity and the Bible.

And his 89th birthday was spent listening to you.

And he said it was the most... stimulating and powerful Saturday morning you'd have in years so I think that's a great tribute and Tanas thank you so much for joining it says here that Tanas you're a Palestinian British Christian leader you're an international development professional advocate for reconciliation more than three decades of experience in mission and non-profit leadership you're also a friend I remember having the privilege of interviewing you when you started at the Church Mission Society I think around 2010 years ago and I know that you have a passion for supporting Christian leaders and communities culturally and politically in very well actually as you say very politically complex settings you also have a number of board responsibilities being I think the chair of the Board of Trustees of Bethlehem Bible College.

You're a trustee also of SAT7 here in the UK and have a real passion, particularly having grown up in Bethlehem, for dialogue and better understanding between our different communities.

So thank you so much.

Dr. Ellis died in 2024, but just this year I was at a gathering of Presbyterians in Louisville.

And Alex Awad from Bethlehem Bible College was sitting next to me.

And we were talking about different things, including my relationship with Dr. Ellis.

And he said, you know, he's the one who got Naeem's book published.

It is the apostate church, including sections of evangelism.

Alex, the one, so he, these other people from the checkpost movement, Bethlehem Bible college, these other, other people, the Presbyterian church of, of, of, uh, you, uh, USA, the world council of churches, all of these things.

Um, they have no idea what they're playing with because they don't read the word of God, or they read it through the lens or prism of some kind of a non exegetical prism.

Um, That is what is happening.

Um, I, for me, I think, um, like the Israeli narrative versus Robert's narrative or versus, you know, I'm not sure if that's a helpful distinction to make because I feel like that will just be reversed on everybody.

Well, that's just, you know, the Bethlehem Bible College narrative.

That's just the Gaza narrative, right? So I know what you mean by it.

I also, and I think, and again, right now, I'm hoping we can do a lot of delineation in this discussion because I think a lot of people don't know how to tear these things apart, and I certainly don't always.