Is the Pro-Israel Church out of Proportion? A letter to Gateway sparks conversation: with Hannah Morton

Hannah (00:00:00):
I originally wrote the letter Anonymous, and the reason it came about is because I approached my oversight and I was like, Hey, I feel like our space that we hold for Israel would, if Isaac and Ishmael were in the room, Isaac would have gifts from Gateway all over and Ishmael would be in the corner. And I’m not comfy with that because I respect the birth order that God ordained with these two, but they’re still brothers, and I’m not comfy with the way that this is going down.

David (00:00:46):
Welcome back to another episode of the Covenant and Conflict podcast. We’re so glad you’re here. You know who else I’m glad is here? Our guest today? Hannah Morton. Hey, cue the clapping. Yeah, the clapping sound in the background. Hannah is a fellow staff member here at Gateway Church. We’ve been in the same circle at Gateway for,

Hannah (00:01:07):
We’ve known each other a hot minute, long time.

David (00:01:10):
Yes.

Hannah (00:01:10):
I knew you pre-marriage

David (00:01:12):
A different David. He was,

Hannah (00:01:14):
Yes.

David (00:01:15):
But there was nuggets of who he has become.

Hannah (00:01:18):
And you were already dating Mikayla. That’s

David (00:01:20):
True. So she had already worn off on me a little bit.

Hannah (00:01:22):
Yeah,

David (00:01:22):
That’s good. And now you are working as a project manager for communications

Hannah (00:01:27):
I am.

David (00:01:27):
Or communications department doing specifically communications and marketing. Yeah.

Hannah (00:01:32):
Yeah, that’s a good way to package it up.

David (00:01:35):
Beautiful.

Hannah (00:01:36):
Yeah.

David (00:01:36):
Well, thank you for being here.

Hannah (00:01:37):
Thanks for having me. I’m excited.

David (00:01:39):
This conversation started a few months ago.

Hannah (00:01:42):
It did.

David (00:01:42):
Before we put the microphones in our face, which is always a good practice

Hannah (00:01:47):
To make sure I wasn’t crazy.

David (00:01:49):
Yeah, we had to just sift some things out, make sure you grew up near an Indian reservation. And so at the height of, I don’t know if it was at the height of October 7th, but it was kind of in one of the surges of pro-Israel, pray for Israel O marketing that we had at Gateway. There was a little bit of a tension, which we love here at the Covenant conflict. We embrace the

Hannah (00:02:19):
Tension. I mean you named it that, so I feel like you invited it,

David (00:02:22):
We invited it so we can get mad at no one but ourselves seems fair. In one of those surges, again, whether it was October 7th or New York, October 7th, there was a tension that are we just being another Fox News? Are we being another blow horn to the far right? Israel can do nothing wrong. Israel is God. Just this kind of, again, the lack of nuancing that we try to always bring to the table that just because it’s Israel and we believe that Israel is the same Israel, we believe the Jewish people are the same Jewish people, we don’t believe that they hijacked the Jewish identity or culture or anything like that. But that doesn’t mean that every decision they make is morally right. Their prime minister and prime ministers in the past are not following Jesus. They’re not in some cases even following God. So we can’t just say whatever decision they make God’s decision because we read the Tanach, we read the Hebrew scriptures, Israel did some crazy things, some crazy immoral things. So we don’t have a lot of grounding to say whatever they do is. And so you were one of the ones that voiced that very bravely because you exist in a church that to the outsider could seem just as another one of the ministries that shouts with the Israel flag

(00:03:55):
And doesn’t nuance anything, doesn’t nuance that we also care about the lives of innocent Palestinians. And we also understand that not everything Israel does is a hundred percent morally justified. But that’s hard. And even though I don’t think our organization is that it can appear that from an outsider, or at least I would assume. So you bravely voiced this tension and after having conversations, we wanted to have this conversation on the

Hannah (00:04:23):
Podcast.

David (00:04:24):
So that’s the preface.

Hannah (00:04:25):
It is. Yeah, it is. It’s funny because really early on in my walk with the Lord, I felt like he showed me a tenant that I think is woven throughout scripture, which is that God is a God of balance. And it’s really easy, especially from my background, which grew up Christian and then went to a really extremist ministry school and it was like waste your life for the gospel and very poverty, gospel centric. And if you’re not becoming a missionary on a floor in Africa, you’re not doing what God called you to do. Sort of a vibe.

David (00:05:07):
You’re not a real one.

Hannah (00:05:08):
Yeah, exactly. Are you really doing ministry, thought you were real? If you don’t have a crick in your neck, are you really doing ministry? And God bless the David Livingston’s of the world, but that’s not what we’re all called to do sort of a thing. But coming from that extremist mindset early on in my twenties, I felt like the Lord taught me that he is balanced and that zeal is beautiful, but there’s also wisdom. And even in the last couple of days leading up to us filming this, I have kind of come into an altercation with what’s also happening in Israel right now and the bombings

David (00:05:50):
With Iran

Hannah (00:05:51):
And within Iran and friends who I would say would put themselves in exact opposition to a Zionist mentality.

David (00:06:02):
Yeah,

Hannah (00:06:02):
Very. They changed their profile pictures to I stand with Palestine type of vibe.

David (00:06:07):
How much more pro-Palestinian can you get?

Hannah (00:06:09):
Literally change

David (00:06:10):
The profile picture. That is the N degree.

Hannah (00:06:13):
Totally. But the response has actually enacted me to go and have conversations on that side as well. And I think that obviously, especially when it comes to the Middle East for a really long time have been very tentative to assert any sort of opinion or thought because a, I am a white woman in America that’s about as far away from the Middle East as I can get. I am Scandinavian, what are we talking about?

David (00:06:47):
Let me throw my hat in the ring with the geopolitics in the Middle East. I’ve got a couple of thoughts

Hannah (00:06:50):
About that. One,

David (00:06:51):
Here’s what they should be doing

Hannah (00:06:53):
Exactly, but I think that holding tension in both directions is as close to the feet of the father as I can get for myself personally, is to hold space for Isaac and to hold space for Ishmael and

David (00:07:09):
Beautiful.

Hannah (00:07:11):
I felt strongly enough that I needed to say something, but I also just think it’s a testament to open communication that I feel because of a friendship with you, I didn’t know how other people in the department would take it, but when I thought as I was writing it, I was like, if this ever makes it to David, I’ll be okay sort of a thing. And it didn’t even make it to you at first. It made it to Nick and he was so wonderful in our interaction. So yeah, that’s kind of how that came to be. It’s

David (00:07:42):
Beautiful. Well, before we get to the

Hannah (00:07:45):
Letter,

David (00:07:46):
Let’s back up. Let’s rewind the tape to a young Hannah Morton. What’s your maiden name?

Hannah (00:07:52):
Nelson.

David (00:07:52):
Nelson. Okay.

Hannah (00:07:53):
I told you

David (00:07:54):
Scandinavian and I remember Hannah Nelson, but it is in a dream. It was far away. So take us back to some of the things in your childhood or the way that you grew up. You mentioned the kind of extreme missionary organization, but other things that would define why you would uniquely wrestle than someone else would. I know we mentioned being closer to Native American and I’m sure there was other things, so

Hannah (00:08:22):
For sure, just take us back. So I mean, not to date myself, but I’m in my mid thirties and so I grew up in kind of the post-apocalyptic world of purity culture, and both my parents were cleaned up addicts who had gotten radically saved and then had kind of just abandoned living in the world and had come and found a very charismatic said we were Pentecostal, but we were probably nondenom if we’re honest, but super, super charismatic, little tiny church in Minnesota. And that

David (00:08:59):
Was, you just said Minnesota with a Minnesota accent.

Hannah (00:09:01):
Yeah, it happens. It pops out. I saw that, but it’s when I’m talking to somebody from home or now I’m going to start doing it. It is

David (00:09:08):
Great. I love it.

Hannah (00:09:09):
And then most of the time I can’t hide it on Minnesota and you can’t hide it. When I say words like big,

David (00:09:16):
Is it like beg

Hannah (00:09:19):
Bag, bag,

David (00:09:19):
Bag

Hannah (00:09:20):
Is how I have to think of a sheep when I want to say it like you guys. Yeah, but it’s like Or an American flag screwed. It’s so funny. I didn’t know I had an accent until I got

David (00:09:32):
Here.

Hannah (00:09:32):
And then I had all of these Texas people and they’re like, what did you just say?

David (00:09:37):
Sorry, I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing.

Hannah (00:09:39):
No, you’re fine. But they’ll be like, say it like, okay, shake it again. It’s a dragon dance monkey dance. Yeah. We pull kids around in a wagon. It’s funny stuff. No. So that was the world that I grew up. That was

David (00:09:56):
So your parents went from living in the world to then the opposite end of the spectrum, which is tight knit community

Hannah (00:10:03):
Of Yeah, we didn’t listen on Christian music homeschooled. I was homeschooled. I don’t know if you can tell by everything about me actually. It’s a point of pride when people can’t tell I’m homeschooled.

David (00:10:15):
Yeah, I wouldn’t have pegged it. But when you said small, charismatic, I was like, oh, there’s a homeschool coming

Hannah (00:10:19):
Up. Absolutely.

David (00:10:20):
Maybe just for a season. But

Hannah (00:10:21):
Yeah, no, I was K through 12 there you. And it was absolutely against, my mom is a social worker and that’s where I think I started carrying tension right off the bat. I grew up in this really small town, ultra conservative, pretty Republican. It was pretty clear boundaries there. And then in the same breath, I have a social worker mother who is her job is to go into houses where the children have been taken away from the parents for whatever the reason may be. And she has to decide after she does visits with this family, whether or not that’s the hardest

David (00:11:01):
Job in the world,

Hannah (00:11:02):
Be able to have their children back. And because of that social justice arm in my household, there was also just a deep seated empathy for impoverished groups and minorities. And so from a very young age,

David (00:11:20):
They weren’t a statistic to you. They were very real, very real.

Hannah (00:11:24):
And then on the same part, you grow up as a northern Minnesotan. There are two groups of people and it is white people and native people. And it’s pretty segregated to this day. And that also holds a lot of tension. So the reservations, there’s several reservations around the area. So if you were to look at it at a map, you could probably see about three reservations are surrounding this little alcove of white towns that I live in.

David (00:11:55):
Okay, got it.

Hannah (00:11:56):
Or that I lived in. And so that made it just very interesting because you grow up close to the tribe, but you’re not involved in many of the tribal things as a white person. And there are definitely integrations into whites and natives marrying each other, but now it’s really frowned upon in a lot of things. So even my younger sister was dating a native guy for a really long time and it was just such a pain point for his family really.

David (00:12:28):
So it’s gotten worse, hasn’t gotten better.

Hannah (00:12:30):
I would say so. And that is really because they blame us for a lot of things.

David (00:12:35):
And

Hannah (00:12:35):
I believe rightfully so. There’s a lot of hurt that white Western culture has done to the Native American. I mean we can go as deep as you want, but res schools, which are the schools where they would take children off of the reservations from their family, usually about ages four or five. And they would take them to these boarding schools where they would

David (00:13:00):
Kind of americanize them essentially.

Hannah (00:13:01):
No, they would just abuse them completely. So much sexual abuse. They wouldn’t let them speak their language. A lot of kids died and there’d be mass graves in the back of the schools. Those were around until 1994 in the US and then 1996 in Canada.

David (00:13:19):
So they don’t exist now, but they’re in the memories

Hannah (00:13:22):
Of all of these people. In my

David (00:13:23):
Lifetime,

Hannah (00:13:25):
People were still going to the school. So they would go and if they survived,

David (00:13:28):
Is the res school what the boarding school is called or is the res,

Hannah (00:13:32):
That’s like a slang term. It would be like a res school, but it’s also just if you look up Indian boarding schools, you’ll just get an influx of information.

David (00:13:42):
But they weren’t for natives only. It was four.

Hannah (00:13:45):
No, it was four natives only. And it would usually be run by ministers or priests or

David (00:13:54):
I thought when you said going to boarding school, it was to basically mix them with a dominant culture. So this was natives getting taken from their families to go to the schools that were native only it was going to

Hannah (00:14:07):
Educate them,

David (00:14:08):
But it was run by

Hannah (00:14:10):
Sometimes the church. I think I would have to go back and look, but the US government absolutely funded these things, but they were run just by horrific people who didn’t see natives as human. So they would go to this school and if they survived at 18 years old, they’d be dumped back on the reservation not knowing how to do anything that they needed to do in native culture to be part of their culture. They don’t know the language anymore. They wouldn’t let them speak it get, and most of them, because of this intense trauma, they know nothing about sexual reproduction and different things like that. So they’re just bringing all of this PTSD back, marrying each other and then coping with severe alcoholism. And then ultimately the meth movement there is huge. And then I’m born in the nineties and just love everyone. And you come across native kids and obviously you don’t want to stereotype everybody into this stuff is rough, but the res is a rough place and I don’t think anybody would be speaking out of turn.

David (00:15:24):
And the suicide rate is crazy. Reservation it wild.

Hannah (00:15:28):
I don’t know. I don’t know what it is now. I probably should have looked it up before I got on camera, but as a teenager, I remember reading a statistic about my general area that native boys, before they reached the age of 21, 50% of them would commit suicide or die because of drugs and violence. The native mob is a thing, and it acts out in the community. Drugs are huge. The police, they have their own, and it’s like if you get onto the res, that’s theirs to police. And so a lot of the time stuff will happen outside of the res and then they’ll just go back in. But if they’re friends or family with,

David (00:16:23):
It’s like asylum. It’s like a place of refuge stuff

Hannah (00:16:26):
Happen, which I think this group of people has made it clear that they need some sort of asylum, so they need some respite of some sort. But yeah, so that was kind of the world that I was growing up in which it was this very stereotypical neighborhood for white kids. And then there would be kids who lived off of the res or who were coming off of the res for school or something like that. And I’d have these random interactions, or every once in a while you would meet a native person who was a Christian. And we had a couple of native people who came and were a part of our church, but it was like three people my entire life who were native, who were involved in Christianity. So that really started this relationship with tension in my life from a very early age where it was like you had to such a millennial thing to say, but you had to hold space for people who had pain that if they let their bitterness manifest in that moment, they could point it at me. But then there’s also this, you have to sit there and weep with those who weep.

(00:17:37):
Even if I don’t, as a little kid, I don’t have anything to do with this. I am still going to be present for this. So it made it really interesting as it shaped my worldview.

David (00:17:48):
And

Hannah (00:17:50):
That was kind of the start of it all,

David (00:17:53):
Man. Well, I mean even in your story, you can already see parallels to the West Bank

David (00:17:59):
Where

David (00:17:59):
There’s area A, there’s area B, there’s area C, and there’s different levels of governance essentially in the different areas you get to. Area CI believe is the largest. It’s the farthest reaching and it’s Israeli governed. It’s Israeli police. How would you say the Israeli police oversee it.

Speaker 5 (00:18:25):
Yeah.

David (00:18:25):
And then area B, there’s kind of a transition where they share it. And then area A is the Palestinian police and it’s Palestinian governed. So from an Israeli, that’s the most dangerous to be because you’re not even allowed to go into area if you’re Jewish, but even as American Christian, you’re going into a different authority.

Hannah (00:18:47):
They’re like, we can’t help you

David (00:18:49):
Here. Yeah, exactly. And that’s kind of how when you talk about the reservation, it’s like different police force. This is different authority, so it could be an asylum for the people that live there, but it can also be a dangerous place for an outsider to come in. And then you have all this history,

Hannah (00:19:04):
So much

David (00:19:04):
History that you’re with the Middle East. It’s like we’re going thousands of years

Hannah (00:19:08):
Back. It’s funny, there are specific roads in the res that you people die on this road all the time and they’re native. You as a white person should not go there. And there is this tension. It’s one of the more segregated areas that I’ve ever been to. And it’s so funny because I wasn’t aware of it growing up, how if I met a native kid, I wanted to be friends with the native kid because if they were nice to me, then we were cool. And if they weren’t, I was never informed by this. Oh, there might be extenuating circumstances as to why that little native girl doesn’t like me back, which I would assume would be very similar to small children in the Middle East. Okay, that person over there. And I know nothing about tribal markers as to who is wearing what or how we would differentiate, but for us it was a very clear, okay, your skin looks different than mine type of a

David (00:20:15):
Thing.

Hannah (00:20:16):
All of that being said, my mother is, before she got saved, she was like massive hippie man just out there with her. And she developed that love that I was talking about with the social justice arm. And she has, I think it is a gift from God at the kind of supernatural love for native people, but also for Jewish culture and for the Jews. So from a very young age, she would talk about how when she was a little girl, she would tell her sister, I just want to be a Jew. I just want to be a Jew. And it was little, we interact with those people, Northern Minnesotan girl who’s never met a Jewish person in her life, I just want to be a Jew. They’d be like, it’s because you want to be persecuted, get out of here sort of a thing. But she instilled that in all of us kids that there was this intense love specifically for these people who had known such pain. And I think it has affected, yes, me as a person, but it’s also so affected the way that I constantly live my life.

David (00:21:30):
Well, from my understanding, and I’d love for you to give me your perspective, the Native Americans, and I know that’s a huge bubble because you go Oklahoma, Minnesota,

Hannah (00:21:42):
Totally different, totally

David (00:21:43):
Different. That native culture has often embraced Israel and Jewish people because they’ve seen a similar story. And that’s interesting because the story you’re telling Bears parallels with Palestinian. So it’s like, okay, now we’re having to really wrestle through it because from my understanding, the native people looked at Israel as this persecuted group that was kicked out of their land. And maybe unlike the natives, they were living among foreigners in different land versus living among foreigners in the land that you previously lived in. There’s slight nuances and differences, but I think the zeitgeist has essentially changed in our parents’ generation. Israel was the underdog, they were the persecuted, they were the ones that were coming off of the Holocaust. And now it’s completely switched.

Hannah (00:22:44):
Where

David (00:22:45):
Now Palestinians are the underdog. Israel is this oppressor, and there’s that whole narrative and way of thinking that the victim becomes the oppressor, and that’s what Israel is in people’s minds.

Hannah (00:22:59):
Yeah, I actually addressed that in my letter.

David (00:23:02):
Okay, so let’s get to the letter.

Hannah (00:23:03):
No, I think just for both of us to say, I think that that’s my understanding as well, but I would totally leave room in the conversation to be wrong about that understanding.

David (00:23:15):
But I do, I’m sure there’s lots of opinions. Yeah,

Hannah (00:23:17):
I do think that that is a fair assertion to make about the native community, that they have a comradery, I would say, where there would be wildly different worldviews and beliefs, but there’s this shared experience of, oh, displaced brother come and sit with me sort of a

David (00:23:40):
Thing,

Hannah (00:23:41):
Which is, I mean, so intensely beautiful. I don’t think that there are a lot of things that come out of the fall that I’m like, wow, that’s so cool. But to watch those types of interactions, I think one of the biggest things that I could say to any of the people who listen to this podcast who are maybe intensely supportive of severe right politics or something like that, is you’re missing out on this beautiful opportunity to sit with people who think differently than you. And then to have maybe not your opinion changed, but to have your heart bleed for another is something so intrinsically human that we miss when we’re yelling at each other. What an honor to sit with someone who I might not agree with, but they’re sharing something with me. It takes such vulnerability to share it with someone who believes differently than you. And that’s not a liberal thing to do. That is a human thing to do, to go, I don’t know how you’re going to take this, but this hurts me. And for me to go, okay, I’m going to sit here, we need to talk about this and we’re probably not going to agree, but I see you bleed and I love you.

(00:25:10):
It is just so beautifully human. And I think a lot of us miss that when we’re like, oh, hi, you sort of a thing,

David (00:25:17):
The desire to be right rather than the desire to hear

Speaker 5 (00:25:21):
A perspective.

David (00:25:22):
And again, this wrestling, we always talk about Israel means to wrestle with God. And so if we are grafted into this family and we are now partakers of this root as Romans 11 says, then there’s an element that God desires us to wrestle wrestl uncomfortable, but it’s intimate.

Speaker 5 (00:25:42):
And

David (00:25:42):
That’s what those conversations are. They’re uncomfortable, but they’re intimate. And there’s something in theology, and I’ve talked about it a few times and I never can remember the actual term, so forgive me, but I think something along the lines of the imaginary Jew

Speaker 5 (00:25:58):
And

David (00:25:58):
Christians had this idea of what the Jews were never met one, but they are these hardhearted. They killed Jesus, they killed the prophets. It’s like, have you ever met a Jew? And they’re like, don’t need to.

Hannah (00:26:11):
I already know they’re caught. Yeah,

David (00:26:12):
Absolutely. I think that’s for sure happened to the native culture. It’s like I can tell you what the Native Americans believe or think who they are. It’s like, have you ever met one? Don’t need to. And so I think that is where the change needs to happen, is the conversations need to take place because again, someone might be right, someone might be wrong, yet it doesn’t mean that they’re not worth hearing.

Hannah (00:26:39):
Well, and some of it, because you decide to throw the baby out with the bathwater, you’re actually missing things that would not brush up against your worldview at all. It’s just a completely different mindset. So the tribe that I grew up next to is called Ojibwe. That’s a great name. And the Ojibwe people are more well known as Chippewa. And it’s because when the native person tried to tell the white person we’re the Owa tribe, they heard Chippewa and they ran with it. So there’s Chippewa, there’s a water brand called Chippewa,

David (00:27:12):
And

Hannah (00:27:12):
It’s like that’s not their name. And they call themselves in Anishinaabe, which is the original people. And so there’s these beautiful things about native culture. If you ever have the opportunity to go to a powwow, if you’re invited by a native person to go to a powwow go, I think a lot of Christians are like powwows. They’re going to be spirit dancing and they’re going to put a spell on me and the witch doctors. And it’s like, no, most tribal dancing with native culture is telling a

David (00:27:45):
Story.

Hannah (00:27:46):
And we would say we have an aversion maybe to the word communing, but they’re like, they’re talking about a bird dance is literally they’re emulating what a bird looks like when it’s on the ground trying to find seeds, and it’s a harvest dance, those types of things. And the also thing, I have the spirit of the sovereign Lord inside me, and he’s equipped me and empowered me. And if I’m going somewhere to learn about a person’s culture, I’m sorry, you can’t put a spell on me. So even if there’s some witch doctor around there, say no thank you. And then just ask the Holy Spirit to wash over you, you’re going to be fine. It’s going to be okay. And those, some of them are open to the public and some of them are for the tribes only. And either opportunity, it’s a beautiful example of a culture that has persevered such intense persecution. And I think that there would be a lot of similarities if you were invited to a Shabbat meal or something like that.

David (00:28:52):
Totally. Or even as we’re talking about the Palestinian side, I’ve had many people say that the hospitality of the Arab people is the greatest form of hospitality that even is greater than the Jewish community.

Speaker 5 (00:29:09):
And

David (00:29:09):
Again, people could argue and disagree, but it’s like they are known for their hospitality. I remember there was a Jewish teacher, messianic, who was leading this trip to Israel, and they were like 30 strong bunch of white Americans coming to an Arab village. And they sent the kids out first and the kids were called to go into the home. They were telling them, come, my parents sent me, you have to come have dinner with us, come have tea with us, invited everyone in, cooked for them. And it’s like, is that what we would think if 30 Arabs descended on our neighborhood and be like, Hey, Kaya, you run out there by yourself and go tell ’em to come in for dinner.

Hannah (00:29:58):
Tell those nice fellows to come in here.

David (00:29:59):
So the hospitality is just something beautiful that actually you could say goes back to Abraham 100%. And many theologians believe that that’s why God chose Abraham, or one of the reasons was his hospitality, intense hospitality that the Arab people have really kept. That’s so beautiful. So there’s beautiful things

Speaker 5 (00:30:13):
There.

David (00:30:14):
And we have friends that are Palestinian Christians and they’re wonderful people. And then October 7th has now made this term Palestinian as a very loaded term, maybe 20 years ago, okay, Palestinian Christian. Now if you are identifying self-identifying as a Palestinian Christian, statistically you are pro Hamas.

Speaker 5 (00:30:38):
You’re

David (00:30:38):
Pro October 7th. And so you’re like, now we have to nuance something even stronger. But again, all that to say, there’s beautiful things in every culture.

Speaker 5 (00:30:47):
And

David (00:30:48):
I think we were talking about this before we hit record, that was the big miss of sending Christian missionaries to other nations was it wasn’t. We want to show you the gospel, the good news of Jesus, and then allow your particular identity, what we would say your particular Gentile identity to dance with that, to obviously receive the truth. But you’re not Jewish,

Speaker 5 (00:31:16):
And

David (00:31:16):
That’s okay. That was the whole Acts 15, you’re not supposed to be Jewish.

Speaker 5 (00:31:19):
So

David (00:31:19):
What does it mean to follow Jesus in this culture? God created diversity at Babel. No, you guys are supposed to go and what’s the term? It was like God was constantly saying, go fill the earth, go fill the earth. And they kept on trying to come back together and become one homogenous group. And God’s like, no, go the earth. So he’s the creator of diversity,

Hannah (00:31:46):
And

David (00:31:46):
We’ve tried to make this one size fits all Christianity and it’s damaged

Hannah (00:31:50):
Culture. I think also unfortunately, if you look at the Inquisition or you look at the Crusades, or you look at a lot of church history

David (00:32:01):
Is

Hannah (00:32:01):
Steeped in, let’s just call it what it is, shall we, racism. So there is this like, oh, we’re bringing you the one true gospel, but it’s steeped in prejudice. So even now, I will sit, and I had told you about this before we started recording too. There is a book by the author is Richard Twist. He’s a Native American. He has since passed on to go be with Jesus, but he’s a Christian and he was great at holding tension in between finding his love for Jesus and how do we restore native culture back to the native? And one of the things in his book was this idea of sitting in hot houses and sweat lodges is what they’re called. And

David (00:32:54):
It’s like Asana.

Hannah (00:32:56):
We would, yes, a lot of the time there would be something like a piece pipe might be passed or something like this. And sometimes it was like a psychedelic thing, but sweat lodges a lot of the time. There was this idea of yes, they would go into a sauna and they would sit and they would interact with the ancestors is a white thought on it or whatever. But a lot of the time it was this purification thing that was going on so that they could reach a higher level of awareness on a spiritual plane. So that’s the understanding. So he tells a story of himself as a Christian man with other Christian natives deciding to do a sweat lodge. And in his story, there was no use of psychedelics or anything like this, but how after the sweat lodge was over and these five or six men were ting down, they started to express to one another this deep self-hatred that they felt closer to creator God as they were sitting in this room. And they felt like they had reached a higher level of spiritual closeness with Jesus, but that there was so much internalized self-hatred because Western culture had taught them that this was demonic,

(00:34:20):
That they were wrestling with this tension of this beautiful thing that I don’t think is actually ugly because Jesus made it new and it’s something I can do with Jesus, but white Christianity told me it was wrong. And so he tells it beautifully. And so it was very eyeopening. And I remember reading this and this whole segue into this, I remember reading it and getting nervous. I’m like, oh my gosh, am I reading a new age book? Is he going to talk about psychedelics? What’s going to happen here? Sort of a thing.

David (00:34:56):
Totally.

Hannah (00:34:58):
And he finishes the story and I remember that feeling of like, okay, are we wrong? Were we wrong about this? And I felt that, I feel like the Lord gave me that interaction with that book because last year, or I guess October 7th happened, and I was in New York City when October 7th happened, and I believe it was a Friday or a Thursday,

David (00:35:28):
They called it Black Sabbath. So it was a Saturday, Friday, Saturday. It was Saturday morning I think. Yeah.

Hannah (00:35:35):
And I was in New York City and there were Palestinian teenagers or children of Arab descent. I don’t know if they were all Palestinians, but there were supposedly or presumably Muslim children, teenagers running through the streets in Times Square calling for a jihad. And I remember this, no, I stand with Israel. I was so, and I thought, this is a caveat in this, but I remember looking around and there was no one in protest opposite,

David (00:36:21):
No Israeli flags, the

Hannah (00:36:22):
Israeli, the Jewish people did not come out that night. And I think that that is something I so admire about Jewish culture is that they did two things beautifully. They grieved with their community and they honored the Sabbath even in a moment like that when it would’ve been very easy for them to justify going to the streets, to tell these teenagers to shut up. They weren’t there. They were. They weren’t there. And I clocked that, and then I clocked this in myself, which I would be irritated with those teenagers regardless. That’s just an awful way. You’re 16 years old, you live in the United States, you don’t know what you’re asking for. Don’t do

David (00:37:10):
That. And 1200 people were just murdered.

Hannah (00:37:13):
This is not something to be running around with a flag being like, yeah, this is not what you think it is. Sweet baby, go home, please. I don’t see your parents here. I think that that’s also very telling. I don’t see your parents. They’re not supporting you as you do this. So I clocked that there was this, okay, so I got really angry on behalf of Israel that night, and then everything started to happen. And about a year later, which is when I wrote this letter, I started to feel the same tension,

David (00:37:48):
But in the opposite.

Hannah (00:37:49):
Within the opposite where I was like, okay, but their babies are dying in the streets of Gaza, and those babies are not Hamas members. And I don’t know if all Palestinians are members of Hamas. I don’t even know if they’re all Hamas sympathizes, and are we getting this wrong? Was I wrong? And not even we, was I wrong? Is this inside of me wrong? And I came to the conclusion that it’s far more nuanced than I think any of us want to. I’m listening to a podcast and it’s called Devil in the Deep Blue Sea. You should totally check it out. But one of the things that they assert is that it is much easier for us to make something black and white and then get behind it

David (00:38:38):
Totally.

Hannah (00:38:38):
But when it becomes gray and nuanced, that’s when it’s really hard. And Christian specifically, we want it to be right and wrong.

David (00:38:45):
Good and bad. Gray scares us.

Hannah (00:38:47):
Absolutely.

David (00:38:49):
It takes a lot of work.

Hannah (00:38:50):
It does

David (00:38:51):
To sift through gray.

Hannah (00:38:52):
It does. I, I’m going to be honest, since I wrote that letter, I have put in far more work than I did the year leading up to it, just like brain power behind it. And I got to tell you, I’m more confused than I was before I wrote it. And I think that that’s okay. I think you’re the one who taught me the term that there’s two Jews and one, three opinions, three

David (00:39:16):
Opinions.

Hannah (00:39:17):
And I think that that’s such a fantastic thing to be aware of. So I will sit here and I’ll wrestle from these deeply evangelical roots and then these deeply moderate roots, which just caveat, I think it’s wild that the things that are happening in the Middle East have made their way into American politics, and we’re all so opinionated. I think that’s a wild thing.

David (00:39:44):
Yeah, it’s interesting for

Hannah (00:39:45):
Sure. Lots of audacity, but I just decided that I was going to be comfortable not knowing all the answers and still talking. I don’t think the answer is for us to all get quiet, but maybe

David (00:39:58):
Only doctorates can speak into issues,

Hannah (00:40:01):
Which I would be so comfortable. But if they would, but that’s not, we can’t just do that.

David (00:40:07):
And we just had a scholar on here, and he’s like, anytime a scholar says, we think this, what he means is my group of friends all think this.

Speaker 5 (00:40:14):
So

David (00:40:15):
Even then you’re like, okay, so they’re the experts. So they automatically have the authority to say what is black and white?

Hannah (00:40:21):
Absolutely. But I think we also run the risk of even the learned getting it wrong. I think that you can look throughout history. If you were to go to Germany in 1932 or 1927, the learns were like, this guy’s the thing. There’s something to be said about that. So I don’t think the answer is for me to be quiet, but I think that the biggest thing that I’ve learned in this whole thing is you have to have the humility to be wrong in the situation and not hold something and hit someone over the head with it so strongly that you end up doing irreparable damage. I also understand that specifically in evangelical circles, we’re looking at things that scripture tells us to do. So what is the tension between holding fast to our beliefs and not becoming a woke Christian

David (00:41:17):
Or swayed by the wind

Hannah (00:41:18):
Or swayed by the wind with also sitting and holding space for those things

David (00:41:24):
In humility,

Hannah (00:41:26):
That humility calls for? I think the balance, going back to the original part of the conversation, I think the balance that I found is that the Jesus that I see woven through the tapestry of scripture would be weeping in the streets of Gaza with the mom who just lost her 2-year-old as much as he would be sitting with the kidnapped person from October 7th. I believe that that he is in both scenarios, and I trust him, so therefore I will too.

David (00:42:03):
Yeah, he is so good. There’s so many thoughts coming to my mind. When Nick and I first started content in part, we said we want to simplify for people. And then at the same time, we were like, and we also want to muddy it up for people. Some people are coming with no information and they’re asking questions, what is the West Bank? What is Gaza? I don’t know. We want to simplify it for them. Some are like, I know what Gaza is, and we’re like, we want to muddy it for them, not as easy as what they’re making. So we’re intrinsically trying to create this wrestle within the content that we’re saying.

Speaker 5 (00:42:44):
Yeah,

David (00:42:46):
And I want to applaud you for the humility to send the letter and then Nick’s humility to receive the letter. Because I was joking with Naia Gordon who was on our podcast, and I think it was him. I basically said, we will make both ends of the spectrum mad. You look at our YouTube comments, there are Orthodox Jewish people who get mad because we’re pro messianic. There’s one law of people, Christians that love Israel that we’re not strong enough. There’s pro Palestinians who hate that We love Israel and Jewish people. And then there’s also these far right conservatives that think that we’re liberal and woke because we’re not black and white. So it almost makes me think we’re onto something when we get hate from both sides,

Hannah (00:43:40):
100%.

David (00:43:40):
But that’s another tension, which is I’m going to be rejected. And that’s like the cancel culture. It’s the fear to even speak up because I’ll be labeled as whatever the opposite of the side that I’m right now in this moment opposing or at least wrestling with. So I think you had to have this humility to send it knowing I might be ousted, I might be just written off as an antisemite because I have a little bit of a question, a little bit of an internal wrestle with someone waving the Israeli flag in a shofar blowing. And on my Instagram feed this morning, I just saw a 4-year-old get taken out of the rubble in Gaza. And I remember Nick on the podcast that we recorded pretty soon after October 7th, if my memory’s right, he opened with, if you see a Palestinian kid, a dead Palestinian kid getting brought out from the rubble, and that doesn’t affect you. Something’s wrong with you

Hannah (00:44:44):
100%.

David (00:44:45):
And yet that’s a tension that many of the, whether they’re Jewish or whether they’re just Christian Zionists, don’t want to wrestle with. And I have people that I love at Gateway. We have relationships with churches in Iran or the movement in Iran, in Syria, in Egypt, and they’re sometimes wrestling with, you guys are talking a lot about Israel, the amount that you’re talking about. Israel is hard for us. And again, we have biblical things that we can say back and have that conversation. But I remember a Syrian Christian saying to a group of us, my family is getting persecuted. I dunno what word he used, but the IDF is coming in,

Speaker 5 (00:45:34):
Destroying

David (00:45:35):
Our family. And there was someone in our group, and I totally understand. They said, I just don’t know if I can hold space for that. I’m already trying to hold space for Israel. I’m trying to hold space for my Messianic friends, and I’m trying to hold space for the Palestinians, and now we’re adding another. And it was almost like you could see in the moment, it’s like, this is too much for me.

Speaker 5 (00:45:54):
I

David (00:45:54):
Can’t hold space for all of this. So what do we do? We want to retreat into our black or white box. I’ll just stay in that camp.

Hannah (00:46:01):
I want to fight the bad guys. And then I don’t have any room for hearing the bad guy stories as to why they’re the bad guys. It’s so funny. Thank you for continuously saying that I have humility, but I also have to out myself in that I originally wrote the letter anonymous, and the reason it came about is because I approached my oversight and I was like, Hey, I feel like our space that we hold for Israel would, if Isaac and Ishmael were in the room, Isaac would have gifts from Gateway all over and Ishmael would be in the corner. And I’m not comfy with that because I respect the birth order that God ordained with these two, but they’re still brothers, and I’m not comfy with the way that this is going down. And my oversight encouraged me. She was like, Hey, write a letter. And I was like, maybe I will.

David (00:47:02):
She’s

Hannah (00:47:02):
Like, you can write it anonymous if you want. And originally I was like, I feel like that that’s safer. But I also was like, I don’t know if I want to have a conversation about this. That was really what it boiled down to. It wasn’t that I thought you guys would be mad. It was like, I don’t know if I want to go sit down for hours and hours and talk about this thing that if we’re honest, doesn’t affect me at all. If we’re honest, if we take,

David (00:47:29):
You could live your life and never know what was happening for media, honestly,

Hannah (00:47:33):
Before social media, most evangelical white Christians in America were like, Israel, yay. But we fixed it in 1947 and we’re done. Oh, I heard that there was war bummer sort of a thing, but it was like, yeah, I could go my entire life. And to be quite honest, up until that point, I had sort of avoided it because I am a history buff, but that’s a lot of complicated history to learn. Totally. I’m like, dude, I don’t even know. I need a PhD to understand most of these things and who’s got the time. So that was initially why I did it anonymously. And then the same day we submitted it, Nick hit my oversight up and was like, who wrote this? Would they be open to a convo? And she approached me and she was like, would you? And I was like, you know what? I’m ready for a rumble. Sure, fine, let’s do it. And then you met with Nick, who is the least aggressive person, and he’s like, I just want to hear, tell me your thoughts. And I was like, wow. And then we had, it was so beautiful the way it boiled down. So thank you for saying it was humility, but it really was just like, I’m just going to put myself out there and I’m not even going to do it fully, but I’ll just do something. And that’s really where it snowballed. But yeah, I don’t know.

David (00:48:58):
Well, no, I think it’s such a great challenge for anyone listening to just, again, the title of this channel or this episode could just be embracing that tension, that uncomfortable tension. And I remember when I first taught post October 7th about, what about the Palestinians? It’s such a hard history to try to unpack.

Speaker 5 (00:49:22):
I

David (00:49:22):
Had 20 minutes, which is a joke. That’s

Hannah (00:49:25):
Impossible.

David (00:49:26):
All I could do is a flyover. And I had to constantly say, you could stop me at any point and be like, what about? And we could do that all day, but I have 20 minutes. Let’s do a brief flyover, not to try to answer every specific question, but to get a big picture and the big picture from biblical perspective. And even many times in the historical perspective, there’s so many reasons why as Christians, we should look at the Jewish people as our covenanted partners, our brothers and

David (00:49:58):
Sisters.

David (00:49:59):
And one of the ways that I’ve had this conversation with many people, we have many Christian Zionist friends

Speaker 5 (00:50:09):
That

David (00:50:09):
Want to just say, I stand with Israel. And we try to avoid that exact phrase, not because we don’t believe it, but let’s define what that means.

Hannah (00:50:21):
Sure.

David (00:50:22):
Because just grabbing the megaphone and saying, I stand with Israel. What does that mean to this person? What does it mean to this person? To some people, it means Israel can do no wrong. Israel is God’s mouthpiece. And so therefore, if they make a decision, it’s godly. That’s not what I mean.

Speaker 5 (00:50:38):
No. Yeah.

David (00:50:38):
But when I say stand with Israel, so we talked about what does it mean to stand balanced?

Speaker 5 (00:50:42):
Yes.

David (00:50:43):
What does it mean to stand on a firm foundation? What is our foundation when we stand on scripture? And so there’s all these scriptures that we can point to about God’s love for Israel and the Jewish people despite their disobedience. And that’s the wrestle that many Palestinians don’t want to go through because they’re like, no, no, they made this moral failure. And it’s like, yeah, but there’s kids.

Speaker 5 (00:51:07):
If

David (00:51:07):
My kids make moral failures, I can hate what they did. They’re still my kid. They can run away from me. They can curse me. Romans 11, even those who are opposed to the gospel are my beloved. Was I beloved for the sake of their ancestors? Meaning because they’re part of my family. And Isaac’s a great example, or sorry, no, Jacob, because Jacob does some morally disgusting things. He lies to his blind father. He tricks his brother. He’s constantly being deceptive, and yet God still backs him. So how do we hold this tension of, God chose Jacob, he made him Israel, while he’s still deceptive, chooses to back him despite his flaws. And yet can we can point as readers of scripture and say, that was wrong, that was wrong, that was wrong. God still backed him. And it kind of blows our minds that there’s still this, but I’m going to make a covenant with you. And yet, all throughout scripture, when he brings back up Israel, often he says, Jacob, but he’s not saying Abram. He says, Abraham. And then forever, it’s Abraham. We’re not bringing the Abram back. But for some reason, God says, your name is Israel, and yet I’m the God of Abraham, Isaac and

Speaker 5 (00:52:34):
Jacob.

David (00:52:35):
Jacob.

Speaker 5 (00:52:35):
And

David (00:52:35):
You’re like, why are you saying Jacob? It’s like, because I am calling you Israel, but I know you’re still Jacob.

Speaker 5 (00:52:41):
Yeah.

David (00:52:42):
So it’s this tension that even God is placing on his identity of, I’m calling you to be something greater. I’m calling you into this wrestle that’s so uncomfortable, and I’m calling you to live to a different standard, but you’re also still Jacob. And so it’s like the Jewish people to this day have this Israel Jacob tension

Speaker 5 (00:53:03):
Of

David (00:53:04):
Yeah, certain times we’re acting like Israel, and certain times you’re freaking acting like Jacob again. And it’s like, even that is a wrestle. And then there’s the Palestinian wrestle of, I’ve met Arab Christians, people who would identify as Palestinian Christians, love them to death. And then you see this poll that came out pretty close to October 7th in the West Bank. So not Gaza, west Bank. And 80% of Palestinians in the West Bank agreed with what happened on October 7th. And you’re like, dang it. I was trying to, we were rooting for you. And now you’re like, again, they’re still 20%. And again, like you said, not all Palestinians are Hamas. And we’ve had Israelis on here, and they’re like, absolutely, not all Palestinians are Hamas. But that line is getting blurrier

Hannah (00:53:51):
For sure.

David (00:53:51):
And so now that’s causing even more of a wrestle. And again, even in myself, it’s like, lemme just retreat. This is too much. Because what can I do with 20%? What can I do with someone who’s sinking their feet into I am a Palestinian Christian again, preoc October 7th, there was more space I could hold for that post October 7th. I’m like, what does that mean?

Speaker 5 (00:54:15):
What do we do with

David (00:54:16):
That? What do you say about my Jewish friends now? So it’s this wrestle that I think we have to constantly reengage with humility.

Hannah (00:54:25):
100%.

David (00:54:27):
And with courage, because like you said, it’s taxing. It’s taxing to sift through. It’s taxing to just listen to whatever your algorithm thinks you want to hear, and how you have to search for,

Hannah (00:54:40):
Don’t even look at

David (00:54:41):
My algorithm.

Hannah (00:54:42):
That’s wild.

David (00:54:43):
I have to follow so many pro-Palestinian and like I need to see

Hannah (00:54:47):
Mixture

David (00:54:48):
Both, because even if I don’t agree with one, I need to see it. Because we all know now in America, they’re just shooting you the news that you agree with. And so that’s taxing. It’s hard. But I just want to thank you for engaging with the wrestle and not being afraid to have the hard conversation.

Hannah (00:55:12):
I have a couple of things I just want to ask you. Okay. And I think I might be wrong about this. So I would love, because you spent so much more time in this realm, I would love for your thoughts on this. So being here at Gateway, I would come up against friends who had replacement theology. And I inherently knew that that was wrong. But I think that I adopted a thought process of No, Israel can do no wrong because they’re the chosen ones.

David (00:55:48):
They’re the chosen.

Hannah (00:55:50):
And so as I started navigating this more, I started to, okay, well, I don’t think that that’s what scripture is saying, so I’m not really sure how to do this. So I was trying to verbalize this with a friend yesterday before we came on here, and I was like, I don’t really know how to talk about this. And one of the things that I tried to verbalize was, okay, so I have a friend and she has three children, and her oldest was the first baby in the friend group. And he is God’s favorite.

David (00:56:32):
He is doted on,

Hannah (00:56:34):
Not only is he doted on, but he is bright and he’s talented, and he is loved by God. This child is anointed, and there’s something like you meet him and you’re just like, oh, oh, there’s something so

David (00:56:50):
Unique.

Hannah (00:56:51):
Yes, he’s a unique beautiful boy. And because I’ve had more time with him, and because he’s the first, I have a different relationship with him than the other two. And then there’s a little girl, and then their last is a little boy. And I don’t have the relationship with those two that I have with the first, because A, I don’t have as much

David (00:57:13):
Time.

Hannah (00:57:14):
B, the oldest and I connect, and he has more of me than the others do.

David (00:57:22):
And he was only one. You didn’t have to split your time

Hannah (00:57:24):
Exactly between the three. And so however, if something were to happen to the 4-year-old, I would be just as devastated as I would be if the nine-year-old was harmed. You know what I mean? And I was like, I think that, I don’t even know if that’s the right way to look at it, but I was like, that’s the only thing that I as a human can liken this to where it’s like, no, I have a special understanding with this one, but this one is precious to me. And I would die for him. I would die for this little boy, even though I don’t know him the same way as I know his brother. And I was trying to express that I think that we as Christians, because we have such a tumultuous past with Muslims, that is a thing. It’s very, obviously not in all church history, but in a lot of church history. I think especially for evangelicals, it can be very easy after 1947 maybe.

David (00:58:26):
It’s

Hannah (00:58:26):
Very easy for us to be like, yeah, it’s real.

David (00:58:28):
But

Hannah (00:58:29):
Ooh, over there

David (00:58:30):
With

Hannah (00:58:31):
Arabs and with Muslims specifically, and I read an article a couple of days ago that talked about how after the socialist movements that are happening in Europe, they’re being overrun by Muslims. And then a couple of days later, I was given an article go algorithm that was talking about revival that was breaking out and how all of these Muslims were coming to know Jesus, and he was coming to them in dreams. And I had this, maybe this is just me being an Enneagram seven, who’s just really excited about something positive, but I was like, he’s using Ishmael too. He’s using Ishmael. He uses Isaac, he uses Jacob, but also he made promises to Ishmael as well.

David (00:59:19):
Totally.

Hannah (00:59:19):
And it was like, oh. So I would love for your thoughts on that word picture between the two. I don’t know if that’s the right way to look at it or if it’s not close enough.

David (00:59:30):
Well, I think one of the greatest detriments about parables is they all fall short at something.

Hannah (00:59:41):
Right? Absolutely.

David (00:59:42):
Which is why Jesus was like, and the kingdom of God is like this. He’s given multiple because you got to get it multiple ways or else

Hannah (00:59:49):
You like technically, I was like, somebody’s going to hear this and be like, well, actually, because everybody’s going to pull it apart. But I was like, I don’t know. Help

David (00:59:54):
Me. Yeah. So I think theres definite truth to it in the sense that God sees all people as his creation and all people bear the image of God. And so in that sense, all people, he’s endeared to all people forgot to love the world that he sent to his son. He wishes that none should perish, but find eternal life. So there’s all this universal language that we typically hone in on

Speaker 5 (01:00:23):
Because

David (01:00:23):
We are the world. We’re not Israel. So we like those scriptures.

Speaker 5 (01:00:27):
We are

Hannah (01:00:28):
The

David (01:00:28):
World. Sorry. Yeah. The parts that we sometimes skip over is God’s unique relationship or distinction that he put on Israel, which the difference in your analogy. And I think the way that a ancient Israelite would’ve framed it is high priest, priest, Levite, Israelite. Those are it’s spectrums, or sometimes they put in concentric circles, and this is the holiest,

David (01:01:00):
And

David (01:01:00):
It gets increasingly less holy or increasingly less responsibility. So the high priest had different level of responsibility than the priests, but the priest had different responsibilities than the Levites.

Speaker 5 (01:01:15):
And

David (01:01:15):
The Levites had different responsibilities than the Israelites. And if an Israelite wanted to have a greater responsibility put on them, you can take a Nazarite vow.

Speaker 5 (01:01:26):
So

David (01:01:26):
That was their way of putting themselves under this yoke that was maybe not their birthright. And you see it also in just the culture of, if I’m a father, I don’t love the first one more, but the first one will get the majority of the estate because if I give them out equally in three generations, I don’t have an estate anymore. Our family doesn’t have an inheritance because it’s all been diluted. So there was practical ways that they always would view the firstborn is different, not more loved,

Speaker 5 (01:01:55):
But

David (01:01:55):
Has a different responsibility. It’s a distinction. The holiness is, we talked about this on one of the podcasts, the way that Christians read Genesis versus Jews, we view it as everything was good, but then sin came into the world where they view it as everything was good, but then the Sabbath was holy. So God made everything good, but only one day was holy. And one day there’s a prophecy, and I think it’s Ezekiel, that the holiness will eventually, essentially bleed out to all of the earth, and everything will become holy. And that’s the new heavens, and the new earth is everything’s holy. But right now, it’s just this and that theology is mirrored throughout scripture with Israel. Israel is my holy nation. And one day through Israel, that will then bleed out all families of the earth will be blessed. Yes,

Hannah (01:02:52):
I do. I listened to you. I think it might’ve been a recent episode where you had two gentlemen

David (01:02:59):
On

Hannah (01:03:00):
And you made that point also. I was just like, wow. Because you say things and they receive them. And I was like, I don’t think I would’ve ever even had boldness to be like, Hey, you as Israel are a gift to humanity. And they’re like, yes, we are. And you’re like, yeah, you are. I was like, I don’t even know if I would’ve been like, you guys are gifts sort of a thing. No, but I mean, there’s a lot to unpack in these things because also going back I’ve, I’ve been doing my Bible reading plan, everybody listening to the Bible and read the Bible, but one of the things that I noticed is the relationship that he points out with Ishmael. And again, it’s one of those things where I’m like, okay, and they both had the same deity. There’s those intricacies there that, and how does that work with us sitting in a room, in a safe building here in the west as we talk this

David (01:04:05):
Through.

Hannah (01:04:07):
It’s one more thing I wanted to, and this is, I don’t want this to be, I don’t know, fodder for the internet, but I was, with everything that’s happened recently with the bombings in Israel with Iran, I was watching all of these who a lot of people would consider bleeding heart liberals who have been death in the streets of Gaza and all of this. I was f floored David with some of the most horrific, insensitive, inhumane things I’ve ever seen in my entire life. These people that I would be like, no, you’re like, love everyone, peace, joy, love. I specifically saw one of my former, and I’m not saying former friends, I won’t be friends with this person, but that we’re like, we haven’t talked in years, we’re Facebook friends type of a thing. And they posted a picture of stuff hitting the iron dome and falling in, and they posted and said, it’s called karma. Look it up. And then I clicked on that. It was like a carousel of photos and I kept flipping through and it was this meme of a girl sitting with her lamp on and she’s looking at her phone and she’s got this giddy expression, and it’s like me, as I watch Israel get what’s coming to them,

(01:05:31):
And I got, I lost control of my anger, but instead of adding that person, I made a post and said almost verbatim what Nick said earlier, which is if you see someone whose home is bombed or person who dies because of war that’s been going on for thousands of years, that has nothing to do with you or your family and your responses to think that it’s karma or to gloat, you’ve lost your humanity and I need you to take a step back. And I would humbly submit that you should just look yourself in the face because this is obviously a Christian podcast. This is being done by a church. But I think that a lot of people, especially here in the United States, when we’ve got so many people deconstructing and we have so much church hurt and we have so many newer movements to maybe an old rhythm. So there is this removal of the sanctity of the church, and we’re going outside to try to find things other lovers, if you will. It’s the same song, but it’s a new dance type of a vibe.

David (01:06:44):
Yeah, totally.

Hannah (01:06:45):
As they do that, I find that one of the things that we have to make tension with is the fact that we’re human. And for us that’s deeper because we’re created in the image of God. But I implored from a, Hey, not to take Jesus out of this, but just to talk to you human to human for a second. And I think that there was so much insensitivity that I saw towards the Palestine situation

David (01:07:16):
That

Hannah (01:07:16):
I think that there’s vindication.

David (01:07:18):
Totally.

Hannah (01:07:18):
And I wanted to just before, I don’t even know how much time we have left, whatever, but one of the things that I wanted to point out before we’re gone is what I said about when I was in New York City and I noticed that the Jewish people weren’t there. I see that there’s more reciprocity happening now and that I think that that’s a political decision. I think that that is a stance that is happening because of prime ministers and the like or anything like

David (01:07:49):
That. By reciprocity you mean more using more protest,

Hannah (01:07:52):
More reciprocal anger towards, I think that obviously more

David (01:07:57):
Anger towards the Palestinian side.

Hannah (01:07:59):
Yes.

David (01:08:02):
I don’t want to name the organization, but it’s like their mission was we want to be as aggressive as the pro-Palestinian side, but

Hannah (01:08:09):
Is that

David (01:08:09):
What you’re saying? Yes. Got it.

Hannah (01:08:10):
And obviously I can’t speak to that because I’ve never been a Jew and I’ve never lived in Israel and I don’t know what it’s like to be attacked all the time. I don’t know any of that. But what I have noticed is when we’re like, yeah, our side is winning, you guys are losers, go home. It doesn’t seem to help anything. And I have seen Christians take sides and then therefore they either gloat or they are sore winners or they’re sore losers, and we lose this ability to minister to either side. And I think that that’s the call of every Christian is to sit down with both brothers loving separately.

David (01:08:57):
And

Hannah (01:08:57):
I will let you inform the people of how that love should look. But I would just besiege the Christian here as we enter into conversations, don’t stop going to Palestinian coffee shops because they’re Palestinian. Go and sit with them because they need Jesus too. It’s like waking up one day and deciding that the elect means that, oh, everybody saved who should be saved, and I’m not going to go minister the gospel to anybody anymore. That’s a ludicrous statement. And if don’t do that sort of a thing, and again, I understand that there’s an oversimplification in that. I actually put that in my letter. That was one of the last things that I said. I was like, I need to just out myself as somebody who doesn’t know. I’m not educated on these, but maybe, and your littles probably do this all the time, but when I spend time with little kids, there is an oversimplification that happens that makes things pretty simple. And I think that that’s beautiful.

David (01:10:02):
Yeah. There’s a time and place for it.

Hannah (01:10:04):
Yeah. I have this almost, I have this almost, maybe sometimes it’s God ordained for us to bring in people who are uneducated to have this. Well, simply to me, it seems that we should share the gospel with both,

David (01:10:18):
But they made an image of God too, right? Yeah. It’s simple,

Hannah (01:10:20):
Simple, simple questions, those types of things. So I would submit that maybe to anybody who is listening to this, that if you are letting your politics and your love of someone make you bigoted, hateful, and not willing to interact with another group, and I think that it’s not fair to comment specifically towards the Jewish community. I think that those are spaces, but we’re not that as Christians. We’re not in either camp right now,

David (01:10:55):
These gentile Christians for sure. Yeah.

Hannah (01:10:57):
Gentile Christians, the real ones out there, the nuance Messianic Jews, the real ones out there. But I would petition that maybe we don’t stop hanging out with these opportunities to interact with, you know what I mean?

David (01:11:13):
Yeah, totally. I mean, this is, again, it’s going to be an analogy. You could just poke holes in all day long, but I was talking to some of our friends in Costa Rica and they said the most dangerous areas are the areas that are the, in Costa Rica, it’s not racism, it’s not anything but class. And so it was just, you had the wealthy and you had the super poor, and the middle class is kind of non-existent, or at least not as rampant in America. And so he said the safest places are the ones where they live right next to each other, and they’re just right on top of each other, used to the poor are used to seeing the wealthy and the we are used to seeing the poor. And he said, when you get completely segregated, this is the rich area. This is the poor area.

Speaker 5 (01:12:02):
Wow, David.

David (01:12:03):
That’s where you get more dangerous things are happening. Which again, that would seem to be the opposite. No one is super dangerous and one is super, super

Speaker 5 (01:12:14):
Peaceful.

David (01:12:15):
And so in the same way we’re trying to cause the messiness,

Speaker 5 (01:12:21):
We

David (01:12:21):
Put the mess and messianic, we bring the messiness together.

Hannah (01:12:25):
That was a dad joke.

David (01:12:26):
That was a dead joke. It’s

Hannah (01:12:27):
Good.

David (01:12:29):
And again, it’s going back to the three kids. The thing that ultimately when I push away all of the details for a moment to just try to see big picture, we wrestle with as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in scripture. If you give the plain reading of scripture, Jesus is Jewish, disciples are Jewish. The only scripture you can really argue he did away with you. And Gentile also says he did away with male and female. So you’re like, clearly we can’t really take that as Drew Gentiles aren’t thing anymore.

Hannah (01:13:05):
Wow. The liberals are going to have a fun one with that.

David (01:13:07):
Yeah. So that’s true. And again, what does the Christian Church say? There’s totally male female, not J Gentile. Okay, so we can just cherry pick.

Hannah (01:13:14):
Yeah. Yeah. We love a good cherry,

David (01:13:16):
But we wrestle with God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob we’re grafted into that.

Hannah (01:13:21):
We

David (01:13:21):
Didn’t become it. We didn’t replace it. We’re grafted into it. And at the same time, all people are made in the image of God are worthy of dignity, and he wants all of them to come into his family. And then there’s just back and forth of, in the Jewish culture and scripture, we are judged for our actions. But if the reciprocity of you come against God or God’s people, then there’s a, what do you call it? Like a rubber effect. It’s coming back. But then you also have this idea of, but God judges his people. That’s all throughout the Hebrew scriptures. In a very familial way. You cannot come and discipline my daughter, but I can.

Speaker 5 (01:14:11):
Yep, 100%.

David (01:14:13):
And so someone comes to my house, tries to spank my daughter, I am fighting that person.

Hannah (01:14:18):
Absolutely.

David (01:14:19):
I can spank my daughter. So it’s like

Hannah (01:14:21):
Even if she deserved a spanking

David (01:14:23):
Needs to

Hannah (01:14:24):
Come

David (01:14:24):
From you. And that’s why Zach Wright says, those who touch Israel, touch the very apple of my eye, meaning you don’t get to do this. I get to do it. And so that’s just a constant tension of where is God’s sovereignty in all of this. And I think at the end of the day, he enjoys us wrestling when we’re in the most desperate place and intimate place with him

Hannah (01:14:49):
And possibly the safest them.

David (01:14:50):
Yeah. I mean, you’re close to him. Close to the shepherd.

Hannah (01:14:53):
I don’t know, David, we’ve talked a lot about conflict. Good thing there’s covenant. Amen. And see what you did there.

David (01:15:01):
Let’s pray.

Hannah (01:15:02):
Yeah.

David (01:15:02):
God, thank you that you cause us and call us to embrace the wrestle. Lord, we pray that you would bless Israel and you would bring your peace upon Jerusalem. And Lord, when we say the people of Israel, there’s 2 million Israeli Arabs

(01:15:24):
That are in that, the people of Israel right now. And we know there’s people even outside the current borders of Israel, and they’re made in the image of God and they’re descendants of Ishmael, who you heard him cry and you said, I hear the boys cry, and I am going to make the promises for him to specific promises to make him a great nation as well as a son of Abraham. And so, Lord, you hold space and as a loving father, desire all people to come into your family. And I pray that we would reflect your heart,

(01:15:59):
Lord, being the God of Israel, being the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but also being the creative of the world and the Lord. Any area that we are wrong, that we are off, that we’ve missed your heart. Lord, correct us. I never want to think that I have the answers or I have achieved perfect humility. I’ve achieved all knowledge. I’ve achieved all the facts. Lord, we’re always in a constant state of learning and being shepherded by you. So I pray that you would bless everyone listening to this podcast, and it would bring people closer to you and your father’s heart. And you shoe his name. Amen.

David (01:16:35):
Amen.