Editor’s Note: The following will appear in an upcoming installment of Good Faith Magazine. The April-June issue will focus on interfaith and interreligious dialogue. Good Faith Magazine is a free resource for all Good Faith Advocates. Visit goodfaithmedia.org to learn more about becoming an Advocate.
American Christians are often surprised when they learn that I am a Palestinian Christian. This is unusual to me, given that my home is the birthplace of Christianity. But the average person is often unfamiliar with the diversity in Palestine. The religious landscape of Palestine is ancient, layered, and deeply alive. For Christians in the United States, Palestine is often encountered primarily as a biblical setting—the land of Abraham, the birthplace of Jesus, the hills and villages named in Scripture, or as a place in constant turmoil on the news.
Yet Palestine is not only a place of memory or war. It is home to living religious communities whose faith is practiced daily amid political conflict, social fragmentation, and deep hope.
Palestine is religiously diverse, though predominantly Muslim. The majority of Palestinians are Sunni Muslims, even though Islam in Palestine is not monolithic; it ranges from traditional village practices to urban religious movements, and from deeply spiritual expressions to culturally embedded faith. There is no single version of Islam in Palestine.
Alongside Muslims, Palestinian Christians form an Indigenous community that traces its roots back to the earliest centuries of the Church. We are not recent arrivals or remnants of Crusader history, but descendants of the first followers of Christ. Today, Palestinian Christians belong to a rich mosaic of denominations: Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Melkite Greek Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syriac, Coptic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Evangelical communities. Though small in number—less than 2% of the population—Palestinian Christians play a significant role in education, healthcare, civil society, and interreligious engagement.
Judaism is also part of the religious landscape of the land, though its presence within Palestinian society has changed dramatically over the past century. Jewish religious life in historic Palestine existed for centuries in cities like Jerusalem, Hebron, Safad, and Tiberias. Today, however, Judaism is primarily present through the State of Israel and Zionism. This reality profoundly shapes how religion and power intersect, particularly when biblical language is used to justify oppression, settlement expansion, or exclusion.
As a Palestinian Christian theologian working in interreligious peacebuilding, I encounter religion as both a source of deep division and a powerful resource for reconciliation. All three Abrahamic faiths proclaim a God of justice, mercy, and compassion. Yet religion can be distorted when it is fused with nationalism, fear, or supremacy. In Palestine, the challenge is not religion itself, but how religious narratives are mobilized—either to sanctify injustice or to resist it.
Interreligious work in Palestine is not about erasing differences or pretending that conflict does not exist. It is about building relationships rooted in truth, mutual dignity, and shared moral responsibility. Muslims, Christians, and Jews who engage in this work do so because they believe faith must serve life, not death; liberation, not domination.
For American Christians, understanding the religious landscape of Palestine requires listening to local voices—especially Palestinian Christians whose faith has been shaped by both the cross and the resurrection in very concrete ways. Our theology emerges not from abstraction, but from lived experience: checkpoints and church bells, Ramadan and Easter, lament and hope. We invite you not only to remember the land of the Bible, but to stand in solidarity with the people who still call it home.
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