The Preservation of Christian Culture

The Christian culture in the Holy Land is a unique mixture of Palestinian culture, the various different Christian traditions, values, practices, and the Christian presence in the country, especially in Jerusalem. However, the strength of Christian culture is connected to the level of participation among the members of the Christian communities, especially in the Old City of Jerusalem. It may be more important to talk about the Christian communities, rather than the Christian community because of the many disagreements between different denominations in Jerusalem, indicating that the churches are not united. The Christian churches own 29% of the real estate in the city of Jerusalem, including approximately 133 churches, Christian educational institutions, and medical institutions. Christians living in Jerusalem as compared with the Church as an institution with its global contacts and influences, own very little property, often renting from churches and convents. This issue creates a dilemma in presenting Jerusalem’s Christian culture as a it is difficult to present Palestinian Christian culture as local to the Holy Land when so many church leaders living in Jerusalem are foreigners and appear to represent international church institutions and foreign cultures.

Focusing upon the Christian culture in the Holy land brings to the surface some weaknesses within the Christian communities concerning their lack of awareness and ignorance of the Christian culture in the Holy Land.  There are several aspects that contribute to the lack of understanding of the Christian culture and the lack of written materials concerning Palestinian Christian culture.

Lack of Christian cultural understanding and representation:

The ignorance of Christian culture by the local Christian communities in the Holy Land is due to several factors. This ignorance is influenced by their limited access to the written educational materials available on Christian history and culture; the influence of other traditions brought and propagated by foreign church leaders and missionaries and the need to make more widely available writings and documents in church archives in Jerusalem.

Written educational materials on Christian history and culture:  The Christian culture and history of the Holy Land is largely unknown among the ordinary Palestinian Christian lay people due to the lack of availability of educational resources. It must be assumed there is some research on Palestinian Christian culture, as evidenced by the publication of various books and journal articles.  It seems that the fault lies in the fact that there is limited access to these publications only at a limited number of public libraries owned by Christian institutions located in the major Christian populated cities. For example, there are no Christian libraries open to the public in Jerusalem and Ramallah, while Bethlehem has two libraries owned by Christian institutions. These libraries operate as public libraries to serve the needs of the community but their holdings on Christian cultural publications are very limited.

Likewise, there is no designated educational programme or curriculum concerning Christian culture and history among the Christian schools and institutions. In addition, there are very limited courses and programmes available in universities within their theological departments. Of the courses that are available, they are limited in relation to the Christian culture and Christian history of the Holy Land and are more concerned with denominational theological differences. In light of what has previously been discussed about Israeli and Palestinian school curricula it is not surprising that they lack adequate educational materials regarding Christian history and culture. Nor is it surprising that universities have much more information available about Islamic culture and history, when it is remembered that most of the universities have an Islamic basis, except Bir Zeit and Bethlehem Universities.

Lack of access to centres of learning:  The Holy Land Christian history, culture, and heritage are very rich but Christian communities do not appear to have cultural centres or museums that specialize in Christian culture and heritage that could be useful to the local community as well as foreign scholars and tourists. There is much information and documentation that seems to be hidden or placed in Church collections and archives that the local Christians are not aware of and do not have general access to.

Origins of educational values and curricula:  The educational values of Christian schools in the Holy Land have been promoted by religious missionaries and as part of the normal pastoral work of the various Christian churches.  Many of these missionary and religious groups came from the West and imposed their cultures on local Christians by requiring a foreign language and school curricula and course work related to Christianity as it is lived and practised in Europe and other places outside the Holy Land. Unfortunately, none of them has a programme or educational materials to teach the local Christian culture and heritage of the Holy Land.

Lack of programmes concerning the local Christian culture: There are more than 50 Christian organizations, charitable, benevolent, and social Christian organizations whose mission it is to help the Christian community in Jerusalem and the surrounding area of the West Bank. These institutions do not have any programmes concerned with teaching the local Christian culture. Their mission is to provide social help fill the gaps due to the lack of Israeli policies and lack of financial resources of the Palestinian governmental social services. This help is implemented by these organizations in cooperation with the Churches in the Holy Land. The Christian cultural programmes needed are educational activities about the culture of Christian communities and Christian heritage that gives the local Christians in the Holy Land a window of knowledge about the past Christian cultural traditions that have died out over the years.

Misrepresentation of the Christian heritage: The churches in Jerusalem are misrepresenting their local Christian heritage. Their presentation of the Christian heritage is as a history of the holy sites relation to the life of Jesus in the Holy Land and not of the history of local Christian people in the Holy Land since that time. The Christian Information Centre in Jerusalem, sponsored by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, aims to provide information about the different Christian denominations in the Holy Land regarding religious, liturgy, culture and Christian services and activities for pilgrims and tourists. The information provided in their documents and on their website assumes that the Christian culture is based on the historical presence and geographical location of the different churches and does not take into account the Christian people as a local community.

The local Christian culture and heritage is a very important issue in the education of both Christians in the Holy Land and Christians throughout the world. Knowing your own culture, heritage, and history promotes the religious identity of what it means to be a Holy Land Christian and should influence Christian pilgrims by making in clear that the Christian faith originated in the Holy Land and there continues to be a Christian witness there. In the Acts of the Apostles Chapter One, verse eight, the apostles were told by the Risen Christ that they should be “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” For local Christians, knowing their history and heritage enriches their understanding and identity of what it means to be Christian. This in turn, increases the sense of belonging to the Holy Land and may influence their decision to stay and remain part of that Holy Land Christian culture or leave and become part of an Arab diaspora Christian community in the west. Likewise, it should help Christians throughout the world to have a better sense of their religious obligations towards the Christian community in the Holy Land in helping to solve the above mentioned problems.

There is historical and biblical precedence for this as Paul encouraged the Christians in Corinth to put aside money regularly as a gift for the church in Jerusalem, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians in verses one to four in Chapter Sixteen. In addition, it should increase the motivation of western Christians to develop a political agenda in their own countries to lobby and support the preservation of a local Christian presence in the Holy Land, especially in the city of Jerusalem.