I was sitting by a pool with my friend Julia in California, chatting about my recent travels to the Holy Land. As I spoke, she listened with a puzzled look on her face. At last she admitted something: she didn’t even know there were Palestinian Christians.
It wasn’t just that she hadn’t met one before. She had no idea that the ancient churches of the Holy Land prayed and preached in Arabic. She didn’t know about the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced and many Christian communities destroyed. She didn’t realize that Palestinian Christians live today under the weight of checkpoints, walls, and restrictions.
So I told her a story. I described a church at Tabgha on the shores of Galilee, built to commemorate the miracle of the loaves and fishes, where Jesus took a small boy’s basket of bread and fish and fed five thousand. It is a place of abundance, generosity, and hope. But that same church was burned by Israeli settlers in 2015, its sanctuary charred with graffiti that read, “False idols will be smashed.” When I first learned about this attack, I was shocked. I had assumed Jews and Christians supported one another in the Holy Land. My church growing up has sent money to Jewish Holy Land projects. The thought of Israeli Jews attacking Israeli Christians had never crossed my mind.
Julia was silent for a while. Then she said something I didn’t expect: “Maybe it’s God’s will. Maybe the Christians are supposed to leave.”
Her words sank into me like stones. I had never considered such a possibility. Could the Holy Land really be imagined without Christians? Could Bethlehem, Nazareth, or Jerusalem, places that shaped the faith of billions, exist as museums, stripped of the living communities that have carried the story of Jesus for two thousand years?
That question sent me back to the words of Jesus himself: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?” Matthew 5:13.
A small but Essential Presence
Salt is a tiny ingredient, but essential. In bread, just two teaspoons of salt transform two cups of flour. Without it, the loaf is flat and tasteless. With it, the dough is strengthened, the flavor is awakened, and the bread stays fresh longer.
Palestinian Christians today are less than 1% of the population of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Before 1948, they were closer to 10% overall, and nearly 20% in some regions. Their decline is not an accident. It is the result of occupation, emigration, and economic hardship that have steadily pressured families to leave.
Like salt in bread, Palestinian Christians are few in number but indispensable. They strengthen the social fabric. They preserve the memory of Jesus’ birthplace. They flavor the region with values of peace, neighbor-love, and hospitality that bless not only Christians but Muslims and others as well.
Salt That Strengthens
In Bethlehem, I met Mohammad, a Muslim man guiding tourists through the church of the Nativity. After showing me around the grotto of Saint Jerome, he invited me to meet his parents at their small shop. As we talked, his face lit up with joy as he showed me pictures of his children.
“Do you know where my kids go to school?” he asked. “The Catholic school.” His children are Muslim, but he wanted them to learn values of love, peace, and neighborliness. The tuition was high, but when he explained his situation, the priest told him, “Keep your kids here. Don’t worry about the money.”
“What would we do without the Christians?” Mohammad asked.
His words echoed in me. Like salt strengthening the dough, Palestinian Christians strengthen the fabric of society, even for their Muslim neighbors. Today, more than half of the students in Christian schools in Palestine are Muslim. These schools are known for academic excellence and for teaching values that transcend religion. They are an anchor not only for Christians, but for the entire community.
Salt that Preserves and Purifies
Salt also purifies. In the ancient world, sacrifices were sprinkled with salt as a sign of permanence and covenant (Leviticus 2:13). Jesus even said, “Everyone will be salted with fire” – meaning trials and suffering refine what is genuine.
Palestinian Christians know this truth deeply. Under extreme pressure, their faith has not collapsed into bitterness or violence. Instead, it has been purified. Unlike much of the Western church, which often baptizes with nationalism and might, the Palestinian church has clung fiercely to Jesus’ radical call: love your neighbor, love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you.
Their purification has come at a cost. Christian families in Jerusalem have had property confiscated by settler organizations. Clergy are frequently denied permits to travel freely, sometimes unable to reach Jerusalem even on Easter. In Gaza churches shelter displaced families under bombardment, offering food and protection while enduring losses themselves.
In the hills outside Bethlehem, the Nassar family has cultivated their farm for generations, refusing to be enemies even as their Tent of Nations faces demolition orders and settler encroachment. In Beit Jala’s Cremisan Valley, court rulings in 2015 protected a monastery and convent but still allowed the separation barrier to slice across private Christian farmland, severing families from their olive groves and vineyards. In July 2025, settlers set fire near an ancient church and cemetery in the Christian town of Taybeh. Patriarchs and heads of churches called the attack an “act of terror” and warned of growing lawlessness, while U.S. officials echoed the alarm.
Even the largest churches are not immune. In August 2025, the Jerusalem Municipality froze the bank accounts of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate over a disputed tax claim. Leaving schools, monasteries, and charities unable to pay staff or operate normally. Officials called it routine tax enforcement; church leaders called it a dangerous break from the historic status quo, one more squeeze on a dwindling community.
Salt as Covenant
To lose Palestinian Christians would be like bread without salt: technically still bread, but limp and tasteless. Their presence is a covenant sign, testifying that Christianity belongs here, rooted in the land where it began.
Jesus told his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth.” Palestinian Christians have taken him at his word. Their small but vital presence seasons the land with faith, hope, and love. And their witness calls the global church to remember what we, too, are meant to be: salt that strengthens, preserves, and gives life its true flavor.
What We Can Do
The question is not whether Palestinian Christians matter. It is whether the global church will recognize their significance before it is too late. Bread without salt is edible, but bland. A Holy Land without Christians might still attract tourists, but it would lose the living witness of Jesus’ way of peace.
We can support institutions that keep this witness alive, schools, hospitals, and community ministries that serve all Palestinians. We can listen to Palestinian Christian voices, from the Kairos Palestine Document to theologians like Mitri Raheb and Yohanna Katanacho. We can pray, advocate, and challenge our own churches to stand with those who remain steadfast in the land of Christ.
“What would we do without the Christians?” Mohammad asked me in Bethlehem. I carry his question with me still. It is not only a question for Bethlehem. It is a question for all of us.
If you wish to support Palestinian Christians directly, consider local institutions such as ANAR of Beit Sahour, Bright Stars of Bethlehem, The Shepherds Society, Bethlehem Bible College, Aritas Jerusalem, and Nazareth Hospital, all of which embody the salty witness of love and neighborliness in the land of Christ.
Bethlehem & Beit Sahour
● ANAR of Beit Sahour
● Bright Stars of Bethlehem
● The Shepherds Society (Bethlehem)
● Bethlehem Bible College
Jerusalem
● St. George’s Cathedral & College, Jerusalem
● Holy Land Trust
● Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
● Caritas Jerusalem
Nazareth
● Nazareth Evangelical College
● Nazareth Hospital EMMS / Nazareth Trust
● Sisters of Nazareth – International Congregation
