‘We must pass this test. We must speak up,’ Rev. Peter Fast said.
By Etgar Lefkovits, JNS
Most evangelical Christians around the world are being intimidated into silence by a vociferous “social justice” camp that is fanning a false narrative on Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and being presented by the global media, the head of a Jerusalem-based evangelical organization said this week ahead of Easter Sunday.
Rev. Peter Fast’s remarks during the Christian Holy Week come as public opinion polls have shown a drop in support for Israel, including among young evangelicals as the war in Gaza grinds on, and as the oldest Black Protestant Church in the United States has gone so far as to call for a halt to American aid to the Jewish State.
“The Evangelical Church is at a crossroads now,” Fast, who heads the Bridges for Peace Ministry in Jerusalem, told JNS in a pre-Easter interview. “The Church is being tested.”
The evangelical leader said that it was critical for Christians to make their voices heard at a time of darkness when the world is minimizing the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, which triggered the nearly six-month-old war against the Islamist terror group, and denying the Biblical roots of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland.
“The world is forgetting the events of Oct. 7 and minimizing them,” he said. “We must pass this test. We must speak up.”
The evangelical pastor said that an unrelenting “social justice” campaign hijacked by radical anti-Israel elements and both public and online antisemitic activists coupled with a toxic mix of growing bible illiteracy in the West has permeated the mainstream into silence or indifference.
“Most evangelical Christians are being intimidated into silence, and we have to encourage them to speak out,” he said, decrying that “the biblical worldview is being twisted and shattered.”
Fast said that he was “disappointed but not surprised” by the anti-Israel moves of other Christian denominations, including the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which advocated the ban on U.S. aid, which he said was epitomized by their longstanding adherence to replacement theology and questioning the authority of the bible.
The tens of millions of largely conservative evangelical Christians in the U.S. have become a backbone of support for Israel over the last decades.
The Canadian-born Fast, who took up his position at the evangelical ministry in Jerusalem last year, remains hopeful that the war can actually end up cementing Judeo-Christian relations among evangelicals to new heights.
“A society that allows antisemitism to exist is morally corrupt,” he said. “Those who self-censor and remain quiet will be rendered insignificant.”