The Church of England’s motion on Kairos Palestine II has dismayed many of Jewish heritage, including Jewish Christians in the UK. If the Church of England wishes to hear Palestinian Christians—which it should—then it must also hear Jewish believers, Messianic Jews, Israeli Christians, Arab Christians and others whose lives reflect the profound complexity of the land we all love and pray for.
Alison Davies writes: Ten days have passed since the General Synod voted to hear the voices of Palestinian Christians by undertaking a careful study of four documents, including Kairos Palestine II (2025). The motion was carried by substantial majorities in all three Houses of Synod.
Since then, news of the decision has travelled rapidly around the world, prompting a wide range of reactions within Christian and Jewish communities, as well as across social media and the wider press. Among many within the Jewish community, the decision has caused genuine concern. At a time when antisemitism has risen dramatically across the world following the atrocities of 7 October 2023, many have questioned why the Church of England has chosen to engage so closely with documents whose historical claims and theological conclusions are widely contested and which advocate excluding certain voices from meaningful dialogue.
Several people have asked me how I personally feel about the Synod’s decision.
Was I shocked? Sadly, not particularly.
The history of the Church contains too many examples of misunderstanding Judaism, overlooking the continuing place of the Jewish people within God’s redemptive purposes, and using language that has contributed—whether intentionally or unintentionally—to Jewish alienation.
Was I disappointed? Very much so.
As someone who has spent many years serving within the Church of England, I find the outcome deeply saddening.
Together with Rodney and Elisheva Mechanic, I have the privilege of co-leading CMJ Asaph, an initiative of CMJ UK (Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People), one of the Church of England’s recognised mission agencies. Asaph exists to encourage and pastor Jewish and Jewish-background disciples of Yeshua (Jesus), helping them to flourish within the wider Body of Christ while remaining faithful to their Jewish identity.
When we established Asaph two years ago, we quickly discovered how great the need was for such a ministry. Following the atrocities of 7 October 2023, the ensuing war between Hamas and Israel, and the alarming rise in antisemitism across the world, that need became even more apparent.
Week after week we have listened to Jewish believers who increasingly feel isolated within their own churches. Some have experienced insensitive or deeply hurtful comments from fellow Christians. Others have spoken of the loneliness of hearing complex events in Israel and the Palestinian Territories reduced to simplistic political narratives, sometimes accompanied by theological assumptions that leave little room for recognising the continuing identity, history and concerns of the Jewish people.
Rodney, Elisheva and I have witnessed first-hand how these experiences affect faithful Jewish disciples of Jesus. We have also shared in many of those experiences ourselves. Increasingly, we find ourselves asking whether the voices of Jewish believers are being heard with the same attentiveness as others.
Asaph has deliberately avoided becoming a political forum. Our purpose has always been to strengthen Jewish believers in their identity in the Messiah and to help them contribute confidently to the life of the Church. Our monthly online gatherings have explored subjects including:
• the biblical meaning of blessing and its significance in Jewish life;
• the Intertestamental Literature and its importance for understanding the New Testament;
• the biblical festivals and the ways in which they continue to illuminate the life of disciples of Yeshua today.
Our aim is not to separate Jewish believers from the wider Church but to help them enrich it by bringing the treasures of their biblical heritage into the life of Christian fellowship.
Yet Asaph is much more than a monthly Bible study. It is a pastoral family.
When Hatzolah ambulances were destroyed in an arson attack in Golders Green, one of our members was deeply distressed because her sister had to be evacuated from her home. Another member, joining us regularly from Australia, witnessed the aftermath of the Hanukkah attack near Bondi Beach. Others have children, parents, siblings and close friends living in Israel who endure the daily uncertainty of missile attacks, terrorism and war.
These are not distant political debates. They are the lived experiences of members of our Christian family.
Immediately after the attacks of 7 October 2023, I contacted many of my closest Jewish friends simply to ask how they were coping. Around half personally knew someone who had been murdered, kidnapped or seriously injured.
Rodney, Elisheva and I have often reflected that many Jewish believers quietly wonder whether the Church has shown the same pastoral concern towards them that it has rightly shown towards others affected by this conflict.
At the same time, we also have close Arab Christian friends living in Israel, within the Palestinian Authority and in Gaza. Their suffering grieves us deeply. They too are our brothers and sisters in the Messiah, and we pray for them, support them and long for peace, justice and security for their communities.
Our concern is not that one group should be heard instead of another. Our concern is that every voice should be heard.
Faithfulness to Yeshua calls us beyond simplistic partisanship. The Gospel invites us to pursue justice with mercy, truth with humility, and reconciliation without excluding those whose experiences differ from our own.
It is therefore painful to read in Kairos Palestine II an explicit rejection of Zionism together with a call to boycott dialogue with Zionist voices. The document describes Zionism as a “supremacist settler-colonial movement” and calls for its repudiation.
For many Jewish believers, whatever their individual political views concerning the modern State of Israel or any particular government, such language dismisses an important aspect of contemporary Jewish identity and risks excluding Jewish perspectives from the conversation before they have even been heard.
This brings us to an important question: what does it actually mean for the General Synod to hear Palestinian Christian voices?
The Hebrew word closest to our English word “hear” is shema. It means far more than simply listening. It carries the sense of attentive listening, understanding, taking seriously, weighing carefully, allowing what is heard to shape our thinking, and responding appropriately. It is the word used in Israel’s great confession of faith:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. (Deut 6.4)
To hear in the biblical sense is to listen with humility and openness.
If the Church of England wishes to hear Palestinian Christians—and we believe it should—then it must also hear Jewish believers, Messianic Jews, Israeli Christians, Arab Christians and others whose lives reflect the profound complexity of the land we all love and pray for.
Only by listening to the whole Body of Christ can the Church hope to become a credible instrument of reconciliation.
Rodney, Elisheva and I remain deeply committed to the Church of England and to its calling to bear faithful witness to Jesus Christ. Yet we cannot ignore the growing number of Jewish believers who tell us that they feel increasingly hurt, overlooked and, at times, alienated by what they perceive to be a one-sided approach to the Israel–Palestinian conflict.
Our prayer is not that one narrative should replace another, but that the Church should become a place where every member of Christ’s Body is listened to with equal care, where difficult conversations can take place with grace and truth, and where Jewish and Arab believers alike know that they are valued, loved and heard.
Surely this reflects the reconciling ministry entrusted to us by the Messiah, who “is our peace” and who has broken down every dividing wall of hostility, creating “one new humanity” in himself (Ephesians 2:14–16).
That is the vision to which we remain committed, and which we long to see reflected in the life of the Church.
Alison Davies is a retired GP who has long association with CMJ. She is now a trustee, and leads the Asaph: The Gathering initiative, enabling fellowship amongst Jewish heritage believers and helping them make sense of being both Christian and Jewish. This article was first published at Anglican Mainstream.
Buy me a Coffee
Thank you for this- numbs 6:24-26 has just arisen I offer the same in love.
Dear Alison Davies,
If you are ‘deeply committed to the Church of England’ then fight the good fight within it and bless you. Personally I believe that our energies are best reserved for spiritual battle against the unbelieving world rather than other Christians, and my advice to Jewish believers in Jesus – as a gentile Zionist Christian on grounds I hold to be scriptural – is to worship Yeshua in a suitable non-Anglican congregation.
It’s dismaying (but not surprising) to see ‘Anglican Down Under’, the New Zealand of Peter Carroll, Bishop of Christchurch, join in the Israel-bashing with an incredible lack of awareness of Hamas or the situation of Christians in Gaza.
No awareness either of the warfare that Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah have been waging against Israel, or any understanding of Radical Islam’s intentions.
Carroll’s blog has gone increasingly anti-evangelical and liberal since he embraced the LGBT+ movement – which was the price he had to pay in order to become Bishop of Christchurch. Most of the evangelical parishes left the diocese. Attacking Israel and becoming ignorant of Hamas (and the sufferings of Christians under Islam) are the price he is paying for abandoning a scriptural outlook for liberalism.
James, once again, who is Peter Carroll? If you can’t copy +Peter’s name rightly how can we trust that you understand his blog rightly?
I don’t think his name is spelled “÷Peter”, Bruce. Copy it correctly.
You can read his blog for yourself, that’s the wonder of the internet. Have you read the attacks on Israel he makes, along with his ignorance of Hamas and Hezbollah?
The strange itony in what Carroll writes is that the only place homosexuals are safe from judicial murder in the Middle East is in the evil apartheid colonialist State of Israel. Those plucky Hamas Gazans who bravely fought against an imperialist pop festival on 7 October 2023 and defended themselves against vicious Zionist babies and old men are well known for giving flying lessons to the gays of Gaza.
Carroll, who has seen his own diocese lose its biggest churches over his pro-SSM advocacy, seems to be blissfully unaware of this.
James, do you mean Peter Carrell the bishop of Christchurch among the three Tikanga of the ACANZP? And among the churches lost in ‘his own diocese’ ‘over his pro-SSM advocacy’ do you count the (old) cathedral? Just wondering…
Have you read his blog, Bruce? Do you see how he has become anti-Israel and blind to Hamas and Hezbollah?
Do you see how this is linked to joining the ‘progressive left’ with his pro-SSM sentiments – even though Hamas murders homosexuals?
Are you not concerned about this? More than about spelling?
(He hasn’t lost the cathedral congregation, just the use of the old Victorian building. The ‘transitional cathedral’ stands on the site of St John’s Latimer Square, a large evangelical church which was destroyed in the earthquakes. The congregation of St John’s has left the Anglican diocese and is now called Latimer Church.)
You are not ‘just wondering’, Bruce, you are pretending not to understand to avoid answering the painful questions I am asking about Peter Carrell and his pro-gay and pro-Hamas advocacy.
The diocese of Christchurch was founded in the 1850s, IIRC, and it always had a strong evangelical presence concentrated in a dozen or so parishes (NZ CMS and Latimer House are also based in the city); but the liberals had more political power because of the Synodal representation by parishes (not electoral role), as well as the Cathedral and the influential Anglo-Catholic St Michael’s and All Angels, which drew numerous gay Anglicans. Father Ron Smith, who used to comment here, was an outspoken gay advocate from that church, but more important was their gay vicar in the 1990s, Jonathan Kilpatrick, who went on to become a Dean in Dunedin. Father Kilpatrick is now in prison for sexual assaults on a teenage boy while he was Vicar of St Michael’s. Christchurch Cathedral also had a woman Dean in a lesbian relationship (although this was only acknowledged at her funeral), so the LGB movement was pretty firmly ensconced in liberal Anglican circles there.
When Carrell was offered the job of Bishop, it was made a condition that he supported homosexual blessings and SSM, which he was glad to do. That’s when most of the strong evangelical parishes decided to leave.
Did you know all this background, Bruce? I think you did.
It’s very much a mark of the contemporary political Left to support Islam against Israel and the Jews. Has anyone, I wonder, looked to see if there is any correlation with the document’s supporters’ political views?
I dont think it’s supporting Islam as such, but rather supporting a certain group of people.
It’s about having a common enemy: Western Civ, the Civ that has given people freedom to criticise and choose their leaders while raising the standard of living of its poor above that of mediaeval kings, thanks to electricity, sanitation and powered transport.
“You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” – Joni Mitchell.
And yet the enemies of western civilisation still want to retain sanitation, electricity and powered transport, even as they battle to restore tribalism and the subjection of women, the central planks of Islamism.
Put simply, the contemporary political Left, although it is composed of atheists and has a high proportion of homosexuals within its ranks, needs the brown vote as well as the black vote, and both constituencies depend heavily on state support, through the benefits system, schooling and NHS funding. Before the Gaza war, 70%+ of Muslims in Britain voted Labour, and there are many more Muslims than Jews. The contemporary political Left needs brown immigration to hold on to power because the white working class is no longer reliable. So the atheist pro-gay left has to form an alliance with anti-gay Muslim immigrants. That gives us the Pakistani Khan in London and the Indian Mamdani in New York.
That is true today. But why was Islam so popular with the Left when Islam didn’t have large numbers of votes? Because both hated Western Civ, albeit for different reasons – Islam because of the West’s Judaeo-Christian root, the Left because of Western capitalism. So the Left imported Islam as a solvent. They presumably believe they can switch it off when it has done their job for them. But at some point the gays and the feminists in the Left will wake up to the consequences.
I don’t think Islam was popular with the Left in the 1960s. Back in those days the New Left supported Israel because modern Zionism was traditionally socialist and secular. The New Left in the 1960s didn’t like Islam but there weren’t yet so many Muslims or Pakistanis in the west. The ‘race question’ in the 1960s was about black people – Caribbeans and Africans – not brown people. All the leftist focus then was on Rhodesia and South Africa.
But then Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980 (and went down the toilet) and Mandela was released in 1990, so the Left lost interest (especially as South Africa turned into a violent semi-failure). Meanwhile, Muslims kept piling into the west and became overwhelmingly the dependent class in European cities – the natural material for the redistributionist left.
While Israel became more religious through the birth rate of Haredis.
And thus was made a marriage in hell between South Asian immigrant Muslims and western leftists.
Thank you for sharing. My experience is that it’s always been difficult being a Jewish believer in Jesus but since 7th October it’s got harder. Jewish believers are more or less excluded from the Jewish community for our faith in Jesus. Increasingly, however, it feels that we are also being excluded from the Christian community for our Jewishness. If people on both sides of our faith and heritage don’t want us or welcome us then where are we to turn?
My faith in Jesus has been nurtured and shaped by the Church of England throughout my life and it’s difficult not to take Synod’s decision about Kairos II personally. It feels like a rejection of who I am (my Jewishness) AND a denial of what I believe (my faith in Jesus). It also puts me in the awkward (and untenable for much of history) position of believing in a Messiah whose Church is now actively embracing and teaching antisemitism in His name again.
I’m sorry if this sounds a bit “woe is me” but it’s exhausting and isolating at the best of times and frightening at the worst of times. Thank you again for sharing – and also to Ian for publishing. I appreciate feeling a little bit less alone.
Jews for Jesus (UK) can surely recommend some decent congregations around the country.
Sadly predictable. The senior bishops, namely Caterbury and York, seem alarmingly distant from the lives of ordinary laity. There seems to be a rump of people in the elite who hold a range of topics to be sacrosanct: Palestine, The Climate Crisis, LGBTQ+. These are the sacred cows for this group.
The paper Synod accepted is a paper to study. But it is one sided as this article points out. How can we study a one sided, partisan and plainly inaccurate paper ? Israel is a democracy, it is the only Jewish state and it abides by the rule of law. I just don’t see that with Kairos II. The language will inflame and alienate.
Mullalley’s visit in July to the W.Bank was a car crash. Posing with a fellow cleric and a picture of Yassir Arafat on the wall took the biscuit. What a ridiculous group to dialogue with when there are so many groups in Israel and the W.Bank they could’ve spoken with. Mullalley has failed and so has the C of E on this one.
House of Laity member Prof. RG Faulkner returned from General Synod and published a letter in the Daily Telegraph stating that
…I am convinced that the Church of England is becoming a far-Left organisation.
We held a shameful debate on the Kairos II document, which deems Israel a “colonial, settler and exclusionary entity”…
We approved a report that gave full support to spending £190m over nine years on pursuing Net Zero, which will have no effect whatsoever on the climate.
We continue to support Project Spire, which will involve spending at least £100m on slavery reparations.
All this is set against a background of severely declining church attendance…
Well the Synod elections are this year, Deanery Synod members can elect more conservative delegates to General Synod for the House of Laity and House of Clergy if they wish
‘A far left organisation ‘ – a rather extreme statement which reveals a very poor understanding of what far left groups actually think and advocate. And it plays straight into the Daily Telegraph’s agenda of attacking the C of E and exaggerating the negative stories.
Fish don’t see water.
Could you explain this rather cryptic and opaque comment please. Thanks.
Tim,
Your question reveals the very truth of the well-known adage that Anthony cites.
I am reminded of the words of a New York Times journalist in 1968:
“I don’t know how Nixon won. Nobody I know voted for him.’
James, (re comment below) can I suggest that you leave Anthony to respond to me for himself rather than speaking for him? You seem to have made a rather personal comment about me.
Tim,
You know what the expression means. Because a fish inhabits water all the time (just as we live in air), it becomes oblivious to the water and never notices it (until it goes bad). It is the same with the default leftism among Anglican prelates, who are very different in outlook from those who actually go to church.
You will know, for example, that 66% of Anglicans voted for Brexit – but only one bishop out of 104.
This happens because Anglican bishops replicate their own sort.
That is why Canterbury ended with suffragan Rose Hudson (appointed by Welby) – who is so far left in her views that four dioceses refused her attempts to get appointed as their diocesan.
Even Anglican cathedrals find her too wacky.
Fairly recently I saw a letter written by someone who described himself as a Conservative in the 1960’s. He said that he broadly supported the Conservative policies of the MacMillan government. He was alarmed by the way these same policies were being described as “far-left” by some. That is, what was “centre-right” in the 1960’s seems to have drifted a long way left.
Or is it that those on the “right” have drifted even further to the right, being unaware of the change since their surrounding world has drifted that way.
I see Archbishop Mullally has welcomed the Chief Rabbi to Lambeth Palace today to discuss his concerns
https://x.com/ArchbishopSarah/status/2080677135371375045?s=20
Mullally tweets:
Following the recent General Synod motion, I am deeply saddened by the hurt and distress that so many in the Jewish community are feeling…
The Church of England’s vocation is to value and protect every faith in our shared national life… It is my duty and privilege to extend the hand of friendship and partnership to every faith community. I will always stand in solidarity with the Jewish community in this country…
The reply immediately beneath her tweet addresses the first paragraph I have quoted:
[Re] “deeply saddened” it is your fault and the rest of the idiots on General Synod
In the second paragraph I have quoted, why does Mullally see herself as valuing every faith in our national life instead of advocating (non-coercively) for the Christian faith? We already have a king who is tweaking his Coronation Oath in that regard. Does Mullally value antisemitic religions which are rising in this country?
Judaism isn’t Christian either, indeed Jews don’t even view Jesus as the Messiah and a prophet as Muslims do. Jesus was a Jew who established Christianity. In a UK which is now 54% non Christian on the last census, inevitably its head of state will protect those of other faiths and no faith as well as Christians. While the head of the established church will also work with leaders from other faiths
The Head of State ought to protect all peaceable persons regardless of their faith.
Why ought the head of the established church work with leaders from other faiths? Satanism?
‘The Head of State ought to protect all peaceable persons regardless of their faith’ so including non Christians and atheists too then.
The Archbishop of Canterbury will work with leaders of other faiths as long as they don’t directly contradict all Christian values like Satanism
In what ways can and should the Archbishop work with leaders from other faiths? What have they in common? Is secular humanism a faith?
It is known that in negotiations and discussions that there an advantage in them taking place on your own premises, territory rather than anywhere neutral where they are able to be more robust, without breaching hospitality conventions.