Lunch and Learn at Columbia Theological Seminary
Founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, Rev. Prof. Mitri Raheb is the most widely published Palestinian theologian to date. Dr. Raheb is the author and editor of 50 books including Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible. Rev. Raheb served as the senior pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem from June 1987 to May 2017 and as the President of the Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land from 2011-2016. He is a founding member of Bright Stars of Bethlehem, a US 501c3 non-for-profit organization. He is an elected member to the Palestinian National Council as well as the Palestinian Central Council.
Advanced registration required
Join Rev. Prof. Mitri Raheb for lunch in the Ellis Room located inside the Richards Center at Columbia Theological Seminary.
This event is open to the public.
If you’d like to buy lunch, you may do so in the cafeteria. The cost is $10/per person.
Registration cut off date: Monday, September 1, 2025
Theology After Gaza
Join us for an engaging conversation centered on the topic of Rev. Prof. Mitri Raheb’s forthcoming book, Theology After Gaza. Panelists will wrestle with the question of what theology must look like in light of the horrifying atrocities occurring in Gaza and throughout the West Bank.
Make sure to stay for a reception after the panel discussion so you can browse materials available for purchase from Charis Books & More. The event will be livestreamed on Oakhurst Presbyterian Church’s YouTube Channel for those that are not local to the Atlanta area.
We’re excited to bring these experts to Decatur for this important and timely event.
Dr. Atalia Omer
Atalia Omer is professor of religion, conflict, and peace studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. She is a core faculty member of the Keough School's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. Atalia earned her PhD in religion, ethics, and politics in 2008 from the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University. Her research focuses on religion, violence, and peacebuilding as well as theories and methods in the study of religion and Palestine/Israel. She was a 2017 Andrew Carnegie Fellow, resulting in Decolonizing Religion and Peacebuilding, published in June 2023 by Oxford University Press. She is part of the leadership team for the new Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism.
Dr. K. Christine Pae
Keunjoo Christine Pae is professor of religion and women’s and gender studies and chair of the Department of Religion at Denison University. Trained as a social ethicist, she specializes in transnational feminist ethics, ethics of peace and war, spiritual activism, sexual ethics, queer studies, and Asian/Asian American feminist theologies. Many of her publications take U.S. military prostitution in South Korea as a critical site for producing feminist knowledge concerning militarized violence, faith-based popular resistance, and a theology of peace. She has authored A Transpacific Imagination of Theology, Ethics, and Spiritual Activism (2023) and co-edited Embodying Antiracist Christianity (2023) and Searching for the Future in the Past: Renewing Feminist Theological Voices (2024).
Rev. Prof. Mitri Raheb
Founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem. The most widely published Palestinian theologian to date, Dr. Raheb is the author and editor of 50 books including Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible. Rev. Raheb served as the senior pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem from June 1987 to May 2017 and as the President of the Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land from 2011-2016. A social entrepreneur, Rev. Raheb has founded several NGO’s including the Christian Academic Forum for Citizenship in the Arab World (CAFCAW). He is a founding and board member of the National Library of Palestine, and a founding member of Bright Stars of Bethlehem, a US 501c3 non-for-profit organization. He is an elected member to the Palestinian National Council as well as the Palestinian Central Council.
Dr. Adam Vander Tuig
Adam Vander Tuig is the Faith-Based Educator and Researcher at the Highlander Center in East Tennessee. He organizes with Christians for a Free Palestine, facilitates base societies with the Institute for Christian Socialism, and is an ordinand in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Recipient of the John Brown Lives! Fellowship at Craigardan (2025) and a Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship (2023), Adam earned his PhD in Practical Theology from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and is the author of several publications, including “Thoughtful, Independent, and Progressive Except for Palestine: Israel’s Genocide in Gaza and the Complicity of ‘Progressive’ Christian Media,” and “By Any Sacramental Means Necessary: Baptism as Engaged Defiance of Ecocide and Empire.”
With special introduction from
Dr. Thandi Gamedze
Dr. Thandi Gamedze is a South African educator, theologian, cultural worker, and poet based at the University of the Western Cape’s Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice as a Senior Researcher. Her doctoral research was transdisciplinary, bringing together the worlds of education and theology to better understand the churches’ role in upholding and challenging dominant power relations relating to race, gender, and class. Gamedze’s interests include black theology, liberation theology, social justice, education, and the arts, particularly poetry. She has broad experience working across multiple sites, including churches, universities, high schools, and community organizations.
COVID Safety Notice: We highly recommend that you wear a mask at this event. We will have masks available in case you forget to bring one.
Registration Required
Doors at 6:45pm
This event is generously co-sponsored by the following organizations:
Pub Theology
Join Rev. Prof. Mitri Raheb for a casual conversation about theology as it relates to Palestine. Whether you have been involved in activism around Palestine for decades or you are brand new to engaging in organizing work around Palestinian liberation—this event is for you.
Bring a friend and come build community around a spirited table.
Rev. Prof. Mitri Raheb
Founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University in Bethlehem, Dr. Raheb is most widely published Palestinian theologian to date. He is the author and editor of 50 books, and his work has received wide attention from major international media outlets and networks including CNN, ABC, CBS, 60 Minutes, BBC, ARD, ZDF, DW, BR, Premiere, Raiuno, Stern, The Economist, Newsweek, Al-Jazeera, al-Mayadin, RT, LBC, Vanity Fair, and others.
Registration Required
Hope Beyond Apartheid Speaking Tour: Finding Hope and Intertwining Stories from South Africa to Palestine
Registration Closed
Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Time: 7-9pm
Location: Oakhurst Presbyterian Church
We are excited to welcome Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu and Iyad Burnat—who is coming all the way from Bil'in Palestine—to Atlanta, Georgia, for the first stop on their national “Hope Beyond Apartheid” Speaking Tour. Join us for an exchange of stories from South African and Palestinian contexts about living under, and struggling through, apartheid.
Iyad Burnat is a Palestinian activist who leads Bil'in's non-violent struggle in the West Bank. He is the head of the Bil'in Popular Committee against the Wall, which has led weekly demonstrations since 2005 against the Israeli West Bank barrier. The film "5 Broken Cameras", made by his brother Emad Burnat, shares about the struggle of Palestinians in Bil'in. It won a Sundance Film Festival documentary award and Emad is the first Palestinian nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu is the third child Archbishop Desmond and Nomalizo Leah Tutu. She was born in South Africa and has had the opportunity to live in many communities and countries. She was educated in Swaziland, the US, and England, and has divided her adult life between South Africa and the US. Growing up the ‘daughter of …’ has offered Naomi Tutu many opportunities and challenges in her life. Rev. Tutu has taught at the University of Hartford, University of Connecticut, and Brevard College in North Carolina. She served as Program Coordinator for the historic Race Relations Institute at Fisk University and was a part of the Institute’s delegation to the World Conference Against Racism in Durban.
Registration Closed
This event is graciously cosponsored by the following organizations:
The Atlanta Multifaith Coalition for Palestine
The Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights
Friends of Sabeel North America
Community Begins at the Table
Breaking the Cycle:
Justice and Healing for Palestinian Children and Caregivers
Rami Khader
Founder & Executive Director
of Anar for Empowerment
& Psychosocial Support
Joining Hands for Justice is excited to welcome Palestinian humanitarian, artist, and activist Rami Khader to Decatur Presbyterian Church. The event will begin with a meal followed by a lecture for adults while children engage in embodied learning through the arts. Afterwards, there will be an opportunity for everyone to explore the Refaat Alareer Mobile Library and participate in a community art build with the Atlanta Radical Art Collective.
COVID-19 Notice: Masks will be provided and we encourage people to utilize them when not eating.
Registration is required.
About Rami
From Bethlehem, Palestine, Rami has a wide-ranging professional background. He’s founded several prominent initiatives and organizations, including Diyar Theatre, Diyar Academy for Children and Youth, the Bethlehem International Performing Arts Festival, and Anar Organization for Psychosocial Support. Rami’s expertise spans humanitarian response, psychosocial support, arts-based healing, MHPSS capacity-building, and grassroots community empowerment. A strong advocate for collective justice as a key element of healing from individual and intergenerational trauma, his impactful work was recognized in 2015 Arab World Social Innovator Award by the Synergos Institute.
No Other Land Film Screening and Fundraiser
The event is over, but you can continue donating to the Masafer Yatta Fund, using the button below.
We invite you to join us at The Tara on Wednesday, April 16, 2025, from 7-9:30pm for a screening of the Oscar winning documentary film, No Other Land. This event is an opportunity for the Atlanta community to raise much needed funds for those surviving through ethnic cleansing in Masafer Yatta.
Immediately after the film we will hear from someone who is currently doing protective presence with the Hineinu program in Masafer Yatta followed by Rep. Ruwa Romman, Palestinian American Georgia State Representative for House District 97, in conversation with Dee Roberts who participated in a recent delegation to Palestine.
Film Synopsis: Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, has been fighting his community's mass expulsion by the Israeli occupation since childhood. Basel documents the gradual erasure of Masafer Yatta, as soldiers destroy the homes of families—the largest single act of forced transfer ever carried out in the occupied West Bank. He crosses paths with Yuval, an Israeli journalist who joins his struggle, and for over half a decade they fight against the expulsion while growing closer. Their complex bond is haunted by the extreme inequality between them: Basel, living under a brutal military occupation, and Yuval, unrestricted and free. This film, by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists, was co-created during the darkest, most terrifying times in the region, as an act of creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.
This screening of No Other Land is generously co-sponsored by the following organizations:
COVID Safety Notice: It is expected that you wear a mask while in the theatre at this event. We will have masks available in case you forget to bring one.
Accessibility Note: Film has closed-captioning.
All ticket sales and donations will go to the Masafer Yatta Fund.
Together with leaders in Masafer Yatta, the fund was established by The Center for Jewish Nonviolence to support the many emergency needs that are wrought on the communities living there by Israel's settler-colonial apartheid state system.
Scholarship tickets: We have a few discounted and free tickets provided by a generous fund. They will be given out on a first come first serve basis.
Liberation is Just a Poem Away
Join the Atlanta Multifaith Coalition for Palestine (AMCP), the Refaat Alareer Mobile Library, Charis Books & More, and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) for an afternoon commemorating the one-year anniversary of the death of Gazan poet, teacher, and activist Refaat Alareer and highlighting the role of poetry in the Palestinian Freedom Movement. The event will include a poetry reading honoring the many poets from Gaza who have been martyred, reminiscences and tributes about Refaat, a brief presentation about the importance of poetry in the movement for Palestinian Liberation, and an opportunity to peruse the collection of the Refaat Alareer Mobile Library and purchase items for sale from our friends at Charis Books & More.
Laurice Khoury Foundation Presents Miko Peled
Lecture by Miko Peled, author of The General’s Son and advocate for Palestinian rights.
Miko Peled is considered by many to be one of the clearest voices calling for justice in Palestine, support of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and the creation of a single democracy with equal rights in all of historic Palestine. Miko is also a contributor to several online publications and has been invited to speak all over the world. Wherever he is speaking, Miko dedicates the opportunity to advocate for the creation of one democratic state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians. He travels regularly to Palestine where he speaks and works with the popular resistance, the BDS movement, and other justice groups.
Sips & Stories: Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac in Conversation
Joining Hands is honored to be hosting Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac for the Atlanta segment of his national speaking tour. One of the most profound and important Christian Palestinian voices of the moment, you will be able to learn what life is like for those living under occupation in the land where Christianity originated. Join us to connect with Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac during a brief presentation followed by casual conversation and time for questions and answers. Coffee, tea, and tasty treats will be provided.
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac is a Palestinian Christian pastor and theologian. He now pastors the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour. He is also the academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College, and is the director of the highly acclaimed and influential Christ at the Checkpoint conferences. During the genocide in Gaza, Munther gained global attention for his sermon, “Christ under the Rubble” which was heard by tens of millions of people and subsequently quoted in South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. He has appeared on CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, CBS, TRT and DemocracyNow!
Rev. Dr. Isaac is passionate about issues related to the Palestinian theology. He speaks locally and internationally and has published numerous articles on issues related to the theology of the land, Palestinian Christians and Palestinian theology, holistic mission and reconciliation. He is the author of The Other Side of the Wall, From Land to Lands, from Eden to the Renewed Earth, and An Introduction to Palestinian Theology (in Arabic), a commentary on the book of Daniel (in Arabic), and more recently has published a book on women ordination in the church, also in Arabic. He is involved in many reconciliation and interfaith forums. He is also a Kairos Palestine board member.
Originally studying civil engineering in Birzeit University in Palestine, he obtained a Master in Biblical Studies from Westminster Theological Seminary and then a PhD from the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies.
Munther is married to Rudaina – an architect, and together they have two boys: Karam (11) and Zaid (9).
Want to learn more? Join Palestine Children’s Relief Fund—Atlanta the night before at 7pm on Friday, August 16, 2024 for “An Evening with Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac” at St. Elias Antiochian Orthodox Church. Purchase ticket here.
Learn more about the national “Silence is Complicity: A Palestinian Call to Action” tour here.
Registration closed—Community Table with Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac
Come have lunch with Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac! This gathering is intended for local activists, church leaders, educators, and pastors. Due to space limitations, attendance is limited to 30 people.
Christian Zionism & Gaza w/Rev. Alex Awad
Rev. Alex Awad was born and raised in Jerusalem. After high school, he studied in Europe, then moved to the USA. He received a BA degree (Lee University 1976), MA in Education (North Georgia University 1976), and a MA in Missions and Evangelism (Asbury Theological Seminary, KY 1989). For 26 years Rev. Awad with his wife Brenda served as missionaries with the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church in Israel/Palestine. Rev. Awad was pastored in East Jerusalem and taught courses at Bethlehem Bible College where he served as faculty member, Dean of Students, and board member. In June 2015, Rev. Awad was awarded an honorary doctorate at Bethlehem Bible College's annual commencement. Until his retirement, Rev. Awad directed the Shepherd Society, the humanitarian arm of Bethlehem Bible College. Many needy Palestinians seek the help of the Shepherd Society in meeting emergency needs such as food, medicine, and employment.
Rev. Awad wrote, Through the Eyes of the Victims and Palestinian Memories; both books reveal the realities of life under Israeli military occupation. Rev. Awad has written numerous articles that call for justice for both Palestinians and Israelis. He and his wife now live in Eugene, Oregon. They have three children and three grandchildren. They continue as strong advocates for social justice in the world and for Palestinian rights that can lead to a lasting peace in the Middle East.
Please enter Columbia Theological Seminary on Inman Drive and park behind the Bulow Library.
Join Us For Lunch
Registration Closed
Come have lunch with Rev. Alex Awad! This gathering is intended for local activists, church leaders, educators, and pastors. Due to space limitations, attendance is limited to 30 people.
Atlanta For Palestine
Join us to protest the Biden/Trump debate.
RSVP on actionnetwork.org
An Afternoon with Rev Munther Isaac
Join us on Friday, June 14, 2024 at 1pm in the Wirth Room at First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta to meet, hear, and ask questions of the Rev. Munther Isaac, Pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem and Professor at Bethlehem Bible College.
RSVP by June 12th to abby.guy@cartercenter.org.
Alice Rothchild in Atlanta
Alice Rothchild is an author, filmmaker, and physician focused on human rights and social justice. She writes and lectures widely, has authored several books on health and human rights, and has contributed to a number of anthologies. She was last in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza in August 2023. Come join us at North Decatur Presbyterian Church for a book talk and signing.