Advent Study: What are We Waiting For? Christ and Palestine

December 11, 2025, 7:30pm Eastern US Time

What Are We Waiting For? Scriptural and Social Justice Approaches to Christology

CLBSJ is pleased to welcome the Rev. Dr. Niveen Sarras, in conversation with the Rev. Dr. Jenny Veninga, to delve into the ways that “Christ is Palestinian.”

In particular, we will explore the layers of meaning evoked by nativity scenes constructed during the genocide in Gaza, which place the baby Jesus “in the rubble” and often wrapped in Palestinian garments. In the context of the Advent scriptures, we will reflect on questions and challenges raised by the nativity scene. How, for example, do the socio-political conditions into which Jesus of Nazareth was born as a Jewish peasant in the Roman province of Palestine compare to the socio-political conditions of a baby born in Gaza today? How do stories and testimonies from Palestine/Israel today help us understand the Advent message in a new way? We will also share about current efforts to organize action for a just and lasting peace, and take time and space to contemplate the questions and challenges that this information raises so that attendees can find language for their viewpoints, and discern what action they are being called to take.

This event will be co-hosted by Katy Valentine and Amy Dalton, and is co-sponsored by Soul Forge Coaching, United Church of Christ’s Movement for Palestinian Solidarity, and Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ.

Please Note! Registration closes one half hour prior to the start of the event.

Image: Christ in the Rubble by Kelly Latimore

Speaker Bios

Rev. Dr. Niveen Ibrahim Sarras, born and raised in Bethlehem, Palestine, is the first Palestinian woman ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Her passion for the Bible began at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation and school in Bethlehem. She earned her Master of Divinity degree from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in Old Testament studies from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Rev. Sarras has taught feminist, womanist and mujerista theology in the ELCA East-Central Synod of Wisconsin and courses on feminist theology and interfaith introductions through the University of Wisconsin–Madison Extension. Outside academia, Rev. Sarras enjoys hiking, biking, canning, watching documentaries and reading on politics, faith and Scripture. As both pastor and scholar, she advocates for critical thinking and deeper faith understanding. Read more at livinglutheran.org

Rev. Dr. Jenny Veninga is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. From 2010-2024, she served as associate professor of religious and theological studies and ecumenical minister at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, teaching courses such as religion and violence, death and dying, collective trauma and memory, existentialism, and feminist theology, and is currently serving as a hospice chaplain in Austin. The author of Secularism, Theology, and Islam: The Danish Social Imaginary and the Cartoon Crisis of 200-2006 (2014), she works at the intersection of spirituality, scholarship, and activism. Her interest in Palestinian identity and working for just peace in the region began in 2016 when she traveled to Palestine with the Palestinian-American Research Center and returned to the region in 2017 to learn about justice organizations in Israel and Palestine. Most recently, she traveled to Palestine with a U.S. Religious Leaders delegation sponsored by Sabeel, the Ecumenical Liberation Study Center, and Friends of Sabeel North America. She currently sits on the Steering Committee of the United Church of Christ Movement for Palestinian Solidarity as secretary and a member of the divestment and BDS team.

Dr. Katy E. Valentine is a New Testament Scholar, an ordained minister and creator of Soul Forge Coaching. She puts her scholarship to work in her spiritual coaching through a Christo-expansive framework for collective healing of people with the Earth. She is a co-editor of Trans Biblical: New Approaches to Interpretation and Embodiment in Scripture and an upcoming volume on reproductive justice and the Bible, and is the author of For You Were Bought with a Price: Sex, Slavery, and Self-Control in a Pauline Community, as well as numerous academic articles. She had her calling to gender identity justice 10 years ago, and while serving as associate minister at First Christian Church in Chico, CA, she fostered relationships with the Stonewall Alliance, resulting in the church hosting the week long events of Trans Visibility week for multiple years. An American living in Ireland, she volunteers for the newly established Clifden Pride events each summer.