Mapping Exile and Return: Palestinian Dispossession and a Political Theology For a Shared Future

One of the most persistent, if vexing, issues is the state of affairs in the ancient land of Palestine. Palestinian Christians bear the enormous brunt of suffering and dispossession in the current situation, and are burdened even more by Christian political appropriation of Zionism.Through an analysis of Palestinian refugee mapping practices for returning to their homeland, Alain Epp Weaver argues against the political theology embedded in Zionist cartographic practices that refuse and eliminate all evidence of co-existence, and offers a political theology of redrawing the territory compatible with a bi-national vision for a shared Palestinian-Israeli future.

Alain Epp Weaver is the director for strategic planning at the Mennonite Central Committee. He served previously as co-representative for Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq at the Mennonite Central Committee and was a project coordinator in the Gaza Strip. He earned a PhD in theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School and is the author of State of Exile: Visions of Diaspora, Witness, and Return (2008). He has edited and co-edited six books, including A Table of Sharing (2011), The Work of Jesus Christ in Anabaptist Perspective (2008), and Under Vine and Fig Tree: Biblical Theologies of Land and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (2007), as well as authoring several articles, essays, and chapters in journals and edited publications.