Saturday, June 25, 2005
With a growing number of Christian denominations here in the US considering divestment procedures against Israel, there are also a correspondingly growing number of Christians decrying this politicization of their Churches. United Church of Christ member and founding director of the Judeo-Christian Alliance Dexter Van Zile is joined by UCC Pastor Robert Everett in this op-ed in the effort to "tie the bells" around some of the groups and individuals responsible for corrupting Protestantism's long-held effort to maintain a separation between the Church and the temporal political movements of the moment. This is important work, and important to read so that you can understand who these people are, what their motives are, how they are corrupting hard-fought Jewish-Christian relations, and so that you can understand that there are voices -- maybe a majority of voices, though the power is, for now, held elsewhere -- that are available to reach out to. (See here for another friendly voice, for instance.)
JPost: Reawakening the teachings of contempt
While the end-time scenarios offered by some evangelicals, are indeed disturbing for Jews – and many Christians – the hostility toward Israel encouraged by liberal Protestants poses a much greater near-term threat to Jews than anything the evangelicals espouse.
Despite repeated assertions that they have removed all traces of anti-Semitism from their theology, the leadership of mainline Protestant denominations in the US have helped breathe new life into the teachings of contempt for Jews in their indiscriminate support for Palestinian theologians such as Naim Ateek, a former Anglican canon who serves as president of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. Ateek is regarded as a "peacemaker" in the US even as he recycles the deicide charge against the Jews and directs the hostility it arouses against the Jewish state.
For example, in December 2000, Ateek wrote that Palestinian Christmas celebrations were "marred by the destructive powers of the modern-day "Herods" who are represented in the Israeli government."
In his 2001 Easter Message, Ateek wrote: "The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily. Palestine has become the place of the skull." And in a February 2001 sermon, Ateek likened the Israeli occupation to the boulder sealing Christ's tomb.
With these three images, Ateek has figuratively blamed Israel for trying to kill the infant Jesus, crucifying Jesus the prophet and blocking the resurrection of Christ the Savior. The use of such images is not the language of peacemaking, but part of an inexcusable effort to breathe new life into Christian theological hostility toward Jews and focus its vile energy on the Jewish state...
Most Evenagelicals of the type Van Ziles mentions are quite sincere in their support for both Israel, and to an extent, Judaism. They are extraordinarily bad at public relations and don't realize how offensive some attitudes are. They are not, however, the threat that the "mainline" Christian denominations are -- and I say this as member of one of them.
Thanks for the info on Sabeel.
Sabeel is arguably the most sinister organization now operating in the Palestinian Arab community. I know Hamas is bad, but at least it is honestly evil. Sabeel is evil pretending to be righteous.
The founder of the Sabeel, George Rishmawi, is also the founder of the notorious International Solidarity Movement. Both organizations are dangerous, but Sabeel may pose the greater menace. The ISM openly works for the destruction of the Jewish State, Sabeel works towards this same goal in a clandestine manner. And it has the ear of important people.
Sabeel is the organization that has, for several years, taken mainline Portestant clerics on tours of the Palestinian territories and persuaded them that the suffering of the Arabs is entirely the fault of the war-mongering, land-greedy Jews. The fruit of this work is the divestment movement now sweeping the mainline churches.
Interesting. I had no idea about the connection between Sabeel and the ISM.
Yeah, he's also a card-carrying member of the Communist party. Really. Guess he's the compulsive joiner-type.
Seriously, though, his blame-the-Jews tours of Palestinian suffering under Israeli oppresssion via Alternative Tourism (the predecessor organization of the ISM) and Sabeel have been instrumental in turning anti-Semitism into a fashionable liberal cause.
There's something of a chicken egg issue here. Sabeel is a liberation theology movement -- which kind of defines itself by being cutting edge liberal. The anti-Isreal activism of the fashionable left seems to have corresponded to this. Sabeel is, however, instrumental in sucking the "Mainline" churches (who are desperate to appear relevant and relive what they consider their glory days of Civil Rights activism) into this ridiculous, morally bankrupt effort.