Our hope: the death and resurrection of Jesus

I have been reading about the horrific crash in Kentucky in which eleven people were killed. Now the news is saying the van belonged to a Mennonite church going to a wedding in Ohio. That is so sad but they are Christians and with the Lord. Praise God for his resurrection. Their Pastor Leroy Kauffman stated to the Associated Press, “"We're experiencing a lot of heartache and a lot of sadness, but with that a hope," Kauffman said. “We know where these people are going, they were all saved Christians and walking with the Lord."

Because this has touched me very much yet reminded me that this coming week is given over to the mourning and yet rejoicing of Jesus' death and resurrection for our sakes I thought I would place a video of music sung by a Mennonite choir.

“A Plea for Justice: A Historical Analysis:” false beginnings, twisted thoughts- part 2

One of the more interesting books I have read this year is Jacob’s Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History by David B. Goldstein. He is "professor of molecular genetics and director of the Institute for Genome Science and Policy’s Center for Population Genomics and Pharmacogenetics, Duke University.”

Goldstein along with some of his peers has traced the history of several Jewish groups using genetics. All of the stories are amazing, engrossing and, well, scientific. And one story in particular is helpful to one of the subjects I will write about in this posting. It is the question, “are the Jewish immigrants to Israel linked in any way to ancient Israel?”

This is an important question and although it comes later in the paper entitled “A Plea for Justice: A Historical Analysis, authored by Professors Nahida Gordon and Fredric W. Bush, it is a question which I believe sets the outcome for several arguments about Israel’s right to exist. And that is an existence questioned in the paper they offer to the 219th Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly.

Stating that the Israelis are claiming their right to the land due to their return after 3000 years, the authors of the paper write:

“The Israeli ‘narrative’ claims that they are uniquely the descendents of the Jews from Palestine. Scientific inquiry into this claim is complex with varying opinions on the amount of admixture of Jews from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East with gentile ancestors. Some research appears to indicate that they, along with the present day Palestinians of Christian and Muslim faiths, all share very similar genetic associations and represent the descendents of people of Palestine from 2,500 to 3,000 years ago. Other research supports the contention that there is more admixture with European gentile populations, particularly among the Ashkenazi Jews. Clearly to state that present day Israelis are returning after two or three millennia to their ancestral home in Palestine and that they uniquely are the descendants of the Jews of Palestine is not supported by scientific evidence.” (Emphasis the authors)

So what does this paragraph actually say? The authors are giving the reader a choice: choose to accept that Jewish European immigrants’ ethnic makeup is predominately European and hardly connected to ancient Israel or choose to accept that all of the Jewish immigrants from all continents share with all other ethnic groups of Palestine an equal or unique relationship to the ancient Jews or ancient Israel.

First of all I just have to ask, would any of the radical Muslims, like Hamas, accept an idea that they are related to the ancient Jewish people?

But to be serious, of course the Arabs and the Jews are cousins, their genetics have some similarities, but that does not mean that the Palestinians share in any kind of direct line to ancient Israel. But this is where some of the genetic work of Goldstein and his colleagues help. And this particular genetic link is simply amazing.

Although the temple no longer exists so there is seemingly no need for a priest to offer sacrifices, still there are male Jews who still claim that priesthood. As Goldstein puts it:

“Although the Jews have had no high priest for almost two thousand years, there are still individuals who consider themselves to be Cohanim, directly descended from one of the many priests who served in the temple in Jerusalem.”[1]

He goes on to ask the question:

“The presence of Cohanim today is a powerful testament to the enduring abilities of the Bible and oral tradition to shape the modern world. But how is it that nearly two thousand years after the Cohanim lost their jobs in Jerusalem, there are still priests around to perform ceremonial duties?”[2] [Remember the Cohanim is an inherited position]

To follow the trail Goldstein and the other scientists take is too long for a blog posting but the outcome is important. Tracing the Cohanim’s genetic trail and the time periods for various mutations, the professors take the priestly line back almost 3,000 years. Goldstein writes:

“When the last figure had been entered, we were stunned into silence. ‘We are in the first Temple,’ I said eventually. We were both quiet again for a time. When we accounted for the ‘hidden’ mutations in the microsatellites, the figure we got is about three thousand years before the present, or right about the time that Solomon is thought to have been building the Temple in which the priests would serve.”[3]

Goldstein covers other research, including Jewish groupings found in India. And he tries to connect the Ashkenazi Levites with the ancient peoples of Kazaria but is unable to do so. But the point is the Jewish immigrants do have a unique connection to ancient Israel. But more than that, they are a nation now, a Jewish nation. And even better, they have the faithfulness of God whose gifts and calling are irrevocable. (Romans 11:28)

I will deal with authors Bush and Gordon’s views of the 1948 and 1967 wars in my next posting. I am putting a video below that is the beginning of a movie “The Forgotten Refugees.” Although I have put up most of the videos connected to the movie before I believe it is relevant to this subject and will lead into my next posting.

[1] David B. Goldstein, Jacob’s Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History, (New Haven: Yale University Press 2008) 22.
[2] Ibid., 23.
[3] Ibid., 37-38.

“A Plea for Justice: A Historical Analysis:” false beginnings, twisted thoughts- part 1

A Review

The paper A Plea for Justice: A Historical Analysis, offered among other papers by the Presbyterian Middle East Study Committee was written by two members, Professor Nahida Gordon and Professor Fredric W. Bush. They state in their opening paragraph that they take “sole responsibility” for the contents of the paper. However in the recommendation paper all of the members ask the 219th Presbyterian General Assembly under VIII to receive “A Plea for Justice.”

Additionally in the paper “Human Rights Update 2010 Recommendation,” produced by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, the members of that committee answer a request from the 218th GA to “Identify Violations of the Civil Rights of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the United States and Other Areas of the World, Along with Other Incidents of Violation of Religious Freedoms” by pointing to “A Plea for Justice.” So not only are the two members of the MESC responsible for the paper two whole committees, the MESC and the ACSWP, are responsible. And this is a horrific paper.[1]

The paper begins by referring to the Armenian genocide and focuses on those refugees who fled to Palestine. They are contrasted with the Jewish refugees who fled Europe after the Holocaust. According to the paper while the earlier Armenians lived peacefully beside their Arab neighbors the new Jewish immigrants “took the land of Palestine from a majority of its inhabitants at gunpoint.” (emphasis mine)

And while the author’s acknowledge that some Jewish people had lived in Palestine continually and paint a picture of constant peaceful relations among all of the peoples until the “European immigrants arrived,” as usual, the story is not so simple.

An example of part of the true story includes the town of Hebron where Jews had lived for hundreds of years. As new immigrants, probably from Eastern Europe, became a part of that community in 1929 a horrible massacre of at least sixty-seven members of the Jewish community occurred. The whole Jewish community was forced to leave and was unable to return until after the 1967 war.[2]

Another example that cannot be so simply put:

“In February of 1920 a party of Arab raiders suddenly attacked the Jewish Settlements of Tel Hai and Metullah in the extreme north of the country. … This sent a shock through the Palestine Jewish community, but it was only a foreshadowing of things to come. On April 4, an Arab procession for the festival of Nebi Musa—the Prophet Moses—in Jerusalem deteriorated into an anti-Jewish riot that lasted three days. Synagogues were desecrated and burned, property destroyed, six persons killed, and two hundred wounded.”[3]

Ronald Sanders, author of The High Walls of Jerusalem: A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine, goes on to tell of the secret Jewish defense group that was then formed. And some of these kinds of defense forces would commit their own atrocities. But it cannot all be laid at the feet of “European immigrants.”[4]

The authors of “A Plea for justice: A Historical Analysis “go on to write about the Balfour Declaration and the mandate of Palestine insisting that Britain and the United States violated international laws. Among other things they point to article 22 of the League of Nations and point V of Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations fourteen points.

They also point to the General Assembly’s Declaration on the principles of International Law. Using this complaint they go on to refer to the Israeli ‘occupation’ in terms of the whole of Palestine, inferring that the occupation they are concerned about includes the State of Israel.[5] They write:

“The occupation of Palestine began in 1922 by the British and continued in May 14, 1948, to the present time by Israel when unilaterally, it declared itself a state.”

The paper hardly commences, but by page three has already given a false history of Israel’s beginnings and declared that the occupation includes all of what is the State of Israel and the Palestinian Territories. There is no footnote here as in another paper. This is in your face anti-Zionism, the kind that can be equated with anti-Semitism. The authors do not agree with the idea that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state.

This is part 1 of a series I am writing; I will next look at the author’s views of the 1948 war, the 1967 war and what they believe about the true identity of Jewish immigrants from Europe!

[1] I have a posting on this paper at, The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy: Ignoring Christian persecution, maligning Israel

[2] For a very good over view of this incident, which includes some kind and caring Arab citizens go to the Jewish virtual Library at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hebron29.html

[3] Ronald Sanders, The High Walls of Jerusalem: A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine, (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1983), 653.

[4] Ibid.654.

[5] Most of the references used in this section are taken from books by anti-Zionist and anti-Israel Arabs and Jews. One author in particular, Alfred Lilienthal, who is a Jewish man, is an interesting person who has even been cited by David Duke. To read an eye opening exchange in the Senate about an Arab boycott, in 1965, of all Israel products and businesses and any company that had a Jewish person on staff with references to Lilienthal go to http://abacus.bates.edu/Library/aboutladd/departments/special/ajcr/1965/Export%20Regulation.shtml A foot note to him is, "The American-Arab Association for Commerce and Industry [part of the boycott] has about 100 company members, many of whom do business in both Israel and the Arab States. Alfred M. Lilienthal, the association's secretary and counsel, is a lecturer and journalist whose vehemently anti-Israel views are well known."

The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy: Ignoring Christian persecution, maligning Israel

The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has a hidden problem in their General Assembly “Human Rights Update 2010 Recommendation” paper. Anti-Semitism, in an interesting form, is residing there connected to the neglect of suffering Christian believers. Besides the main subjects of their report they attempt to give answers to three referrals from the 218 General Assembly. The third referral, my concern, is listed as:

"2008 Referral: Item 07-01. On Calling for Tolerance and Peaceful Relations Between the Christian and Muslim Communities, Recommendation 6. Identify Violations of the Civil Rights of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the United States and Other Areas of the World, Along with Other Incidents of Violation of Religious Freedoms, as Part of the Regular Human Rights Report to the General Assembly—From the Presbytery of Newton (Minutes, 2008, Part I, pp. 14, 15, 507–10)."

The ACSWP answers that referral with this:

“To speak directly to this third referral, in the case of this General Assembly, the most substantial discussion of Muslim, Jewish and Christian interreligious incidents is in the historical perspective appendix to the Middle East report. They cite the U.S. State Department Religious Liberty report on Israel and the Occupied Territories, finding discrimination against both Muslims and Christians and neglect of their holy sites.[1] The nature of Church/State or religion/state issues differs, of course, in Muslim majority countries and Israel. The instances of torture discussed in the third section of this Update largely include Muslim detainees, and certainly religiously linked extremism is affecting the conditions of Christian minorities in certain conflict areas. We expect to do more with this referral in the future.”

The Members of the ACSWP have neglected Christian suffering in Arab lands with the vague words, “The nature of Church/State or religion/state issues differs, of course, in Muslim majority countries and Israel.” The only words which are clear in this statement are, “They [the Presbyterian (U.S.A) Middle East Study Committee] cite the U.S. State Department Religious Liberty report on Israel and the Occupied Territories, finding discrimination against both Muslims and Christians and neglect of their holy sites.”

So using A Plea for Justice: A Historical Analysis, the most appalling of the papers among those produced by the Middle East Study Committee, the ACSWP neglects the horrendous persecution happening to Christians in the Arab countries of the Middle East. They instead focus on the disputes about holy sites in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

But reading the U.S. Department of State’s, “2009 Report on International Religious Freedom” pointed to by both the ACSWP and the PCUSA’s Middle East Study Committee one sees differences that are as wide as good is from evil. For instance the report on Saudi Arabia states, “Freedom of religion is neither recognized nor protected under the law and is severely restricted in practice.”

Or, on Iran: “Government rhetoric and actions created a threatening atmosphere for nearly all non-Shi'a religious groups, most notably for Baha'is, as well as Sufi Muslims, evangelical Christians, and members of the Jewish community. Reports of government imprisonment, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination based on religious beliefs continued during the reporting period.”

Because the ACSWP has not yet dealt with Christian persecution in the Middle East but instead switched the focus of religious suppression to Israel and to a document that is historically biased and incomplete I intend to write several postings reviewing “A Plea for Justice: A Historical Analysis.”




[1] While the ACSWP paper refers at this point to the historical perspective appendix in the Middle East Report they are actually quoting from the paper “A Plea for Justice: A Historical Analysis, and using also that paper’s end note of the U.S. Department of State’s 2009 Report on International Religious Freedom and its listing of Israel and the Occupied Territories. See note 16 & 17 under 5. “Present Day Occupation.”

Presbyterians for Middle East Peace: a Press Release

An organization, Presbyterians for Middle East Peace, consisting of Pastors and laity in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) who are concerned with fairness and peace in the Middle East have released a press report:

" Presbyterians for Middle East Peace

Media Release
March 15, 2010

Proposing a disturbing shift in policy direction, a Middle East Study Committee (MESC) Report for the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. states that the study group sees, "the occupation as the major obstacle to regional stability,..." This reverses the denomination's evenhanded, historical position that Israel's occupation of Palestinian-claimed land and regional threats to Israel's existence are both major obstacles to peace. Decoupling the two obstacles to peace, the Report makes the theologically and politically naïve assumption that peace would blossom in the Middle East if only Israel would end its occupation of the disputed territories.

Presbyterians for Middle East Peace (PFMEP) is not surprised at the radical conclusions of the costly report given that seven of the committee’s nine members had evidenced a strong bias toward a one-sided Palestinian narrative. The prejudicial slant of the committee's composition ignored the mandate from the denomination's General Assembly that the committee's membership represent the diversity of opinion on the Middle East that exists within the denomination as a whole. One member of the committee resigned after the first meeting, in part, to protest the overwhelmingly slanted makeup of the committee.

One committee recommendation appropriately calls "on the U.S. government to pursue the goal of guaranteeing continued security for Israel from an atmosphere of fear of rocket attacks or other forms of violence." However, many of its other recommendations, if followed, would seriously undermine if not actually eliminate Israel's security.

For example, the Committee recommends 1) "the withholding of U.S. government aid to the state of Israel as long as Israel persists in creating new West Bank settlements"; 2) "Endorses the Kairos Palestine document (“A Moment of Truth”) in its emphases on hope for liberation, nonviolence, love of enemy, and reconciliation; lifts the document up for study and discussion by Presbyterians; and directs the creation of a study guide for the document through the appropriate channel of the General Assembly Mission Council"; 3) "Calls on the Israeli government to end immediately its blockade of Gaza, and on the U.S. government to end any support it is giving to the blockade…."

Is it possible to foresee a secure Israel with absolutely no U.S government aid and all that is implied by revoking support? How is Israel's security enhanced by an end to the blockade of Gaza with no mention of a strategy to stop the flow of weapons into Gaza that are used against Israel's civilians? In what way does the Kairos document emphasize love of enemy and reconciliation when at the heart of its strategy it demands, "Palestinian civil organizations, as well as international organizations, NGOs and certain religious institutions call on individuals, companies and states to engage in divestment and in an economic and commercial boycott of everything produced by the occupation."? How can a document be viewed as reconciling while calling for an severe economic boycott of Israel and a strict separation of religion and state which, if achieved, would put an end to Israel as a Jewish state?

PFMEP rejects the assumptions and conclusions of this report and considers its acceptance by the PCUSA 219th General Assembly to be the exact opposite of what is necessary for the PCUSA to have a meaningful voice for peacemaking. Peace will only be created when 1) concrete steps are taken by Israel's neighbors to insure Israel's security and 2) the occupation of the West Bank is ended so the creation of an autonomous Palestinian state can proceed.

In the United States, the Jewish and Presbyterian communities have worked together for generations to secure social justice and peace. Acceptance of the MESC’s report by the PCUSA 219th General Assembly and the adoption of its recommendations will sever Presbyterian-Jewish relationships at the national and grassroots levels in ways that will take generations to rebuild. Such an outcome is not only undesirable; it is unnecessary.

PFMEP believes the report should not be received by the General Assembly. It would set the PCUSA on a tragically partisan political course rejected by previous General Assemblies. It should be discussed and categorically rejected because of its naive worldview. After spending much time and money to produce this report, it is sadly, an offense to serious-minded peace-makers.

For more information contact:
Rev. John Wimberly
Steering Committee Member, PFMEP
Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C.
Telephone: (202) 835-8383
email: john@westernpresbyterian.org"

The web site is new and will be expanded with a great deal more information and links in the coming weeks. For more information for those interested in coming to the 219th GA in Minneapolis as support for Presbyterians for Middle East Peace or for information about tax deductible giving please contact Gary Green at gjgreen@cox.net .

Boycotting and divesting against Israel a Kairos thought

In light of this from the Kairos Palestinian Document:

"4.2.6 Palestinian civil organizations, as well as international organizations, NGOs and certain religious institutions call on individuals, companies and states to engage in divestment and in an economic and commercial boycott of everything produced by the occupation."

and this:

"Therefore, we call for a response to what the civil and religious institutions have proposed, as mentioned earlier: the beginning of a system of economic sanctions and boycott to be applied against Israel."


I thought my readers would enjoy this video.

The worm that feeds on the soul of the Church: an exchange of letters

Now we know and we know a lot more.

Now we know why two years ago before the 218 General Assembly a paper written and placed on the PCUSA’s web site apologizing for the Church’s anti-Semitism was changed without any announcement and yet with the same title. That paper was titled “Vigilance Against anti-Jewish Bias In the Pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian Peace.”

I wrote about it here: Not just a broken confession of sin but a disappearing one!

This is part of what I wrote: “This newly revised document is changed in many ways. An attitude of humility in the face of past wrongs has turned to arrogance. … this sentence, “However, we are aware and do confess that anti-Jewish attitudes can be found among us,” has been removed. Instead the paper refers to Israel as ‘oppressors.’”

Now after reading some letters of complaint written by both the Secretary of the National Middle Eastern Caucus, Raafat L. Zaki, and the Moderator of the National Middle Eastern Presbyterian Caucus, Fahed Abu-Akel to several leaders of the GAMC of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I understand a little more about how the anti-Jewish bias worms its way into the soul of the PCUSA. National Middle Eastern Presbyterian Caucus Letter

The letters are complaints about not being consulted before the papers "Christians and Jews: People of God" and “Toward an Understanding of Christian-Muslim Relations" written by Jay Rock and Joseph Small, were approved by the GAMC. (The papers are coming before the 219th General Assembly.)

After going over all the papers recommended by the Presbyterian Middle East Study Committee and noting that they did not consult any members of the main Jewish organizations in the United States I find this newest complaint by the Presbyterian Middle East Caucus amazing.(1) I find some other things amazing. But first I should say that except for a very few ideas I found the paper “Christians and Jews: People of God,” a reasonable paper and finally one that is fair to the Jewish people.

Here are some things I found amazing in the letters of complaint: One writer found that the paper on Christians and Jews was “shabby” and had “questionable content.” And those statements are underlined and in bold!

Also the letter writer, Zaki, felt that the paper on Christians and Jews was like other such documents that “have influenced perspectives in the United States on issues of war and peace in the Middle East, and ultimately resulted in the support of two wars in Iraq, and policies that allowed the subjugation and disposition of the Palestinian people. It is such documents that have had tremendous negative impact on the lives of 18 million Christians in the Middle East and have rendered hundreds of thousands of us [those from the Middle East] refugees and in Diaspora.”

Another complaint was that the writers of the paper did not subscribe to supersessionism,(the replacement of the Jews by the Church), also Zaki complained that the paper did not uphold the doctrine of the Trinity. (I did not find that in the paper and I am fairly clear about the Trinity as most of my readers know.It may be that because Rock refers to the paper on the Trinity that Zaki has this complaint. While I don't care for the Trinity paper either it doesn't inform the paper "Christians and Jews: People of God.") I think perhaps Zaki’s problem may be that Rock writes that God continues to be faithful to the Jews.

Abu-Akel has suggested “that this paper not be sent to the General Assembly until consultation is done and our Christian partners in the Middle East as well as Middle Eastern Presbyterians in the US are invited to participate in the process.”

In these letters of complaint twice the paper I mentioned above, “Vigilance Against anti-Jewish Bias In the Pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian Peace.” is mentioned. Once in the letter by Zaki, but also in Abu-Akel’s letter. The latter writes, “It has not been two years since he [Jay Rock] issued the ‘Vigilance’ statement without proper consultation; and subsequently I and other concerned Presbyterians had to fly to Louisville (at our own expenses) to meet with you and GAMC staff to discuss it.”

Now we know why it was changed.

This is politics trying to over-ride theology and fairness. This is what we have asked for and received-to have all the Middle East issues and their bitterness show up in our own back yard because we have not remembered that “The gifts and callings of God are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:29)And “that God has shut up all in disobedience so that he may show mercy to all.”(32)

(1). I see that one of the members of the Presbyterian Middle East Caucus is Elder Lucy Janjigian one of the members of the Presbyterian Middle East Study Committee and an American Palestinian. One of those who found it troubling for the committees' report to affirm Israel's right of existence.