"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, But the righteous man shall live by faith."(Romans 1:16-17)
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Longing for Jerusalem, waiting for truth, praying for remorse
The false historical views of Shlomo Sand and the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
This is a return to my concern with the history of the Jewish people as it is written by the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
The Jewish people’s love of Jerusalem and their desire to return there if only for pilgrimage has been a constant through the ages. Nobel peace prize recipient, Elie Wiesel, in a speech given at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies series, stated:
“Like every Jew in those times and those places [Eastern Europe-in the early twentieth century] we had a dream, the dream of Jerusalem. I knew the name of Jerusalem before I knew the name of my town. The first lullaby that my mother would sing for me was about Jerusalem, first prayers about Jerusalem.
I remember the custom which to this day exists in many places. One is not suppose to leave a knife on the table in the Jewish home when we say grace. One reason is that we believe every table is an altar, and therefore the knife that can be used to kill cannot be part of the altar. …
The other reason is that our Sages were afraid that when we are saying grace when we come to a certain verse that speaks about Jerusalem that the person would be so over come with nostalgia and pain over the destruction of Jerusalem that …we would take a knife and plunge it in the heart. That is to tell you the place Jerusalem occupied in our mind and our soul and our life.”
Marina Benjamin author of Last Days in Babylon: The History of a Family, the Story of a Nation, when visiting Baghdad, the past home of her grandmother, experiences the continuing anti-Semitic attitudes and writes, “Jewish people will often remark that only in Israel does their feeling of Jewishness disappear, because only in Israel, where being Jewish is the pervasive norm is it inconsequential. Having visited Israel several times, I can vouch for having experienced this strange unburdening.”
Journalist, arts editor and author, Benjamin explains in her book about the Jews of Baghdad before their exile which is linked to the birth of Israel in 1948.
“…the Jews of Baghdad, a minority group that had ancient roots in the land, dating from Assyrian and Babylonian exiles of the eighth and sixth centuries BC, when much of the Jewish population of Judaea was deported. Jews had been here for more than a thousand years when the Islamic armies conquered Mesopotamia. They had flourished for centuries. From Ottoman times until the middle of the last century, Jews had dominated trade and finance in Baghdad. They enjoyed religious and communal autonomy, hobnobbed with tribal dignitaries and government officials, and in every sphere of life they were conspicuous, prosperous and influential.”
She later adds this interesting bit of information: “In fact, Baghdadi Jews had been busy establishing trading posts outside Mesopotamia since the middle of the nineteenth century. Beyond England and Persia, there were pockets of Baghdadi Jews trading in Bombay and Calcutta; in Rangoon, the former capital of Burma; and in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Japan. It was from these satellite communities that the famous Sassoon and Kadoorie dynasties sprang the former responsible for a vast textile empire strung across India’s major urban centers, and the latter for founding the largest finance house in Shanghai.”
And yet, the extremely poor view of Jewish history that the booklet Steadfast Hope: The Palestinian Quest for Just Peace offers destroys not only the reason for the Jewish longing for Jerusalem but also the true history of Jerusalem. The Israel/Palestine Mission Network used as their reference Shlomo Sand who recently wrote a popular history of Israel, Zionism and the Jewish People. The book is When and How was the Jewish People Invented?
I have in other articles pointed out that IPMN was using Sand’s book to infer that those Israelis that came both from Europe and the Arab countries to Israel were not the descendents of the ancient Israelites. This anti-Semitic idea was welcomed by the IPMN because they hoped to destroy any “theological claim” to the Land of Israel. Quoting Sands their author writes:
“The founding narrative of the State of Israel links the modern-day Jews’ claim to the land of Israel/Palestine to their direct genealogical descent from the ancient Israelites. Recent anthropological scholarship shows that this widespread belief is very likely a myth, not historical fact. Shlomo Sand, an expert on European history at the university of Tel Aviv, and author of When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? posits that the Jews were never exiled en masse from the Holy Land and that many European Jewish populations converted to the faith centuries later. Thus, he argues, many of today’s Israelis who emigrated from Europe after World War II have little or no genealogical connection to the ancient land of Israel.”
The book by Sand is now being published in English under the title, The Invention of the Jewish People, and there are new critical reviews of the book. One of the reviews is entitled “Inventing Israel: Historian Shlomo Sand argues that ‘Jewish peoplehood’ is a myth.” It is written by Evan R. Goldstein. He begins the review:
“The key assumptions about Israel and the Jews are indelible. Forced from Jerusalem into exile, the Jews dispersed throughout the world, always remaining attached to their ancient homeland. Psalmists wept when they remembered Zion. A people were sustained by an unflagging determination to return to their native soil. ‘Next year in Jerusalem!’ The triumph of Zionism—the founding of Israel—is the fulfillment of that ancient vow. The Israeli Declaration of Independence states it plainly: “Eretz Yisrael was the birthplace of the Jewish people… After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people remained faithful to it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.”
Now suppose that none of it is true.”
Goldstein explains that Sand denies all of the above Jewish history. He also shows how Sand connects the European Jew to “Turkic Khazars” and the Arab Jews to “North African Berbers.”
Goldstein also writes:
"There is, perhaps, a precedent for this type of work. In 1976, the anti-Communist writer Arthur Koestler published The Thirteenth Tribe, a tendentious little book to which Sand owes a great intellectual debt. Koestler argued that the Jews of Eastern Europe are the descendants of Khazars, a Turkic people who dominated the Russian steppes from the mid-7th century to the beginning of the second millennium. Around 740, the ruling elite of Khazaria converted to Judaism. Koestler speculated that after the collapse of Khazaria those converts drifted westward into Poland, forming the nucleus of Eastern European Jewry. Lacerated by critics, Koestler’s book was nonetheless propelled onto the best-seller list for a few weeks. “Today,” Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for The Atlantic, told me, “The Thirteenth Tribe is a combination of discredited and forgotten.
But Koestler and the Khazar theory he advanced lives on in the fever swamps of the white nationalist movement, where Sand’s ideas have already stirred some interest. ‘Sand is not publishing this book at a dignified conference in Bern at which scholars of the Middle East debate the origins of the Jews,’ said Goldberg, also a Tablet Magazine contributing editor. ‘He is dropping manufactured facts into a world that in many cases is ready, willing, and happy to believe the absolute worst conspiracy theories about Jews and to use those conspiracy theories to justify physically hurting Jews.’ Goldberg views The Invention of the Jewish People as part of a growing body of work designed not only to discredit the idea of Jewish nationalism, but also the idea of Jews themselves. ‘It is nothing new,” he added, ‘We survived Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe; we can survive this.’”
In my first posting on Steadfast Hope I also wrote on the connection of Sand's strange historical ideas and their similarity and use by extreme Racists groups. That posting is, Were Holocaust victims linked genealogically to biblical Israel?.
But let me say again that within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) this is a tremendous problem. That we have an official organization, Israel/Palestine Mission Network, which is accountable to no one, that is offering the general public as well as Christians such garbage is outrageous. It is sin. As a Christian and an Elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I am dismayed that no one in leadership is speaking up against such anti-Semitic diatribe. And I am still waiting, praying and writing. I will not cease
This is a return to my concern with the history of the Jewish people as it is written by the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
The Jewish people’s love of Jerusalem and their desire to return there if only for pilgrimage has been a constant through the ages. Nobel peace prize recipient, Elie Wiesel, in a speech given at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies series, stated:
“Like every Jew in those times and those places [Eastern Europe-in the early twentieth century] we had a dream, the dream of Jerusalem. I knew the name of Jerusalem before I knew the name of my town. The first lullaby that my mother would sing for me was about Jerusalem, first prayers about Jerusalem.
I remember the custom which to this day exists in many places. One is not suppose to leave a knife on the table in the Jewish home when we say grace. One reason is that we believe every table is an altar, and therefore the knife that can be used to kill cannot be part of the altar. …
The other reason is that our Sages were afraid that when we are saying grace when we come to a certain verse that speaks about Jerusalem that the person would be so over come with nostalgia and pain over the destruction of Jerusalem that …we would take a knife and plunge it in the heart. That is to tell you the place Jerusalem occupied in our mind and our soul and our life.”
Marina Benjamin author of Last Days in Babylon: The History of a Family, the Story of a Nation, when visiting Baghdad, the past home of her grandmother, experiences the continuing anti-Semitic attitudes and writes, “Jewish people will often remark that only in Israel does their feeling of Jewishness disappear, because only in Israel, where being Jewish is the pervasive norm is it inconsequential. Having visited Israel several times, I can vouch for having experienced this strange unburdening.”
Journalist, arts editor and author, Benjamin explains in her book about the Jews of Baghdad before their exile which is linked to the birth of Israel in 1948.
“…the Jews of Baghdad, a minority group that had ancient roots in the land, dating from Assyrian and Babylonian exiles of the eighth and sixth centuries BC, when much of the Jewish population of Judaea was deported. Jews had been here for more than a thousand years when the Islamic armies conquered Mesopotamia. They had flourished for centuries. From Ottoman times until the middle of the last century, Jews had dominated trade and finance in Baghdad. They enjoyed religious and communal autonomy, hobnobbed with tribal dignitaries and government officials, and in every sphere of life they were conspicuous, prosperous and influential.”
She later adds this interesting bit of information: “In fact, Baghdadi Jews had been busy establishing trading posts outside Mesopotamia since the middle of the nineteenth century. Beyond England and Persia, there were pockets of Baghdadi Jews trading in Bombay and Calcutta; in Rangoon, the former capital of Burma; and in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Japan. It was from these satellite communities that the famous Sassoon and Kadoorie dynasties sprang the former responsible for a vast textile empire strung across India’s major urban centers, and the latter for founding the largest finance house in Shanghai.”
And yet, the extremely poor view of Jewish history that the booklet Steadfast Hope: The Palestinian Quest for Just Peace offers destroys not only the reason for the Jewish longing for Jerusalem but also the true history of Jerusalem. The Israel/Palestine Mission Network used as their reference Shlomo Sand who recently wrote a popular history of Israel, Zionism and the Jewish People. The book is When and How was the Jewish People Invented?
I have in other articles pointed out that IPMN was using Sand’s book to infer that those Israelis that came both from Europe and the Arab countries to Israel were not the descendents of the ancient Israelites. This anti-Semitic idea was welcomed by the IPMN because they hoped to destroy any “theological claim” to the Land of Israel. Quoting Sands their author writes:
“The founding narrative of the State of Israel links the modern-day Jews’ claim to the land of Israel/Palestine to their direct genealogical descent from the ancient Israelites. Recent anthropological scholarship shows that this widespread belief is very likely a myth, not historical fact. Shlomo Sand, an expert on European history at the university of Tel Aviv, and author of When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? posits that the Jews were never exiled en masse from the Holy Land and that many European Jewish populations converted to the faith centuries later. Thus, he argues, many of today’s Israelis who emigrated from Europe after World War II have little or no genealogical connection to the ancient land of Israel.”
The book by Sand is now being published in English under the title, The Invention of the Jewish People, and there are new critical reviews of the book. One of the reviews is entitled “Inventing Israel: Historian Shlomo Sand argues that ‘Jewish peoplehood’ is a myth.” It is written by Evan R. Goldstein. He begins the review:
“The key assumptions about Israel and the Jews are indelible. Forced from Jerusalem into exile, the Jews dispersed throughout the world, always remaining attached to their ancient homeland. Psalmists wept when they remembered Zion. A people were sustained by an unflagging determination to return to their native soil. ‘Next year in Jerusalem!’ The triumph of Zionism—the founding of Israel—is the fulfillment of that ancient vow. The Israeli Declaration of Independence states it plainly: “Eretz Yisrael was the birthplace of the Jewish people… After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people remained faithful to it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.”
Now suppose that none of it is true.”
Goldstein explains that Sand denies all of the above Jewish history. He also shows how Sand connects the European Jew to “Turkic Khazars” and the Arab Jews to “North African Berbers.”
Goldstein also writes:
"There is, perhaps, a precedent for this type of work. In 1976, the anti-Communist writer Arthur Koestler published The Thirteenth Tribe, a tendentious little book to which Sand owes a great intellectual debt. Koestler argued that the Jews of Eastern Europe are the descendants of Khazars, a Turkic people who dominated the Russian steppes from the mid-7th century to the beginning of the second millennium. Around 740, the ruling elite of Khazaria converted to Judaism. Koestler speculated that after the collapse of Khazaria those converts drifted westward into Poland, forming the nucleus of Eastern European Jewry. Lacerated by critics, Koestler’s book was nonetheless propelled onto the best-seller list for a few weeks. “Today,” Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for The Atlantic, told me, “The Thirteenth Tribe is a combination of discredited and forgotten.
But Koestler and the Khazar theory he advanced lives on in the fever swamps of the white nationalist movement, where Sand’s ideas have already stirred some interest. ‘Sand is not publishing this book at a dignified conference in Bern at which scholars of the Middle East debate the origins of the Jews,’ said Goldberg, also a Tablet Magazine contributing editor. ‘He is dropping manufactured facts into a world that in many cases is ready, willing, and happy to believe the absolute worst conspiracy theories about Jews and to use those conspiracy theories to justify physically hurting Jews.’ Goldberg views The Invention of the Jewish People as part of a growing body of work designed not only to discredit the idea of Jewish nationalism, but also the idea of Jews themselves. ‘It is nothing new,” he added, ‘We survived Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe; we can survive this.’”
In my first posting on Steadfast Hope I also wrote on the connection of Sand's strange historical ideas and their similarity and use by extreme Racists groups. That posting is, Were Holocaust victims linked genealogically to biblical Israel?.
But let me say again that within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) this is a tremendous problem. That we have an official organization, Israel/Palestine Mission Network, which is accountable to no one, that is offering the general public as well as Christians such garbage is outrageous. It is sin. As a Christian and an Elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I am dismayed that no one in leadership is speaking up against such anti-Semitic diatribe. And I am still waiting, praying and writing. I will not cease
Another Book Review: by Goldstein-"Where Do Jews Come From?"
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
News as Propaganda: about Israel, the Islamic Movement & the IPMN
On October the 13th I posted an article, Bad links posted at Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. The next day I posted, More on the bad links that the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) posted but by a different author which was a link to an excellent article at Camera.
The article, Presbyterian Peacemakers Promote Hezbollah Website and Anti-Israel Incitement was written by Dexter Van Zile. He hones in on the false rumors being pushed by various Islamic sects, as well as the IPMN, that Israel is trying to take over the Haram Al-Sharif Mosque.
There were also rumors that the Israeli government was trying to burrow under the Aqsa Mosque at the Temple Mount which would destroy it. And in fact one of the articles that IPMN linked to is Al-Aqsa Foundation: A New Israeli Tunnel Built under the Aqsa Mosque. The article is at The Voice of Palestine online news.
That particular article stated that “Al-Aqsa foundation for endowment and heritage revealed that the Israeli occupation authorities almost finished the building of a new tunnel under the Aqsa Mosque.”
However, in contradiction to the Palestine and IPMN reports CHURCHandWORLD, yesterday, linked to a news article from Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com, entitled, “Israel Plans Major Excavation at Western Wall,” by Samuel Sokol.
As the article points out there is an excavation going on, but not under the Aqsa Mosque. Instead it is directly under the Western Wall in order to “create an archaeological park directly underneath the area where worshippers currently stand while praying at the Kotel.” Also, “The current prayer area will remain open, supported by pillars, while a new area will be added underneath, at the level at which worshippers at the ancient Temple stood in the past.”
Sokol goes on to write that, “engineers working on the excavations explained ‘Israel's excavations do not cause harm to structures in the area.’ In fact, they explained, the excavations have improved structural stability in the Temple Mount area, as they led to discovery and strengthening of areas in which there was a danger of collapse.”
And yet several radical Islamic groups are still using rumors to incite violence and war within Jerusalem. In fact on the same Palestinian online news group that IPMN was linked to earlier , an article was added on the 25th entitled, “Hamas: The battle of Jerusalem started.” Right above the article is a picture of the Mosque and a supposed dig right beneath it. The focus of the article is that there is now nothing left for the Palestinians but to enter into war within Jerusalem against the Israelis. One paragraph states:
“For his part, Sheikh Hamed Al-Beitawi, a representative of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative council (PLC), warned the Israeli occupation of persisting in its violations against the occupied city of Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque, stressing that Israel opened the gates of hell when it dared to attack the Aqsa Mosque.”
Much of the unrest is being pushed by the Islamic Movement in Israel. The Movement is a radical party that has its roots in the past with connections to the “Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin Al-Husseini and the Muslim Brotherhood.” The Muslim Brotherhood is a radical branch of Islam which has several political parties connected to it including Hamas. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem befriended Hitler and had plans for a final solution of the Jews in the Middle East which was curtailed by the end of the war.
The Islamic Movement is an international movement and on their site in Nigeria one can read about the problems in Israel, from the Islamic Movement’s point of view of course. One can also find links to Hezbollah, etc., etc.
My point here after traveling this far through links and sites and misleading stories is that the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the PCUSA is reaching into areas that are extremely radical. As I look at the sites and news articles I think I can understand a Christian group supposedly involved in mission wanting to reach these people for Jesus Christ. But no, IPMN only wants to reaffirm these groups radical thought and are undoubtedly unknowingly affirming their incitement to violence. I can only wish and pray that my denomination would drop its link to IPMN.
The article, Presbyterian Peacemakers Promote Hezbollah Website and Anti-Israel Incitement was written by Dexter Van Zile. He hones in on the false rumors being pushed by various Islamic sects, as well as the IPMN, that Israel is trying to take over the Haram Al-Sharif Mosque.
There were also rumors that the Israeli government was trying to burrow under the Aqsa Mosque at the Temple Mount which would destroy it. And in fact one of the articles that IPMN linked to is Al-Aqsa Foundation: A New Israeli Tunnel Built under the Aqsa Mosque. The article is at The Voice of Palestine online news.
That particular article stated that “Al-Aqsa foundation for endowment and heritage revealed that the Israeli occupation authorities almost finished the building of a new tunnel under the Aqsa Mosque.”
However, in contradiction to the Palestine and IPMN reports CHURCHandWORLD, yesterday, linked to a news article from Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com, entitled, “Israel Plans Major Excavation at Western Wall,” by Samuel Sokol.
As the article points out there is an excavation going on, but not under the Aqsa Mosque. Instead it is directly under the Western Wall in order to “create an archaeological park directly underneath the area where worshippers currently stand while praying at the Kotel.” Also, “The current prayer area will remain open, supported by pillars, while a new area will be added underneath, at the level at which worshippers at the ancient Temple stood in the past.”
Sokol goes on to write that, “engineers working on the excavations explained ‘Israel's excavations do not cause harm to structures in the area.’ In fact, they explained, the excavations have improved structural stability in the Temple Mount area, as they led to discovery and strengthening of areas in which there was a danger of collapse.”
And yet several radical Islamic groups are still using rumors to incite violence and war within Jerusalem. In fact on the same Palestinian online news group that IPMN was linked to earlier , an article was added on the 25th entitled, “Hamas: The battle of Jerusalem started.” Right above the article is a picture of the Mosque and a supposed dig right beneath it. The focus of the article is that there is now nothing left for the Palestinians but to enter into war within Jerusalem against the Israelis. One paragraph states:
“For his part, Sheikh Hamed Al-Beitawi, a representative of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative council (PLC), warned the Israeli occupation of persisting in its violations against the occupied city of Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque, stressing that Israel opened the gates of hell when it dared to attack the Aqsa Mosque.”
Much of the unrest is being pushed by the Islamic Movement in Israel. The Movement is a radical party that has its roots in the past with connections to the “Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin Al-Husseini and the Muslim Brotherhood.” The Muslim Brotherhood is a radical branch of Islam which has several political parties connected to it including Hamas. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem befriended Hitler and had plans for a final solution of the Jews in the Middle East which was curtailed by the end of the war.
The Islamic Movement is an international movement and on their site in Nigeria one can read about the problems in Israel, from the Islamic Movement’s point of view of course. One can also find links to Hezbollah, etc., etc.
My point here after traveling this far through links and sites and misleading stories is that the Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the PCUSA is reaching into areas that are extremely radical. As I look at the sites and news articles I think I can understand a Christian group supposedly involved in mission wanting to reach these people for Jesus Christ. But no, IPMN only wants to reaffirm these groups radical thought and are undoubtedly unknowingly affirming their incitement to violence. I can only wish and pray that my denomination would drop its link to IPMN.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sit down in my kitchen and have a cup of coffee...
When waking up on the farm in Northern Missouri as a child, I would see my father putting coal into the stove to heat the small house. I would smell the coffee my mother was already making on the wood cook stove in the kitchen. And I would hear the radio playing country music, the only kind that was ever played in my childhood home.
If it was Monday morning and the weather was suitable I would soon be preparing to walk with my sister two miles up and down the hills to the one room country school we attended. If the weather was extreme we rode in an old covered buggy my father had covered with plywood. My mother would place a pan of hot coals on the floor to keep us warm. The buggy is in the background of this picture. We are standing in front of the smoke house my father and grandfather built.
My school teacher was a contradiction of ideas. We would read a Bible verse, sing hymns and she would than read to us from a book about some children in the Soviet Union who were gaining a better life because of their communist government.
But that's off my subject which is simply to start another Monday morning with joy in the Lord and some good memories of the way God has blessed. So at my invitation have a strong cup of coffee, and enjoy some good country music. I have a lot of work to do this week so it may be like this all week long.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Elie Wiesel
Friends of mine, Marita & Victor Styrsky, are having a kosher dinner with Elie Wiesel tonight. He is speaking at a celebration to honor Israel for Christians United for Israel: on Sunday night. Knowing this I began reading a speech he gave in 1971 at a conference entitled the German Church Struggle and the Holocaust. That title is also a book I have owned for many years.
But I had not read Wiesel’s chapter. It was beautiful. He is after all the author of many books, his best being Night. He is also a recipient of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.
Most of the western world knows that Wiesel is a survivor of the Holocaust. Some know that he insists there are really no words, if you are a survivor, which can be used to describe the horror. Some know that he goes on to write and speak about what cannot be written or spoken, because it must be done.
After writing about studying with a famous Rosh Yeshiva while he was in Auschwitz and several other faithful acts of those Rabbis and Jews who endured the horror , Wiesel makes an amazing statement.
“Within the system of the concentration camp, something very strange took place. The first to give in, the first to collaborate—to save their lives—were the intellectuals, the liberals, the humanists, the professors of sociology, and the like. Because suddenly their whole concept of the universe broke down. They had nothing to lean on. Very few Communists gave in. there were some, but very few. They had their own church-like organizations—a secular church, but very well organized. They were the resisters. Even fewer to give in were the Catholic priests. There were very few priests who, when the chips were down, give in and collaborated with the torturer. Yet there were exceptions. But you could not have found one single Rabbi—I dare you—among all the kapos or among any of the others who held positions of power in the camps.”
So as a hat-tip to Marita and Victor, and as a plea to remember Israel, here is Wiesel speaking in 2008 at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This is the Series: Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies. This is about an hour and 30 minutes and worth taking the time to listen.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Politics & Christology my apologia
A friend asked me several days ago, “why was I writing on politics so much when the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) needed good Christological theology.” Good question. And sometimes I feel unfaithful, as though I haven’t been writing enough about Jesus, his cross, the wonderful salvation he bestows on us, the righteousness he gives that is his and his alone. But are political issues like the State of Israel, or the ordination of practicing homosexuals disconnected from Christology?
-
Hardly. The homosexual issue is so clear I won’t even go there. Faithfulness to Christ includes faithfulness to his word, both the Old and New Testaments. But what about the State of Israel? What about the Jewish People? How do they even begin to connect to Christology?
First of all models for living out correct Christology, that is following Jesus Christ as Lord, while living in the midst of institutions which foster anti-Semitism, are abundant in the past century, not the least of which is Corrie ten Boon and Dietrich Bonheoffer.
Perhaps Presbyterians don’t remember or know anything about Corrie ten Boom. She wrote a book in 1971 entitled the Hiding Pla
ce. It is the story of her family and how they hid Jewish people in their home in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. Corrie lost all of her family in concentration camps. She was also a prisoner but was freed due to a clerical error. The title of her book has a double meaning. There was a hiding place in their home, and there is a hiding place in God because of Jesus Christ.
ce. It is the story of her family and how they hid Jewish people in their home in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. Corrie lost all of her family in concentration camps. She was also a prisoner but was freed due to a clerical error. The title of her book has a double meaning. There was a hiding place in their home, and there is a hiding place in God because of Jesus Christ.One of the important things to know about the Booms was their devotion to both Jesus Christ and the Jewish people. The family had participated in prayer meetings for almost a hundred years praying for the Jewish people before the time of the Nazis. God gives us our deepest desires, centers them in himself and then uses us in that place he has prepared for us. That is never outside of, can never be outside of, our relationship to Jesus Christ.
Dietrich Bonheoffer is undoubtedly well known to Presbyterians as well as most mainline church members and also known to many Evangelicals. The Cost of Discipleship, his most well known book is read by both conservatives and liberals. One of the most prominent members of the Confessing Church, Bonheoffer spoke out the most about what was happening to the Jewish people in Germany and elsewhere.
Although he was finally executed for his part in the plot to kill Hitler, he was actually jailed for his part in helping Jews cross the borders of Germany.
One small but excellent book, Christ the Center, is the restructured notes of Bonheoffer’s students taken during his lectures on Christology in the year 1933. Bonheoffer was very concerned with the fate of the Jewish people and with Christology.
But the connection with Christology and the State of Israel, which Bonheoffer did not live to see, has to do with that safe place that God has provided for them. If Christ is God, and he is
, and if God is sovereign, which he is, then the State of Israel is a part of his plan for our day. I don’t think we can biblically say what will happen to Israel as a state in this our time, but I do think we can say, biblically, what may happen to the nations who are intent on her destruction if they continue their course.
, and if God is sovereign, which he is, then the State of Israel is a part of his plan for our day. I don’t think we can biblically say what will happen to Israel as a state in this our time, but I do think we can say, biblically, what may happen to the nations who are intent on her destruction if they continue their course. Still the theological connection between the Jewish people, Israel and Christology is best explained by Arthur C. Cochrane in the chapter “The Message of Barmen for Contemporary Church History,” in The German Church Struggle and the Holocaust.[1] He is looking at some of Karl Barth’s thoughts about what was the most devastating theological heresies affecting theology during the Nazi era.
Barth at first honed in on the idea of a second revelation given by the German Christians set alongside God’s revelation in Christ. (And that is very important) Yet, Cochrane points out that in a sermon given in Dec.10, 1933 on Romans 15:5-13 “it is evident that he [Barth] had come to see the Jewish question as a question of faith in Jesus Christ and that post Christum is identical with Israel ante Christum.”
Cochrane goes on to write about those who organized the Pastor’s Emergency League and how they understood, as they resisted the Aryan paragraph, that there existed a unity between the Jews and the Church, as he puts it, “’Salvation is from the Jews’—not only two thousand years ago but in every generation as well.”
But some of Cochrane’s words as he explains the connections are profound.
“It dawned upon them [Christian scholars concerned with the Holocaust] that the Jewish question is the question about Jesus Christ, that the spirit of Antisemitism is the spirit of antichrist, and where the Jews are hated and persecuted, the faithful followers of the Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, will also be hated and persecuted. They realized that in the last analysis the Church Struggle and World War II were waged because of Israel and that in spite of the Holocaust, Israel could not be annihilated.
Cochrane quotes Jeremiah 31:35-36. “Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of hosts is his name: If the fixed order departs from before me says the Lord, then shall the descendents of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.”
I believe that is a complete apologia. The connection between the Jewish people and the State of Israel is a cord of steel. The connection between the Jewish people and Christians is unbreakable. As that spirit of Antisemitism and antichrist arise in both the mainline churches and the surrounding countries of Israel I will be writing about politics as well as Christology.
[1] The book The German Church Struggle and the Holocaust is a collection of essays given at a conference by that name in 1974. The essays are by Christians, Jews and even a few pagans. The one by Elie Wiesel, “Talking and Writing and Keeping Silent,” is worth the price of the book if you can find it.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Yes, Spong, the battle is over, the victory has been won
Yes, “The battle is over. The victory has been won,” just as John Shelby Spong insists in his manifesto.
Oh, I know Spong is writing about the battle that homosexuals are involved in, which includes their attempts to be allowed ordination in the Church. And I know that when Episcopalian Spong calls orthodox Christians “pathetic human beings,” and Executive Director of More Light, Michael Adee, calls our stance homophobia, while Presbyterian John Shuck calls us chicken shits, there is no true victory for them. Except … except in the one they are running so fearfully from.
The Hound of Heaven
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat -- and a voice beat
More instant than the Feet --
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
One of my recent morning devotions included Luke 12:49-53. I was so interested in this text that I got out what commentaries I have to understand the text better. After all we always think of Christianity, the good news, bringing us peace. But this text does not promise peace but rather division. Jesus states, “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division…”
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat -- and a voice beat
More instant than the Feet --
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
One of my recent morning devotions included Luke 12:49-53. I was so interested in this text that I got out what commentaries I have to understand the text better. After all we always think of Christianity, the good news, bringing us peace. But this text does not promise peace but rather division. Jesus states, “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division…”
Jesus goes on to explain that family members will be against those who choose to follow him. But before this Jesus tells his disciples that he has come to cast fire on the earth and that he is anxious for it to be “kindled.” He likewise speaks of a baptism he is to endure and he is “distressed” until it is done.
The baptism and the fire are interlocked. They are both about forgiveness and judgment. The baptism, for Jesus, in this instance is the crucifixion. The fire is the cleansing and judgement of the Holy Spirit. (John 16: 7-11) E. Earle Ellis in The New Century Bible Commentary: The Gospel of Luke puts it this way:
“Christians, Luke implies, can understand their life in the world only in the context of this prophecy of the Lord. Although Jesus’ followers have the messianic peace, ‘peace on earth’ does not exist …. The time of the Church is a time when the Spirit of the absent Lord, like a burning fire, will accomplish his work of judgment in the hearts of men. In the mission of the Church, no less than in the pre-resurrection of the heart of Jesus, the call for decision is a call for ‘division.’ And the demand of the kingdom is such that this division will reach into the most intimate personal relationships, into ‘one house.”
And every time that division turns up, every time there is anger, insult and defiance of God’s word, Christians can be aware of two things.
First, God’s victory over the world, the flesh and the devil has already occurred because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Second the promised fire of the Holy Spirit is touching the lives of humanity in either a cleansing manner or a judging manner. The Holy Spirit when touching individuals with the truths of his word, which is the word of the Father and the Son, is either causing them to turn away from the transforming power of Christ or causing them to turn in repentance to their Lord.
There is division. It is a promise.
But above all else there is a victory. It is the victory of Christ bought on the cross. It will transform the sinner, be they liar or practicing homosexual, be they adulterer or thief, be they gossip or murderer. But rejection of the saving and transforming power of Jesus Christ can only end in defeat for the sinner.
There is victory, His victory, his gift of love.
Picture by Stephen Larson
The baptism and the fire are interlocked. They are both about forgiveness and judgment. The baptism, for Jesus, in this instance is the crucifixion. The fire is the cleansing and judgement of the Holy Spirit. (John 16: 7-11) E. Earle Ellis in The New Century Bible Commentary: The Gospel of Luke puts it this way:
“Christians, Luke implies, can understand their life in the world only in the context of this prophecy of the Lord. Although Jesus’ followers have the messianic peace, ‘peace on earth’ does not exist …. The time of the Church is a time when the Spirit of the absent Lord, like a burning fire, will accomplish his work of judgment in the hearts of men. In the mission of the Church, no less than in the pre-resurrection of the heart of Jesus, the call for decision is a call for ‘division.’ And the demand of the kingdom is such that this division will reach into the most intimate personal relationships, into ‘one house.”
And every time that division turns up, every time there is anger, insult and defiance of God’s word, Christians can be aware of two things.
First, God’s victory over the world, the flesh and the devil has already occurred because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Second the promised fire of the Holy Spirit is touching the lives of humanity in either a cleansing manner or a judging manner. The Holy Spirit when touching individuals with the truths of his word, which is the word of the Father and the Son, is either causing them to turn away from the transforming power of Christ or causing them to turn in repentance to their Lord.
There is division. It is a promise.
But above all else there is a victory. It is the victory of Christ bought on the cross. It will transform the sinner, be they liar or practicing homosexual, be they adulterer or thief, be they gossip or murderer. But rejection of the saving and transforming power of Jesus Christ can only end in defeat for the sinner.
There is victory, His victory, his gift of love.
Picture by Stephen Larson
Poem by Francis Thompson (1859-1907)
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