eChurch Blog

Christianity Today has a sad rundown on the Christian elite who perished in Poland’s plane crash tragedy:

[.....]

Among them: Lutheran bishop Adam Pilch, who was on the plane as head of head of Poland’s Protestant military chaplaincy. Poland’s Gazeta Bielsko-Biata newspaper notes that the Saturday remembrance ceremony the many political and military figures were flying to was to be Pilch’s last official act in his chaplaincy role. The pastor was well known in Warsaw as pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (which Pope Benedict XVI visited in 2006) and later Church of the Assumption.

Orthodox archbishop Miron Chodakowski and Roman Catholic bishop Tadeusz Ploski, two other senior military chaplaincy leaders, also died in the crash.

Bronislaw Gostomski is one of the few religious figures to die in the crash and get significant attention in the Western press. That’s because he was a priest in Shepherds Bush, London (he had been the personal chaplain of Ryszard Kaczorowski, Poland’s last president-in-exile, who also died in the crash).

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Orthodox Church In America – Orthodox Archbishop among those who perished in airplane crash

National Catholic Register – Catholics Mourn Polish Tragedy

Catholic Online – Two Bishops and Four Priests Also Killed in Tragic Polish Plane Crash

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) exists to save the worlds endangered species and operates as an international mechanism for nations to come together to stop the exploitation and destruction of plants and creatures.

Decisions are based on expert scientific recommendation and controversial issues are decided by a voting system.

Last month representatives of 150 nations met in the capital of Qatar, Doha for a week.

Most issues are agreed upon by consensus, however, contentious issues are pushed to a vote.

Balloting now takes place electronically and each country has a voting button on their desk. Because the voting is electronic and less transparent than a show of hands, this system is viewed with a degree of suspicion.

To build confidence, the chairman carries out a few dummy runs and on day nine of the conference as crucial votes loomed, delegates were invited to check the electronic balloting device.

The chairman announced a simple question to check that the buttons were working properly:

Is Doha the capital of Qatar?

The chairman informed the delegates that to vote “yes” they should select button number two.

Once the results were in, it transpired that Croatia and Cameroon had voted “no” and China had abstained.

Hilarious.

Croatia and Cameroon’s delegates were unwilling to explain why they had learnt little of the city in which they had spent the previous week.

The Chinese delegation remained inscrutable and said nothing.

BBC Radio – From our own correspondent

Oh man this one’s just simply bizarre and deeply unhelpful at best and has absolutely errupted:

TheJC

An Italian website, which quoted an Italian bishop as saying Jews were behind the criticism of the Catholic Church over sex abuse claims, has upheld the quotes.

The Catholic website Pontifex published comments from Bishop Giacomo Babini, 81, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, Tuscany, in which he said he believed the current attacks raging against the Catholic Church were a “Zionist attack”, proven by the “powerful and refined” nature of the criticisms.

He reportedly said: “They do not want the Church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers.”

The American Jewish Committee, which spotted the comments, described them as “slanderous stereotypes, which sadly evoke the worst Christian and Nazi propaganda prior to World War II.”

But the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) denied the bishop had ever given the interview. Bishop Babini said: “Statements I have never made about our Jewish brothers have been attributed to me.”

However, Pontifex later published a statement, standing by its story and declaring that for “men of the church”, denying previous statements was “a habit”.

It also claimed that Bishop Babini had made other antisemitic statements earlier this year which he had never denied, and said it wanted to “refresh the memory” of the CEI.

It quoted the Bishop as saying on January 25 that “The Jews are not our closest brothers, they overslept on the arrival of Christ and the Old Testament; in doing so, they then chose not to be our closest brothers.”

It also quoted the bishop as saying that Jews use the Holocaust “like a club”.

Further links:

Guardian – Bishop ‘blames Jews’ for criticism of Catholic church record on abuse – Notice how this article comes complete with a nice piccy of the Pope….implication complete.

The Tablet – Bishop Blames Criticism on Zionists

Times Online – Bishop Giacomo Babini blames Jews for attacks on Pope

Haaretz – Report: Church abuse claims are ‘Zionist attack’, bishop says

That’s just a few of many online links as this news has gone viral and is absolutely everywhere.

Hopefully the Pope and Vatican will swiftly distance themselves from the comments made by this batty old Bishop.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse….

This is a cross-post by Bataween over at the Point of no return Blog, who is faithfully covering the ongoing Ezekiel’s tomb saga in Iraq.

For background reading on the Ezekel’s tomb see; here, here, here, here and here.

Ayatollah slams Islamisation of Ezekiel’s shrine

The Jewish Chronicle reports that one of Iraq’s leading clerics, Ayatollah Shaykh Ayad al-Rikabi, has denounced the proposed conversion of the ancient tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel into an Islamic site. This latest welcome development in the ongoing saga of Ezekiel’s tomb suggests that the Shi’i religious establishment does not speak with one voice. But those of us who wish to see the Jewish character of the shrine preserved must keep up the pressure: please sign our petition calling for intervention by UNESCO and others.

One of Iraq’s leading clerics, Ayatollah Shaykh Ayad al-Rikabi, has denounced the proposed conversion of the ancient tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel into an Islamic site.

Iraq’s Department of Antiquities and the Iraqi Shi’i “waqf”, which controls religious heritage sites in the country, has stated that the historic tomb does not belong to Iraq’s dwindling Jewish community.

It asserted that since Ezekiel is described in the Koran as a Muslim, the tomb should be declared an Islamic site. Plans are now under way to turn the site into a mosque.

Ayatollah al-Rikabi, whose own tribe came from the area close to the tomb, has written to the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s foremost religious Shi’a leader, to request that the plans be overturned and that the tomb be kept as a Jewish holy site.

He wrote: “It is my view that this is imperative that you stand against this deviation, and work in order to repair the damage and confront anyone that has ill intents towards Iraq and its people. “

He added: “I am confident that you will not keep silent in the face of unjust treatment and oppression.

Professor Shmuel Moreh of the Hebrew University, who was born in Baghdad, has been campaigning against the plan, calling the tomb “the holiest site for the Jews of Babylon”.

In January this year, Israeli media reported that Iraqi renovation workers had damaged an ancient Hebrew inscription on the tomb, something which Professor Moreh claimed was not accidental. The Iraqi government now reportedly plans to erase all the Hebrew inscriptions from the tomb.

Read article in full

UKPA is reporting:

The former Archbishop of Canterbury and other church leaders will urge senior judges to stand down from Court of Appeal hearings involving religious discrimination because of “disturbing” and “dangerous” rulings handed down in recent cases, it has emerged.

Lord Carey and other senior church figures are said to want them replaced with a panel of five judges who have a proven understanding of religious issues.

They believe a case being heard in the Court of Appeal on Thursday will not get a “fair” ruling if it is held before judges who they claim have shown a lack of understanding of Christian beliefs.

Gary McFarlane, 48, a Christian relationship counsellor from Bristol, is appealing against an employment tribunal decision that backed his sacking for refusing to give sex therapy to gay couples.

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The Telegraph have also covered this.

These comments have already been predictably pounced on as evidence of Christians demanding “special Status”. Meanwhile Melanie Phillips has also reported on this in the MailOnline and is almost as predictably in support of Carey’s stance.

Personally I don’t think this will do the cause any good at all and expressing a desire for favourable judges will not be viewed positively by many.

It is also a dangerous move to keep publicly citing individual legal cases that have yet to have their day in court, as we have discovered time and again and yet the lesson seems not to have been learnt.

Is it not more seemly and prudent to identify the law itself as an ass, rather than the presiding judges? I wonder what impact Carey’s comments will have on this particular case!

Of course the nub of the problem resides in all of the hastily constructed new laws that judges are confined to work within, which have been hashed together as a result of obsessive compulsive legislation mania.

Anyway, Clayboy has put together a good piece on this which is well worth a read, and do note his comments regarding the upcoming Gary McFarlane case, as it does all appear a trifle hypocritical.

Clayboy – Carey’s Sharia: how to lose the battle before you start?

A controversial headline I’m sure you’ll agree, especially in view of current events and headlines.

I have tended away from the Catholic abuse scandals, for the simple reason that I find the whole episode heartbreaking and shameful.

This headline comes from Paul T. McCain over at CyberBrethren and frankly I found his article to be simply the most balanced, sensible, nuanced, honest and thought provoking piece I have read during this entire sad debacle, and believe me I have read loads!

Here’s the piece from CyberBrethren, see what you think:

The Press has Been the Roman Catholic Church’s Best Friend in the Abuse Scandal

What to make of the horrible mess that continues to play out across the mass media? As I listen to reactions and read responses there is one response that I find particular and deeply troubling: attacking the liberal media, secularists, modernists, rationalists and any and all who are expressing outrage at the growing reports of the abuse of children across Roman Catholic institutions. I have read posts that are damning all such reactions as no more than an ongoing plot by anti-Christian forces to tear down the Church by going after the largest visible target available: the Pope in Rome and the Church He leads.

Now, is this happening? Of course it is! Are those opposed to Christianity using this as an occasion to attack the Christian Faith itself? Of course they are. Are they being unfair? Yes, of course. All the more reason not to give these people the very ammunition they are using to shoot the Church with!

The leadership of the Roman Catholic Church bears a large part of the blame for the media attacks. Through their systematic failure to deal adequately with the abuse of children and others in Roman Catholic institutions and parishes, and by offering “golden parachutes” to those who most directly covered up and denied justice for criminal activities, (I’m talking here about Bernard Law, for example), the Roman Catholic Church made itself a very easy target and is now paying the price for the mishandling of these cases. And let me be very quick to say that The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has learned through hard and bitter experiences of our own not to pass men along who engage in these kinds of behavior.

Here’s the point: It is precisely the wrong response to go on the attack against the media. The only response that should be made is to express total and complete outrage and complete and very public remorse for the sexual abuse of children at the hands of priests. Period. And keep saying it. Over and over, ad naseum. Back the words up with actions and provide the proof of action. An absolute zero tolerance policy on these behaviors must be adopted everywhere and applied every time. The leadership of the Roman Catholic Church does not “get it” and continues to shoot itself in the foot with its reactions. For example, I’ve read Roman bishops comparing Benedict to Christ, unjustly being tormented, sharing in the sufferings of Christ, etc. The only message everyone, from the Pope on down to every parish priest should be sending is this: There has been across the Roman Catholic Church a widespread failure to deal with these situations, quickly and justly. The Church has preferred to harbor and protect child abusers rather than throw them out of office and turn them over to the local police for their crimes. Behind this is a good deal of false doctrine concerning the office of the priest, including the supposed “indelible mark” of ordination, and imposed celibacy on the clergy.

Here are some perceptive remarks I read elsewhere expressing concern about an impassioned Lutheran coming to Pope Benedict’s defense. These remarks were, and are, spot-on.

Who would have possibly imagined that the current crisis of systemic child rape and the responsive horror expressed by so many could be spun into yet another victim-status tome regarding the insular, malevolent and hyperbolic Modernist and Liberal forces. Meanwhile for 50 yrs we had the systemic rape of children in our hallowed institutions, a crime against humanity that should never been allowed to be perpetrated to even a fraction of the extent that it did. Does the NYT’s have anti-religion flavor? Sure. Is it hyperbolic? Yes, sometimes. But is also true that this insidious modernist religion-hating main-stream press (as well as plaintiff’s lawyers), led to less children being raped. Meanwhile the Church was dragged along and is still being dragged along. I hear the author’s frustration. But maybe it’s time to put down the sword, and take a step back for some serious self-reflection that just maybe this time there is more going on here. Or would such an honest accounting be considered too weak and too relativist……?

And, please take special note of this excellent summary of Peggy Noonan’s comments on this incident. Here’s a portion of Get Religion’s coverage of Noonan’s remarks:

Noonan is the author of “John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father,” a tribute to the late pope that was as much a journal of her emotional responses to his papacy as a volume about his remarkable life. At one point, Noonan states simply, “”John Paul walked into my life and served, unknowingly, as my spiritual father. He had led me like a light in the dark. …”

With that in mind, it is best to look at the end of her column first — before we get to the material that I think is so relevant to journalists and other GetReligion readers who are trying to figure out a way to aim criticisms (positive and negative) at the Vatican and the New York Times at the same time. What are we to make of the papacy during these decades — repeat decades — of scandal in which so many bishops actively hid priests who abused young children and many, many teen-agers (the vast majority of the latter males)?

Some blame the scandals on Pope Benedict XVI. But Joseph Ratzinger is the man who, weeks before his accession to the papacy five years ago, spoke blisteringly on Good Friday of the “filth” in the church. … The most reliable commentary on Pope Benedict’s role in the scandals came from John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, who argues that once Benedict came to fully understand the scope of the crisis, in 2003, he made the church’s first real progress toward coming to grips with it.

As for his predecessor, John Paul the Great, about whom I wrote an admiring book which recounts some of the scandals — I spent a grim 2003 going through the depositions of Massachusetts clergy — one fact seems to me pre-eminent. For Pope John Paul II, the scandals would have been unimaginable — literally not imaginable. He had come of age in an era and place (Poland in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s) of heroic priests. They were great men; they suffered. He had seen how the Nazis and later the communists had attempted to undermine the church and tear people away from it, sometimes through slander. They did this because the great force arrayed against them was the Catholic Church. John Paul, his mind, psyche and soul having been forged in that world, might well have seen the church’s recent accusers as spreaders of slander. Because priests don’t act like that, it’s not imaginable. And he’d seen it before, only now it wasn’t Nazism or communism attempting to kill the church with lies, but modernity and its soulless media.

Only they weren’t lies.

Before readers get to that part of the column, Noonan has already written a statement that could only have been made by someone who genuinely loves journalism and its valid, protected role in public life — public life wherever free speech, freedom of the press and religious liberty truly coexist in painful, but necessary, tension.

Catholic leaders, she argues, are in attack mode at the moment because they believe that journalists are in attack mode. Many Catholics are simply blaming the current crisis on media bias.

Now, read very closely. This next passage contains a statement that I believe simply must be made. To make sure that readers get it, Noonan says it twice.

… (T)his is not true, or to the degree it is true, it is irrelevant. All sorts of people have all sorts of motives, but the fact is that the press — the journalistic establishment in the U.S. and Europe — has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on this issue. Let me repeat that: The press has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on the scandals because it exposed the story and made the church face it. The press forced the church to admit, confront and attempt to redress what had happened. The press forced them to confess. The press forced the church to change the old regime and begin to come to terms with the abusers. The church shouldn’t be saying j’accuse but thank you.

I hope that the blog’s many Catholic readers are still reading.

Noonan isn’t done yet. She argues that many mainstream journalists were actually reluctant to cover this story. Why spend years digging in this filth (the pope’s word), only to have thousands of Catholics accuse your paper of bias — no matter how accurate the coverage — and respond with protests or boycotts or both?

But, but ….

Without this pressure — without the famous 2002 Boston Globe Spotlight series with its monumental detailing of the sex abuse scandals in just one state, Massachusetts — the church would most likely have continued to do what it has done for half a century, which is look away, hush up, pay off and transfer. …

An irony: Non-Catholic members of the media were, in my observation, the least likely to want to go after the story, because they didn’t want to look like they were Catholic-bashing. An irony within the irony: some journalists didn’t think to go after the story because they really didn’t much like the Catholic Church. Because of this bias, they didn’t see the story as a story. They thought this was how the church always operated. It didn’t register with them that it was a scandal. They didn’t know it was news.

It was the Boston Globe that broke the dam, winning a justly deserved Pulitzer for public service.

Yes, that needed to be said.

It’s one thing to criticize some of the current coverage — which I think deserves criticism. It’s something else altogether to ignore the heroic efforts that many journalists have made, for whatever motives, to uncover the filth (there’s that word again) in the offices of far too many shepherds.

Just noticed that the BBC will be doing a documentary on the subject of suicide called “Breaking the Silence“, which will be on BBC1 tonight (Monday) after the 10 o’clock news.

Over at the BBC news website, the producer and director of the programme, Brendan J Byrne, rightly notes the difficulty of covering a subject of this nature, and not just because of the emotional pain of losing a loved one.

The loss of someone through suicide has additional dimensions to the usual trauma of grief, namely, stigma, which makes this subject an almost unmentionable taboo.

Christianity has traditionally been at the forefront of damning suicide, this from Wikki:

There were seven suicides in the Bible,^[3] most notably in Matthew 27:3-5, the suicide of Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.

According to the theology of the Catholic Church, death by suicide is considered a grave or serious sin. The chief Catholic Christian argument is that one’s life is the property of God and a gift to the world, and to destroy that life is to wrongly assert dominion over what is God’s and is a tragic loss of hope.

Conservative Protestants (Evangelicals, Charismatics and Pentecostals) have often argued that because suicide involves self-murder, then anyone who commits it is sinning and is the same as if the person murdered another human being.

There was a tradition of disallowing those who took their own lives from being buried in “sacred” ground and many other such things, some of which were far worse.

More recently the Catholic church has softened its stance a little:

The Catholic Church in England and Wales appeared to soften its stance on suicide, claiming it should be greeted with “compassion” rather than blame.

The auxiliary bishop of Westminster, the Rt Rev Bernard Longley, said church teaching on suicide had not changed but its understanding of mental health had altered.

He said: “Suicide is a grave sin, but an individual must be mentally healthy to be fully aware that what they are doing is a sin.

“When a person commits suicide, they are generally so clouded by confusion and despair as to be no longer in full control of their mental faculties.

“God does not condemn anyone not fully aware of what they are doing – His mercy is without end.”

I will say that at the very least the main denominations are grappling with the issue of mental health and so that’s somewhat heartening.

I had a ‘black and white’  doctrine on suicide. I simply believed that those who took their own lives, in effect committed murder on themselves, consequently this didn’t bode well for them in the eternal stakes.

And then something happened.

A dear brother in the Lord called Justin (36 yrs old) who suffered from Schizophrenia hung himself towards the end of 2008.

Like so many things we unquestioningly believe, when forced to evaluate them in the light of real life, personal events, they can be harder to define in terms of black and white.

His suicide was completely out of the blue and was done with efficient and methodical aforethought.

I didn’t really understand the meaning of the word ‘shock’ until I received the news of his untimely death.

Justin had been assessed by a psychiatric ‘crises team’ a couple of days prior to his suicide and was deemed as ‘no threat to himself’.

There does seem to be something intrinsically and intuitively wrong with suicide, but couldn’t the same be said for death itself? What about the scripture that says something like:

‘Those that hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life’.

‘Jesus wept’ is one of the shortest verses in the Bible and he wept over the death of a friend.

Now Justin was without doubt one of the most tormented souls I have ever met. He was also one of the most spiritually insightful and discerning souls I had ever met.

This was such an irony, he had deep spiritual insight but it was almost as if this came at a price.

This may sound strange but Justin did not murder himself, he was just simply internally tormented and tortured without mercy.

The Christian community did all they could to support Justin and I will leave it to your imagination how this all impacted on the church. I will say that Christians in general are poorly equipped to deal with mental illness, but the same can be said for most folk.

After this event, I really looked into the scriptures and just simply couldn’t find anything to substantiate the claim that he was not in the arms of Jesus.

It’s amazing how many so called ‘teachings’ we go around with, that have no real scriptural basis…it can be shocking.

…’nothing can separate us from the Love of Jesus’…including death itself. He will not lose one.

Do take the opportunity to watch this programme if you’re able, as judging by the BBC news report I think it’s gonna be helpful.

And finally, if you do feel suicidal get to your GP asap, as our society is thankfully well equipped to help.

There really is a brighter tomorrow.

Something piqued my interest this Easter that I hadn’t really noticed before, namely, the relatively new phenomenon of Christians having a Passover Seder.

I posted during Easter a US article which articulated the concerns that some of the Jewish community have with a Christianised Seder.

The concerns revolve around a feeling of Jewish symbolism being hijacked by Christians, out of context and being infused with Christian meaning.

The second concern is the perception that this is all a guise to cover Jewish proselytisation.

There is probably some truth in both of these.

There is a raft of information online advising Christians on Seder. And the US president duly obliged the ceremony also.

I assumed the Christian celebration of Seder was solely a US preserve, however, I was quite surprised to find just how many UK churches are advocating and participating in the same.

I decided to ask my Messianic Jewish friend (Joseph – Rosh Pina Project) to cast his thoughts upon the matter, here’s what he said:

I think Passover’s fine to celebrate for Christians if you’re worshipping Jesus – Paul says let no man judge you over a feast – they’re shadows of things to come: http://scripturetext.com/colossians/2-16.htm surely this applies to passover too.

I had a discussion on facebook with some TOM-Js (Torah Observant Messianic Jew) who wouldnt keep Easter or join in with family Easter celebrations because it had Pagan roots. I  said you can redeem a festival through worshipping Christ in it, I said you shouldn’t judge them for celebrating Easter.

I’m inclined to agree, as long as we are not intruding upon, or offending the sensibilities of the Jewish community.

Not all agree however, including our esteemed Lutheran US CyberBrethren, who introduces some salient objections:

Now that we are through Holy Week, let’s reflect on a few practices that have arisen in recent years and examine to what extent they truly do serve the best interest of the Gospel. One of these is Christians having a Passover Seder.  I would say that while perhaps some kind of demonstration with explanation of a Passover Seder is an interesting teaching tool, I think that a congregation that institutes a regular practice of having a Passover Seder during Holy Week is making a mistake. We have no indication from the New Testament that after Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, the Church continued to observe the Passover. The whole point of the “new” testament is precisely that, in Christ, everything the Passover pointed toward, has been fulfilled. Rev. Dr. Daniel Gard raises a number of very valid objections that I think are well worth our time and attention. Let me know what you think of this practice, in light of Dr. Gard’s concerns.

“Is it appropriate for a Lutheran congregation to celebrate a Passover Seder?  This is not an unimportant question since the practice has become rather widespread in our Synod.  In fact, it has even been promoted (complete with Eucharist!) by the Synod’s Board for Evangelism (A Passover Haggadah for Christians , ed. Bruce J. Lieske, no date).  But can it be historically or theologically sustained?

“The historical question is rather complex, as the history of liturgical forms generally are.  To begin with,  we have no manuscript of a Seder Haggadah  which is early than the tenth century A.D. (Siddur Rav Saadya Gaon ).  Nearly a millennium exists between the time of Jesus and the earliest extant text.   Passover Haggadoth  have never been standardized but have always been shaped and reshaped by circumstances and time.  The ritual has been extraordinarily versatile since the tenth century A.D. and in all likelihood was just as versatile in the preceding centuries.  The claim that any ritual now in existence is identical with that used by Jesus is both anachronistic and historically suspect.

“The theological questions are equally complex.  Even if it were proven (which it has not been) that a specific extant Haggadah  is identical with that used by Jesus,  these problems remain.  The Lord’s Supper was instituted by Jesus with the words “the blood of the new  covenant.”  He commanded that we “do this in remembrance of Me.”  But, to do what?  Celebrate a Seder?  Or celebrate His Sacrament?  The two are simply not the same.  On the night in which He was betrayed,  the Blessed Savior gave His disciples something new.  All that came before converged and found fulfillment in Him.  All that has happened since that night has grown from that same point of convergence and fulfillment.  The Galatian Christians failed to understand the radical nature of the new order found in Christ;  as a result, St. Paul found it necessary to correct their Judaizing error.

“It makes no more sense for Christians to gather around a Passover Seder than it does to gather around another sacrificial lamb.  The very Lamb of God has been slain, once and for all.  We would not and could not offer another sacrifice.  The final Sacrifice was offered on Calvary.  We now celebrate only that Lamb’s own feast as instituted and commanded by Him.  It is the Passover of Jesus, and only the Passover of Jesus, which the Church legitimately celebrates.

One final question might be asked.  Why, given the historical and theological questions,  do some parishes regularly or even occasionally sponsor a Seder?  Two responses have sometimes been given.  First, to teach Christians about the context of the Last Supper.  But given the historical uncertainties of the Haggadah , what anachronisms are being taught as historic facts?  Simply teaching our people a biblical and Lutheran Sacramentology and Christology is difficult enough;  why confuse the issue?

“A second rationale is to reach out and build bridges to the Jewish community.  But is a “Christian” Seder not as offensive to Jewish people as a “Jewish” Eucharist would be to Christians?  Communication with any group of people is rarely enhanced by misappropriating their beloved traditions.  Those Lutherans who use a Seder do so with commendable intentions.  But the inherent problems of the practice result in more harm than good.”

Two cross-posts in one hit.

The first looking at the ascension of Anti-Zionism within Christendom, and the second exploring anti-Zionism as a precursor of anti-Semitism.

First from Vee over at the Living Journey Blog

The lines are being drawn…

Carla has written an outstanding post about a group of theological movers and shakers that she so aptly calls ‘The Smiley Face Club’. She has done a lot of research and connected all of the dots and has made it perfectly clear where all this postmodern conversation is leading. Make no doubts about it, there is a divide going on and its becoming increasingly hyperbolic in nature.

a local Christian university (Trinity Western University) had hosted the Canadian premiere of a film called With God on our Side. Reliable eye witnesses and disgusted acquaintances of mine reported that the whole thing was extremely biased and slanted, and that even the post-film Q&A panel was stacked against Israel. After hearing about their exasperating experiences I thought that perhaps a better name for the film might have been “Without God on Our Slanted Side.”
So lo and behold, the other day I found out that the smiley face club likes this anti-Israel thing! [source]

You can really see that the language being used through film and media is meant to divide people. McLaren, others like him, hates any form of Christian Zionism and has pretty much lumped us into a group that has been in the past been called ‘a deviant heresy’.

If you have no idea about who is in this ‘Smiley Face Club’ and what the implications of this group will have on those who believe that Israel has prophetic importance yet to be played out, you simply must read what Carla has penned.

With the presupposition of the film title ‘With God on our side’ this automatically puts people on a… ‘with us and God’ or ‘not with us so you are against God’ mentality. This is polemical rhetoric and is not helpful at all. They are doing the very thing that they criticized George W. Bush for doing!

I for one would really love someone like Calvin Smith or Jacob Prasch to comment a bit further on this because I think that there will be a lot of Christians who will naively lap up this ‘New type of Supercessionism’.

However, I did find THIS on Jacob’s site that you may want to check out!

And Calvin Smith has in the past expressed his concern when he wrote the following…

An Anglican priest who recently attended a Palestine conference organised by the Federation of Islamic Student Societies today blogs of his participation in the conference. Revd Stephen Sizer also refers to the Jerusalem Declaration, a document he helped draft and which he says “repudiates Christian Zionism as a deviant heresy”.

This is strong language indeed. Of course, it is no secret Revd Sizer has widely publicised his intense dislike of Christian Zionism, which he has every right to do. But surely labelling millions of fellow Evangelical Christians deviant heretics goes too far. [source]

And…

Mixing in various circles – both church and academic – I’ve encountered many Christians who have become troubled by the language and anti-Israel stance taken by several vocal supercessionists. Ironically, while such books were celebrated when they were first published, I’m discovering that many Christians are now increasingly uncomfortable with the evermore extreme rhetoric and some of the platforms from which several supercessionists are denouncing fellow Christians, simply on the basis that they are Christian Zionists or regard Islamism as a dangerous threat. For example, one well-known writer has travelled to Iran – recognised by many Western nations as a rogue state (as evidenced by how they all pulled their diplomats from an anti-Israel speech given by the Iranian President this week) – to denounce Christian Zionists. In another case, Patrick Sookdheo, leader of the Barnabas Fund which highlights the plight of persecuted Christians abroad (including in Muslim lands), was criticised at a meeting by several supercessionists who identify with the Palestinian cause and also advocate a more sympathetic approach to Islam, The result was that Sookdheo eventually received death threats on several Islamists websites. So not only is the issue of Israel and supercessionism hotting up, it is also symptomatic of a wider ideological struggle currently taking place within Evangelicalism over how to respond to Islam. [source]

I don’t think that this issue is going to go away and fade into the background quietly, especially when the Middle East really heats up. In fact, I think it will continue to get nasty as the battle lines are drawn in the sand by  ‘The Smiley Face Club’ because remember….God is on their side.

Boy, do we live in interesting times today or not?

The second from Viola over at the Naming His Grace Blog

Anti-Zionism = anti-Semitsm?

Someone on one of my earlier blog postings about Middle East issues asked if I could explain how anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism?” I directed her to a document I had posted in August 2009, Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism a report to Congress. It is a pdf document prepared by The United States Department of State which explores contemporary anti-Semitism and includes anti-Zionism. Picture taken by Zombie, see note at bottom 1.-The question was also asked how anti-Zionism follows from anti-Semitism. But the question could be turned around. In the above document this is explained:

“This report does not purport to ascribe motive to the various critics of Israel. However, disproportionate criticism of the Jewish State and/or Israelis and demon­izing them as barbaric, unprincipled, selfish, inhu­mane, etc. is anti-Semitic and has the effect of caus­ing global audiences to associate those bad attributes with Jews in general. Similar to the way that constant news coverage associating Muslims with terrorism, or blacks with crime, can have the effect of promoting anti-Muslim or anti-black prejudice, respectively, con­stant and disproportionate criticism of Israel can have the effect of promoting anti-Jewish prejudice.”

Going beyond this is the human tendency to become so engulfed in a cause that one loses the ability to sort through material and choose what at least has a semblance of integrity while discarding the appalling. In this matter an example of using integrity is Martin Niemöller. As a Christian pastor in Germany, concerned about the moral decadence of his country, he at first thought Adolf Hitler was a good person to lead Germany. He would later oppose Hitler, even to his face, with such tenacity that he became Hitler’s personal prisoner.

Dislike for some policies of the State of Israel is leading some organizations and some activist into some very shadowy corners. The Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian (U.S.A.) has published a booklet, Steadfast Hope which suggests among other things that the Jewish European immigrants are not descendents of the ancient Israelites; the recent Presbyterian Middle East Study Committee recommends the Kairos Document that would do away with a Jewish State. And some activists join or, perhaps unintentionally, promote organizations that probably years earlier they would have rejected with great repulsion. The slide happens sometimes out of good intentions.

On one well known activist’s Facebook information page she has pages that truly cross the line from her concerns about Israel’s policies to the promotion of vulgar anti-Zionism which can certainly be equated with the worse kind of anti-Semitism. (Pages on Facebook consist of various groups that the person has joined because they care about the issues that organization or person promotes. For instance on my information page or profile I have such pages as Tim Keller, C.S. Lewis and the Simon Wiesenthal Center .

But, besides such recognized organizations as Amnesty International activist Anna Baltzer, who is Jewish and pro Palestinian, somehow, unaware of her pages, moves on to Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago and further to the World Antizionist Congress . This last site is vile. Another is Anti-Zionism and also vile. In this last one The Protocol’s of the Elders of Zion are discussed as though they are real.

Our society is slipping into anti-Semitism because it is slipping into a vile anti-Zionism. This is very serious. It is changing who we are as a people. It will change who we are as Presbyterians.

Two articles today commenting on the judiciary in relation to Christianity which follow a similar theme:

Firstly from the UK:

Telegraph:

Senior figures in the Church of England are forcing an unprecedented showdown with the judiciary over an allegation that some of the country’s most senior judges are prejudiced against Christianity.

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and other church leaders will urge senior judges to stand down from future Court of Appeal hearings because of “disturbing” and “dangerous” rulings they issued in recent religious discrimination cases.

Senior churchmen do not think they have any chance of a “fair” ruling if the latest significant hearing – due on Thursday – is heard in front of those judges who, they argue, have already shown a lack of understanding of Christian beliefs.

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And this from the US:

New York Times:

Stevens, the Only Protestant on the Supreme Court

WASHINGTON — With just five exceptions, every member of the Supreme Court in the nation’s history has been a white male, like Justice John Paul Stevens.

But Justice Stevens cuts a lone figure on the current court in one demographic category: He is the only Protestant.

His retirement, which was announced on Friday, makes possible something that would have been unimaginable a generation or two ago — a court without a single member of the nation’s majority religion.

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