Posted on 11/11/2012 3:12:55 PM PST by TaraP
At an interfaith conference bringing together Jewish leaders and Protestant Christian pastors outside Jerusalem this week, several of the Christian representatives painted a very worrying picture about the future of relations between Israel and the mainstream Church.
While an estimated tens of millions of individual Christians around the world love and support the Jewish state, many of the mainline Protestant churches have been actively boycotting Israel, encouraging pro-Palestinian activism and demanding that Western governments stop sending aid to Jerusalem.
One of the main Christian representatives at the conference was Rev. Paul Wilkinson, associate minister at Hazel Grove Full Gospel Church in Stockport, England. Over the past few years, Wilkinson has studied up close the phenomenon of what he calls "Christian Palestinianism," a politicized movement that seeks to eliminate Christian support for Israel and transfer it to Palestinian nationalists.
Wilkinson said he is "completely pessimistic in terms of believing that I, we, are going to overturn 2,000 years of erroneous theology that has manifested itself in all kinds of diatribes and anti-Semitic factions" within the Church.
Wilkinson said that what stands behind Christian Palestinianism is classic Replacement Theology, which he called a "Goliath of theology in the church."
Rev. Andrew Love of the United Church of Canada agreed with Wilkinson that exaggerated humanitarian concern for the Palestinian Christians is being as the "rationalization for ultimately what I believe to be anti-Semitic ideas and anti-Semitic policies."
Wilkinson lamented that this hatred for Israel, which harks back to millennia of hatred for the Jews, is rooted "deep in the heart of the Protestant Church," and is unlikely to be uprooted.
The Times of Israel provided a full report of the event, as well as interviews with several of the speakers. Their article on the conference is worth a thorough read.
Friday, September 14, 2012 10:34 PM
Pope arrives in Lebanon with message of peace
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON | Associated Press – 12 hrs ago - 9-14-2012
“I have come to Lebanon as a pilgrim of peace,” the pope said upon his arrival in Beirut. “As a friend of God and as a friend of men.”
“He also praised the Arab Spring uprisings, which have ousted four long-time dictators.”
“It is the desire for more democracy, for more freedom, for more cooperation and for a renewed Arab identity,” the pope said.”
“”Looking at your county, I also come symbolically to all countries of the Middle East as a pilgrim of peace, as a friend of God and as a friend of all inhabitants of all the countries of the region, whatever their origins and beliefs,” he said.”
http://news.yahoo.com/pope-arrives-lebanon-message-peace-105452279.html
Pope visits Lebanon amid Syria war, Libya protest - Reuters 9-13-2012
“Even the militant Shi’ite movement Hezbollah has hung banners along the airport highway greeting Benedict with a picture of him and texts in Arabic and French saying: “Hezbollah welcomes the pope in the homeland of coexistence”.
Nearby, the movement - which Israel and the United States consider a terrorist group - put up Arabic-only banners for local consumption with a different message: “Welcome to you in the homeland of resistance.””
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/13/us-pope-lebanon-idUSBRE88C1JR20120913
Pope Benedict arrives in Lebanon at time of Christian-Muslim tension - By Babak Dehghanpisheh, Updated: Friday, September 14, 11:15 AM
“The pope’s visit, his **fourth** to the Middle East, comes as Christians in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon are expressing fears of a threat from conservative Muslims emboldened by the sweeping changes brought about by the Arab Spring. “
“It’s unlikely that the pope will address the rise of Islamists in the region directly in public comments, analysts say. Instead, he is expected to preach a message of unity between Christians and Muslims. “
Op-Ed: Expose: The Vatican - PLO Pact - Published: Thursday, February 09, 2012 11:08 AM
“Designs on Jerusalem are on the Vatican’s agenda, now that the city is in Jewish hands.”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11255#.T07m7XmV2So
HOLY SEE DELEGATION MEETS WITH THE PLO - Monday, January 30, 2012
” “Following the resumption of the bilateral negotiations between the Holy See and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), an official meeting took place at the headquarters of the Palestinian President in Ramallah on 28 January.”
http://visnews-en.blogspot.com/2012/01/holy-see-delegation-meets-with-plo.html
Bishop Cranmer: Let the Pope preside over Jerusalem
” Give the Pope Jerusalem, and he can govern it through a neutral administration, ensuring that both the Jews of Israel and the Muslims of Palestine obtain justice”.
“In April 2009, the Vatican signed the necessary agreement with the Arab League. On 12th of May 2009, the Pope walked on the Temple Mount together with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.”
http://ivarfjeld.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/bishop-cranmer-let-the-pope-preside-over-jerusalem/
Vatican and PLO Sign Pact Guaranteeing the Church’s Rights
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY - Published: February 16, 2000 <~~~~ (Note date)
“Seeking to secure the rights of the Roman Catholic Church in a future Palestinian state, the Vatican signed an agreement today with the Palestine Liberation Organization that would protect freedom of religion and the legal status of Christian churches.”
The Pope’s Visit to Jerusalem and the Vatican’s Hidden Agenda - May 2000 <~~~ (Note Date)
“Replacement Theology”
“The Roman Catholic Church believes Israel’s right to be the Kingdom of God ended forever with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Roman Legion in 70 CE. When the Roman Catholic Church grew to world prominence, it claimed to be the rightful heir of the Kingdom of God. Rome (the Vatican) became the “New Jerusalem.” The long centuries that followed of non-Jewish control of their land seemed to validate Papacy’s claim. Then the rebirth of Israel challenged Catholicism’s “Kingdom of God” theology. But the boast of Rome to be “the eternal city” was completely deflated when Jerusalem—”The Eternal”—became the capital of Israel in 1967. Why?”
“The Vatican’s claim to be the “New Jerusalem,” if true, would be the fulfillment of a Biblical type and many prophecies. (Biblical “types” are spoken of as “shadows” which continue until their reality occurs. For example, Israel was to celebrate the Passover annually with a slain lamb. The reality of that type was the coming of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which fulfilled that type. The slaying of the Passover Lamb came to an end shortly after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Until this day a lamb is no longer killed and eaten during Passover) The Roman Catholic Church for centuries has claimed to be the fulfillment of the type of Jerusalem as the capital of the actual Kingdom of God. In type-and-shadow theology, if the type reappears, then the supposed reality is not valid. Thus, the re-emergence of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital destroys the Vatican’s claim to be the “New Jerusalem”—the capital of the actual Kingdom of God.”
“Why does the Vatican act like a world political power, exchanging ambassadors with other nations? No other Christian church claims this civil government status. The only excuse the Vatican has to act as a world power is the claim that it is both the spiritual and the temporal Kingdom of God on earth, the New Jerusalem “
http://christiantrumpetsounding.com/Vaticans%20Agenda/Popes%20visit%20to%20Jerus.htm
How can so many people forget that Jesus is Jewish?
Personally,I’d hate to have Him remind me of that fact when the time comes.
People either have a Super-natural love for the Jews
or
They have a Super-natural hate for the Jews...
Just like a Kingdom that is divided will Collapse...
We are divided in Politics and within the church....
The Church is not hopelessly anti-Semitic (although some of recent statements of a few denominational leaders are most obviously anti-Semitic in the extreme).
The Church that follows Christ (and Paul) is grafted onto the Jewish people and salvation is of the Jews. God blesses those that bless the Jewish people, and God curses those that curse them. Any sincere Christian knows this from reading the Holy Bible, it is only a “leadership” problem in some denominations (mostly those that have pretty clearly “gone off the rail,” abandoning other Christian teachings, too)...
What members of those errant churches need to do is replace their sinful “leaders” — or, if that is not possible, then to just walk out the door and find a much more genuinely Christian place of worship (and consider ways we can make up for the damage these bigots are causing the true Church, Israel, and the Jewish people). Fortunately, we still have the ability to do these things in USA (for how long, under our current regime, nobody can say...but that’s a whole other discussion so I will sign off for now).....
Blessings,
fhc
Brilliant......their Messiah is a Jew and they can’t stand Jews!........go figure.
This isn’t a complicated issue.Simply put,there are many, many,many people (mainly in Western nations) who are,at heart,Unitarian/Universalists but masquerade as Christians.Of course it must be noted that there are many in the West who *claim* to be Jews but have utter contempt for Israel.
Pope makes peace appeal at open-air Mass in Beirut
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON | Associated Press – Sun, Sep 16, 2012
“I appeal to you all to be peacemakers,” Benedict said.
Benedict spoke from an altar built on land reclaimed with debris from Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, pressing ahead with his call for peace and reconciliation between Christians and Muslims.
Benedict said that justice and peace are needed in building “a fraternal society, for building fellowship.”
Fadia Kiwan, a political science professor at Beirut’s St. Joseph University, said the pope’s visit is political and its message is that “the West does not want Christians to leave the Middle East.”
She added that the visit calls “for living together between Muslims and Christians.”
“This is a visit of political interest more than religious interest. It is political visit that should help in reducing tension between Christians and Muslims in general,” she said.
Patriarch Bechara al-Rai, head of the Maronite Catholic Church, told the pope shortly before the Mass began, “Your visit is a safety valve at a time when Christians feel the instability and are faithfully resisting to confirm they are deep-rooted in this land despite the major challenges.”
Nawaf al-Moussawi, a representative of the Shiite Islamist militant group Hezbollah who attended the mass, told Lebanon’s LBC TV: “Our message is that we want to work together for a Middle East and a region where religions and sects live on the basis of justice that leads to peace.
“What we complain about in the region today is that we are suffering from the injustice of *colonial* policies,” al-Moussawi added in an apparent reference to U.S. policies. “We only see its fleets.” Hezbollah is allied with Syria, which blames an alleged Western and Arab conspiracy for its woes.
http://news.yahoo.com/pope-makes-peace-appeal-open-air-mass-beirut-081130318.html?_esi=1
......and then on Monday “the (other) messenger of God” spoke:
Hezbollah leads massive anti-US protest in Lebanon
By ZEINA KARAM | Associated Press – 6 hrs ago
” Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, left, speaks to a crowd of tens of thousands of supporters, not shown, during a rally denouncing an anti-Islam film that has provoked a week of unrest in Muslim countries worldwide, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday Sept. 17, 2012. Nasrallah who does not usually appear in public for fear of assassination called for Monday’s protests in Beirut, saying the U.S. must be held accountable for the film because it was produced in America. Arabic reads, “the messenger of God.”” - (heading under picture)
“The appeal for sustained protests by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group, could stoke more fury over the video, “Innocence of Muslims.” Nasrallah has rarely been seen in public since his group battled Israel in a month-long war in 2006, fearing Israeli assassination. Since then, he has communicated with his followers and gives news conference mostly via satellite link.”
“He spoke for about 15 minutes before a rapturous crowd estimated by police at about 500,000, many with *headbands* of green and yellow — the colors of Hezbollah — and the words “at your service God’s prophet” written on them.”
“Nasrallah, who last appeared in public in December 2011 to mark the Shiite holy day of Ashoura, warned of serious repercussions if the U.S. does not ban the film and have it removed from the Internet.”
“”The world should know that our anger is not a passing thing. ... This is the start of a serious campaign that must continue all over the Muslim world in defense of the prophet of God,” he said to roars of support.”
“”As long as there’s blood in us, we will not remain silent over insults against our prophet,” Nasrallah said, calling for a series of demonstrations this week to denounce the video.”
http://news.yahoo.com/hezbollah-leads-massive-anti-us-protest-lebanon-201359057.html
Which is greater, the irony, or the sadness of it all?
The Creation of the Religious Left
“When people reflect on the Christian church they generally picture a fellowship of believers whose focus is on *spiritual growth*, *spreading the faith*, and *good works*. These were the church’s primary goals until the last few decades. There is a wide gulf, however, between yesterday’s goals and today’s agenda. The American mainline churches the most prominent of which are the *United Methodists*, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopalians, the American Baptists, many Catholic leaders and orders, and the Lutheran Church in America - have realigned their priorities in a frighteningly *political* direction.”
“A growing percentage of Christian leadership has abandoned its role as *spiritual shepherd* because it no longer considers humanity’s *spiritual welfare* its greatest concern. A great many bishops have rejected *winning souls* in favor of *influencing political issues*. Church bureaucracy now neglects traditional mission in favor of *lobbying for political causes*. In fact, certain sectors of the church now make it their primary business to manufacture, widely distribute, and finance a radical agenda by which they hope *to save the world*. In doing so, they have created the *Religious Left*.”
http://cmpage.org/betrayal/chapt1.html
Walter Rauschenbusch - was a Christian theologian and Baptist pastor (Convert from German Luthern). He was a key figure in the Social Gospel movement which flourished in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Plus
Rev. Harry F. Ward - the “Red” Dean of Union Theological Seminary - NYC
“In 1929, when Kornfeder was in Moscow, he heard **Harry F. Ward** and his work discussed in the Anglo-American Secretariat, where Ward was portrayed as the architect of the methods by which churches could he infiltrated (”of Communists and fellow travelers working inside the churches, giving themselves the coloring of religious reformers and of getting the church in the social side, away from spiritualism”).”
“In fact, when one studies the methods of the Methodist Federation, I wonder who learned from whom, whether it was Harry F. Ward who learned from Stalin or whether Stalin learned from Harry Wand.”
Plus
Abyssinian Baptist Church - New York
Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. - preached the Gospel of **Social Justice** as pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church
Plus
Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King
Plus
Bonhoeffer in Harlem - “Deeply interested in **ecumenism**, he was appointed by the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches (a forerunner of the **World Council of Churches**) as one of its three European youth secretaries. “
“Rejecting the objective unalterable moral standards of the Bible, Bonhoeffer proclaimed a situational ethics — that right and wrong are determined solely by the “loving obligations of the moment” “
Plus
Charles A. Briggs - popularized German biblical criticism in the United States, first as a professor at Union and then as its president.
- an important early leader of the Modernist movement.
Plus
Dr. James H. Cone – Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary – Founder of Black Liberation Theology”
Plus
Martin Niemöller - “In 1961, he became president of the **World Council of Churches**.[9] He earned the **Lenin** Peace Prize in 1966.”
“ He met with Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam War and was a committed campaigner for nuclear disarmament.”
Plus
Reinhold Niebuhr - “Christian ethicist”, “Starting as a leftist minister in the 1920s indebted to theological liberalism, he shifted to the new Neo-Orthodox theology in the 1930s, ....”
“....and created the theo-philosophical perspective known as Christian realism.”
“During the 1930s, Niebuhr was a prominent leader of the militant faction of the Socialist Party of America, although he disliked die-hard Marxists by calling their beliefs a religion and a thin one at that.[23] In 1941, he cofounded the Union for Democratic Action, a group with a strongly militarily interventionist, internationalist foreign policy and a pro-union, liberal domestic policy, and was the group’s sole president until its transformation into the Americans for Democratic Action in 1947.[24]”
Plus
Rev. Jeremiah Wright - G** D**n America . Your Christianity is not necessarily our Christianity.
“”Obama was steeped in Islam but knew nothing about Christianity,” Klein says.”
“Klein asked Wright if he converted Obama from being a Muslim into a Christian.”
“He said, I don’t know about that. but I can tell you that I made it easy for him to come to an understanding of who Jesus Christ is and not feel that he was turning his back on his Islamic friends and his Islamic traditions and his understanding of Islam,” Klein says.”
“The second area was Obama’s political philosophy. Wright introduced Obama to Black Liberation theology.”
Plus
President Barrack Hussein Obama - Received more than just “Dreams From My Father”, and his socialist mother, or his communist grandparents, or Communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, or racist Black Liberationist Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Plus
Union Theological Seminary - “The seminary was founded in 1836 under the Presbyterian Church,[3] and is affiliated with nearby **Columbia University**. In the 20th century, Union was world renowned as a center of **liberal Christianity and neo-orthodoxy**, in addition to being the birthplace of the **Black Liberation Theology**, **Womanist Theology** and **Mujerista Theology** movements.”
Equals:
Anti-colonial - Islamic - Black Liberationist - CommUnitarian President Barack Hussein Obama - A man of “diversity” out for those struggling on the “margins” of life. A change agent for The New World Order.
CATHOLICS FOR OBAMA (CFO)
“A project of Catholic Democrats, Catholics For Obama (CFO) was formed to promote the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama in 2008. Noting that “Americans are weary of being pitted against one another over issues of race, disparity of wealth, and religion,” CFO stated that “Senator Obama has made bringing Americans together to solve common problems the central theme of his campaign.” One CFO board member called Obama “a presidential candidate of historic accomplishments,” and lauded his background as a 1980s-era community organizer whose efforts “to [economically] empower the lives of thousands of people” had received vital “funding from the U.S. Bishops.
****” Obama’s employer in the eighties had been the Chicago-based Developing Communities Project, an initiative of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.”****
Though Obama has been an unwavering backer of abortion rights throughout his years in politics—he opposed even the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act as a state senator—CFO says that by the standards of ***“Catholic Social Teaching,”*** Obama is technically ***“pro-life”*** because he “has spent his entire career striving for the common good.” Specifically, CFO praises the President for supporting “health care programs that will cover all Americans, a living wage for working families, and solutions that allow distressed families to stay in their homes.” Moreover, CFO reasons that Obama’s presidency will ultimately reduce the number of abortions “by promoting health care for pregnant women and better infant care, day care and job training.”
Maintaining that “the state has a positive moral function to promote the common good,” CFO views the expansion of governmental power as a preferred means of solving society’s most pressing problems.
The president and board chairman of CFO is Patrick Whelan, who also serves as president of Catholic Democrats. A member of the pediatrics faculty at Harvard Medical School and a co-director of Pax Christi Massachusetts, Whelan was formerly a national co-director of Catholics for Kerry; he served for three years on the Democratic National Committee’s Faith Advisory Council under Howard Dean; and he volunteered with the Catholic Worker communities in Los Angeles and Houston.
Other CFO board members include:
- Victoria Reggie Kennedy: The widow of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, Victoria is an attorney and an activist who has been an official with numerous groups focused on reducing gun violence and restricting access to firearms.
- Kathleen Kennedy Townsend: The eldest of Robert F. Kennedy’s eleven children, Townsend served two years as deputy assistant attorney general during the Bill Clinton administration, and later as Maryland’s lieutenant governor (1995-2003).
- Thomas P. O’Neill III: O’Neill was lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1975-1983. Today he is CEO of O’Neill & Associates, a government and public-relations firm in Boston. (Tip’s son)
- James Roosevelt, Jr.: Formerly the chief legal counsel for the Massachusetts Democratic Party, Roosevelt currently co-chairs the Rules and By-laws Committee of the Democratic National Committee. He is also president and CEO of the Tufts Health Plan. (FDR’s grandson)
- William D’Antonio: This retired professor of sociology was once the CEO of the American Sociological Association.
- Lisa Schare: This Cincinnati-based high-school art teacher serves as state chair of the Catholic Democrats of Ohio. A longtime Democratic Party activist, she did volunteer work for the Clinton/Gore, Gore/Lieberman, and Kerry/Edwards presidential campaigns.
Read full article here:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7727
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