Posted on 08/02/2004 3:37:41 PM PDT by swilhelm73
By the overwhelming vote of 431-62, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) recently adopted a resolution calling for a divestment campaign from corporations doing business with Israel. Thus a major American religious denomination, whose American roots date back to the Rev. John Witherspoon, the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence, has called divine authority into service for a biased attack on Israel in the name of peace.
In contrast to the action taken by the Presbyterian Church this month, the Roman Catholic Church has recognized that one-sided criticism of Israel can at times be so grotesque that there is no name to describe it other than anti-Semitism. And in a document ironically signed the same week as the Presbyterian General Assembly, the Catholic Church equated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
A more nuanced standard, and one that properly recognizes that legitimate criticism of Israel is perfectly appropriate, was articulated last year by Natan Sharansky. A member of the Israeli cabinet who for years had been a prisoner of conscience in the Soviet gulag, Mr. Sharansky defined one current expression of anti-Semitism by three features: the application of double standards to Israel, the demonization of Israel and the delegitimization of Israel.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Unbelievable!!!!! Are they going to invest in Iran?
Uh, wasn't Jesus a Jew? Are the people on this web-site the only sane ones left on the planet?
I never thought I'd see in my lifetime the rise of the Nazis again, plus the return of the hippies, and all in one decade. Surely there's a connection.
I have an Uncle..that claims Christianity, that has no problem denigrating Jews, and Jewish customs.
One day..at a family reunion...I'd about had enough of it. After a particular pointed anti-Jew comment....I asked him he at all realized that the Savior that he himself claims was....JEWISH?
You know...I'm really not sure he really had ever made the connection...I felt bad after I said it...cause he was a bit quiet the rest of the evening. Oh well...not the first time my tongue has caused a ruckus.
FWIW-
Maybe not in totality, but it sure is the best refuge of sanity I've ever found. Not to mention the Breaking News and Live Threads...:-)
And a ping for those on Alouette's list, she's away from her computor.
I'm surprised to see that presybeterians are anti-israel... i figured they'd be more like the rest of american christians.
This section of this column stood out.
And in a document ironically signed the same week as the Presbyterian General Assembly, the Catholic Church equated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.I'd love to know exactly how "nuanced" the Church has to be.A more nuanced standard, and one that properly recognizes that legitimate criticism of Israel is perfectly appropriate, was articulated last year by Natan Sharansky.
Interesting link... thanks.
God's promise to Abraham still stands and I believe the Presbyterian church will come to regret this resolution.
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Don't see how; hippies are way too lazy to be nazis and nazis are way too anal to be hippies.....there must be some third way....
Presbyterian Church defames Christianity
By Dennis Prager
http://www.jewishworldreview.com | I have argued in this column that the greatest sin is committing evil in G-d's name. As bad as the evil committed by secularists, such as communists and Nazis, has ever been, the most grievous evil is that which is committed in the name of G-d. For not only do religious evils harm their victims, they also do lasting damage to G-d-based morality, which those of us who believe in G-d and religion consider the only viable antidote to evil.
That is why Islamic terror is so evil. Not only because it targets the most innocent of people for death and torture, but because it does so in the name of Allah and Islam.
Incredibly, The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) joins the list of religious groups committing evil. In the name of Jesus, it has called for the economic strangulation of Israel. They have equated the Jewish state with South Africa during apartheid and called for a universal divestment from it.
The Presbyterians are the first Christian church to do this, and, ironically, the divestment campaign came the very week that the Roman Catholic Church signed a document equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
It takes a particularly virulent strain of moral idiocy and meanness to single out Israel, not Arafat's Palestinian Authority, or terror-supporting, death-fatwa-issuing Iran, or women-subjugating Saudi Arabia, for condemnation and economic ruin. One of the most decent societies, one of the most liberal democracies in the world, is fighting for its life against Islamic fascists who praise the Holocaust and publicly call for the annihilation of Israel — and the Presbyterian Church calls for strangling Israel!
Apartheid state? This Goebbels-like Big Lie, concocted by the world's anti-Israel and anti-American Left and by those who want Israel destroyed, is now an official doctrine of the Presbyterian Church. Israel is a nation whose population is one-quarter non-Jewish Arab, with the same rights, including voting and its own political parties, as Jewish citizens; a nation whose second official language is Arabic, the language of those who wish to annihilate the Jewish country; a nation that occupies a tiny sliver of land known as the West Bank only because Jordan, overwhelmingly composed of Palestinians, invaded Israel in 1967 in order to destroy it and thereby lost its ownership of the West Bank.
As an American who fights to preserve Judeo-Christian values as America's primary value system and preserve Christianity as the specific American faith that embodies those values, I can only say this: the G-d that the 431 leaders of the Presbyterian Church worship is not my G-d, any more than the Allah of the Islamic fascists that Israel and America fight is my G-d.
The Bible that these Presbyterians read is not my Bible.
The religious values that these Presbyterians hold are not my religious values.
This is not a difference about immigration policy, affirmative action, taxation, bigger or smaller government, welfare policies, gun control, or a myriad of other moral issues over which decent, G-d-fearing people can disagree.
This is one of the morality-clarifying issues of our time. To single out Israel for economic strangulation while that good nation fights for its life is an act of such immorality that holding that view precludes one from the title "good" or "G-d-fearing," for if they are true to G-d, I am false to Him. If they are good, I who support Israel am bad. If their Bible teaches them to strangle Israel and support Yasser Arafat, I am guided by a different Bible.
They have drawn a line. It is now time for good people, Presbyterians specifically, Christians generally, to distance themselves vigorously and publicly from this morally sick church. And it is time, once again, for Jews to realize that the enemies of the Jews in our day are to be found on the Christian Left while their friends are far more often on the Christian Right.
Many serious Christians ask, "What Would Jesus Do?" If Jesus were here, he would probably be at Israeli hospitals comforting fellow Jews who were deliberately blinded, paralyzed and brain-damaged by Jew- and Christian-hating Palestinian terrorists. He would surely not be with the Jews' enemies, among whom are now the leaders of the Presbyterian Church, USA.
Well, let us hope that they find and make use of better investment opportunities. It is their money and who is there to give them unsolicited and unpaid investment advice? Besides, they probably have a group of pro money managers running their portfolio - let these pros show their worth and keep earning their fees.
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