Posted on 07/01/2005 8:05:54 PM PDT by quidnunc
It’s the church’s AUT moment. The endorsement by the Anglican Consultative Council of divestment from companies supporting Israeli policies echoes the boycott debate among university lecturers and plunges Jewish-Christian relations into a crisis.
Although the ACC softened its final position by weaselly caveats designed to produce deniability, the fact remains that the Anglican communion has now lined up behind those who are waging war against the Jews.
The Anglican Peace and Justice Network report on which the decision was based is a farrago of inflammatory lies, libels and distortions. It presents the Arab perpetrators of mass murder as victims and their real victims in Israel as oppressors merely for trying to defend themselves. Despite disingenuous pieties about opposing terror against Israelis, the document demonises Israel and supports policies that would lead to its destruction.
It claims that Israel ‘systematically and deliberately oppressed and dehumanised the people of Palestine’ and deplores ‘the continuing policies of illegal home demolitions, detentions, checkpoints, identity card systems and the presence of the Israeli military that make any kind of normal life impossible.’ But the only reason normal life is impossible is that the Arabs in the territories are intent on ending as many Israeli lives as possible.
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The report praises, for example, the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, Riah Abu El-Assal and Canon Naim Ateek. Both these figures are key exponents of replacement theology, the doctrine that underpinned centuries of Christian anti-Jewish hatred by claiming that the Jews have forfeited all God’s promises to them because they denied the divinity of Christ. Bishop Riah, for example, has claimed of Palestinian Christians: ‘We are the true Israel … no-one can deny me the right to inherit the promises, and after all the promises were first given to Abraham and Abraham is never spoken of in the Bible as a Jew … He is the father of the faithful.’ While Ateek, who is lionised by Anglicans, uses the imagery of the deicide to vilify Israel as the crucifiers of the Palestinians who play the part of Christ.
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The Presbyterian Church (USA) is experiencing this same debate. The matter will come to a vote next year at the next General Assembly.
"the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, Riah Abu El-Assal and Canon Naim Ateek"
What does one expect here? Look at some of the key characters.
Divestment from companies supporting Israeli policies are the same companies that are supporting Anglican church. They are biting the hand who feed them (ECUSA). Anglican church is disingenuous and anti-semitic.
How can someone be accused of dehumanizing the Palestinians? Are they human, or are they not?
What is wrong with this statement? Jesus came to establish a New Covenent, whereby God's promises to Abraham were extended to non-Jews, to all who believed in Jesus. It takes gall for this writer to tell Christians they can't believe the ancient tenets of their faith.
No He didn't. Is that what the bishop is saying? I'd like to see his statements in context.
The debate is between true Christians and the demagogues of Leftist cant, who want to pervert every institution they touch into a channel for socialist political agitation.
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