Posted on 06/23/2006 3:26:16 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
The movement to divest in firms doing business in Israel is collapsing. Even leftist-governed mainline Protestant denominations are backing away from the idea. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly abandoned its support for anti-Israel divestment this week.
Discredited ideas survive the longest in academia and in liberal church bureaucracies, both of which are ideologically insulated from reality. Anti-Israel activists lost steam on left-wing university campuses several years ago, when charges of anti-Semitism persuaded otherwise politically correct faculty to relent. That left only the declining mainline Protestant denominations as a last recourse.
Influenced by vestiges of liberation theology, the religious left portrays Israel as the Western colonial power and the Palestinians as the Third World oppressed victims. Consequently, the elites of mainline churches focus intensely on human rights abuses by Israeli authorities while mostly ignoring the crimes of Palestinian groups, not to mention the systematic human rights abuses of regimes throughout the Middle East.
It was therefore no surprise when the 3 million member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted in 2004 to divest its assets in firms doing business with Israel. But the action ignited a furor among Jewish groups, many of them politically liberal, and which had not traditionally seen the left-leaning mainline Protestants as adversaries.
With some justification, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) blamed the Jerusalem-based Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center as the main originator of the churches' anti-Israel divestment campaigns.
"The Sabeel Center has long played a behind-the-scenes role in encouraging churches to adopt divestment as a tool to pressure Israel," explained the ADL's Abraham H. Foxman. "Leaders of the mainline Protestant denominations have routinely welcomed Sabeel leaders as guests at conventions and national meetings, and the influence of Sabeel in advocating for divestment is indisputable, however out of sync their rhetoric is with the people in the pews.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
So what's this mean? Lefties are always looking for someone to hate, to blame or otherwise show contempt for. The time must not be right because someday all (or almost all) nations will align against Israel and then the Lord will return.
I wonder why they backed off so 'quickly'? Did they loose too many members/tithes in the last few years?
Any Bible-steeped Christian supports Israel. God gave that land to the Jews, and I think he knew what he was doing, for I've never known Him to be wrong yet.
I think it was popular among clergy insiders. Once this thing got publicity, the laity forced the clergy to back off.
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