Posted on 08/25/2006 9:30:48 AM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
Examining which issues raise its organizational blood-pressure, it is easy to see that the ADL chiefly represents two categories of Jews.
One: Jews for whom the doctrines of secular fundamentalism and of the Democratic Party have replaced the authentic principles of Judaism.
Two: Jews who consider Christian conservatives to be a far greater peril than Islamic extremism.
It now turns out that the ADL represents yet a third category of Jews: those passionately dedicated to defending Darwin. Once again, like a friendly and frolicsome puppy with a large, bushy tail that constantly knocks down expensive vases, the ADL, though filled with good intent, is utterly, completely clueless. Not only is it misrepresenting Judaism, but it may well be cracking the priceless vase of Jewish survival.
The ADL has just launched an intemperate and hysterical attack against Coral Ridge Ministries in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This weekend, the ministry is releasing a television documentary entitled Darwin’s Deadly Legacy. It features prominent intellectuals like University of California law professor Phillip Johnson, and scientists with unimpeachable academic credentials like professors Michael Behe and Jonathan Wells.
This dazzling production shows how ideas always have consequences, often unintended, and how Darwinism has impacted American culture. It discusses how the philosophy of evolution can dehumanize people and how Adolf Hitler, on his own admission, was influenced by Darwinian thought.
This is how the ADL blasted the documentary (reportedly, before seeing it): “This is an outrageous and shoddy attempt by D. James Kennedy to trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust.” ADL National Director Abe Foxman warns that, “It must be remembered that D. James Kennedy is a leader among the distinct group of Christian Supremacists who seek to reclaim America for Christ and turn the U.S. into a Christian nation guided by their strange notions of biblical law.”
Serious people are asking these three questions:
Why is a movie that shows how Darwinian thought helped shape Hitler’s murderous mind, dangerous to Jews?
Why is it necessary to insult so harshly one of America’s most prominent Christian leaders? Or to put it more bluntly, how exactly does it help Jews when the ADL humiliates an Evangelical leader whom as many as forty million Americans revere? Especially since Christian conservatives are virtually alone in acting benevolently towards Jews and standing with Jews in support of Israel.
Finally, had some Protestant pastor said in 2000, “Vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman is a leader among a distinct group of Jewish supremacists who seek to eradicate Christianity from America and turn the U.S. into a secular society based upon their strange notions of Jewish socialism,” would Mr. Foxman not have decried it as anti-Semitic? Intellectual honesty, if not a sense of decency, surely compels us to acknowledge that if anti-Semitism is an evil, so is anti-Christianism—bigotry is, after all, bigotry.
I believe it appropriate for thoughtful Jews to support the Coral Ridge documentary and perhaps even for it to be shown in Jewish schools because there really are only two ways to account for human presence on our planet. One is that God created us in His image. The other is that by a lengthy and random process of totally unaided materialistic evolution, primitive protoplasm evolved into Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven. This approach, ruling out any role for God, is simply incompatible with Jewish values.
Why a Jewish organization uses communal resources to defend Darwin is inexplicable. That Hitler embraced Darwinian views does not mean that Jews must support them any more than it means that Jews should support smoking because the Nazi’s set up stringent anti-smoking laws.
Jews should surely support all efforts to diminish the philosophical role of materialistic evolution on our culture. That doctrine violates the principles of Judaism and it threatens to coarsen the culture creating potential peril, just as it did in Germany seventy years ago. For his efforts we Jews owe gratitude to Dr. D. James Kennedy not pejorative name-calling.
On behalf of all those American Jews who feel misrepresented by the ADL, I apologize to Dr. D. James Kennedy for Foxman’s ad hominem attack. Dr. Kennedy has always been friendly and supportive towards Jews and has courageously defended the Biblical values shared by both Judaism and Christianity.
We harbor no bizarre fantasies about sinister machinations to use government power to turn America into a “Christian nation” because we know that Dr. Kennedy respects our American constitution as much as we do. Both Dr. Kennedy and I are on record vigorously opposing hate-crime legislation because we fear giving government the power to tell people what to think or indeed to decide what they are thinking.
Some American Jews may believe that Christian conservatives pose the biggest threat to Judaism. Therefore, they believe, Jews should insult and attack Christians and suppress dissent by constantly evoking the Holocaust while darkly implying anti-Semitism. God help Jews if America ever becomes a post-Christian society. Just think of Europe.
The rest of us Jews believe that today’s Islamic extremism is the real problem and that we must ally with religious Christians to defeat this mortal threat. We feel that the correct way to interact with all our fellow-Americans is by generating genuine friendship, respect, and yes, even affection. I call this the politics of Kidush HaShem—encouraging Jews to interact with our non-Jewish fellow citizens in ways that bring credit to the God of Abraham.
Just which group of Jews does the ADL look out for? I think I know.
I've always thought Dr. Kennedy represents the very best among the evangelical movement. ADL is just another group of liberal windbags.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
Great article, but this is a double.
My apologies. I did a search before posting, but that doesn't always guarantee that an article hasn't already been posted.
Actually, I disagree. His arguments are often relativistic ("Americans should be chr*stians because America was founded by chr*stians," as if that had anything to do with the truth or falsity of chr*stianity itself, or of any other religion) and utilitarian ("chr*stianity makes society function better"). But then he is a classical Reformation Protestant, and they are not very common in our religious media, which are dominated by ethno-cultural revivalism rather than classical Protestantism. I can't help but wonder, though, why a Calvinist tries to convert people.
ADL is just another group of liberal windbags.
We agree completely on that one!
... very well put.
But to give the devil his due, Foxman deserves some credit for criticizing (former black Congressman and former UN delegate) Andrew Young's recent rantings about "Jewish storekeepers" selling blacks inferior goods in black neighborhoods.
True, Young's comments did deserve censure. However, I am not happy with Foxman's performance as head of the ADL. It's become a leftist mouthpiece, and forgotten about real issues affecting Jews today. Our community is not without a few very real and growing problems, and the ADL should be seeking solutions, rather than looking for anti-semitic boogeyman on the right and leading witchhunts against them.
BTW, does the ADL purport to speak for Canadian Jews as well?
they represent assimilated treife eating liberal kapos
The ADL has always been on the "Left," though "Left" has meant different things at different times. Back in the Sixties they often published materials against "the Right," but to be fair, it must be admitted that at the time "the Right" often was anti-Semitic, including anti-Israel. I can attest to the fact that, despite the fact that Fundamentalist Protestantism long being pro-Israel and Zionist (even back then), the conservative movement at the time was very different. Despite the fact that the Communist world was uniformly anti-Israel, the conservative movement at the time often shared that view. As with the pro-smoking position today, the anti-Israel position was simply "the conservative position" on the Middle East. This wasn't limited to "extremists" either, but was mainstream conservatism as represented by mainstream figures and publications, many of which have changed sides today. I know personally of at least one very prominent conservative who started out very anti-Israel (he and I even had an argument through the mail about it) who wound up completely changing his position. As one who remembers when the mainstream conservative position on the Middle East conflict sounded very much like the Communist position (and Israel was merely another "liberal Jewish" cause) I can personally testify to my own extreme satisfaction at how things have turned out. I grew up conservative and pro-Israel, and had no idea that those two ideas were supposed to be at odds with each other. When I discovered the anti-Zionism of the right I regarded it as a betrayal, since the people the right claimed to represent, at least in my neck of the woods, was pro-Israel.
All that being said, there is no denying the historical Leftism of the ADL, and maybe of B'nai B'rith as a whole. But I do remember that one of the men who preceded Foxman as ADL head was a gentleman who engaged in none of ad hominen attacks and bizarre crusading for homosexuality that Foxman does. But then, liberalism as a whole has moved Leftward since that time and perhaps he would do so today.
My suggestion for the dilemma (which is going to get me in hot water) is that the whole concept of a secular "Jewish leadership" is wrong. The Jewish People are a Theocratic nation in exile, not a religious denomination, and for most of their history they possessed sovereignty, even in the Exile. I believe this sovereignty, under the Orthodox Rabbinate and Battei-Din, should be restored. And before anyone calls that suggestion "un-American," I point out that even libertarians regard American Indian tribes as sovereign nations who can do pretty much whatever they want to (even if it involves violating libertarian principals). I don't hear anyone calling Indian sovereignty "un-American."
I think they do purport to speak for us, but I am not sure; even if that is the case, though, their focus is predominantly American. Generally, we have our own organizations.
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