Praying Against Zion

The National Council of Churches (NCC) is distressed that not all Christians share its animosity towards Israel.

Preferring not to address its own demographic implosion, the NCC periodically lashes out at more demographically robust Christian movements, especially conservative evangelicals. In its latest fusillade, the NCC denounced the “Christian Zionism” of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which recently convened its second convention in Washington for pro-Israel evangelicals. Newt Gringrich was among the speakers.

“CUFI's position of uncritical support for Israel separates it from the Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, and traditional Protestant Churches, all of whom support Israel while at the same time advocate for a Palestinian state,” insisted the NCC’s news release, which mostly quoted Associated General Secretary for International Affairs and Peace Antonios Kireopoulos.

The NCC official asserted that “most Christians” do not share CFI’s stated goals. CFI’s objective, as its website describes, is to increase support for Israel among evangelicals by emphasizing the “the Jewish contribution to Christianity and Israel’s biblical mandate to the land through Bible teachings.”

CFI warns that “with every passing day, the threats to Israel and the Jewish people are growing,” specifically referencing Iran’s nuclear plans and Hamas’ popularity among Palestinians. “Millions of Christians across America have a deep love for Israel and the Jewish people and want to stand with them during these difficult days,” notes the CUFI website, which cites the “threats to Judeo-Christian civilization from radical Islam.”

Speaking unpleasantly about radical jihadists, of course, is unacceptable to the NCC and the Religious Left. "CUFI's ongoing vilification of Islam is also unacceptable," fretted Shanta Premawardhana, an NCC interfaith relations official. "The NCC continues to urge Christians to build relationships with Muslim people, the vast majority of whom are peace-loving, law-abiding people." What the NCC never considers is that refusal to address radical Islamists is no favor to moderate Muslims who are “peace-loving.”

According to the NCC, the CFI has “advocated going to war with Iran,” which is “totally unacceptable,” Premawardhana claimed. "The NCC believes that high-level dialogues with Iran and other Middle Eastern partners is the proper method of dealing with Iran." The NCC believes in high toned denunciations for Christians who disagree with its political agenda. But radical Islamists and other often very savage adversaries of Western Civilization always merit endless respectful dialogue, according to the NCC mindset.

The NCC, like the rest of the Religious Left, prefers to dismiss all pro-Israel evangelicals as “Left-Behind” fanatics whose support for the Jews is merely a crass and self-serving preparation for the end-times. CFI’s “efforts are the latest in a century old apocalyptic movement that began in earnest in the 19th century,” the NCC asserted. “Sometimes called Christian Zionism because of its uncritical support for the State of Israel, it is based on a literal reading of Biblical apocalyptic texts.”

Actually, Zionism and philo-semitism have a long history in Christianity, arguably dating back to the New Testament, whose writers were themselves Jews who followed a Jewish messiah, obviously. But more specifically among Western Protestants, a mystical attachment to the Jewish people and a belief in their connectedness to the land of Israel originated at least with the English Puritans. Zionism of some sort has nearly always resonated among some religionists in America over the last 400 years.

The NCC's founders and early leaders were themselves ardent supporters of Israel. It was not until after the radicalization of the 1960's, and the advent of Liberation Theology, that leftist Protestant prelates suddenly realized that Palestinian insurrectionists were actually God's revolutionary vanguard against Zionist imperialism. Today, the NCC and its allies insist that they support Israel, within its pre-1967 borders. Naturally, these clerics prefer not to acknowledge that those borders are largely indefensible, and that an unrestricted "right of return" for Palestinian descendants would likely erase the Jewish state demographically.

According to Kireopoulos, the CUFI "message differs greatly with what theologians have taught for centuries" about Israel. Apparently, the NCC believes itself a mouthpiece for orthodox theology, instead of the shrinking pulpit for heterodox liberal Protestantism that it actually is. That the restoration of the Jews to Israel may serve some Providential purpose is hardly a belief confined to freakish evangelicals, as the Religous Left, sitting inside its insulated and largely empty churches, prefers to imagine.

"The NCC advocates for a two-state solution, with a secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state," declared the NCC news release, sounding so very reasonable. "The NCC has stated the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories is unsupportable. This position is shared by Churches worldwide, and is counter to the position espoused by CUFI."

According to Kireopoulos, "CUFI stands apart from the historic Churches still present in the Holy Land." These churches for Palestinian Christians are "adversely affected by the policies supported by...CUFI." The NCC prelate blamed pro-Israel evangelicals in the U.S. for the plight of Palestinian churches, which are "diminishing and are threatened with extinction."

Of course, the NCC will never mention that Christian populations from throughout the Middle-East are declining, thanks largely to pressures from radical Islam. For the Religious Left, the Islamists themselves are never at fault but are merely the understandable consequence of endless Western oppressions dating to the Crusades. Almost hilariously, Kireopoulos frets about the de-emphasis on Jesus Christ by CUFI's pro-Israel evangelicals.

"The Christian Gospel is clear that salvation came through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ," Kireopoulos intoned. "To supplement this message is to prevert the Gospel" that CUFI claims to preach. Naturally, the NCC and the Religious Left prefer not to mention inconvenient topics such as the resurrection of Christ in their various outreaches to Muslims. In fact, the Resurrection, which for leftist Protestants is typically just a poetic metaphor for social justice, is not a topic on which the NCC typically focuses.

Just as the NCC is almost never interested in persecuted Christians anywhere, except when the supposed perpetrators are Israel and its American evangelical supporters, so too the NCC will not usually cite the Resurrection, except as a polemic against both Israel's Jews and their Christians friends.

According to Kireopoulos, the CUFI "message differs greatly with what theologians have taught for centuries" about Israel.

According to Kireopoulos, "CUFI stands apart from the historic Churches still present in the Holy Land."

Don't you just love when a group of red ecumenists like the NCC defend the historic two thousand year old teachings of chr*stianity on all subjects??? [/sarcasm] So does this mean the NCC is going to start telling Jews to convert or fry in Hell?

Sheesh. Now even these Commies are lecturing Biblical Fundamentalists about how "alienated from historic chr*stianity" they are. Everyone scolds Biblical Fundamentalists for being "alienated from historical chr*stianity," but no one seems to advocate the same "dialogue" and "understanding" towards them that they do towards savages!

How long will Judaeophilic Biblical Fundamentalists delude themselves? Two thousand years of chr*stianity are against them and all the other churches (including the ones that go all the way back to the beginning) hate their guts. When will Biblical Fundamentalists tell chr*stianity to shove it and instead accept the Noachide Laws?

I love pro-Israel Fundamentalist chr*stians dearly, but I can't understand their loyalty to a religion that so clearly hates and despises them.

Zionist Conspirator is talking about the Fundamentalists as having the irrational loyalty, not the NCC.

I may have misunderstood. I though ZC was saying that Christian Fundamentalists should abandon Christianity because they are opposed by groups such as NCC, who claim to represent Christians.

Perhaps ZC will clarify this.

I may have misunderstood. I though ZC was saying that Christian Fundamentalists should abandon Christianity because they are opposed by groups such as NCC, who claim to represent Christians.

Perhaps ZC will clarify this.

Unfortunately, it's not just the NCC. Catholics, Orthodox, mainline Protestant, and just about everyone else jumps down Fundamentalists' throats for being "alienated from chr*stianity." And it isn't just liberal chr*stianity that rejects the restoration of the Jews.

Basically, I'm saying Fundamentalists should abandon chr*stianity not just because of the NCC but because that religion in all its traditional, hostorical forms is ultimately so alien to the Biblicism they practice.

Judaeophilic Biblical chr*stian Fundamentalism is a Judaeo-chr*stian syncretism with no roots in the chr*stian past. G-d is guiding such Fundamentalists to the purity of Torah and Noachide observance.

It's time Fundamentalists deprived the chr*stian world of its scapegoat.

The NCC is just a self-important bag of bored lefties. Ignore them. My employer is, technically, a member of the NCC (can’t disclose until I give my notice, which should be soon). Nothing resembling an “evangelical” Chr*stian denomination wants anything to do with them.

They’re just like the USA - centers of power in PC, urban churches, ignored by the heart and soul of Protestants. I can’t speak for the RCC.

We ain’t running from those who only profess to be Christians. We got it right, they don’t. They don’t have a biblical leg to stand on. Pastor John Hagee started the CUFI and his 2nd meeting in DC was larger than the year before. He collects money to send to Migdal Orh and has set up a fund for the Jews who want to return to Israel but cannot afford it. I contribute to both and have no concern for those that don’t stand behind and support Israel because God has it under control - “I will bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you.”

[When will Biblical Fundamentalists tell chr*stianity to shove it and instead accept the Noachide Laws?]

Incredible. A statement like this made on a site with a good number of Christians and it goes unchallenged? I’d tell you where you can shove your Noachide Laws Zionist Conspirator but there are rules against vulgarity on the religion forum. It may come as a shock to you but Christians worship Jesus Christ, not the Talmud, the Tanakh, or Israel. There is a time coming where many so-called Christians (a good majority in this country) are going to have to choose between Jesus and the Gospels or Israel and Talmudism. You can’t worship God and Beelzebub.

[When will Biblical Fundamentalists tell chr*stianity to shove it and instead accept the Noachide Laws?]

Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case! This is what traditional chr*stians think of Biblical Fundamentalists! (Moreover this poster has Marcionite leanings, which means he questions whether the G-d of Israel and the "gxd" of chr*stianity are even the same. As a matter of fact, he just implied here that the Jewish G-d is actually Satan, which is about as classically anti-Semitic as one can get!)

I hope and pray that all good Biblical Fundamentalists will make the right choice when the time comes when they have to choose between G-d and J*sus.

It's time Fundamentalists deprived the chr*stian world of its scapegoat.

An interesting point of view, to say the least.

Perhaps the Fundamentalists you mention refuse to abandon Christianity because they feel much the same way I do. That is, they have a commitment to Jesus Christ that does not depend on what others may say about them.

I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a. the "Mormon" Church). We have had our differences with traditional and orthodox Christians; even here on Free Republic, many insist that we are not really Christians. Nevertheless, we consider ourselves Christians because we have a commitment to Jesus Christ. That is not going to change merely because other Christians may disapprove of us.

I'm sure you're right, Logophile. All I can say is chr*stianity doesn't deserve such devotion. Believe me, as one who comes from a Fundamentalist background who investigated the ancient churches with respect I was absolutely astounded by the degree of contempt they had for my tradition, despite the fact that in the United States it is the Fundamentalists who do all the work. Do you see Copts or Maronites or Armenians or even Eastern Orthodox standing up for chr*stianity in this country? The only thing they feel safe condemning is Biblical Fundamentalism.

I hadn't really thought about the similarity in the predicaments of Fundamentalists and mormons because of the vast differences in theology. Not to go into a big argument, but the LDS Church is so very theologically unique in so many ways, whereas Fundamentalist Protestants are literally hated by the ancient and mainstream churches for merely accepting the facticity of the bible which it inherited from those churches in the first place! Absolutely incredible!

The gutless ancient and mainstream churches, who can't bring themselves to condemn anything except Biblical Fundamentalism, should be ashamed of themselves, but this requires a certain level of decency, so it will never happen.

despite the fact that in the United States it is the Fundamentalists who do all the work.

All the work? Which work?

Do you see Copts or Maronites or Armenians or even Eastern Orthodox standing up for chr*stianity in this country?

What do you mean by "Standing up for Christianity"?

My own take on the Noahchide Laws: As with everything else of the Old Covenant, it has been fulfilled by the New Covenant that is for both Jew and Gentile. The Law is not without worth, as it provides us a rule for life, but we cannot receive Righteousness except by Grace.

[Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case! This is what traditional chr*stians think of Biblical Fundamentalists!]

Sad no? The fact that I think the True God can do better morally and spiritually than how he’s portrayed in the Tanakh and Talmud? But you are correct in one thing though Zionist Conspirator, the time to choose between Beelzbub and his Chronicles (the Talmud, Zohar, and parts of the Tanakh) and the True God and his Gospel is coming. All these so called Christians who are ashamed of Christ will indeed apostate it’s nothing new and has been foretold (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Then they and your Master (who’s hatred of Chirst and his Name is legendary) will get everything that’s coming to them, not by the hands of man but by God’s.

[it looks like John Philoponus and possibly others are ready to return to the ancient Xtian tradition of confiscating and burning Talmud volumes.]

Quite the opposite, really. I want the Talmud and other “sacred” Jewish writ translated into as many languages as possible and for it to be as widely distributed as possible. This way when Bible believing Christians use them to point to the gaping differences between Jewish writ and the Gospels, they can’t be accused of antisemitism. I’m not ashamed of Christ or His message. I don’t need an army of apologists or sophists to understand His message.

I’m aware of the fact that there are bogus versions of the Talmud online, see for example Michael L. Rodkinson gutted version available on sacred-texts.com :
http://sacred-texts.com/jud/talmud.htm

Then you have someone who placed nearly the ENTIRE text of the Soncino Talmud online found here :
http://www.come-and-hear.com/talmud/index.html

Just to check for myself, I downloaded a copy of the Soncino Talmud from a p2p site and it matched word for word the Talmud provided by the Come and Hear site. It was by Davka found here :
http://www.davka.com/cgi-bin/product.cgi?product=32

There is no excuse as Christians can see for themselves what they are up against (St. Paul himself said this is a spiritual battle between Christians and the forces of the Enemy).

If you should doubt the Satanic nature of the Talmud, then you shouldn’t take my word for it. There are Humanist Jews who have spoken out against the Talmud’s vile nature :
http://www.daatemet.org.il/index.cfm

That website is available in Hebrew, Russian, and English, so the accusations of mistranslation don’t hold water. I especially like the expose of the Talmud’s contempt for Non-Jews found here :
http://www.daatemet.org.il/articles/article.cfm?article_id=119

They provide meticulous references and you can look them up yourself using the links I provided. They are also willing to debate, if you so choose.

Note : you can use http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/index.jsp to double check anything quoted by the Come and Hear site and Daat Emet. I wish Christians would use these references.

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