Posted on 07/26/2007 6:41:46 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
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.
On the basis that I trust those whose ancestors have been interpreting writings about 1700 years longer that you and yours.
It would seem so to one who is lost.
Another interpretation.
By the way I do appreciate your attempts to keep the conversation civil this time.
Ah, so there's nothing in the text that would tell you this - you just accept what someone else said about the writings. Got it.
Another interpretation.
No, just a fact.
By the way I do appreciate your attempts to keep the conversation civil this time.
Only because you've managed to remain civil this time. I suspect the moderator you whine to gave you a few words of advice.
There's plenty in text that tells me alot of things. But don't pretend there are no interpretations of text you accept from your tradition.
No, just a fact.
One man's "fact" is anothers falsehood.
Only because you've managed to remain civil this time. I suspect the moderator you whine to gave you a few words of advice.
You know what? I really tried this time. Had nothing to do with admonition or lack thereof from a moderator. Allbeit how quickly its forgotten you were admonished as well. Obviously you're just a hater. See ya.
There's nothing in the text to support your claim.
But don't pretend there are no interpretations of text you accept from your tradition.
I never said that, but I always check what is being taught against scripture (and not just the one verse, but the whole of it).
One man's "fact" is anothers falsehood.
LOL We shall see.
You know what? I really tried this time.
I already said you had been more civil this time.
Had nothing to do with admonition or lack thereof from a moderator.
LOL If you say so.
Allbeit how quickly its forgotten you were admonished as well.
Yes, after you attacked me, then whined to the moderator when I responded in kind.
Obviously you're just a hater.
Nah, I just call it as I see it.
give it up hater
Discuss the issues all you want, but do NOT make it personal.
I'll give him or her the opportunity to respond once more on this thread but after that could I request that this person not respond to my posts anymore? This is the 2nd thread that this person has followed me to and stalked me. thanx.
Glad to see that you admit there is nothing in the text that would support your claim.
LOL
If you want another poster to leave you alone, ask him/her not to ping you or to post about you. And ping me, so I’ll know of the request.
Don’t ping or post to me. Thanx.
I would ask the same of you.
Just a question - who do you consider to be the True God?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.