Posted on 06/25/2005 11:51:25 PM PDT by HeebrewHammer
Dear Friends of Israel,
YOUR LETTER IS NEEDED NOW.
Please take a few minutes and write a letter to the leadership of the United Church of Christ because they are preparing to have a conference in Atlanta Georgia NEXT WEEK (July 3, 2005) and decide on whether or not to divest from companies who do business in Israel.
FORWARD this information to your friends
Read the letter below and write your own TODAY..... please. Don't leave this task to someone else...
SEND YOUR LETTER TO:
thomasj@ucc.org guffeye@ucc.org jacksonb@ucc.org malayanj@ucc.org copel@ucc.org info@standwithus.com
Dear Spiritual Leaders of the United Church of Christ,
As Jews who have known discrimination, boycotts and isolation by Christian churches, we ask you to lead the United Church of Christ in rejecting the upcoming General Synod Resolutions 3, 15, and 16.
These resolutions seek to isolate Israel and deprive it of reasonable security measures through proposed church actions including divestment of church funds from companies doing business with Israel.
Why would the United Church of Christ embrace resolutions that penalize one side - Israel - without leveling equally strong criticism against the Palestinian Authority, which for example, has not dismantled Palestinian terrorist groups?
Should you not, as leaders of a human rights focused church, focus your criticism on Christian-hostile governments such as Saudi Arabia which denies women basic human rights and bans public expression by non-Muslims?
Anti-Semitism is found throughout the Arab world's media and education systems. If the General Synod passed these resolutions, they only will serve to legitimize and even make attractive the foul stench of fanaticism such as Palestinian clerics calling for genocide of Israelis - Jews and non-Jews. May we suggest that the General Synod view Palestinian Authority Television footage of Palestinian children being trained to become suicide bombers. As you know, Israel is the Middle East's safest place for persecuted sexual minorities. As leaders of a welcoming Christian denomination, surely this must be important to you. Many Palestinians who have suffered persecution and/or threat of hate crimes for their own life style differences, have found refuge in Israel. One would hope that the UCC would be consistent with its own liberal values, and support the one country in the Middle East that upholds the freedom to be different, and serves as a beacon of tolerance for all minorities in the Middle East.
Christian faith is tied to Hebrew Scriptures. Yet through these General Synod resolutions, a small group of anti-Israel activists attempts now to demonize Israel on behalf of the entire UCC denomination. Please keep in mind too that for 57 years Israel has been a safe haven for Arab Christians.
We ask you to lead the General Synod in a strong rejection of the aforementioned and unjust resolutions.
Sincerely,
Esther Renzer, National President,
Roz Rothstein, National Director StandWithUs
No, serious, what I heard was that conservative members of the UCC want to officially establish the divinity of Christ as a foundational belief for The United Church of Christ. The really bad part is, it's not expected to go through either.
That's sad. How are they Christian then if they don't already accept that?
Because if they don't accept Christ's divinity and still consider themselves Christian, then by that standard, I'm Christian. (I'm Jewish, but I take into account many of Jesus' teachings. I just don't consider him to be of divine heritage)
I hope UCC Christians who are still proper Christians school this synod on both these issues.
When I read this article, I though "Another band of CINOs jumping on the Jewhating bandwagon." After reading your post, I see I was right to call them CINOs.
Well, to be clear, Jesus wasn't "of divine heritage," he is the divine heritage. He's the Word of God, He is the Divinity.
Although I respect your beliefs otherwise, just saying...
You're right about the overall point you raise, however.
The truth is that the UCC is not Christian. They are yet another example of a church that has been gutted by liberal theology, which is simply a nice way of describing unbelief or apostasy. It's a free country, so they can call themselves whatever they like. I could call myself a feminist - and it would be every bit as true.
It is completely in character for the UCC to condemn Israel - the only nation in the middle east with anything approaching real religious freedom - while taking up the cause of a manufactured ethnic group (Palestinians) who were unknown before 1964. (In the 1920s, the term 'Palestinian' was reserved for indiginous Jews or to those who had moved to the area from Europe, the local Arab population was typically referred to as 'Arabs,' the Druze as 'Druze', etc. Liberal (in the classic sense) concepts such as religious freedom can only exist within a non-liberal framework. Thus, the only way that religious freedom can continue to actually exist in Israel is for the nation to retain its status as a majority-Jewish nation. This is due to a basic doctrine of Judaism itself, passed on to Christianity, which views all people as having been created in God's own image - even the infidel - and thus deserving of of respect as a fellow human being. In contrast, Islam permits the existence of non-believers only as dhimmis - a class of semi-humans with no rights - who can be enslaved or slaughtered at will like livestock.
The so-called "mainline" Protestant churches in the US have been hijacked by leftists and are busily persuing a leftist agenda, which includes a denial of Israel's fundamental right to nationhood. To leftists such as these, Israel is simply a colony of the USA created from our Imperialistic ambitions to oppress the Islamic world. Of course, since these allegedly "Christian" churches deny that scripture was divinely inspired, and likewise deny the validity of two millenia of Christian apostolic teaching, it is inevitable that the claim of Jews to the land of Israel would thus be denied as well.
Traditional Christians understand that God is the one who created nations, and created Israel for a special purpose. Israel's existence is non-negotiable as far as we are concerned. The greatestt threat to Israel is the same as that to all of the traditional nations of Christendom - the self-hating leftists who wish to destroy our nations from within through doctrines like multiculturalism. Imagine what would happen to Israel if the borders were opened to the Arab masses - Israelis wou;d end up as Dhimmis in an Islamic despotate.
The UCC church my mother goes to had a Unitarian as associate pastor. This person eventually left to do some sort of social activism.
Traditional Christians understand that God is the one who created nations, and created Israel for a special purpose. Israel's existence is non-negotiable as far as we are concerned.
Well it is true that this is the position many Christian churches take such as Baptists etc. But to say 'traditional' Christians take this position is misleading.
I find it ironic that Evangelical Christians, the group most scorned by American Jews, is the one Christian group that has been most steadfast in its support for Israel.
"United Church of Christ"
Ah, but what's in a name, huh?
Depends upon your definition of what of, "is".
If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
Exactly right. There are CLEAR statements in the Bible that God will not forget Israel, and that Israel will, in some form, repent before the end times. Israel is the "apple of God's eye" and he who curses Israel shall be cursed, so the UCCs best get ready because they are about to cross swords with the Almight.
As lifelong UCC member I will send an email, but I doubt it will do much good. I have written before when our church bulletin covers had a list of liberal tents we should support on the back cover. I also returned a prayer reflections book authored by Jimmy Carter that was distributed to all the churches.
Our UCC church, established in 1868, is made up of conservatives, but we get these types of liberal stuff from the national organization all the time.
Not all Jews. I, for one, know my who the best friends of the Jews are. And I thank you for your support from the bottom of my heart.
PS, thanks for the correction about Jesus being "the divine heritage" as opposesd to "of the divine heritage". It's a little clearer now.
Oh, and here's my promise to all the Christians here. When the Messiah comes [again?] and if it turns out to be Jesus, I will offer all of you my heartfelt apologies, admit I was wrong and convert to Christianity. But not a day sooner! ;)
Are you willing to risk eternal separation from God on the chance that when Jesus comes again, you'll be alive; and if you are alive, that you'll have the opportunity to profess faith in Messiah?
What value do you place on your soul?
I don't think it's a question of the relative value he places on his soul. More a lack of trust in the evidence for the divinity of the Nazarene.
Exactly. ;) Well put, Pelayo.
Many religions claim that if you don't follow their tenets you're damned. Either all/most of them are wrong (implying a huge portion, in fact a majority of the world's population any way you look at it, are damned), or all/most of them are right (implying there are multiple paths to G-d). I was raised with the belief, and I have faith that, G-d is perfect; perfectly just, perfectly loving and perfectly all knowing. For Jews, it's about good works: G-d will judge your actions and your life, hence all righteous people will get into heaven, not just Jews, but everyone. Furthermore, if you accept the idea of grace, or purgatory, there are other routes to heaven.
I don't believe G-d would condemn so many of his children to eternal damnation. If I make a mistake of faith, but I still lead a good life, I believe he wil forgive me. Just the way I see things. Faith is an intensely personal thing, so I have no doubt you see it differently, and I salute you for that. To have faith in the divine is a strength in and of itself, and one that keeps us on the Right strong. Because, after all, if we're the religious right, the DUmmies must by the laws of sympathetic resonance be the godless left.
However as a Catholic I cannot entertain the notion that there are multiple paths to God. Yes God could save someone even if they are, through ignorance, on the wrong path. But just because there are multiple religions, all conflicting, and claiming to be the "true path" doesn't mean there is no "true path." If you ask 20 people a question and get 20 different answerers, that doesn't mean there is no true answer, just that there are at least 19 wrong ones.
As for the "religious right" versus "godless left" dichotomy. You maybe right, but philosophically I no longer ascribe to either of the political demarcations of the modern American political system. Mostly because I've come to the inescapable and melancholic conclusion that democracy is inherently socialist, and amoral. So I can't be a democrat obviously, and I can't really be a republican since I see our republic as founded on the incontinent principal of self-legitimizing public will... and now since you go me think'n about it again, I'm gonna go get a drink.
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