Posted on 08/15/2005 6:44:28 AM PDT by F14 Pilot
ORLANDO, Fla., Aug. 13 (Reuters) - The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Saturday agreed to launch a campaign for peace between Israel and the Palestinians that Jewish advocates said could be seen in the Arab world as evidence of a growing condemnation of Israel by U.S. Protestants.
The resolution, titled "Peace Not Walls" was approved 668 to 269 at the biennial assembly in Orlando, Florida, of the sixth largest U.S. Christian denomination, and church leaders said a campaign for peace had become urgent in light of the Israeli security barrier under construction on Palestinian land.
Before the vote, Bishop Munib Younan, representing the denomination's sister Lutheran church in Palestine, told the 1,108 assembly members that his congregation had been split by the wall and church attendance was dropping.
"The future of the Palestinian (Lutheran) church is at stake because the current conditions are causing our children to leave in increasing numbers," Younan said via telephone.
Some critics of the resolution warned that the world might hear only the catchy title, which spotlights what Israel considers an essential defensive barrier against terrorism, without understanding the nuances of the church campaign.
"They're creating a religious document, but when it gets to the Mideast, people are reading a political document," said Dexter Van Zile of the Boston-based David Project, an Israeli advocacy group. "The Arab public is going to see 'another church is against Israel.'"
The Lutheran strategy stops short of recent moves by the 2.4-million-member Presbyterian Church (USA) to divest from Israel. The Evangelical Lutheran Church has about 5 million members.
But it calls on congregations and church agencies to consider, among prayer, advocacy and other steps, "stewarding financial resources -- both U.S. tax dollars and private funds -- in ways that support the quest for a just peace in the Holy Land."
It follows on the heels of similar action by the 1.3-million-member United Church of Christ.
The Lutherans voted for the resolution after hearing from Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, who urged the assembly to "not minimize the impact of terror and do not demonize or isolate Israel, as if somehow she alone were responsible for the current conflict."
For the Lutherans not enough Jews are getting killed by suicide bombers and masked Paleostinian gunmen. Same for the other Protestant sects that have been hijacked by socialists and homos
One more once-great institution has made an obvious left-turn, into anti-semitism. Poor Israel. Why doesn't the Lutheran Church just ask the Jews to drink some homemade Kool-Aid?
Their spiritual leader was a man who never spent more than 60 seconds on the can because he was afraid the devil would fly up his bottom.
I suppose anything might make sense if you accept that.
I wonder if the Lutherans ever contemplated the reasons for the security wall? Could it possibly be repeated Palestinian suicide bombings? Hamas' vows to push Israel into the sea? Nah!
I'm Lutheran and see the wall as a necessity. BTW - I'm LCMS, not ELCA.
Let's see the Lutherans back this up with a $100,000 payment to every Israeli family that loses a family member to a Palestinian terrorist. This church has been taken over by liberals who now worship Satan.
Peace = Walls, idiots.
And who cares?
The headline "U.S. Lutherans Criticize Israeli Security Wall" does NOT include the conservative Missouri Synod Lutheran Church of which I'm a member.
The ELCA is a breakaway branch of the American Lutheran Church. Its leaders dishonor the name "Lutheran".
The ELCA is much in the news these days for multiple mindless left/liberal toots and benders.
Leni
I actually do understand. I'm Presbyterian--PCUSA, in fact, the denomination that is making all those embarrassing moves toward divestment from Israel--and keep having to explain that it's church leadership, not the rank and file, that's going off the deep end.
The Bible is explicit in saying enemies of Israel are also the Enemy of Yahweh...
as a Catholic, I know there's a world of difference. Let's not paint all Lutherans with the ELCA brush.
---Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.
He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.
Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.
What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.---
Bob Dylan
Leni
I really wish that headline writers would specify that this just one BRANCH of Lutheranism, not all of us!
BTW - the ELCA is so far from the historic Lutheran teachings, they should just give up the Lutheran title and go with something like ECA instead.
Your post defines you.
After all, ELCA does stand for Every Left-wing Crusade since Adam.
And this stupid liberal "call for peace" comes in the very week that Israel is removing Israelis from holy lands where they will never be permitted to return, because Jews will be banned from Palestine. And reports that Hamas is planing to move into Gaza to replace the Jews?
Have the Lutherans ever commented on the fact that muslims forbid them from carrying Bibles or wearing crosses if - they are even permitted to visit the Judeao-Christian holy site known as Mt Moriah? Maybe Bethlehem will be next?
Attention Lutherans- next, how about about supporting "peace" and showing solidarity with North Korea by demanding that South Korea and the USA eliminate the DMZ?
Martin Luther is spinning in his grave and the door on the Roman Church at Worms has fallen down...
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