Posted on 04/28/2011 2:49:15 PM PDT by GiovannaNicoletta
For some time, I have been raising the alarm that evangelical Christianity has been infiltrated by theological leftists. Among other things, this impacts our nation’s view of Israel.
Recently, I was made aware of a movement of young evangelicals who are embracing what the British lecturer Paul Wilkinson calls “Christian Palestinianism.” Loosely, this means a Christian who supports the Palestinian Arabs, and dismisses Jewish claims to the land. Obviously, these “Millennial Generation” Christians (18-34) do not embrace Bible prophecy. Their worldview is different.
A battle for Israel is being fought in the United States right now. Traditionally, Americans have supported the Jewish state, and the U.S. has always been one of the few friendly havens for Jews. I believe that is changing.
Chris LaTondresse, CEO of Recovering Evangelical (recoveringevangelical.com) is such a leader. By embracing new media and technologies, they are reaching vast numbers of young people. To be perfectly frank, while many of us in the Bible prophecy community cling to old models in presenting our worldview, young people aren’t paying attention at all. They are running to the “recovering evangelicals.” Listen to what LaTondresse posted on his website:
“Our generation’s tutors are child-soldiers in Uganda, girls rescued from sex-slavery in Thailand and homeless youth living in the crumbling remains of America’s inner-cities. Our primary classrooms are Brazilian favelas, rural villages in Kenya and bombed-out neighborhoods in Gaza. These people aren’t our causes. They’re our friends.
“For these reasons and more, we’re turned-off when faith becomes a bludgeon used to condemn those outside of our tribe. We think the world needs fewer culture warriors and more peacemakers, reconcilers and bridge builders.”
Of course, he is interested in building bridges with those of like-mind. I seriously doubt the young evangelicals who consider themselves centrists or left-leaning are interested in building bridges with what I’d call Bible-believing Christians. And, it is perfectly acceptable for them and Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo — mentors of a sort — to use their faith as a bludgeon against those with whom they disagree.
Amazingly, McLaren is considered to be a voice of reason and a compassionate voice, at the same time he lambasts Bible-believing Christians.
LaTondresse has been impacted by the teachings of Elias Chacour, a Palestinian Catholic from the Galilee who promotes the “Palestinian narrative” which essentially blames the Arab refugee problem on Israel. As LaTondresse claims, Chacour “loves Jesus,” but one isn’t clear if these men acknowledge that Jesus is a Jew. Certainly, the godfather of modern terrorism, the self-proclaimed leader of the Palestinian people, Yasser Arafat, absurdly identified Jesus as a Palestinian. This lie has also been peddled by such “evangelical icons” as Phillip Yancey.
The leadership team of Recovering Evangelical, seven-strong, is comprised of college graduates — including one from Princeton Theological Seminary. One hundred years ago, Princeton was in the midst of a transformation from being a bastion of conservative scholarship, to a liberal school. That is why such wonderful teachers as Robert Dick Wilson departed Princeton. The spirit of the age was against them, and it is against us.
Interestingly, one of Recovering Evangelical’s senior contributors, Brian Kammerzelt, currently serves on the faculty at Moody! He also taught at Wheaton, which many Christians do not realize is more liberal than conservative. He also attended Willow Creek, the seeker-friendly church in north Chicago started by Bill Hybels.
Hybels’ wife, Lynne, has become more and more vocal about supporting the Palestinians. On her blog (lynnehybels.blogspot.com), she recently posted some comments about a sermon her husband had delivered the month following the 9/11 attacks.
Predictably, Bill Hybels decried what he described as unfair characterizations of Muslims, by Americans. This after 19 Muslim terrorists had murdered more than 3,000 Americans. ABC’s Peter Jennings went down the same path, almost immediately holding a town-hall meeting to present Muslims as misunderstood peaceniks.
Lynne Hybels wrote this about her husband’s message:
“He talked about ‘hot reactors,’ people who ‘opinionate before they reflect, before they bow down and pray; who ventilate before they ask God for sober-mindedness and self-control; who indict whole races of people before they know the facts. Let’s call this what it is: not good. Not good behavior. Not good Christianity. This is Christianity gone awry.’”
Lynne Hybels also spoke at the “Christ at the Checkpoint” International Conference, organized by Palestinians and Christians who oppose Christian Zionists. On the website (christatthecheckpoint.com), we also learn that Tony Campolo characterizes Christian Zionism as “theology that legitimates oppression.”
Christian Zionism is a theology that legitimates oppression? That is a lie.
These kinds of potshots and smear tactics against Christians who support Israel are growing in number. Christian Zionists, in my view, must determine to do two things:
1. Read, study, and educate. Learn the arguments. Study the issues related to Israel and the Jewish people. Then use your brain to articulate these things to your circle of contacts. A word of caution: the nastiness of the proponents of “Christian Palestinianism” will be a continual problem. Yet we must engage these attacks, which are ultimately attacks on the Jewish people.
2. Embrace the new technologies. Use tools like social networking, PowerPoint presentations if you speak to groups, etc. If you think you’re too old for Facebook, think again. “Tweet” on Twitter. Realize that cell phones are the new delivery systems for young people. While we are fumbling with overheard projectors and slides, our opponents are laughing, while providing the content they want young people to digest via new technology.
Leftists will always present themselves as reasonable, compassionate, “careful thinkers.” They focus heavily on social justice issues, and love causes that would make the Pacifists’ Hall of Fame.
Yet there is a malevolence associated with their loathing of Christian Zionists. Check it out for yourselves.
We have work to do.
Ok thanks :)
There is a moral imperative for Christians to support the Jews right to exist because they are the ones who originally heard God's word and Islam is a distortion of God's word.
We support the Jews against the Moslems because we form a different Judeo-Christian tradition and religious sense in comparison to Moslem.
Of course, some of Judaic morals differ from Christian morals, but both have much more in common than Islam has with either
With regard to "intervene in religious disputes" --> ZC, I agree with MCPF -- if Moslems want to debate with Jews on religious issues, without violence, then it is a matter between Jews and Moslems (say if they want to argue over I don't know, whether Isaih or Ishmael was to be sacrificed on the temple mount. But if they want to exterminate Israel, then it is our moral imperative to stop the Moslems from doing so.
The former where an individual has a strong prejudice is an individual's issue, until it blows up to the latter form
As Lucius Sulla pointed out in this post
I consider myself to be a traditional Roman Catholic, though not of the fringe SPXX type ‘Catholics’. My grandfather was a secular Jew, and I grew up with Jewish friends and attended college at the heavily Jewish NYU. I say this not as some sort of justification, but only to point out that I would be highly conscious of anti-Semitism in any Catholic group.
In 1964 I was a board member of NY Youth for Goldwater, there were about 29 members, two of them Jewish, one of them a Black Protestant Democrat, and the rest of them were Roman Catholics (in NY Conservatives were heavily Catholic, partially due to Bill Buckley and National Review). So I was in a position to hear anti-semitic positions among Conservative Catholics.
As someone well situated to hear anti-Semitism, if any, among Conservative Catholics, and motivated to recognize them if they occurred, I have never heard even a hint of the attitudes and positions you mentioned. More than that, I consider your statements on this matter, blaming all Conservatives for the wacked out positions of a few, to be a personal slur, evidence of ignorance or religious bigotry, and I demand an apology.
This is glaringly obvious -- as I have pointed out before that a knee-jerk hatred such that any thread even barely touching Catholicism or Judaism brings out a person to say an adverse comment about either is a sign of a deep problem that must be rectified. This irrational hatred led to such distortions as the "Protocols" and we see the same here repeated on FR (not by you thankfully)
ZC, you may need to also owe mas an apology (besides Lucius as in the post I gave above) -- he has stated that Intervening in this case would be protecting a victim against an aggressor, not favoring one non-Christian religion over another.
Rome is nothing if not flexible..
From the RCC catechism...
841 - The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."330
Get that? Muslims are in the "first place."
Do most Jews and Christians believe that Muslims acknowledge the same "Creator" as they do? The same "faith of Abraham?"
Rome apparently thinks so.
Liars.
Thanks for the ping! I do have to say that I heard some anti-semitic terms from my Irish grandmother, despite her being married to a Jewish guy. She was a Democrat activist in the 1920’s and 30’s in NYC. I would not say she was an anti-semite, but used the extremely non PC language of the times. (She used to call me her ‘little monkey’, totally peyond the pale these days.)
‘Get that? Muslims are in the “first place.”’
Pretty dishonest in that the context of that statement made it clear that Catholics are in the first place, then the Orthodox and Proterstants, then the Jews, and after that, among those who do not accept the Old Testament, the Muslims were in the ‘fist place’.
You do mention that this is item 841, the rest of the material was in items 1 - 840.
When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, "the first to hear the Word of God."Contrast this with the OPC which has from it's creation by Machen in the 30s, been anti-semitic and it's pretense of being Christian wears thin. The OPC as part of its core doctrines states that the OPC believes that God's chosen people today are not the Jews
The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant.
To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ", "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."
It's very own doctrines, as I linked to above dictates terms against Jews and Jewish festivals
On the contrary I see the OPC and the PCA folks being stridently, vehemently anti-Israel, such that they have spittle coming out of their mouths most of the time when they mention Israel
Besides this post you have
I'll agree that the overwhelming majority of Christians do not voice these opinions, yet the trend on Freerepublic is for the extreme hate groups like the OPC/PCA (members include such illustrious evictees as rjr_fan, orthodoxkirkpresbyterian, orthodoxpresbyterian,hankkerchief etc all zotted for either anti-semitic, anti-Christian or communist outbursts) to shout out more and more.
I fear that with their increasingly shill statements, they bring FR into disrepute. I'd rather they stayed on their website stormOPC
We have been through this before but you have never answered the questions that are fundamental to your false premise; How many Gods or Creators do you believe there are? If the Muslims acknowledge a god or creator, regardless of how imperfectly they do so, do they have the power to create a different god or are they just wrong about the one true God?
"Rome apparently thinks so.
"With so many "Romes" you are going to have to be far more specific. I've narrowed it down a little. Can you identify the one you are referring to from the line up?
1. Presbyterian Church of Rome, Rome, PA
2. Rome Presbyterian Church, Rome, Ohio
3. Rome Presbyterian Church, Proctorville, OH.
4. Rome Presbyterian Church, Rome, PA
5. Presbyterian Church of Scotland – Rome, Italy
6. First Presbyterian Church, Rome, GA
7. First Presbyterian Church, Rome, New York
8. First Presbyterian Church. Rome, Italy
9. St Andrew's Church, Rome, Italy
10. Westminster Presbyterian Church, Rome, GA
11. New Rome Presbyterian Churches, New Rome, OH
12. Rome Scottish Presbyterian Church, Rome, Italy
13. New Lyme Presbyterian Church of Rome, Rome, OH
"Liars.
What a refreshingly honest way for you to sign your post.
LOL!
Yes, we've been over this before and each time you've been proven wrong.
Vikings prayed to Oden as the "all Father." Were they praying to the same God as Christians and Jews?
Once again, Rome's logic is specious and their argument irrelevant to the truth.
The OPC as part of its core doctrines states that the OPC believes that God's chosen people today are not the Jews
It's very own doctrines, as I linked to above dictates terms against Jews and Jewish festivalsp>On the contrary I see the OPC and the PCA folks being stridently, vehemently anti-Israel, such that they have spittle coming out of their mouths most of the time when they mention Israel
The only thing I have seen proven is that some anti-Catholics believe that hysteria and repetition are effective and legitimate means of establishing truth. It does, but not the point they think they are trying to make.
"Vikings prayed to Oden as the "all Father." Were they praying to the same God as Christians and Jews?"
I reject the premise of "same God" because there is only one God. The concept of another God is only an abstract. The desire for God embodied within Natural law and is written in the human heart, because man, even the Viking, is created by God. God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for. That search does not empower any man or men to create an actual god or gods, only to imperfectly fill the void.
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the natural law is "nothing else than the rational creature's participation in the eternal law". The existence and nature of God is the foundation of the eternal law. When praying to Odin (not Oden) the Vikings were participating in the eternal law rationally, but imperfectly.
Once again, explain exactly who this "Rome" is that you are so fixated on.
Reject whatever you want. You've just been proven wrong. "Praying to one God" does not equate to praying to the true Creator of all that is and ever was and ever will be, according to the Holy Scriptures, who is and always has been and always will be the Triune God - God, the Father; God, the Son, Jesus Christ and God, the Holy Spirit.
That is the true God. The "only one God."
God never ceases to draw man to himself.
And this is the papist conceit which would have God calling some men to Himself and some men to an ersatz facsimile of Himself.
Idiocy.
But this kind of mush is what Rome teaches so that Rome can incorporate various pagan faiths and rituals and beliefs, blending them into its own peculiar, anti-Scriptural puppet show/property management company/criminal syndicate.
By you? That's a laugh. Your inability to comprehend a complex truth does not constitute proof. Rave on with your Calvinistic hatred and the only thing you prove is that you and your cult are not Christian.
Jews and Gentiles BOTH had Jesus put to death. Hence fulfilling the prophecy that he died for ALL. Anyone that believes shall be saved!
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