eileen fleming
"Wisdom has built her house and she calls to all, 'Come, eat my food and drink my wine and you will walk in the ways of understanding."-Proverbs 9:1-6
"Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership…the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials...The President signed an Executive Order after September 11th giving the Pentagon license to do things that it had never been able to do before without notifying Congress. The claim was that the military was 'preparing the battle space,' and by using that term they were able to circumvent congressional oversight. Everything is justified in terms of fighting the global war on terror." [1.]
A nuclear Iran would makethe 'Holy' Land a less desirable home for Jewish settlers, and all the while, Israel's underground WMD facility in the Negev remains un-inspected.
In America, mis-informed Christians have been led by the Armageddon-based foreign-policy views of John Hagee, a false prophet who has captivated a congregation of 18,000 in his Cornerstone Church and millions who tune into his TV show to applaud the drum beat of a full-scale military assault on Iran.
Hagee is a 'Christian' Zionist who believes that the modern state of Israel is a divinely-ordained phenomenon and its establishment was essential to the Second Coming of Christ. Christian Zionists adhere to a misunderstanding of God as a Real Estate broker. Christian Zionists opposes land-for-peace negotiations and have no eyes to see or hearts that bleed for their Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers enduring under a 40+ year military occupation.
Many Christian Zionists fail at the commission to love all, and they seek to convert the Jews to their narrow small god or see them left behind in a nuclear holocaust that they erroneously believe they will be raptured/lifted out of.
The White House has convened a series of off-the-record meetings about its policies in the Middle East with Christians United for Israel (CUFI), Hagee's demented dream which sees CUFI as "the Christian version of AIPAC," referring to the pro-Israel group which is rated a close second to the National Rifle Association as the most powerful lobby in Washington.
Hagee has "endeared himself to key members of the Israeli right. [And] recently united America's largest Christian Zionist congregations and some of the movement's most prominent figures--including the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer and Rod Parsley, an Ohio preacher instrumental in launching Republican Ken Blackwell's gubernatorial campaign--under the banner of CUFI, creating the first and only nationwide evangelical political organization dedicated to supporting Israel." [2]
On November 6, 2007, I attended a Hagee cult event in Miami and heard him claim, "Israel was re-born by an act of God and Israel lives! The Jews have suffered great persecution and survived slavery and the Final Solution! God Jehovah will bury Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran! The flag of Israel will fly over the undivided Jerusalem and be the praise of all the earth! It's 1938 again and the new Hitler is Ahmadinejad! Radical Islamisicts are threatening to develop nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel and then the USA! But we are indivisible and we are both here forever!"
The oft repeated comment ascribed to President Ahmadinejad, that "Israel must be wiped off the map," was addressed by Virginia Tilley, Professor of political science who wrote:
"In his October 2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word "map" or the term "wiped off". According to Farsi-language experts like Juan Cole and even right-wing services like MEMRI, what he actually said was "this regime that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.
"In this speech to an annual anti-Zionist conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad was being prophetic, not threatening. He was citing Imam Khomeini, who said this line in the 1980s (a period when Israel was actually selling arms to Iran, so apparently it was not viewed as so ghastly then). Mr. Ahmadinejad had just reminded his audience that the Shah's regime, the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein had all seemed enormously powerful and immovable, yet the first two had vanished almost beyond recall and the third now languished in prison. So, too, the "occupying regime" in Jerusalem would someday be gone. His message was, in essence, "This too shall pass." [3]
What Has Already Passed:
Following the War of 1967, Israel gained an increased portion of USA foreign aid and military budgets, becoming the 'western pillar' of the USA strategic alliance against Soviet incursion into the Middle East.
During this period AIPAC and other pro-Israeli lobby agencies began their ascent to power in shaping USA foreign policy. The Roman Catholic Church and mainline Protestant denominations began to develop a more balanced approach to the Middle East, bringing them closer to the international consensus on the Palestinian question. Pro-Israel organizations interpreted this shift as being Anti-Israel and in turn began to court the conservative Christians.
In 1977, when President Carter stated "The Palestinians deserve a right to their homeland," the Christian fundamentalists and Israeli lobby responded with full page ads stating:
The time has come for evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in biblical prophecy and Israel's divine right to the land...and affirm our belief in the Promised Land to the Jewish people.
The Reagan White House hosted a series of seminars from the Israeli lobby and Christian right. This was when Hal Lindsay, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority infiltrated the West Wing.
Falwell received a Lear Jet from the Israeli government for his personal travel and when Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear plant in 1981, Prime Minister Begin called Jerry Falwell -before he called Reagan- to ask him to explain to the Christian public the reasons for the bombings.
In 1996, Netanyahu and Likud ideology dominated Israeli policy and 17 evangelical USA pastors pledged their support of the illegal colonies in the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and full support for a Jerusalem under sovereignty of Israel.
The Christian Zionists launched a PR campaign under the banner: "Christians Call for a United Jerusalem." They ignored the fact that they were in conflict with American policy and the Oslo process as well as a direct attack on Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant unity with the Churches for Middle East Peace that called for a shared Jerusalem.
In 2006, Hagee wrote in the Pentecostal magazine Charisma, "The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty."
Candidate Bush once claimed his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ, but President Bush hasn't much in common with the Prince of Peace who warned that to be forgiven, one must forgive, to not judge the unbeliever and that one must love and bless one's enemies; not bomb, occupy or torture any.
Before Emperor Constantine brought Christianity into the mainstream, all the early Church Fathers taught that Christians should not serve in the army but instead willingly suffer rather than inflict harm on any other.
St. Augustine was the first Church Father to corrupt the message of Jesus who promised that, "The Peacemakers shall be called the children of God"[Matthew 5:9] when he penned his Just War Theory.
Within 100 years after Constantine, the Empire required that all soldiers in the army must be baptized Christians and thus, Christianity was watered down as ritual trumped love and commitment to the teachings and philosophy of Jesus.
With the justification of war and violence supplied by Augustine's Just War Theory, wrong became right and in today's Orwellian world politicians who claim the way to peace is through war have been united with the very wrong 'Christian' right, and history repeats itself.
In 313 AD, Emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity and thus, those who had been considered rebels and outlaws began to enjoy political power and prestige. Jesus' other name is The Prince of Peace, and with the marriage of church and state, his true teachings were reinterpreted. Church advocacy of warfare and the use of state sponsored violence corrupted what Christ was all about, which was WAKE UP! The Divine already indwells you and all others. Christ taught that to follow him requires that one must love ones enemies; one must forgive those who hate, curse and revile them, without a thought of payback.
Christ lived a life that proved evil can be opposed without being mirrored, and that the cycle of a "tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye", will never bring peace and justice.
The term Christianity was not even coined until three decades after Christ walked the earth. Until the day of Paul, followers of Christ were called members of The Way; the way being in DOING what he taught!
Jesus, while never a Christian, was a social, justice, radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up and challenged the job security of the Temple priests by teaching the people they did NOT need to pay them for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God; for God LOVED them just as they were: sinners, poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Military Occupation.
What got Jesus crucified was disturbing the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces by teaching the subversive concept that Caesar only had power because God allowed it and that God preferred the humble sinner, the poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Occupation above the elite and arrogant.
When Jesus said: "Pick up your cross and follow me" everyone back then understood he was issuing a POLITICAL statement, for the main roads in Jerusalem were lined with crucified agitators, rebels, dissidents and any who disturbed the status quo of the Roman Occupying Forces.
Clement, Tertillian, Polycarp and every other early Church Father taught that violence was a contradiction of what Christ was all about. There have always been those Christians who spoke out against this corruption of scripture and they have been ignored, reviled, rejected, mocked, persecuted and maligned throughout time. There have always been Christians who have never abandoned the true teachings, such as the Quakers, Mennonites, some Catholics and Protestants who have been faithful witnesses to Christ by denouncing violence and caring for the poor.
There also have been Jews who lived lives that embody the message of Christ without accepting that Hebrew prophet as God in the flesh.
The following words of wisdom by united Christians and Jews who are confronting the empire of neo-cons and 'Christian' Zionists are not just praying for the peace of Jerusalem, they are doing something to help achieve it.
A statement from concerned Christians and Jews
Psalm 122 – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem
As Jewish and Christian leaders and members of worshiping communities in the United States, we write to address the ongoing controversy surrounding Pastor John Hagee. We are concerned by the content of his statements, his organization, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and the theological ideology of Christian Zionism underlying both.
We have concluded that John Hagee is a poor representative of how faith can inform discernment regarding public life and discourse surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is regrettable that any public figure would choose to be associated with Pastor Hagee or his organization, CUFI. We were surprised to learn that three elected officials are scheduled to speak at CUFI's upcoming "Washington-Israel Summit": Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), Rep. Elliot Engel (D-NY), and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). We call on each of these elected officials to disassociate themselves from the extremist views of Pastor Hagee and withdraw from this event.
We feel they should do so for the following reasons:
* Pastor Hagee has claimed that supporting the State of Israel is "God's foreign policy." But his work to support the State of Israel does little than ensure that Israel's conflict with the Palestinians and its other Arab neighbors will continue into perpetuity given his adamant opposition to a negotiated peace.
* He prays for the peace of Jerusalem, but not its shalom, as he looks forward instead to the false peace established through a treaty offered by the Antichrist, whom, we now know,Pastor Hagee believes must himself be a Jew.
* Just as his ideology blames Jewish unbelief in Jesus for their centuries of suffering at the hands of Christians and provides a simplistic justification for the Holocaust (also based on Jewish intransigence), Pastor Hagee has again found a way to blame Jews for their own demise . . . this time at the hands of their self-supplied Antichrist.
* In this political season, Pastor Hagee's radical views were first exposed by his description of the Roman Catholic Church as a "false cult system" that is the "Great Whore" of Revelation 17 and 18. Ignored in most media coverage of this controversy was the fact that these attacks on Catholicism were central to Pastor Hagee's ideological Christian Zionism.
* Pastor Hagee's support for the State of Israel is at the expense of many others, including the Roman Catholic Church. Now, it has become clearer than ever before that Pastor Hagee's support for the State of Israel comes even at the expense of Jews.
As CUFI sought to expand its congressional influence, Rep. Betty McCollum (DFL-MN) wrote that Hagee's public comments "demonstrate extremism, bigotry and intolerance that is repugnant."
If you agree, please add your signature to the above statement @
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/301/t/7244/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1310
1. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh/
2. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060814/new_christian_zionism/single
3. http://www.counterpunch.org/tilley08282006.html
Other Sources:
http://www.christianzionism.org
Eileen Fleming, Reporter and Editor WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
0 Have Your Say!:
Post a Comment