Tag Archives: Israel

Anglican Church of Canada considering deleting prayer for conversion of the Jews

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When I was in Israel a few year ago, I visited the garden tomb, a place that may have temporarily housed Jesus’ body after the crucifixion.

The garden was managed by Messianic Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah. As a result, Jesus’ tomb had this plaque inside:

Here is one of the guides who made the most of his time talking to us by telling us that Jesus is his risen Lord:

Now, in a rather odd move, the Anglican Church of Canada has before it a motion to remove from the prayer book a prayer for the salvation of the Jews. To me it seems a thoroughly unloving – in a way almost anti-Semitic – thing to do. If Jesus is the only way to the Father, the only means of our redemption, the only way ridding ourselves of sin and avoiding judgement and hell, then to refuse to pray for the eyes of a people to be opened to this seems, at the very least, callous, if not downright sinister.

Needless to say, the motion is being proposed after “substantial years-long theological reflection and dialogue” and in the interests of “interfaith relationships’, neither of which ever lead to anything useful.

I’m almost tempted to conclude that the Anglican Church of Canada no longer believes that Jesus is the only way to the Father; come to think of it, the ACoC no longer believes there even is a “Father”, only an impersonal “Creator”.

Here is the prayer that is to be expunged:

O God, who didst choose Israel to be thine inheritance: Look, we beseech thee, upon thine ancient people; open their hearts that they may see and confess the Lord Jesus to be thy Son and their true Messiah, and, believing, they may have life through his Name. Take away all pride and prejudice in us that may hinder their understanding of the Gospel, and hasten the time when all Israel shall be saved; through the merits of the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

United Church boycott helps to lay off hundreds of Palestinian workers

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In 2013 the United Church of Canada voted to boycott the Israeli company, SodaStream, because it had a factory in the West Bank and the United Church, demonstrating all the political astuteness usually ascribed to mainline churches, has decided that such Israeli settlements are the “principal obstacle to peace in the region.”

From here:

Canada’s largest Protestant church targeted three Israeli companies with operations in Jewish settlements for economic sanctions and boycott.

Last week, the United Church of Canada’s governing General Council approved the start of a boycott campaign, encouraging “economic action” against Keter Plastic, SodaStream and Ahava.

As a result of the boycott, the SodaStream factory has been closed and 500 Palestinians have been laid off.

Another triumph for ecclesiastical social justice.

From here:

The chief executive of SodaStream International Ltd. says he has been forced to lay off hundreds of Palestinian workers after a factory was targeted by an international boycott movement and moved from the West Bank into Israel.

CEO Daniel Birnbaum said the last 74 Palestinian workers left Monday after being denied permits to work inside Israel at the new factory.

The global boycott movement seeks to ostracize Israel by lobbying corporations, artists and academic institutions to sever ties with the Jewish state.

In all, about 500 Palestinians lost their jobs after the factory moved last year following a high-profile boycott campaign against SodaStream.

Anglican Church of Canada makes Middle East peace an election issue

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The Anglican Church of Canada wants to tell you how to vote. In a consummately tendentious article, the ACoC informs us that Israel is responsible for the lack of peace in the Middle East because: Israelis continue to settle in Palestinian territories; Israel’s response to being bombarded by rockets is “disproportionate”; Israel denies the Palestinians’ right of return.

Arabs who inconveniently persist in firing rockets into Israel, murdering Jews whenever they get the chance, calling for Israel’s destruction and teaching their children that Jews should be hated because they are the offspring of apes and pigs are not in the least bit guilty. They are just being mildly inconsiderate.

The party that most consistently supports Israel is Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. The Anglican Church of Canada doesn’t want you to vote for them. I was going to vote Conservative anyway, but I’d like to thank the ACoC for confirming my decision.

From here:

The General Synod’s Global Relations Director, Dr. Andrea Mann, pointed to three key issues that continue to animate the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The steady and increasing settlement of Palestinian territories by Israeli settlers with the support of the Israeli government is a major point of contention, Mann noted, pointing to ongoing claims on Palestinian villages as Israeli land through the continued bulldozing of Palestinian houses.

Counter-measures by Israel to Palestinian incursions such as rocket attacks, which Mann indicated are often disproportionate to the initial Palestinian actions, are another major issue.

“Where there is an initiative or a strike, say, from Gaza into Israeli territory, the response by Israel is in far greater measure, and has been shown to be without consideration for civilian life or hospitals or schools—the places where people gather for safety from those counter-strikes,” she said.

A third major issue is the Palestinians’ right of return, which relates to compensation to Palestinians for lands taken from them beginning in 1948 with the formation of the state of Israel, and the flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who left homes behind and were never invited to return or compensated for the loss of their homes, livelihoods and communities.

Anglican priest denounces Christian Zionism as heresy

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At a time when there are so many heresies to choose from in Western Anglicanism, it’s tempting to think that selecting Christian Zionism – which, whether you agree with it or not, can hardly be counted heretical since it does not deny any foundational doctrine – is little more than yet another attempt to bash the only Middle Eastern country that bears any resemblance to a sane democracy – Israel.

Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek counsels the Anglican Church of Canada to “work to curb its political influence”. This would be a first for the ACoC since almost all it does normally is seek to exert, not curb, political influence; thankfully, it exhibits just as much impotence in this as in everything else.

From here:

The Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, the Palestinian Anglican who heads the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem, told a conference in Vancouver April 23 that Anglicans were instrumental in developing the doctrine of Christian Zionism over hundreds of years, and should now work to curb its political influence.

British Anglicans as early as the 16th century promoted the belief that the Jewish people must be restored to the Promised Land of Palestine to fulfill a biblical prophecy before the Second Coming of Christ, said Ateek.

His speech began a three-day conference organized by the Canadian Friends of Sabeel at St. Mary’s Kerrisdale in Vancouver. The conference, Seeking the Peace of Jerusalem, was co-sponsored by the Anglican Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the United Church of Canada and Friends of Sabeel North America.

[…..]

Theologically, Ateek said he objects to Christian Zionism—which he labelled “a Christian heresy”—on several grounds. It violates Christ’s message of love, justice and peace, he said. Its prophecy of the world ending in violence contradicts the view of a loving and merciful God. And it accepts, unquestionably, a tribalism evident in some parts of the Old Testament that is based on racial exclusivity.

To counter any possible objections that might be based on the Bible, Ateek advises selective use of the troublesome book; leave out the bits you don’t like:

He said that Anglicans should use the biblical text “as Jesus used it,” to convey messages of justice and love. He said that Jesus never quoted from books in the Hebrew scriptures of Numbers, Joshua or Judges or any passages that were “punitive, imperialistic or exclusionary.” Texts that appear to promote tribalism should be used carefully, if at all, said Ateek. He encouraged visits to Palestine and Israel so that people can “discover for themselves the reality on the ground.”

Ateek was introduced by Michael Ingham, well known for promoting unity, love and harmony in his former Diocese of New Westminster.

Anglican Church of Canada resolves to fight anti-Semitism

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Or perhaps it is creating a smoke screen to conceal from the unwary that, by loudly denouncing anti-Semitism, no one will notice that it is working quietly to undermine Israel.

Here you can learn the Anglican Church of Canada’s view on “what it means to be anti-Semitic in the contemporary context” – although, I can’t see why the contemporary context would be any different from any other context, so I am left with the uneasy suspicion that this is code for something unsavoury.

And here you can read one reaction to the Anglican Church of Canada’s sponsoring of a conference on “overcoming Christian Zionism”:

Later this month, Canadian Friends of Sabeel will hold a conference on “overcoming Christian Zionism.” Sabeel describes itself as an “ecumenical Palestinian liberation theology centre” that is “working for justice, peace and reconciliation in Palestine-Israel.” In reality, it is a group that promotes a misrepresentation of events in the Middle East. The conference slated for Vancouver is explicitly aimed at undermining Israel among its North American Christian supporters.

Desmond Tutu wants a global boycott of Israel

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Read it all here.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, in an exclusive article for Haaretz, calls for a global boycott of Israel and urges Israelis and Palestinians to look beyond their leaders for a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land.

The past weeks have witnessed unprecedented action by members of civil society across the world against the injustice of Israel’s disproportionately brutal response to the firing of missiles from Palestine.

[…]

I asked the crowd to chant with me: “We are opposed to the injustice of the illegal occupation of Palestine. We are opposed to the indiscriminate killing in Gaza. We are opposed to the indignity meted out to Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks. We are opposed to violence perpetrated by all parties. But we are not opposed to Jews.”

Earlier in the week, I called for the suspension of Israel from the International Union of Architects, which was meeting in South Africa.

The extraordinarily blinkered conclusion Tutu reaches is:

The pursuit of freedom for the people of Palestine from humiliation and persecution by the policies of Israel is a righteous cause. It is a cause that the people of Israel should support.

There is no mention of Hamas repeated violating ceasefires, using Gazans as human shields, having the destruction of Israel in its charter, the fact that, for propaganda, Hamas wants its citizens to die or the indoctrination of children to hate Jews. The article is reproduced on the Anglican Communion News Service; since it is sitting there without editorial comment, we must assume that the ACNS is untroubled by Tutu’s viewpoint.

Here is a different view from someone who has not succumbed to the miasma of leftist pollution that is afflicting Tutu’s neocortex:

George Galloway finds a way to entice Jews to Bradford

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It’s difficult to find any compelling reason to visit Bradford; I accidentally passed through it once when I became lost on my way to somewhere more interesting. George Galloway, the eccentric, or as some would have it, congenitally unbalanced politician for Bradford West (a particularly uninteresting subdivision of the already excruciating dull City of Bradford), has devised an ingenious scheme to lure Jews, for whom he clearly has a particular affection, into his constituency: he is employing reverse psychology:

The devious plan has worked:

From here:

However, just eight days after Mr Galloway’s comments, a Jewish and Israeli group led by Rabbi Shneur Zalman Odze visited Bradford to ‘prove a point’ and claimed they had received a ‘nice reception even from those who weren’t pro-Israel’.

The first Jews to set foot in Bradford for 300 years; well done, George.

Israel and Gaza on the Moral Maze

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Here is a BBC program where, among others, Rev Giles Fraser and Melanie Phillips discuss topical ethical issues. This discussion is about Gaza and Israel. My favourite part is around 35:40 where an incensed Giles Fraser protests that the IDF fired on him while he was standing on a big pile of rubble: of course, the IDF does not fire indiscriminately at civilians.

It comes as no surprise that the least coherent contributor to the debate is a professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London.

Justin Welby strides fearlessly into the Israel-Hamas conflict wielding clichés

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From here:

Archbishop of Canterbury calls on leaders in Israel and Gaza to immediately end the violence, and urges Anglican churches both to pray and offer support to all victims of the conflict.

[…..]

“While humanitarian relief for those civilians most affected is a priority, especially women and children, we must also recognise that this conflict underlines the importance of renewing a commitment to political dialogue in the wider search for peace and security for both Israeli and Palestinian. The destructive cycle of violence has caused untold suffering and threatens the security of all.

There is no cycle of violence. Hamas does not fire rockets into Israel because Israel is attacking Hamas. It fires rockets into Israel not because of what Israel does or does not do, but because of what it is – a country filled with Jews, a people it hates and is determined to exterminate. The only way the violence will end is if Israel wins – decisively.

“For all sides to persist with their current strategy, be it threatening security by the indiscriminate firing of rockets at civilian areas or aerial bombing which increasingly fails to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, is self-defeating.

Not at all: the self-defeating option is for Israel to quit before the job is completed.

The road to reconciliation is hard, but ultimately the only route to security.

How can you reconcile with an organisation whose sole aim in this life and the next is to eradicate your entire race?

All this highlights the need for underlying issues to be addressed, whether the ongoing terror threat to Israel or the expansion of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The failure to find constructive paths to peace poses a threat to the future of all the peoples of the region.

Just like the constructive path to peace Neville Chamberlain found in 1938:

“We, the German Führer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for two countries and for Europe.
[….]
“My good friends this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace in our time.”