Pastors with Differing Motives Condemn the Philistines to Occupation

We quote Pastor RA anonymously as a courtesy, still hoping to make a friend of him. He did us a favor in writing to condemn as false two separate comments we made on stories about Huckabee and Coral Ridge Ministries. All three are flagrant in ignoring Jesus’ words and commands in order to follow their respective ambitions. It is likely that only Pastor RA believes the line he espouses; we think he is the victim of a bad book. Those he defends have long ago left the book behind in search of power and money.

We are a nation of churches, and if pastors taught what the Bible says about peacemaking, no politician or businessman would dare drag us into a war. War making is national economic policy, and most pastors dare not denounce it for fear of losing their tax exempt status. We only ask them to honestly teach what the New Covenant of Christ teaches in the New Testament about peacemaking and love of one’s brothers…all of our brothers, including those who are Muslim. Jesus did not exclude any race.

Coral Ridge Ministries, a once distinguished giant church and radio ministry, is promoting an issue solely for the sake of raising money. Its exaggerated anti-Islamic films make Christ-followers’ blood boil to the point where their checkbooks levitate out of their pocket, even if the accounts are empty.

We have no problem naming Coral Ridge because seven years ago we caught its business management in the act of raising money to free non-existent slaves, which contributors were told would be bought at non-existent “Arab Muslim” slave markets in petroleum rich Sudan. The byproduct of Coral Ridge’s highly successful fund raiser was mutual hatred between Muslims and Christians. Coral Ridge’s new pattern is to capitalize on anti-Islamic fervor by publishing frightening accounts of the evils of Islam and then asking readers and viewers to do their duty and write a check to support the Ministry’s ventures.

Coral Ridge Ministries was founded by Dr. D. James Kennedy, a conservative Reformed Presbyterian by theology, and in no way a Christian Zionist. But long before his death, his corporate style mission was taken over from within, during his long illness. Today Coral Ridge is all about money, and Dr. Kennedy’s wonderful sermons are a prop--recorded speeches from the grave every week on national TV. Many listeners still do not know Dr. Kennedy is dead.

Pastor RA also criticized our coverage of the story about former Baptist Pastor Mike Huckabee, who was carried by the Israel media, where he voiced a policy toward the occupied Philistines that can only lead to extermination and more war. His motive
appears to be power, for he ran well and capably for President in 2008, and is clearly preparing early for the next campaign where he will capitalize on the dreadful economy that the Obama people can only patch over.

Huckabee is a wannabe, and his strategy is to first secure Jewish Zionist confidence, and then the Christian Right vote; as a former Baptist preacher, he is well suited for the task.
Huckabee and Coral Ridge are lost causes, but in Pastor RA and 100,000 pastors like him we find both our greatest problem and our best hope. He sincerely believes what he says and has little in common with those he defends; else he would never take the risk to write to us. I do not know Pastor RA, so I am typing him based on contacts with hundreds of pastors and laymen--
Christians who talk just like him. His position (“its biblical… that no one but Israel owns the land”) is not based on avarice or his own craving for power, but on self-deception absorbed from the Bad Book of Christianity that teaches that the State of Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical prophesy, and that Israel‘s needs are more immediate than Jesus’ commands for us.

There is not just one bad book but many, for Judeo-Christianity have made end times writing a big business. False books of Judeo-Christian leaning are epidemic. However the Scofield Reference Bible is, we believe, the terrible root source of corruption of evangelical Christianity, published in 1908 by Oxford University Press, and now in about its fifth update. We have researched and written about this bible a lot. (5)

One who is taught from the Bad Book will eventually find himself placing the interest of Israel ahead of the teaching of Jesus Christ, especially relating to war and peace; the State of Israel has been at war with its neighbors and those it occupies for its entire 60-year existence. One cannot support Israel and its leaders without also supporting war.

Pastor RA’s words brand him as one who supports the two opportunists mentioned above only because they support Israel’s agenda; he supports a false doctrine promoted to control America’s huge Christian church vote. The enormous financial and media attention given to anti-Islamic fervor has probably helped to make his church at least modestly successful in harvesting converts to Christian Zionism. Mike Huckabee and leaders of churches like Coral Ridge fan the flame of race hatred to gain Jewish approval and financial rewards.

All in all, the Christian Zionists make themselves heard loud and clear, ignoring Jesus’ words about peace and love of brother. There is no excuse for those who believe Jesus’ words to remain silent. An easy and hardly disputable good stewardship that all military aid (paid for by US taxpayers) to both the Israelis and the Philistines, be stopped immediately. At present, Israel gets much and the Philistines nothing! Only food and clothing, cloaks and tunics, as Jesus condoned, should be given. This formula might also help us clean up our own financial and political messes: that really makes it our business.