Would Jesus Concur or Weep?

Looking at the photo of an innocent, dead, Palestinian child, I want to weep. It appears that the child is a girl of around 3 years old. Her parents are probably Muslims because the population of Gaza is predominantly Muslim. However, there are Christians peaceably living there, side by side with the Muslims. So, there is a small probability that this little girl’s parents could be Christians. Of course, it doesn’t make any difference whether her parents were Muslims, Christians or Jews. If her parents are still alive, they would be grieving. And, we as Christians should be grieving.

Americans and our Congress have overwhelmingly supported the actions by the Israelis against the Palestinians in Gaza in the first few weeks of January, 2009. Probably hundreds of young children, as the girl pictured here, were killed. Typically, a large percentage of Americans view the loss of such young lives as “collateral damage.” This is an euphemism used by our military to sooth the American public. We’ve all heard about the collateral damage in Iraq and Afghanistan. It wouldn’t be nice if it were called what it really is: murder. One group in the United States that religiously and fervently supports Israel, no matter how it conducts itself against the Palestinians that reside in Israel, are Christian Zionists. They believe that the modern state of Israel is a fulfillment of Old Testament, Biblical prophecy.

In a nutshell, Christian Zionists believe unconditional love must be bestowed upon Israel; not doing so would result in condemnations and curses from God. The idea that the modern state of Israel is a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy is a debate topic that can be carried on between Christians of different viewpoints. As Christians, our first and most important allegiance must be to Jesus Christ. No where in the New Testament does Jesus or another writer require that a belief in a physical state of Israel is necessary for salvation. Jesus’ kingdom is based in the spiritual realm.

We are all equal in the sight of God. He displays no favoritism based on race, social status, or gender. Jesus Christ gave his life out of love, not to save a tiny plot of land or a favored ethnicity, but for all mankind. Not for inanimate shrines and places, as much as we may love what they represent to us, but for the forgiveness of sins and salvation of all who will receive Him. His sacrifice was to make us “living stones” in one glorious temple, not built by human hands, but by a living God who wants relationship with us. That is the gospel. The question for the American church today is simple: What gospel are we believing and preaching?

Evangelical Zionist’s Dilemma: Love Your Enemy or Starve Him

Evangelical Zionism is our own descriptive term. It is not a denomination, but an acquired disease in the body of Christianity. The universal symptom is the belief that “the political state of Israel is the fulfillment of biblical prophesies.” Jesus said, love you brother, even your enemy; Evangelical Zionism, in its extreme morphs, holds that Old Testament scripture allows the extermination of the Palestinians.

Elena has recovered from it, and this is her story. She wrote to us and called with several questions common to recovering Evangelical Zionists making them feel quite alone amid the hatred that is directed toward the people of Palestine and, in fact, toward all of Islam. She is learning to be a missionary for peace within her own church. Her story is not unique, but her tactful determination is. We have asked her to allow us to share her experience with you. Elena was raised a Catholic and became an evangelical protestant during her years of child-rearing. There she stayed for most of her adult years until she discovered that the church she had joined had a primary dedication to evangelical Zionist teachings and beliefs. This became clear to her as she learned of Israel’s abuse of the Palestinians, and her church’s unconditional and unquestioning support of Israel.

Like so many of us she had left one or more churches she found infected with Evangelical Zionism, looking for the prefect church. She did not find it. She finally settled into a small congregation with a Reform theology. She became an active part of the congregation and started a home bible study to encourage other church members. Strangely, it was here she was to discover her worst frustration. While her denomination’s theology denies evangelical Zionism, some of its members believe and teach a form of it.

On the positive side, her pastor says he shares her anti-war view and sympathy for Palestinians, but does not discuss it from the pulpit. He does not seem to have the disease but perhaps he fears to speak out against it. However, the volunteer leader of the Bible study, Carl, is a denominational church planner assigned to her church. When war became a hot issue, Elena discovered that all the class supported the U.S. wars and Israeli occupation. The study leader horrified her by telling her privately, “if it was up to me I would kill them all.”

Elena responded by purchasing and giving away a detailed secular book on Zionism in an attempt to show her friends what Zionists privately think of Christians, but it did not work. Elena’s letter ended with familiar and painful words asking if we can recommend another church for her and saying,

“I feel like an outcast and I did nothing wrong! I know I believed the scoffed, dispensationalist lie for almost my entire Christian life, but when you read the truth you just can’t turn your back on it.”

She provided an exchange of messages with their Bible study leader, Carl. In it he denies he told her he would kill all the Palestinians; Instead he now asserts “he would cut off food and water to them.”

The Lie That Justifies Mass Murder: "Hamas Hit Us First"

The White House’s press release is exactly the same as the Zionist Israel position, blaming the victims. It is imperative that we know why. Here is the official Israeli line, directly from Washington:

“It was ‘completely unacceptable’ for Hamas, which controls Gaza, to launch attacks on Israel after a truce lasting several months”, said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council. "These people are nothing but thugs, so Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas that indiscriminately kill their own people." The reason the US Administration parrots Zionist Israel’s story is that there is a common agenda that calls for more war in the Middle East. As we have written for some years, ours is a war-based economy, and Israel plays a large part in it because the USA’s targeted enemy is Islam.

War, to those who direct our course from above and beyond presidential politics, is not about religion, but are a vehicle to force economic growth where there is now stagnation. Broader, bigger and more permanent wars are a part or the “Dilution Solution” planned to save our economy, much as World War II was thought by many to be a planned solution to the “Great Depression.”

Zionist politicians have their own political reasons for the unreasonable brutality which has been discussed in the Arab press. Israel wants to regain political control over the Philistines, so to their way of thinking, Hamas must go. This writer uses the biblical “Philistine” in place of the popular “Palestinian” to emphasize that Arabs are the historic occupants of the land, and they presently do not even have a state. Paradoxically, they are like the unarmed David, a stateless people wondering in the land of the Philistines, but with the slingshot, versus Israel, the militarist Goliath.

As a practical matter, Israel cannot kill all three or four million Philistines, although it has been officially considered. And, Likud politicians will do it if they can. Past Prime Minister Ariel Sharon actually stated he was capable and willing to kill all Palestinian Arabs if the Zionists could handle the world heat it would generate. Israel’s objective, instead, is to eliminate Hamas, so they can once again control the Philistines, as they have in the past, by controlling its leaders.

Israel with the help of the USA trained Yassar Arafat to be its kind of Arab leader and helped him to become a billionaire. In exchange Arafat created a terrorist image for his peace-seeking people, but he never attacked Israeli political figures, as he would have done if he was their enemy.

Before the spasms of violence by Philistine youths in the 1980s called “Intifada,” the Arab population of some three million was in effect a low cost labor pool for Israel. Philistines did the menial labor and farming, commuting from gulags called refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel could and did build industry around this desperate labor force much as Germany provided its war materials from slave labor camps populated by prisoners, many of whom were European Jews. This writer wonders if Zionists did not borrow the idea from the National Socialists (NAZI). South Africa was criticized and embargoed for using its black labor pool to build its industry, called Apartheid, but it never bombed the slums where the laborers lived.

Israel’s forced labor pool declined with the Intifada from the early 1980’s on. The youth uprising started with Philistine children throwing rocks and the subsequent Israeli Defense Force policy of deliberate bone-breaking of children. Eventually the desperation led to human bombs. We Hold These Truths appeals to those who consider themselves moral and spiritual to speak out, making the cause of the Philistines a moral issue. Many of us want to be involved but are frustrated about finding an effective venue. We have chosen America's churches as our target because theirs is the biggest block of voters. The Philistines are not allowed to choose their leaders; we are, and there is no excuse for or silence or assent.

Salvage the Pieces of the Big Three; Don't Try To Patch the Broken Egg

The blog author would like to sincerely apologize for the very long hiatus in which our beloved readers were forced to endure a very long wait. We would like to inform you that we will now be posting a blog every 2-3 weeks in order to keep up with our current events.

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This writer wishes President-Elect Obama success in his endeavors and will give him the benefit of the doubt for sincerity. However, we also wish the best for our children, which come first. Obama’s task will be difficult if he stands on principle, impossible if he does not. What seems to appear easy for him will bring disaster to the American people. Hopefully the new President was taught and will remember the common sense of nursery rhymes; else he may lock us in an endless nightmare of depression with rising costs. Obama tells us he believes he has the power to fix the economic crisis, but Mother Goose says otherwise; he must realize he does not, and he should not try or he will destroy the capacity of our great system to purge itself, and to restart.

Every bailout is an abuse of the laws of nature, theft of the consumer’s stored wealth, and must be repaid with our sweat and tears. Bankruptcy is the right course for the automakers if they cannot arrange their own financing. General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler are brick and mortar with questionable and expensive managements. Their great plants with workers, inventory, and technology will not go away if they admit failure. The courts will decide who gets paid and who does not, the time honored way to settle the matter, and someone will take over these great enterprises and produce if there are buyers left. Those who beg for aid are the managements who gave us the Hummers, Escalades, and Expeditions.

Our Congress wants them to submit a “plan” for use of the bailout loan money. Only Congress would be so gullible as to trust their plan. Why should this failing management be rewarded with loans that will be paid by the consumers in higher prices? Mr. Obama should listen to Mother Goose, who said of the broken egg:

“...all the King's horses and all the King's men, couldn't put Humpty-Dumpty together again."

Let us hope President Obama's grandmother explained that old English rhyme to him. We must ask, does the new President-Elect understand the process by which trillions of dollars are now flooding our economy from the top? We repeat, the only company that he should nationalize is the one printing the money, the Federal Reserve System, who refuses to tell Congress to whom they are giving money.

The Crucifixion of Jesus' Words

Evangelical teaching and preaching often directly contradict that which Jesus taught about love and peace, and more surprisingly, celebrity Christian statements often directly conflict with Jesus' statements about Heaven and Hell. Matthew, the first book in the New Testament, contains the most outrageous example of added words that directly contradicts Jesus words. A quote from the Scofield Reference Bible footnotes directly contradicts what Jesus Christ is quoted to have said, His simple words, taken from the King James Edition, describing the basis upon which Jesus told his followers He himself will someday judge every man from every tribe "nation".

Three classes of individuals are mentioned:

(1) Sheep, saved Gentiles;

(2) Goats, unsaved Gentiles; and

(3) Brethren, the people of Israel.

Oxford Press introduces radical racism into its interpolation of Jesus' words by limiting heaven to Jews and those non-Jews who are excessively kind to Jews. And the footnotes also claim it is not even Heaven Jesus it talking about. Instead it is an early kingdom that is yet to come...and it has (according to Oxford) nothing to do with the world the Disciples and Jesus lived in!

Who, to Jesus, were "the least of these my Brethren?" Oxford has them to be "Jews" living in the state of Israel at some future age. When Jesus spoke of "his brethren" He was in no way talking about the 1948 created State of Israel. Jesus words were (this writer thinks) relevant to those who followed him then; if not, how can the words be believable to those who try to follow Jesus now?

To make sure everyone knows what Jesus was talking about, Heaven and Hell, he provides two parables in first half of the same 25th Chapter that he labeled as explaining the kingdom of Heaven "the kingdom of Heaven is like". What is Oxford's motive? Oxford Press treats Jesus Christ like a public school drop out who cannot express himself.

We are supposed to believe that the Scofield bible (written and rewritten by Oxford University Press from 1921 on) is needed to interpret Jesus lack of expression. How insulting to God. Oxford Press and Pharisaic Christian leaders should tremble in fear if they indeed believe He is God. Traditional Christians (as well as Muslims as we understand them) believe Jesus was describing the "narrow path" to heaven.

Jesus words are easy to understand, but difficult to follow toward the Strait Gate. Oxford deliberately subverted the meaning of Jesus' analogy of the sheep and goats by italicized sub-headings. Schofield also claimed Christian conversion while doing time for forgery. Pastors who accept Oxford's deliberate abuse of Jesus words belong in the street, if not in jail with Scofield's ghost.

Oxford press sets out to convince the reader that Jesus changed the subject from what He said he was talking about, heaven and hell, to the "second coming" at his "return to earth" or Armageddon scheme by adding the above line of italics between the verses. We are to believe that Jesus was finished with heaven and hell and switched subjects without warning, to talking about "Christ's return to earth" popularly fictionalized as "the end times.”

Together sub-heading and footnotes complete the terrible forgery of God’s words. Without the sub-heading there is no reason to think Jesus changed the subject...he is still talking about his heaven in the sheep and goats story. Obviously, Oxford has a problem with Jesus words so it vetoed what Jesus said. This of course would make Jesus a liar to his own followers, but Oxford does not flinch at doing this.