BY ABRAHAM COOPER AND YITZCHOK ADLERSTEIN, JPOST—
As Julius Streicher was led to the gallows, he understood the irony in 10 major Nazi criminals being hanged in the space of 103 minutes. “Purim-fest 1946!” he exclaimed, referring to the hanging of Haman’s 10 sons after their father’s attempted genocide of the Jewish people was thwarted by Mordechai and Queen Esther in ancient Persia. This year on March 3, Bethlehem will play host to a gathering whose purpose also resonates with the Purim story. This time, the object is ostensibly not the annihilation of Jews, but rather of the Jewish state.
The Christ at the Checkpoint Conference (CATC) differs from other church Middle East “peace initiatives” like Israel Apartheid Weeks or BDS campaigns. Those preach – mostly to the converted – that immoral Israel is the greatest threat to world peace, while hoping to energize the apathetic and ignorant. There is little indication that these hostile activities have impacted erstwhile supporters of Israel.
CATC, however, is taking dead aim at Israel’s single largest and most reliable supporter: tens of millions of evangelical Christians who have stood with the Jewish state since day one. If it achieves even some of its aims, the consequences will be disastrous for Israel and world Jewry.
CATC, which first met in 2010, attacks the two pillars of evangelical support.
Some evangelicals – but definitely not all – find theological roots to stand by Israel. Past presenters at CATC have strenuously argued that Christian Zionism is a perversion of Christian belief. With the arrival of Jesus, Jews and their descendants lost all claim to Biblical covenants – replaced by the New Jews, or Christians. To achieve their political goal, some CATC presenters resurrect Replacement Theology, which together with the charge of deicide, were key theological inspiration for Jew-hatred for two millennia.
Those evangelicals who embrace the justice of Israel’s historical claim to the Land face CATC’s shameless rewriting of history. Jews are depicted as recent usurpers while Palestinians are presented as the true descendants of the Biblical Jews! At CATC 2010, Pastor Mitri Raheb, head of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, said, “Actually, Israel represents Rome of the Bible, not the people of the land. And this is not only because I’m a Palestinian. I’m sure if we were to do a DNA test David, who was a Bethlehemite, and Jesus, born in Bethlehem, and Mitri, born just across the street from where Jesus was born, I’m sure the DNA will show that there is a trace. While if you put King David, Jesus and Netanyahu , you will get nothing, because Netanyahu comes from an East European tribe who converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages.”
The campaign of Christian Palestinianism first wooed the evangelical Left and Center with activists going church by church with an emotionally charged, visually driven narrative of suffering at the hands of brutal Israeli occupiers. Now CTAC hope to win over some important conservative backers of Israel who are attending this year’s Bethlehem conference. They will be lobbied by Christians – not Muslims – to avoid the inconvenient truth of the atrocious treatment of Christians by Muslims throughout the Middle East and Africa.
Key presenters at the conference include Anglican Rev. Stephen Sizer, who keeps company with people like Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, deputy chairman of Hezbollah’s executive council. He and Holocaust denier Frederick Toben participated in the Voice of Palestine’s Nakba Conference in Jakarta, where Sizer proclaimed, “The church in Palestine was telling me something very different, and what I learned was that Palestine needed to be liberated from the Jews!” One Anglican cleric, Rev. Nick Howard has called on the Church of England to move against Sizer for online posting of anti-Semitic and Holocaust revisionist materials.
Another speaker is Gary Burge, author of Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told About Israel and the Palestinians, who sits on the board of directors of the Middle East Fellowship, The Holy Land Trust’s US partner. An early anti-Israel activist and biblical authority, Burge opined that “The people of Israel cannot claim to be planted as vines in the land; they cannot be rooted in the vineyard unless first they are grafted into Jesus. Branches that attempt living in the land, the vineyard, which refuse to be attached to Jesus will be cast out and burned.”
Also presenting is Porter Speakman, Jr., who produced the horridly biased and widely viewed film, With God On Our Side, that urges Christians not to assist the Israeli brutalizing of Palestinians through the support of Christian Zionism. It openly endorses replacement theology, and initially featured words concocted by Israel-hater Ilan Pappe but falsely attributed to Ben-Gurion: “The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment to make it happen, such as war.”
And then there is long-time UK anti-Israel activist Ben White, who has declared, “I do not consider myself an anti-Semite, yet I can also understand why some are. There are, in fact, a number of reasons. One is the state of Israel, its ideology of racial supremacy and its subsequent crimes committed against the Palestinians.”
CATC’s fuels its outreach on a growing mix of toxic theology and politics – from the Kairos Palestine Document which lays all blame for Holy Land troubles on “Apartheid” Israel to the recent Bethlehem Call that Christians should not be balanced and fair, but committed only to the Palestinian cause. As for a two-state solution? Those Bethlehem conference organizers who still speak of two states have refused to acknowledge that one of them is Jewish.
Haman would be pleased.
The writers, both rabbis, are respectively the associate dean and director of Interfaith Affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Perhaps this year, in Persia(Iran) there will be a great explosion that will rid Israel of the threat of Ahamadinijab(evil Haman) and the decree to wipe Israel off the map.
If so, there will be a great celebration in the Land qnd Israel will become the head and not the tail.
May we all read the Megilla (book of esther in the Bible) this year, to get the big picture!
What is it that we Christians can do to protest this hideous affair?
I am happy to report that Rev. Samuel Rodriguez is disassociating himself and his organization with the “Christ at the Checkpoint” conference. So pressure is working!
The fact that our Western/American culture and media have for many decades blatantly promoted an amoral, anti Biblical and anti-Christ agenda, against any rational thinking, sets me against them. Whatever, Hollywood, and the mainstream secular media touts as politically correct I automatically deem hostile to the facts and the “Truth”. Therefore, when I see anti-Israel sentiment in the media, no matter how confusing they make the issues, I know it is against the Spirit of Christ.
Rosenberg in the first few pages of his book, “Epicenter”, published in 2006, laid out the facts. Not interested in the facts, over-indulged, spoiled, entitled America led the world toward disaster in the presidential election of 2008. Look what happened to Star Parker at Texas A&M recently. It appears that we have passed the tipping point – as Star puts it, more takers than makers. More people who want a life of ease and fun with no responsibility than those who are willing to work and do what is necessary to keep us free and safe. I hope not. The horrors described in Biblical prophecy will come to pass. The U.S. presidential election this year will tell us if they will come sooner or later.
From my view, a preemptive strike on Iran in October of 2005 would have been the prudent course of action for all freedom and peace-loving people who hold human rights inviolate. For it was at that time that Ahmadinejad, in a speech in Tehran called for the annihilation of America and Zionism and the expansion of Islam’s “holy hatred”. But Americans didn’t hear this message because it wasn’t broadcast at the mall.
Christians may abandon Israel. (I am a Christian) Evangelicals may flock to the “cause” of the Palestinians. (I am an Evangelical) All may close their eyes to the rockets that enter Israel. Israel may stand alone. Yet God is unmoved, and will not allow Israel to fail.
This is not a call to inaction, I believe wholeheartedly in Gen. 12:3. And I would like be blessed personally, and as a nation. But some of my compatriots have decided, sadly, that they will test their theology against that of God’s.
I would just like to know one thing about replacement theology: If God is able to decide another interpretation for His word, then why couldn’t He change his mind about the meaning of “Forever” as it applies to our (Christians) reward in Heaven. After all, He might tire of us.
I find comfort in the fact that words mean a certain thing, and that God is just. I might not understand completely His plans, His desires, and His abilities, but He understands my frailties. Most of His word is plain and simple. I could not understand it otherwise. And I do believe He wants me to understand it. So, when I use the phrase “…able to decide..” I believe that He has set certain simple limits on the Word He chose to represent Him to the world.
He chose Israel to represent His faithfulness to the world. How sad if He chose to call another Israel just to keep His word pure. My vision of God is not that small, though I honestly can’t see how He will keep all that He has promised.
God is scathing in the OT towards Israel, yet faithful, not playing a game with His “chosen.”
I would liken this to a man who asked a young lady to the prom. Upon getting to the prom and seeing another more beautiful, He simply called her by the name of the first. And thus, He didn’t actually forsake the first…..? How silly!!
“I will NEVER leave you nor forsake you.” THAT sounds like the heart of the Father to me.
I believe the Word – literally. God means exactly what He said and says exactly what He means. Those who wrest the Word to try to suit themselves will find to their horror that God ALWAYS keeps His promises. He will bless Israel and one day soon will save them all. And one day soon those who seek her destruction will suffer His curse. Wonderful Lord, bless Your people with peace!
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Peter Dove – come! I live in Bethlehem and know most of the people involved to some extent. You’d find out that the writer of this article lives in a world of his own (a terrifying one) and that Christ at the Checkpoint is the honest attempt of Palestinian evangelicals to articulate a Christian response to the material dispossession that many of them have actually experienced. Look at their website (www.christathecheckpoint.com) and engage in the conversation. They have encouraged Israeli participation – but attempt to be more polite than in your post.
Peter Dove – come! I live in Bethlehem and know many of the people involved. You’d find out that Christ at the Checkpoint is the honest attempt of Palestinian evangelicals to articulate a Christian response to the material dispossession that many of them have actually experienced.
Organisers have encouraged Israeli participation and that of people with your hermeneutic. At the 2010 Conference, there were some very interesting conversations in Q&A sessions between someone from the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem and Colin Chapman, there was a wonderful communion service at Shepherd’s Fields with a Messianic Jew and a Palestinian Christian administering the elements, and a trip to the Efrata settlement to hear from community leaders there.
We are not likely to agree on this matter I suppose, but it’s better to engage in person than in the impersonal realm of cyberspace.
Look at their website (www.christathecheckpoint.com) and do consider participating.
(I should also add that I’m not an organiser, but I have been distressed at some of the more slanderous stuff that has been written about people I love.)
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See also this, written in response to some Messianic leaders’ criticism of CATC2012: http://christatthecheckpoint.com/index.php/blog/97-a-response-to-representatives-of-the-international-messianic-jewish-community