By Susan Warner, Frontpagemag—
Assuming Isaac’s paper is in agreement with his previous writings opposing Christian Zionism, he will likely assert that Zionists and their Christian friends are partners in an imperialist, colonialist enterprise from the very inception of modern Zionism in the late 1800s.
Isaac, while he does not consider himself an anti-Semite, he is very negative about Zionism. Even the Christ at the Checkpoint logo features “the wall” and the “checkpoint” as two so-called proofs that Israel is anti-Palestinian without any acknowledgement of the role Palestinian violence may have played in Israel’s decision to build the wall.
Like his close associates, Gary Burge, Steven Sizer and Colin Chapman, all of whom are or have been speakers at the Christ at the Checkpoint conference, Isaac incorrectly conflates dispensationalist theology with the Biblical Zionist claims of Israel’s rights to the land.
Among the enemies facing the nation of Israel daily — Islam, European Union, anti-Israel political forces and Palestinian terrorism from within — Christ at the Checkpoint Conference will join in the chorus of those who work to destroy Israel by the power of words.
The conference masquerades as a sincere effort to seek justice for oppressed Palestinians and bring peace to the region. In truth, it focuses less on seeking peace than on demonizing Israel — denying the Jews’ national legitimacy.
Buried within the conference Manifesto is it’s core theology— claims for Palestinian peace and justice by denying Israel’s historic, legal and biblical rights to the land. Among the Items enumerated in the Christ at the Checkpoint Manifesto are:
“Any exclusive claim to land of the Bible in the name of God is not in line with the teaching of scripture” says the Manifesto in item five.
“Racial ethnicity alone does not guarantee the benefits of the Abraham Covenant.”
“For Palestinian Christians, the occupation is the core issue of the conflict.”
“The Kingdom of God has come. Evangelicals must reclaim the prophetic role in bringing peace, justice and reconciliation in Palestine and Israel.”
Who could deny that “peace and justice” are worthy aims on both sides of the conflict? But therein, lies a questionable motive— called by some scholars, “Christian Palestinianism” or “Palestinian liberation theology” are theories which offer the Palestinian Arabs a free ride on “peace and justice” coattails. The Palestinians are no less than perpetual victims of so called Israeli imperialism and occupation.
Christian Liberationism, a subset of replacement theology, derives from the political activism of the Jesuits in South America in the 1950s. Liberationism views Jesus through a lens of socio-political populism on behalf of the underdog Palestinians even going so far as to claim Jesus was a Palestinian.
Liberation theology paints Jesus as a kind of messianic zealot of the second temple period. In the most extreme cases of Liberationism, such as in Sabeel’s Palestinian Liberation Theology, Jesus is a Palestinian prototype— he is identified with the Palestinian cause and represents Palestinian suffering in his life and his death.
The Black Liberation theology of pastors like Jeremiah Wright, espouses black nationalism, anti-Judaism and anti-western rhetoric. Liberationism in its variety of parts is a frequent tag-a-long with extreme, anti- West and anti-Semitic sentiments.
Jesus describes his own role as advancing the kingdom of God among the Jews. But there are others who ascribe far more than that to his mission. In the most far- reaching applications of Palestinian Liberationism, the Palestinian Arab cause, has significantly more validity than the Zionist enterprise which, at best, is an interloper in a Palestinian utopian fantasy.
Such figures as Stephen Sizer (Anglican) and Naim Ateek (Sabeel), both from Anglican roots, hobnob with Iranian and other Muslim Arab extremists to somehow emphasize their accusation of Israel as an imperialist, colonialist occupier of Palestinian land.
The Liberationist movement has made some very strange bedfellows. Alliances between the World Council of Churches, Sabeel, Christ at the Checkpoint and its sponsor Bethlehem Bible College, Presbyterian Church USA, United Church of Christ, Eastern Orthodox Churches and even secular organizations like Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) have collaborated to undermine and demonize Israel and salute the Palestinian flag.
Promulgated by the “Christian Palestinianists,” the idea that Israel, at its core, is responsible for every evil on the face of the earth, is libelous, anti-Semitic fiction. At the unfortunate Christ at the Checkpoint conference, distortions, false accusations and innuendo against both Christian and Jewish Zionists as “extremists” are covered in political platitudes and religious rhetoric.
The Christ at the Checkpoint Conference is just another tedious example of how name-calling and demonization of Israel masquerades as a legitimate Christian enterprise.
ABOUT SUSAN WARNER
Susan Warner founded Olive Tree Ministries in 2004 and has been studying, teaching and writing about Christian-Jewish relations and Christian Anti-Semitism for over fifteen years. Visit her web site www.israelolivetree.org.
