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Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news and prophecy.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Bless God, oh His angels, the strong warriors who follow His word. - ISRAEL365
Lutheran Church Has "Outrageous Obsession With Israel": Christian Media Analyst - JNS BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS
First Immanuel Lutheran Church in Portland, Oregon. (Wikimedia Commons)
Lutheran Church Has "Outrageous Obsession With Israel": Christian Media Analyst
“Behold, God is mighty, yet He despiseth not any; He is mighty in strength of understanding.” Job 36:5 (The Israel Bible™)
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S., passed two Israel-related resolutions earlier this month at its triennial assembly in New Orleans, La. One resolution established an “investment screen” that will recommend where Lutherans should invest their money with regard to Israel and the Palestinians. The other urged a cutoff of U.S. aid to Israel unless Israel meets a series of conditions and calls for the immediate U.S. recognition of “the state of Palestine.”
Dexter Van Zile, a Catholic pro-Israel activist, who monitors and analyzes the Christian media for the Committee on Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) said, “the Lutheran Church has an outrageous obsession with Israel.” He told JNS.org the group “has been beating up on Israel for a long time, and this is just the latest example.”
David Brog, of Christians United for Israel, said in a statement that the resolutions “blame Israel and only Israel for the conflict in the Middle East. Such one-sided scapegoating of the Jewish state will only fuel further Palestinian rejection and violence.”
Lutheran student activist Austin Reid told JNS.org the church’s resolutions “send a message of discrimination against Israel and neglect to hold the Palestinian leadership accountable for misguiding the Palestinian people.” Reid is an Emerson Fellow at StandWithUs and attends the ELCA-affiliated Capital University in Ohio.
Other observers are more hopeful.
The church setting up an “investment screen,” rather than directly calling for a boycott of Israeli products, is a positive development, according to Emily Soloff, the American Jewish Committee’s (AJC) associate director of Interreligious and Intergroup relations.
Soloff, who attended the Lutheran conference, called the resolutions “problematic” and come across as one-sided. But, she emphasized, the assembly did not adopt the explicitly pro-BDS language which was proposed by a number of individual church synods, or branches.
Rabbi David Sandmel, director of interfaith affairs for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), conducted a workshop on Lutheran-Jewish relations at the New Orleans conference. He said he was “not thrilled” by the resolutions, but whether the investment screen will lead to divestment “depends on how [it] is structured, and that is not spelled out.” He added that the Jewish community “should not leap to conclusions while the jury is still out.”
Will “screen” lead to divestment?
Some Israel advocates are pessimistic about the “investment screen.”
“[It] is just a step away from boycotting,” CAMERA’s Van Zile said. “The Lutherans seem to be doing something similar to what the Presbyterians did a few years ago. First, they set up criteria that would disqualify Israel from investments. Then they declared they can’t invest in Israel because it doesn’t meet the criteria.”
An investment screen translates to divestment from Israel, according to the website, Exposing the ELCA, run by Conservative Lutheran dissidents.
“This resolution will be used by the ELCA to divest from Israel and select companies that do business with Israel.”
They go further. The resolution says the investment screen must develop “human rights social criteria,” which will determine where the church’s social-purpose funds should be invested. This is based on concerns raised in an official Lutheran church report.
The report, called the ELCA Middle East Strategy is a 2005 church document that recommended “making consumer decisions that favor support to those in greatest need, e.g. Palestinian providers as distinct from Israel settlers on Palestinian territory.”
The document accused Israel of fostering an “environment of oppression,” and claimed that Israel’s security fence “poses an imminent threat to the future of the church in the Holy Land.” The document also complained about the “destructive effect” of Israeli policies on “the ability of Palestinians to marry and raise families.”
The marriage and families reference could lay the groundwork for falsely accusing Israel of “genocide,” according to some experts. Article two of the definition of genocide adopted by the United Nations in 1948 includes “imposing measures intended to prevent births within [a targeted] group.”
The language choice raises the danger that the Lutheran church “may falsely allege, or at least imply, that Israel is guilty of genocide,” Prof. Elihu Richter, director of the Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention, told JNS.org. That allegation could then be used as a basis for denying U.S. aid to Israel and justifying a Lutheran boycott of Israeli companies or products.
Ignoring Palestinian abuses
The second ELCA resolution calls on the Obama administration to present a plan for establishing an “independent” and “viable” Palestinian state, with a “shared Jerusalem” as its capital. The Lutherans also urge the president to extend diplomatic recognition to the “state of Palestine” immediately, rather than wait for the issue to be negotiated between the parties, as the U.S. and Israel prefer.
On U.S. aid to Israel, the resolution asserts the U.S. should halt all military and financial assistance unless Israel agrees to “comply with internationally recognized human rights standards as specified in existing U.S. law, stop settlement building and the expansion of existing settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, end its occupation of Palestinian territory, and enable an independent Palestinian state.”
Pro-Israel activists see those terms as blatantly one-sided. Former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, writing in Newsweek, called the ELCA “a church in decline but one whose enthusiasm for attacks on Israel never wanes.” He noted when the Lutherans refer to construction in eastern Jerusalem, they are referring to “just construction by Jews,” with no mention of Palestinian construction in the city. Likewise, the resolution targets U.S. aid to Israel, but ignores U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority, which is approximately $500 million annually.
The church’s reference to “human rights standards” likewise reflects a double standard, Abrams writes. “These requirements apply to one single country: Israel. In a world awash in repression and human rights violations, only Israel.”
In its latest annual report on global human rights, the U.S. State Department found that the Palestinian Authority carries out “arbitrary arrests based on political affiliation,” engages in “torture and abuse” of prisoners, “restricts freedom of speech and press…through harassment, intimidation and arrest, discriminates against women,” accuses victims of sexual harassment of “provoking men’s harassing behavior,” and “rarely punishes perpetrators of family violence.”
In the Lutheran resolutions, there was no mention of the PA’s behavior.
The ADL’s Rabbi Sandmel said Palestinian human rights violations were “not mentioned” either by the delegates, who attended his workshop, nor the Lutheran church professionals with whom he spoke individually. It would have been “helpful” and “more balanced” if the Lutherans “showed as much interest in Palestinian violations as they do in Israeli violations,” he added.
Soloff, of the AJC Committee, told JNS.org that she did not hear any delegates discussing Palestinian human rights violations during the sessions she attended. She believes “there was a consciousness of Palestinian corruption” that was not articulated. Soloff said the failure to acknowledge the PA’s human rights abuses was “disappointing,” but “in the larger picture, the ELCA did demonstrate a much more nuanced and balanced approach between Israel and the Palestinians than some other mainline Protestant churches have done.”
Pro-Palestinian activists pleased
Supporters of the resolutions see the ELCA’s positions as consistent with the pro-BDS stance of other churches. The group, Isaiah 58, a Lutheran faction that lobbied for the resolutions, issued a statement declaring, “the ELCA adds its own voice and approach to the growing number of U.S. churches that have endorsed economic acts of conscience in support of Palestinian freedom and human rights.”
The group hailed the “investment screen” resolution as “an important step to ensure that we are not profiting from” Israel’s “nearly half-century-old military occupation of Palestinian lands,” according to a prepared statement.
Similarly, The Electronic Intifada, a leading pro-Palestinian website, praised the resolutions as “a massive shift” demonstrating “the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has become the latest U.S. denomination to take economic action against the Israeli occupation.” In 2013 at the previous ELCA assembly, 70 percent of the delegates voted against an “investment screen” resolution, the website pointed out.
Meanwhile, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., the United Church of Christ, and the Quakers have all endorsed divesting from Israel. The Episcopal Church has rejected divestment, while the Mennonite Church has delayed a decision until 2017. The United Methodist Church’s pension fund dropped five Israeli banks from its investment portfolio in January. However, in May, the Methodists’ national conference voted to reject BDS.
Future of Lutheran-Jewish relations
The ADL’s Rabbi Sandmel is focused on what he sees as indications that “there is opportunity for conversation [with Lutheran leaders] about some of these issues.” He said “for someone like me, who has pretty close relationships with these folks, it’s important to recognize it’s not just the text of the resolutions that matter, but also their broader context and how the dynamics within the church will affect future contacts between church leaders and the Jewish community.”
Some activists are skeptical about those relationships.
CAMERA’s Van Zile said, “Some Jewish leaders are reluctant to criticize the Lutherans, because they want to maintain good relations with their few remaining allies within the denomination. But nobody should be fooled. The anti-Israel activists within the Lutheran Church have been in the driver’s seat for a long time.”
Still, Sandmel said he’s encouraged that in the background material for the Israel-Palestinian resolutions, the ELCA acknowledged that “some Jewish leaders have interceded with the U.S. government, some directly with the government of Israel” in connection with “the critical funding for the ministries of Augusta Victoria Hospital,” a Lutheran-sponsored medical center in east Jerusalem.
The hospital was in danger of closing in 2014 because the Palestinian Authority refused to pay the more than $25 million that was owed in unpaid bills for treatment of Palestinians whom the PA sent there. ELCA officials successfully lobbied the Obama administration and the European Union to pay the PA’s bill.
It has not been previously reported that Jewish leaders were involved in that lobbying effort, nor have those leaders or their organizations been identified.
The ELCA cited the episode as evidence of the benefits resulting from having the church “serve as a place where the concerns of Palestinian Lutherans and the concerns of American Jews have been in conversation.”
The Incurable Romantic - Charles Gardner ISRAEL TODAY
The Incurable Romantic
Thursday, September 01, 2016 |
Charles Gardner ISRAEL TODAY
Aided and abetted by the growing aggression of the gay movement both in the West generally and in Israel – cradle of Judeo-Christian civilization – traditional marriage is facing unprecedented opposition.
South African evangelist and friend of Israel Angus Buchan, currently touring the UK, has faced strong protests over his alleged ‘homophobic’ views and was even barred from a venue in Scotland, his ancestral home.
And for the first time ever, more humanist wedding ceremonies took place in Scotland last year than those conducted by the Church of Scotland.
My wife and I were profoundly stirred by a ‘sex talk’ at the Keswick Convention – a gathering of Christians in England’s beautiful Lake District held every year since 1875. Professor Glynn Harrison[1] made the point that the Church’s reaction to the ‘sexual revolution’ had been too negative and challenged his 3,000-strong audience to model the gospel through their marriages.
I have been mulling over this for quite a while, and the more I have thought about it, the more certain I am that he has hit the nail on the head – that it is time the truths about God’s perfect plan for marriage were hammered home, both practically so that people can see that it works, and theologically.
The modern trend of couples ‘living together’ has gone unchecked partly because the alternative has not been convincing enough. Children often witness parents bickering and verbally biting one another. Other couples rub along and apparently put up with each other, perhaps even occasionally holding hands, but few seem to display sheer delight in each other. And some who are still in love after many years together are perhaps reluctant to demonstrate this in public.
But I truly believe that marriage is made in heaven and that there is a direct correlation between the gospel and wedded bliss. God planned the institution right at the beginning of creation, and we are told in Genesis 2.24 that a man is designed to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, so that the two become “one flesh”. In fact the entire Bible narrative depicts God as a loving bridegroom in pursuit of a beautiful bride. Jesus identified himself as that bridegroom (Matthew 9.15) when he was revealed to the world as the Son of God – and even now the risen, ascended and glorified Christ is waiting in heaven for his bride to make herself ready for the time of consummation when he would return to receive her in a great celebration known as the ‘marriage supper of the Lamb’ (Revelation 19.9).
From Genesis to Revelation God pursues his bride, first identified as Israel, his chosen people, and later expanded to include Gentiles also devoted to him. God says of Israel: “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” (Jeremiah 31.3) And even when their love for him cools, he still burns with desire for them. As we see from the Book of Hosea, God even witnesses the horror of his ‘wife’ prostituting herself (to other gods and idols), yet He remains faithful.
As Prof Harrison put it, the ecclesiastical phrase ‘holy matrimony’ is not for nothing. Marriage is “a holy way of life. We put the gospel on display to the world in our fidelity to each other. And God says, ‘That’s what my love is like’. You are a picture of the kind of love God has. You are saying, ‘I don’t do one-night stands, because God doesn’t. He’s always faithful.”
God does not give up on us. But he is looking for a bride who is devoted to him. When you’re in love, you don’t keep each other at arm’s length. You draw as close as you can and gaze into each other’s eyes with adoration. Indeed, this is a picture of how God appreciates worship – whether we are dancing in exuberant praise or kneeling at his feet in adoring wonder.
As lovers caress each other with groping arms and gestures, so we should be engaging with the Godhead with our entire beings. As marital consummation involves both our bodies and souls, so should our worship of Christ. Should we not love him with all our heart, soul and mind (Deuteronomy 6.5, Matthew 22.37), and worship in spirit and in truth (John 4.23f)? It should not be a ritual, something done at a certain place and time with the aid of a formally structured ‘order of service’. We should surely surrender ourselves with abandon to his loving arms as we offer ourselves to his service and will.
But love is also practical. If we love God, we also love his law, as King David put it in Psalm 19. Carrying out God’s commands – by loving him, loving our neighbour, loving justice and mercy and living unselfishly for the benefit of others – should become part of our nature as we grow in the overflowing grace of God. A husband wishing to please his wife may need to hoover the house.
Having said that, both emotion and devotion is involved for a couple who are truly in love. And surely the Lord who created these intense feelings desires that we should also express them towards him? He is, after all, the ultimate Bridegroom gathering together all those whose devotion is total and unwavering, unlike the foolish virgins who allowed their lamps of ardour to burn out (Matthew 25.1–13).
Despite all today’s emphasis on sex, a survey has concluded that people are actually having less of it, according to Prof Harrison. And in making the rather startling statement that “Our bodies drive us to the gospel,” he explained that we can never be wholly satisfied with sexual intimacy alone. We are made to desire something greater and higher, reflected by the psalmist when he writes: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 42.1f)
Yet human love is also well expressed in popular songs, the writers extolling the unbounded joy and delight of discovering, when you fall in love, that you simply can’t have enough of it. One of my favourite songs is the incredibly romantic Some Enchanted Evening (from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific) which tells of when, as the lyrics go, “you may see a stranger, across a crowded room, and somehow you know, you know even then, that somewhere you’ll see her, again and again.”
Linda and I met as strangers on a blind date organised by mutual friends. But God – the incurable romantic – was behind it. Six months earlier, on a tour of Israel, Linda was visiting Cana in Galilee, where Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding. As she watched monks playing guitar in the church reputed to have been built on the site where the miracle took place, she suddenly caught a vision of her own wedding; she could even see the groom, though his back was turned.
Around the same time an elderly friend of mine, Denis Penhearow, rang me to apologise for not having attended the funeral of my late wife Irene as he had been ill. He was an intercessor in our church – praying on behalf of others for needs both great and small. And he told me that, as he had been praying, he had a vision of a smiling Irene reaching down from heaven with arms outstretched as if she was letting me go and urging me to marry again. Denis then added very confidently: “You will know who this (new bride) is before the end of the year (2000).”
Linda and I met on November 18 that year and were engaged before Christmas, much to the surprise of her parents.
As with marriage, so with God… If you haven’t yet fallen in love with Jesus, you may not have become aware that he has been consistently romancing and courting you. But he won’t force himself on anyone; he wants the feeling to be mutual.
He loved you so much that he allowed wicked men to nail him to a cruel cross. But it was meant to happen because it was necessary for a perfect sacrifice to be offered for our sins. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that all who believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3.16) As for Israel, his love for them has never waned and he longs for them to return it, as many ‘Messianics’ are already doing throughout the Jewish world.
When you recognise that he loves you, you surely can’t help responding by falling in love with Him. And when it becomes a mutual love – knowing that God loves you and you love him – it’s the most amazing experience you will ever have.
He doesn’t offer us dry and dusty formalism, or repetitive ritual, but a love that never stops flowing. And though tears may flow in this life, the future is one of unbounding joy and happiness as we bask in ‘married bliss’ with our Saviour and Messiah. Meanwhile we join the rest of God’s chosen people in making elaborate preparations (essentially by inviting guests, i.e. sharing the gospel) for the biggest wedding of all, when the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root and Offspring of David, returns for his bride (Rev 5.5, Rev 22.16, Rev 21.2).
Come, Lord Jesus!
- Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, University of Bristol, UK ↩
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Netanyahu Tells Kids to Study Bible, Seek Coexistence - Israel Today
Netanyahu Tells Kids to Study Bible, Seek Coexistence
Thursday, September 01, 2016 | Israel Today Staff
Much to the delight of parents, the new school year has begun in Israel, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had two related messages for students: study the Bible and seek peaceful coexistence.
Earlier this week, Netanyahu told his cabinet that he wants to “carry out an education revolution based on two things: excellence and Zionism.”
Central to achieve that is the study of the Bible, the prime minister insisted.
“First of all, the study of the Bible,” Netanyahu told his ministers. “This is the basis for why we are here, why we have returned here, why we stay here.”
While that message may have been primarily geared toward Jewish students, Netanyahu on Thursday helped kick off the new school year by visiting a school in the northern Arab city of Tamra.
Addressing the school’s 200 Arab youngsters, Netanyahu called for increases in coexistence and integration of Israel’s Arab minority.
“I want you all to learn about the history of the Jewish people as well as of the Arab communities and learn the truth. We are meant to live together,” he told the students.
PHOTO: Netanyahu speaking to and dancing with Arab elementary students in northern Israel. (Flash90)
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