Posted on 07/21/2004 12:08:16 AM PDT by Seeing More Clearly Now
Presbyterian church defames Christianity
Dennis Prager (archive) TownHall July 20, 2004 | Print | Send
I have argued in this column that the greatest sin is committing evil in God's name. As bad as the evil committed by secularists, such as communists and Nazis, has ever been, the most grievous evil is that which is committed in the name of God. For not only do religious evils harm their victims, they also do lasting damage to God-based morality, which those of us who believe in God and religion consider the only viable antidote to evil.
That is why Islamic terror is so evil. Not only because it targets the most innocent of people for death and torture, but because it does so in the name of Allah and Islam.
Incredibly, The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) joins the list of religious groups committing evil. In the name of Jesus, it has called for the economic strangulation of Israel. They have equated the Jewish state with South Africa during apartheid and called for a universal divestment from it.
The Presbyterians are the first Christian church to do this, and, ironically, the divestment campaign came the very week that the Roman Catholic Church signed a document equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
It takes a particularly virulent strain of moral idiocy and meanness to single out Israel, not Arafat's Palestinian Authority, or terror-supporting, death-fatwa-issuing Iran, or women-subjugating Saudi Arabia, for condemnation and economic ruin. One of the most decent societies, one of the most liberal democracies in the world, is fighting for its life against Islamic fascists who praise the Holocaust and publicly call for the annihilation of Israel -- and the Presbyterian Church calls for strangling Israel!
Apartheid state? This Goebbels-like Big Lie, concocted by the world's anti-Israel and anti-American Left and by those who want Israel destroyed, is now an official doctrine of the Presbyterian Church. Israel is a nation whose population is one-quarter non-Jewish Arab, with the same rights, including voting and its own political parties, as Jewish citizens; a nation whose second official language is Arabic, the language of those who wish to annihilate the Jewish country; a nation that occupies a tiny sliver of land known as the West Bank only because Jordan, overwhelmingly composed of Palestinians, invaded Israel in 1967 in order to destroy it and thereby lost its ownership of the West Bank.
As an American who fights to preserve Judeo-Christian values as America's primary value system and preserve Christianity as the specific American faith that embodies those values, I can only say this: the God that the 431 leaders of the Presbyterian Church worship is not my God, any more than the Allah of the Islamic fascists that Israel and America fight is my God.
The Bible that these Presbyterians read is not my Bible.
The religious values that these Presbyterians hold are not my religious values.
This is not a difference about immigration policy, affirmative action, taxation, bigger or smaller government, welfare policies, gun control, or a myriad of other moral issues over which decent, God-fearing people can disagree.
This is one of the morality-clarifying issues of our time. To single out Israel for economic strangulation while that good nation fights for its life is an act of such immorality that holding that view precludes one from the title "good" or "God-fearing," for if they are true to God, I am false to Him. If they are good, I who support Israel am bad. If their Bible teaches them to strangle Israel and support Yasser Arafat, I am guided by a different Bible.
They have drawn a line. It is now time for good people, Presbyterians specifically, Christians generally, to distance themselves vigorously and publicly from this morally sick church. And it is time, once again, for Jews to realize that the enemies of the Jews in our day are to be found on the Christian Left while their friends are far more often on the Christian Right.
Many serious Christians ask, "What Would Jesus Do?" If Jesus were here, he would probably be at Israeli hospitals comforting fellow Jews who were deliberately blinded, paralyzed and brain-damaged by Jew- and Christian-hating Palestinian terrorists. He would surely not be with the Jews' enemies, among whom are now the leaders of the Presbyterian Church, USA.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
we should shut down the Presbyterian 'Church'.
Although I rarely disagree with Prager about anything, he's wrong in this case. If Jesus was here, he wouldn't be comforting anyone at hospitals. He'd be healing them.
Please let's be specific here!!! The PCUSA, the liberal, "mainline", denomination has elected to walk upon this path to hell. This is completely consistent with all of their other typical doctrines such as denying the truth of scripture and the teachings of the apostles.
There are a few other Presbyterian who reject all of this and split from the PCUSA over this type of folly. The PCA, (Presbyterian Church in America), the OPC (Orthodox Presbyterian Church), the EPC (Evangelical Presbyterian Chirch), and the CPC (Cumberland Presbyterian Church), to name four.
"...that the Roman Catholic Church signed a document equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism."
Wow. I missed that. Does anyone have a link?
Here are some links:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/449338.html
https://www.icej.org/cgi-local/view.cgi?type=headline&artid=2004/07/09/11368957
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1168113/posts
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=11650_Catholic_Church-_Anti-Zionism_=_Anti-Semitism
Thanks!
Do you expect these branches of Presbyterianism who oppose the PCUSA's stand on this will speak out againt the PCUSA ruling?
...added my two cents, also. Some Muslims and part of the Koran (see behind the link) are less anti-Jewish than the Presbyterians mentioned in the column.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1168113/posts?page=176#176
FYI ping
Prager is correct. The PCUSA worships a false god.
Too bad Prager uses such great passion on this. PCUSA not backing the politics of Israel is one thing. Not backing the God of Israel would be different.
It is because the PCUSA no longer believe in the inerrancy of the Scriptures that they are 'liberal' and unbiblical in areas. It's an inevitable consequence that groups lose doctrinal and moral clarity. But their decision might not be based on Biblical reasons. Prager is responding as if their group's political opinion is equivalent with their doctrinal positions, and that they are Christians gone bad for not supporting Israel. They are Christians gone bad for their refusal to believe the core teaching of the Church for 2000 years, that the books we have are inspired. This has nothing to do with their political views necessarily, unless all Christians hold that it is imperative to support Israel in all its actions.
Christians are't only to love Jews, but all people. But loving does not always mean accepting their sin or their political policies.
Christians are 'grafted in' to Judaism through Jesus the Messiah, and worship the same God. But Prager does not believe in the eyewitness evidence that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel, recorded in the New Testament. So his thinking is limited, less than as deep and true as it could be. His zeal for truth is not zealous enough to want Truth when He appeared, God the Son Incarnate. His passion for morality is not moral enough to repent and accept the forgiveness God offers him through the Messiah's suffering for him.
..and will continue to speak out!!!!!
Presbyterian Church USA defames Christianity!!!!
The PCA Presbyterian Church left this USA travesty 30 years ago!!!!!
I urge all Presby freepers to email their threats (financial, of course)
http://www.pcusa.org/form2mail/form2mail.jsp?f2name=Clifton+Kirkpatrick&subject=email+directory
The PCUSA were proud co-sponsors of the so-called March for Womens Lives (culture of death).
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/182004a.asp
By participating in that march, the PCUSA church has aligned themselves with other diabolical organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Black Women's Health Imperative, Feminist Majority, NARAL Pro-Choice America, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
In addition to abortion, they have also embraced homosexuality, feminism, the redefinition of marriage, gun prohibition, co-habitation and divorce.
I did some pro-bono work for them and can tell you firsthand that the Holy Spirit has forsaken them, as they have forsaken the Lord thy God.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.