Posted on 12/15/2008 5:02:37 AM PST by SJackson
| Christian Zionists: The Real Terrorists |
The National Council of Churches (NCC), which will never specifically criticize any radical Islamist movements no matter how murderous, has found itself concerned about Christian Zionists in America. In fact, according to the NCC, Christian Zionist support for Israel is the main stumbling block to tranquility in the Middle East. The threat posed by these Christian zealots is so worrisome that the NCC has just released a special brochure called “Why We Should Be Concerned About Christian Zionism” to warn its 35 member denominations.
“The danger of this ideology is that it is a manipulation of Christian scripture and teaching," fretted Antonios Kireopoulos, the NCC’s interfaith spokesman. “Unfortunately it has influence in American churches, to the point where many well-meaning Christians are swayed to support particularly destructive directions in U.S. foreign policy with regard to the Middle East.” Not typically concerned about upholding orthodox theology, the NCC even claims that Christian Zionists violate the “traditional teachings of the church.”
Essentially, the NCC is accusing Christian Zionists of being as blindly parisan toward Israel as the NCC and the wider Religious Left were to Marxist liberation movements like the Sandinistas 20 years ago. Or perhaps the more recent comparison would be to the Religious Left’s preoccupation with and unqualified support for Palestinian liberation, to the exclusion of dozens of other ethnic and separationist movements around the world.
As the recent NCC news release summarized: “’Christian Zionism’ is a dangerous movement that distorts the teachings of the Church, fosters fear and hatred of Muslims and non-Western Christians, and has negative consequences for Middle East Peace.” Naturally, the NCC aims to portray pro-Israel evangelicals as mindless zealots who are eager to precipitate the End Times, not to mention bigots and paranoid ignoramuses.
And perhaps some Christian Zionists actually are, but no more so than mind-numbing pro-Palestinian activists from Religious Left groups who are blind to the hatred and violence that guide much of Palestinian public life, and who pretend that Palestinians are merely passive victims of Israeli aggression, backed by the United States. The most foolhardy Christian Zionist would intuit the reality of the Middle East conflict better than most of the anti-Israel Religious Left.
The NCC pamphlet claims that Christian Zionism is a 19th century innovation. It largely equates Christian Zionism with Dispensationalism, a 19th century theological viewpoint originating largely with the Plymouth Brethren of Great Britain, who catalogued a series of events, including the restoration of the Jews to Israel, that would precede the Second Coming. Even if all Christian Zionists did subscribe to this school of Dispensationalism, it is a school of thought older than the far more recent and far more destructive ideology of Liberation Theology that bedazzled the Religious Left - including the NCC - from the 1960’s through the 1990’s. At least Dispensationalists never aligned themselves with monstrous and genocidal tyrannies, as Liberation Theology’s groupies often did with their fawning affection for Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, and countless other Marxist despots.
Christian Zionism actually dates back at least 400 years, to the English Puritans, who were philo-Semites, and who sometimes asserted that the Jews’ return to Zion was instrumental to the Millennium that God would eventually establish on earth. Oliver Cromwell’s invitation for the Jews to return to England after their 400 years of banishment thanks to King Edward I, was one fruit of this Puritanical philo-Semitism. The Puritan vision that informed much of America’s founding helped to transmit at least some of this Zionism throughout American religious culture.
The NCC and most American liberal Christians, as inheritors of the Puritan tradition, were themselves Zionists of a sort, who strongly supported the restoration of Israel in 1947 and for the next 20 years. It was only the radicalism of the 1960’s, compounded by the 1967 war, which allowed the Religious Left to abandon its roots and portray Israel and its American/Christian supporters as imperialists. The NCC’s new pamphlet asserts that today’s Christian Zionists in America are dangerously organized into “well-funded political action groups whose aim is to prevent any negotiations that may lead to a two-state solution to the (Middle Eastern) conflict.”
If so, American Christian Zionists, despite their ostensible power and wealth, have largely failed to prevent U.S. support for a Palestinian state and U.S. funding for the Palestinian Authority. What actually frustrates the NCC is that pro-Israel sentiment in the U.S. - which includes but is far from restricted to evangelicals - has prevented the U.S. from forcing Israel into surrender and a disastrous settlement. A 2003 Pew poll showed that U.S. white evangelicals favored Israel over the Palestinians by 54 to percent to 6 percent, compared to general American support, which tips toward Israel by a robust 41-to-13 percent. Mainline Protestants and Catholics favored Israel by two-to-one margins. More than 60 percent of evangelicals thought Israel would play a role in the Second Coming, along with 21 percent of Mainline Protestants and one quarter of Roman Catholics.
That Americans as a whole, and not just ostensibly kooky evangelicals, are more partial to Israel than the Palestinian cause is informed not just by Israel’s role in the Bible but by modern history. Democratic Israel is seen is a miraculous regathering of an ancient people into a successful nation state. The Palestinians, who have never had a nation, often seem more enthusiastic about destroying their Jewish neighbors than creating a country of their own.
Maliciously, the NCC’s pamphlet alleges that Christian Zionists advocate “enmity towards Muslims and non-westernized Christians” and ignore Christian teachings about “justice and peace-making.” But the NCC and the Religious Left who blithely ignore the plight of Muslims and Christian minorities who suffer under atrocious regimes in the Middle East. What about justice for them? How will peace ever be possible so long as Palestinians retain their dream of liquidating Israel?
Whomever one wants to blame for the lack of peace in the Middle East, Christian Zionists hardly bear the blame.
The NCC is not a Christian organization by any stretch of the imagination.
It is run by a collection of leftist loons steeped in their Maoist groupthink.
Have nothing at all to do with them.
I support Israel for Israel.
This is the same NCC which, during the Cold War, protested any American action aimed at destroying the Soviet Union .. in effect, they would have preferred millions left in desperation locked up in tyranny. Eff em.
I can live with that.
“and not just ostensibly kooky evangelicals”
Oh for pity sake! People are strapping bombs to themselves and blowing up children but evangelicals are “kooky” and the problem?
The NCC’s list has the United Methodist Church as a member.
I was told a while back by a friend that the UMC had recently broken with the NCC.
Was this person incorrect? Does anyone know for sure.
The NCC appears to be melting into one big puddle of Unitarian Universalist groupthink.
It’s all part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Look under the bed before you go to sleep!
Christian Zionists? Get real.
Ping!
Come noon January 20, 2009 they will become the new terrorists.
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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Do you have a problem with that description?
With the term “Christian Zionist”?
Among conservatives, the dispensationalists are pretty consistent CZs. I don’t think the preterists-replacementists are very CZ at all.
With the term "Christian Zionist"? No.
Do I have a problem with portraying them as a force for evil in the world? Yes.
I've known Christian Zionists. They were some of the nicest, most wholesome people I've ever known.
OK. Great! I was just wondering about your note.
Thanks for the explanation/reply!
Somebody tell them that the first Pope was Jewish.
ha ha ha-
You mean Simon aka Peter? Well, he was called to be the rock of a new church by One born to a geneaologically Jewish family, who many referred to as “rabbi”
It is run by a collection of leftist loons steeped in their Maoist groupthink.
Yep.
They are still listed as member communions.
http://www.ncccusa.org/members/index.html
Yes, thank you, I noted that in my post. But many web-sites are not always updated on a regular basis.
I received the “information” about the supposed break relatively recently, and I am trying to find out if it is true
Something that's always mystified me:
Jesus was Jewish.
Peter was Jewish.
All the disciples were Jewish.
So how did a bunch of Jews let a great business like the Roman Catholic Church end up in the hands of the Italians?
[Stolen from Dave Allen.]
Yeah, but wait until they find out God is a Zionist. What are they going to do then?
Proud kooky evangelical checking in!
How about Jesus - He is Jewish too!
OK...Let me get this straight if I can. The murderous followers of the prince of this world (Allah is a false god and therefore, a creation of Satan) are not the problem in the ME but Jewish Zionists and Christian Zionists who peacefully voice our beliefs according the the Scriptures and listen to God rather than man in regards to Zion are now “terrorists”. THAT is a statement launched out of the pit of Hell by servants of the Enemy calling good evil and evil good. These NCC types will be used by the Antichrist during the tribulation to persecute the Church. It never ceases to amaze me to see how much Satan hates Zion and the Jews and how he has his own useful idiots to further his agenda. With this idiotic statement, the NCC has become to be part of the religious gestapo.
Ain’t it the truth! I call the NCC the National Council of Chuckleheads. Their world-wide sister, the World Council of Churches (WCC) is the World Council of Chuckleheads. Both are “liberation theology” marxist organizations, who were supporting third world “liberation” groups way back in the late 60s and 70s. Both have loathed observant/believing Christians of all kinds as well as Israel and Jews from way back when.
I’m an American agnostic Zionist. Do you have to be religious to be Zionist?
When the Antichrist comes, they will receive him with open arms.
I have met a couple of these folks. They’re unable to discern the signs of the times.
I’ve run into some of these NCC types myself, though not intentionally or willingly. Bolshies with a thin “christian” coating. USA always bad, the West always bad. Third World Marxist terrorists good. The “christian” types that always supported the PLO and other “liberation” groups like the marxists in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Angola, etc. All in the name of “social justice” and the so-called “social gospel.” They make Jesus, the apostles, the Virgin Mary, etc. out to be a bunch of radical revolutionaries of the sixties and “liberation” mode. Yeah, right; like the Virgin Mary tooled around Nazareth and Galilee screaming marxist slogans, waving a red banner with an AK-47 over her shoulder.
These people are classic examples of Lenin’s useful idiots.
I have been describing myself as an “honorary Zionist” for years. I like “Christian Zionist” better. I grew up in an NCC-member church, which has merged twice since, and is now unrecognizable.
Since not one word of the Bible has changed in 30 years, why is the church completely different?
hh
What was that movie this summer, with Leslie Nielsen?
Anyway, they had a spoof in there of Rosie and a documentary about how dangerous “radical Christian terrorists” are.
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