ELCA Presiding Bishop Addresses Gaza Situation at Amman News Conference

ELCA News Service ^ | 7 January AD 2009 | John Brooks

[lightman]

This after month upon month of silence concerning the unrelenting rocket attacks from Hamas.

[lightman]

Lutheran (ELCA) Ping!

[lightman]

Ping.

[ConservativeMind]

Israel is targeting Hamas members and not civilians.

Hamas targets only civilians with their attacks.

Morality is on the side of Israel. Let them continue their war.

[farmer18th]

What are they proposing? A big fat mamma yells “kids, be nice to each other and I’m not going to ask again!”

Our country’s religious leaders, by and large, are bufoons. The way you end the problem in Gaza involves cluster bombing, not weak-kneed Lutherans.

[RedDogzRule]

Ping

[Mad Dawg]

And what pray does the episcopal gentlemen think will come of his exhortation? It's not news that it would be a good thing if Hamas stopped hiding behind babies and wildly launching rockets into Israel. Unfortunately it's not news that they won't stop it until they have to.

Ps: 144 v.1 Blessed be the Lord my rock who teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight.

[Unam Sanctam]

Israeli troops must withdraw from Gaza, Hamas must stop rocket attacks on civilians in Israel, and negotiations must be restarted for "a permanent peace with justice and a two-state solution."

No amount of US involvement is going to create peace if the Palestinians have no interest in a two state peace settlement, as they have repeatedly demonstrated is the case. The lack of peace is not the fault of the US or Israel, but solely of the Palestinians, who have rejected every peace overture given to them.

[elpadre]

Is the Lutheran Bishop suggesting the end of fighting equals peace? These people have been negotiating for a long time - Israel seeking peace, Hamas seeking the destruction of Israel. How does one negotiate from those two positions??

[utahagen]

I agree with you that most of these religious leaders are buffoons. They feel compelled to speak out on every political issue and end up spewing platitudes that amount to, “The US is arrogant...rich people are bad...peace is good.” Notice how all the lefties love the United Nations...until they really want something to get done, and then they start whining for the U.S. to get involved? All of them can go scratch.

[AnAmericanMother]

Agreed.

C.S. Lewis said it best (I don't have the quote at hand but it's pretty close) -- "The only thing a political sermon tells you is which newspapers are taken at the rectory."

[PhilCollins]

I’m a member of an ELCA church, and I think that, in that conflict, the U.S. should be neutral and not be involved.

[tubebender]

I suggest they go to Saudi Arabia and order them to take the thugs of Hamas home and Feed, Clothe and House them...

[AnAmericanMother]

So you don’t agree that terrorists should be stopped from indiscriminately killing civilians at random?

[farmer18th]

"The only thing a political sermon tells you is which newspapers are taken at the rectory."

I suppose I wish the leadership would get more political, not less, but in a Biblical direction. There is nothing "Christian" about telling the Israelis to sit in their backyard and endure rocket attacks.

[utahagen]

Great quote from CS Lewis!

[AnAmericanMother]

The man had the mot juste for almost every occasion.

[AnAmericanMother]

I think in a way that is less political, and more Biblical.

You get back to first principles -- like self-defense and the defense of family. If the first principles are Biblically sound, the correct response to a situation will follow in the congregation's hearts, without need for ham-handed political sermonizing.

[farmer18th]

without need for ham-handed political sermonizing.

You're over-estimating the discipleship of the average believer. Paul said "him that doesn't work, neither let him have bread." How many of your average congregants would call Paul "judgmental" for saying that today? The average pastor, and the average congregant, today, isn't much better than the "stupid" Galations Paul lamented.

[AnAmericanMother]

Well, hie thee to a good parish. There are plenty of them around. We had to do some legwork, but we found one.

Leaving the Episcopalians helped.