Posted on 06/15/2009 5:58:21 AM PDT by SJackson
Letter to President Bush From Evangelical Leaders
President George W. Bush The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
We write as evangelical Christian leaders in the United States to thank you for your efforts (including the major address on July 16) to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to achieve a lasting peace in the region. We affirm your clear call for a two-state solution. We urge that your administration not grow weary in the time it has left in office to utilize the vast influence of America to demonstrate creative, consistent and determined U.S. leadership to create a new future for Israelis and Palestinians. We pray to that end, Mr. President.
We also write to correct a serious misperception among some people including some U.S. policymakers that all American evangelicals are opposed to a two-state solution and creation of a new Palestinian state that includes the vast majority of the West Bank. Nothing could be further from the truth. We, who sign this letter, represent large numbers of evangelicals throughout the U.S. who support justice for both Israelis and Palestinians. We hope this support will embolden you and your administration to proceed confidently and forthrightly in negotiations with both sides in the region.
As evangelical Christians, we embrace the biblical promise to Abraham: "I will bless those who bless you." (Genesis 12:3). And precisely as evangelical Christians committed to the full teaching of the Scriptures, we know that blessing and loving people (including Jews and the present State of Israel) does not mean withholding criticism when it is warranted. Genuine love and genuine blessing means acting in ways that promote the genuine and long-term well being of our neighbors. Perhaps the best way we can bless Israel is to encourage her to remember, as she deals with her neighbor Palestinians, the profound teaching on justice that the Hebrew prophets proclaimed so forcefully as an inestimably precious gift to the whole world.
Historical honesty compels us to recognize that both Israelis and Palestinians have legitimate rights stretching back for millennia to the lands of Israel/Palestine. Both Israelis and Palestinians have committed violence and injustice against each other. The only way to bring the tragic cycle of violence to an end is for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate a just, lasting agreement that guarantees both sides viable, independent, secure states. To achieve that goal, both sides must give up some of their competing, incompatible claims. Israelis and Palestinians must both accept each other's right to exist. And to achieve that goal, the U.S. must provide robust leadership within the Quartet to reconstitute the Middle East roadmap, whose full implementation would guarantee the security of the State of Israel and the viability of a Palestinian State. We affirm the new role of former Prime Minister Tony Blair and pray that the conference you plan for this fall will be a success.
Mr. President, we renew our prayers and support for your leadership to help bring peace to Jerusalem, and justice and peace for all the people in the Holy Land.
Finally, we would request to meet with you to personally convey our support and discuss other ways in which we may help your administration on this crucial issue.
Sincerely, Ronald J. Sider, President Evangelicals for Social Action
Don Argue, President Northwest University
Raymond J. Bakke, Chancellor Bakke Graduate University
Gary M. Benedict, President The Christian & Missionary Alliance
George K. Brushaber, President Bethel University
Gary M. Burge, Professor Wheaton College & Graduate School
Tony Campolo, President/Founder Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education
Christopher J. Doyle, CEO American Leprosy Mission
Leighton Ford, President Leighton Ford Ministries
Daniel Grothe, Pastoral Staff New Life Church (Colorado Springs)
Vernon Grounds, Chancellor Denver Seminary
Stephen Hayner, former President InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
Joel Hunter, Senior Pastor Northland Church Member, Executive Committee of the NAE
Jo Anne Lyon, Founder/CEO World Hope International
Gordon MacDonald, Chair of the Board World Relief
Albert G. Miller, Professor Oberlin College
Richard Mouw, President Fuller Theological Seminary
David Neff, Editor Christianity Today
Glenn R. Palmberg, President Evangelical Covenant Church
Earl Palmer, Senior Pastor University Presbyterian Church Seattle
Victor D. Pentz, Pastor Peachtree Presbyterian Church, Atlanta
John Perkins, President John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation & Development
Bob Roberts, Jr., Senior Pastor Northwood Church, Dallas
Leonard Rogers, Executive Director Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding
Andrew Ryskamp, Executive Director Christian Reformed World Relief Committee
Chris Seiple, President Institute for Global Engagement
Robert A. Seiple, Former Ambassador-at-Large, International Religious Freedom U.S. State Department
Luci N. Shaw, Author, Lecturer Regent College, Vancouver
Jim Skillen, Executive Director Center for Public Justice
Glen Harold Stassen, Professor Fuller Theological Seminary
Richard Stearns, President World Vision
Clyde D. Taylor, Former Chair of the Board World Relief
Harold Vogelaar, Director Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice
Berten Waggoner, National Director Vineyard USA
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
He makes some good points, not sure the issue of Christian support is legitimate. There have always been numerous Christians opposed to Israel
And why should Israel care about not being loved by everyone?
Fortunately for itself and the rest of the free world, Israel seems to be less concerned with the political swimsuit competeition than with hard results against its enemies.
Those swimsuits don’t look that hot on vaporized bodies!
Survive first, explain later!
Not this evangelical.
Brian McClaren and Jimmy Carter are NOT evangelicals. They are heretics.
I just don’t believe the claim.
GOD loves Israel!
Usless “Emerging Churches” and “Replacement Theologists” all.
Don’t recognize one name and if they are sending a letter to Jimbo Carter they are likely libs. The J Post is the same as the NYT.
Pray for America and Israel
Now, who is the ultimate seeker of Israel's destruction? The same one who is motivating these frauds. Real evangelicals understand that God is not through with Israel and that He will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse her.
God's covenant with Israel is not abrogated because these seekers of the world's approval declare that they are abandoning her. They do so at their everlasting peril.
BTW, I stopped supporting World Vision (one of the signers) because of their outspoken leftist stance. They send aid, but do not bring the Christian message with it as they are afraid of hurting the tender feelings of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. Jesus did not say, "Feed the world". He said, "Preach this Gospel to all the world".
An insane person is trying to kill you with a knife. Do you:
a) Shoot him?, or
b) Worry about what your neighbors will think if you shoot him? I mean, maybe you could try harder to persuade the insane person that murdering you with a knife is an antisocial act, and that perhaps if you were to give him something else it would be so entertaining to his murderous psychosis that he would no longer want to stab you dozens of times and chop your body into pieces and eat it. Perhaps he had a poor upbringing and just needs someone to be his friend, even though he thinks you are Satan and that he has ants in his head painfully chewing on his brain. And if you shoot him, though your neighbors already utterly despise you and have repeatedly tried to drive you out of your house over and over again, and call you filthy names and compare you to Nazis, that maybe they will no longer like you and want to invite you to their country club and ask you to be their BFF. Because more than anything else you want to be loved by the people who hate and despise you, and maybe somehow it is your fault that the insane person who has been trying to savagely murder you for over 50 years wants to do so. That is, maybe if you can just internally argue about it for decades it will change something, if you can just manage to keep not getting slashed and poked all that time...
Plus Israel continues to receive over $3 Billion a year in further aid and lots of other concessions.
Meanwhile, Israel spies on the USA constantly, and American Jews voted 78-21 for Obama. Some of the intelligence that Israel got during the Cold War was sold off to the Russians.
Plus we have Rahm Emanuel, Timmy Geithner and other prominent Jews involved in tax and financial scandals (Madoff's Ponzi scheme, Bernanke's turbo printing press) .
People add all this up, and ask "What has Israel and the Jews done for us lately?"
Real evangelicals know what God says in His Word about Israel, and do not care about any “PR war” that may be occurring in the media or elsewhere.
According to Ezekiel, Israel has the God-promised right to claim all land from the Euphrates River to the River of Egypt. Of course, they will not realize this until Christ reigns in Jerusalem, but it is theirs.
Right now, they claim a fraction of that.
These evangelical leaders ought to spend more time studying scripture and less time preening for world approval.
My biggest problem is that Israel is shielding leftist genocidal scum by refusing to deport these commie war criminals. That and the USS Liberty attack makes me question their committment to democracy as I cant imagine England or our other allies doing that.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2027755/posts
Better to be feared.
******
How about Biblical honesty? They claim to be evangelicals, however they use some generic term “historical honesty” to annul God's clear covenant promises concerning the land in question.
They're apostates, and I expect to see more of this as we move forward.
He misstates the evangelical issue. Replacement theologists have always been there, Christians of various denominations have always opposed Israel. He presents no evidence of erosion. His other points are good.
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