Jewish Uproar Over ELCA’s [and other moribund mainline denominations'] Attack On Israel

Exposing the ELCA ^ | 10/13/12 | Dan Skogen

[rhema]

As reported by Exposing the ELCA in a previous blog (read here) the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Mark Hanson, and his liberal religious leader friends wrote a letter to the U.S. Congress seeking to stop military aid to Israel. Proud of their work, the church leaders publicized their letter on the newswire. Well, what do you know? Jewish leaders found out about Hanson’s letter and are not at all pleased.

Here are some snippets from recent news articles addressing the situation:

“The letter, signed by 15 Christian leaders, including representatives from the National Council of Churches and a number of mainline Protestant denominations, provoked angry and articulate responses from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), and the Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Rabbis (RA). The JCPA was spot-on when it said the letter represents an escalation in anti-Israel activity.” (read here)

"When religious liberty and safety of Christians across the Middle East are threatened by the repercussions of the Arab Spring, these Christian leaders have chosen to initiate a polemic against Israel, a country that protects religious freedom and expression for Christians, Muslims and others." (read here)

“The letter calling for hearings and reassessment was issued without outreach to longtime partners in public advocacy within the Jewish community. It was released on the eve of Shabbat, just before a long weekend of Jewish and American holidays. And it was distributed at a time when Congress is out of session, in the midst of the general election campaign.

We find these tactics to be disrespectful of channels of communication that have been constructed over decades, and an essential declaration of separation from the endeavor of interfaith consultation on matters of deep concern to the Jewish community. Indeed, we find this breach of trust to be so egregious that we wonder if it may not warrant an examination on the part of the Jewish community at large of these partnerships and relationships that we understood ourselves to be working diligently to preserve and protect.”

“. . .to selectively invoke the representations of a Jewish organization for their own purposes is reprehensible." (read here)

“It is outrageous that mere days after the Iranian president repeated his call for Israel’s elimination, these American Protestant leaders would launch a biased attack against the Jewish state by calling on Congress to investigate Israel’s use of foreign aid. In its clear bias against Israel, it is striking that their letter fails to also call for an investigation of Palestinian use of U.S. foreign aid, thus once again placing the blame entirely on Israel." (read here)

“ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, ‘These church leaders are basically saying that Israel should be bullied by financial pressure into concessions to the unreconstructed, terror-supporting Palestinian Authority (PA), which does not accept Israel as a Jewish state and has not fulfilled its 19-year old commitments under the signed Oslo agreements to arrest terrorists, dismantle terrorist groups and end the incitement to hatred and murder that suffuses the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps. In fact, the PA refuses to negotiate at all and has not done so for several years. Indeed, it is shocking that, despite all these things, these church leaders have not criticized the $600 million in U.S. aid to the PA or called for the PA to fulfill its signed commitments. At a time when Americans are being assaulted in countries across the Middle East (other than Israel) and at a time when Egypt, the most populous Arab state, has fallen under the domination of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders have spoken with gusto about the coming demise of America, these church leaders are obsessed with penalizing and pressuring one country – Israel. Their preoccupation with and animus against the Jewish state seems boundless and is not disguised with pompous and insincere talk about their ‘moral responsibility’ to call for restricting aid to Israel.’”(see here)

“Their letter to Congress contains a brief appendix elucidating why they think conditions are deteriorating. There we learn of restrictions on movement in the West Bank, though not of the many ways in which the Netanyahu government in recent years has loosened those restrictions. There is no mention, for example, of the recent steps by the government of Israel to assist the Palestinian Authority as it faces a financial crisis. We learn of Israel’s 'comprehensive blockade' on Gaza but not that Gaza has a border with Egypt — or that it is still not fully open. We are told that Israel killed thousands of unarmed Palestinian civilians but not that the churches rely for this information on data provided by anti-Israel NGOs or left-wing Israeli groups. Those statistics show that a suspicious preponderance of the casualties are young males, hardly a cross-section of the unarmed Palestinian population. This too is an old story: NGOs claim a high number of civilian casualties, while the government of Israel claims that a high percentage of those wounded or killed were combatants. In one famous example, Hamas after the 2008–9 Gaza conflict admitted to numbers far closer to Israel’s official figures than to those of the NGOs. Of this issue the churches’ letter says nothing, simply accepting the numbers that critics of Israel supply.” (read here)

“you realize that there is essentially nothing that Israel has ever done to defend itself that these people have approved. They object to • the security fence; • travel checkpoints, even into Israel from the Palestinian territories; • targeted attacks on terrorists; • demolitions of homes known to be used by terrorists; • any military presence by IDF forces in the West Bank; • sea blockade of ships seeking to smuggle weapons into Gaza; • air strikes in any form; • ground incursions into the West Bank or Gaza.” (see here)

“. . .the letter will affect cooperation between the signatory organizations and the Jewish community, as the reactions of major American Jewish organizations already demonstrate.” (read here)

The ELCA has once again shown itself to be an enemy of the people of Israel and now the Jewish people know it.

[firebasecody]

I run into a lot of former Lutherans in our parish, including our priest.

[firebasecody]

Oh, and I meant to say, “former Lutherans besides myself”

[lightman]

Lutheran (EL C S*A) Ping!

* as of August 19, AD 2009, a liberal protestant SECT, not part of the holy, catholic and apostolic CHURCH.

Be rooted in Christ!

[cookcounty]

Israel-supporters will be happy to now the formerly largest Preesbyterian body and anti-Israel denomination, PC-USA has been hit with very MAJOR defections, hundreds of local congregations churches leaving the denomination this year.

[lightman]

It is essential to note that within the past decade the Lutheran World Federation (of which the ELCA is a member) formally apologized to Jewish leaders for the grave misuse of Luther’s polemics, particularly his vicious tract “Of the Jews and their lies”.

Luther scholars generally differentiate between “young, catholic Luther” and “old, protestant Luther”. The anti-Jewish tracts were the product of the latter.

[ladyL]

Oh my...you don’t say...whenever Believer’s get there nose out of the preachers butt and start reading their Bibles, maybe they will find out they are participants in one of the biggest conspiracies in history.

[zeestephen]

I've never been a religious person, but I grew up in very religious Missouri Synod Lutheran family.

I recall the Great Lutheran Schism in the early 1970’s.

I presume ELCA is where the Lutheran Liberals found a home?

I cannot recall hearing one word spoken against the Jews in my Missouri Synod church or by my family.

This is appalling.

[zeestephen]

allmendream,

I think your criticism is unfair to the still very large group of Conservative German Lutherans in the Missouri Synod.

Please see my Post #27.

[Jacob Kell]

Luther was certainly wrong about that. However, I think that people probably distinguish between the young, idealistic Luther, and the old one. The latter wrote that. I think by that time he may have been getting bitter about life, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the climate of Euro Anti-Semitism had gotten to him.

[Honorary Serb]

I, too, am an Orthodox Christian who formerly was a Lutheran—an ELCA Lutheran, too!!!!

[SmithL]

I presume ELCA is where the Lutheran Liberals found a home?

The liberal wing of the Missoui Synod became the AELC, which in turn, was one of the organizations that became the ELCA. Due to a bizarre quota system, the AELC was given disproportionate influence in the new ELCA, leading the organization even further to the left.

[zeestephen]

I actually go all the way back to ELIM (Evangelical Lutherans In Mission).

My older brother was in his 4th year at St. Louis when that whole “Seminex” ("Seminary In Exile") uprising hit.

However, forty years later, I can't recall which side was which.

My Dad's church eventually had to close and merge with another Missouri Synod church.

There just weren't enough young people coming up to replace the oldsters.

Still aren't - my Dad is 91, and he's the chief custodian at his new church.

[ripley]

“Israel has a bigger enemy in the White House; yet the great deceiver will likely get 75% of the vote.”

A JINO is not just another goombah.

IMHO

[Cronos]

I don’t believe it is fair to call the ELCA “Lutheran” any more

[Cronos]

Luther was NOT an anti-semite, in the sense of a person who hates people of Jewish descent due to their race -- he had no problem with people of Jewish descent who followed him (Luther)

Luther started off believing he could convert all the Jews in Europe. When he couldn't, he railed against them -- just as he railed against Catholics

But he would have been appalled at the racism of the Nazis/anti-semites

[muawiyah]

Hey, I agree but was just being polite.

[Cronos]

well, even in Luther's worst Luther's f s he does say Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. -- ok, the rest of it is horrible and quite definitely a template for the 19th and 20th century murders, but Luther was not advocating exterminating the Jewish race -- so not racism.

[Cronos]

one thing about luther's writings -- Luther stands tall as a person who defined northern Germany in many ways -- even his support for the princes against the people leading to serfdom after the 30 years war was instrumental in the direction of Germany

While I argue about that Luther was not an anti-semite, there is no denying that his writings were taken as one of the defined roots of the nutzi philosophy (along with others) -- read William L Shirer's book. Note that Shirer was a Lutheran as well, so lets separate Luther's religion from his anti-Jewish writings

There were other anti-Jewish actions in Western Europe before the 1800s, like when the English kicked out the Jews in the 13th century or the Spanish in the 16th, but in both those cases the force of words was not as powerful as Luther's

Luther did have a forceful personality (after all, he had the will that after missing death he went into the priesthood) and he did create a grammar of standard German

Luther was taken up by northern Germans as a paragon of "Germanism" against the Catholic Latins

This became the case even in Catholic Austria where the feeling was to become German one had to not be Catholic and was exacerbated by Bismark's kulturkampf

But I digress. Luther's anti-Jewishness would have remained a footnote if Prussia had not been the one to unite the Germans into an Empire

The Prussians were a Calvinist state that expanded at the expense of Catholic Poland and felt an "racist" superiority to the Poles who, while heavily Catholic were also heavily Jewish(60% of world Jewry lived in Poland in 1772) and this influenced their idea of a master "race" which was then exacerbated by the Prussians creating the German nation. Germany was a multitude of many countries and the common "uniting" bond couldn't be Christianity as the Bavarians were Catholic and the northerners were Calvinist or Lutheran

So there was the subtle attempt for a reach to the Nordic past -- as witnessed in Wagner's Ring Cycle operas ("kill the wabbit :)") -- this, merged with other theories in Europe (incidently the nordic "super race" theory was spouted by a Frenchman who was in love with germany and became Wagner's son-in-law) and Neitsche's fevered writings (the Nazis skimmed over the fact that Neitsche also called the Germans a horrible race) mixed with later Victorian England's "superior race" theory -- yes, the English also had a key part to play when, after Company rule ended, they used their superior race theory to come up with British Israeliism etc.

This met up in the late 1800s with the Russian anti-semitism -- which had gone on in parallel since 1772 -- until that time, Russia had next to no Jews and there were no maltreatments of this small number. But then, the partitions of Poland happened and Russia grabbed the lion's share of poland and suddenly got a huge number of Jews.

It did not know what to do with these aliens and official persecution began, this was followed by pogroms etc. (which in a way was what prompted the first migrations to Israel) and culminated in concentration camps and the Russian Tsar's secret police

In WWI the Jews actually favored the Germans over the Russians as the Germans were more tolerant and had many Jews in their army and beureaucracy

Hitler learned from Wagner-Nietsche-English Victorian racial theories and Luther's writings but also from the Russian example including the horrible Protocols -- he also learned of concentration camps etc. from the Russians and later the Soviets

[Cronos]

Luther scholars generally differentiate between “young, catholic Luther” and “old, protestant Luther”. The anti-Jewish tracts were the product of the latter.

While as a Catholic I would like to emphasise the "young Catholic" part, I think the reality is more the young -- Luther was idealistic and believed that his words could change and convert everyone

But after his reformation he saw it being taken completely to rejecting everything -- first Calvin rejecting the Eucharist, then Zwingli worse and then the Unitarians and others even denying the divinity of Christ. He also saw the northern Germanic princelings use Luther's philosophy as an opportunity to break away from the Holy Roman Empire and set themselves up as rulers -- temporal and spiritual of their peoples.

He was an angry, disappointed man in his later years and the tirades against those who did not listen to him would have increased.

[allmendream]

Luther advocated exterminating Judaism itself. I imagine that he would be quite suspicious of converts who continued to only reproduce with other Jewish converts considering his fixation on stamping out even secret practice of Judaism. His plan would have eliminated Judaism as a culture a people AND as a religion.