Category Archives: theology

Protestant and Evangelical Involvement in the Holocaust

Posted on by
5

This is a cross-post from Calvin Smith.

Protestant and Evangelical Involvement in the Holocaust

We sometimes hear about the pre-war Roman Catholic Church’s attitudes towards the Jews which not only reflected European deep-rooted anti-Semitism at the time but also contributed to a milieu which allowed the Holocaust to happen. Yet we read far less about Protestant attitudes (Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, even Pentecostal) towards the Jews in Germany and across pre-war Europe, which likewise permitted the architects of the Holocaust to go about their genocidal task. Here’s an excerpt taken from a disturbing essay on the subject (itself part of a much larger piece of research). Evangelicals take note.

In 1933, Bishop Rendtorff (who would later become a leader in the Confessing Church) had questioned the whole assumption that the state’s behaviour towards the Jews was “unevangelical”. For 1700 years, he noted, the church had fully approved of restrictive laws against Jews. Emancipation was an idea of the enlightenment, and should not be identified as an evangelical norm (26).  Wilhelm Halfmann, the spiritual director of the Confessing Church in Schleswig-Holstein, and Bishop of Holstein after 1946, wrote in 1936 that, because of “legitimate” Christian anti-Semitism, it was not the church’s duty “to interfere in the state’s Jewish legislation:

Far more, we of the church must say, based upon two thousand years’ experience with the Jews: the state is right. It is attempting to protect the German people … with the approval of the Christian church”.  (27)

Likewise, the Brethren Die Tenne spoke of the “accursed” nature of the Jews, and of “the cleansing of Germany from … Jewish immigrants”. On June 18, 1933,Licht und Leben carried an article by the Chairman of the Gnadau Association to Promote Fellowship and Evangelisation, Walter Michaelis, stating that he and his organisation “had nothing against stemming Jewish influence, and treating Jews as non Germans.” From a Biblical point of view, “nothing could be said against this,” and it was indeed, “part of the divine plan for them.” (28) Concerning the Nuremberg Laws, the Baptist Wahrheitszeuge “told its readers not to forget that the hearts of Jews had been hardened by God following their rejection of the Messiah. Under God’s judgment, they had become a curse for the world.” (29) Likewise, the founder of the Elim Pentecostal church in Germany stated that he had “warmly welcomed” the Nuremberg Laws and knew that they did not violate God’s Word “in any way”. (30)

In Poland, during 1936, Monsignor Trzeciak addressed a large audience on the topic “The Jewish problem in the light of Christian ethics”. He stated:

Saint Jerome hated the Jews and Pope Pius V expelled all Jews from the Papal domain. Poland should follow this example: Jews should be destroyed, exterminated and expelled from Poland … Noble are those Christians who refuse to sit with Jews on the same bench at university … every Polish woman who buys from a Jew is a traitor. The Christian religion imposes a penalty for dealing with Jews. (31)

The fruits of supersessionism in the above material are clear. Anti-Jewish legislation is approved of by these churches, based on “2,000 years” of Church history, the “accursed” nature of the Jews, the “divine plan” for them and “God’s word.” Jewish suffering was officially promoted by these churches based on their own doctrines. The churches could have behaved like the Israelites in 2 Chronicles 28:13-15, or like David in 1 Samuel 26:11. Instead, they behaved like Babylon in Isaiah 47:6, not understanding Isaiah 54:7-8. This official support for the boycott and exclusion of Jews dispersed across Europe finds its ugly parallel in  today’s supersessionist Christian support for the boycott, disinvestment and sanctions aimed at the ingathered Jews in the state of Israel.
Excerpt from Colin Barnes, “Denouement of Supersessionist Triumphalism: European Churches and the Holocaust” in Calvin L. Smith, ed. The Jews, Modern Israel and the New Supersessionism. New revised and expanded edition (King’s Divinity Press 2013), 74-77.

Tikkun Olam: a “substitute faith” and a “shibboleth?

Posted on by
2

tqunolmHere is a great article at algemeiner.com by Grand Rabbi Y. A. Korff, the Zvhil-Mezbuz Rebbe of Boston examining the use and misuse of Tikkun Olam, stating that if everything is Tikkun Olam, nothing is. This is a salutary piece and teachers in the Messianic Movement should take note that we don’t misuse this term either.

The Fallacy, Delusion and Myth of Tikkun Olam

…

The term and concept Tikkun Olam appears nowhere in the Torah itself, but first appears only in the Mishna and Talmud in the context of the courts and halakhic (legal) regulations involving disputes and legal rights.

…

Tikkun Olam is quite clearly “a theological notion and not a trendy socioeconomic or political one,” observing that, “It would be an exaggeration, but only a small one, to say that nothing in Judaism directs us to the pursuit of social (as opposed to judicial) justice.”

…

Calling it “a blatant distortion of the meaning of the term,” a “substitute faith” and a “shibboleth,” he writes that “the current [promiscuous] usage of this term represents a category mistake, is a blatant example of conversion by redefinition, and constitutes a paradigmatic example of the reductionist fallacy” which is merely “liberation theology without the theology.” He concludes, “Tikkun Olam means ‘for the proper order of the Jewish community.’ It is a long way from that definition to ‘build a better world.’”

Please read the full article here.

Huffington Post: The Apostle Paul was a Dedicated Jew

Posted on by
9

Here is an article from the Huffungton Post arguing that Paul was a dedicated Jew till the end of his life – read in full here

It’s widely acknowledged that Jesus was a thoroughly practicing Jew throughout his life. Anglican Priest Bruce Chilton expressed that conclusion explicitly and concisely in his book “Rabbi Jesus”: “It became clear to me that everything Jesus did was as a Jew, for Jews, and about Jews.”

But what about Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles? It’s generally accepted that Paul was the true founder of a new religion called Christianity. Biblical scholar Gerd Ludemann, author of several books about Jesus and Paul including “Paul: Founder of Christianity,” affirms that “Without Paul there would be no church and no Christianity.” Ludemann adds, “He’s the most decisive person that shaped Christianity as it developed. Without Paul we would have had reformed Judaism … but no Christianity.”

Paul converted Jews and then Gentiles to Jewish Christianity, basing these conversions on his belief in the teachings, resurrection and divinity of Jesus. But powerful evidence within “Acts of the Apostles,” the book of the New Testament that chronicles Paul’s mission, reveals that Paul, like Jesus, remained a dedicated Jew until his execution. In fact, if Paul had simply stated that he was no longer a Jew but the leader of a new religion, he would not have been imprisoned or executed.

Church of Scotland Shreds Bible to Canonize the Palestinian Narrative

Posted on by
Reply

Malcolm Lowe has written this devastating piece for the Gladstone Institute. 

Church of Scotland Shreds Bible
Canonizes Palestinian “Scripture,” Flunks Exams

The Kirk has committed theological suicide in order to promote political inanities. The former Church of Scotland is defunct; the Church of Latter Day Scots has taken over the premises.

At its recent General Assembly (May 18-24, 2013), the Church of Scotland adopted a pro-Palestinian tract entitled The Inheritance of Abraham? Its Preface admits that a previous version “caused worry and concern in parts of the Jewish Community in Israel and beyond” and offers “clarification.” The clarification is mere window-dressing, but that is beside the point. It is rather “parts of the Christian Community in Scotland and beyond” that should be worried and concerned. To judge from the amateurish theological absurdities in this document, which passed through all the relevant levels of the bureaucracy up to the General Assembly, the whole Kirk is adrift. It has abandoned a glorious past for a dubious future.

We shall look at those absurdities in a moment, but first consider the dire situation of the Kirk. Its decline in recent decades parallels that of Christianity elsewhere in the UK. Nearly half the Scottish population still professes allegiance to the Kirk, but actual membership is below 10%. It was noted already in 2008 that “The number of new members joining each year has dropped by nearly 80% since 1981″ and that the average age of congregations is “maybe even over 60.”

Thanks in part to immigration, for the first time since John Knox there are more worshipers on a Sunday in Roman Catholic churches than in the Kirk. The Church of Rome, despite its recent travails, retains the advantage that it would never publish a document that had not been vetted by serious theologians.

The State of Israel, on the other hand, is doing very well, thank you, and need not care two hoots what the Church of Scotland thinks about it. Israel’s GDP is higher than Scotland’s. The GDP is still lower per capita, but that is because Scotland has benefited for decades from North Sea oil and gas, whereas Israel’s immense natural gas reserves are a recent discovery only now coming on tap. As it is, Israel’s growth rate is far higher than Scotland’s (2.8% versus 0.5%).

The Jewish Community in Scotland and the UK is another matter. As elsewhere in Europe today, its synagogues and institutions are under intense security surveillance. Any kind of anti-Israel agitation, whose major sources include churches and trades unions in the UK, is likely to encourage anti-Jewish violence.

Read full article here

Why Theology Matters: Church of Scotland Report will not Help Churches in Israel or Palestinian Authority Areas

Posted on by
4

This is a relevant section from a very thoughtful blog post from The Kippah and the Collar:

The 2013 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and ‘The Inheritance of Abraham’: Why Theology Matters

For the record, I do not believe that criticising the policies of the government of Israel is necessarily anti-Semitic, and I am definitely not writing this post to defend that government’s policies. I also am not going to argue that the Church of Scotland has no right to criticise the government of Israel, because the C of S actually has pastoral care responsibilities there: the Church has two congregations within Israeli territory, and runs a school, a guesthouse, and a hotel. The year Alana and I lived in Jerusalem, I worshipped regularly with one of those congregations, and learned much from the minister. For the Church of Scotland to exercise pastoral care towards its people in Israel/Palestine, it must be able to raise critical issues there as well as in Scotland.

Unfortunately, I don’t think “The Inheritance of Abraham?” will be much help theologically for the churches there. The problem is not critiquing government policy, but rather the grounds on which the report seeks to make its claim. It does not help anyone to link justice pronouncements to the denigration of another faith, to seek justice in one area while perpetuating a different injustice; worse still is teaching that injustice to yet another generation. Let us take a closer look and see what I mean.

To begin with, the report lacks clarity concerning its intended targets. Is it trying to refute what is called Christian Zionism, a belief that a strong Jewish state in the Middle East is a sign that the end is near, by showing that the interpretation underlying such a theology is not the only or the best interpretation of sacred texts? Is it mainly in support of Palestinian liberation theology? Is it meant to try to convince people that the Christian understanding of the situation is the most just? The report itself, and the summary still available on the web site (starting from page 34 of the Church and Society Council’s overall report), simply calls itself ‘our latest reflection on the “questions that need to be faced”, as the political and humanitarian situation in the Holy Land continues to be a source of pain and concern for us all’. Perhaps the revision of the introduction aims to make this explicit.

But rewriting the introduction without addressing the troubling theological statements (at least, troubling to people interested in interfaith relations and any theology of collaboration or generosity) in the body of the report would make little difference overall. In an early statement which is still available on the Church of Scotland’ Facebook page, a spokesperson asserted:

The Church of Scotland would never and is not now attacking Judaism and the intent of the report must not be misinterpreted as such. Nor is the report denying Israel’s right to exist, but any group’s divine right to land. To reach that conclusion is not the same as denigrating the Jewish people or denying the right of Israel as a state to exist. Speaking out critically about Israeli government policy cannot be equated with denigrating the Jewish people.  A good friend speaks the truth in love, and the truth is there can be no peace without justice.

If this were true, many passages of the report would need emendation, not just the introduction. The language utilised in the report in several places reflects a supersessionist theological view, in which a “good” Christianity replaces or evolves out of a “bad” or outmoded Judaism. The text opposes ‘the particular exclusivism of the Jewish faith’ to ‘the universalist, inclusive dimension of Christianity’ (p. 6). The report points to ‘Jewish specialness’ (p. 8), and implies that Jews believed God to be ‘confined within the land of Israel’ (p. 7) or ‘confined to the place of the Temple’ (p. 8)—at least until a prophetic proclamation like the book of Jonah or the words of Jesus appeared to bring new theology. When the writers of the document look at Paul’s letter to the Romans and his insistence that ‘all Israel will be saved’ (11:26), they highlight the interpretation of this as ‘a vision of a reconciliation beyond this age’ suggesting that God is not with Jews (or any other non-Christians) now.

From the Christian side, the document presents New Testament views on land, people and sacred space as the culmination of a process, so that ‘Previous experiences of land, including the peaceful returns from exile, were stages towards a wider future’ (p. 8). Jesus’ teachings are cut off from the tradition which taught him: ‘The Good News of Jesus is inclusive’; he ‘offered a radical critique’ of Jewish understandings (which was not taken up); and ‘Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple means not just that the Temple needs to be reformed, but that the Temple is finished’ (all p. 8). Overall, when talking about Jesus and Christian scriptures, the report leaves the impression that Christianity is all that Judaism is not. Apparently, Christianity is open, welcoming, universal, not tied to a place as with the old Temple, and presents a God who cares for all people, while Judaism is closed, hostile to outsiders, ethnocentric, tied to a place, and presents God as one who cares mostly for the people of Israel alone.

One can understand why adherents to Judaism might be distressed. While the writers of the report do admit that a plurality of voices and viewpoints appear in the Hebrew Scriptures—looking to the prophets and especially the book of Jonah—there is little sense that such multiplicity of opinion is integrated with Israelite religion all the way through. The report demonstrates hardly any sense of Judaism as a living religion, as a faith tradition which reaches beyond what Christians call the Old Testament. The only time contemporary Judaism is discussed in any detail, it is through the lens of Mark Braverman speaking as an American Jew to critique Israeli treatment of Palestinians; this means that the only view of Rabbinic Judaism that readers get is connected to ‘political Zionism’, a Passover liturgy which reinforces ‘brittle superiority’, and a community bound together by ‘separateness, vulnerability and specialness’ (p. 6). This provides a rather narrow glimpse.

Judging by the response excerpted above from the Church of Scotland’s Facebook page, I’m not sure that the church is really aware of the theological damage which the report represents in its original form. The most recent statement on the matter, however, does declare ‘That the Church condemns all things that create a culture of anti Semitism’. It will be interesting to see if that condemnation includes the Church’s own negative teaching about the Jewish faith. There is no way that the report stands alone, for the only way that the report’s characterisation of Judaism would appear without an expectation of it causing problems is if it is so engrained in the Church’s understanding that such views slip beyond self-correction.

Here, to me, is the heart of the theological problem from a Christian point of view: why does it seem necessary to present people of another faith negatively in order to enhance what we think is positive about our own faith? Why do Christian theologians allow the perpetuation of what is clearly a misinformed and biased view of another world religion? Why does our valuing of Jesus rest so much on representing him as severed from his own religious life as a Jewish man? Because it is a Christian theological problem: as much as construing Christianity in opposition to those who are considered “other” harms those others, it also hampers the vision and breadth of Christian theological thinking. You could say that it is simply always easier to blame someone else rather than engage in self-criticism,2 but it goes deeper than that.

One of the major roots of the problem lies in the difficulty which we Christians have thinking through the meeting point of universality and particularity in relation to our faith in Jesus Christ. Theologically, the Christian faith has to deal with this one who is both anchored in a specific historical person and available to all people, times and places as the one who is most intimately connected to the Lord of all that is. Christian spirituality thus resides in the tension between the abstract and the concrete, the local and the global. However, as most human beings quite naturally find irresolution uncomfortable, the theological temptation has always been to resolve the tension, to head in one direction or another. Most often this has meant choosing the universal, partly because the universal has been accorded more value philosophically. The problem is that this tendency can fail to remember that Christianity also has a particular side; at the worst, this can fuel imperialistic visions of the Christian faith in which all other faiths become subsumed in the Church whether their adherents like it or not. The confusion manifests in the ‘Inheritance of Abraham’ report in the way that it values the inclusive, universal qualities of Christianity but also presents Christianity’s exclusive side without even recognising that it is doing so: at one point, after criticising the exclusivity of the Temple, the report declares that ‘The new “place” where God is found is wherever people gather in the name of Jesus’ (p. 8) seemingly without noticing how this excludes all non-Christians from God’s presence. Theology matters because people need to recognise and reflect upon such tension; Christian theologians need to continue to try to express the dialectic central to Christian life in a way that builds up peace and justice for all people.

Another contribution to the report’s problematic presentation of Judaism comes from the shadow side of specifically Protestant theology, namely turning the centrality of Scripture into blinders concerning religious tradition outside the text and a discomfort with sacred space. Now, I would not be a Protestant myself without believing that theology should have a Biblical basis. However, such a basis means identifying themes, symbols, modes of interpretation, literary meaning, and more; it does not mean ignoring everything that has happened since the Bible was written. But too often Protestant theology thinks that theological reflection equals Biblical exegesis. Taken to extremes, it is construed that only what is closest to the time of Jesus counts, but even without going this far, the tendency towards Bibliolatry can mean doing things like assuming that ancient Israelite religion, Second Temple Judaism, and modern Judaism are all exactly the same.

As for sacred space, the implication that the Temple is by definition a negative institution stems in no small measure from a Protestant distrust of anything built that some might claim to hem in God, like shrines, cathedrals, or other holy places. On the one hand, this is a way to remind everyone that nothing constructed by human hands can contain God (no, not even theology). On the other hand, this can represent a misunderstanding of theologies which observe the holiness of particular places, and can push towards a devaluation of embodiment and physicality. This connects back to the point concerning how hard it is for Christians to articulate the theological mutuality of universality and particularity. Human beings are situated in specific places, dwelling and moving in relation to one another and the earth, but this can be seen as too limiting, and as constrictive to values of universality and inclusion. It becomes easier not only to denigrate materiality, but also to map the lesser quality onto whoever is other, whoever you as a Christian wish to differentiate yourself from. Thus Jews become indelibly linked to a temple system which is portrayed as restrictive in its understanding of God and damaging to human equality, while little thought is given to the plurality of viewpoints concerning the temple, let alone the fact that Jews have lived as Jews without the temple for almost two thousand years.

Much more could be said concerning the unconscious beliefs which undergird the original ‘Inheritance of Abraham’ report. Be that as it may, the report most certainly shows that theology matters. Understandings and assertions need careful and rigorous thought. Self-reflection and self-critique might catch some of the more egregious errors,3 and might also provoke questions of those assumptions leading to the negative portrayal of others, questions which might help Christians act with greater theological generosity, humility, and love. It is not that it has not been done before; a 2003 Church of Scotland report on Israel/Palestine took a very different tone, raising the importance of listening to others, and admitting that Christians ‘have no right to dictate to Jews how they ought to respond to their traditions’ and that ‘Judaism has its own integrity, distinctive practices and theological traditions’ (p. 19 of that report). There is always the possibility of doing theology better.

Holier than thou? The Church of Scotland’s report on the ‘promised land’

Posted on by
1

The Community Security Trust, the UK body that is concerned with the security of the British Jewish community, has posted this seething critique of the Church of Scotland, which we will reproduce in full here because it is so good.

One of the best known scenes in Monty Python’s Life of Brian film shows Brian’s mother, Mandy Cohen, insisting that her son is not the Messiah. She shouts at the multitude,

He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy!

A similar logic underpins a new report on the ‘promised land’, voted through by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The Jews, it seems, have long been naughty boys (and girls), and this misbehaviour is now manifest in Zionism and the actions of Israel.

The Church report seems unsure if Jewish scripture itself is to blame; if Jews misunderstand their own scripture; if Christian Zionists misunderstand Jewish (and Christian) scripture; or if Jews have been especially naughty for rejecting the perfection of Christianity and the New Testament. Whatever the case, the report explains that the ‘promised land’ is spiritual and universal. It “can be found – or built – anywhere”, belonging to all people, not just Jews, and both Jewish and Christian Zionists need to stop claiming otherwise.

The first of the report’s “Deliverances” sums it up:

Refute claims that scripture offers any peoples a privileged claim for possession of a particular territory.

It was understandable that Life of Brian would cause many Christians to feel that their faith was being singled out for misinterpretation and ridicule. Any Jews reading the Church of Scotland report may experience a similar feeling, but they are not the intended audience. Rather, it aims to educate Scottish Christians, to rebuke Christian Zionists, and to reassure Christians who feel guilty about antisemitism.

For most of these last 2,013 years, Christian attitudes to Jews have not been the best of adverts for the creed of ‘love thy neighbour’. We had hoped that the modern day Church of Scotland would be a living contrast to this history, but that hope is now exposed as naive and outmoded, superseded by the Church’s anxiety to argue against the ‘promised land’ ideology of (mainly American) Christian Zionists.

It is natural that a Christian report should employ Christian theology when speaking to Christians, but ultimately the subject of this report is not Christian Zionism, it is Jews, Judaism, the ‘promised land’ and how it manifests in modern day Israel. As Ben Cohen explains here in Haaretz newspaper, the report’s knowledge of Jews, Torah etc is little more than a “parody of Judaism…not only the delegitimization of political Zionism – but of Judaism itself”.

Beyond the theology, the saddest thing is that this episode will cause the small Scottish Jewish community to now ask if the Church of Scotland is antisemitic: either in intention, or in effect, or if the opposite is in fact the case. This will largely depend upon whether the Church shows itself genuinely open to hearing (and understanding) Jewish perspectives, or if it simply does not care.  The distinction is crucial. Misunderstandings can be overcome with good faith and dialogue. To simply not care is entirely different, and in this context, amounts to malevolence.

The Church claims to care very deeply indeed. So, did these concerns extend to consulting with Jews when drawing up the offending report? Well, sort of, because this report is actually a revised version of an original edition that was far, far worse, but was removed and significantly amended following furious and unprecedented protest by the leadership of the Scottish Jewish community in early May 2013. (Their utter denunciation of the report’s content, its non-consultation with Jews and its impact upon interfaith relations really should be read here.) This included their describing the report as:

an outrage to everything that interfaith dialogue stands for. It reads like an Inquisition-era polemic against Jews and Judaism. It is biased, weak on sources, and contradictory. The picture it paints of both Judaism and Israel is barely even a caricature. The arrogance of telling the Jewish people how to interpret Jewish texts and Jewish theology is breathtaking.

The following week, after a request from the Council for Christians and Jews, the Church hosted Jewish leaders and later thanked them for being “gracious in their concern”. The new report was issued “acknowledging that some of the original language, on reflection, was misguided”. The new report still gets nowhere near the sophistication and breadth of Jewish views – often sharply divergent – on the subject of Jews and the land of Israel, but it does at least ensure that the worst “misguided” elements are given a Stalinist makeover and wholly removed. For example, the following have all disappeared:

Politically, the wild claim that, “the visionary concept Eretz Yisrael Ha’shlema (from the Nile to the Euphrates) was fundamental to Ben-Gurion’s ideology”.

On antisemitism, the Holocaust and Christian superiority, “[Mark] Braverman is adamant that Christians must not sacrifice the universalist, inclusive dimension of Christianity and revert to the particular exclusivism of the Jewish faith because we feel guilty about the Holocaust. He is equally clear that the Jewish people have to repent of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians…They must be challenged, too, to stop thinking of themselves as victims and special…”.

Theologically, terming Judaism as “exclusive” and “particular”. These had indicated Judaism’s alleged moral and theological inferiority to Christianity.

Furthermore, there are some new and very important additions, such as “Israel is a country which is recognised within the international community of states”, and also condemnation of “anti-Semitism and Islamophobia”. (Why the report references Islamophobia in this context is curious. Anti-Christian hate or bias gets no specific name check.)

For a detailed analysis of the new report’s theological revisions see the Kippah and the Collar blog here. It explains, for example, how the rewrite of the Jonah section removes the worst anti-Jewish excesses, but retains, “For Christians, G-d in Jonah is merciful”, as if Jews, by contrast, would not believe G-d to be merciful.

The new report states that it does not “suggest that one perspective supersedes another”, i.e. that Christianity does not replace Judaism. You cannot, however, polish one thing into being another thing. For all its added veneer, the new version comes from the same thinking as its predecessor, only more politely. The Church hierarchy have not rethought the doctrine of the report, they just speedily rewrote it in time for the General Assembly on 23rd May. Engaging in a long dialogue with Jews was never part of the plan: not for the year prior to the first report’s release, nor after the first tranche of Jewish concerns were heard.

Indeed, the General Assembly overwhelmingly rejected a suggestion that everything be postponed until next year’s meeting, so as the Church might have proper dialogue with Scottish Jews. The rejection came after the Assembly received an assurance from the Reverend Sally Foster-Fulton that the Church was “looking forward to, and expecting” future dialogue with Scottish Jews. This assurance is questionable, especially when the Reverend also admitted in her opening of the Assembly debate that there had been no such prior dialogue within the “past year”. The new report will make no difference to Israel’s actions concerning Palestinians, but it (and its process) will significantly affect how Scottish Jews regard the Church.

The report (and the controversy) may also affect how Scottish Christians regard Scottish Jews, or at least how their leadership regards its Jewish counterpart. Never mind the theological infantilising of highly complex Jewish and Jewish Zionist attitudes to the land of Israel, there is also a grave risk of bad faith: as has occurred many times in settings where professed Jewish concerns are rejected as fake cover for Israel’s alleged crimes. Complain as a Jew in such a context and you get dismissed as a conspirator and a liar. The Church may well have to consciously reject such attitudes if it wants a meaningful future dialogue.

Unfortunately, the report’s authors are already steering the Church towards exactly this bad faith. Whereas the new report still does not quote a single Jewish theologian or Jewish authority on actual Jewish issues (including antisemitism), it now – following the Jewish complaints – includes an ugly and lengthy quotation from the politically charged Mondoweiss website. The quotation ends with a disgusting allegation, in the very worst of faith, concerning Jews who engage in dialogue with their Christian neighbours, but actually only care about covering Israel’s back with the smear of antisemitism:

…Non-support and, worse, criticism of Israeli policies, was seen by Jewish dialoguers as backtracking to anti-Semitism. That’s where the dialogue became a deal: Silence on the Christian side brings no criticism of anti-Semitism from the Jewish side.

Is this really how the Church of Scotland wishes its attitude to Jews and Jewish concerns about antisemitism to be understood?

Finally, there is what this new report says about what the Church is and is not, willing to target.

The report condemns the notion of a faith claiming a land, but it only names the Jews’“privileged claim” to Israel.

No mention is made of truly embattled Christians in Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, Nigeria or elsewhere. The Church may try and defend Christians who face persecution for merely being Christian, but its explicit moralising on others’ beliefs is, for now, strictly limited to those from whom there is no threat of anti-Christian riots and murders.

Frankly, it is impossible to imagine that the Church of Scotland would ever dare to write such a report that claimed to analyse the Koran, Mecca, concepts of Muslim land, dhimmitude and how all of this impacts against Christians today. What message does that double-standard send out?

Ultimately then, this report not only risks directly betraying Christian relations with Jews; it is also an indirect betrayal of all those Christians who most need the Church’s focus, energy, support, charity and prayers right now.

Read the CTS report here.

Why Impact: Holy Land? CaTC.Alt?

Posted on by
58

ImpactHolyLandLogo-3-300x145Why Impact: Holy Land? Indeed, this was the question that I asked myself, will this be an alternative to Christ at the Checkpoint or CaTC with different initials?

The list of speakers certainly looks interesting, but what is very odd is the list of those invited but who have not yet replied. Is this some kind of coercion list, if they don’t attend then the world knows that they don’t want to be part of this “conversation” on December 4-6, 2013. Also revealing are those they have not invited, as there are certainly more voices that were raised against CaTC’s bias against Israel that could be heard in this conversation, if they really do want to balance off the highly emotive input of people like Chacour. If the Impact HolyLand organisers would like some suggestions, we’s be happy to provide them with our list of speakers. Here are three for free: Dr Calvin Smith, Dr Barry Horner and Paul Wilkinson.

The list has many of the participants of Christ at the Checkpoint, minus the highly controversial Stephen Sizer and Ben White, (for the time being!). I would image that they would not resist attending, but they will keep these names off the public list in order to make sure more Messianic Jews will attend.

The other major problem is the communion service, where Messianic Jews and evangelicals will be expected to share with members of denominations they would have fundamental theological issues with. Oddly the communion service seems to be open for non-Christians to participate in:

“Jews and Muslims, as well as those of other faith traditions or no faith tradition, are welcome to participate in the entirety of the conference.”

Whilst we welcome this “Emerging” conversation, we do not think cloaking it in ecumenism will help bring together all the voices that need to be heard. In fact key voices from the Messianic Jewish and Christian Zionist side will be precluded because their convictions regarding the ecumenical project will mean their conscience will not allow them to participate. Therefore if the Impact organizers are really serious about brining all the voices from the full spectrum of the debate, do not impose ecumenism upon this.

UPDATE 3/6/13

It seems our critique of what we termed the “coercion list”, has been noited and removed from the Impact Holy Land web site see here

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein Talks about Christian Evangelism of the Jews

Posted on by
2

Anti-Christian pressure group JewishIsrael loves to stigmatize any and all Jewish welcome of Christian support of Israel as support of idolatry. Any rabbi that dare seek build bridges and seek to find common ground or appreciate the teaching of Jesus as a rabbi, the good folk at JewishIsrael folk go apoplectic. With this clip they force their interpretation on what Rabbi Epstein is doing by claiming it is “A young Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein gives a new testament lesson to TBN’s Paul Crouch on how to evangelize the Jew”. Which is of course not what he was doing.

Could The Holy Ghost Be Jewish?

Posted on by
4

The Jewish Daily Forward has this great article Could The Holy Ghost Be Jewish? here: The subtitle evoked a kind of Homer Simpson “duh” moment from me: Christian Belief Can Be Traced Back to the Hebrew Bible, but of course it can, and it is not such an earth-shattering revelation at that. Anyway have a read for yourself.


Robert J. Foley of Wilmington, N.C., sends me a copy of an open letter written by author and rabbi Rami Shapiro to Pope Francis. In it, Rabbi Shapiro hopes that “ruach ha-kodesh, the Holy Spirit, has called a new pope from the new world to lead the Catholic Church,” and Mr. Foley writes:

“Rabbi Shapiro… is alluding to an expression often used by the conclave of cardinals [which chose the new pope], to the effect that the Holy Spirit will guide them in their deliberations. In my cursory look at the meanings and interpretations of the Hebrew words ruach ha-kodesh, I was indeed struck by some of the similarities between them and the concept of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity. In forming this concept, to what extent do you think the early Christian writers and Church Fathers might have been influenced by Judaism?”

They were influenced by it a great deal. Although neither biblical nor rabbinic Judaism has anything like the Christian Trinity in its thinking about God, there can be no doubt that the ru’aḥ ha-kodesh (literally, “spirit of holiness”) of the Bible and rabbinic literature was the direct antecedent of the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit — or, as it was more commonly known in the English-speaking Catholic Church until recent times, the Holy Ghost. (“Ghost” is an Old English word for “spirit,” just as “a spirit” is a now archaic way of denoting a ghost. A ghost is nothing but a disembodied spirit, and the expression “to give up the ghost,” which has survived from medieval times, refers to the body’s sundering from the spirit at the time of death.)

In Hebrew, starting with the Bible and continuing to this day, ru’aḥ has the two meanings of “spirit” and “wind.” Historically, wind is clearly the older of the two, spirit being derived from it by analogy: As the wind, that is, is invisible but has the power to move visible things, so the spirit is conceived of as that unseen force in human beings or the world — the breath of life, as it were — that activates all that can be seen…

Indeed, in the first appearance of the word ru’aḥ in the Bible, in the second verse of the book of Genesis, it is difficult to know which meaning to give it. Does veru’aḥ elohim meraḥ efet al-p’nei ha-mayim mean “And the spirit of God hovered over the water” or “And a wind from God hovered over the water”? Perhaps both.

The phrase ru’aḥ ha-kodesh, “the holy spirit,” occurs only three times in the Bible, one of them being Psalms 51:13, where we read, “Cast me not away from your presence and take not thy holy spirit [ru’aḥ kodshekha] from me.”

In rabbinic literature, on the other hand, the phrase is extremely common. In most cases, it is perhaps best translated as “divine inspiration,” in others as “the divine presence.” In several passages, it is associated with the Shekhinah, God’s indwelling presence in the world.

In very early Christianity, the Holy Spirit is much the same as the ru’aḥ ha-kodesh of the rabbis. The first chapter of Acts, for example, written in the first century, tells how after Jesus’ death he appears to his apostles and is asked, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom of Israel?”

He answers them: “It is not for you to know the times…. But you will receive power when the holy spirit [to agios pneumatos, in the Greek of the New Testament] has come upon you.” The “holy spirit” here is the power to prophesy, granted by inspiration from above.

The rabbinic mind was not a theological one, nor was that of the early Christians; neither attempted, as did the ancient Greeks, to systematize their thought logically or to construct it upon a foundation of defined terms and concepts…

Philo turned out to have much more of an influence on Christianity than on Judaism, in which he was a peripheral figure who was soon forgotten. The Christian notion of the Holy Spirit as the third element of a triadic God whose two other constituents are “the Father” and “the Son” — that is, the creator God of the Old Testament and the divine Jesus of the New Testament — derives largely from him, though Philo himself was no more Trinitarian in his approach than were the rabbis. This, in a nutshell, is the answer to Mr. Foley’s question.

See full article here 

Church of Scotland Report: anti-Zionism 0.2

Posted on by
7

The Church of Scotland’s controversial report on Israel has been revised and re-release and, can be read here. Convener Sally Foster-Fulton claims:

We believe that this new version has paid attention to the concern some of the language of the previous version caused amongst the Jewish community whilst holding true to our concerns about the injustices being perpetrated because of policies of the government of Israel against the Palestinian people that we wanted to highlight. The views of this report are consistent with the views held by the Church of Scotland over many years.

The report claims:

“We assert our sincere belief that to be critical of the policies of the Israeli government is a legitimate part of our witness and we strongly reject accusations of anti-Semitic bias. We regularly engage with and critique policies of all governments, where we deem them to be contrary to our understanding of God’s wish for humanity.”

The report is largely unchanged. Lets forget the anti-Semitic accusation for a moment and just stick with the simple bias against Israel that this report reflects. Do such denominations spend quite as much time on condemning other countries in such terms? I don’t think so. Israel is the only country in the world whose existence is questioned for theological reasons! The Church of Scotland seems to think it has God’;s voice as it pontificates on Israel, believing this report is a “witness”.

The right of return of all refugees is supported (with the added caveat that they support compensation too), despite the definition of a refugee not being specified or defined. This would lead to the de facto destruction of the State of Israel. However the larger number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries expelled at and after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, is unsurprisingly ignored.

The myth of “an inequality in power” is used to justify being harsher on Israel than the Palestinians. Israel is surrounded by hostile Arab neighbours and in a wider context, the inequality of power lays in the favour of her enemies.

There is not one mention or recognition of the indigenous Messianic Jewish community of faith in Israel. Despite ample recognition of various Arab/Palestinian Christian voices in documents such as Kairos, the Messianic Jewish one is totally ignored. The statement issued by leading International Messianic Jewish organisations has not even been responded to by the Church of Scotland.

It seems like quite appropriate timing that whilst a historic denomination condemns Israel, based on the theological assumption of Supersessionism, Christians from other theological backgrounds release a book that challenges the new, aggressive anti-Israel Supersessionism: The Jews, Modern Israel and the New Supersessionism (New Revised and Expanded Edition)