Looks like my church is up to no good again:
The general assembly of the Disciples of Christ has adopted a resolution calling for Israel to dismantle its West Bank security barrier, passing the measure by a clear majority on Wednesday in a vote that was postponed by a day.
Although amended slightly before the vote, the resolution was nearly identical to the one adopted earlier this month by the closely related United Church of Christ. As in that case, the Simon Wiesenthal Center was among the most vocal of Jewish and Christian groups calling for the church to dismiss the resolution. On Wednesday, it expressed its extreme dissatisfaction at the vote’s outcome.
“The resolution is an abomination,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center. “It is shocking and depressing that a vanguard of social activism like the Disciples of Christ would be so blind and deaf to Jewish suffering,” he told The Jerusalem Post.
After speaking with many of the delegates to the general assembly in Portland, he added, “I believe that this does not represent the grassroots members” of the Disciples of Christ church. And we in the Jewish community need to see that it does not become representative of them.”
Exactly how this is a religious issue, or even if it was, any of their damned business, is Simply beyond me. Marty Peretz comments:
The Disciples of Christ have just jumped in to the recent St. Vitus dance mania of some of its brethren, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church, and the Anglicans (both here in the United States and in Great Britain), in pouncing on the State of Israel as the primary villain in world politics or at least so villainous as to warrant almost unprecedented and relentless condemnation by their official leaderships. In this, they are following the lead of the National Council of Churches bureaucracy which has been–how can we say this, diplomatically?–made historically quite edgy by the national renaissance of the Jewish people. (If you look at the NCC website, you’d be hard pressed to conclude that the organization was anything other than a political mobilization of the left and one, at that, rather blasé about Christianity.)
It is a macabre spectacle watching these communions denounce Israel, the most consistent target of helter-skelter Arab and Muslim terror in the world, with victims virtually every day–one day two, the next day twenty-two–now numbering in the thousands, and anointing it as liberal Christianity’s chosen object of theological opprobrium. The Disciples and the United Church, the most recent players in the “Israel shouldn’t protect itself” school of international politics, have called on the Jewish state to dismantle its security barriers around the West Bank (a line of fences, checkpoints, electric fields, trenches, monitored roads and–just for your information, which you probably have not received on ABC News–not more than a few miles of admittedly ugly walls).
Apparently, to some religious leaders, a defensive wall is a religious issue. Alexander Campbell is probably rolling in his grave. More here at the American Thinker.
Mike S
I typically accept the Wiesenthall side but I thnk there are legit questions about the wall.
When I build a wall between my and my neighbors property I build it on my side of the propery line.
Granted that there are all kinds of disputes about the border I think that it is a valid point. The wall isn’t so much the problem as the line it’s built on, imo.
gratefulcub
Sharon is going to get us all killed, It is our business.
Stormy70
The Palestinians need to be walled off from civilized society, period. Give them their own state and let them make a go of it, and give fair warning about the response if they continue to make war on Israel.
ppGaz
Worth a try.
ppGaz
How about South Carolina?
Stormy70
California – something for everyone.
Bob
How about Palestine?
Stormy70 says that “[t]he Palestinians need to be walled off from civilized society.”
And this broad condemnation of a people was arrived at by your brain or your olefactory prejudices?
Sojourner
Florida
ralph phelan
Christian groups are promotinng policies that will tend to get Jews killed … so what else is new?
Stormy70
It was arrived at by years of seeing them send their sons and daughters to blow up innocent people. This culture dresses their children in suicide bomber outfits complete with toy machine guns. They teach martyrdom in thei anti-semitic schools. They shoot their own people down in the street like dogs, before the trial. They want to hang gay people, and subject “dishonored” (raped) women to punishment. These are the people that all other Arab countries keep out of their own borders because they are trouble makers. Gee, how could I ever get the idea that they are a decent bunch of people. By their fruits will you know them, and their fruits are the glorification of death. they need to be kept far away from a civilized society.
Andrew J. Lazarus
I agree that the precise course of the wall is unfair to Palestinians—but that doesn’t seem to be what the churches are objecting to. As far as I can tell, they’re still stuck in a let’s all live together mindset that’s been abandoned by the Israeli center and a significant fraction of the Israeli left. Heck, the most vocal Jewish opposition to the wall comes from the settlers, because no matter how skewed the wall is, it leaves some of their settlements outside (where they will soon have to be abandoned).
TallDave
I don’t see what the problem is. The Palestinians are building a thriving Stone Age civilization on their side of the wall, and now they have a barrier to keep those damned blood-drinking Jews out. This should make everyone happy.
Retief
By their fruits?
The current sitiutation in Israel and her occupied territories is the fruit of 30-odd years of failed Israeli policies. Israel has never figured out what to do with all the arabs living on teritory it wants to control. And the current misery is the fruit of that failure.
physics geek
Re: the Perez comment about the “Presbyterian Church”.
I wish that people would make clear the distinction between the actions of the Presbyterian Church-USA(the leftist version) and the Presbyeterian Church in America(PCA) and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church(OPC). PC-USA does something and no one bothers to mention that they do not represent all Presbyterans. As a PCA member, I can tell you that any similar action by our church leaders would lead to wholesale revolt by the congregation.
ralph phelan
Sounds like PC-USA is very appropriately named.