The American Bi-Centennial in 1976 was a watershed year for the religious right. While mainline churches declined evangelical fundamentalist churches became the fastest growing sector of American Christianity. TIME magazine named 1976 as The Year of The Evangelical and suddenly they became a legitimate political and religious force.
Following the War of 1967, Israel gained an increased portion of USA foreign aid and military budgets, becoming the ‘western pillar’ of the USA strategic alliance against Soviet incursion into the Middle East.
During this period AIPAC and other pro-Israeli lobby agencies began their ascent to power in shaping USA foreign policy.
The Roman Catholic Church and mainline Protestant denominations began to develop a more balanced approach to the Middle East, bringing them closer to the international consensus on the Palestinian question. Pro-Israel organizations interpreted this shift as being Anti-Israel and in turn began to court the conservative Christians.
In 1977, when President Carter stated "The Palestinians deserve a right to their homeland," the Christian fundamentalists and Israeli lobby responded with full page ads stating: "The time has come for evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in biblical prophecy and Israel’s divine right to the land...and affirm our belief in the Promised Land to the Jewish people."
The Reagan White House hosted a series of seminars from the Israeli lobby and Christian right. This was when Hal Lindsay, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and the Moral majority infiltrated the West Wing.
Falwell received a Lear Jet from the Israeli government for his personal travel. When Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear plant in 1981, Prime Minister Begin called Jerry Falwell before he called Reagan to ask him ‘to explain to the Christian public the reasons for the bombings.
In 1996, Netanyahu and Likud ideology dominated Israeli policy and 17 evangelical USA pastors pledged their support of the illegal colonies in the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and full support for a Jerusalem under sovereignty of Israel.
The Christian Zionists launched a PR campaign under the banner: "Christians Call for a United Jerusalem." They ignored the fact that they were in conflict with American policy and the Oslo process as well as a direct attack on Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant unity with the Churches for Middle East Peace that called for a Shared Jerusalem.
"The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty," Hagee wrote in 2006, in the Pentecostal magazine Charisma. "Israel and America must confront Iran’s nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide."
The theology of the fictional Left Behind series is the epitome of the spirit of the anti-Christ: which is the evil within ones own heart that leads one to fear "the other" and compels them to violence.
Thomas Jefferson did Christianity, America and the world a great service when he penned The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth which illuminates just how far these Christians have strayed from the message Christ delivered and modeled with his life: which was consistently compassionate and nonviolent.
To be just: justice comes from virtue which comes from the heart.
To treat people the way we want to be treated. To always work for PEACEFUL resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with COMPASSION. To consider valuable the things that have no material value. Do not judge others, do not bear grudges, be modest and unpretentious. To give out of true generosity, not because we expect to be repaid and that being true to ones self is more important than being loyal to ones family, and those who think they know the most are the most ignorant.
According to Christ, to be his follower, one must do what the Father requires. The Hebrew prophet Micah summed it up best: "What does the Lord require? He has already told you o’man: Be Just, Be Merciful and walk humbly with your God." -Micah 6:8:
To be just is to be fair and reasonable. To be merciful means to treat all people the way we want to be treated. To be humble is knowing oneself; the good and the evil, for both cut through every human heart.
Christ taught that the only way to resist evil is with good and he modeled that one must always work for peaceful resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with compassion and forgiveness. Jesus did just that, even after being mocked, whipped and nailed to a cross for he prayed: "Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."
Bishop Munib Younan, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and Vice President of the Lutheran World Federation wrote:
"Specifically in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, most Christian Zionists denounce any division of the land between Palestinians and Israelis, so that any just peace with the Palestinians – including the two-state solution that is part of all peace plans of the past decades – would be impossible. Christian Zionists also tend to overlook or even excuse the blatant and well-documented violence of many settlers against Palestinians."
SOURCES:
http://www.sabeel.org
http://www.christianzionism.org/...
http://www.christianzionism.org/
http://www.christianzionism.org/...
5th International Sabeel conference, "Challenging Christian Zionism: Theology, Politics, and the Palestine-Israel Conflict," held April 14-18.
Jefferson, Thomas, The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Beacon Press, Boston, 1989.
Posted on the May 24th WAWA Blog is the complete article by Bishop Munib Younan An Ethical Critique of Christian Zionism
http://www.wearewideawake.org/...