The UK Churches and Israel: (1): The Church Times

In order to analyse developments in Church attitudes to Israel over the last three years or so, I will take as an example the January 4th edition of the Church Times.

Who reads this paper, you might ask? Well, according to reliable sources, everyone in the Church of England, from the two Archbishops downwards. As well as the religion media, of course.

The importance of the Church Times cannot therefore be over-estimated. A German Lutheran (who attended my Hebrew classes in Manchester because he wanted to become an Anglican vicar) was told that an important part of his training was to read the Church Times each week. Through doing this, he would get a feel for Anglicanism, he was told.

The monarch is the supreme governor of the Church of England, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is -apparently - the second most important person in the country, after the Queen.

I first started reading the Church Times, together with seven other papers - ranging from Methodist to Catholic - at the request of the Manchester Jewish community. It was felt that someone with a background in theology might best be able to assess the effect on the Jewish community of the stream of invective streaming weekly from most of these papers. And if it wasn't Judaism per se, it was bound to be Israel.

The worst offender of the eight - alarmingly so - was the Church Times. It was dubbed 'the Guardian/Independent at prayer'. One of the paper's most prominent contributors is also Associate Editor of the Independent, as well as being the husband of the BBC's head of radio religious broadcasting. I had glimpsed this personage once on a visit to the BBC studios in Manchester, and would not like to have crossed her on a dark night - no, not at all!!

Week after week, I waded through the anti-Israel invective of the Church Times, until I decided to ring them up. They admitted that they were anti-Israel and said that this was because of their readership. I told them that much of their reporting on Israel was inaccurate and the material on Judaism wasn't much better and that this was contributing to the rise of physical attacks on Jews in Britain.

To their credit, they got back to me and asked me to write an article about how the Jewish community in Britain felt about things in 2005, including how they felt about the Church.

To my utter amazement, I received a great deal of feed-back from the UK Jewish community, including the Board of Deputies, Community Security Trust and a large number of individuals. People associated with the Chief Rabbi's Office were concerned that I might overdo it, but in the event even they were pleased with the article.

Two contributors asked me not to use their real names, in case of back-lash. One of these is now emigrating to Israel.

In the end, the paper called the article

'Anglicans have betrayed the Jews'

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=12631

and - predictably maybe - the Council of Christians and Jews led the condemnation of my hutzpah in writing the article, little realising, maybe, that some of the most telling quotes had come from their own membership!!

The article elicited four or five weeks of letters, most of them in support of the article.

Since that time, there have been changes at the top of the Council of Christians and Jews, which until then had, in my experience, been reluctant to even mention the word 'Israel', or even worse, dismissed it as (in the words of one Chair of CCJ) 'that Nazi country'.

This sentiment was reflected in the views of some of the Church Times' regular writers (who also write for the Guardian and Independent. Terms such as 'the Jews', 'Pharisees', 'Israelis', 'Old Testament', etc etc, served as a punch-bag against which these left-liberal writers could vent their considerable ire. Christianity, and particularly the Church of England, was, of course, all sweetness and light to them, when compared to the aggressive, vengeful, Nazi-like Jewish entity.

So, it is with considerable pleasure that a perusal of last week's Church Times contains some welcome surprises.

The report on the proposed GAFCON meeting of Anglicans in Jerusalem, which is supposed to take place in 'the Holy Land' in June, just before the Lambeth Conference, is discussed dispassionately:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=49376

The Leading Article is intelligent. It suggests that rather than asking if a biblical event really happened, it might be more helpful to enquire whether it is true, useful, or relevant to the believer. The Church Times may be surprised to learn that this approach is not 100 miles removed from the way rabbis look at the biblical text. And is very much akin to some of the greatest classical and medieval scholarship produced by the Church itself:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=49309

Then the piece de resistance by a member of the CCJ team:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=49311

The writer, a rabbi, discusses the importance of dialogue, the 'Judaeo-Christian tradition' and why two-way dialogue is to be preferred. I suppose three-way dialogue is a bit like 'two's company, three's a crowed', or 'three in a marriage' etc. The 'I-'Thou' relationship is complicated by having to concentrate on two rather than one partner, and might possibly lead to the loudest voice drowning out the others.

There is still the odd letter (some of them very odd) such as one which states that:

'Jesus's message was clearly about God's generosity in the forgiveness of sins; and much of the Christological discussion has been limited by the ancient Hebrew and Jewish understanding that a sacrificial death is necessary for God to forgive us our sins.

This limitation does not seem to have been shared by Jesus ....

There's a whole lot in this which is problematic. Not least the idea that Jesus was not Jewish and did not understand Hebrew. But also the strange interpretation of the Jewish understanding of forgiveness, which is, in fact, the very opposite of what the letter writer says. I mean, look at Jewish history. Talk about how the Jewish people have exemplified the idea of 'turning the other cheek', for instance. And what about the Jewish Yom Kippur service?

Yes, sometimes ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

A really great article on pilgrimage, however:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=49235

is followed by '20 ways to help the Earth', which could have sprung from one of our Hadassah-israel environment meetings here in Haifa:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=49382

Yes, the review of yet another negative book on Christian Zionism throws a spanner in the works:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=49201

and demonstrates the paper's anti-American credentials.

This is especially illogical of them in the wake of the second article they commissioned from me not so very long ago, entitled:

Why the Roots of Zionism Matter:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=43222

At the request of the Church Times itself, that article emphasized the Lambeth Palace statement of 2006, which welcomes the Balfour Declaration (a bit late in the day, but never mind), as well as the role of British Christians in establishing the State of Israel:

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/releases/060905.htm

So why the continuous invective against that same Balfour Declaration and that same State of Israel? It's not only offensive, it actually doesn't make sense.

On the other hand, I do now enjoy Andrew Brown's media page. At least he is not averse to entering into correspondence. Although he has a penchant for ridiculing Ruth Gledhill of The Times, she seems robust enough to take it. And this week, he did refer positively to her husband, Alan Franks, also of The Times. So he can't be all bad.

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=49318

The TV page was shockingly ignorant about Bethlehem (a fleeting mention of Hamas as equivalent to Israel - par for the course). No mention of the record number of pilgrims welcomed at Christmas -  more than any other time since the millenium, if I'm not mistaken. It was a nasty bit of propaganda. I'd love to visit Bethlehem, but am not allowed in. The writer didn't mention that, though!

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=49315

And the back page interview, which used to be one of the most anti-Israel features of the entire paper,  presented the views of an aid worker in Sudan, who is inspired by Isaiah 58 and would like to be locked in a church with Hitler: 'I would like to find out how people can commit such atrocities'.

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=49322

So, all in all, not perfectly fair, but I would give it 80 out of 100 for effort and 70 out of 100 for achievement. And I have always found them extremely professional to work with.

So let's wish the Church Times luck in the year to come, with more of the good articles on Judaism by people who know what they are talking about. And maybe 2008 will also see more about the Christian communities in Israel itself.

How about Haifa for starters?

Comments

[Lawrence]

Irene,

If you were responsible for an improved balance in the Church Times, then congratulations. Your article was right on target. I wish our articles in Episcopal papers in the U.S. were as well written and thoughtful.

Larry Budner

[Surbitonite]

Irene

I wonder what you think of this in my view very political "Thought for the Day" on Radio 4 this morning by Clifford Longley?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thought/