The UK Churches and Israel (3): The Church Times January 25th
The Church of England has been split for a long time over a number of issues. So the Church Times, which tends to support the Archbishop of Canterbury, displayed a photo which was the epitome of unity, with his wife, Jane and Margaret (wife of the Archbishop of York) hand in hand, putting their best feet forward in anticipation of trhe Lambeth Conference.
This month's General Synod doesn't seem to have anything planned on Israel (thank goodness), but there will be a private member's motion by Timothy Cox from Blackburn (one of the places well known for its no-go areas, by the way)
http://irenelancaster.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/05/clitheroe_are_y.html
'asking for Bibles to be readily available in all churches':
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=50440
I do hope that this request includes the Hebrew Bible, i.e. the Old Testament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Bible
which some high up in the Church have forgotten is part of their own, as see below.
Then there was an article on the House of Lords defeat of the Bishops on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill - fathers will apparently not be necessary for IVF conception:
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=50447
This is one reason out of many why the Bishops should remain in the House of Lords. Good to see that the Bishop of Manchester taking a leading role on this. But the defeat is part of the slippery step towards.....
The CT's Middle East Correspondent, Gerald Butt, discusses the situation in Gaza. The article attempts to be objective, but is vague on what Israel is going through at the hands of Hamas. The Sderot word is not mentioned - not even once.
This is in contrast to the approach of The London Times, say, which endeavours to be precise and even-handed. And, of course, the theology of Hamas, which you might expect to be discussed in a church newspaper - the quasi-official state religious newspaper of the UK, no less - didn't even warrant a mention. Must be that lack of Bibles in churches! Here's the Hamas Charter which states that its aim is to annihilate the Jewish people - just in case you weren't aware of it:
http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html
Please note that 'Palestine is an Islam Wakf' - always has been, always will be. Now, why didn't our Gerald mention this, do you suppose?
Next, a very interesting article on the proposed GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem suggests calling it a pilgrimage rather than a conference.
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=50423
Two points here.
There have been countless conferences of Anglicans in Jerusalem which were nothing less than hate fests against the Jewish people, Judaism and the Jewish state. And no-one did anything to stop, or amend these. And, not that long ago, people who dared to dissent from some of the anti-Jewish views expressed here in Jerusalem were unceremoniously ejected from the meetings concerned - and they have the tapes to prove it.
http://www.shalom-shalom-jerusalem.org/conference.html
But when you get a conference of Anglicans for whom the Bible actually means something - the entire Bible that is - not just the bits that suit - then all hell is let loose.
As it happens, last year I gave a sermon at a Jerusalem synagogue which called for more pilgrims to flock to Jerusalem, but in the right spirit.
http://irenelancaster.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/06/sermon_at_sicha.html
A few years ago, in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, the Dalai Lama said exactly the same thing. He said that churches and buildings were not what it was about. But that all the religions should visit special places, hand in hand, and that Jerusalem is one of these. That's after a conversation he had with my husband:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/3751355.stm
So maybe the organisers of GAFCON have got it right after all and their conference can actually be that pilgrimage. Who knows!
But as far as the mainstream of English Anglicans is concerned, the cartoon which accompanies the Bishop of Durham's negative piece on GAFCON says it all really. His article
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=50392
is condescending in the extreme. And he shows his true colours by one small insertion:
The Jerusalem Post article about the conference, proudly displayed on the GAFCON website, highlights different Anglican attitudes to the Israel/Palestine question. Do the organisers really want to raise those matters? Do they know what will happen if they do?
This extract makes it perfectly clear that one of the most highly intelligent and respected Bishops in the Church of England deems the present State of Israel to be irrelevant, and even more. Not for him the 'dry bones' of the prophet Exekiel, or Rashi's idea that 'the exile is like a man. Just as he will return to life, so Israel will return from exile'
This goes beyond antisemitism. This is not even hate, it is complete and utter contempt, not just for Jews and Judaism but for African Christians as well - the ones for whom the Exodus from Egypt, for instance, actually means something in their own lives.
http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=1
And it's interesting to note that the very erudite and highly respected Bishop of Durham does not quote once from the 'Old Testament'. No, anything remotely Jewish is divorced from his entire vocabulary, even though his piece is pepppered with totally inappropriate, puerile even, citations from the New Testament alone, as if he had the hot-line to Jesus!
It's called panic!
Because what appears to annoy him the most is the fact that the Jerusalem Post, a Jewish newspaper written in the State of Israel (whose editor is originally from Leeds, by the way) should have the absolute chutzpah to get involved in important Church matters.
Yes, replacement theology with a vengeance. Totally and utterly shocking!
So maybe the GAFCON people have a point. And since I wrote these words, on Friday morning, there was this from Ruth Gledhill in The Times later on Friday, an insider's view on why the GAFCON meeting has everything to do with internal Palestinian Anglican politics, and not much if anything to do with Lambeth itself?
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2008/02/gafcon-power-st.html
Ruth's article includes a link to a response to the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, which some may find very interesting.
and this headline today, which is even more shocking:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3292032.ece
It appears that the Bishop of Rochester, who supports a meeting of Anglicans in Jerusalem, has been faced with death-threats for suggesting that there are some 'no-go' areas in Britain.
Not only is he right about that, but there are also some no-go areas in the realm of thoughts and ideas, as well, which, if you express them, might lead to very dire results indeed. And most people don't think it's worth the effort to tell the truth. But since the time of Hitler and the collusion of much of the Lutheran Church, it's absolutely essential that Bishops in Britain speak out about the new philosophy which threatens to derail western civilization. Especially in a week that has been commemorating the Holocaust:
Some would say therefore that the Bishop of Rochester is actually a hero.
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