JTF.ORG Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: mord on December 31, 2008, 06:45:57 AM
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http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129120
Mixed Christian Reactions to Operation Cast Lead
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
(IsraelNN.com) There have been quick reactions from international and local Christian organizations to the ongoing Israeli counter-terrorist Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Most have wavered between condemnation of Israel and noncommittal calls for "the violence" to end.
Alongside words, however, there have been actions, as well. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews announced on Monday that it will be providing NIS 1,100,000 to Israeli communities currently under fire from the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.
In Bethlehem, the mayor shut off the decorative lights and the Christmas tree decorating the city "to protest against the massacres committed in Gaza," Mayor Victor Batarseh told Agence France Presse (AFP). Bethlehem is the location of the Church of the Nativity, where Christians believe Jesus was born. The city of Bethlehem was a majority Christian city on the eve of the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA), but now, due to unofficial and official persecution by the PA Muslim community, Christians are a small and dwindling minority.
In Gaza, with a Christian population of around 3,000 people, the Hamas takeover in June 2007 led to a series of attacks on Christian institutions. Attacks included murder, vandalism, bombings and abductions, most especially targeting schools and churches. Last Wednesday, jihadists fired a mortar at the Erez Crossing into Israel just as a group of Christians were on line, waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas. Most Gazan Christians belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, while others are Roman Catholic.
The Roman Catholic pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, delivered a speech on Sunday in which he said that "the Holy Land" has "again seen itself struck by an outbreak of unprecedented violence. I am profoundly saddened by the deaths, the wounded, the material damage, the suffering, and the tears of the peoples victim to this tragic recurrence of attacks and reprisals."
More explicitly taking a side, the World Council of Churches (WCC) condemned "the violence against Gaza." The WCC, which works with the Roman Catholic Church, includes 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches, representing more than 560 million Christians in more than 110 countries.
WCC General Secretary Dr. Samuel Kobia, a reverend representing the Methodist Church in Kenya, called on "governments in the region and abroad" to seek the protection of "those who are at risk... on both sides of the border." Yet he singled out "over 300 lives lost, more than 1,000 people wounded, [and] uncounted thousands traumatized" in Gaza as a result of the "bombardment of one of the most densely populated places on Earth."
Most explicit in condemning Israel, however, was the Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. On Monday, she said, "I join my voice to theirs and those of many others around the world, challenging the Israeli government to call a halt to this wholly disproportionate escalation of violence. I challenge the Palestinian forces to end their rocket attacks on Israelis." Of immediate primary concern, in Schori's view, is getting "vital humanitarian assistance to the suffocating people of Gaza."
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This means EXACTLY what I have been saying- they are NOT "Christians" just like the lefty UN-Jews are NOT Jews. >:(
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true
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I think this has nothing to do with religion, but with bolschewist policy.
It is obvious, that Katharine Jefferts Schori is a joke. She voted also for Gene Robinson in 2003.
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The Bible says to bless Israel. I don't see how they can be following that if they are so in sympathy with Israel's enemies.
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This means EXACTLY what I have been saying- they are NOT "Christians" just like the lefty UN-Jews are NOT Jews. >:(
You took the words right out of my mouth....
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Not Christians!!!!
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Disgusting, but far from surprising. The "leaders" of world Christianity would rather see Christians martyred by Muslim mobs than see a single hair on the head of a Muslim Nazi perish.
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Liberal Christians = CINO . (Christian in Name Only)
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I think this has nothing to do with religion, but with bolschewist policy.
It is obvious, that Katharine Jefferts Schori is a joke. She voted also for Gene Robinson in 2003.
Oh yes i remeber her she voted for the gay :::D :::D
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I think G-d left the Episcopalian and liberal Christian churches 30 years ago.
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The world council of churches are as close to Christianity as astrologers are to astronomers.
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The world council of churches are as close to Christianity as astrologers are to astronomers.
Well said. ;D
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The world council of churches are as close to Christianity as astrologers are to astronomers.
Well said. ;D
Yes, alot of "church's" are becoming apostate or will be soon. It is like a virus.....spreading. Not speaking the truth, following after false gods (money, materialism, etc)....not caring for the poor, widows and orphans, etc...
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What you expected from this kind of animal called liberal something? Or from "woman bishop" from "church" established on bastards of Henry the VIII?
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What you expected from this kind of animal called liberal something? Or from "woman bishop" from "church" established on bastards of Henry the VIII?
Good point Ultra Requete.
The Shisma of the Angelican church was in first line because of policy not because of faith.
There can't come anything good out of any gouvernmental church.
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The world council of churches are as close to Christianity as astrologers are to astronomers.
Well said. ;D
+1
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To Leftist Jews and Leftist Christians, their religion is not Judaism or Christianity, but Leftism. Many will openly admit they worship a Leftist cause. I've heard some say that their religion is "preserving mother earth". I've heard other Leftists say that pacifism is their religion (that's why many are becoming Buddhists).
To the Leftist, Judaism and Christianity are far too oppressive; these religions prohibit the sanctioning of evil. The Leftist cannot get past this. He wants to be free from moral scrutiny. Judaism and Christianity are an obstacle to amorality. This is why they draw moral equivalences between the just and the unjust. Please keep in mind this saying: "When a man declares: 'There are no blacks and whites [in morality]" he is making a psychological confession, and what he means is: "I am unwilling to be wholly good—and please don't regard me as wholly evil!'" (Ayn Rand: The Virtue of Selfishness)*
Nazism was precisely a movement that aimed to free mankind from the burden of conscience. Judaism and Christianity are always anathema to this precept.
* I don't advocate for the philosophy of Ayn Rand--at least not completely. Read her with caution. Think critically about her atheism and her viewpoint that places the importance of man at the centre of the universe. On the other hand, her embrace of capitalism and the virtue of self-interest is something that I do agree with, and I think that Jews would do well to live by those principles.
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Pheasnt Judging from consequences the 90% of reformation was based on hunger for Church property and not on the hunger for G-d's world; you won't find as many secularist heresies and strange new age like teachings in Catholic or Ortodox churches than in western liberal protestant denominations. Although I must admitt RC is cathing up rather quickly. The speed in this race for apostasy is :o me.
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Pheasnt Judging from consequences the 90% of reformation was based on hunger for Church property and not on the hunger for G-d's world; you won't find as many secularist heresies and strange new age like teachings in Catholic or Ortodox churches than in western liberal protestant denominations. Although I must admitt RC is cathing up rather quickly. The speed in this race for apostasy is :o me.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that Catholicism itself has been monolythic and unchanging. There have been something like 18 Lateran Councils, each dealing with various doctrinal issues. The most recent one of these was Vatican II, which was held in 1965. So the Catholic Church itself has changed and continues to change as new thinkers take on doctrinal issues. Heretic sects emerge from time to time, but the ones that have been successful, by and large, have kept the essential elements of the Catholic Church, in my opinion. Heretic sects that have been too divergent (such as Donatism, Arianism, or Montonism) did not last for long.