Archive for the ‘Christianity’ Category
Christianity: In defense of Rabbi Weiss
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006
I occasionally look in on CNN’s token conservative, Glenn Beck. A few weeks ago, he briefly interviewed Rabbi Yisroel Weiss of Jews United Against Zionism. Weiss had gained some notoriety for his criticism of Zionism in the face of Israel’s war with Hezbollah. Beck’s manhandling of his guest led me to the conclusion that he didn’t really grasp what the Rabbi was saying, perhaps because Weiss was basing his remarks on Torah, not on conventional political wisdom.
As a Christian who has spent a fair amount of time in the Old Testament, I think I understood what Weiss was saying. His criticism of Zionism proceeded in parallel with an argument I have often had with other Christians – that the modern state of Israel is not the ancient Israel of the Torah or the Christian Bible.
Consider the differences: Ancient Israel was created by God, while the modern state of Israel was created by the U.N. The original boundaries of ancient Israel were established by God, while the original boundaries of the modern state of Israel were established by diplomacy. Ancient Israel had a king – first God himself, then a succession of human kings – while the modern state of Israel has a parliament and a Prime Minister. Ancient Israel was ruled by the Mosaic Law given by God, while in the modern state of Israel is ruled by civil law promulgated by the Knesset. There’s a pattern here.
It seems to me that ancient Israel, the geographical and political entity, is gone. Its territory was conquered by a succession of neighboring countries, its priestly government was swept away, its last holy temple was destroyed by the Romans. Ancient Israel now lives on in the same form in which God originally created it – as a spiritual and ethnic entity, a nation without borders, God’s Chosen People, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The result of these earthly events and others was the Diaspora, the scattering of the Jewish people from the Promised Land. But the disappearance of ancient Israel was not just the product of stronger neighbors and an expanding Roman empire. It was – as Rabbi Weiss reminded me – the very will of God, prophesied by Moses as the people of Israel prepared to enter the land of Israel:
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Deuteronomy 30:15-20, emphasis added)
Conquest and Diaspora, the beginning and the end of ancient Israel – the Scriptures reveal the history and meaning of these events to Jews and Christians alike. Rabbi Weiss and I would probably disagree on what a new Israel will look like, but I think we agree that its construction will not be the work of human hands obedient to human will. What God has given and taken away can be restored only by God.
I am not presuming to judge a theological debate among Jews. The Talmud is a mystery to me. No doubt there are different Jewish theological perspectives that run counter to that expressed by Rabbi Weiss. But his comments lifted my own doubts about the Biblical (not political) legitimacy of the modern state of Israel out of the realm of theology and into the realm of current world events. Viewing these events – past and current – as a Christian, his observations ring true to me. And they raise uncomfortable questions about a faithful Christian response to the ongoing violence in the Holy Land.
No, I am not in any way defending the Arab states’ unwavering hatred of the modern state of Israel. Iranian President Ahmadinejad is still a raging lunatic. There is no justification for suicide bombers or any other brand of terrorism. Contemporary Islamic fascism is easily the equal of the last century’s German fascism. The people of Israel deserve the opportunity to live in peace and security. So do Palestinians who renounce the terrorist tactics of the government they chose.
I don’t believe that Islam’s war against Jews is God’s will. But I do know that it’s not a good idea to mess with God. He alone will choose the time and means for the restoration of his nation of Israel. I question whether God chose the U.N. in 1948 to do the job. David Ben-Gurion certainly didn’t look much like the humble servants God had chosen in the past – the fugitive shepherd Moses or the Persian cup-bearer Nehemiah, for example. And, so far, the fruits don’t look the same either.
I have no answers, no suggestions to the world’s leaders. All I have – thanks to Rabbi Weiss – is a new-found conviction that I need to view the Mideast conflict in a new way and seek God’s will as I do so.
[Rabbi Weiss’ views are summed up in this speech.]
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Christianity: Ecumenicalism leaves the WCC behind
Thursday, November 17th, 2005
An essential tenet of Christianity is the unity of the church. The body of Christ consists of all believers, all united in faith, all serving God according to their gifts. This fundamental fact does not necessarily preclude the formation of denominations, but it does clearly require that all Christians put their unity in Christ ahead of their unity with a particular denomination or other earthly organization.
In the late 19th century, Christians involved in missions decided that it would be helpful to form relationships across denominational boundaries to further their work. This cooperative effort became known as ecumenicalism sometimes referred to as ecumenism, or, more commonly, the ecumenical movement. Like many good ideas, this one got hijacked by leftist bureaucrats who subscribed to one of the great errors of socialist thought – the dreamy notion that good institutions can make people good.
Promoting unity from the top down
One of the institutions what was supposed to make Christians “better” was the World Council of Churches (WCC), founded in 1947. Thomas C. Oden, writing for Christianity Today, describes the WCC as “an organization of churches, historic denominations chagrined about their divisions. Its task is to bring church bodies into a formal dialogue leading toward visible unity.”
Oden notes that “the WCC’s Geneva offices were controlled for many years by leftist ideologues.” The WCC has been defined by its fondness for “colluding with Marxist regimes, fixating on regulatory politics, fantasizing about various liberation theologies, fostering illusions about world anti-capitalist revolutions, and advocating some forms of sexual liberation.” Even today, “though many Marxist regimes have passed, the historical pro-Marxist flavor remains in much of the political and social interpretation that comes out of Geneva.”
The WCC’s statist worldview underlies its basic structure, which Oden describes as “hierarchically organized to coordinate competing church hierarchies, each with their own vast bureaucracies.” With the usual arrogance of the left, the WCC believes that unity cannot be accomplished by individual Christians but must be achieved through its top-down enlightenment of the Christian masses.
Sacrificing unity for politics
The WCC’s left-wing arrogance has led it into another delusion – that WCC bureaucrats are wise and pure enough to determine God’s will and to pronounce it on behalf of all Christians for whom they presume to speak. But this is mere pretense. There is no agreement among Christians that the WCC’s left-wing ideology – or its shrill espousal of it – represents God’s will for the church.
This presumption belies the WCC’s claimed intent to be the “broadest and most inclusive among the many organized expressions of the modern ecumenical movement, a movement whose goal is Christian unity.” Indeed, the WCC seems bent on producing disunity with its political activism and Marxist worldview. This destructive behavior is illustrated by the controversy that erupts within my own Presbyterian denomination every time it appropriates another handout to prop up the WCC.
Seeing the light?
Years of irrelevance seem to have taken their toll on the WCC. In a recent meeting in New York, the moderator (Presby-speak for chairman) of the WCC central committee observed that “institutional ecumenism ‘ is in stagnation. The challenge is, how can we go beyond institutional ecumenism and make it a healing reality?'”
In an astonishing confession of years of wasted effort and money, he went on to say that “the ecumenical movement can no longer afford to be ‘a private club for conference-goers and church hierarchs.'” Another leader acknowledged the need “to be in dialogue with evangelical, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic groups” who do not belong to the WCC – and who would be unlikely to support the WCC’s political posturing. Another – perhaps seeing the need to focus on spiritual unity rather than political or organizational unity – called for “new approaches, based on ‘compelling spiritual vision rather than predictable organizational momentum, and by deep change rather than incremental change'”.
The real ecumenical movement
The “church hierarchs” who focus on talking to each other probably haven’t noticed, but the ecumenical movement is actually alive and well. It is characterized, as it originally was, by loose inter-denominational and sometimes international connections of lay people and local churches. There are many examples; here are a few my local congregation has participated in:
- The March for Jesus has been going on for twenty years, uniting Christians across denominational lines in England, Australia, the United States, and more recently in the Global South.
- The Alpha Course has been embraced by hundreds of churches of many denominations as way to teach the basics of the Christian faith to seekers and even their own members.
- The cursillo movement, though not explicitly ecumenical in its intent, has united Christians from many denominations in focused three-day renewal retreats. The best-known are the original Catholic Cursillo, the Methodist Walk to Emmaus, and the Presbyterian Great Banquet, but there are many others.
In my city of 50,000, people from more than 100 local churches have attended Great Banquet weekends, praying. learning, and talking together. Instead of talking to each other, maybe the WCC leaders should be talking to churchgoers who actually live the ecumenical movement. But in the long run, it doesn’t much matter what the WCC does; Christian unity lives below their radar.
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