Thursday, August 30, 2007

The other calumny of Jeffrey John

Jeffrey John needs little introduction to British evangelicals: he made headlines in 2003 when he was the first person to have openly been in a sexually active gay relationship to be nominated to be a Church of England bishop. Owing to the consequent controversy, he was asked by archbishop Rowan Williams to stand down before he took up the bishopric. More recently, he has been rightly criticised by evangelical bishops for denying the doctrine of penal substitution. On Good Friday, however, he committed another calumny: he said that Jesus' Jewish disciples would have made "good Nazis".

Yes, he actually compared Jews to Nazis, a comparison which surely is as offensive as any, but sadly is all too widespread, whether in Ken Livingstone's likening of Jewish reporter to a concentration guard, or in the iniquitous inversion of terminology in the Arab-Israeli conflict where Israel is compared to the Nazi (the well-documented Nazi roots, shoots and salutes, of Islamic antisemitism notwithstanding).

I would hope that, if his statement was to become more widely known, the evangelical protests would be at least as loud as those over his sexual practices and doctrinal heresies; if not, it would sadly confirm the sneaking suspicion of many British Messianic Jews that antisemitism is British evangelicalism's "acceptable sin".

Monday, August 20, 2007

Ethnic cleansing in Palestine? - challenging revisionism

In recent years Israel has been accused of "ethnically cleansing" Palestinian Arabs during Israel's 1948 war of independence. Among her accusers, bizarrely and sadly, are the so-called Israeli "New Historians" such as Ilan Pappe. I was therefore pleased to hit upon this brief commentary on Pappe's work on the Engage site, which (like Efraim Karsh's important articles here and here and the statements of Arab spokesmen) sets the record straight.

The weakness of the Zionist lobby

As Geoffrey Alderman wrote in last week's Jewish Chronicle, the US government is currently proposing to make a gift of some $20 billion of military hardware to Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in the region. Quite apart from her horrendous human rights record, Saudi Arabia does not recognise Israel, is technically still at war with Israel, actively participates in the Islamic boycott of Israel, does not permit a single Jew to live within her borders, and is one of the world's leading purveyors of Holocaust Denial literature. As Alan Dershowitz points out here (on page 12), this is not the first time the US has supplied military aid to the Saudis, Israeli objections notwithstanding. I hope this will be pointed out loud and clear to the next person (whether neo-Nazi, left wing journalist, Islamic propagandist, or Christian anti-Zionist) who suggests that American foreign policy is unduly influenced by Jewish neocons and the wicked Zionist lobby.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Selah

This blog will now be resting for a week or two as I have a bit of time off over the summer :-)

Great quote

"Anyone, however, who believes in presenting Israel as the scapegoat for Islamist violence is not only diverting attention from the goals of Islamism and its National Socialistzi heritage, but is also, by adhering to a new "the Jew is guilty" model, reconnecting with the ancient forms of European anti-Semitism."

From Matthias Kuentzel, National Socialism and Anti-Semitism in the Arab World, Jewish Political Studies Review 17:1-2 (Spring 2005)

Read the full article here

Thursday, August 09, 2007

"Why can't Messianic Jews just call themselves Christians like everybody else?"

Richard Gibson attempts to give some answers from church history, here

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

test post

please ignore this post

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Responding to Terror

EUROPEANS HEIGHTEN THREAT LEVELS

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved". Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross". Londoners have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz began in 1940 and tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance". The last time the British issued "A Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the great fire of 1666.

Also, the French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability.

It's not only the English and French who are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout Loudly and Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans also increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose".

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.