Selah

This blog will now be resting until 2008. As you remember the birth of a Jewish baby in the town of Bethlehem, remember to pray for the salvation of the people to whom he first came, and for whom his heart still yearns.

The politicisation of Christmas and the demonisation of Israel 2

Hijacking Christmas (from Richard Gibson's column in the British Church Newspaper, 21 December 2007)

It is bad enough when secular Britain hijacks Christmas for commercial reasons, it's unforgivable when Christians hijack it for political ones. Garth Hewitt's unquestioningly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel Amos Trust is selling an alternative Nativity set. The promotional blurb states it's " a nativity set with a difference - this year the wise men won't get to the stable." The Nativity model has a separation barrier between the wise men and the manger. Sadly both size models have already sold out. One wonders why the Amos Trust is selling and Christians are buying an item that Adolph Hitler would have delighted in purchasing. The Nazification of Liberal Protestantism in Hitler's Germany sought the theological and social demonization of the Jews in order to grease the wheels of the Holocaust. Organisations such as the Institute for Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence in German Church Life were formed (see Betrayal by Ericksen & Heschel). How easily British Christians have forgotten the sins of our Continental European brethren as they theologically colluded with the Holocaust. Such ill advised actions by the Amos Trust must cause deep pain to those who remember the last time the person and story of Jesus was hijacked and utilised to rid another region of the world of six million Jews.

What ever your stance on the Middle East conflict, leave the birth of Jesus out of it.

[JM note: of course, since the wall is to the West of Bethlehem and the wise men came from the East, they would still be able to see Jesus today. But why let that leaven of dullards, "the facts", get in the way of anti-Israel polemic?]

Praying for Israel

My Aussie mate Rory Shiner, the only person I know who has named his blog after a song by The Smiths (and is therefore by definition a man of good taste) posts on this vitally important topic here.

The politicisation of Christmas and the demonisation of Israel

Honest Reporting on the media's annual "let's blame Bethlehem's plight entirely on Israel" scrum. The piece is also worth reading for its commentary on the radically anti-Zionist (and sometimes plain anti-Semitic) Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, an organisation which is given patronage by Western Evangelicals Stephen Sizer and Gary Burge.

When anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism

Honest Reporting UK on the Abrahams-Mendelsohn-Labour party-Zionist-Jewish conspiracy. It was nothing to do me with me, honest!

The Longest Hatred 23

Concerning report regarding increased levels of antisemitic incidents in Australia, here;

more encouraging report regarding the participation of British Muslims in Holocaust Memorial Day, here.