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Topic: Letter by 60 Christian leaders
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Kindgo
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Other American Christian leaders who signed the letter to Bush were Clive Calver, president of World Relief of the National Association of Evangelicals; John Dellenback, former director of the Peace Corps and former member of the House of Representatives; author Colleen Townsend Evans; John Ortberg, teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago; James Skillen, president of the Center for Public Justice; Glen Stassen, Fuller Seminary professor and former professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Richard Stearns, president of World Vision U.S.; and author Philip Yancey.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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Kindgo
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Linda I am lookin up ![[Big Clap]](graemlins/clap2.gif) and I am lookin for the list ![[help]](graemlins/1zhelp.gif)
Christians should support Israel, Land & others say
Jun 12, 2002
By Tom Strode
ST. LOUIS (BP)--Supporting Israel is a "matter of being obedient to God," Richard Land said at an overflow briefing on the Jewish state June 10.
Oliver North and Jerry Falwell joined Land at the briefing, which was sponsored by the new Stand for Israel campaign. The effort, announced only in late May, has a goal of mobilizing 100,000 churches and 1 million American Christians to support Israel.
In giving a biblical defense for a Christian backing of Israel, Land pointed to God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis that included a promise to make of him a great nation through Isaac and to bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him.
"God doesn't make conditional covenants, and he doesn't negotiate. It's God's way or the highway," said Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "For us, supporting Israel is a matter of being obedient to God and obeying God's command to bless his chosen people."
God also promised to bless and to multiply Ishmael and his descendants, the Arabs, Land said. "God has blessed them, and he will bless them, everywhere but Palestine, because God gave Palestine to the descendants of Isaac forever," he said.
Land, Falwell and North all said support for Israel is important to the future of the United States.
Though the United States has not been perfect, it has been "the least anti-Semitic country in the world" in the last century, Land said. "God has blessed us in large measure because we have blessed the Jews.
"As an American, I believe America needs to bless Israel more than Israel needs for America to bless her, because if we bless Israel, the lion of Judah is going to bless us and if we don't, he is not," Land said.
The "Bible belt is Israel's safety belt," he said.
Falwell said he believes God has blessed the United States for three primary reasons:
-- The country has provided freedom to the Bible.
-- Christians here have spread the gospel of Jesus more than in any other country.
-- America has been committed to the people of Israel.
It is in America's national security interests for the United States to support Israel, North said. "Even if it made sense to abandon our support for Israel, I want you to try to imagine what kind of credibility we as a country would have," North said. What "kind of credibility would we have anywhere in the world?"
"The reality is, there is one country in that part of the world that we can count on," North said. If the United States abandons its commitment to Israel, "we are going to abandon our future," he said.
North served on the National Security Council staff in the 1980s and is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. He spoke earlier in the evening at the SBC Pastors' Conference. Falwell is pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., with a long-running television ministry.
Israel is committed to a negotiated peace, Moshe Fox told the crowd. Fox is chief spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington.
The Israeli government offered widespread concessions nearly two years ago, but Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat responded by setting the "olive branch on fire."
Israel has learned from the United States it "cannot have peace without security," Fox said. "Peace can only come when Arafat stops the terrorism.
"We will never offer statehood for the last 20 months of terrorism.... [P]eace and terror, cannot, have not and will never coexist," he said.
Jeffrey Ballabon, founder of the Center for Jewish Values, told the audience that Jews "are not hearing" of the support of American Christians. "They need to hear it," he said.
Ralph Reed, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and former executive director of the Christian Coalition, was scheduled to speak but was unable to attend because of a travel delay at a Washington airport, a spokesman for Stand for Israel said.
Reed and Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, are cochairman of the Stand for Israel campaign. The campaign has scheduled a meeting of evangelical leaders June 18 in Washington. Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to speak.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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helpforhomeschoolers
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I would like to know whoo all 60 of these people are does anyone have a list?
Posts: 4684 | From: Southern Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: Jun 2002
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Kindgo
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By Tom Strode
Letter by 60 Christian leaders
criticizes pro-Israel evangelicals
WASHINGTON (BP)--A group of Christian leaders has called on President Bush to adopt an "even-handed policy" toward the Israelis and Palestinians, in the process charging some American evangelicals have twisted Scripture to provide unqualified support for Israel's government.
Such an accusation is a "case of building a straw man and seeking to tear him down," Southern Baptist public-policy specialist Richard Land said in response.
In a letter to Bush, 60 signers, identifying themselves as American
evangelicals, endorsed a U.S. policy that "affirms the valid interests" of both sides in the Middle East conflict. They also told the president the "American evangelical community is not a monolithic bloc in full and firm support of present Israeli policy."
"Significant numbers of American evangelicals reject the way some have distorted biblical passages as their rationale for uncritical support for every policy and action of the Israeli government instead of judging all actions -- of both Israelis and Palestinians -- on the basis of biblical standards of justice," they wrote.
Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, questioned who would be guilty of such a charge.
"Just exactly who among evangelicals is furnishing 'uncritical support for every policy and action of the Israeli government instead of judging all actions -- of both Israelis and Palestinians -- on the basis of biblical standards of justice?' I don't know any evangelicals who are giving uncritical support to everything Israel does," Land said. "I don't know any evangelicals who give uncritical support to anyone but God."
In their letter, the writers endorsed a free state for the Palestinians. They condemned the suicide bombings that have occurred for nearly two years and the failure of the Palestinian Authority "to stop the violence against Israeli citizens."
Their letter also urged Bush to oppose injustice, "including the continued unlawful and degrading Israeli settlement movement."
"The theft of Palestinian land and the destruction of Palestinian homes and fields is surely one of the major causes of the strife that has resulted in terrorism and the loss of so many Israeli and Palestinian lives," they wrote. "The continued Israeli military occupation that daily humiliates ordinary Palestinians is also having disastrous effects on the Israeli soul."
Israel contends its settlements in disputed territories are not illegal.
The Old Testament prophets, "who were pro-Israel, knew God would never bless Israel if it did not do justice, love mercy and walk humbly before God," Fuller Theological Seminary President Richard Mouw told The Washington Post, citing Micah 6:8. "And bombing little Palestinian kids in order to get at one leader ... and then claim it was a successful military operation -- that is not doing justice and that is not showing mercy."
Land said while he does not endorse all actions by Israel's government, "there seems to be in the letter an assumption of moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and that is dangerous nonsense.
"Are the Israelis perfect and blameless? No. Are they guided by standards of justice and morality that seem to find no place in the councils of [Palestinian Authority leader] Yasser Arafat and his minions? Yes," Land said.
"I find it distressing that there is no allusion in this letter to the
corrosive, vile, malignant and virulent anti-Semitism spewed forth into the hearts and minds of Arab young people and children by the Palestinian Authority's official news agencies. Such anti-Semitism breeds a new generation of suicide bombers," Land said.
Among those signing on to the July 26 letter in addition to Mouw were author Tony Campolo, evangelist Leighton Ford, Denver Seminary Chancellor Vernon Grounds, author Gordon MacDonald, Christianity Today editor David Neff, Prison Fellowship International President Ronald Nikkel, community activists John Perkins and Eugene Rivers, former U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Robert Seiple and Evangelicals for Social Action President Ronald Sider.
Mouw told The Post the letter was saying to the White House, "Hey, there are some of us who are not quite in sync with the loudest voices [among evangelicals]. And if you're motivated by a desire to please the evangelical community, you've got to know that some of us are not pleased by the heavy-handed favoring of the Israeli side in all of this."
Another signer, Wheaton College professor Gary Burge, told The Post the group wanted Bush to know "Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, just to take two names, do not represent the evangelical voice of America. They represent a segment ... but not the majority."
Land said, "Anyone familiar with the real landscape of evangelical
Christianity in America would conclude that the signers collectively represent a segment of evangelical opinion but not a majority. The bottom line is that Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist in the land, and the Bible says that God promised that land to the Jews in perpetuity."
In June, Land said on the eve of the SBC's annual meeting that Christian support for Israel "is a matter of being obedient to God and obeying God's command to bless his chosen people."
Land cited God's covenant with Abraham in Genesis that included a promise to make of him a great nation through Isaac and to bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him. "God doesn't make conditional covenants, and he doesn't negotiate. It's God's way or the highway," Land said.
His comments came at a briefing in St. Louis sponsored by a new
organization, Stand for Israel. Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., also spoke.
Stand for Israel is seeking to mobilize 100,000 churches and 1 million American Christians to support Israel. The organization is calling on Christians to join in a Day of Prayer and Solidarity for Israel on Oct. 20.
Ralph Reed, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and former executive director of the Christian Coalition, and Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, are cochairmen of Stand for Israel.
Another campaign, The Jerusalem Prayer Team, is encouraging American Christians to pray for Israel. The group, headed by evangelist Mike Evans and Jerusalem Major Ehud Olmert, wants to enlist 1 million Americans to pray daily and 100,000 houses of worship to pray weekly for the peace of Jerusalem.
Other American Christian leaders who signed the letter to Bush were Clive Calver, president of World Relief of the National Association of Evangelicals; John Dellenback, former director of the Peace Corps and former member of the House of Representatives; author Colleen Townsend Evans; John Ortberg, teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago; James Skillen, president of the Center for Public Justice; Glen Stassen, Fuller Seminary professor and former professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Richard Stearns, president of World Vision U.S.; and author Philip Yancey.
A letter to Bush from some Christian leaders in Israel also criticized the Jewish state's policies. In early June, Alex Awad wrote an open letter, criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and saying he "is not a man of peace," ASSIST News Service reported.
"Sharon is crushing the Palestinian people and humiliating them and their leadership to assure the survival of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," wrote Awad, whom ASSIST described as a United Methodist missionary and pastor of the East Jerusalem Baptist Church. Bishara Awad, president of Bethlehem Bible College and Alex's brother, endorsed the letter, according to ASSIST.
Bethlehem Bible College is an interdenominational Christian college.
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http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=13995
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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