Base Criticism on Facts, Not Prejudice

These remarks by the Bishop in the same sermon are rather offensive:

"Yes, there are some Jewish Christians, some brave souls living their faith openly, and, I have it on good authority, many others who practise their allegiance to Jesus as Messiah behind locked doors, as certain of their forebears did between the first Easter and the first Pentecost."

"importation from America of plane-loads of Orthodox cousins, fired up with passionate synagogue sermons from their ageing rabbis in Brooklyn, ready to arm themselves and take over the Promised Land."

Many Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn do not think Israel should exist.

These are questionable:

"Yasser Arafat, once regarded as the classic Palestinian terrorist, is now the moderate"

"add in a strong dose of Old Testament fanaticism"

"the new Jewish existence in Palestine, coming into public acceptance in 1948 and growing thereafter, will herald the dawn of the final day when Jesus Christ will return, will fight the great battle at Armageddon, and will set up his kingdom once and for all. The details vary with different interpretations, but the overall scheme is well known.

This scheme is, of course, well liked by Zionists."

That is absurd. Jews do not like having Christians view Israel as a stepping stone to the return of Jesus and their conversion to Christianity.

Bishop Wright wrote this. It is not fair but may not be anti-semitic. However it is not wholly unreasonable for some folk to see it that way.

"Many of the early Jewish settlers genuinely believed the land was empty. ‘A land without people for a people without a land’ was their slogan. This, however, was far from the truth. The Palestinians were neither numerous nor strong, but they existed, real people living in real houses on real farms, running real businesses. They were ordered out, often with threats, sometimes with actual violence. In typical instances, they were given half an hour to get ready, and then bussed away, either over the border into Jordan (thereby creating huge new problems for that neighbour) or into specified towns such as Nazareth. They were not allowed back. To this day there are Jews living in those Palestinians’ houses, tilling their fields, sleeping in their beds, eating off their china, and quite likely quoting Deuteronomy to back it all up: houses you did not build, fields you did not plant, vineyards you did not grow."

http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Holy_Land_Today.htm

"there are Jews living in those Palestinians’ houses, tilling their fields, sleeping in their beds, eating off their china"

That makes Jews seem like the Europeans who disposessed them. It is not true. Most of the people displaced did not eat off china plates and live in grand homes. Many of them did not own homes and land. And most of the land was purchased.

None of what he describes happened when Zionist Jews from Europe came in the 19th Century. Nor did it happen under British rule. There may have been such incidents during the War to destroy Israel. That is the nature of war. So at best the Bishop was aggressively and wrongly taking a few incidents and making it seem they were pervasive as well as creating a false analogy to what happened to Jews in Europe.

e favorite,

It's not that I don't condone the Bibles judgment of certain sins. But the church is not the theocracy that Israel was. It's not the churches job to bring the wrath of God upon sinners. It is the churches job to proclaim God's grace to a sinful world so they can be saved. God still feels the same way about divorce, for instance, as He always has. And He declares in the Bible that the wage of sin is death. If He chooses to bring an immediate judgement, such as He did through the theocratic government of Israel, or postpone that judgement till a later date, as he is doing now, that's His perogative. But His moral standards don't change over time. One thing is for sure, though: Despite your opinion of Him, He loves you, and sent His Son to pay for your sin, by giving His life, and rising again, so you could know Him. Different as we may be, I hope you spend some time thinking about that.

Mark

Mark – you’re right, people should clarify why they think you’re a bigot. I for one, find myself stunned into speechlessness when people make some of these claims about the Bible. Luckily, the delayed response afforded by this on-line forum communication can help people with wildly divergent views get their points across.

You say you think divorce, etc. are wrong, but don’t seem to condone the Bible’s punishment for them. And I don’t hear an outcry among the Christians who are against gay rights to abolish divorce laws for heterosexuals.

As to your final questions, we are so far apart it’s hard to respond, even with time to formulate my thoughts. I don’t know much about the Lord’s bringing Israel and Judah into judgment and don’t think I need to, to function in today’s world. I don’t think God is going to come to “judge the world” and even if I did, it wouldn’t be a reason to try to maintain ancient standards in a modern world.

e favorite,

The question of my views regarding other things the Bible condemns, never comes up. If someone with a differing viewpoint assumes I have a biased opinion towards some commands in the Bible, and a neglect toward others, without ever stating so, that's their fault. As for how I feel about such things as adultry, cursing one's own parents, and other things identified a sinful: Yes, I think such things are wrong. God may delay judgement for many sins that recieved the death penalty in the ot economy. But that doesn't mean He doesn't see it as wrong any longer. Adultry is still wrong. Fornication is still wrong. Divorce is still wrong, etc.
As for the varying standard of law that you talk about, why do you think the Lord brought Israel and Judah into judgement then? Why didn't the law change for them? They certainly wanted it to, didn't they? And by what standard then, will God judge the world, if the standard changes?

it is important to make distinctions between facts and emotional opinions-

the intent of the person claiming the facts can always be alled into question- but when an enitre world council agrees in a general consensus on an issue- then we can assume there is some objectivity there-

clouding the issue of israel has been a tactic for some generations now by screaming anti-semitic intentions-

when people speak for themselves and define their own criticisms it precludes those accusations-

http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/

now these isssues are becoming of even more personal importance to americans as we send ships into the persian gulf to prepare to defend israel-

so these questions need to be examined carefully
and not sidelined by the old battlecry anti-semitism

Mark, I can see why people would think you were bigoted, unless, of course, you are just as resolute about condemning sex during menstruation (Lev 18:19 and 20:18), death for adultery and cursing at your parents (Lev 20:9 and 10) and a host of other transgressions from over 2,000 years ago.

Even if you could cherry pick your way through the Bible to find the ideal moral system for your personal views, it wouldn’t make it right or in any way superior to modern law. Like all people (including the ancient Hebrews), we live by the laws and mores of our time, which are changeable and adaptive.

e favorite,

Maybe some people are, just as you say. But almost always, without question, no matter how many times I've presented biblical reasons and convictions for concluding that homosexuality is sinful, the charge comes back that my motive is bigotry, not morality. In my experience, the charge of prejudice and bigotry is grossly misapplied.

Mark

Stu,

Why do you attribute homosexuality to God, as though He approves of it, simply because men practice it? What would happen if you applied that line of thinking to the sinful nature of mankind? Would you say that God approves of sin in general, because He makes sinful people? And how do you square your understanding of God with such passages as Lev. 20:13, or Lev. 18:22, where He explicitely condemns homosexuality? Has He changed His mind?

Mark

It has pleased God, for reasons known only to Himself, to create some of those creatures made in His image as homosexual. To say that the God-given condition is wrong or not moral is to say that God is wrong or not moral.

It is a shame that N. T. Wright, whose scholarship and erudition has helped so many people - including me - get closer to the Truth of the Gospel has now morphed into Bishop Wright, who has chosen to deny that Truth in order to stay in step with the homophobic hierarchy of the institutional religious establishment.

Maybe someone who "thinks homosexuality is wrong" is neither phobic nor moral. Maybe they're just bigoted.

Homophobic is a term I think is widely misused. Just because someone thinks homosexualiy is wrong, doesn't justify calling their opinion a phobia. Maybe they're just moral.

Just as because I disagree with SOME homophobic reactions of SOME homophobic Anglican bishops does not mean I am ant-Anglican.

The facts as one sees them however.

Always appreciate your substantial mental prowess however.

An American friend.

I definitely agree. I believe the people of the US are being deceived by the government continously in order to serve the purposes of the wealthy elite capitalists.

Absolutely. We have fascist war mongers in the form of the Bush Family. They do not uphold their oaths of office, and they do not respect the Constitution yet they would have us believe that to criticize them is to be Anti American. I think to support them is to be anti american. Every American Citizen who loves this Country should be critical of the entire Bush Family and their political minions.

There's no doubt that merely voicing criticism or a difference of opinion toward another isn't necessarily "prejudiced". One can never truly KNOW what is in anothers heart but one CAN get a sense of it through the words they use, or choose NOT to use.

For example, I could say that "I object to faithbased initiatives because the legislation allows religious discrimination in hiring."

OR - I could say that "I don't like faithbased initiatives because it allows the Christianists to tell the perfectly qualified Agnostic that they won't hire him to run their charity only because he isn't a Christian. With MY tax money they do this!"

See the difference? It isn't the objection itself that lends the air of prejudice. It is the word choice.

Yes!