I am really liking The Times of Israel, the new online publication I posted about a week ago.
This story is one of the reasons, Onward Christian Soldiers:
Think North American campus activism for Israel and chances are you won’t think of a Hispanic Catholic organizing pro-Israel events.
Or, of an African American Catholic at a historically black college telling not just her fellow students, but also a Jewish youth group, why she supports Israel.
Yet, Stanley Gonzalez-Martinez and Alexis Crews are among thousands of non-Jewish students at North American colleges and universities who wear their love for Israel on their sleeves….
A senior at the evangelical Christian Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, Sarah Spiller has already visited Israel and “can’t wait to go back.” ….
As a Christian, she says, “I have spiritual reasons to support Israel, but it goes beyond that. … The nation of Israel is a huge support to the United States through military intelligence; through training; through the support they show us when we’re attacked. … Israel is leading the world in technology and medical innovations that are not just helping their country, but helping the world.”
One a related note, see my post from almost three years ago, Passover Is No Time To Wish For The End Of Christian America:
I’m reminded of the bumper sticker from the 1960′s: “If you hate cops, next time you are in trouble call a hippie. ” Jews, of all people, should not wish too hard for The End of Christian America. There is no one else to call.
So particularly at this Passover time, we should not wish too hard for the End of Christian America. We might just get it.
Update: The latest Gallup survey shows Americans having an overwhelming 71/24 favorable/unfavorable opinion of Israel, the biggest spread since early February 1991, soon after Iraqi Scud missiles hit Israel in response the U.S. air war after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
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Comments
Interesting. I always think that Passover is the event where Jews and Christians have the clearest cultural overlap of all the holidays. Kind of reminds us of how much we share in common.
Exactly! Christ the Passover lamb whose shed blood on the lintel of our hearts saves all who believe.
As an atheist, I’ve always found it amazing that I support Israel a lot, while so many Jews are hostile to it. Whether you like it or not, the historical facts are that Judaism has always been far more tolerant (and searching for betterment of humanity) than any other religion I’m aware of. Islam has Jihad, Christianity has Crusades, and so on.
Anybody ever hear of a Jewish army invading neighboring countries, and forcing everyone to convert at the point of a sword? Ever hear of Jews holding book-burnings? Conducting genocide?
I think Judaism has a track record it can be proud of. And Israel has done a pretty good job as a government founded on that religion.
You need to read up on Biblical history, radio.
Jews certainly DID cleanse entire peoples in Old Testament times. They destroyed temples, and LOTS of other stuff. I mean, if you’re going to smear time to get to the Crusades, why not be consistent…???
Right you are. One of the mistakes the Israelis made upon their return to the Promised Land, after their wondering in the wilderness, was failure to remove the local people. God charged them with removing those living there, and removing their false gods. Some tribes did, many didn’t, and were left with the influence of the false gods through the wives they took from among those people.
My understanding of the Crusades is that the Crusaders were responding to Mohammedans assaulting the Jews and Christians living in the Holy Land: the murder of innocents and the defiling of sacred places. The Muslims invaded, the Crusaders responded to that invasion. It is a false narrative that Christians one day just said “Hey, lets go kill some Mohammedans”, without cause. However it does appear that a bunch of Muslims did, one day, say “Hey, lets go kill some Jews and Christians”. The expression “bloody borders” refers to Islamic countries.
Yes, in Old Testament times the Jews did indeed (at least attempt to) vanquish entire peoples and destroy temples. There is at least one important difference when comparing this to similar Christian and Islamic behaviors: The Jews did this ONLY in the Land of Israel, and only to the peoples living there at the time, and nowhere else. They did it only as the result of G-d’s command (recorded in that same Old Testament – you want half the package, you buy all of it) and even then did it reluctantly and imperfectly (see Saul’s failure to fully exterminate Amalek, resulting in the rise of Haman generations later). (It is true that the Jewish kingdoms did fight wars of expansion as well, however these were not genocidal in nature, purely military-on-military affairs, like those of any other country.) By contrast, Islam does it everywhere in the name of global conquest, and Christianity’s Crusades left (mostly Jewish) “collateral damage” in their wake that made Hamas and Al Qaeda look like pikers.
The Christian church does have a shameful bloody history – Constantine taught the church to centralize power and doctrine and pummel and punish its members with that power and force them to keep to the docrtine – this was how Constantine kept his empire in check and he wanted to keep the church under his control. Soon the Patriarchies began to bicker and seek power over the others…particularly Rome.
The Crusades were numerous, spread out over a long period, and had a mixture of motives, goals and targets.
The Muslims were the target of at least one crusade and the goal was to free the ‘Holy Land’ from the conquerors.
Christians were the target of the crusade that sacked Constantinople. Rome was trying to get the power from the Eastern church.
Jews were a target of one of the crusades.
Strangest of all was the Children’s crusade. Thousands of marched from Europe with an assortment of priests and nuns, to beg the Moslems to allow Christian pilgrimages of the Holy Land again. The children were set upon in typical muslim fashion, and they were raped, murdered, sold into slavery by the Moslems (nothing has changed over the centuries, has it?). None of the children ever returned.
Often the church and its leaders forgets the lessons of Psalm 62:11 (All power belongs to God) and the NT Book of Hebrews (Jesus is the only High Priest, the only Mediator between God and Man, and the only righteous man on His own merit. All other righteousness and power is borrowed, loaned, imputed by GOD.
I think that…if we limit the discussion to the era since WWII…we see that most religions have left behind the UNIVERSAL tendency to be pretty…”harsh”. (I can think of no exception to history’s rule.)
There IS one notable outlier, however…
I would suggest that you refer to the Inquisition or Charlemagne’s conversion by the sword to characterize antique Christianity’s practices instead of the Crusades. The Crusades were a response to Muslim attacks and destruction rather than what you suggest.
So particularly at this Passover time, we should not wish too hard for the End of Christian America. We might just get it.
This is it, in a nutshell.
Ok, I guess I will take the mantle (sigh) and be defender of Christianity today. Look, the ninth crusade ended in 1292, for Pete’s sake. The last JIHADIST act to my knowledge was thwarted in Washington D.C. FEBRUARY 17, 2012 when an Islamic terrorist allegedly tried to commit a suicide bombing on our nation’s capital. Hello that was THIS WEEK! While it’s fascinating to ruminate over the long bloody history of organized religions and Christinaity in particular, the fact is that one of the BIG THREE (people of the book) today is trying to murder everyone in the other two.
Glad you posted this, Professor. It’s nice to read good news once in a while to help remember that the whole world has not gone insane … just the left hemisphere.
May God bless and preserve Israel.
And today we learn that our President sent a letter to Afghan PM Karzi apologizing for the burning of a Koran on a U.S. military base in Afghanistan. Yet, it seems the Muslim Panderer in Chief had no problem with the burning of Bibles that were sent to Afghanistan by a U.S. Christian group.
American Jews and Christians better wake up quick and understand that the man who occupies the Oval Office will do everything in his power to destroy both of us.
And it turns out that the “holy book” was scribbled in to send messages to other prisoners. Also, burning a koran is the proper way to dispose of a “holy book” once it has been desecrated.
Looks like they did it to themselves.
Two American Soldiers were murdered in Kabul by an Afghani policeman. Did Karzai apologize to the United States of America? Of course not. This is a one way street.
I agree 100%. Israel is a small but very dynamic country. And the Israelis are good people. Barack Obama does not care about Israel (except to the extent it might alienate Democratic Jews).
Any Jew with eyes and a modicum of objectivity can see that the recent rise in anti-Semitism is in direct proportion to the decline in this country’s Christianity. Ever since Washington addressed the Rhode Island synagogue, America has been the most tolerant and least bigoted country in which Jews have lived for 3,000 years. As a Jew, it angers and embarrasses me terribly when I hear other Jews express their fear of Christianity. The irony is that most of them live in places where Jews are common. They imagine darkly what it’s like in, say, Central Texas. But if they did visit there, they’d find Gentiles who welcome their Judaism, respect it, and want to learn more about it.
I am one of the most pro Israeli supporters you could find. I also love Jewish cooking. So, while it is a very small minority position, I come across Jews who think Christians and Republicans are monsters ready to inflict an American pogrom at any moment and that the only thing holding them off is the Democratic Party. I know better than to even challenge it, I just listen. It is pure delusion. But it is an element that is out there.
What is very common, however, in the Jewish, progressive, and Democratic secular communities out there is a version of this belief that equates things conservative (such as the tea party) as foolish at best and potentially harmful and dangerous. People like this may make up 30% of the country (obviously much higher % in the blue states and lower in the red). They are great people otherwise, many of them are close friends or family, but their world view is just wrong. It helps me empathize with the frustration that Churchill must have had prior to WWII.
The Jewish people are rachmanim b’nei rachmanim (compassionate children of compassionate ancestors). The Torah mandates that we should be compassionate and caring but that compassion must be guided by the wisdom of the Torah.
There was a sad news story on GLC regarding the
Arab children trying to flee the massacre in Syria. They were trying to flee to Israel. Arabs fleeing to Israel is an untold true story. Thank you, sir for posting updates on Israel.
The beauty of Israel is that she would have taken them in. I remember the Sudanese who risked their lives crossing Muslim lands, or even left Muslim lands, to find refuge in Israel. Some of these Sudanese refugees are Muslim. Israel took some of them in, too.Egypt? She let them die in the desert or tortured them.
As long as comparisons are being made here, what about those Korans which were found partially burnt? Muslims are rioting over this. However, in a CNN article on this we have “A military official said the materials were removed from the detainee center’s library because they had “extremist inscriptions” on them and there was “an appearance that these documents were being used to facilitate extremist communications.”*. Perhaps these were shared copies, and detainees were communicating with each other by leaving notes for each other in the books? Then the Korans needed to be disposed of, the question is how. What is the proper way to disposed of a violated Koran? That this was done inappropriately can not be argued. But that a need to riot follows seems an indicator of what we are dealing with.
I recently was taught that the appropriate way to deal with disposing of a blessed sacramental was to bury it. But that was Catholic teaching.
*http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/22/world/asia/afghanistan-burned-qurans/index.html
Kill the stuff and nonsense about a “violated” Koran. Every time I hear them going on about the “desecration” of the Koran I want to puke. Ask the Saudis what they do to Bibles people try to bring into their country and to the owners of the Bible. Yet, Jews and Christians don’t riot because the Bible doesn’t allow for that kind of nonsense. Everything for these idiot Mohammedans is rioting and killing. People act as if the Koran is some kind of holy book. Holy, my rear end. The book advises Muslims to murder, lie, cheat, and do every wrong thing to gain some kind of sexist, pedophile’s delight of a paradise. How is that holy?
I don’t think the Crusades were really all that Christian … they were repelling an onward Muslim soldier march that had reached into southern Europe. They may have marched beneath a banner with a cross, but mostly they were not a Tibetan Monk rebellion. They were stopping the conquering hordes of “bloody border” Muslims, who would offer only subjection or death.
Muslims were a brutal bunch that believed forced subjection. This is contrary to the Jews and Christians belief in choice, and full freedom even for good people that do not become “believers”.
But “Christians” strayed from Jesus some, and were often rather brutal to non-conformists till the reformation. (as Uncle Samuel noted above) But we ex-Lutherans are a forgiving lot, and do not call for Catholic heads, and allow their ashen forehead traditions. 🙂
Today’s Christianity is largely social, but under a banner of a religion that believes in love your neighbor, and live and let live. Old Testament history was at times harsh on those that did not allow that, as Ragspierre pointed out.
Moses closed the sea on those that would destroy his people. Noah floated animals and family as the evil world was drowned out. The God of the OT at times called for the destruction of all since they had become so evil down to their very roots.
People that still believe in fighting for justice are rather unique, and often religious at some level. But the “evil” left has learned to organize, Saul Alinsky perhaps being their Jesus. Radical Islam seems to have learned this from the days of Muhammad. Our founders knew they had to hang together (or they’d surely hang separately). Now good people have gone soft, and think the good guy always win.
The good professor introduced me to Bukosvsky, so I found this quote.
“Justice is always naive and self-confident; believing that it will immediately win once recognized. That is the reason why the forces of Justice are so poorly organized.
On the other hand, the Evil is cynic, sly and fantastically organized. It never ever has the illusion of the ability to stand on its own feet and to win in a fair competition. That is why it is ready to use any kind of means without hesitation. And of course it does – under the banners of the most noble ideas.”
Vladimir Bukovsky.
We need to organize as people that believe in something bigger than ourselves. How else will we bring down the “Chicago Machine”, or the White House/MediaMatters/Unions syndicate style networks?
I just saw this quote on Israel Matzav:
“London’s Foreign Office has cautioned its diplomats abroad not to travel in cars with Israelis, or meet with them in public for fear of being targeted by terrorists trying to attack Israelis abroad.”
How about the Home Office emptying the country of all the Islamic mooches who are sitting on their fat arses on the public penny and plotting to overthrow the government while they also plotting to commit acts of terror? But their stupid courts would stop them from defending themselves. Instead of warning the Israelis, round up and deport the Muslims who want to kill everybody.
As History will attest, this world is filled the evil of hatred and intolerance by those who wish to destroy anyone and everything that they do not like, disagrees with, or is not like them.
As quoted from Mr. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a former Soviet prisoner of conscience, author of Gulag Archipelago, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, a titan of moral clarity warned us about the coming failure of our society back in 1978 in a speech given at Harvard University.
“Equivalence is the essence of Moral Relativism”- The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines moral relativism as something that one accuses another of, rather than something to which one proudly admits.
Quote-
“The rise of Moral Relativism, whereby equivalence and mediocrity (or outright evil) trumps value and quality continues to be the grim reaper of our national life.”