Amazon.com Widgets

Friday Fun: Can We Really All Coexist?

From here.

Coesist

The Daniel Project

From here.

Interfaith Council and Bishop Issue Statement Criticising Stephen Sizer

As a follow-on from the previous post, this get interesting. From Calvin Smith’s blog:

The RPP website has posted a link to a statement just issued by the Council of Christians and Jews critical of Stephen Sizer for linking to anti-Semitic websites from his blog. The Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester and chair of CCJ, said.

The content and the delay in removing the link from Mr Sizer’s Facebook page was disgraceful and unbecoming for a clergyman of the Church of England to promote. Members of the CCJ have described the website as ‘obscenely antisemitic.’

The full CCJ statement is available here. It is important to note that this statement is issued by a longstanding interfaith organisation and a Bishop of the Anglican Church. This is not (as some extremists will claim) a Zionist conspiracy.

Is Stephen Sizer anti-Semitic? It is a serious charge and not for me to say (others in the Anglican Church will now decide). I have sought to avoid some of the more extreme language in the current debate and avoid this term unless absolutely proven. In negotiations prior to our televised debate Stephen made clear he felt there was no place for discussing anti-Semitism (and other issues) in such a debate. I believe such a position is dangerous as it can be misconstrued, unfortunately it also meant we never had the opportunity to discuss this issue reasonably and openly.

But one thing is clear: when CCJ state, “We are conscious that The Revd Stephen Sizer’s contributions have caused widespread disquiet and hurt in both communities and led to confusion and polarization of views” they have identified a key aspect of this whole debate. Indeed I raised this very issue towards the end of my television debate with Stephen. The polemical and unnecessarily pejorative nature of the current debate is not helping anyone, and it’s certainly not contributing to a nuanced understanding of the complexities of the Middle East. For that Stephen must take his fair share of blame.

I do hope we can all, at some stage, get to a less emotive and more objective examination of the Middle East crisis and the relationship between the Church and Israel.

Has the Church Replaced Israel? Revelation TV Debate

Christian Zionism“Has the Church Replaced Israel?” A live debate between Calvin Smith and Stephen Sizer broadcast on Revelation TV 9th November 2011.

This 1h 30m debate is well worth a watch if you are interested in Israelology and Christian Zionism (small PDF).

Stephen Sizer has published a number of books dealing with this subject, and turned his PhD thesis into a book titled “Christian Zionism”.

Calvin Smith is the principal of King’s Evangelical Divinity School (UK). 

Sizer’s polemical writings are offensive to many Christians (myself included), and Smith did well to highlight and condemn Sizer’s labeling of Christian Zionism as “deviant heresy” and “another gospel” (around 1:06 in the debate).

Other critiques of Sizer can be found here: seismic-shock.com

Revelation TV Debate “Has the Church Replaced Israel?” from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.

 

Related links:

Pure. Demonic. Evil.

Here.

Shadows of Shoah 04 from Perry Trotter on Vimeo.

 

Quick update on the Arnold Fruchtenbaum meeting

Arnold Fruchtenbaum is a Messianic Jewish scholar and expert on the life of the Messiah from a Jewish perspective (MP3s and DVDs are available — scholarly and popular books by that title may be on the way).  Arnold was born in Russia and escaped Hitler before landing in the USA.

Arnold is a Bible encyclopedia — rumor has it he even studies the Bible in the shower.  His scholarship is perhaps best evidenced during the Q and A times following each lecture.  Arnold appears to know the Bible off-by-heart including the ability to cite chapter and verse for almost everything.

Arnold’s lectures are highly structured and methodical, and delivered in an accented monotonic manner.  Notes are provided including lots of whitespace for you to add your own notes on them.  Every lecture section ends by a Rabbi joke.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum

Following the lecture given in the photo above, one questioner asserted that the Jews have a debt owing to the church.  Arnold replied correctly that the actual debt is the other way around.  The church is hugely in debt to the Jews, and part of that debt should be an apology for the disgraceful treatment the Jews have received at the hands of Christians during their diaspora. This disgraceful behavior continues in parts of the anti-Semitic church today.

Related:

Ariel Ministries blog

Mapping the End Times: An Interview with Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum

Here.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum was born to Jewish parents in 1943. When he was only four, his family had to flee Russia due to false accusations of spying for the Nazi Party. While living in Germany, Arnold had a religious epiphany at age 13 and began to feel that Jesus was the Messiah of the Jewish people as well as Christians. Due to his father’s strict beliefs, Arnold was not allowed to exercise this belief by reading the Bible or visiting with other Messianic Jewish people who felt the same way. This didn’t make him change his personal beliefs, even when the family arrived in Los Angeles. When he left home in the early 1960s, he studied Hebrew and Greek at Cedarville College and traveled to Israel to further his religious studies.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, he worked with a number of Messianic Jewish associations such as the American Board of Missions to the Jews and the Christian Jew Foundation. After struggling with some of the doctrine of these groups, he went on to found Ariel Ministries in 1977. Dr. Fruchtenbaum continues to reach out to Messianic Jews around the world to help them study the Bible, live by the Scriptures and develop a personal relationship with God. He is the main speaker for the organization and spends much of his time writing books or giving inspirational talks around the world.

Dr. Fruchtenbaum’s most influential work may be “The Footsteps of the Messiah.” In this book, he pieces together the prophecies contained in the Bible to create what he believes is a clear outline of what will happen in Israel and the rest of the world.

Recently, All News Wire had an opportunity to ask Dr. Fruchtenbaum about the endtimes roadmap.

All News Wire:  It seems the world has become somewhat obsessed with its own demise.  There’s a great deal of chatter about 2012.  Hollywood churns out one apocalyptic-themed film and television show after another.   Recent events in the Middle East, Japan and New Zealand, among others, have people questioning just exactly what is going on with the world.  What do you see happening?

Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum:  I am very careful not to engage in what I would call “newspaper exegesis”.  This is when a major event happens in the world and someone has to find the Bible verse claiming it is being filled in such and such a place at such and such a time.  Normally, such fulfillments are based merely on a small point of similarity.  This much I know about Bible prophecy:  Bible prophecy is never fulfilled approximately; it is always fulfilled exactly and precisely to the letter.  So either you have a complete fulfillment or you don’t have any fulfillment.  The excitement about 2012 is largely due to reports about the Mayan calendar that supposedly predicted the end of the world in that year.  Let me make two comments on this.

First, the Mayan calendar does not say that the world will end in 2012.  That is only as far as the calendar went and nothing more is stated on the Mayan calendar.  Second, what in the world does the Mayan calendar have to do with Bible prophecy?  Since when did we begin to determine the fulfillment of Bible prophecy based upon pagan calendars?

Yes, there have been key events recently in the Middle East, Japan, and New Zealand but major events have happened throughout human history that were not directly relevant to Bible prophecy.  What is clear, just as when the American Revolution and the French Revolution brought major changes in the European society, by the same token things happening in the Arab States  with its autocratic rule is also going to bring some major changes and exactly what these changes will be is too soon to tell.  It would not necessarily bring in Jeffersonian democracy just as the revolt against the Shah of Iran did not bring in any kind of democracy, but a stronger totalitarian government that stemmed for religious emphasis rather than purely a political one.  So are any of these religious events a fulfillment of Bible prophecy?  It is simply too soon to tell.  So it is really time to just wait and see.

ANW:  Israel plays a significant role in the end times scenario found in the Bible.  For a country that is barely larger than New Jersey, it certainly seems to get a lot of headlines.  What is it about Israel that captures the world’s attention?

AF:  From a purely human perspective I would say the reason that Israel catches world attention is largely to do with the world’s animosity towards the Jewish people in general and the State of Israel in particular.  Therefore, whatever happens in Israel is broadcasted and often Israel is faulted in those situations.  From a biblical perspective I would say what we see with Israel today is an ongoing conflict of the Satanic war against the Jews that has gone on since the time of Abraham.  There is one thing the Bible makes very clear:  The one prerequisite to the Second Coming is Israel’s national salvation and until Israel cries out for His return there simply will not be any Second Coming.  Satan also knows that once Jesus returns his career is over but he also knows that Jesus will not come back until the Jewish people ask him to come back.  So if Satan can succeed in destroying the Jews before they have a chance to do so, there will be no Second Coming and Satan’s career will be saved forever.  That is why there has always been the special war against the Jews since the time of Abraham.  That is why things like the Crusades occurred; that is why the Russian pogroms occurred; that is why the Nazi Holocaust occurred.  That is also why Revelation 12 points out that once Satan is confined to the earth in the Tribulation, he knows his time is short, and because his time is short he inaugurates a worldwide Nazi like persecution of the Jews to try to destroy them once and for all to avoid the Second Coming.

More here.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum on Stephen Sizer

From here.

That is the essence of his argument although he closes with some statements that Israel cannot have peace in the “Occupied Territories” until “she acts with justice and reciprocity toward the Palestinians.” This is more political than biblical, but I can say this much.

First, he ignores the actual reason why Israel has occupied these territories since 1967. She has done this because masses of armies were gathering along the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Border, the Syrian Border, and the West Bank with the intent to destroy Israel. Israel defeated this threat in the Six Day War.

Second, the Palestinians have consistently rejected all peace efforts by Israel, both before and after that conflict. Even when Barak offered them over 95% of the territory they wanted, he was turned down with no counteroffer.

What the author is ignoring is that, thus far, the Arab aim has not been to merely establish a Palestinian State that will live side by side with Israel but the attempt to destroy Israel as a State. No true Koran-believing Moslem could ever accept Israel’s right to exist. As long as the Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist, refuse every peace offer, and insist on terrorist attacks (even having their own children blow themselves up just for the sake of killing Jews), there cannot be peace.

Israel is not totally innocent in all of her actions, but the author has blamed everything on Israel. In spite of his claim that Israel has a right to exist, he has not extended a single blame on what the Arab side has done. This is selective reading of the political news. But for us, the final issue is not what is politically expedient, but what is biblical.

Prime Minister Netanyahu United Nations Address

Some good quotes from the speech are here: networkedblogs.com/nuT8K

What a sham the UN is. A sham. An evil sham. For example:

Netanyahu criticized the hypocrisy of the United Nations, noting that the UN Security Council is now headed by Lebanon, who is controlled by Hezbollah – a group considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, and the European Union.

Let that sink in. Meditate upon it. How could this possibly be…?

Israel and the Islamic Goliath

Tiny Israel and the Islamic Goliath

Make sense?

H/T to arielb.org/archives/272

And in other news:

Al Shabaab, a hard-line Islamist group linked to al Qaeda which controls most of the southern part of Somalia, banned food aid last year and kicked many groups out, saying aid creates dependency.

Some 3.7 million Somalis are at risk of starvation in the worst drought in decades, including some 2 million in rebel-held regions were most major aid agencies cannot reach.

Israel and Turkey — Evil abounds…

Those behind the Turkish flotilla evidently see justice through different eyes than mine. Consider for example the Turkish method for helping solve the “Palestinian problem”. 1. repeatedly lobby the press with the terribleness of the Palestinian plight. 2. Load boats full with activists and set sail for Gaza. 3. Provoke the Israelis at every step. 4. Bash Israeli soldiers with metal bars and throw them off the upper decks of the ships. 5. If the Israelis use force to defend themselves against the “peace” activists, then condemn the Israeli soldiers as violent warmongers.

How stupid are people — that they gullibly fall for these sorts of tactics.

The “Palestinian problem” could be solved overnight if the oil-rich Muslim nations (with ~400 times the land area of tiny Israel) dug deep and assisted their brothers in arms. But these the Islamic nations (including Turkey) prefer to use and abuse the lives of people made in God’s image, as political and military pawns. Yes, these Muslims care little about the lives of their fellow Muslims, so long as they can be used to provoke and antagonize the Israelis, and fulfill their hate-filled demonic agenda.

Now the Turks are going to have another go at being jerks. They realize of course that Israel is effectively in a no-win. If “peace activists” again set out for Gaza, but this time with bigger ships, what are the Israelis to do? Back down and appear weak? Or just let these scoundrels run amok, ultimately letting future ships move weapons and rockets into Gaza so Palestinian thugs can rains rockets down upon Israeli civilians?

In the Palmer report, New Zealand’s Geoffrey Palmer says the Israelis used excessive force. No, this is false: the truth is that Palmer’s conclusion is an excessive farce. The Israelis did what they had to do, and if anything should have defended themselves more vigorously against the “peaceful” (do words mean anything?) flotilla.

Here are some reminder videos of the “peaceful” thugs, some wielding metal pipes and knives.

[Read more...]

Albert Mohler and Alan Dershowitz on Israel and terrorism…

…and numerous other topics during a fascinating interview.  Here is the transcript of the podcast:

www.albertmohler.com/2011/05/25/moral-reasoning-in-a-secular-age-a-conversation-with-professor-alan-dershowitz/

Mohler: Thinking hard about those kind of issues leads me to a questions that’s drawn not so much from the kind of academic discussion or even the context of litigation but rather international relations. President Barak Obama recently set forth his plan for the achievement of a stable Middle East peace, and in it, he for instance called for Israel to return to the 1967 boundaries to use the language which the president employed. I know as a friend of Israel you have to have a strong opinion about that. [Read more...]

A Palestinian State

Netanyahu speaks, and the Palestinians reject.

Whatever he said, the Palestinians would reject.

The reality is, the Palestinians (generalizing of course) will not be happy until Israel is driven into the Mediterranean Sea.

In the meantime they will remain a thorn in Israel’s side, and a pawn in the hands of the Islamic world.

U.S. slams ‘outrageous’ Hamas condemnation of bin Laden killing

Ismael Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, said in response to the U.S. operation against bin Laden “we regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood.”

Though he noted doctrinal differences between bin Laden’s al-Qaida and Hamas, Haniyeh said: “We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs.”

Kinda sums up the mindset of the Israel’s enemies.

Source: www.haaretz.com/…/bin-laden-killing-1.359698