Thursday, July 6, 2006
Harkening back to the Catholic Church's Nostra Aetate as noted in the comments to this post:
The crucifixion was a gift to humanity and a "fountain of grace"...never a weapon with which to bash your fellow man. The Catholic Church affirmed that in 1965. I may stand to be corrected, but I feel confident in saying that virtually every major Protestant sect has also done the same (along with repudiating the concept of "replacement" -- that God's covenant with the Jews has been abrogated in favor of those who accepted Christ).
Yet here is a typical cartoon appearing in a Palestinian-Arab paper:
Not only is, to my knowledge, most of the Christian establishment silent in directly condemning this stuff, but some, such as Anglican Rev. Naim Ateek have actively employed it.
Palestinian Media Watch has a look at how the Palestinian Authority has been using this type of imagery: Jesus the Palestinian In Palestinian Authority ideology
[Al Quds July 6, 2006]
Palestinian historical revisionism
Historical revision is a backbone of Palestinian political and academic behavior, as the leaders attempt to create a separate "Palestinian Arab" history and identity for themselves, distinct from the general Arab and Islamic history. "Palestinian" Arabs are a very recent creation, and did not exist before the advent of PLO terror in 1965. Note, for example, that under UN resolution 194 in 1948, refugees were not called "Palestinian Refugees," relating to a national identity, but were called "Palestine Refugees," referring to geography - from where they came.
Jesus was Palestinian, the Palestinians are Jesus
One aspect of this attempt to create a Palestinian history is to present Jesus, who according to Christian scriptures was a Jew (Judean) living in the land of Judea-Israel, as a Palestinian. (In fact the name was changed to Palestine 136 years after Jesus' s death as part of Rome's plan to cut the Jews' ties to their Land of Israel.)
Jesus has even been presented by Palestinians as the "the first Palestinian Shahid – Martyr for Allah," [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 17, 2005] applying to Jesus Islamic theology that evolved centuries later. On a culture program on Palestinian TV, a Palestinian artist depicted Israeli soldiers arresting Jesus, and explains that Jesus symbolizes the Palestinians...
More here.
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Years ago, in graduate school, I heard a fellow student (a left-wing British guy) refer to Jesus as "the first Fedayeen." This guy was a bit of a dolt, but still the stupidity of the statement made my jaw drop. And I'm sure he didn't think it up himself; others were probably saying the same thing.
And this has echoes, and not such faint echoes, of what the Barmen Declaration in 1934 was about, which is to say not permitting the gospel to be coopted by the ideology of the nation/state and, instead, being allowed to preach the gospel in genuine, substantial and unalloyed freedom. It's also reminiscent of Martin Niemoller's Pastor's Emergency League, formed around the same time and era and similarly to oppose the state church (the former more of a theological statement which additionally helped to establish the Confessing Church, the latter geared more directly toward praxis - the latter also signed up appx. 7,000 pastors of the roughly 20,000 congregations then in existence in Germany). Unfortunately, as a subspecies of the Bush=Hitler agitprop, too many in churches are allowing themselves to be variously coopted by leftist currents and sentiments, ranging from subtle to more overt, coercive cooptations.
This is serious business, not at all simple or easy to formulate along clearheaded theological and ecclesial lines (no less a light than the philosophically and theologically astute Karl Barth formulated the Barmen Declaration), but absolutely necessary. To the extent this type of thing continues, is allowed to go unchecked, it's an exceedingly black mark on the church in both its formal and more practical, social/political formations. (All that is not to say that same gospel cannot be coopted by the powers that be in the U.S. as well, to the contrary as a watchful and astute eye is needed in that vein as well, but that's not at all what is occurring in these cases.) This pattern reflects a prominent failure of the church as such.
As a Christian I find this inexcusable -- what is worse is that it is being permitted by many churches. At the moment this is being used in the mainline Protestant denominations -- all of whom should know better.
For clarity, what is being used in the mainlines is less blatant than this -- they are not using cartoons or visual depicitons, but the same principal is at work. They are publicizing, repeating, and linking their websites to sermons of certain Palestinian nationalist Christians that invoke the same imagery (of Palestinians on the cross, and of Israelis as killers of Christ).
Being Presbyterian, I was pleased with the attempted corrective actions of the 217th General Assembly (on backing off from divestment and moving toward at least a more balanced position). Maybe this represents a good start.
But I am mystified why this type of depiction and imagery are not met with the revulsion and horror of all people of good will.
Actually, the use of the cross and Jesus imagery is in really bad taste, when you come to think of it. It is exploitative and it banalizes Christian beliefs. Wasn't there a rock start whose popularity plummeted in the 1970s when he said that he and/or his group were more popular than Jesus Christ?
Good to see Will Spotts posting here. We met at General Assembly.
Anyway, I can testify that the corrupt use of the Gospel to support the Palestinian Arab cause shows up from time to time in Presbyterian Churches, sometimes in the weirdest ways.
Several years ago I attended a Christmas Eve service at a Presbyterian Church in the New York City area. The pastor gave an anti-Israeli rant in the guise of his Christmas Eve "sermon." I remember him referring to Jesus as a "little brown Palestinian child." I thought to myself, wait, wasn't Jesus a Jew?
The sermon was so awful I got up and walked out of worship on Christmas Eve ... something that still upsets me. But with that pastor in charge, I believe that the Gospel was NOT being preached in that congregation.
John Erthein -- it's a small blogosphere.
I also would have walked out if the Christmas Eve service were used in that fashion.