News: RE: Jerusalem - President Bush's Road Map for a Palestinian State

Israel only defended herself and gained the "occupied territories" as a result of those wars. It's called the "spoils of war."

Any land that Israel gained, it should return, in a show of good faith. Of course, the problem has been added to, because there are Jewish (as well as Palestinian) settlements in those areas.

Should we not return Iraq to the Iraquis? Should we have kept Germany as a "spoil of war"? certainly not.

 

So we're all Nazis are we? Anyone heard of Godwin's Law?

All I and others are asking for is a level playing field. The Roadmap for peace IMO contains that - both sides have to stop the violence. Sheeagle, I note that you continue to refrain from engaging in dialogue with my questions, possibly out of fear of losing your temper, in which case why on earth did you start this thread? Surely you must realise that not everyone here is going to share your particular Christian Zionist interpretation of eschatology.

Let me ask you another question - what would you say to your Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters in Christ who you are asking to leave their homes? How do you justify that to them? What would your reaction be if a bunch of people came to your state and said you and all the other inhabitants had to leave so that the newcomers could have the land "because the Bible says so"; tell me and tell me honestly, how would you feel?

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Sheeagle, first, thanks at least for answering one of my questions- so you would be happy to be forcefully evicted form your home and go and live in a refugee camp. Good, glad we clarified that.

Secondly, you lump an awful lot of issues together as being 'majority evangelical Christian', which are not particularly connected, except maybe in your head, or necessarily 'majority'. Let's list them:-

1. Israel - not at all majority, at least outside US - I have elsewhere directed you to the errors inherent in Christian Zionism and don't propose to reiterate those here. Christian Zionism over here is only held really by certain Brethren groups and lunatic-fringe charismatics.

2. End-time prophecy - same as above; the pre-millenial dispensationalism that leads down the road to Christian Zionism is similarly a Brethren invention of the 1800s (you try and find any Baptists or indeed anyone of repute who mention it prior to then) and is adhered to by far-out charismatics, who scarcely represent mainstream evangelicalism.

3. Right to life - agreed; most, if not all evangelicals will espouse this.

4. Capital punishment - most evangelicals in Europe are against this; most in the uS seem to be in favour. Therefore this would seem to be a cultural phenomenon.

5. Homosexuality - agreed; again, most evangelicals are broadly opposed to any sexual activity outside of marriage.

6. The Bible - words like 'inerrant' and 'infallible' are unhelpful and unnecessarily divisive and are by no means adhered to by evangelicals as a whole. A preferred phraseology, to which I subscribe, would be "inspired by God and entirely trustworthy in matters of faith, doctrine and practice". I think the UK Evangelical Alliance use something similar.

So these issues are stand-alone, they do not necessarily hang together nor are they subscribed to as hanging together by the majority of evangelicals.

In case you were wondering, BTW, I reiterate that I am not anti-Israel; I am pro-justice for both Israelis and Palestinians, and my stance is broadly in agreement with the Willowbank Declaration of the World Evangelical Alliance . It's pretty balanced and thoroughly evangelical.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

I noticed that this movie claims to, in their words, "scare you out of hell".

Silly me. I thought the gospel of Jesus Christ was God's power unto salvation. Now we are told it's actually a fictitious movie that will have people turn away from hell.

Oh well. Times they are a-changin'.

 

Sheeagle, if you want to go to movies of that nature and read LaHaye and Jenkins, that's up to you. I steer clear of that kind of stuff, and the only Christians I know who like that kind of stuff are charismatics who are also into Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn and the other rubbish on TBN. So thanks, but no thanks - been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

I don't support Palestinian suicide bombers. I do support justice for both Israelis and Palestinians.

Re your potted history:-

I must take issue with some of your 'facts' as set out above. Whilst I accept that there have always been some Jews who have managed to 'hang on' in the area since the Diaspora post 70AD, there have also always been non-Jews living there, starting with the Philistines (hence Palestine) and Canaanites, who lived side by side with the Israelites in OT times. Many of these became Christians in the first few centuries AD although most converted to Islam after the Arab invasions of the 7th century. Since then they have largely regarded themselves as Arab.

I also accept that there has been a massive increase in the Palestinian population in the last 70 years or so, aided no doubt by a degree of immigration. But the Arab population of Palestine ws by no means insubstantial before that: a Turkish census on the eve of the First World War estimated it at 630,000 and a British census at the end of 1922 put it at around 670,000 plus 71,000 bedouin(source: memorandum to Lord Curzon, UK Public Record Office, FO 371/4183); a second British census in 1931 showed an increase to 850,000, which increased by 1947 to 1,300,000 (partly because of the immigration to which you refer). Most were Sunni Muslim but a sizeable minority, initially around 10% but now more like 7% were Christian (the 1944 British estimate was 135,000). Some Christians are descended from converts of the 3rd and 4th centuries, or even from the time of Jesus - the Atalla family, for example, lived in Jerusalem on the same plot of land for 15 centuries and the Lutheran Bishop of Jerusalem can trace his family's Christian ancestry back to the generation of the apostles - some are descendants of tribes who fought with the Islamic armies against the Byzantines in the 7th century, some are descendants of Western Christian converts either from the Crusades or more recently 19th and 20th century missionaries.

Palestine also contained a large number of other minorities, some indigenous, others having arrived from elsewhere. My interest in this is to a degree personal: my great-great-great grandfather, William Burckhardt Barker, was an orientalist and a diplomat based in what is now Syria, and he made an extensive study of this region, as did compatriots like Laurence Oliphant who found 9 distinct racial groupings near Haifa in the 1880s - including Bosnian Muslims who didn't like Austrian rule, Circassians, a Jewish settlement at Zimmarin, a nomadic tribe of Seljuk Turks and even a colony of German Knights Templar.

So the position is by no means as clear-cut as you suggest.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

At this point, 75% of those taking this poll believe in the pre-tribulation rapture!

If most were like me, it is all they were ever taught in church. So the number is not suprising. Doesn't make it right as I'm personally finding out.