Fear and Loathing in Sevenoaks

Following my blog about Mark Ellis' futile attempt to be elected to Parliament on 6 May, I wrote to him and to the local paper. I'll keep you posted if I receive a reply.

Dear Mr Ellis,

We received your Election Communication at our Head Office.

I am concerned that a man who has put himself forward as a parliamentary candidate subscribes to the ideas contained in the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. I could not help but notice that you studiously avoid the quoting the full title, referring to it as “The Protocols of the Learned elders”. Neither could I fail to notice that you refer not to Jews but to “Khazars” and “Levantines”. This is both devious and disingenuous.

Though I am not a Jew, I admire and respect them. The Jewish people constitute 0.21% of world’s population yet they have made a contribution to civilisation out of all proportion to their size. For example, since the mid-nineteenth century 25% of world’s scientists have been Jews. In 1978, over half the Nobel Prize winners were Jewish, therefore in that year over 50% of the main contributors to the progress of mankind came from less than 1% of the world’s population! The world has benefited from this tiny people group in every area of human achievement and we all owe a debt of gratitude to them in many ways.

We have also benefited spiritually from the Jews. The Bible is Jewish; the gospel Christian ministers proclaim came to the nations through Jewish apostles; the Christian God revealed himself first to Jewish patriarchs and prophets; and Christians trust a Jew for their salvation.

Your tract demonstrates that you lack the moral integrity, intellectual rigour and spiritual rectitude necessary for high office. The last person to be elected to government by blaming the Jews for the ills of his country was Adolph Hitler. Thankfully you possess neither his personal charisma nor his eloquence.

Suffice it to say that on 6 May my cross will not appear next to your name on the ballot form.

Yours sincerely,

Vote, Vote, Vote for Mark Ellis

Today I received an “Election Communication” in the form of a tract from one of our “Independent” candidates. Mark Ellis thinks we should all vote for him because he has four science “A” levels; he attended Bristol Veterinary College; he was a “Friend and helper of Vice Marshall Bennett [who lost his deposit in the 1967 Nuneaton By-Election as a candidate for the now defunct far right British Party] who, apparently, “was aware of a frightful conspiracy”.

This will be Mr Ellis’s fourth attempt to be elected to Parliament on an anti-Semitic platform. Ellis believes the Jews operate behind the scenes to implement their dastardly plans for world domination as outlined in the “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”. He doesn’t mention the Jews so he resorts to calling them “Khazars”, “Levantines” and “Cons” (Old-Cons as opposed to Neo-Cons).

These men in the shadows are responsible for all that is wrong with Britain from postal voting frauds to the closing of “1/3 of our railways”. The closing of railways is, according to Ellis, particularly perfidious because railways “stimulate interest in mechanisms”.

So, if you live in Sevenoaks and have half a mind to vote for an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, that’s all you’ll need.

To see Ellis' Election Communication click here.

Personal Jesus

I'm writing this during a coffee break at the final sessions of the World Reformed Fellowship General Assembly in Edinburgh, after listening to three excellent reports on the churches in Brazil, India and China. I just spoke to the Indian delegate about something in his report that set my alarm bells ringing.

According to his paper, Christianity is perceived in India as a Western and colonial religion, and a major concern of Indian Christians is to 'focus on the Asian identity of Jesus Christ'. The Chinese report flagged up a similar issue. In China, believers are seeking to make Christianity a 'genuinely Chinese religion'.

I have just shared my concerns over a cup ofcoffee with the Indian delegate. Though I understand the concern of my Indian brothers and sisters to demonstrate that Christianity is not a Western religion, Jesus is not 'Asian'; he is Jewish. Ia am concerned that our Indian and Chinese brothers are going to repeat the mistake of the English church. Christianity was (and still is by some) regarded as English, and missionaries often converted the nations not only to Christianity but also to Englishness.

Jesus is in a very real sense the universal man but he can never be identified with any particular nation other than Israel. He can never be Palestinian, English, Chinese or Indian. Nor can Christianity ever be anything other than Jewish. While we seek to contextualise the gospel, Christianity can never be an English or Chinese religion.

If Chinese missionaries take a 'Chinese' gospel to the nations, although they may experience some success, they will be making the same mistake as the Western colonialist missionaries of a former age.

Indian Christians, if they insist that Jesus is Asian, risk alienating and antagonising Muslims. I understand that concern but substituting one error for another is less than wise.

The inevitable result of any nation claiming Jesus is 'one of us' will be the dejudaising of Jesus. If Jesus is no longer Jewish the Jewish people are marginalised and Replacement Theology is strengthened. Replacement Theology tends to diminish concern for Jewish mission and the diminishing of outreach to the Jewish people delays the glorious day when 'all Israel shall be saved' (Rom 11:26), an event which will be 'life from the dead' for the nations (Rom 11:15).

Belt and Braces

This morning I had breakfast with a theologian I greatly respect, whose recent book on the inspiration of Scripture cost him dearly. For expressing his views on the nature of Scripture, he lost his posts at two theological seminaries.

Not having read the book, I asked what it was about the book that got him into such hot water. It was his unwillingness to subscribe to the concept of biblical “inerrancy”. He believes the term “infallibility”, used to describe the trustworthiness of the Bible in the Westminster Confession of Faith, has served the Church well for more than three hundred years and adequately sums up what we need to say about the reliability of the Bible.

Does he believe, though, that the Bible is free from errors? No because only the original documents were without error and we don’t have them. Nevertheless, he believes the Bible is infallible; it means what God intended it to mean and the Holy Spirit who inspired the Biblical authors enables us, as we study the Scriptures in dependence on him, to understand them.

My friend is far more learned than I am and I respect him too much to name him here but – while acknowledging that we don’t have the original book of Isaiah or the first edition of the Gospel of Matthew or the apostle Paul’s actual letter to the Romans – I think the concept of inerrancy is important.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was sufficient to say the Bible was infallible because few people were calling into question its reliability in the areas of history, geography, anthropology and origins. The world, as my friend readily acknowledges, has moved on since the Reformation and the truth of Scripture is being assailed not only from the world but also from within the Church.
My theologian friend has been accused of being “Liberal”; I know he isn’t. However, it seems to me that allowing for mistranslations, differences of interpretation and so on, unless we maintain that the Bible is without error in every area it pronounces on – including origins – we are hammering the first of many nails into the coffin of Scripture.

After all, holding to inerrancy does not weaken our defence of the Bible; it strengthens it. In my humble opinion, and with great deference to my theologian friend, we would be safest to keep both terms.

A Great Omission

Hi everyone.

I’ve been out of circulation for over a month because of a bout of ill health and having to catch up on everything I didn’t do while I was down with a chest infection. I am now resolved to blog something most days and I start with something really exciting.

I have just come out of what I believe was a historic meeting in every sense of the word. I am attending the Third General Assembly of the World Reformed Fellowship in Edinburgh. Delegates from around the world are meeting here 450 years after the Geneva Bible was completed and after the Scottish Parliament approved the Scots Confession of Faith. The Assembly also marks the hundredth anniversary of the World Missionary Conference which took place in Edinburgh, the theme of which was “The Evangelization of the World in this Generation.”

In the meeting from which I have emerged, delegates were presented with a Confession of Faith for the 21st century; not a rewrite of any of the historic confessions but a statement of the Christian Faith in plain 21st-century English. This is the first major Statement of Faith for at least two hundred years and has been produced not by men from one country or denomination but from an international, interdenominational team including Gerald Bray (England), Pierre Berthoud (France), Wilson Chow (Hong Kong), Victor Cole (Kenya), Leonardo de Chirico (Italy), Allan Harman (Australia), In Whan Kim (South Korea), Sam Logan (USA), Augustus Nicodemus Lopez (Brazil) and Stephen Tong (Indonesia).

The statement is extensive, covering the doctrines and issues not touched by the historic Statements of Faith. As well as dealing with the Christian understanding of God, Scripture, salvation, the Christian life and the Church, the new statement deals with issues such as demonology, sexuality, family planning and medical ethics.
Members of the World Reformed Fellowship have until the end of October to respond to the document before it receives its final form. I have not had time to read, mark and inwardly digest the statement but, having read it quickly, I am seriously impressed.

Nevertheless, there is one great omission; there is no statement about Israel and the Jewish people. There is no section about the status of the Jewish people since the coming of Christ; there is nothing about the State of Israel, or about the future of the Jewish people. And nothing is said about the priority of Jewish mission. In a document as extensive as this, there ought to be room for a theology of Israel.

I intend to comment on this omission and to make some suggestions to the committee. I’ll keep you posted about that but, meanwhile, have a look at the proposed statement of faith on the World Reformed Fellowship website.

The hypocrisy of Israel Apartheid Week

David Bedein provides a number of facts which those who charge Israel with practising apartheid forget, ignore or cover up.

In 1948, Apartheid laws institutionalized racial discrimination in South Africa and denied human rights to 25 million black citizens of South Africa.

In 1948, the Arab League of Nations applied the Apartheid model to Palestine, and declared that Jews must be denied rights as citizens of Israel, while declaring a total state of war to eradicate the new Jewish entity, a war that continues today.
In 1948, at the directive of the Arab League of Nations, Jordan devastated the vestiges of Jewish life from Judea and Samaria, and burned all synagogues in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.

In 1948, member states of the Arab League of Nations began to strip the human rights of Jews and to expel entire Jewish communities who had resided in their midst for centuries

In the mid 1960's, the Arab League of Nations spawned the PLO to organize local residents to continue the war to deny Jewish rights the right to live as free citizens in the land of Israel – well before Israel took over Judea, Samaria, and the Old City of Jerusalem in the defensive war waged by Israel in 1967.

Since its inception in 1994, the newly constituted Palestinian Authority, created by the PLO, has prepared the rudiments of a Palestinian State, modeled on the rules of Apartheid and institutionalized discrimination:

1. The right of Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendents to return to Arab villages lost in 1948 will be protected by the new Palestinian state.

2. While 20% of Israel's citizens are Arabs, not one Jew will be allowed to live in a Palestinian State.

3. Anyone who sells land to a Jew will be liable to the death penalty in the Palestinian State.

4. Those who murder Jews are honored on all official Palestinian media outlets.

5. Palestinian Authority maps prepared for the Palestinian State depict all of Palestine under Palestinian rule,

6. Palestinian Authority maps of Jerusalem for the Palestinian State once again delete the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.

7. Recent PA documents claim all of Jerusalem for the future Palestinian State.

8. The right of Jewish access to Jewish holy places is to be denied in the new Palestinian State.

9. The Draft Palestinian State Constitution denies juridical status to any religion except for Islam.

10. No system which protects human rights or civil liberties will exist in a Palestinian State.

If this is not a formula for a totalitarian apartheid state of Palestine, then what is?

Israel and the charge of Apartheid

Sorry folks, this has been an incredibly hectic fortnight and I’m just surfacing for air. I wanted to write something on Purim last week and something on “Israel Apartheid Week” but was let hitherto. Here’s something by Malcolm Hedding I would like to have written if I’d had the time…

As a young minister in South Africa in the 1980s, Malcolm Hedding participated in the struggle against Apartheid and was threatened with detention without trial by the infamous Bureau of State Security, so he knows what he’s talking about when he writes about Apartheid.

Israel and the charge of Apartheid

Day by day the anti-Israel alliance, and sadly in collaboration with major church movements mainly from the Protestant world, is seeking to make the Apartheid label stick to Israel. We see this at present in the fortnight of global agitation known as “Israel Apartheid Week.” There is more to this scheming than meets the eye in that the real agenda behind branding Israel an “Apartheid state” is to remove the Jewish State altogether.

The real Apartheid State of South Africa was rightfully dismantled in the late 1980s and early 90s. It was first discredited, then delegitimized and finally dismantled to the elation of the world and the enslaved black majority who had lived under and endured its brutality. However, to describe Israel in these terms is, quite frankly, immoral and wicked. Yet on university campuses across the Western World, this is becoming a very popular cause.

Essentially, Apartheid was a totalitarian system of governance – not unlike many of the regimes in the Arab world today – whereby a minority white population subjugated and enslaved the overwhelmingly black population. It was ideologically driven and was obsessed with racial superiority. The superior whites could not mingle with or even sit on a bench with the inferior black peoples. Even the education system was “dumbed down” for black people because they were deemed mentally inferior and unable to cope with the higher levels of learning that whites could embrace.

The towns and cities were “white by night” as all “blacks” – as they were called – had to be removed to their shanty towns, which served as cheap labour ghettos for the nation. The black people could not vote, own property or even move freely inside their own country.

Various instruments of state were used to ruthlessly apply the system of total and complete segregation and these included the police, the military and the judiciary system. In short, it was Aryanism in a new form!

There is absolutely nothing equivalent to this in the dispute that rages between the Palestinians and Israel today. Within Israel itself, Arabs and Jews share the same shopping malls, benches, hospitals, theatres and, in many cases, suburbs. The educational institutions do not have a deliberately “dumbed down” Arab curriculum and the privilege of voting is given to all. The Israeli Knesset has Arab members of parliament, and Jews, Arabs and Palestinians often work together at construction sites, businesses, hotels and elsewhere. Most important of all is the fact that Israel is a democratic state. Though not a perfect one, it does have democratic institutions and it is definitely not governed by a totalitarian minority!

The state of Israel enjoys a Jewish majority. It is democracy which must answer to its citizens and thus has demonstrated a willingness to make painful concessions in order to secure a future of peace with its neighbours. In all cases, it alone paid the real price by giving up land. It even withdrew from Gaza to demonstrate its sincerity in seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict with the Palestinians. The trauma that this withdrawal brought to the people of Gaza and to Israel was played out for the entire world to see through the international media. Yet it was not good enough! So, the result was the, “same old, same old”. That is, within a short span of time thousands of missiles, fired from the vacated territory, rained down on Israeli civilians in the western Negev. The world said and did very little, except to call Israel an “apartheid state”!

Over the years, and even in response to Israel’s most generous peace overtures during the Oslo era, the Palestinians have opted for violence. This they called an “intifada.” Wave upon wave of suicide bombers attacked Israel from the porous boundaries surrounding the West Bank. Men, women and children were indiscriminately murdered in buses, restaurants, hotels and shopping malls. To protect herself from these murderous infiltrations, Israel built a security barrier, which in some of the more vulnerable built-up areas consisted of a wall. It was not built to segregate people or discriminate against them, but to protect its own citizens from attack. In this connection, the security fence has been highly successful though even Israelis admit it is regrettable. But what would any other self-respecting, democratic state do? Nevertheless, Israel’s detractors love to deride the “Apartheid Wall” to further their accusation.

The Palestinians have suffered and still do but to place the blame entirely at Israel’s door is folly. Their failed and corrupt leadership, missed opportunities, and willingness to support violence and terror are also central causes of their suffering. Israel is no Apartheid state. She is a democratic state living under the constant threat of annihilation and thus seeking to balance her need to find a lasting peace with her neighbours with that of her security. Her regional experience has taught Israel that her security and very existence is the number one issue. After all, in all the so-called peace plans presented for the region, she is expected to do all the giving with only verbal guarantees of security given by her interlocutors. These have never amounted to much!

The truth is the Apartheid accusation is just another smokescreen in the war against Israel! I should know because I grew up in the dark Apartheid era of South Africa and stood against it to my peril.

Read Malcolm’s entire blog.