Christians who Hate Jews
And I know of a few… Spewing out their oft veiled hatred over the blogs, yet ever revealing the loathing that is in their hearts.
A few weeks ago a highly influential Church of England vicar, Stephen Sizer, promoted a website that supports Holocaust denial and warns of a Zionist conspiracy controlling the world. Reverend Sizer just received the support of the Bishop of Guildford Sizer, Reverend Christopher Hill, a former chaplain to the Queen, following calls for him to be suspended for linking to the site.
Sizer used his Facebook page to link to the piece on American website The Ugly Truth, which claims to highlight “Zionism, Jewish extremism and a few other nasty items making our world uninhabitable today.” The site also runs cartoons of Holocaust deniers and supports Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The Bishop of Willesden was suspended in 2010 after using his Facebook page to make inappropriate gossip remarks about the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. But in the face of such blatant anti-Jewish hatred, the Church of England took Sizer’s side.
The case is severe because Anglicanism is not just another Protestant denomination; rather, it’s the official UK Church headed by the Queen. Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is the spiritual head of 77 million Christians worldwide.
The hostility to Israel within the Church is rooted in a dislike for Jews. According to the Jewish Chronicle, “Rav Sizer has a long track record of arguably anti-Semitic behavior.” He has described the IDF as “Herod’s soldiers operating in Bethlehem today” (King Herod ordered his troops to kill all the Jewish babies in and around Bethlehem.)
Sizer promoted boycotts of companies on the basis that they “channel their profits to the Zionist agenda.” Sizer’s book, “Christian Zionism: Road-map to Armageddon?”, which has been endorsed by leading British and American bishops, rejects the eternalness of God’s promises to the Jewish people and revives the obscurantist anti-Jewish theology known as “supersessionism.”
‘Israel an illegal regime’
Sizer’s case is not isolated. In 2006 the UK Church reviewed its investments in companies with ties to Israel’s presence in the territories. Bishop Riah El-Assal, the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, is a well-known apologist for Palestinian terrorism. Anglican cleric Naim Ateek is the founder of the notoriously anti-Israel, Jerusalem-based Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Center, which promotes a theology severing any link between God and the Jews.
Sizer is one of the major organizers of the “Christ at the Checkpoint 2012 Conference,” which the Bible College of Bethlehem will host in March. The impressive range of theologians and pastors from churches located in the United States make the gravity of the upcoming conference and Sizer’s important position much clearer. Samuel Rodriguez, President of the US National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, “spiritual adviser” to Bill Clinton Tony Campolo, and President of the World Evangelical Alliance and Asia Evangelical Alliance, Sang-Bok David Kim, will all attend the event.
The “Bethlehem Call” manifesto, which serves as platform for the Bethlehem 2012 Conference, has just been published on the websites of the World Council of Churches, the Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ. It defines Israel as an “illegal regime” and a “crime against humanity” and promotes “international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns” against Israel.
In the words of UK columnist Melanie Phillips, these are “Christians who hate the Jews.”
Many UK clerics are now saying openly that the Jewish State should never have been founded at all. In 1190, British Christians slaughtered York’s Jews after calling them “serpens antiquus qui vocatur Diabolus et Satans.” Now their Intifada from Heaven is breathing new life into a kind of demonology that bans Israel from the family of nations.
I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee’
- Gen 12:3
Once again, this is both really racist and the loss of the proper Judeo-Christian culture and theology. Sizer is a disgrace to real Christianity and historic Anglicanism!
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 25, 2012 at 18:32
Disgrace… Yes total, as are those Christian bloggers who hate Israel so.
Fr Stephen Smuts
February 25, 2012 at 19:23
Amen!
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 25, 2012 at 19:28
But where does hate and evil come from? Here man is but a pawn!
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 25, 2012 at 23:17
Man a pawn? How ridiculous! You have CHOICE, and one can hope, intelligence.
arkenaten
February 25, 2012 at 23:22
Man only has freedom when he sees that he was made in the image of God, here man is a responsible being with conscience.
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 25, 2012 at 23:36
In reality, the Judeo-Christian revelation is very close for both Jews and Gentiles or Nations, this is the formation and foundation that Jesus states in Luke 10;27, etc. (Deut. 6:4-5 ; 10:12 / Lev. 19:18) See also, (Rom. 15:8). But only Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law of God, in His life & death!
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 26, 2012 at 00:22
I am a basically a conservative person, both politically and theologically, and whatever yours are? They are not mine, and I am very much one that stands with the classic and historical Ecumenical Councils! Btw, if you want to read a good book on Constantine? You might want to read Peter Leithart’s book: Defending Constantine, The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christedom.
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 26, 2012 at 01:01
*Christendom
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 26, 2012 at 01:03
There is, of course, a delicious irony that idiot’s like Sizer cannot seem to grasp:
Without Judaism there would be no Christianity, so criticising anything Jewish is a bit like damning your own parents.
arkenaten
February 25, 2012 at 23:20
And without Judaism, there would be no Mosaic Law, no Ten Commandments!
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 25, 2012 at 23:28
In reality, Law, at least Mosaic Law came from the Jewish God! And here Law is more than arbitration, but the revelation of the Lord God Jehovah. The will and mind of the Lord God!
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 25, 2012 at 23:55
Rather do a little more historical research instead of espousing polemic.
And which jewish god are we talling about here?
arkenaten
February 26, 2012 at 00:06
My presuppositions are both the OT and the NT, with the historical Church of God, which “espouses” the Judeo-Christian ethic and revelation! Yours is to just pick and choose, based upon what “you” want, and for “your” purpose. Which is what? You don’t have “belief” in God or his revelation!
Mine is the Jewish God: the God and Father of Jesus Christ! (John 4:22)
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 26, 2012 at 00:40
Ok. I love Israel from the bottom of my heart but I wish the government would be more sensible in the way it deals with the Palestinians and the West Bank. I am horrified at way they give in to the extreme settlers and ignore the UN resolutions. You can’t ask for UN support AND ignore it.
As for the collapse in Palestinian Christian numbers…it is as much to do with Israeli belligerence as Islamic fundamentalism.
So…does this make me anti-Semitic?
Fr Gerard
February 26, 2012 at 00:28
Fr. Gerard: No, but you can’t believe the political spin from the Left, or the major American so-called News channels either. Go Fox News, not perfect either, but surely better than all the rest! Btw, put yourself literally in the land of Israel, with an enemy on every side! I lived in Israel in the late 90′s, and I am squarely pro-Israel! You have no real idea how small that country is, until you live there! And the enemies ability to drop rockets on Israel is all too real!
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 26, 2012 at 00:51
I don’t take any spin from the Left or the Right, these are my observations as carefully reached as possible.
When a Palestinian owner of an olive grove that has been in his family for generations cannot now care for it because of the Israeli fence, it is a reality that needs to be discussed, not made into a pro- or anti-Israel slanging match. When a family in East Jerusalem is evicted for settlers, even when it has always been the property of an Arab family, this needs to be discussed and challenged.
The fact that the olive grove owner is a Christian is incidental but desperately sad for this ancient community.
I am in the UK and never watch CNN or MNSBC. As for Fox News – I watch it mostly for amusement. Fair and balanced, I think not.
FrGerard
February 26, 2012 at 14:48
Fr. Gerard: Sadly, for Israel these are no longer questions of just personal ethics, human choices, and religious behavour, etc., but the very life, liberty and safety of the people and the Jewish Nation! Of course I am an old Royal Marine, and fought in Gulf War 1. Again, I stand with the Nation of Israel!
irishanglican ~ Fr. Robert
February 27, 2012 at 00:32