Anti-Jewish text will shame the Church of Scotland
Terra Incognita: This is not the time of the Crusades; no church has a right to tell the Jews where they may live.
A recently publicized document set to be debated by the Church of Scotland General Assembly on May 18 claims: “As long as Zionists think that Jewish people are serving God’s special purpose and that abuses by the state of Israel... don’t invalidate the Zionist project, they will believe themselves more entitled to the land than the Palestinian people.” The document goes further, attacking the Jewish people, their “disobedience,” and arguing that “the promise to Abraham about land is fulfilled through the impact of Jesus, not by restoration of land to the Jewish people.” It has been produced by the Church and Society Council of the Church of Scotland, with the cooperation and support of the World Mission Council, two of the five main councils of the Church, as such it has not yet been ratified by the full Church. NGO Monitor points out that the document may have been influenced by the Palestinian- Christian activist organization Sabeel, however an examination of the Church’s historical role in Israel reveals disturbing issues....
...This text is deeply disturbing because it punishes the Jews for having suffered the Holocaust, pretending Jews manipulate the Holocaust in order to make Christians feel guilty. Thus by opposing the existence of Israel the church does not “revert to the particular exclusivism of the Jewish faith.”
The continuous hammering on the “exclusive” claim shows a deep and abiding hatred for the Jews simply because they exist; for example the “exclusivist tradition implied Jews had a special, privileged position in relation to God.”
....In the 19th century the Church of Scotland thought it knew best for the Jews. It surveyed them and sent missionaries to prey on their weak and infirm, sick and elderly. Although there was a whole world of hundreds of millions of people, it made the conversion and thus the destruction of the Jewish people a main pillar of the Church.
This text continues this tradition. It attacks the Jews for having suffered the Holocaust, claiming that the Jews manipulate Christians into feeling guilty. Furthermore it demands the Jews repent, and claims “they must be challenged to stop thinking of themselves as victims and special.”
This text will deeply shame the Church of Scotland. It is not the Church who should challenge, it is the Jews who should challenge the Church of Scotland to repent for its missionary work, to stop thinking it knows what is best for the Jews, and to stop meddling in Jewish lives.
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http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Anti-Jewish-text-will-shame-the-Church-of-Scotland-312398