Anti-Semitic? Anti-Israel? Both?

Writing for the American Thinker, Diana Appelbaum gives the Presbyterian Church (USA) a justified whack for it's 2004 "divestment" decision:

[S]upporters and detractors of divestment are discussing whether the Church’s decision was anti-Semitic, or - somehow - anti-Israel without being anti-Semitic. Curiously, despite the storm caused by the divestment vote, most Presbyterians remain unaware of the extent to which the PCUSA leadership has involved itself in old-fashioned theological anti-Semitism.

I was dismayed when the PCUSA took it's decision against Israel because I concluded, based on the way in which the issue was introduced at the last-minute, with lopsideded advocacy, that my denomination had succumbed to a position that could be associated with anti-Semitism. But I didn't realize the extent to which the church has officially associated itself with a blantantly anti-Semiticic organization that bases its theological worldview on a coupling of liberation and replacement theology (also known as supersessionism):

One of the resolutions passed at the 2004 General Assembly included a list of recommended theological "resources.” The most troubling “resource” on the list is the Sabeel Center for Liberation Theology.

Despite the official rejection of supersessionism in 1987, the church has nonetheless seen fit to formally align itself with the Sabeel Center:

The overtly anti-Semitic Sabeel Center is an official partner of the PCUSA, and receives PCUSA financial support.

Not long after the 2004 GA decision, I remember hearing an chapel address by Cantor Neil Blumofe who called the PCUSA decision "cynical." He was being kind. Make no mistake, the "divestment" decision has caused grave hurt in Jewish communities. I strongly urge those concerned about the church's contradictory and unjust positions regarding Israel to read all of Appelbaum's article, which contains some facinating and rather depressing links.

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Church Sign Smackdown

Hilarious.

Via Hugh Hewitt via Ace.

Important New Blog O' the Day

Shane Raynor, of Wesley Blog fame, has started a new Methodist online magazine called Wesley Daily. The new website aggregates the best posts from all corners of the global Methodist blogosphere. Check it out!

Entertaining Blog O' the Day

If you ever had to read Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in your youth, forsooth, you will appreciate this blog.

Being Re-Appropriated by the Spirit

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. – St. Paul, Romans 8:11 [NRSV]

In the West, we think essentially in Christological categories, and then, in a second, non-constitutive moment, we decorate the already constructed system with pneumatological baubles, a little Spirit tinsel. – Killian McDonnell¹

Why is God the Holy Spirit seemingly missing-in-action in the day-to-day life of many traditional denominations and theologies – a phenomenon Elizabeth Johnson refers to as “forgetting the spirit?"²

For more of my take on this matter, click here [pdf].

¹ McDonnell, Kilian. “The Determinative Doctrine of the Holy Spirit.” Theology Today 39.2 (1982): 142.
² Johnson, Elizabeth. She Who Is. New York: Herder & Herder, 2003, 128.

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Rejoice

Again, Father, we rejoice this day.
We rejoice in the folds of your everlasting grace
We rejoice at the sound of your whispering voice,
At the proclamation of your Word,
Enveloped in your Spirit.

We come to you with eyes uplifted,
Lifting hearts filled with adoration.
With praise we thank you, almighty and eternal God,
For all of your mighty works.

Holy Christ, we look upon you with adoration.
With praise we thank you for your gift of salvation,
Oh Lamb of God, also Shepherd,
Hear our cries of praise.

Holy Spirit, come to us in our worship.
Grant us your peace as we praise and acclaim You,
Together with the Father and Son,
One God in power and might and glory.

All we have and all we are, we give to you,
Through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, Amen.

The Feast of Saint Patrick

Writing for the wonderful new blog at First Things, Richard John O'Neuhaus pens the following:

Through the Irish mist of myths of legends, we have a clear enough line on the man (c. 389- c. 461). Born in Britain, the son of a Romano-British official named Calpurnius, Patrick was captured by raiders when he was about sixteen and carried off to pagan Ireland. After six years of herding sheep, he escaped to Gaul, was in due course ordained priest and bishop and sent to Ireland to succeed Paulinus, who had died the year before.

A man of extraordinary faith and energy, he traveled the island from top to bottom, contending against hostile tribal chiefs and Druids. (The latter being a cult into which Rowan Williams was inducted upon becoming Archbishop of Canterbury.) He and the gospel triumphed again and again, often by spectacularly miraculous means. He visited Rome in 442 and 444, and established the primatial see in Armagh.

During his three decades in Ireland, he brought the country into close relationship with the universal Church, enhanced scholarship, encouraged the study of Latin, and laid the foundations of a Catholic Ireland that was for centuries a powerhouse of evangelical zeal reaching out to all the world, and not least of all to the United States. I warmly recommend the reading of his Confessio and the Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. The latter is a lively condemnation of a slaughter perpetrated by raiding Welshmen, who were also Christians. St. Patrick made a strong case against Christians slaughtering Christians, which might seem somewhat obvious, but obviously was not obvious then, and is not now. Witness the world wars of the past century, and the still-simmering hostilities in Northern Ireland.

Peace to you, from your friend at :: O'Whatnext? ::