Sunday's story about the Methodist preacher who is mounting a legal action against the Methodist churches' discriminatory campaign against the Jewish community in Israel has provoked a torrent of hatred within Methodism on blog sites and personal email.
Regretfully I have to say we Methodists are not as nice as we claim. A non-Christian journalist visited another Methodist blog and mentioned to me how she found many of the comments offensive. In fact one of the comments was so offensive and defamatory that the blog publisher was forced to removed it.
Several people have whinged that the resolution passed at the Portsmouth conference is no big deal really as it only refers to "illegal settlements on the West Bank". This is the line pushed in the "Questions and Answers" now posted on the Methodist Church website.
However, few people seem to have read the very first line of the resolution passed at conference. It says:
"The Methodist Conference receives the report Justice for Palestine and Israel".
The conference didn't pass a nice pink and fluffy resolution about a few extremists building settlements where they shouldn't be. The report actively questions the right of the Jewish people to settle in Israel at all with a half baked analysis of nineteenth century Zionism.
If the military occupation of parts of the West Bank and illegal settlements were the only blockage to peace there would be no need to re-write history and conclude that Jews should not be settled there in the first place. Weasel words about Israel's "right to exist within secure borders" will not ameliorate the general tenor of the report.
The Faith and Order Committee of the Methodist Church has been instructed to "to undertake further work on the theological issues, including Christian Zionism". This will be a stitch up. Only those who can be trusted to draw the pre-ordained conclusion will be allowed anywhere near it's preparation. It will conclude that the Jews have no Biblical authority to live in Israel.
Imagine, a mainstream denomination concluding that the people of Israel have no place in the Holy Land. That is the trajectory that we are now on as a denomination.
When challenged, members of the working party will doubtless say "we were just obeying orders", sorry....slip of the tongue.... "we were doing conference's bidding".
We have allowed a small group of people to hijack Methodism's good name for tolerance and open mindedness to run a discriminatory campaign against Jewish people. My strong advice to anyone assuming that this resolution is simply about "justice" and illegal settlements is to read the report.
Also among the hate mail was a comment from someone signing themselves as "Tom". He actually did make an interesting point and one worth pursuing .Of Palestinian Christians he says: "They do live under occupation and they are being heavily squeezed by both the settlers and radical Islamic groups."
Now that's an interesting point. Palestinian Christians that I have spoken too (not in the last ten years by way of clarification) explained to me that they feared the creation of an Islamic state.They expected, as Tom points out, to be "squeezed". To a large extent this has been borne out by the massive emigration of Palestinian Christians during the 1980s and 1990s.
But it is curious that our own Methodist report barely mentions this issue. Much of the report is based on work undertaken by the Friends of Sabeel. and the Palestine Kairos document neither of whom acknowledge this squeeze on their respective websites.
However an acknowledgment of this issue did sneak into the reports from the Portsmouth Methodist Conference
The Reverend Doctor Naim Ateek blurted out that Palestinian Christians depended on Hamas for protection from "Muslim fanatics". Clearly an issue and a concern, but one that is not addressed in the Methodist report grandly entitled "Justice for Palestine and Israel".
Why not? Because the authors wanted to conclude that all the problems in the Holy Land are down to the Jews. Christians have been blaming the Jews for 2,000 years. It is time we stopped.
Meanwhile one bitter irony of "Justice for Palestine and Israel" is that it contained a risk assessment (page 177) of its impact - no kidding- a standard practice in many large corporations and public bodies. The assessment? " Risk: None".
If the authors can't even make an accurate risk assessment of their work how can we trust the accuracy of the rest of the report.........?
![]()
Regretfully I have to say we Methodists are not as nice as we claim. A non-Christian journalist visited another Methodist blog and mentioned to me how she found many of the comments offensive. In fact one of the comments was so offensive and defamatory that the blog publisher was forced to removed it.
Several people have whinged that the resolution passed at the Portsmouth conference is no big deal really as it only refers to "illegal settlements on the West Bank". This is the line pushed in the "Questions and Answers" now posted on the Methodist Church website.
Report
However, few people seem to have read the very first line of the resolution passed at conference. It says:
"The Methodist Conference receives the report Justice for Palestine and Israel".
The conference didn't pass a nice pink and fluffy resolution about a few extremists building settlements where they shouldn't be. The report actively questions the right of the Jewish people to settle in Israel at all with a half baked analysis of nineteenth century Zionism.
If the military occupation of parts of the West Bank and illegal settlements were the only blockage to peace there would be no need to re-write history and conclude that Jews should not be settled there in the first place. Weasel words about Israel's "right to exist within secure borders" will not ameliorate the general tenor of the report.
Faith and order
The Faith and Order Committee of the Methodist Church has been instructed to "to undertake further work on the theological issues, including Christian Zionism". This will be a stitch up. Only those who can be trusted to draw the pre-ordained conclusion will be allowed anywhere near it's preparation. It will conclude that the Jews have no Biblical authority to live in Israel.
Imagine, a mainstream denomination concluding that the people of Israel have no place in the Holy Land. That is the trajectory that we are now on as a denomination.
When challenged, members of the working party will doubtless say "we were just obeying orders", sorry....slip of the tongue.... "we were doing conference's bidding".
Hijack
We have allowed a small group of people to hijack Methodism's good name for tolerance and open mindedness to run a discriminatory campaign against Jewish people. My strong advice to anyone assuming that this resolution is simply about "justice" and illegal settlements is to read the report.
Also among the hate mail was a comment from someone signing themselves as "Tom". He actually did make an interesting point and one worth pursuing .Of Palestinian Christians he says: "They do live under occupation and they are being heavily squeezed by both the settlers and radical Islamic groups."
Now that's an interesting point. Palestinian Christians that I have spoken too (not in the last ten years by way of clarification) explained to me that they feared the creation of an Islamic state.They expected, as Tom points out, to be "squeezed". To a large extent this has been borne out by the massive emigration of Palestinian Christians during the 1980s and 1990s.
Squeeze
But it is curious that our own Methodist report barely mentions this issue. Much of the report is based on work undertaken by the Friends of Sabeel. and the Palestine Kairos document neither of whom acknowledge this squeeze on their respective websites.
However an acknowledgment of this issue did sneak into the reports from the Portsmouth Methodist Conference
The Reverend Doctor Naim Ateek blurted out that Palestinian Christians depended on Hamas for protection from "Muslim fanatics". Clearly an issue and a concern, but one that is not addressed in the Methodist report grandly entitled "Justice for Palestine and Israel".
Why not? Because the authors wanted to conclude that all the problems in the Holy Land are down to the Jews. Christians have been blaming the Jews for 2,000 years. It is time we stopped.
Risk
Meanwhile one bitter irony of "Justice for Palestine and Israel" is that it contained a risk assessment (page 177) of its impact - no kidding- a standard practice in many large corporations and public bodies. The assessment? " Risk: None".
If the authors can't even make an accurate risk assessment of their work how can we trust the accuracy of the rest of the report.........?
