Christian Zionists raise hackles over fundraiser
Judith Davidoff
The Capital Times
An influential group of evangelical Christian Zionists that has rented the Capitol Theater to honor and raise money for Israel is getting an icy reception from some in the Madison Jewish community.
Rabbi Jonathan Biatch of Temple Beth El denounced the group, Christians United for Israel, in a March 23 sermon for its aggressive stand toward Iran and its conservative stances on social issues. The local chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, a national grass-roots group, is planning to protest outside the theater in the Overture Center during the May 6 event.
Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman of Shaarei Shamayim is also not a fan, but Steve Morrison, executive director of the Madison Jewish Community Center, is not bothered by the controversy.
“Christian support for Israel is a good thing,” Morrison said. “I have no idea what their politics are because we didn’t discuss it.”Morrison said he will be in Israel on May 6, otherwise he would attend the event. The funds raised that night will be funneled through the Madison Jewish Community Center to the Israel Emergency Campaign Fund.
Christians United for Israel was founded about a year ago by Pastor John Hagee of San Antonio, Texas. The group’s Web page says that Christians have a biblical obligation to defend Israel and the Jewish people in their time of need and that support is particularly important now because President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has threatened to wipe out Israel and is acquiring the nuclear technology needed to make good on his threat. The Web site says Ahmadinejad is “a new Hitler in the Middle East,” adding that “if we learned anything from the Holocaust, it is that when a madman threatens genocide we must take him seriously.”
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/index.php?ntid=130834&ntpid=2
The spectacle of Christian Zionists being even more hard line than Jewish supremacists is embarrassing, especially since Christian Zionism is a heresy that defies two millenia of Christian faith. The bulk of Christian Zionists are also social conservatives, and must invoke political schizophrenia to justify support for the same people who domestically help to push the gay agenda, as well as the poison of Hollywood and the mass media in general, and seek to undermine Christian holidays and other expressions. There is also the problem for Christians about how they are dealt with in Israel: Palestinian Christians (who have been Christians since the days of the Apostles) have been displaced and their churches desecrated, while visiting Christians (many of them Christian Zionists) have been spat on and abused by Israelis, whose ruling Knesset is mulling a law banning Christian conversion. Proving that many Christian Zionist leaders are not genuinely even Christians, many have pledged not to attempt to proselytize to Jews.
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