When Christian leaders like Bishop Harris falsely portray Israel as a murderous and marauding state, they portray Jews who support Israel as a murderous and marauding people.
What is Christianity about? Is it about experiencing and sharing the love of God with humanity? Or do Christians feed on the negative energy fueled by narratives that portray Jews as the repugnant, evil other?
Christians of every stripe need to ask themselves this in light of the scandal initiated by Suffragan Bishop Gayle Harris from the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. During the Episcopal Church’s General Convention in Austin, Texas, in July, Harris accused Israeli soldiers of shooting a 15-year-old boy in the back 10 times because he asked them a question that was not to their liking.
She made it sound like she was a first-hand witness to the murder she described. She did this to give credence to her story, which she offered to support a one-sided and polemical overture that condemned Israel for allegedly mistreating Palestinian children. (Predictably, the resolution made no reference to Palestinian crimes against children.)
This is exactly what she said during her time at the microphone in the General Convention’s House of Bishops: “I have been there when a teenager, I think he was 15, was walking down the street and asked a military vehicle, the Israeli government, a question and because that question was not one of the liking of those soldiers, he began to run as they threatened him and they shot him in the back four times. He fell on the ground and they shot him another six.”
She also said that she was “there a couple of years ago” on the Temple Mount when Israeli soldiers came up to the site to handcuff a three-year-old boy who accidentally allowed a rubber ball he was playing with to roll over the Western Wall. Yes, Palestinians have been known to throw rocks onto the heads of Jews as they pray at the Western Wall, but there is simply no way a rubber ball can innocently “roll over” the obstacles between the Temple Mount and the plaza below.
It turns out that Harris was not “there” like she said she was. A few weeks after Harris offered her testimony to her fellows in the House of Bishops, she apologized for passing on unsubstantiated atrocity stories and for falsely implying that she that witnessed the events she described. Reading between the lines, it was pretty clear that Harris understood that she was misled, and allowed herself to be misled, by whoever told her the stories she passed on.
“I acknowledge also that I did not take the opportunity to verify these stories,” she said in her apology. “I was speaking from my passion for justice for all people, but I was repeating what I received secondhand. I was ill-advised to repeat the stories without verification, and I apologize for doing so.”
If a murder had actually happened in the way Harris described it, the whole world would know because Palestinian activists and their allies in the human rights community would be telling everyone about it. The parents would be interviewed and we’d be shown footage from the boy’s funeral.
Hopefully, Harris’s apology will prompt Episcopalians to examine what it is about their church’s culture that allowed her logically improbable and false statements about Israel to go unchallenged by her fellow bishops. Other Christians, particularly those mainline Protestants in the United States need to regard what happen in the Episcopal Church as a cautionary tale.
THERE’S A LOT at stake. Let’s face it, when people lie about Israel, they are lying about Jews. It’s that simple. The people who tell us again and again that there is no logical unity between the Jewish state and the Jewish people are the very same ones who ask us why and how Jews can support Israel in spite of all the terrible things it supposedly does to the Palestinians.
When Christian leaders like Bishop Harris falsely portray Israel as a murderous and marauding state, they portray Jews who support Israel as a murderous and marauding people. It is exactly this type of narrative that has made life for Jews in Europe increasingly untenable. If Jihadists in the Middle East or Europe were to hear Harris’s testimony, they would cheer. That is why her remarks were so devastating and why her apology was so necessary.
In 1988, the Episcopal Church’s General Convention passed a resolution that lamented how in Christian history, “Jews and Jewish groups were portrayed as negative models, and the truth and beauty of Christianity were thought to be enhanced by setting up Judaism as false and ugly.” The statement adds, “Unfortunately, many of the early Church fathers defamed the Jewish people.”
Sadly enough, this defamation continues and not just in the Episcopal Church. For many so-called Christian “peacemakers,” the Jewish state is the scapegoat of choice. They travel to the Holy Land and speak to Palestinian Christians who offer up a one-sided and distorted narrative about the Israel-Palestinian conflict that absolves the Palestinians of all responsibility. They tell stories about Israeli misdeeds, many of them false, and then offer up excuse after excuse for Palestinian misdeeds. In their overarching narrative which minimizes and obscures the hatred for the Jew that permeates Palestinian civil society, Jewish efforts at self-defense are, by definition, more blameworthy than Palestinian efforts to attack Jews.
These peace activists who are addicted to feelings of righteous indignation work themselves up into a frenzy of hostility toward Israel and then look for opportunities to relive and recite the stories they’ve been told.
For these folks – the people who place Israelis in the slot of the “repugnant other” to affirm their own identities as good progressive Christians – the national assemblies of mainline Protestant churches are perfect platforms for reciting the set pieces of Jewish villainy and Palestinian innocence that they’ve learned on their visits to the Holy Land.
The Episcopal Church warned against exactly this type of behavior. In the 1988 document about Christian-Jewish relations, the Church’s General Convention declared, “Christians are called to oppose all religious prejudices through which Jews or any people are made scapegoats for the failures and problems of societies and political regimes.” It also declared, “The Church must learn to proclaim the Gospel without generating contempt for Judaism or the Jewish people.”
These are words that Christians need to live by. Hopefully, Bishop Gayle Harris will set an example for them to follow in the years ahead. Whatever happens next, people will be listening very closely to what she has to say.
The writer is Christian media analyst for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA).
pwilso24….I was just re-reading my post, and I must apologise because it seemed a bit harsh towards you. This was not intended, and my focus was completely on what I consider the iniquities of past and present Christian teachings and practices.
In the past and right up to this day, I/we have experienced many Christian Evangelical lovers of Zion but whose real goal is to missionize. It always seemed that we just could get away from those tamperers. So bear this in mind. Israel, every year, is flooded with missionaries who literally spend hundred of millions on their “work” yearly. They set up “synagogues” right next door to legitimate Jewish entities, and don all the trappings and manners of Jews, with a Bimah, and an Aron Kodesh, even to prayer shawls, shofars and menorahs…etc.
They dispense the New Testament written in Hebrew, and also prayer books in Hebrew, inserting New Testament texts along with genuine Jewish liturgy. They stand at the doors and entice ignorant Jews inside. I’ve actually seen this in Tel Aviv years ago already. There’s nothing, no shady practice that they will not do.
Your mention of a variety of groups and Churches that really love Jews and Israel was not meant to be ignored and are really appreciated.
@ pwilso24:
There’s no point in your going into anecdotal examples of a variety of people and churches which love Israel…that it TODAY. so take it as accepted. To your comments about my thoughts and beliefs….
“So now in my mind Christianity is about hating Jews” . I said absolutely NO SUCH THING. Please stick to the tenor and actual words of my comments. As it happens, I have a library of about 7,000 books, all of which I’ve read, some many times over, and a goodly number dealing with the Christian attitude towards Jews, as well as the step by step establishment of Christianity. Written by careful researchers, not one of whom was a fanatic or demagogue.
That one lunatic Episcopalian female Bishop is a Jew Hater, has no effect on my personal attitude nor have my personal experiences. They just reinforce the FACT that Christian Dogma dooms the Jews to everlasting purgatory or hell or whatever you call it. It also casts the Jews in an unreal and mythical format, that never happened and never will.
And, if you read the Gospels (by unknown writers) and the Letters of Paul (mostly forged) and have ANY idea at all about the early beginnings of Christianity where they were fighting tooth and nail -about 40-60 different versions of whatever beliefs had sprung up about their Saviour, (an Egyptian concept regarding the Sun, and the Roman major god “Sol Invictus”) — you should know that because Judaism was ancient and vastly developed, there was immense jealousy and strong tendency to copy a variety of Jewish Laws and traditions. As Christians became stronger they attacked the Jews more forcibly….just because Jews couldn’t believe what they couldn’t believe. The Saturday Sabbath was changed only in the 4th century.
Christianity was invented by Paul, who never met, nor knew anything at all about Jesus. From ancient paintings and mosaics, as well as textual references, we see that the Christian mental picture of Jesus was that of a saintly figure going around patting little children on the head, or a man carrying lambs “of god” (the lamb supposedly representing Jesus) on his shoulders and more stuff like that, when even a cursory reading of the Gospels (which is all we know about Jesus) shows a militant and aggressive figure. It also boggles the mind to look at the literally hundreds of thousands, even millions of different writings about those far off beginnings, about flourishing sects, that no one today has ever heard of,….. and much much more.
I can’t get into a dispute about it, as I am no expert. But I have my opinions.
Just let it be said that what I hate about Christianity is that part which allows for and insists on the utter cruelty, the conversion, or/and degradation of Jews all throughout history to this very day TODAY..
As for Christians as people, if they are not offensive they are the same as others on a casual basis. If they are obnoxious, I avoid them. Just like any normal person… I am a normal person….. So I believe.
@ Edgar G.:
Edgar, this article posits Christianity – the faith, is “about hating Jews” based on a stupid liberal Episcopalian Bishop of a fast-shrinking Pal-friendly BDS Church that was taken over by left-wing activists in the last 15 years. Thats nonsense!
During your lifetime, you have encountered some rednecks? possibly Christian who hate Jews ? so now Christianity in your mind is “about hating Jews” ?
David Duke, former KKK Leader, former Democrat, former Republican Senate candidate placed 8th, winning 3% in a 2016 Republican primary in redneck State of Louisiana. Yet CNN analysts use Duke to tar Trump, and southern whites as racist ?
During the Bush Presidency, CNN cited the Jew-hatred and gay-hatred of the small 36-member cult Westboro Baptist Church to tar 30 million Baptists – the majority … fervent supporters of Israel !
The vast majority of American Christians (certainly Evangelical and Catholic) strongly support Israel – recognizing it as “a light onto other Nations”.
Most Christians I know and have worshiped with, have nothing but praise and love for Jewish people and Israel. We teach our children about Moses leadership, Davids courage, Solomon’s wisdom, Esther’s bravery, Daniels faith, Jonahs blessings… in our churchs and to our children.
Yes.. our churches do have sinners and evil people… but our faith teaches us to forgive and to love one another.
Mistaking your Christian friends as enemies when indeed the world is full of Jew-hating Islamic and Leftist enemies is I think a mistake.
One of my grandchildrens fav videos…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NENosj521RQ
TO- PWILSO24. That guy on the boxing site I mentioned earlier. I had responded to him with reason, and facts. Just an hour ago I got a most blistering response, equal to anything the the cursed Hitler ever produced.
This time is was the “savior” I (personally) killed in a vicious diatribe which also mentioned being cursed and persecuted through all the ages, and also “the son of god”…I killed him too. So I bid him a fond farewell, and good (really bad) luck……
NO…!! Jew Hate has ALWAYS been around, and is alive and well, and increasing by leaps and bounds. I wrote here a year or two ago that having grown up with the endemic Anti-Semitism everywhere in the 1930s (and 40s) that this present wave was 100 times worse, being global and deliberately spread to places where no Jews even have been .
@ pwilso24:
I think you’re wrong. Trachtenberg clearly states that it was a phase in the age old Jew Hate than continued down to this day (the mid 1960s) . As a little pointer. whilst down in the countryside, playing at a dance, during an intermission, I and the other band members went across the rd. to a pub, to have a drink. Whilst there, right beside me were a few goyim making heated and very anti-Semitic comments. I intervened and said that I was a Jew and they were wrong. They immediately became interested, and finally admitted they had never met a Jew before. After a few amicable moments, one asked me if I’d mind showing him my hair. We wore trilby hats in those days, and I had very wavy hair streaked with gold and brown. Thinking he wanted to look at it, I was flattered and lifted my hat. He then rummaged through my hair at the front half, and turned to his friends saying “they’re not there.”. I asked what was not there, and he replied that he learned in school that Jews had little horns under their hair… and little tails that were cut off at birth.
This was around 1947-48.. In about 1950-51, I drove a goyish friend home from a Play rehearsal, and as usual we stopped for a chat. It happened to turn to religion, and amongst what he said was.. “You (meaning me) killed our god, you killed Jesus”..and when I protested,…. “the stain is inherited from generation to generation forever”….. He showed me a little black book which he carried everywhere, which gave him all the religious instruction he needed for living and it was there.
These days, and since 2004, I have been a respected member of a boxing forum where we post our various opinions of boxers and fights of today and of years ago.
One guy posted a massively Jew Hating screed against a famous Jewish Promoter Bob Arum, I sent the guy a PM (Private Message) asking him what harm has any Jew done to him, and that Arum and wife established many charities and contributed multi millions to them.
His answer…”You Jews killed Christ”….That was only a couple of months ago…
Need I say more…..?
@ Ted Belman:
Ted, I have enjoyed Israpundit for at least 5 years.
My shortlist of RomanC contributions includes Dark Age monks who preserved classical lit, who later nurtured agriculture techniques, the Catholic founders of most of the great Western Universities, the great Physicist Abbie Lemaitre (who over Einsteins objections) ided the beginning of the Universe, and my fav Pope John-Paul who with Reagan, and Thatcher plotted and weakened the Soviet Empire.
I watched as the Pope made his historic first visit home to Poland, 1979, forbidden during that visit by the Communist authorities to speak, he exited the plane and in front of a world-wide TV audience, knelt on the ground and kissed the Polish soil… the Poles went wild and the Soviet Union began its collapse. A collapse that increased Israeli security greatly and I believe contributed to the glasnose? that helped free Soviet Jews.
This here is one of the non-apologetic Jewish Harrises talking,Gayle. I really don’t give a damn about what you or any other Jew-hating goyishe bitch thinks of us. If I were in the army of Israel, and assigned to duty on the Temple mount in Jerusalem, and if I witnessed you provoking any kinds of anti-Jewish trouble, I would purposely try to do whatever was necessary for you to accidentally fall off that roof onto the thoroughly unforgiving and very Jewish stones in the courtyard below.
I wish upon you and everybody like you the obvious agony of watching Jewish power in and around Israel grow, and grow, and grow.
@ Edgar G.:
Yamit, I do not think Trachtenberg’s medieval Christian-centered anti-semitism (as Adam says demonic) is relevant today in the Western world. Except where embraced by Islamic culture.
The Lefts Arab victim-hood anti-semitism emerged in the late 1980s… long after Trachtenbergs death (1959).
Modern liberal Christian Jew-hatred, most European Leftist Jew-hatred, and the self-hating Jewish Leftists all embrace the Arab Pal as victim and Jews/Israelis as aggressors. This false narrative/dogma across liberal media. left-wing politics, and academia is the real threat: The modern anti-semitism.
As a young Christian, in the 1980s, I toured many a European Cathedral… and marveled at the glory of God and century-long devotion of the builders who erected those citadels to God… the gargoyles you mention to me were mere iconic reminders of evil that plague humanity… and individuals.
@ pwilso24:
What RC contributions are you talking about? I appreciate that you have started your journey of enlightenment but, with respect, you have a long way to go.
How long have you been following Israpundit?
@ yamit82:
All you need to do is read that wonderful, book “The Devil and the Jews” by Joshua Trachtenberg. It is regarded as THE book on anti-semitism and especially in the Middle Ages. it follows from the origin right up to date in the mid 20th cent. As we know, it’s even much worse today.
One just has to look at the gargoyles decorating the gables and peaks of European medieval Churches and Cathedrals, so see what the ignorant, malicious goyim actually saw when they looked at a Jew. Tails, hooves, horns etc. Recall Michelangelo’s “Moses”, very imposing, patriarchal, and equipped with a mandatory small set of horns. I saw this myself in a church in Rome, many years ago.
@ yamit82:
Yamit, I recently visited Yad Vashem… there I learned about early Christian antisemitism (rooted in the Jewish-Roman wars), 19th century economic antisemitism (rooted in envy), and 20th century National Socialism antisemitism (rooted in racialism)…
My anti-semitism (and I am an Evangelical ) was rooted in the false modern leftist dogma of Arab victim-hood promoted by the BBC and NYT. My faith, my study of Israel’s history, and conservative authors like Glick… pulled me back from that darkness. Every Christian Jew-hater I have studied have been consumed by the Left… not bible-centered teaching.
Re: Mormons – lovely gentle people of faith but essentially a very large cult in theology and practice. The Jehovah s as well. Not sure about 7th-day Adventurists.
No Christian denomination is without flaws. I am bible-centered Evangelical, but appreciative of Roman Catholicisms vast contributions to Western civilization over the last 2 millennium.
@ pwilso24:
Are in your opinion Mormons good (Kosher) christians? How about JW or 7 Day Adventists? There are over 40 thousand christian denominations which ones are not acceptable good Kosher denominations in ur opinion?
A plausible explanation for how and why Jews became so hated by believers in the Jesus-god of love-your-neighbor-as-yourself. It’s not because the Jews killed Christ as the Gospels – mainly that of John – say. It’s because the theology of Christianity holds that Jews know perfectly well that Jesus Christ was the Messiah but they deny him anyway. And how else can this be seen but as a deliberate act of choosing evil? “Who else could do such a thing but Satan and his servants?” is how the Christian anti-Semitic mindset operates. Consequently, Only in a Christian country can Holocaust Revisionism [the idea that the Nazis never tried to exterminate the Jews] be taken seriously. Because only Christians could believe that Jews are so wholly evil and so supernaturally-empowered by evil forces that they could successfully perpetrate the monumental conspiracy that would be necessary to get people to believe such a thing if it weren’t true. And even of those people who accept the reality of the Nazi genocide of the Jews, only a Christian could believe that innocent and harmless Jews were dispatched to hell while the Nazis who killed them were forgiven by God and admitted to heaven. There are no people who are more despised than Jews.
If you want to know what someone really thinks of you, look at what they’re willing to believe about you.
Please do NOT associate Christianity or MOST American Christians with Episcopalians. The Episcopalian Church is the fastest shrinking church in the Western World. It is now the home of pretend Christians, feminist Christians, gay Christians, and leftist Christians. Most of whoem embrace the doctrine of Arab victim-hood promoted by the New York Times and others on the Left. This supposed victimhood is the fuel of the modern antisemitism of the Left. I should know… may God forgive me… I embraced the lies and distortions until I discovered the JPost and conservative thinkers outside the toxic Jew-hatred of the BBC and NYTimes.
As far back as 1938, Pope Pius XI speaking to Belgium pilgrims declared: “It is not possible for Christians to take part in antisemitism”… “Spiritually we are Jews” !!
Michael S Said:
Why do you say he is Jewish??? There is nothing Jewish about him, he is worse than Hamas wrt Israel and he hates Judaism. While we may not have a mechanism for excommunication we don’t need to openly accept him as a MOT in Public.
An important although deeply disturbing article. This ‘new” antisemitism in the “liberal” Protestant churches reaffirms traditional Christian antisemitic stereotypes under the rubric of supposed sympathy for the “Oppressed” Palestinian Arabs. It enables the “liberal” Christians to feel they are being “progressive” and righteous, while persisting in the demonic hatred that has marred Christianity as a faith for so many centuries.
The real question here is why she came clean about this matter. Someone so enamored of herself rarely turns about on a dime to do teshuvah without motivation. What came crawling up behind her to make her put her character in such a negative public light? Something scared the “hell” out of her.
Christians have Gayle Harris; Jews have Noam Chomsky.
This is a completely fake story, and the Church leaders will see that she’s placed in a psychiatric home and quietly taken car of. If they don’t then they’re just as maliciously crazy as she is.
I’m pretty damned sure that 15 year old boys son’t just walk down the street and ask IDF vehicles and then start running so that they are encuoraged to shoot him. They’s all behauled before a court and sentenced to 10 years. ]
This unbalanced creature makes a habit of passing on fakedbup stories like this and obviously hates Jews with a derangement which requires treatment. How is she allowed to roam loose, and why was she allowed to enter Israel after the first lie anout handcuffing a 3 year old child. nonsense. I didn’t think they made handcuffs that small. ….and I’m sure they don’t. She needs some sort of cuff around her neck that will recognise a lie as it’s coming up and tighten to choke it off. Israel technology could make such a neccessary item I’m sure.