Harry's Place

What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If it is anti-Jewish not to tell Jews about Jesus, it is anti-Islamic not to tell Muslims about Jesus. Good post at spotting this hypocracy, David T.
PS: I wonder if born-again Jimmy Carter is busy preaching the Gospel to Baby Assad and Hezbollah?!

I very much hope he does.

Christianity is a good faith, which like most faiths, has had some bad times. It is a curate’s egg for some, but there’s more pluses than minuses to it.

Christmas, for example.

I have met Dr Sizer. My views on religious matters and many other social issues are very different to his, but I agree with him about Christian Zionism, though not necessarily for the same reasons.

However, you are misrepresenting him in this instance. As a conservative evangelical, Sizer believes that only Christians will be saved. There are some within the evangelical movement who are sympathetic to Christian Zionism who believe that Jews are automatically saved without the need for conversion to Christianity. Sizer doesn’t agree.

However, no evangelical Christian would begin to accept that Muslims are also saved automatically because of their beliefs – Christian Zionists have a very different view of Muslims from Jews. You need to bear that in mind when considering what Sizer is saying. He would believe that all non-Christians require salvation.

In this instance, though, he is speaking about Christian Zionism and in order to do so would have to assure his hosts that he is not interested in church-planting. This is particularly because he is associated with Palestinian Christian groups who already have a difficult enough time from both ’sides’. I have seen him address a mixed group of people and he made it clear that he is not sympathetic to Islam as a religious system. Or Judaism. Because he is a conservative evangelical Christian.

I’m not. But Christian Zionism is a most unpleasant cocktail of beliefs which loosely translates as ‘excuse everything Israel does’. Some think that’s acceptable, but I wouldn’t agree, because I’m not in sympathy with Zionism, not any other radical form of political religionism.

http://www.premiercommunity.org.uk/forum/topics/stephen-sizer-on-unbelievable?id=2060181%3ATopic%3A49008&page=1#comments

Good post DavidT. There are some interesting comments on this forum too. ‘Mordechai’ is on the case of the Reverend Dr Stephen Sizer PhD. You can find him here:

http://seismicshock.blogspot.com

I think we should start a fund to ensure that the poor Reverend Dr Stephen Sizer PhD does not have to spend another harsh winter in the inclement climes of Virginia Water, Surrey. Instead he should go to Gaza, Baghdad, Jedda and Kabul and try to ensure that the poor Muslims there find Jesus. As you point out, it would be Islamophobic not to and I feel sure that the Reverend Dr Stephen Sizer PhD would not like to be found to be inconsistent.

Merseymike

Here is what Sizer reportedly said on Saturday on the radio:

“Zionism is a form of racism”; “Israel has never declared what its borders are so how can it be recognised?”; “My concern is with so-called Christian Zionist organisations that … equate the Gospel with helping Jews .. without telling them about the Cross … my concern is with those so-called Christian organisations that do not engage in Evangelism, that do not share Jesus with Jewish people: that’s antisemitism”

Would you agree with those statements?

Yoiur description of Christian Zionism (a most unpleasant cocktail of beliefs which loosely translates as ‘excuse everything Israel does’) is wrong.

There are some wacky CZs but there are also some eminently sound ones such as Barry Horner, author of “Future Israel: Why Christian anti-Judaism must be challenged” (available online at http://www.bunyanministries.org/books/Future%20Israel.pdf )

It would be un-Christian not to burn Jews and heretics at the stake if you thought it might save others from eternal damnation.

Why not just accept that religions are a bit nutty at best rather than try to build something sensible on foundations made of shit?

Merseymike

You have not explained why Sizer considers Jews fair game but not other faiths including Muslims.

And why do you think Sizer is quoted approvingly on David Duke’s website as well as other far Right sites?

Don’t know whether Sizer is an Islamophobe or not. He’s certainly a down the line anti-semite. Melanie Phillips wrote this summary of his attitudes towards Jews and his anti-Israel diatribes back in February 2002. I can’t imagine his attitudes haven’t got even more off the wall since then. You embrace some very unsavoury bedfellows on the subject of Judaism, David T:

Sizer is a leading crusader against Christian Zionism. He believes that God’s promises to the Jews have been inherited by Christianity, including the land of Israel.

He acknowledges that Israel has the right to exist since it was established by a United Nations resolution. But he also says it is ‘fundamentally an apartheid state because it is based on race,’ and ‘even worse than south Africa’ (this despite the fact that Israeli Arabs have the vote, they are members of the Knesset and one is even a Supreme Court judge).

He therefore hopes Israel will go the same way as South Africa under apartheid, ‘brought to an end internally by the rising up of the people’. So despite saying he supports Israel’s existence, he appears to want the Jewish state to be singled out for a fate afforded to no other democracy properly constituted under international law.

But perhaps this is not surprising given his attitude towards Jews. ‘ The covenant between Jews and God’, he states, ‘was conditional on their respect for human rights. The reason they were expelled from the land was that they were more interested in money and power and treated the poor and aliens with contempt’. Today’s Jews, it appears, are no better. ‘In the United States, politicians dare not criticise Israel because half the funding for both the Democrats and the Republicans comes from Jewish sources’.

http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/000765.html

Since I am both a Christian and a supporter of Israel, I suppose I am a Christian Zionist. However I am not somebody who is waiting for the Rapture or any other sort of “end times” event.

Christianity is a good faith

Like a red rag to the bull, David T….

However I am not somebody who is waiting for the Rapture or any other sort of “end times” event.

Would Everscum FC ever winning a trophy again (or even a just a single merseyside derby) count as an “end times” event?

OT, but related: Those nasty worse then apartheid Israelis are at it again. They saved the life of an ailing Iraqi child with a serious heart defect. See story and comments at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3633108,00.html
Please read the comments especially those of Kamal from Nablus and Ahmed Kadret from Baghdad, they are very moving and give hope for the future.

David T, now see what you have done. You have set Morgoth off. Down, Morgoth, Down boy Down. (joke)

Morgoth, I am not sure. I do believe thought that here in the US if the Detriot Lions professional football team, winless this entire season, were to win any sort of title in the next several years, that it might well be the beginniing of the End Times!

I agree with BrazenBertie that a fund should be started to send the Right Reverend Sizer off to bring Jesus and Salvation to the benighted natives of Gaza, Riydah and Kabul. That should be, however it turns out, a life long task!

Meet the Reverend Dr Stephen Sizer PhD: the vicar (or ’senior pastor’) of Christ Church, the international community church of Virginia Water, Surrey, UK.

Perhaps a delegation of possible converts should be dispatched to the Church of Perpetual Virginity, Surrey, to listen attentively to one of his sermons.

M o r g o t h Christianity is a good faith – Like a red rag to the bull, David T….

I don’t think that ‘good’ or ‘bad’ can be applied to religions. Any religions.

However, Liberal Western Democracy ’sprang into being’ in countries whose major religion was Christianity. And of the Protestant/Catholic variety.

Strangely, not the Orthodox variety.

I too think of Jew killing crusades, pogroms and inquisitions when I think of Christianity. Nazi Germany developed from a Christian background. I also think of the Holy father having sex with a carrot.

But the end result is very much to my liking.

Countries that have Liberal Western Democracies are the most sort after countries in the world. However much they are derided by social misfits and other flotsam in the Guardian/CI(F).

Christianity is a good faith, which like most faiths, has had some bad times. It is a curate’s egg for some, but there’s more pluses than minuses to it.

I see it as an anachronistic superstition, a critical thinking failure at best and a fetter on the mind of millions stymieing human development and it’s run by some rather dodgy characters.

Bog standard Anglicanism and Catholicism also provides the cover for and confers legitimacy upon even more malign interpretations of the Christian myth and of course the moral cesspit and appalling catalyst for intolerance and violence that is 21st century Islam.

Mordechai of SeismicShock

http://seismicshock.blogspot.com

has posted this:

http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres2/SIZERchriszion.pdf

- an example of the company the Reverend Dr Stephen Sizer PhD keeps

http://www.vho.org

Clap says: “Perhaps a delegation of possible converts should be dispatched to the Church of Perpetual Virginity, Surrey, to listen attentively to one of his sermons.”

Sounds good to me.

Is ‘Perpetual Virginity’ another of his ruses for Jewish extinction?

I am also a Christian and Zionist, although not a Christian Zionist. the Rev is being disingenous, I suspect. Evangelicals would very much like to convert everyone in the world, and have a particular thing for attracting Muslims. It’s the 21st century equivalent of saving prostitites.

They have been active in the Middle East in recent years, much to the anger of the local Churches. traditionally Anglicans and Catholics never proselythised in these countries because the Christians there, second class citizens at the best of times, would get attacked. And there was a one-sided gentlemen’s agreement about not turning members of the other side. But Evangelicals dont believe in these agreements, especially when they also despise Middle Eastern Christianity (which partly explains why Palestinian Christian appeals fall on such deaf ears).

The honest truth is that Israeli Jews can convert to christianity if they wish. Iranian Muslims would face social death at best, and maybe actual death. he should have just said that. Or used the old “research purposes” explanation for the books.

He would believe that all non-Christians require salvation.

In this instance, though, he is speaking about Christian Zionism and in order to do so would have to assure his hosts that he is not interested in church-planting.

No, I’m sorry, I’m not following this.

Christian Zionism may be bad – but it is as nothing compared to, you know, being damned for all eternity, being tortured while being boiled in a lake of firey pitch!!

Are you seriously telling me that Rev Sizer has prioritised giving a lecture on Christian Zionism over actually offering lost souls the hope of salvation.

I can’t believe that could be true.

I prefer to believe that he is secretly converting Iranians to Christianity, but can’t write about it on his website, because it would get him and them killed.

Sizer believes that only Christians will be saved.

And he should have explained that to everyone who was a Muslim in Tehran. He should have told them their souls were damned unless they converted. He could have done it right there. “Kneel down my son for I will help you bring Jesus into your life.” and baptise them with a bottle of Evian.

Then we have the pres of Iran inviting Bush to convert to Islam. Had this been some Island in Asia or some place in Africa then he could have threatened them with death if he refused.

But, the dilemma is that there is “No compulsion in Religion” although you don’t have to kill an unbeliever if they convert to Islam.

The Messianic Jews are somewhere in the middle – believing Jesus is/was the Messiah.

And I’m am so confused about who’s trying to convert who, and who has a sword waiting if you don’t that I’m now waffling (as usual).

I might be willing to convert myself if you send some Flighty Fishers but I’m a hard nut to crack, might take several months!!

While Christian-Zionists are strong supporters of Israel it ain’t no bad thing.

David T I prefer to believe that he is secretly converting Iranians to Christianity, but can’t write about it on his website, because it would get him and them killed.

Yes.

Sizer has form:

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=259

Isn’t he really called schizer?

Maven “Kneel down my son for I will help you bring Jesus into your life.” and baptise them with a bottle of Evian.

You are a true sinner my son.

But then, we all are.

God forbid that anyone should want to build a church in Iran! For a Christian, he accepts Iranian hostility to this idea with remarkable equanimity.

“Christian Zionist organisations that … equate the Gospel with helping Jews…without telling them about the Cross ”

Surely Christian organisations sympathetic to Israel and Zionism are among those most successful converting Jews to Christianity. The ‘messianic’ Jews are almost all pro- or sympathetic to Israel or Zionism, I think.

For Sizer, Christianity=anti-Zionism, just as for certain sorts of Christian, before the Jewish state of Israel existed, Christianity=anti-Judaism.

i.e. most Christian evangelists to Jews for most of Christian history.

Unfortunate fellow.

“Christian Zionist” is a construct-cypher, just as ‘Zionist’ is a often a construct of Israel-haters, meaning ‘the most extreme type of Zionist possible’.

In reality, many so called ‘Christian Zionists’ are Christians who are sympathetic to Israel and or Zionism in some form, for all kinds of reasons, chiefly an awareness of historical Christian injustice against Jews and an appreciation of Christianity’s Jewish roots. They believe in a two-state solution, not a greater Israel, and represent by far the more common kind of ‘Christian Zionism’.

But, in reality, that is the kind of Zionism Sizer most fears: the moderate, reasonable kind.

Sizer is an atavistic throwback: to justify his anti-Zionism he quotes Justin Martyr, who says that Christians inherit everything promised to Abraham, including the land of Israel. And to prove his Christianity consists chiefly in anti-Zionism, he shows how he is prepared to compromise his evangelism when making common cause with Islamicist and Islamic imperialist Judeo-phonic anti-Zionists.

having looked at Mr. Sizer’s website I have to say that I have rarely come across a better example of a wasted life.

Sizer has form

Ah, so he isn’t a deity who can pass through keyholes and make will o’ the wisp apparitions!!

Seriously David, thanks for the links.

The Vicar of Virginia Water is, like many churchmen before him, using Christian theology as window-dressing for his antisemitism. Does he really want to convert Jews? Maybe. Does he believe in replacement theology? Certainly. Have his actions for at least the last ten years (at least when I first heard of him) show his wish to see the end of Israel? Absolutely.

Does he want to convert Muslims? Far be it from him to insult his hosts. Is his work reproduced by, and does he promote the work of Holocaust deniers and other Grade A antisemites? Certainly. Does he liken Ahmedinejad’s funding of Hamas to the Magi bringing gifts to Jesus? Of course he does. If he is so concerned for Jews’ souls, why did he fail to try and convert the members of Neturei Karta at this bash? (Note the high proportion of pictures of Neturei Karta – you would have thought that the man was obsessed by Jews)

As Jesus is supposed to have said, “by their fruits ye shall know them.”

Hasan,

For more about Sizer in Jakarta, see:

http://www.voiceofpalestine.net/

If you watch the moving photos you might spot Rev Dr Stephen Sizer, and his good friend Ms Zahra Mostafavi!

My Dears, for the Catholic Religion, Anglicans and Protestants can’t be saved, so Sizer is going downward bound How can anyone take such nonsense seriously!!!! And the born again Christians think they alone can be saved. Dante let a few Old Testament figures slip into his post Christian paradise. But Mohammed is in one of the lowest circles of hell. His body is torn apart from head to foot, grows together and is torn again – for all eternity. I go down there too for my sexual orientation. If – according to Dante – Hitler had converted and confessed at the very last minute, he’d be in purgatory for an awful long time, but eventually get to Paradise

If the Cubs won the World Series, that really would be a portent of the End Times.

Choudary’s two pennorth

This is obviously An Ecumenical Matter.

Check out this link http://www.continuumbooks.com/Books/detail.aspx?ReturnURL=/main.aspx&CountryID=2&ImprintID=3&BookID=131653

How ironic, Stephen Sizer has written a positive review for Mark Bradley, a man who has been ‘involved with the Iranian church for over 20 years.’

Mark Bradley, however, is only a pseudonym to protect the author’s real identity. Perhaps that’s because the Iranian government doesn’t really like Christians in Iran and has actually killed quite a few of them.

Why doesn’t Stephen Sizer need a pseudonym when he goes to Iran? Could it possibly be because he doesn’t try to convert Muslims or set up churches or criticise the government himself?

“Judeo-phonic anti-Zionists”

Judeo-phoBic anti-Zionists.

From this comment on seismicshock, it seems the faith moves are more the other way:

Just for the record, the “reverend” Garth Hewitt is not an Anglican Bishop. He’s an “Honorary Canon” of St George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem. Ibrahim [Ibrahim Hewitt, chairman of Interpal] is Garth’s nephew!! He must be a VERY proud uncle! He is a Minister of the “Gospel”, whose nephew has converted to a radical form of Islam. .

see this link from seismic, where the author expresses concern with Sizer’s association with Islamic ministries. From this link, it seems Sizer is a very busy bee in those circles.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/7831429/Stephen-Sizer-The-Theological-AntiZionist-Crusade

David Hirsh’s piece on the Engage site is a classic smear job. He fails to deal with the substance of Sizer’s remarks, i.e.

‘The Israeli military is committing war crimes on a daily basis with Caterpillar D9 bulldozers, which are the size of a double decker bus, weigh 53 tons and are fortified with bulletproof glass, machine-gun turrets and grenade launchers. These bulldozers are being used to destroy homes, olive groves, farms, orchards and utilities so that Israel can annexe the land for its exclusive settlements and apartheid roads. They are an integral weapon in Israel’s strategy to destroy the international roadmap and erase any possibility of a viable, independent, sovereign Palestinian state.’

All of which is true. Which is why Hirsh prefers to fling mud.

ps

Judy, if consider Mad Mel to be a reliable source, then you must be even nuttier than her.

Here’s another prominent Christian anti-Zionist writer, Ben White:

http://seismicshock.blogspot.com/2008/12/does-ben-white-understand-antisemitism.html

“Caterpillar D9 bulldozers, which are the size of a double decker bus, weigh 53 tons and are fortified with bulletproof glass, machine-gun turrets and grenade launchers.”

I love them. I saw them in the last military fair in Rishon. I am a big fan of huge machines.

resistorbator, are you a christian anti-Semite yourself, or is it just a case of agreeing with anyone who is anti-Jewish regardless of their other allegiances? You criticised Judy for quoting Phillips but you are happy to ally yourself with someone who thinks God told him Jews are bad.

Christians don’t inherit Israel. Evangelicals have very vivid imaginations.

And the position of some churches, such as The Roman Catholic Church, state that it isn’t just Catholics or Christians who open to salvation.

Sizer’s observation that Iranian cultural traditions make them ‘naturals’ for conversion to Christianity is probably correct. Iran counts quite a number of converts.

Is he an anti-semite?

Yes. He is obsessed with Jews, talks about them all the time and writes about them incessantly.

In fact he is so obsessed with Jews he has struck up friendships with mullahs who punish and oppress his own co-religionists.

A half-assed, mostly clueless, evangelical freelancer.

Caterpillar D9 bulldozers, which are the size of a double decker bus, weigh 53 tons and are fortified with bulletproof glass, machine-gun turrets and grenade launchers.”

I love them. I saw them in the last military fair in Rishon. I am a big fan of huge machines.

Fabian, if I come to Israel can we go Caterpillar spotting together?

Of course, I realise that I mustn’t stand in the way of a bull-dozer because I could fall and get flattened. I know its a way to Sainthood but I’d hate the thought of being smothered in lemon and sugar.

As for ‘resistor’ I have to thank him for ‘turning me on’ because I didn’t know:-

“Caterpillar D9 bulldozers, which are the size of a double decker bus, weigh 53 tons and are fortified with bulletproof glass, machine-gun turrets and grenade launchers”

He forgot to describe IDF as “ten-foot metallic armoured giants with motorised arms. legs, hands and feet, capable of running at 40mph with rocket backpacks, flame throwers, mini-guided missiles, high-speed motorised machine guns and laser-radar HUD – all made in indestructable titanium”

Now, someone’s been watching “Iron Man – The Series”.

I must write to Playmobil to ask when the models will be out.

Recommendation to all those Reverends and “Reverends”

Please rewrite the New Testament:

“Now after Jesus was born in Betlehem of Judea”
Matthew 2,1

This is politically incorrect. So rewrite

The same should be noted about Matthew 2, 5 and 6

And Matthew 3,5 also Matthew 19,1

“Now Jesus stood before the governor and the governor questioned Him, saying “Are you the King of the Jews?” And Jesus said to him, “It is as you say.”
Matthew 27.11 Same goes of course also for Mark 15.2

King of the Jews, that is politically incorrect. So rewrite

“Let this Christ, the King of Israel now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!”

Mark 15.32

This sentence should be the first one to be rewritten.

Same goes for Luke 2,4

“And when eight days were completed before his circumcision….”
Luke 2,21
That is a Jewish custom until today, so rewrite.

Luke 23,5 again mentions Judea,

Luke 23. 37 and 38 speaks about the “King of Jews”

And even John 6,25 “they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You get here?”

That is also not politically correct. So rewrite. The same goes for John 18, 33 and 35

Karl,

Sounds a bit like the Nazi Bible!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-399470/Jewish-references-erased-newly-Nazi-Bible.html

Mark Bradley, however, is only a pseudonym to protect the author’s real identity. Perhaps that’s because the Iranian government doesn’t really like Christians in Iran and has actually killed quite a few of them.

I followed that link and totally agree with Bradley’s take on Iran. Iran is the only hard-core islamist regime with a population still vividly aware of their pre-islamic past. Iranians have two poles of identity unlike, say, Pakistanis who are completely unaware of their origins and true identity.

There is room in the Iranian psyche for things other than islam and that space is where subversion can be planted.

Iranians hate the regime, they demonstrate against it all of the time, and those Iranians who convert to Christianity do so partly as an act of subversion.

Consequently, there is quite a bit to work with here. Were we able to subvert the islamist republic from within and have it collapse, that collapse would be an enormous psychological blow to Islam’s world historical mission of total dominance.

If, on the other hand, we attack the country, we risk galvanising the support of people who now criticse the regime around that same regime, thereby helping the Mullahs to maintian power.

The situation is realy quite delicate.

Karl Pfeifer

“Let this Christ, the King of Israel now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!”

Dantes is beckonning to you frantically.

Ami
I believe that the two Hewitts are not in fact related. Also, Sizer isn’t associated with Islamic “ministries” (the term, in Christian circles, would denote groups which seek to bring the gospel to Muslims), he has links to radical Islamic “groups” who seek the eradication of Israel. A curious choice of friends for a vicar one might think!

DT

I wondered when you might come across Dr Sizer…

Power to the Bulldozers!
Fabian, like Maven, I would like to Caterpillar spotting with you if I ever come to Israel. We could wave Israeli flags and cheer them on, from a safe distance of course. One thing my parents taught me early on was never to stand in front of a big machine!

James Mendelsohn: As I have no knowledge of either the asserter or your good self, and in the absence of corroboration either way, I have no way of choosing between the assertion that the Hewitts are related or your belief they are not. I don’t mean to offend you as you sound a decent sort.

As for the reference to Islam ministries, that was the term used by the author of the piece linked to, one Christian Skinner. I can find no further details about him either, but did think ministries was a strange term to use in this context.

The good rev actually has more than just the one website:

http://www.stephensizer.com
http://www.sizers.org
http://www.cc-vw.org
http://stephensizer.blogspot.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephensizer/

Hasan Prishtina: Yes, the Cubs winning the World Series would definitley signal that the End Times were Near!

Elf Service: Choudary’s rant against Christmas sounds like the extreme Puritans who forbid Christmas celebrations on the grounds that gift exchange, decorations, etec were pagan festivals.

Karl Pfeifer: Thanks for the references about Jesus, King of the Jews, Israel, Judea etec. Some of the Political Correct Churches nowadays are trying to call Judea, Palestine when that was a Roman name given to Judea after Hadrian crushed the last Jewish Revolt more then a century after Jesus.

John P makes sense for the second time in a week! How about that as an indication of the End Times!

Karl Pfeifer

Your witticisms about the New Testament were amusing. I haven’t reread all the passages you cite.

But Jesus was a Jew, born in a Jewish culture. This does not stop Chritians from being anti-semitic. Contorted logic. My friend Moses tells me that all the teachings in the New Testament can be found already in the Old. Well, if that is so, J. made a beautiful summary of them in a new form. He was opposed to Jewish bigots. The title of King is purely symbolic. He told the Zealots that they had completely misunderstood him. He was not fighting against the Roman occupation, but, shall we say, for higher ideals.Like Adorno when faced by Marxist Zealots.. He had no intention to become a political leader, let alone a king.

I am unable to find matching chapters and verses for you citations. Was this a joke too? I’d have to reread but my memory tells me that Jesus usually replied, “That is what you say,” rather than “It is I,” which sounds highly unlikely. Maybe wishful thinkig in a modern translations.

I think political incorrectness has more to offer.

Mordechai

You have done a great job with your Seismic Shock site, thank you

http://seismicshock.blogspot.com

Moses!!

Ps: hello failed law student! V nice to see you here.

Ami

Thanks for reading my article on Stephen Sizer. Sorry for the confusion caused by my use of the term “Islamic Ministries”. It was perhaps not the most suitable word, I should have said “Islamic organisations”. I will amend that in the next edition.

As stated in my article, I am a Christian and a Zionist.

Christopher Skinner: keep up the good work

here here

Mordechai, Christian Skinner, BrazenBertie, David T all of you are doing a good job. Thank You.

Meanwhile a genuine interfaith group of mostly Muslims, but also Jews and Christians visit the Holy Land. Read “UK Muslim group visits Israel for 1st time” at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3633333,00.html

Meantime, Hezbollah refuses to meet with Neville Chamberlain ah excuse me Jimmy Carter. See http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081210/wl_mideast_afp/lebanonushezbollahcarter for the whole story.

The greatest Christian Zionist was the Reverand James Parkes, who was punished by his church for his pro-Zionist and pro-Jewish sympathies. Although he was a spiritual and intellectual collosus, he never rose in the hierarchy, which was and still is dominated by anti-Semites of one stripe or another.

I think Sizer is, in fact, pro-Zionist: he recently said he feared Jews would endure another exile.

Well, he at least acknowledges there was a previous exile for which Jews are or were entitled to restoration and redress as much as Palestinian Christians and Muslims are for theirs.

I do not see how a Christian can be a pro-Palestinian Christian or Islamic nationalist without implicitly acknowledging the legitimacy of Jewish nationalism.

And, if Sizer believes his Christian tradition of the incarnation, mission, crucifixion and resurrection, he can only with difficulty retract, dispute or erase the other side to that the tradition: that the Jews were punished with dispossession of temple, city and land for their rejection and crucifixion of Christ.

That hardly sits well with a view that Palestinian Christian and Muslim dispossession implies an automatic right to return and restoration, but that Jewish does not; or, indeed, with a Christ of mercy and forgiveness as understood today.

The funniest thing I find is some modern Palestinian Christian liberation theology: Palestinian Christians identify with Jesus because, inter alia, he was a ‘Palestinian’ who lived under ‘occupation’.

Well, quite a few other ‘Palestinians’ lived under Roman occupation, and Christian tradition came to say they were ethnically cleansed as a punishment for their rejection of Jesus and the prophets. Further, gentile Christians, at least, came to colonise the newly created province of ‘Palestine’ precisely through collaboration with that ‘occupier’, while it was the Jews who ‘resisted’, in sundry ‘intifadeh’, and for which Christian tradition continued to rebuke, upbraid and, indeed, demonise them, literally.

As a theologian, Sizer is not very sophisticated, and his g-d is very partial. I question his notion of Christian justice, equality and fairness for all.

http://www.stephensizer.com/

Sizer is feeling the heat. He’s just posted an old approving quote from a ‘Rabbi’ (not an Orthodox one).

He’s doing that a lot lately. A little endorsement here, a little endorsement there. I think he’s insecure and needs to constantly reaffirm himself.

I think he needs to remind the world that a lot of his best friends are Jews…

I see on Sizer’s site he does a report on the killings in northern Nigeria, which he says exceed the deaths in Mumbai, with Christians bearing the brunt. He goes on:
“A well-placed source has in this context referred me to LET – the Army of the Righteous – a Deobandi movement linked to Al-Qaeda that has emerged from the fundamentalist battlegrounds of Pakistan and is thought by many to be behind the attacks in Mumbai.”
I hope this is not interpreted by some as Islamaphobic.

Sizer states: ” … the question may legitimately be asked whether, due to its expansionist policies, the state of Israel might not expect another exile rather than a restoration.”

Then, surely, a devout Christian should first extract the plank from the eye of both himself and his own and ask the question, For sins did Palestinian Christians and Muslims suffer dispossession and exile?

It seems, in Sizer’s book, only Jews can commit the sort of sins that entail punishment with exile, and Christians and Muslims are naturally infallible.

What sort of Christian or Christianity is this?

Just found this anonymous comment on Seismic Shock, right at the bottom of this blogpost:
http://seismicshock.blogspot.com/2008/11/christ-church-virginia-waters-stephen.html

The sole of Rev Sizer’s dirtiest shoe is more honorable than those who attack his integrity.

Uh oh!

sorry,

“For WHICH sins did Palestinian Christians and Muslims suffer dispossession and exile?

Sizer has got it completely wrong:

Christian sympathy for a Jewish restoration is based on the simple fact that, from the beginnings of Christian history, even arguably the formations of the gospels themselves, and certainly pretty much the entirety of patristic literature i.e. the documents that form the basis for subsequent Christianity itself, Jews have been regarded as a nation dispossessed and in exile.

What changed was the notion, first evidentially beginning in the 17th century that, if g-d can punish his people with exile for sin, he can restore them in mercy. What changed was a notion of Christian mercy, sympathy and justice towards Jews, in a tradition that, until then, had been almost always unremittingly hostile to them.

The Christians, largely ‘Protestant’ of North Western Europe had a sympathy with Jews that largely derived from the Reformation and a renewed contact with the scriptures in the original Hebrew and a greater appreciation of the Jewish roots of Christianity.

That is the basis of Christian ‘Zionism’, a broad tent of persons and groups, rather than Sizer’s alleged monolithic cipher-construct. Sizer takes a pleasure in being an atavistic throwback. Well, poor him.

Just to return:

Where do most Israeli Jews originate?

From the culturally Orthodox or Catholic East, and the Islamic middle east, the cultures which experienced least something like a reformation, and in which the kind of Christianity (I would call it both imperialist and colonially dispossessive) and Islam that Sizer favours, or Christian or Islamic cultures, kept Jews in their place and, when they were perceived to have transgressed that place, effectively drove them out.

And where do Palestinian Christians stand in all this? Well, to take an example, the Palestinian churches were among those who most objected to Vatican II and the absolution of from all Jews responsibility for the crucifixion of Christ. The submissions of Palestinian Christian leaders to UNSCOP do not make pretty reading either.

By all means support Palestinian Christians. But the same standards and criteria of mercy to Jews, please.

Sizer will be pleased at this news. So much for the all powerful Christian Zionist lobby in America!

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=0FC0F0C3-2383-4D38-A14B-9EAFC0E7F698

Check out ADL’s piece on Sabeel at http://www.adl.org/main_Interfaith/sabeel_backgrounder.htm

17th Century Protestants, especially the Calvinists like the Dutch and English Puritans like Oliver Cromwell probably felt that any people like the Jews who were being persected by the Evil Empire, i.e. the Catholic Church and the Inquisition, were basically all right and natural allies in the holy struggle against the Pope who was the agent on Earth of the Anti-Christ* and all his minions like Charles I and Archbishop Laud.

*It was not until 1967 that the largest group of American Presbyterians did away with this with a revised version of the Westminister Confessional.

@Felix
10 December 2008, 5:48 pm

Karl Pfeifer

Your witticisms about the New Testament were amusing.@

I quoted from the “New American Standard New Testament”

Jesus was of course a Jew. There can be no doubt about it, even if some Arabs and especialy Palestinian Christians have difficulty to decide what is stronger their Christianity or their Arab Nationalism.
It is one of those sad stories not very known outside the Middle East, that Christians if the have a trade or a skill or higher education tend to leave the region.
We have here in Austria a catholic organisation called Pax Christi specialised for Israelbashing. They forgot: “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye.” Matthew 7,3

The Talmud about same subject matter:
‘Take the chip out of your teeth’ you say, and they answer: Take the beam out of your own eyes!
Bava Batra

What a very good post. In his book Christian Zionism, Sizer counts the zionist Jews as children of the slave Hagar, according to the teaching of Paul in the NT. In that paragraph he specifically condemns the Christian Zionists for not bringing the Gospel, to both Jews and Gentiles alike.

The reason why Sizer was in Iran, is to show support for their antisemitic fews. I have never seen such an antisemitic approach to the Gospel as the one of Sizer.

YOU IGNORANT IDIOTS.

there’se a difference between relationship between Christians and Islam and between Chritians and Jews.

Muslims believ that Christ ‘Jesus’ was a messenger sent by the God whilst Jews denied him and harmed him.

So learn a lesson from history and destroy Jew zionism.

Going on the excerpt you quote above (and I haven’t read any of Sizer’s other work) I believe what he is saying is that wat Christians should do is preach the gospel to Jew and non-Jew alike. Anything else would be anti-semitic. His criticism of Christian Zionists is that they preach to non-Jews but that they don’t do that to Jews. They simply support Israel politically. It’s that unequal attitude he says is anti-semitic.