sophia_h
15-01-2009, 08:37 AM
`
Onward Christian Zionists
Rod Liddle
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article_images/articledir_6426/3213251/1_listi
ng.jpg
Rod Liddle on the crazed, quasi-fascist evangelicals in Britain and
America who believe war in Gaza heralds the Second Coming of Christ
It being the new year and all, I thought I’d introduce you to some new
mentalists, just in case you’re getting bored with the old mentalists.
These new ones are the people watching the disquieting events unfold in
Gaza with what might properly be called rapture.
I use the word ‘rapture’ advisedly. As in ‘for yea, the rapture
cometh’. And those shells landing on Gaza are to be welcomed, of
course, for they are bringing the day ever closer.
There was a trip to Jerusalem last week undertaken by a bunch of British
Christian evangelicals — by coincidence, just as the Israelis began
lobbing rockets into Gaza. They hadn’t planned it like that, although
retrospectively they may claim to have seen it. The whole shebang was
described as a ‘New Year’s Prophetic Summons’ and the organisers
were, in the main, American evangelical Christian Zionists, but there
were plenty of Brits in attendance.
You may be familiar with this little by-way of religious fervour, this
rather bizarre cul-de-sac of supernaturally imposed bigotry — partly
because it has helped determine US government policy towards the Middle
East for 30-odd years. These are the militant end-time Christians who
are, indeed, yearning for the end. It was all foreseen — a final
conflagration between the Antichrist in the blue corner (that’ll be
the Muslims, then) and the forces of Christianity in the red, with the
Jews looking a bit askance in the middle, unless they have returned to
the fold, in which case they’re OK. The blurb for this latest trip —
which involved conferences, walking the ramparts of Jerusalem and urging
hellfire upon the recusant Mohammedans — reads as follows: ‘The days
are shortening as Messiah’s coming approaches. Jesus’ identity with
His own people is a progressive national revelation as Israelis
increasingly realise that Yeshua was one of them, that he died in
identification with them as Lamb of God...’ Then there’s some Bible
stuff explaining how and why the apocalypse is coming.
You may well know all about these people, as I say: the Christians who,
for their own reasons, are more Zionist than even the Zionists. The
latest bunch, however, are even more mental and include growing numbers
of British evangelicals among their howling throng. It is no longer just
the backwoods denizens of the mid-Appalachians who believe this stuff.
Britain is on-board too these days — hallelujah!
The latest trip to Jerusalem was organised by a woman called Christine
Darg, who operates out of Richmond, Virginia. Christine’s a star turn.
She created the excellent Elvis Gospel Ministries, which preaches the
word of God to semi-sentient people using the music of His chosen son,
Elvis Presley. Back in 1998 she set up a webcam overlooking
Jerusalem’s Golden Gate, pointed directly at the spot at which she
wholly expected Jesus Christ would materialise in the very near future.
Or, given the passage of time which has elapsed since His unexpected and
lamentable failure to turn up, the not-that-near future. The webcam has
been taken down recently because people other than Jesus keep appearing
on it, mooning, larking around and being rude and stuff.
So far, then, so whacko. But Christine — a big peroxide blonde with
one of those scary Jesus-loves-you smiles — has her finger in a number
of pies, not all of them quite so harmless. She is the chief sponsor and
supporter of an organisation based in Texas called Battalion of Deborah,
for example. This magnificently named organisation, which sounds more
like a landfill indie band than a Christian campaigning group, is
devoted to kicking the Palestinians out of something it refers to as
‘greater Israel’. Or, as they put it on their website, ‘resettle
Palestinian refugees to the lands of their Arab kinsmen’. By refugees
they mean all of them, except maybe the Christian ones, if they shut up
and behave themselves. The Battalion of Deborah is opposed to all
possible peace settlements with the Palestinians, regardless or not of
whether the settlements are drawn up by Israeli politicians. Israel is
for the Jews, all of it, even the bits which are not within Israeli
boundaries today. ‘The land of Israel is promised by God to the Jewish
people,’ they state, with the certitude of those whose frontal lobes
have been unduly tampered with.
Debbie’s people are much more extreme than anyone you might find in
Likud, for example. Indeed, they ally themselves to far-right members of
the Knesset, and to the ultra-Zionist and quasi-fascist Jewish
nationalist groups, some of which have ties with Zionist terrorist
organisations. At a recent conference proudly attended by Battalion of
Deborah, one speaker was the lawyer who represented the illegal
terrorist group Gush Emunim Underground (that’s another bloody indie
band, isn’t it, now I come to think about it?), which murdered
Palestinians in Hebron.
There are also links with the even more extreme Kach Kahane (sounds more
like electro-pop, that one), whose spiritual mentor, the late Rabbi
Kahane, is spoken of approvingly by both Battalion of Deborah and its
sister organisation, the majestically whacko ‘Covenant Alliances’,
also based way down south in the USA. Kach Kahane murdered Palestinians
and also American Jews whom it considered to be appeasers. In their
book, Ariel Sharon was a bit of a lily-livered pinko appeaser, tearing
down one or two of those illegal settlements.
These Battalion of Deborah monkeys also wish to build a new embassy in
Jerusalem and indeed a ‘third temple’ to prepare for his coming. In
the past these groups have been lauded and honoured by the Knesset for
their unwavering support of Israel; however, of late, even the hawkish
Israelis are beginning to find them ludicrous and dangerous. And,
indeed, embarrassing — last year the Battalion of Deborah, the
Covenant Alliance and others presented themselves to the Knesset with a
letter offering repentance for Christian anti-Semitism and begging to
kiss the feet of Jews. Most MKs shuffled off looking a bit sheepish and
the evangelicals were left to strut their stuff before the usual
loony-tune politicians.
This lot were expecting the rapture to occur on the stroke of midnight,
1 January 2000, but all they got was Andy Stewart and a concert at the
Millennium Dome. They were even more hopeful a couple of years ago when
Israel went to war with the Hezbollah in Lebanon. One allied website at
the time contained the following posts: ‘I am excited beyond words
that the struggle of my life may finally be over soon and I can finally
be freeeeeeeeeee!’, and then there was this: ‘...let the enemy know
the alarm has been sounded and Yeshua is stepping onto the
battlefield...’.
You can read more of that kind of stuff at the Rapture Ready! website,
along with an interesting piece suggesting that President-elect Barack
Obama is the reincarnation of the Antichrist, as foretold in the Bible,
what with him being a pinko black fella and all. As it happened, the
Israeli invasion of the Lebanon left the rapture monkeys — and, uh,
Israel — a little crestfallen, a little bit down in the mouth, just
like on New Year’s Day 2000. But they’re sure it’s going to happen
now, this rapture business. And they will do their little bit to help
things along, supporting illegal settlements on the West Bank and so on,
cheering from the ramparts of Jerusalem.
Does any of this matter? These people are clearly madder than a box of
frogs and cannot possibly be of any resonance, any real consequence, in
the wider geopolitical scene, can they? And it is good news, surely,
that even the Israelis have had enough of their ministrations, their
letters of apology, their support for a form of Zionism which even the
Israeli government considers racist and extreme. And not all Christian
Zionists oppose peace settlements with the Palestinians and yearn,
without cessation, for Armageddon.
Well, they have had a lot of influence, both the extremists who returned
home from their Jerusalem jaunt last week and the marginally more
moderate of them. Douad Abdullah from the Muslim Council of Britain
reckons that the evangelical Christian Zionists in the United States
number something in the region of 25 million people. It was the Jimmy
Carter presidency which saw them emerge from the woodwork with a
powerful voice — Carter himself being a southern Baptist, of course.
The Christian Zionists had their strongest advocate seven or eight years
later in the form of Pat Robertson, whom you may remember with the
slightly wistful fondness with which one recalls, say, Arthur Scargill.
Robertson’s speeches still litter the Christian Zionist websites, along
with adverts for his ludicrous books.
But what worries me more, partly out of an undoubtedly misplaced sense
of national pride, was my old belief that no matter how deranged our
lower-than-lower church smiters and rapturers might be, they would never
quite reach the level which you might find in the general area of the
Tennessee River Valley. Gone, gone, I fear. Evangelical Christianity, in
its ever more fabulously literal and authoritarian marque, is
Britain’s fastest-growing repository for spiritual belief. And it
follows that its mutant offshoot, Christian Zionism, is growing apace
too. That should worry all of us, regardless of whether right now
we’re cheering on Hamas or Israel.
.
Onward Christian Zionists
Rod Liddle
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article_images/articledir_6426/3213251/1_listi
ng.jpg
Rod Liddle on the crazed, quasi-fascist evangelicals in Britain and
America who believe war in Gaza heralds the Second Coming of Christ
It being the new year and all, I thought I’d introduce you to some new
mentalists, just in case you’re getting bored with the old mentalists.
These new ones are the people watching the disquieting events unfold in
Gaza with what might properly be called rapture.
I use the word ‘rapture’ advisedly. As in ‘for yea, the rapture
cometh’. And those shells landing on Gaza are to be welcomed, of
course, for they are bringing the day ever closer.
There was a trip to Jerusalem last week undertaken by a bunch of British
Christian evangelicals — by coincidence, just as the Israelis began
lobbing rockets into Gaza. They hadn’t planned it like that, although
retrospectively they may claim to have seen it. The whole shebang was
described as a ‘New Year’s Prophetic Summons’ and the organisers
were, in the main, American evangelical Christian Zionists, but there
were plenty of Brits in attendance.
You may be familiar with this little by-way of religious fervour, this
rather bizarre cul-de-sac of supernaturally imposed bigotry — partly
because it has helped determine US government policy towards the Middle
East for 30-odd years. These are the militant end-time Christians who
are, indeed, yearning for the end. It was all foreseen — a final
conflagration between the Antichrist in the blue corner (that’ll be
the Muslims, then) and the forces of Christianity in the red, with the
Jews looking a bit askance in the middle, unless they have returned to
the fold, in which case they’re OK. The blurb for this latest trip —
which involved conferences, walking the ramparts of Jerusalem and urging
hellfire upon the recusant Mohammedans — reads as follows: ‘The days
are shortening as Messiah’s coming approaches. Jesus’ identity with
His own people is a progressive national revelation as Israelis
increasingly realise that Yeshua was one of them, that he died in
identification with them as Lamb of God...’ Then there’s some Bible
stuff explaining how and why the apocalypse is coming.
You may well know all about these people, as I say: the Christians who,
for their own reasons, are more Zionist than even the Zionists. The
latest bunch, however, are even more mental and include growing numbers
of British evangelicals among their howling throng. It is no longer just
the backwoods denizens of the mid-Appalachians who believe this stuff.
Britain is on-board too these days — hallelujah!
The latest trip to Jerusalem was organised by a woman called Christine
Darg, who operates out of Richmond, Virginia. Christine’s a star turn.
She created the excellent Elvis Gospel Ministries, which preaches the
word of God to semi-sentient people using the music of His chosen son,
Elvis Presley. Back in 1998 she set up a webcam overlooking
Jerusalem’s Golden Gate, pointed directly at the spot at which she
wholly expected Jesus Christ would materialise in the very near future.
Or, given the passage of time which has elapsed since His unexpected and
lamentable failure to turn up, the not-that-near future. The webcam has
been taken down recently because people other than Jesus keep appearing
on it, mooning, larking around and being rude and stuff.
So far, then, so whacko. But Christine — a big peroxide blonde with
one of those scary Jesus-loves-you smiles — has her finger in a number
of pies, not all of them quite so harmless. She is the chief sponsor and
supporter of an organisation based in Texas called Battalion of Deborah,
for example. This magnificently named organisation, which sounds more
like a landfill indie band than a Christian campaigning group, is
devoted to kicking the Palestinians out of something it refers to as
‘greater Israel’. Or, as they put it on their website, ‘resettle
Palestinian refugees to the lands of their Arab kinsmen’. By refugees
they mean all of them, except maybe the Christian ones, if they shut up
and behave themselves. The Battalion of Deborah is opposed to all
possible peace settlements with the Palestinians, regardless or not of
whether the settlements are drawn up by Israeli politicians. Israel is
for the Jews, all of it, even the bits which are not within Israeli
boundaries today. ‘The land of Israel is promised by God to the Jewish
people,’ they state, with the certitude of those whose frontal lobes
have been unduly tampered with.
Debbie’s people are much more extreme than anyone you might find in
Likud, for example. Indeed, they ally themselves to far-right members of
the Knesset, and to the ultra-Zionist and quasi-fascist Jewish
nationalist groups, some of which have ties with Zionist terrorist
organisations. At a recent conference proudly attended by Battalion of
Deborah, one speaker was the lawyer who represented the illegal
terrorist group Gush Emunim Underground (that’s another bloody indie
band, isn’t it, now I come to think about it?), which murdered
Palestinians in Hebron.
There are also links with the even more extreme Kach Kahane (sounds more
like electro-pop, that one), whose spiritual mentor, the late Rabbi
Kahane, is spoken of approvingly by both Battalion of Deborah and its
sister organisation, the majestically whacko ‘Covenant Alliances’,
also based way down south in the USA. Kach Kahane murdered Palestinians
and also American Jews whom it considered to be appeasers. In their
book, Ariel Sharon was a bit of a lily-livered pinko appeaser, tearing
down one or two of those illegal settlements.
These Battalion of Deborah monkeys also wish to build a new embassy in
Jerusalem and indeed a ‘third temple’ to prepare for his coming. In
the past these groups have been lauded and honoured by the Knesset for
their unwavering support of Israel; however, of late, even the hawkish
Israelis are beginning to find them ludicrous and dangerous. And,
indeed, embarrassing — last year the Battalion of Deborah, the
Covenant Alliance and others presented themselves to the Knesset with a
letter offering repentance for Christian anti-Semitism and begging to
kiss the feet of Jews. Most MKs shuffled off looking a bit sheepish and
the evangelicals were left to strut their stuff before the usual
loony-tune politicians.
This lot were expecting the rapture to occur on the stroke of midnight,
1 January 2000, but all they got was Andy Stewart and a concert at the
Millennium Dome. They were even more hopeful a couple of years ago when
Israel went to war with the Hezbollah in Lebanon. One allied website at
the time contained the following posts: ‘I am excited beyond words
that the struggle of my life may finally be over soon and I can finally
be freeeeeeeeeee!’, and then there was this: ‘...let the enemy know
the alarm has been sounded and Yeshua is stepping onto the
battlefield...’.
You can read more of that kind of stuff at the Rapture Ready! website,
along with an interesting piece suggesting that President-elect Barack
Obama is the reincarnation of the Antichrist, as foretold in the Bible,
what with him being a pinko black fella and all. As it happened, the
Israeli invasion of the Lebanon left the rapture monkeys — and, uh,
Israel — a little crestfallen, a little bit down in the mouth, just
like on New Year’s Day 2000. But they’re sure it’s going to happen
now, this rapture business. And they will do their little bit to help
things along, supporting illegal settlements on the West Bank and so on,
cheering from the ramparts of Jerusalem.
Does any of this matter? These people are clearly madder than a box of
frogs and cannot possibly be of any resonance, any real consequence, in
the wider geopolitical scene, can they? And it is good news, surely,
that even the Israelis have had enough of their ministrations, their
letters of apology, their support for a form of Zionism which even the
Israeli government considers racist and extreme. And not all Christian
Zionists oppose peace settlements with the Palestinians and yearn,
without cessation, for Armageddon.
Well, they have had a lot of influence, both the extremists who returned
home from their Jerusalem jaunt last week and the marginally more
moderate of them. Douad Abdullah from the Muslim Council of Britain
reckons that the evangelical Christian Zionists in the United States
number something in the region of 25 million people. It was the Jimmy
Carter presidency which saw them emerge from the woodwork with a
powerful voice — Carter himself being a southern Baptist, of course.
The Christian Zionists had their strongest advocate seven or eight years
later in the form of Pat Robertson, whom you may remember with the
slightly wistful fondness with which one recalls, say, Arthur Scargill.
Robertson’s speeches still litter the Christian Zionist websites, along
with adverts for his ludicrous books.
But what worries me more, partly out of an undoubtedly misplaced sense
of national pride, was my old belief that no matter how deranged our
lower-than-lower church smiters and rapturers might be, they would never
quite reach the level which you might find in the general area of the
Tennessee River Valley. Gone, gone, I fear. Evangelical Christianity, in
its ever more fabulously literal and authoritarian marque, is
Britain’s fastest-growing repository for spiritual belief. And it
follows that its mutant offshoot, Christian Zionism, is growing apace
too. That should worry all of us, regardless of whether right now
we’re cheering on Hamas or Israel.
.