Alf Cengia
Let's start with Thrall. One definition of Thrall is: "The state of being in someone's power, or of having great power over someone." Also this: "a state of servitude or submission; in thrall to his emotions; a state of complete absorption."
Whenever I think of Thralls I think of the folk legends of vampires and the people who are hypnotized, or enthralled, to serve as their loyal slaves. You know, guard the coffin type-of-stuff while the vampire is sleeping. They don't fuss themselves too much over what the vampire does when the sun goes down.
Yes, maybe I have been watching too many of the wrong movies. Just stay with me a little longer.
Perhaps the first person to coin the term Christian Palestinianism was Dr. Paul Wilkinson. His 60 page booklet "Christian Palestinianism and the anti-Israel Crusade" does a great job defining and cataloguing the problems.
What is Christian Palestinianism? In an article expounding the six dangers of Palestinianism, Olivier Melnick cites Wilkinson:
Christian Palestinianism is an inverted mirror image of Christian Zionism. All the basic elements of a Christian Zionist eschatology are reversed, so that the Bible is seen to be Christian, not Jewish, the land of the Bible is Palestine not Israel, the son of God is a Palestinian not a Jew, the Holocaust is resented not remembered, 1948 is a catastrophe not a miracle, the Jewish people are illegal occupiers not rightful owners, and biblical prophecy is a moral manifesto and not a signpost to the Second Coming.
While Olivier identified six dangers, the Friends of Israel went for ten. Here are some examples just to get the gist of things:
It [Palestinianism] blames Israel for much of the conflict between Israel and the Arabs living in Israel and not only dismisses Islamic terrorists, but aligns with them in opposition to Israel.
It attacks Israeli sovereignty but ignores the fact that Israel came to control the land because of Arab wars that sought to eliminate Israel. Its leaders fail to admit peace cannot be obtained simply by Israel withdrawing from the West Bank...
It is founded on a bias against Israel, rather than from a careful study of Scripture. The fact that Christian-Palestinian scholars say difficult passages should be ignored and the Bible should be “de-Zionized” confirms this error...
I'm especially concerned with the first example provided by FOI. But I would add something else. Not only do Christian Palestinianists ignore terrorism, they ignore the abuse of Palestinian citizens by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
They're also prepared to lie. The most recent case at time of writing this column is that of Episcopal Bishop Gayle Harris. She claimed to have "been there" and witnessed two atrocities committed by Israel against defenseless Palestinian children. Her testimony was delivered to an Episcopal General Convention.
After CAMERA fact-checked, she walked back her statements admitting: "I was ill advised to repeat the stories." In fact she lied about being there. Once the facts were laid bare an apology was offered. However, Dexter Van Zile observes that Lutheran Peacemakers are consistently soft on Hamas while demonizing Israel:
Because of the mainline refusal to speak about Hamas’s bad acts, the peacemaking narrative offered by mainline activists and the churches that support them is profoundly distorted.
It's worse than that. Here's where I get to offend people. Christian Palestinianism has married itself to an Islamic cult of blood letting. It ignores or denies the reality that Hamas (like other terrorist organizations) sheds non-Muslim (Israeli) blood, and willingly spills its own peoples' blood in order to achieve its goals.
Hamas not only admits this - it boasts about it. See MEMRI TV and this CNS News snippet:
For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. ~ Hamas Parliamentarian Fathi Hammad
Why do activist-Christians ignore this blood-spilling atrocity? Are they simply naïve?
In pursuit of political correctness, or for whatever excuse, Christians have welcomed Islam. These same people ignore the treatment of non-Muslims in Islamic dominant nations. In this sense, the bond between Christian anti-Israel activists, and Islamic terrorism, is similar to that of the Thralls and Vampires of myth. Except that the former is real.
The church's love affair with Islam is a recent phenomenon. In his book Method for Prayer, Matthew Henry has a prayer for the conversion of the Jews. Right below that he prays for the Eastern Churches "groaning under the yoke of Mahometan tyranny."
Henry wasn't politically correct. He was a realist who saw what was happening in his day, without the benefit of social media. Yet many today are bent on cursing Israel wrongfully (Gen 12:3).
Have I stepped over the line with the Vampire-Thrall analogy? Well let me go for broke by invoking one last - though off topic - example. Why do so many professing Christian churches support abortion? Why do they bless and celebrate organizations such as Planned Parenthood?
Think about what really goes on behind closely guarded doors. How is an inconvenient pre-born (often late term) baby removed form its mother's womb? I wonder just how incensed and offended these celebrators would be if they were forced to watch the whole messy process in full graphic detail!
Remember Moloch and child sacrifice? Is there any real difference?
Please understand that I'm not equating deceived, fallen people with vampires. But many have become enthralled by the god of this world. It's tragic that professors of Christianity have forsaken God's Word and embraced the teachings of the devil (John 8:44).
One has to wonder just how evil this world will become once God fully ceases restraining evil.
Maranatha!
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