by Keith Johnson
I was driving home early Sunday morning through Bakersfield
Listening to gospel music on the colored radio station
And the preacher said, “You know you always have the Lord by your side”
Now I was so pleased to be informed of this
that I ran twenty red lights in his honor
Thank you Jesus, thank you lord
The Rolling Stones—Far Away Eyes
It cannot be denied that many ‘so-called’ Christians drop the name of Christ like a rich kid drops his daddy’s name to get a good table at an expensive restaurant. When they say, “Christ paid for it all,” what they really mean to say is “Jesus’ll pick up the tab.”
These very same people will cringe if they hear the words “Jesus Christ’ or ‘godammit’ used in the context of a stubbed toe. What they don’t realize is that they have been led to believe a false interpretation of the Old Testament’s third commandment. According to both Greek and Hebrew translations, ‘taking the Lord’s name in vain’ refers to those who falsely profess to be doing God’s work or using God’s name for self-indulgent purposes. We witness this every Sunday when the televangelist preachers take to the airwaves to bilk their congregations out of their life savings. We also see this from well compensated celebrity Pastors who weekly pander pro-Israeli war propaganda on their gullible flocks.
Nobody does that better than John Hagee, Pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. Last Sunday, Hagee addressed the second annual ‘Christian’s United For Israel’ event that drew fellow psychopaths from all 50 states and 50 nations around the globe. Hagee spewed the same lies and hateful rhetoric that he’s been propagating for decades.
“Israel is an outpost of freedom and democracy in one of the most undemocratic regions in the world,” Hagee said after the event. “Now is the time for Israel’s supporters, regardless of faith or political ideology, to unite in standing with Israel as she confronts such serious threats from Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran.”
Hagee pulled out the same old tired line about the threat of a ‘nuclear holocaust’ from Iran and how President Ahmedinejad vowed to “wipe Israel off the map.” Both are debunked lies that are as ridiculous as Hagee himself. Iran is nowhere near having the capability to construct a nuclear weapon and President Ahmedinejad’s exact words were, “The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.”
Hagee also conveyed his frustration with the Obama administration:
“Washington has manufactured a crisis with Israel over building homes for Jewish people in Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, something no other American administration has ever done,” Hagee said in a video message before the event. “Now there is talk the administration will impose a peace settlement on the parties whether or not the Israelis believe their security is guaranteed. In my 30 years as a Zionist there has never been a more critical hour for Israel than right now.”
People of Hagee’s ilk love politicians like Obama to kick around. Their need to feel persecuted is an essential ingredient to lend credence to their ‘end times’ scenario. Obama is just the latest in a long string of perceived Presidential anti-Christs that they’ve been hawking for many a decade.
In reality, Obama has been towing the line for Israel from day one. As I made clear in a previous piece, the Obama administration and Israel are in collusion to deceive the people into believing that there is a riff between the two nations. This is being done so the state of Israel can claim complete inculpability when the U.S. strikes Iran. Besides, Obama is the Chair of the United Nations Security Counsel and it would be perceived as an act of defiance against the UN itself if he were to come out in support of the settlements. This conflict of interest is the very reason why our Constitution forbids President’s from holding more than one office at a time.
If Obama were the anti-Semitic, Palestinian sympathizer that Hagee would have you believe he is, don’t you think he would intervene in—or at least condemn—the Israeli government’s blockade of a peace mission currently making its way to Gaza?
Nine ships, collectively known as the Freedom Flotilla, are currently en route to the Gaza shore to deliver over 10,000 tons of much needed humanitarian aid to the impoverished Palestinian people. Three of the ships are from Turkey, two from the UK and one each from Ireland, Greece, Kuwait and Algeria. Among the international coalition of peace activists on board are European parliamentarians, former US diplomats and Nobel peace laureates. It is the largest effort of its kind since the Israelis seized the coastal territory in 2007.
Israel has threatened that it will use force to prevent the flotilla from reaching its destination. The Israeli Defense Forces and Israeli Navy have been dispatched to the region with instructions to terminate the peace mission by any means necessary. The reason the Israeli’s are giving for resorting to such drastic measures is because they seek to prevent arms and materials from reaching the hands of the duly elected Hamas government.
In response, the peace activists have warned Israel that they will ignore their threats and continue on to their destination regardless of the consequences. According to an article appearing in Al Jazeera Friday, Huwaida Arraf, from the Free Gaza Movement said “Israel should not be under any illusion whatsoever that their threats or intimidation will stop us or even that their violence against us will stop us.” Hanin Zuabi, a member of the Israeli parliament who is on board the flotilla, told Al Jazeera that the activists intend to reach Gaza regardless of plans to stop them. He said “If the Israelis try to stop us, this will be a huge diplomatic and political crises for them.”
Aid to this battered region is long overdue. Gaza is a giant prison, sealed off from the world like the island of Manhattan in John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. The difference is that the people who inhabit this place are not criminals; they are victims of a foreign occupation of terrorists who seek to starve them out of existence. That is why Israel seeks to deny them aid of any kind. The Palestinian people are expected to suffer under the thumb of a brutal warden as they watch their children die from a lack of adequate sanitation, basic medical services and food.
Israel knows there are no weapons onboard any of those ships and are well aware that if they harm even one person connected to this peace mission, they will be facing a public relations disaster of epic proportions.
But this won’t stop them. Israel may be concerned, but they don’t fear the repercussions of an investigation by the United Nations for yet another human rights violation, nor do they care what the rest of the world thinks of them. They know that the United States will always be there to protect them from any threats and continue to provide resources that enable them to rain terror upon the people of that region.
Any decent human being should be appalled by Israel’s callous disregard for human life. Denying people decent living conditions and food is the cruelest form of genocide known to man. Medical experts agree that death by starvation and dehydration is perhaps the most painful, tortuous, and agonizing way to die.
How our nation can turn a blind eye to this modern day holocaust is unconscionable. Obama is not concerned with the plight of the Palestinian people. If he were, he would condemn Israel for their actions and immediately cease any future funding for their murderous campaign. But this will not happen. Too many of our politicians are under the control of the Israeli government.
Each year, many of our American tax dollars are sent to Israel in the form of aid and are recycled right back into the coffers of political campaigns. Each day, Israeli agents in the United States monitor and keep files on the indiscretions of US Senators and Congressman and use that information to control them. Cutting off funds to Israel and expelling their agents would go a long way in stemming that corruptive influence, but it would certainly not be enough.
Politicians would still be compelled to act on behalf of Israel by of a powerful and influential segment of their constituency. Unlike politicians, these people have not been bought, nor are they compromised. Devotion to Israel is part of their religious conviction. To these people, the fate of Israel is linked to their own salvation. They number in the tens of millions and are perhaps more responsible than anyone else for relinquishing all US foreign policy decisions over to this alien power. They are the BIG problem, and the blood of our dead soldiers and over a million dead Semitic people are on their hands.
Each Sunday—as Gaza starves—congregations of freshly showered and scented cultists sit on cushioned seats in air-conditioned churches across America, contemplating whether to have lunch at Hometown Buffet or Red Lobster. They like their church because the pastor wears a Hawaiian shirt and cracks clean jokes with a George Carlin wit. They like the church band because they’re edgy, like the music they used to listen to before they were converted. They close their eyes and raise a hand to the sky (Jesus antenna) phishing for reception from the man upstairs as the Dave Matthews look-alike sings songs of praise and worship. The church is the size of an arena with a large stage and giant screen in the background. On the screen is an image of troops huddled in prayer, which fades into an image of a soldier holding a smiling Arab child, which fades into an image of F-16’s blazing across the sky, which fades into an image of troops on tanks handing out bottled water to a thirsty crowd, which fades into an image of a soldier reading the Bible, which fades into…
We all know these people. They are among our friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers. They call themselves Judeo-Christians, Millenialists, Dominionists and Evangelicals. They say they worship Christ, but what they really worship…is Israel.
They consider themselves patriotic American’s, but only as long as America stands with Israel. It is for this reason—above all others—that we are engaged in conflicts throughout the Middle East.
Christian support for war is a recent phenomenon and goes contrary to what Christian’s were taught prior to the beginning of the last century. The introduction of the Scofield Reference Bible was the turning point that replaced traditional, Orthodox Christianity with Christian Zionism.
In the late 19th century, the World Zionist movement had set their sights on acquiring land that American Christians referred to as ‘The Holy Land,’ but knew that they would face opposition from obtaining it. Christians of the time considered Jews to be the persecutors of Christ and his disciples, and would never allow a Jewish occupation of Palestine.
To overcome this obstacle, the World Zionists enlisted the help of The Oxford University Press and an old Civil War Veteran and Pastor by the name of Cyrus I. Scofield.
The plan was to change the Christian attitude towards Zionism by creating and promoting a pro-Zionist subculture within Christianity. Scofield’s role was to re-write the King James Version of the Bible by inserting Zionist-friendly notes in the margins, between verses and chapters, and on the bottoms of the pages. He was also used as a front to help promote it to the Christian community, where he was held in high regard. The revised bible was called the Scofield Reference Bible and was given widespread advertisement and promotion. It soon became the best-selling “bible” in America and has remained so for 90 years.
The Scofield Reference Bible sparked the birth of the modern day Christian Zionist movement. It redirected the focus of worship away from Jesus Christ and concentrated it directly upon pro-Zionist politics. Without the support of the American Christian community, Israel would have never come into existence.
Christian Zionists are taught that Jews are the chosen people of God and that mankind is obligated to provide unwavering support to the state of Israel. They believe that if America fails to support Israel in every way, then God will turn his back on them and suffer his wrath.
Christian Zionists will explain away Biblical passages that point to hereditary connections between the true Semitic people and the children of Abraham. Palestinians and Arabs are to be hated, ethnically cleansed and persecuted if it serves the best interests of the Israeli government.
Bible passages in the Old Testament (2 Kings 6:21 –23, 2 Chronicles 28:9-11, Nehemiah 5:7-11, Jeremiah 34:11-17, Amos 2:6-7) that condemn the kinds of human rights violations committed by the Israeli government are either ignored or justified by Christian Zionists. Even liberal Jews, who call Israel their home, are more likely to call out their government on humanitarian issues than the Christian Zionist.
The relationship between Israel and the Christian Zionists is a sick and twisted one to be sure. Each requires the other to die. It’s really nothing more than a murder-suicide pact.
Israel relies on Christian Zionists to sacrifice their money, resources, freedoms and children. They need these things to wage war on their neighbors and expand their empire.
The Christian Zionists rely on Israel to sacrifice 2/3 of their Jewish population in an apocalyptic war in the Middle East. They need these things to hasten the return of Jesus Christ so he can usher them up into Heaven.
No sane person would ever allow themselves to be involved in a relationship like this. But these people are not sane—they are psychopaths.
Every war that has been waged in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has come as a result of this unholy alliance. It has wreaked devastation upon our economy and has cost countless lives. But this is more than an economic or humanitarian crisis. This is a moral crisis that calls into question whether we, as a species, even have the will to keep on living.
70 million Christian Zionists make up the most coveted voting block in America. All of them pray for the return of their savior so that he may deliver them from this horrible, dangerous place and rapture them up into the safety of his loving embrace. What chance do we have of saving this world, when the largest segment of our society just can’t wait to leave the world behind?
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