Category: Genocide

Why I Would Not Sign the Recent Statement, “Our Confession of Evangelical Conscience”

A week or so before it was published online (read it here) I was asked to sign the recent political statement titled “Our Confession of Evangelical Conviction.”

It is a political “confession” of implicitly anti-Trump, evangelical “unity” circulated in the run-up to the presidential election on November 5th.

My friend Dr. Bruce Fisk was also asked to sign this statement, but we both declined for reasons of conscience. We believed that, at best, the statement was ethically selective.

Bruce and I collated our critiques with suggestions for improvement and then sent our response to the one who asked us to sign. We included a note explaining that we would be happy to sign a revised confession if it addressed our concerns.

Our suggestions were ignored and the confession was publicized as it was originally presented to us.

Bruce and I decided that we did not have access to a significant enough platform to issue a counter-confession. So we agreed that I would publish our list of objections, concerns and emendations here at HumanityRenewed.

So here it is for all those who are interested. You may be asking, Why would anyone demure from signing a “Confession of Evangelical Conviction”?

Here’s why:

October 1, 2024 

Dear drafters of the Confession of Evangelical Conviction, 

Your call to non-partisan allegiance to our First Love is timely and urgent. We share your alarm when we see American Christians pledging allegiance to person and party, and deploying Scripture to sanction a political agenda that provokes division and fear. To the extent that the statement stirs all of us to love across the divide, we will be grateful. 

There is however an elephant in the room. There is a genocide in the room. We are troubled that a statement warning Evangelicals against the allure of partisan politics has nothing to say about Evangelicalism’s bipartisan support for the murderous campaign that America and Israel are waging in Gaza. Hence, the following observations for your consideration. 

Use of Scripture. As biblical scholars, we condemn with you the use of Scripture “to sanction a single political agenda.” To our dismay, we see fellow Evangelicals making this error when they use Scripture to defend unflinching support for Israel’s wildly disproportionate  response to Hamas’ egregious attack. 

Present reality. With you we worry about an American future with an autocratic narcissist as President. But fear of Donald Trump does not explain American Evangelicals broad based support for American and Israeli militarism that is claiming the lives of tens of thousands of women and children. 

Peace not war. The statement calls us to make peace and foster unity within the church. Amen. It is silent, however, when it comes to Evangelical support for America’s repeated recourse to war abroad.

Amos’ vision. We echo with you the prophetic call for justice and righteousness (Amos 5:24). We share the prophet’s condemnation of those who “trample on the poor” (v.11) and “push aside the needy in the gate” (v.12). We think Amos would be zealous to oppose and condemn publicly this very behavior in the alleys and camps of Gaza. 

Cultural wisdom. The statement concludes with a resolution “to uphold the truth of the Gospel in the face of political pressure and cultural shifts.” But not all such pressures and shifts are contrary to the Gospel. Some have even pointed the church in the right direction. We think the outcry against Israel’s US-funded genocide, coming from secular students, American Jews and the Uncommitted movement, is one such shift. 

Prophetic critique. Israel’s Evangelical partisans acknowledge that “Israel isn’t perfect” and claim to be “willing to call out Israel when we believe it is acting wrongly.” Rarely if ever, however, do these Evangelicals name specific discriminatory laws, policies, practices, and rhetoric. The absence of prophetic criticism in the midst of Israel’s current atrocities makes evangelicals complicit in injustice and profoundly harms the cause of the Gospel. 

For the cause of Middle East peace, 

Bruce and David 

Bruce N. Fisk, Ph.D. (Professor of New Testament, Westmont College, ret.) 

David M. Crump, Ph.D. (Professor of New Testament, Calvin College, ret.)

P.S. We develop some of these points in the following recent publications. 

David M. Crump, “Echoes of Slavery, Racial Segregation and Jim Crow: American Dispensationalism and Christian Zionist Bible-Reading” Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies 23.1 (2024): 1-17.

David M. Crump, “No, We Cannot Stand with Israel, and That Has Always Been Part of Israel’s Problem“ HumanityRenewed.com Oct 11, 2023.

David M. Crump, “Another Response to Russell Moore and His Complaint About Bothsidesism“ HumanityRenewed.com Oct 18, 2023.

David M. Crump, Like Birds in a Cage: Christian Zionism’s Collusion in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People Cascade, 2021.

David M. Crump, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in Twenty-First-Century America Eerdmans, 2018.

Bruce N. Fisk “Lament is Not Enough: Evangelicals offer ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ for Gaza” Clarion Journal. Jan 24, 2024.

Bruce N. Fisk, “Genesis 12:3, Christian Zionism, and Blessing Israel” Bibliotheca Sacra (April-June, 2023), 144-63, 176-78.

Bruce N. Fisk, “Ever the Victim, Never the Aggressor: A Response to the “Evangelical Statement in Support of Israel” Clarion Journal. Nov. 30, 2023.

Bruce N. Fisk, “Praised by Faint Damnation: Why American Evangelical Responses to October 7 are Dangerous“ Red Letter Christians. Nov. 30, 2023.

Bruce N. Fisk, “The Allure of Moral Clarity in a Time of War: A Response to Russell Moore“ Clarion Journal. Oct. 13, 2023.

Palestinian Girls Plead for Help Beneath the Rubble

These videos speak for themselves.

These are only two little girls who are, fortunately, rescued. The United Nations estimates that some 10,000 Palestinian bodies have never been rescued. They remain in the rubble.

To watch the above video use the URL address inbetween the brackets: [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6pfJ3gCrcxs]

Watch Our Upcoming Interview with Historian Ilan Pappe

I am happy to announce the next episode of the Christian Forum on Israel-Palestine. It will be broadcast on June 8th, 4 pm Eastern, 1 pm Pacific.

We will be speaking with Ilan Pappe, one of the world’s premier historians of modern Israel, but especially of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

When the time comes you can watch this conversation by clicking on the following link or paste it in your computer’s URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2Azgev9Rc8

Professor Pappe has written many important books. Perhaps his best known publication is The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. His most recent work, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic (available in September), deals with the power and influence of Israeli/pro-Zionist  lobbying efforts around the world.

Please join us for what I know will be a fascinating conversation with one of Israel’s foremost historians.

 

I am deeply disappointed to say that I will not be participating in this particular conversation.  I will be flying home from Israel on June 8. But trust me, I will NOT miss any more of our upcoming conversations.

Mark you calendars now, not only for Ilan Pappe, but for what I know will be another fascinating conversation with Ali Abunimah, the founder and chief editor of The Electronic Intifada, on June 18.

I will provide more information once I return from my trip to Israel-Palestine.

Yet Another Mass Grave is Uncovered on the Al Shifa Hospital Grounds

This is the 7th mass grave discovered on the grounds of two different hospitals in Gaza. The bodies include those of men, women and children. Many of them were apparently patients.

“Here’s Every Ceasefire Deal and Prisoner Exchange Hamas Has Offered Israel Since October 7th”

A central plank of Israeli/Zionist mythology is the claim that Israel is always desperate for peace but can never find a Palestinian peace partner willing to sign a ceasefire agreement.

That has never been the case, but that doesn’t stop the Israeli propaganda mill — faithfully reported on the Christian Broadcast Network as gospel truth — from repeating these claims.

The following video report rehearses all of the ceasefire proposals that have been agreed to by Hamas but have been rejected by Israel.

Of course, Israel has the right to negotiate as it pleases and reject the proposals it does not like.  But it does not have the right to lie about the nature of the negotiations, insisting on Hamas’ intransigence when in fact Israel has always wanted to continue the current attack on Gaza regardless of the peace plan being offered.

The Nation: “Student Encampments Aren’t a Danger to Jews. But the Crackdown Is”

“The narrative of protesters endangering Jewish students has been used to justify police repression. But at the Columbia encampment, I saw a commitment to confronting antisemitism.”

Journalist Hadas Thier has written a good article for The Nation magazine giving an insider’s look at the anti-genocide demonstrations happening on American campuses.

The article is titled “Student Encampments Aren’t a Danger to Jews. But the Crackdown Is.”

Here is a brief excerpt:

. . . Since then, the story of protesters endangering and threatening Jewish

Photo-by-Gabriella-Gregor-Splaver

students has been used to justify the brutal repression that they’ve been met with. But I spent the last week speaking to students across many campus encampments, and last Wednesday I made my way to Columbia’s encampment to get a picture of it for myself. My experience was decidedly different from the story we’ve been fed.

In the middle of the lawn, surrounded by a low buzz of students sitting in study circles, making art, pointing out a hawk that flew nearby, working on laptops, I met Atesh, a Columbia student who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisal. He told me how meaningful it was for him to participate in his first Passover seder with about 100 other students and professors on the lawn. There, Jewish students had led their peers in songs and rituals. The Passover seder is a Jewish tradition that celebrates liberation and is rooted in community, inquiry, and questioning. It was a fitting celebration for the encampment.

As Atesh was talking to me, another student approached us, looking for a Jewish member of the encampment to connect with. Atesh shrugged and said, “We’re all Jewish. We’re all Palestinian.”

Later that day, I sat on the lawn with nearly 200 students to listen to Jewish students lead a teach-in about antisemitism. Some discussed their experiences growing up in predominantly Christian towns where pennies were thrown at them and conspiracy theories about Jews were ubiquitous. Others shared their impressions of why so many American Jewish communities feel connected to their Israeli counterparts and why conversations about Palestine are difficult to have. A few recounted why their opposition to the current war is rooted in their traditions and observance of Judaism. All of them expressed discomfort at having to take center stage. But they felt an obligation to do so because of the ways in which the “safety of Jewish students” has become a disingenuous rallying cry of everyone from liberal college presidents to MAGA-aligned politicians.

I am an Israeli-born Jew who has been involved in Palestine activism for over 20 years, and I have never experienced the level of solidarity and the depth of understanding about antisemitism that I am seeing across college campuses right now. In the past, I had seen antisemitism only on the fringe of the movement, turning up through an occasional odd and unsettling poster at a protest, summarily dismissed and removed by organizers. At the center of the movement, I always felt welcome and comfortable as an Israeli-born Jew. But, still, until the recent phase of the new movement for Palestine emerged on American campuses last fall, I had never before witnessed such a deliberate commitment to learning about and confronting antisemitism head on. . . 

. . . “It is not that they care about Jewish students,” JVP [Jewish Voice for Peace] member Maya, told me. “They actually care about Zionist students.” Among those arrested and suspended were many Jewish students, she said. “They do not care about the safety of the Jewish students that are in the camp or that are part of this movement. And they’ve shown that by arresting and by attempting to erase the fact that we even exist.” Anti-Zionist Jews, she explained, “are not part of [the administration’s] fight against antisemitism.” . . .

You can read the entire article here.

Counterpunch: “The Distortion of Campus Protests Over Gaza”

Helen Benedict has posted a good story at Counterpunch magazine investigating the student protests launched against the Gaza genocide.

The article is titled “The Distortion of Campus Protests Over Gaza.” I include a brief excerpt below:

. . . Even as the now-notorious student tent encampment there stretches through its second week, all is calm. Inside the camp, students sleep, eat, and sit on bedspreads studying together and making signs saying, “Nerds for Palestine,” “Passover is for Liberation,” and “Stop the Genocide.” The Jewish students there held a seder on Passover. The protesters even asked faculty to come into the encampment and teach because they miss their classes. Indeed, it’s so quiet on campus that you can hear birds singing in the background. The camp, if anything, is hushed.

Those protesters who have been so demonized, for whom the riot police are waiting outside — the same kinds of students Columbia University’s president, Minouche Shafik, invited the police to arrest, zip-tie, and cart away on April 18th — are mostly undergraduate women, along with a smaller number of undergraduate men, 18 to 20 years old, standing up for what they have a right to stand up for: their beliefs. Furthermore, for those who don’t know the Columbia campus, the encampment is blocking nobody’s way and presents a danger to no one. It is on a patch of lawn inside a little fence buffered by hedges. As I write, those students are not preventing anyone from walking anywhere, nor occupying any buildings, perpetrating any violence, or even making much noise. (In the early hours of April 30th, however, student protesters did occupy Hamilton Hall in reaction to a sweep of suspensions the day before.)

As a tenured professor at Columbia’s Journalism School, I’ve been watching the student protests ever since the brutal Hamas attack of October 7th, and I’ve been struck by the decorum of the protesting students, as angry and upset as they are on both sides. This has particularly impressed me knowing that several students are directly affected by the ongoing war. I have a Jewish student who has lost family and friends to the attack by Hamas, and a Palestinian student who learned of the deaths of her family and friends in Gaza while she was sitting in my class.

Given how horrific this war is, it’s not surprising that there have been a few protesters who lose control and shout hideous things, but for the most part, such people have been quietly walked away by other students or campus security guards. All along, the main messages from the students have been “Bring back our hostages” on the Israeli side and “Stop slaughtering Gazan civilians” on the antiwar and pro-Palestinian-rights side. Curiously enough, those messages are not so far apart, for almost everyone wants the hostages safe and almost everyone is calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take a different direction and protect the innocent. . . 

You can read the entire article here.

Israeli Holocaust Scholar Discusses Gaza, Student Protests and Antisemitism

Professor Omer Bartov is a long-time Israeli scholar of genocide and Holocaust studies. One of his recent books is titled Genocide, the Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis, where he compares the Nazi holocaust with the Palestinian Nakba (the violent Israeli displacement of750,000 Palestinians in 1948).

Today he was interviewed by Amy Goodwin on Democracy Now. They talked about Gaza, student protests and antisemitism:

More Than 700 Bodies Discovered in Two Mass Graves Near Gaza Hospitals

One mass gravesite is near Al Shifa hospital. The other is near Nasser hospital. Both hospitals have been demolished by Israeli forces.

Many of the corpses have their hands tied together.

Many are women. Some are children.

Others are wearing hospital gowns. Some even have the IV drip tubes still attached to their arms.

I have posted a selection of video reports below. Since most are age restricted I have enclosed the URL in quotation marks. Simply copy the URL to your web browser in order to watch:

“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhsRRGvl1dc”

“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clg-x1dchv8”

“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcZ4_dZ8WZU”

 

Nowhere is Safe in Gaza, Not Even in the So-Called ‘Safe Zones’

An NBC investigative report demonstrates the frequency with which Israel continues to bomb areas and travel routes that have been designated by Israeli officials as “safe zones.”

Destitute Palestinians travel to areas where they were told they would remain safe from attack, only to be bombed, shot and terrorized in their  freshly erected makeshift homes.

It’s as if the ‘safe zones’ were deliberately designed holding pens created to ensure a higher percentage of civilian targets for Israeli bombs.

There is LITERALLY no safe place in Gaza today. Watch: