sabeel
i've made a particularly close friend here @ vts whose father is director of the palestinian liberation theology center called sabeel. arabic for "the way," sabeel "strives to develop a spirituality based on justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation for the different national and faith communities [and] works to promote a more accurate international awareness regarding the identity, presence, and witness of palestinian christians."
father naim ateek's community forum @ vts last week (conveniently coupled w/ an opportunity to spend time w/ his son and daughter-in-law) was moving and thought-provoking, and i urge you to stop by their website sometime to read fr. ateek's paper on suicide bombers, the call for morally-responsible investment, their response to christian zionism, and maybe even consider becoming a friend of sabeel. i believe it is incumbent upon christians to think and pray through these issues. i know i am, thanks to sari and his father.
father naim ateek's community forum @ vts last week (conveniently coupled w/ an opportunity to spend time w/ his son and daughter-in-law) was moving and thought-provoking, and i urge you to stop by their website sometime to read fr. ateek's paper on suicide bombers, the call for morally-responsible investment, their response to christian zionism, and maybe even consider becoming a friend of sabeel. i believe it is incumbent upon christians to think and pray through these issues. i know i am, thanks to sari and his father.
- update: c of e divests from caterpillar
posted by Sammy @ 12:24 AM
5 Comments:
At 11:24 AM,
Anonymous said…
I'm sorry, Sammy. There is another side to Sabeel that may be hard for you to beleive but is real.
Please see:
"College Religion Dept. Confirms Anti-Semitism at Sabeel Conference"
http://blog.camera.org/archives/2005/10/college_religio.html
Every conflict has two sides. Sabeel may seem nice, but they're really not helping bring together Israel and Palestine. Sorry.
At 11:03 AM,
Lee said…
Ok... commense to opening can of worms...
Is opposition to the state of Israel trully anti-Semitism? There is certainly a good bit of wrong-doing on all sides of the establishment of the Israeli state, but I'm not sure that the existance of that state and the existance of the Jewish people are the same... anyone want to clarify that?
"Our Old Testament mentions the dictum 'love your neighbor as yourself. Unfortunately, in classical Judaism it has been narrowly defined as being limited to loving one's own fellow Jew."
Isn't this true? Isn't that one of the important parts of the parable of the good Samaritan? Perhaps "classical Judaism" should be replaced with "Phariseeism?" Isn't biggotry a universal ailment?
In regards to the "misinformation" link in the CAMERA article, it seems as though that list could be bolstered by citing some sources. About half of that sounds like propaganda and/or rhetoric (from both sides); it would be nice to see some evidence of fruit from those trees so that we can know what they really are.
With apologies and little knowledge,
Lee
At 5:51 PM,
Anonymous said…
"Is opposition to the state of Israel trully anti-Semitism?" Seeing that the Jewish people are exercising their right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, what would you call it?
" Our Old Testament" Jews don't refer to the Hebrew scriptures as our Old Testament. It's an outsiders' term.
"Our Old Testament mentions the dictum 'love your neighbor as yourself. Unfortunately, in classical Judaism it has been narrowly defined as being limited to loving one's own fellow Jew." Hogwash. There is plenty of Jewish philanthropy to disprove that.
"Isn't that one of the important parts of the parable of the good Samaritan?" No. The issue was ritual impurity seen from the outside perspective.
At 2:43 PM,
Lee said…
>"Is opposition to the state of Israel
>trully anti-Semitism?" Seeing that the
>Jewish people are exercising their right
>to self-determination in their ancestral
>homeland, what would you call it?
Hmmm... I wouldn't take it as a personal attack or "anti-Lee" if someone pressed trespassing charges against me for trying to move in to my grandfather's old living room now that we've sold his house. (Or for protecting themselves as necessary, for that matter.) If I felt that I had a legal right to be in the house, I would probably fight the charge in court. If I somehow then won the court challenge and was allowed to move in, I would certainly expect some bad feelings from the previous tenants and plan to modify my treatment of them accordingly.
I'm afraid "ancestral lands" and "self-determination" don't mean much in this argument. More important to the question posed is what defines a "Jew," and is the existance of a political state in Israel a necessary part of that definition? Were there no Jews between 70 A.D. and 1940 A.D.?
Also, there seems to be an issue as to whether or not the land was occupied justly (note: not legally, but justly), but that's not part of the original question.
>" Our Old Testament" Jews don't refer to
>the Hebrew scriptures as our Old
>Testament. It's an outsiders' term.
Really? I had no idea... what do you suppose was the antecedent of "our?" (Sorry for the wise-acre... isn't the speaker in this quote a Jewish "ousider," therefore making the nomenclature accurate?)
>Hogwash. There is plenty of Jewish >philanthropy to disprove that.
Agreed... again, I think he chose unwisely and should have said, "Phariseeism" rather than "classical Judaism." I also suspect that classical here means "historical" rather than "traditional," if that helps.
>"Isn't that one of the important parts of
>the parable of the good Samaritan?" No.
>The issue was ritual impurity seen from
>the outside perspective.
But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
...
"Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?"
The central issue certainly seems to be the definition of neighbor, not ritual impurities. Am I missing something? And, again, the "anti-Semitism" involved here is primarily an issue of the gentlemen saying that "classical Judaism" practiced nepotism and possible biggotry... Is that really such a damning criticism that it deserves the label "anti-Semitic?" (I know that both my parents and my inlaws are biggoted in various ways, and I love them all very much.)
Please answer these questions like I'm 12, because I simply don't see the connections between the statements offered as answers and the questions. Obviously I don't have the foundation to follow some of the underlying assumptions.
Thanks,
Lee
At 2:50 PM,
Lee said…
I should also say that I'm very bigoted, too. I have a very hard time dealing with people who don't know how to properly negotiate a four-way stop, for example. (I have an even harder time with people who giggle when they tell you that they don't know how to handle a four-way stop.)
What's even more interesting is that I'm bigoted against traits that I have... for example, not checking spelling before publishing a document publicly... That Lee fellow must be a moron...
:)
Lee
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