MJs in Florida

I've not blogged this week because I have been attending a symposium on Messianic Jewish identity in Orlando, Florida all week. The weather has been superb (27-28C, low 80s every day), while it's nice to be taken out to some great restaurants (the US is so good at hospitality). But unfortunately all good things come to an end and I'll be back in rainy old England this weekend. The conference has been fascinating, demonstrating not only how the current (and unnecessarily bitter) debate surround the relationship between the Church and Israel is having much wider (and serious) ramifications than at first glance, but also this week has highlighted some of the major theological and identity tensions within the Messianic movement. More on this later, but for now I have a flight to catch. Back to the rain (sigh).

Top 50 Countries for Christian Persecution

Open Doors has published its 2012 list of 50 countries where Christians are most likely to be persecuted (hat tip to Cranmer for drawing attention to this). I found Open Door's list interesting for several reasons. First, although we hear constantly from certain quarters that Israel systematically persecutes Arab Christians, Israel is not on the list. Second, the Palestinian Territories are on the list. Then there's the point raised by Cranmer: that Muslim countries constitute the vast majority of places where Christians are likely to face persecution.

So yes, Christianity is in decline all over the Middle East, but focusing on a Christian exodus from the Holy Land for anti-Israel political reasons while ignoring Muslim persecution and other factors is just silly. For the sake of Arab Christians in the region it's time all of us, regardless of our theological views on some issues, stop beating about the bush and be honest about the persecution of Christians in Muslim lands (and this includes some Christian Zionists who would do well to focus more on the plight of Christians across the Middle East, rather than give the impression of having little interest in Arab Christianity).

"Allow Assisted Suicide"

A committee of peers and academics chaired by the former Lord Chancellor Charlie Falconer has today called upon the government to permit assisted suicide for those terminally ill with less than a year to live. The Telegraph details one Anglican bishop's criticism of the commission as

a “self-appointed” group that excluded anyone who objected to legalising assisted suicide.

Aside from the group's clear bias in favour of assisted suicide, another objection to its findings is the whole issue of sanctity of life. But leaving both these issues aside, there is another, much more practical, objection to the commission's recommendations, namely, the "thin end of the wedge" argument.

Falconer's commission calls for legalising assisted suicide for those terminally ill with less than a year to live. By why stop there? How long, once it is enshrined in law, that the time limit is gradually extended? Meanwhile, the commission calls for voluntary assisted suicide on the basis of suffering. But who determines when suffering outweighs the need to end a life? And how long before there is a shift away from voluntary suicide on the basis of suffering to involuntary euthanasia based on what a doctor feels is in the patient's best interests? It's quite a short step between calling for assisted suicide for the mentally competent to recommending it as the most humane action on behalf of a terminally ill patient who is mentally deficient. Oh, and by the way, just because a doctor says you're going to die through illness doesn't necessarily mean you will (after all, this is what happened to me when diagnosed with incurable leukaemia 26 years ago).

Meanwhile, how long before terminally ill individuals feel duty-bound to end their lives - despite managing to deal with their own suffering - because of the burden (or inconvenience) they increasingly might feel they are to others or the state? And for that matter, why stop at assisted suicide (or involuntary euthanasia) for the terminally ill? How long before anyone who suffers a serious handicap is permitted to end their life, the presumption being that perfection determines quality and sanctity of life?

In short, legalising assisted suicide represents the thin end of the wedge, a situation which in time would slowly but inexorably broaden the rules to bring ever more numbers of individuals within the realm of euthanasia. We've already seen it emerge across Western society in the last four decades: abortion for serious disabilities, abortions for less severe disabilities, abortion on demand, voluntary euthanasia in exceptional circumstances, and in some cases involuntary euthanasia condoned by the state. Heavens, we already abort babies on the basis of a cleft palate or for purely social reasons. If Falconer's committee have their way, conceivably it's not a giant step from there to genetics and involuntary euthanasia for mental illness or disability (or even to save the state and health service money). Look at how quickly it transpired in Nazi Germany.

The Written Word

While driving to work this morning I caught the first part of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time broadcast by BBC Radio 4. The programme explores the role of writing and its influence upon religion, and I caught the first two sections on Christianity and Islam (I don't know what happened later in the programme). Some interesting details on, for example, the Codex Sinaiticus, by a British Library curator, as well as Mohammed and the Koran in the next section. A podcast of the programme is available here.

Dershowitz on Israeli Human Rights

I've received a link to a short YouTube video featuring American lawyer, professor at Harvard Law School and political commentator Alan Dershowitz, in which he details a challenge he issues whenever he speaks publicly on the Middle East. Dershowitz holds a range of views from across the political spectrum, and as such there will always be people who will dismiss his views on an ad hominem basis. However, I'm interested to hear your views specifically on what Dershowitz says in the following video (it's a only a little over three minutes), which I'm posting here without comment.

Brazilian Pentecostalism and Popular Culture

Brazil's Pentecostals wield considerable political power (as the last presidential elections demonstrated). But Brazilian Pentecostalism - one of the most populous expressions of the movement anywhere in the world - is also beginning to have a significant cultural impact upon the country. A Guardian report yesterday highlights how Evangelical artists and performers of popular music are being offered record deals and their own gospel music record labels by the main record companies, while a major secular television station has begun to cover gospel festivals. The Guardian story is available here.

Former Tory Leader's Son on Anglican Anti-Semitism

Today Nick Howard, son of the former Conservative Party leader Michael Howard, has published a lengthy article on a well-known political website severely criticising anti-Semitism in the Anglican Church. The essay is noteworthy for several reasons.

First, it demonstrates how the Middle East situation continues to be propelled up the religio-political ladder. Seen as a fringe theological issue several decades ago, Christian responses to Israel, the Arabs, Islam and Middle East Christianity are increasingly a key issue for believers today. That it emerges at a time when Evangelicals are firmly ditching private faith in favour of engaging with the public square is no coincidence. Thus, Christians who fail to search their Scriptures and engage theologically with this issue, preferring instead to bury their heads in the sand, are in danger of appearing irrelevant when it comes to one of the big issues of the day.

Howard's essay also suggests some Anglicans have not capitulated to the anti-Israel narrative so embraced by some of the Church of England's elites. If in doubt, visit the Anglican Friends of Israel website or the Archbishop Cranmer blog, one of the best known political blogs in the UK. (Indeed, within Catholicism, not noted for its longstanding historical sympathy towards the Jewish people, there's even a Catholics for Israel group.) I've met lots of Anglicans who are deeply uneasy by some of their fellow Anglicans' intense dislike of Israel.

All this raises another issue, namely, how anti-Israel public proclamations by Christian elites are not necessarily echoed by grassroots believers within the same circles or organisations. Consider, for example, the many anti-Israel and Palestinian nationalist declarations emanating from within a particular segment of Palestinian Christianity. Such statements, signed by leading Palestinian clerics, are often light years away from the views of many everyday Arab believers who express theological views about Israel and the Jews quite at odds with those of their leaders. Indeed, some Palestinian believers I've interviewed express considerable frustration at how their everyday spiritual and pastoral needs are ignored or downplayed by their leaders who are more interested in playing politics, or else demonstrating to the Palestinian Authority that they're good nationalists.

Such proponents of Palestinian liberation theology do well to note the failure of another form of liberation theology, in Latin America (where the movement originated). It also quickly became a vehicle for elites to express religio-political ideology rather than ameliorating the very constituency - the poor - they originally professed to champion. Thus, as Latin American liberation theology became the  preserve of anti-establishment academics and revolutionary priests set on ideological and class warfare who claimed to opt for the poor, the poor looked elsewhere for spiritual and material succour. As one observer famously stated,  "While liberation theology opted for the poor, the poor opted for Pentecostalism".

But perhaps the most significant aspect of this article is how it demonstrates just how serious the whole issue is becoming for the Church. Note this is not your everyday blogosphere tittle-tattle, but instead a rather well-known Christian making some very serious accusations of fellow Christians. It's certainly far from the typically wishy-washy language we've come to expect from the Anglican establishment (which the author seems to acknowledge early on in the essay), and as such it absolutely demands careful consideration and further research to determine its veracity. It is incredible that given the horrors of the Holocaust which took place just a few years ago we're still talking today about the existence of anti-Semitism in the Church.