Newsletter:
Vol. 6. Iss. 1
15 January 2006
Plant a Tree...Plant Hope, cont'd.
The Rev. Peter
J. Miano
This is the reason why Palestinians are initiating
almost no violence against Israelis-even though most Palestinians believe
they have a right to resist occupation, a right they consider self defense.
Another option is capitulation-surrender. This takes several forms, chief among them is voluntary emigration. It is now clear, based on data in Zionist archives going back to Theodore Herzl, that so called "quiet transfer" was part of the Zionist plan from its earliest inception and it is being realized today with alarming efficiency. Seeing no viable future, Palestinians voluntarily emigrate. They leave in search of opportunity. Those who remain are increasingly desperate.
Now, at this point, someone might object that by impugning Zionism, I am indirectly impugning Judaism. One of the popular Zionist canards is that anti-Zionism is a veiled form of anti-Semitism. This is not only a misguided insinuation, but an insult to intelligence. The abject absurdity of equating critique of Zionism with anti-Semitism is easily exposed, however. Consider only that Zionism is now and always has been an overwhelmingly Christian movement. How can critique of an overwhelmingly Christian movement be considered anti-Jewish? Indeed, such self-critique is a moral obligation for Christians. Zionism is nationalism and all nationalism is exclusive and therefore divisive. When the exclusiveness separates more than half the population in a geographical zone, that exclusiveness is unjust and unstable. Zionism is the root of the problem in Israel/Palestine and since it is an overwhelmingly Christian phenomenon, it is natural and even obligatory for Christians to address it.
Christians are concerned about moral abuses in the Holy Land, because Christians are overwhelmingly sympathetic to Zionism, not just the "lunatic fringe" fundamentalists who conceptualize Israel as some sort of fulfillment of biblical prophecy and a precursor to the apocalyptic end times, but especially and more significantly, mainstream, liberal, progressive Christians. Whether we realize it or not many of us and our churches too, are deeply complicit in promoting the Zionist enterprise. Our liturgies, our Sunday School curricula, our hymnody, our biblical scholarship-all these tend to reinforce the Zionist narrative and promote sympathy for the Zionist enterprise. Even the social activism of our mainstream, liberal, progressive Christian churches displays a hint of this predisposition toward Zionism. For example, in the growing divestment controversy-should Christians support divestment from companies doing business with Israel-the most popular liberal argument for declining to promote divestment from companies doing business in Israel is that it is "controversial." It strikes me as astonishing that social activists who were at the vanguard of the very controversial anti-Vietnam War movement, the very controversial Civil Rights movement, the very controversial Women's Rights movement and a host of other very controversial progressive social movements are reluctant to engage the debate over divestment-even before its relative merits are discussed-because it risks controversy! With whom does it risk controversy? Only Zionists. What, you might ask, does this have to do with The Society for Biblical Studies?
The Society for Biblical Studies exists to reform biblical
scholarship by making it accessible, relevant and useful. The dominant paradigm
for biblical study and biblical teaching is defective, because it encourages
withdrawal from the world to the library, the classroom and the study. In
these environments, questions of moral mandates recede and are replaced with
questions about arcane banalities. Instead, S.B.S. promotes "contextual study
of the Bible."
The Society for Biblical Studies exists to redeem the concept of pilgrimage
from commercial sightseeing. Authentic pilgrimage, deliberate travel to the
lands of the Bible for the purpose of studying the Bible and renewing spirituality,
is the corrective to the defects of the dominant paradigm of biblical study.
It also, however, requires travel to places that challenge us morally and
theologically, places such as the Holy Land, where systems of oppression have
produced a catastrophe of spiraling violence, vengeance and retaliation. We
recover the idea of authentic pilgrimage from commercial sightseeing when
we resist the temptation to avoid the moral issues resident in the places
we travel and instead see those places through the moral imperatives of the
Gospel message and understand the biblical faith in light of the context in
which we travel.
The Society for Biblical Studies exists to renew the mission of the Church. The overwhelmingly uniform consensus among participants in our programs is that the Bible became not only refreshingly relevant, but also that contextual study of the Bible in places like refugee camps, checkpoints, and human services agencies in countries like Israel, Palestine, Egypt, and Turkey impels us to action. The purpose of biblical study and Christian spirituality is not only to promote personal faith, but also to engage in social action. It is not enough for Christians to settle with a close personal relationship with Jesus. Personal faith is only redemptive when it is socially responsible. The application of the biblical faith in and for the world is mission.
