Newsletter:
Vol. 5. Iss. 1
8 October2003
On Being a Real, Believing
Christian
Avramham Burg
What I learned from speaking and listening with Ruth Matar is that we must be careful in approaching those who welcome our support and help in traveling to the Holy Lands. The truth is that Ruth did not have a clue about what our group really felt about what she said or beliefs and she never tried to find out. Instead, she thought that we were another group of Christian Zionists that she could dazzle with her rhetoric and have become one of her allies. She assumed that we were “believing Christians,“ with a definition of what being a “believing Christian” is that has nothing to do with our relationship with Christ and everything to do with our beliefs concerning the nation-state of Israel!
I also learned that I must make room for listening and talking with people like Ruth. Doing so helps me to round out my belief patterns and worldview more fully and provides a basis to better understand and communicate with the next person like her I meet. I will admit that I had never considered a conversation with someone who would expand the definition of Holocaust or deny the existence of the Palestinian people as she did - I am now open to learning more about those beliefs so that I can build a better foundation for my own belief system.
Finally, I learned that it is up to people like you and I and the members of groups that travel with The Society for Biblical Studies to tell the real story of the Holy Lands today. Traveling on the August fact-finding mission with The society for Biblical Studies has changed my life. It has deepened what was already a strong resolve to work for the liberation of the Palestinian people, either into their own homeland or into a shared state with the Jews. It has also prepared me to be a better advocate for the Palestinian people within the congregation I serve and with those I speak with in the community.
Finally, it has convinced me once again of something that I have long known about my own style of learning and that is that contextual education is the only way to study and learn about the Bible. The Society for Biblical Studies offers a unique opportunity to not just site-see and take pictures, but to become a part of the overall solution to the problems that exist in the lands that comprised the ancient near east. In doing so my life has been greatly blessed and I am sure that yours will be also.
