They say Obama hasn’t found a “church” yet while in DC – but he’d sure fit right in with the Episcopagans at the NatCat or St. John’s.

Dollars to donuts 99% of them voted for him too…including Chief Priestess Schlamori.

So they want KJS to ignore her legislative body, just as BHO is talking about ignoring his legislature. Good for her for ignoring this alleged “prophetic witness.”

Once, in Egypt, my learned Muslim friend was going on about “apartheid” in Israel. It isn’t, of course. But I pointed out to him that in the same year that a very small Jewish state was created a very large Muslim state was created. It is far, far more repressive of minorities than Israel has ever been, and has been a disaster for the entire world, since it trains and harbors vicious terrorists. A million deaths resulted in the year of its creation alone. Okay, I said, if we dismantle Israel we certainly need to eliminate Pakistan. He looked at me and said he’d never thought of it that way, and he never brought up Israel again.

With all due respect, CJ, if this is her response, then it is, IMHO, a bit too polite & liable to be ignored. The authors of this letter need to be gone after with a hammer.

As I read the letters to the editor on the ENS article (In this season of Epiphany), it became obvious to me that KJS is a ‘conservative’ voice in TEC. The draft resolution represents the mainstream voice. Just the fact that it was signed by Bonnie Anderson probably is reason enough for KJS to provide a negative response. The issue was settled at GenCon12. Of course TEC zealots have learned from KJS that those with an agenda can always find a ‘work around’ for rules and polity.

” Choose one side, as this letter clearly does, and the other side no longer has any reason to listen to you.”

That goes for the issue of same sex marriage as well.
Ditto women’s ordination.
Ditto abortion.

Marie,

…ditto the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’.

I dunno, maybe the operative phrase here is “equally attend to the conflicts in our own communities.”

KJS is just too busy suing and getting ready to sue the faithful Christians in the USA, to have any time for letters of this type.

What does “proof-text” mean, as a verb?

I’m guessing that the problem that the Presiding Oceanographer has with the letter is that it’s too conservative for her.

I’d like to ask those who want Israel to go back to the ’67 borders two simple questions:

“Would you be willing to live in a house in Israel located within 100 feet of the border after the Palestinians take over the disputed areas?”

“Would you allow your children to attend a school located within 100 feet of the border?”

And then I’d have a complicated question for them:

“What will prevent Hamas from using the land you believe should be put under Palestinian control to launch missile attacks and suicide bomber attacks on Israel? Given that the historical precedent of the Gaza land return has resulted in Gaza becoming a source of attacks, is there any reason to think that the same will not happen in other territories?”

I also can’t give any kudos to KJS for her statement. It’s not the specific position regarding Israel that she’s objecting to; it’s the Executive Council taking matters into its own hands, rather than leaving decisions to General Convention. This is especially an odd comment coming from KJS; she has concentrated so much power in her own office she’s really not in a position to go pointing fingers at others.

The bats in the belfry do not have any record of appreciating what is commonly called Realpolitik: IE Politics or diplomacy based on practical and material factors and considerations, rather than ideological notions or moralistic premises”. No one has the right to put at risk the right to life and freedom of others to sustain what on thinks is the “right way” of doing things. No single person or an entire community can be asked to put his life or human rights as the “ante” in as poker game where the “bluff” is that the other side “will do the right thing” after an entire history of not doing so. The “occupation” after all is a consequence of a failed Arab attempt to destroy Israel. The latter has withdrawn from huge tracts of land it had “conquered” in a series of gestures of reconciliation and what has been the Arab reply?

Bill, I’m willing to take the Presiding Bishop at her word. I know she’s never going see Middle Eastern things as she should but I’ll give her props for this much. I think she understands that this letter is poison and that if its sentiments ever became current, Episcopal and Anglican influence in that part of the world would die.

Voices of conscience issuing a prophetic challenge. It sounds like the student religious group at my Methodist college. Sophomore year.

LaVallette asks, What has been the Arab reply to Israel’s accomodations, compromises and gestures of good will?

The Arabs, reinventing themselves as victims and calling themselves Palestinians (the Romans name for the Jews and Israel), have broken and disavowed every signed treaty with Israel and renewed their pledges to kill all Jewish apes and pigs” (quote from Koran).

Decade after decade of dealing with Arabs has proved to anyone with a rational mind that Islamists (likewise the homosexualists, abortionists, liberals, communists, etc) are not to be counted upon for reason, equity, honoring their word, tolerance, nor for respect for human rights and human life.

Quotes from Arab leaders over many decades about the invention of the ‘Palestinian people’ for political purposes (mainly to destroy Israel and the Jews).

I’m sure a lot of us snorted at her statement:

““We cannot build a lasting peace by directing or imposing strategies on others.”

Ah, the irony.

Good point, Lakeland Two.

…including indigenous peoples who have known what it is to be dispossessed of their land, understand the Palestinian issue.

Seems to me that the Jews were dispossessed of their land by the Roman Empire in 70 AD and not allowed to return to it until the UN Partition in 1948 “created” the state of Israel.

The “Palestinians” are a fiction created by the Arabs themselves as a way cynical way to have ready-made “victims” to parade before the world Press for propaganda purposes. Jordan would not accept them, nor would any other Arab country.

While it is true that some Arab families lost their holding during the conflicts which began after the partition vote, it was not nearly as much as the Arab propagandists make it out to be. There is no truth in these claims.

including indigenous peoples who have known what it is to be dispossessed of their land, understand the Palestinian issue.

I was trying to point out that the Jews were disspossed of their lands by the Roman Empire in 70 AD and have not been allowed back until the partition vote of the UN in “creating” the state of Israel in 1948.

Something keeps “eating” my comment. So I will give up.

Welcome to the club, Allen.

Western style leftists (I’m being inclusive of the furners who signed) have no understanding of anyone beyond their small middle-class circles. They refuse to deal with the fact that the Palestinians don’t want their own country. They want Palestine, every square inch of it, preferable fertilized by they rotting corpses of Jews.

Someone may have posted this here, but it’s worth repeating that the double standard applied to Israel is stunning. When they tried to market their excellent missile defense, there weren’t many takers, since most countries who get bombed simply fight back. Bomb me, I bomb you. But Israel is supposed to take it.

And while I’m at it…

The efficacy of walls can be debated, but as a principle, it’s entirely reasonable to limit access to people who want to blow you up. If someone wants to kill me, I’m rather sure I don’t have a duty to let them them into my house.

FW Ken -

I was thinking of you when I posted that last one. It is such a pathetic feeling, is it not?

As for your last point about walls, it reminds me of what the extremist gun-grabbers are demanding of those who simply want to protect their lives and property: they demand that we let the criminals in and do nothing to stop them. It is the same mind-set really. There is not a pence worth of difference in their world view either.

I think you should read “The Almond Tree” by Michelle Cohen Corasanti. She is a Jewish American who lived in Israel for years and studied there. It’s eye opening to read her nove; the treatment of Arabs in the Holy Land has been shameful.

Muerk, the treatment of Jews in Arab lands has been shameful. The treatment of residents of Gaza under Egyptian control was a disgrace. Saudis and Egyptians both treat Bedouins with contempt. Jordanians and Egyptians have disdained “Palestinians” and refused them admission and citizenship. It’s a very messy situation in which the Israelis are by no means the worst offenders.

The treatment of Arabs everywhere between the Atlantic and the Arabian Sea has been shameful.

To be Judeophobic is the Progressive way to be.

And still the majority of American Jews voted for B.O.

Go figure.

Ed the Roman, did you mean the treatment of Jews? Or did you mean the treatment of Arabs by other Arabs? And don’t even get me started on how Arabic peoples treat Africans (that is, black Africans).