Thanks for bringing this to everyone's attention.
You and Esther Kaplan and Michelle Goldberg are doing important work in detailing the realignments going on among conservative evangelicals, the American Jewish community, the state of Israel, its political factions.

For a generation, the Christian Right has been able to effectively innoculate itself against charges of anti-Semetism by pointing to its support for the state of Israel. But as American Jews stand up to the Christian Right political agenda (and it's ugly religious supremacism), and Israeli leaders like Sharon take a political path that is not necessarily in tune with thier theology -- politics here in the U.S. will be seeing some changes.

by Frederick Clarkson on Thu Dec 01, 2005 at 09:25:44 PM EST

Cultures grounded in recent tragedy tend to have clearer priorities, I think. These were my in-laws , but that's not the only reason I'm sympathetic :  I had a good time.

The event was pleasant, the turkey perfect, the hosts gracious.

Well, that day has come and gone. Today is another day. I don't find Mr. LaHaye's showcasing of such language nice at all.

I find it ugly.

by Bruce Wilson on Thu Dec 01, 2005 at 10:06:24 PM EST

the Christian Right by definition, as a movement of politicized Christian fundamentalists, sees Jews as ultimately nothing more than a people who blew their special opportunity with God, a people of tragedy, a people who are bound, destined, to suffer and be wrong.

it is horrible what the Christian Right thinks about so many things--from these topics of Judaism and Israel, to topics like science and great cosmic irrelevancies like same-sex sexual desire--in their peculiarly medieval and irrational way. But, i submit it is equally horrible that observers are surprised, pleasantly or otherwise, by comments like Goodenough's, for such comments reflect the most basic tenets of the Christian Right. (In particular, any Jew shocked by Goodenough's comments--or disappointed by them as comments from an "ally"--has been willfully blind, which is ironic given that what the Christian Right professes is that all Jews are willfully blind about Jesus' divinity.)

The inability of people to see for so many years now what the Christian Right's true colors are, is also a profound indictment against progressives' inability to invest in progressivism itself over the last 40 years, through research, advocacy, think tanks, and control of (or the creation of new forms of) mass media.

The rightwing passed progressivism by in America. (And contrary to what many American progressives think, I submit that the battle is not over yet in Europe, either, particularly in Eastern Europe.) Now it's the era of progressivism's desperate campaign of catch up, with no guarantee of success whatsoever. None.

i hope Goodenough's comments stir more progressives from talk to action.

by IseFire on Thu Dec 01, 2005 at 10:10:20 PM EST

a) Israel's formation being in and of itself a trigger event for Apocalypse

b) Israel being center stage for Apocalypse

c) converting Jews to "Messianic Jews" aka kosher pentes (so they can CLAIM to be Jewish because they keep kashrut laws and celebrate High Holidays, and we won't seem so callous)

Trust me, despite all the idolatry of Jews and Israel you see in especially the pente/charismatic-flavoured types of dominionism, they would be MORE than happy to ship everyone of Jewish descent back to Israel and promptly all have them convert to pentecostal kosher dominionists.  That's actually what they're hoping WILL happen; some groups even claim during the tribulation two Jews who convert to "messianic Judaism" will be martyred and this will cause a mass conversion.

When the Jewish people and Israel don't play along with the script--and increasingly, in part because they're realising just what script the "premillenial dispensationalists" are reading from in the first place, they aren't playing nice anymore--this tends to make the dominionist groups quite cranky, and they are probably just STARTING a massive tantrum.

This is why I have been beating up and down on each and every antidominionist forum I know of since the SPLC announced their expose on dominionism--and ESPECIALLY since the ADL and the Reform congregation started standing up to them--that these groups are going to need every bit of our support.

I fully expect the ADL, all political parties in Israel outside of Likud (including the new centrist party that Sharon just formed), and possibly most of Judaism and the antiracist/antihate group to be viciously demonised before it's over with.  I fully expect the dominionists to even descend into frank anti-Semitism, old-style, and claim that Jewish groups that don't play nice with the dominionists "aren't real Jews at all and have rejected G_d".  I've seen them do it with each and every group that has criticised them in past, and especially viciously towards people who have walked away; the larger Jewish community is now essentially "walking away" from the dominionists, and I expect the dominionists to be especially vicious in turning on the Jewish community because they were so close beforehand.  We're seeing it already.  We're probably only seeing the very surface of how bad it's going to get.

It's not terribly reassuring to my mind knowing that a lot of people who are influential in the dominionist movement as a whole (notably in the Family Research Council and especially  dominionist "golden boy" Roy Moore and some of the Christian Reconstructionist groups) have known, proven links to racist groups including "Christian militia" groups and other groups which have partnered with neo-Nazi organisations.  (This is actually how SPLC first got into things--noticing links between dominionists and known racists they were already monitoring.)

by dogemperor on Thu Dec 01, 2005 at 11:34:05 PM EST

This material is very informative and important.

by Mainstream Baptist on Fri Dec 02, 2005 at 03:53:37 PM EST

If you, Jewish people, are so determined to race towards the precipice, ignoring, belittling, even shouting down the warning cries from those few who see the peril and - with all the history of Jewish-Gentile relations to fuel our fears - care enough to plead with you to halt this headlong dash towards your destruction, there is very little that we can do but cry out to your God to intervene as drastically as He may need to, to open your eyes and so save you. (emphasis mine)

Zweibon is a rightist who has his own motivations, of course, but it looks like he knows his allies well enough.

by Richard Bartholomew on Mon Dec 05, 2005 at 05:23:18 AM EST