Anti-Israel
Activist Speaks at Open Doors Brazil
“Bishara Awad is interestingly silent
about Muslim persecution of Christians in Palestine. There were large numbers
of Christians in Palestine just a few decades ago, but they are disappearing.
Will Awad say that the culprit is ‘Israeli occupation’?”
By Julio
Severo
In early May
2013, Palestinian Christian author Walid Shoebat warned that “Jesus at the
Check Point” would soon be speaking at a church near you. “Jesus at the Check
Point,” which is a “Christian” organization with a socialist twist, is touring
the United States to muster support to alleviate “Christian Persecution.”
According to
Shoebat, “The main dynamo and sponsoring agent of these tours is Bethlehem
Bible College in Bethlehem, Israel.”
Brazilian Leader Shaken by Awad Speech
He was also a
keynote speaker at a major SEPAL meeting of progressive ministers in Brazil.
The ministers’ meeting commemorated the 50th anniversary of SEPAL, a Brazilian
organization which trains and empowers Brazilian evangelical leaders and
ministers. Ezion Geber, who attended it, told that after hearing Awad’s speech
he would have to abandon many paradigms. He said (as recorded originally here
in his blog in Portuguese: http://archive.is/rRsPM),
Dr. Bishara Awad came from Bethlehem, in the West
Bank. He is a Palestinian, Christian, founder and director of Bethlehem Bible
College. He began his speech on Psalm 11:3: “If the foundations are destroyed,
What can the righteous do?” (NKJV) He spoke about his story… his family. His
father died in the 1948 war, and his mother, with her children, was sheltered
by Muslims, in Jerusalem. He spoke about
Israelis occupying the land… Just as Romans did in the past… Today, Jews are
the ‘oppressors.’”
I thought in my paradigms which made me see
Palestinians as hindrances for Israel. I thought in the education that
indoctrinates me to see a triumphant Israel… and I read the biographies of the
founders of Israel, as Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Ythzak Rabin… and I was moved
by each victory of Israel in the wars in 1948, of Sinai in 1956, the Six-Day
War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
Now I am hearing a Palestinian Christian talking about
the love of Jesus…
It is a big
clash, I have now many paradigms to renounce… God help me…
 |
| Bishara Awad, Ezion Geber and Marco Cruz of Open Doors Brazil |
King David, the
beloved author of the Psalms (most of them, at least), was from Bethlehem. I
can hardly imagine David returning today and be told by Awad, “Bethlehem is
under occupation.”
David asks, “Who
is occupying my city?”
Awad’s answer:
“Your Jewish people, of course!”
Clash Between Awad and James Dobson
Awad is better
known for attacking Dr. James Dobson in 2002. Dobson, founder of Focus on the
Family, is a prominent pro-family and pro-Israel Christian leader. He had
denounced Palestinian activist Dr. Hanan Ashrawi and her speech in an American
college. Dobson denounced:
1. Ashrawi had association with Yassir Arafat and the
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).
2. Feminist Mother Jones magazine has described Ashrawi
as “a wealthy, Christian, feminist, ex-Marxist.”
3. Dr. Ashrawi’s non-profit organization, MIFTAH,
received $850,000.00 a year directly from Yassir Arafat.
4. In 1998, Ashrawi told Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, an
official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority, that the Holocaust is “a
deceitful myth which the Jews have labeled ‘the Holocaust’ and have exploited
to get sympathy.”
 |
| Dr. James Dobson |
Dobson was
completely correct in his denunciation, because Arafat was a prominent Islamic
terrorist trained and supported by the defunct Soviet Union. For such necessary
denunciation, Bishara Awad chastised him publicly, saying that Dobson was “an
instrument of hate and division” and that Dobson’s denunciation was tantamount
to “the hate propaganda and deceitful ways of the enemy of righteousness.”
American liberals supported Awad’s complaint against Dobson.
What did Awad
want in Brazil?
Brazilian Government: Pro-Palestinian
Occupation of the Promised Land
If his mission
was, among other things, convert people and institutions to a pro-Palestininan
stance, Awad had no need to meet representatives from the Brazilian government,
which blatantly supports Palestinians and their cause of occupation of the
Promised Land. In 2010, the socialist Lula administration donated
more than 10,000,000.00 dollars to the Palestinian Authority.
The Lula administration made Brazil one of the first
nations in the world to recognize “Palestine” as a state — a state occupying the land
God promised to Jews, not to other peoples.
And under this
intense political climate of support for Palestine, Brazil hosted last year the
world’s biggest pro-Palestine event, officially supported by major liberal theological
figures and the World Council of Churches, an anti-Israel organization
supported by the defunct Soviet Union.
Leonardo Boff,
the most prominent Liberation Theology advocate in Brazil, showed the same
support for the event. He said, “It is our duty to be on the side of the
Palestinians.”
Why was Bishara Awad in SEPAL, which represents many Brazilian
churches, when his cause is largely supported by powerful socialists in the
Brazilian government and media? Brazilian churches have been the last pro-Israel
bastion in face of the massive leftist pro-Palestine forces in the secular
society in Brazil. Does Awad align Brazilian churches with these forces?
Anti-Israel Boycotts
Was Awad’s tour
in Brazil a beachhead for “Jesus at the Check Point”? “Jesus at the Check
Point” participants (secular and Christian socialists) have one consensus:
Israel should be boycotted because Palestinians are victims and Bethlehem is
under Jewish occupation!
Speakers at
“Christ at the Checkpoint” conferences have called for boycotts against Israel
for a long time. On April 1, 1933, just one week after taking power in Germany,
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler ordered a boycott of Jewish shops, banks, and
businesses.
Over the past
few years a number of Reformed denominations and ecumenical organizations have
issued statements condemning the alleged Israeli “occupation” of Bethlehem and
other lands historically and biblically belonging to Jews, and have chosen
either to support campaigns to boycott Israeli goods and divest from
multinational companies operating within Israel, and/or to denounce support to
Israel as a “heresy.”
In a letter to
the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams (June 2011), Naim Ateek, whose
Palestinian Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (‘Sabeel’) was represented at
the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference, described Jewish and Christian
Zionists as “a greater threat to us [Arab Christians] than the extremist
Islamists.” (Paul Wilkinson, Church at Christ’s Checkpoint, p. 5.)
This stance is
especially espoused by the World Council of Churches.
The motto of
“Jesus at the Check Point” is “non-violent resistance against the Israeli
Zionist occupation.” “Zionism is the obstacle to peace,” they write, and they
want to “educate evangelical Christians” to “understand the Bible from a
Palestinian liberation theology perspective,” which openly supports a “divided
state” as the solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Its “Christ at the CheckPoint,” held March 2012, was
led by Bishara Awad and his family. Several Christian groups expressed
opposition to this conference. According to the Jerusalem
Post, Dr. Jürgen Bühler, executive director of the
International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), said in a statement ahead of
the event that the conference’s theological stance “can easily lend itself to
anti-Semitism and anti-Israel propaganda, as some of the Checkpoint speakers
have proven in the past.”
Jerusalem Post
reports that “Among the speakers was Rev. Stephen Sizer, a British minister who
has spoken out harshly against Israel and met with radical Muslims, including
Hezbollah.” Stephen Sizer is not alone in championing the cause of Palestinian
liberation theology throughout the Muslim world. Two of his closest friends and
colleagues within the movement are Gary Burge and Donald Wagner, both of whom
are ordained ministers within the Presbyterian Church (USA), the world’s
biggest pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality Presbyterian denomination, which has
called for boycotts against Israel. They have been very active in the
Evangelical Christian-Muslim Dialogue, and the work of Sizer has received
praise from Tony Campolo, Hank Hanegraaff and the late John Stott. (“Prophets
Who Prophesy Lies In My Name”, Christian Palestinianism and the anti-Israel
Crusade, pages 14,16)
In spite that
“Jesus at the CheckPoint” is involved in the Palestinian liberation theology,
Awad freely preached his “Palestinian” gospel in several Brazilian churches last
May.
A Socialist Speaker at Open Doors
Brazil
His most
important opportunity in Brazil was to speak in the 35th anniversary of Open
Doors Brazil. Jeff Taylor, president of Open Doors International, was also one
of the speakers.
I am not surprised at a socialist Palestinian
Protestant speaking at Open Doors Brazil. Ariovaldo Ramos, one of the most
prominent socialist evangelical leaders in Brazil, has already spoken in some
Open Doors events. Ramos has praised socialist dictator Hugo Chavez and he is
an influential Brazilian advocate of the Theology of Integral Mission, an
evangelicalized version of the Marxist Liberation Theology. (You can find more
information on it by downloading my free e-book here: http://bit.ly/15AJmMC)
 |
| Ariovaldo Ramos |
Ramos’s
socialist profile was never a hindrance for him to minister at Open Doors
Brazil in the administration of former Secretary General Carlos Alfredo de
Sousa, where Ramos delivered speeches, devotionals and even wrote articles in
the Open Doors website.
One year ago, I
exposed an article by Open Doors Brazil supporting Marxism revolutions as a solution
to destroy persecution against Christians in Muslim nations. I challenged them
to correct it and show the reality: Marxism and Islam are mostly behind
Christian persecution. They refused it. Their secretary general was eventually
removed.
Talking to the Current Open Doors
Brazil Secretary-General
Talking days ago
by phone to Marco Cruz, the new Secretary-General of Open Doors Brazil, he has
made it clear that he is not familiar with the Palestinian Liberation Theology.
About the Awad case, he said that his visit as a key-note speaker at Open Doors
Brazil had been scheduled several months earlier, during the administration of
the former Secretary-General. The main responsible for this schedule was Open
Doors International.
I explained to him the involvements of Awad and that everything
he represents is a deviation of the Open Doors’ mission, which is to help the
persecuted church. Cruz made it clear to me that in his administration, as far
as it is possible for him the focus of Open Doors Brazil will be Jesus and the
persecuted church. This is more encouraging news. Yet, what about Open Doors
International?
Has Open Doors International Lost Its
First Love?
In 2004, Awad
said, “Brother Andrew comes to see us at least two or three times a year, and
he was our keynote speaker at the graduation and the 25th anniversary of the
Bethlehem Bible College of this year. He is a close friend.”
I find strange
that Open Doors International, which began its ministry by helping Christians
persecuted by Marxists, now is willing to have an alliance with socialist
“Christians,” including Bishara Awad.
Muslim Persecution of Christians
Awad is interestingly
silent about Muslim persecution of Christians in Palestine. There were large
numbers of Christians in Palestine just a few decades ago, but they are
disappearing. Will Awad say that the culprit is “Israeli occupation”?
According to CBN News,
the U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report for 2012
shows persecution against Christians and Jews is on the rise, especially in
Muslim countries.
Christians are fleeing Palestine, for example, not
because of “Israeli occupation,” as Awad would have us believe. Christians
fleeing Muslim nations is a universal trend, because of Muslim violence.
Why would this
reality be different in Palestine, which is mostly Muslim today? Why would
radical Muslims be willing to tolerate Awad and his family? Surely, they are
helpful for anti-Israel propaganda and disinformation among Christians.
Professors at Presbyterian University
Mackenzie
This propaganda went unchallenged in Brazil. Open
Doors Brazil opened many doors for Awad in Brazil. Awad spoke also at an “apologetics
meeting” in the Trinity Christian Church, led by Paulo Romeiro, who is a professor
in the Presbyterian University Mackenzie in São Paulo, Brazil.
Romeiro, in his
turn, opened his online TV show for Awad to impart his Palestinian vision to
Brazilians. According to a Brazilian witness, Awad told his Brazilian audience
that the source of oppression against Palestinian Christians is Israel — the
same language he used in SEPAL.
Romeiro is a
former director of the Christian Research Institute in Brazil. This institute
was connected and founded by its American counterpart, Christian Research
Institute, led by Hank Hanegraaff. Might Romeiro have been influenced by
Hanegraaff, who considered support for Israel a “heresy”?
Just because he
is a professor at Mackenzie, you cannot say that Romeiro has all of these
leftist proclivities. But some of his Mackenzie friends have, especially
Ricardo Bitun, a professor whose students in this prominent Brazilian Presbyterian
university say that he teaches that “Liberation Theology can change the
church.”
Coincidently or
not, on the called “Palestinian cause” Liberation Theology and the Theology of
Integral Mission have stances similar to Awad’s: Israel is the oppressor.
Ricardo Bitun was one of the main speakers at the recent “Conferência Missão na
Íntegra” (Integral Mission Conference), the biggest event advocating the
Theology of Integral Mission in Brazil.
In its turn,
Mackenzie hosted the biggest Protestant youth meeting in Brazil last November,
under the leadership of Ariovaldo Ramos and other leaders of the Theology of
Integral Mission. It was the biggest leftist Protestant youth event in Brazil.
Palestinian Liberation Theology
So I would not be surprised at apologists serving
interests of anti-Israel propaganda. Nowadays, most Brazilian apologists have served,
in a way or another, socialist causes. Liberation theology, and its evangelicalized
version Theology of Integral Mission, has been the main inspiration for many
Brazilian Protestant leaders and publications taking a stance against Israel to
support a Palestinian occupation of the Promised Land.
Liberation
theology has marred the Gospel and God’s plan for the Jewish people and their
Promised Land.
In Israel, the
same theology, embraced by Palestinian Protestants, has provoked the same
havoc. Palestinian liberation theology purportedly focuses on the humanity of
Jesus of Nazareth, misrepresenting Him as a Palestinian living under occupation.
Identifying
Jesus as “a Palestinian living under an occupation” has become normative for
Christian Palestinianists, and a powerful propaganda weapon in their
anti-Israel crusade. This identification was most evident in the Easter message
which Naim Ateek preached in Jerusalem on April 9, 2001:
“Here in
Palestine Jesus is again walking the via dolorosa. Jesus is the powerless
Palestinian humiliated at a checkpoint, the woman trying to get through to the
hospital for treatment, the young man whose dignity is trampled, the young
student who cannot get to the university to study, the unemployed father who
needs to find bread to feed his family … In this season of Lent, it seems to
many of us that Jesus is on the cross again with thousands of crucified
Palestinians around him. It only takes people of insight to see the hundreds of
thousands of crosses throughout the land, Palestinian men, women, and children
being crucified. Palestine has become one huge Golgotha. The Israeli government
crucifixion system is operating daily. Palestine has become the place of the
skull.” (“Prophets Who Prophesy Lies In My Name”, Christian Palestinianism and
the anti-Israel Crusade, page 7.)
But Palestinian
liberation theology “Christians” are not alone in their mission to misrepresent
Jesus Christ. Palestinian Muslims are their powerful allies. According to a
Palestinian Media Watch article of December 24, 2010, “One of the ways the
Palestinian Authority attempts to create a Palestinian history is to deny the
Judean/Jewish nationality of Jesus, and misrepresent him as a ‘Palestinian.’” (“Prophets
Who Prophesy Lies In My Name”, Christian Palestinianism and the anti-Israel
Crusade, page 8.)
In fact, as Dr.
James Dobson denounced, Palestinian “Christian” feminist Hanan Ashrawi, through
her group MIFTAH, received $850,000.00 a year directly from Yassir Arafat.
Muslims are willing to make extraordinary sacrifices do advance their
anti-Israel propaganda, even by funding “Christians,” even by
supporting Palestinian gay activists, provided that they fulfil their
mission of anti-Israel propaganda.
Only “Spiritual Israel” Entitled to the
Promised Land?
Why would Open
Doors be willing to have Awad, an ally of Palestinian liberation theology
advocates, as the key note speaker in its most important conference in Brazil?
Does not Open Doors believe that the Jewish people are entitled to their
Promised Land?
According to WND, Open Doors subscribes to Calvinist author and pastor John Piper’s views of
Israel. Piper’s views are as follows:
The promises made to Abraham, including the promise of
the land, will be inherited as an everlasting gift only by true, spiritual
Israel, not disobedient, unbelieving Israel.
Therefore, the secular state of Israel today may not
claim a present divine right to the land.
So Open Doors has a “spiritualized” answer for its
stance not supporting the modern state of Israel and the Jewish claim over the
Promised Land. But at the same time, Open Doors has no hard time supporting
Bishara Awad, who has a strange alliance with Palestinian liberation
theologians and Muslims to defend a divided Promised Land. This alliance is
necessary, because Bethlehem is under occupation by their common enemy: Israel.
I think that if
David were supernaturally brought to life again, he would be able to judge this
case. I am unable to see him siding with Muslims or Palestinian liberation
theologians. This theology just uses the true Gospel as a platform for Marxism
and its deceitful “liberation.”
Of course, David
would cry to God over the condition of modern Jews, but never betray his
posterity by delivering the Promised Land to Muslims and liberation
theologians.
Yet, we have no
David to decide the case. What about a truly spiritualized answer? If, as Piper
and other Calvinists see it, the true Israel is the spiritual Israel, then are
we, the spiritual Israel, under the responsibility to occupy Israel and expel
Muslims and the heretical liberation theology “Christians” from the Promised
Land?
I fear that both
solutions — David’s and the spiritualized answer — would not satisfy Awad and
Open Doors.
For the sake of
the truly persecuted Christians, Open Doors would be wise to not get involved
in Awad’s liberation theology sympathies and messes and a cultural and
spiritual war that it is unable understand.
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