Pope Francis Named “Person of the Year” by World’s Biggest Gay Magazine

By Julio Severo

Praises keep knocking at the door of Pope Francis, who was named “Person of the Year” by The Advocate, the world’s biggest homosexual magazine.

It is the second tribute that the pope has received in a week. On December 11, he was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

In its headline, The Advocate highlighted Francis’ statement, made during a June interview: “If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?”

“Pope Francis’ stark change in rhetoric from his two predecessors... makes what he’s done in 2013 all the more daring,” The Advocate editors wrote, noting that both John Paul II and Benedict XVI had been listed among the magazine’s “Phobie Awards” for anti-gay stances during their papacies.

By “anti-gay stances,” The Advocate also sees the mere attitude of helping someone who does not want to be a homosexual any longer. Two years ago, this gay magazine criticized me for my stance of supporting Lisa Miller, a woman who was converted to Christ, left lesbianism and today is a runaway from the US “justice” system which wants to deliver up her biological daughter to her former lesbian partner, who has never been converted and is determined, even with no biological relation, to take Lisa’s daughter.

I was attacked just for defending a mother and her daughter.

Why then did The Advocate, instead of attacking, put the pope on a pedestal? By the same reason Leonardo Boff, of Liberation Theology, praises him. By the same reason that he is in favor with the Brazilian Protestant Left, which said, “Pope Francis is a promise of better days.”

All the Left is seeing it. Pope Francis is a promise of better days — for the Catholic, Protestant, secular and homosexual Left.

In this spirit, the mainstream media have highlighted approvingly the pope’s nomination of “Person of the Year” in the world’s biggest homosexual magazine.

With information from The Advocate and USAToday.

Portuguese version of this article: Papa Francisco é escolhido como “Personalidade do Ano” pela maior revista gay do mundo

Source: www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com

Recommended Reading:

The Advocate Attackes Julio Severo for Defending a Mother and Her Daughter Against Crazy Lesbian

Benjamin Netanyahu Under Fire for Not Bowing Down to Mythical Idol Nelson Mandela

By Julio Severo

The mainstream international media were chocked when Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres said they would not be attending the funeral of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, citing costs and health reasons.

Benjamin Netanyahu

In contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not miss the funeral.

Why so much fuss about it? Russian President Vladimir Putin decided not to attend it, and he has not received the widespread criticism Netanyahu did.

For Putin, who was an active leader in the infamous KGB, to attend Mandela’s funeral was just natural. During the white rule, South Africa was anti-communism and KGB was operating behind the scenes supporting the African National Congress, which is today the ruling party. Mandela’s victory was KGB’s victory. So there is no reason for a KGB agent or former agent to miss such event.

Mandela and Palestinian Terror

Yet, the international Left was not focused on Putin’s absence. Their focus was Netanyahu, who had good reasons for his decision, considering some Mandela’s statements:

1) “But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” (Address by President Nelson Mandela at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, December 4, 1997, Pretoria.)

Comment by Julio Severo: The World Conference against Racism held by the United Nation in South Africa in 2009 was used as a platform against Israel, whose government boycotted it.

2) “I believe that there are many similarities between our struggle and that of the PLO.” (1990)

Comment by Julio Severo: PLO, or Palestine Liberation Organization, was a terrorist Islamic group responsible for many terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens, including children.

3) “We identify with the PLO because, just like ourselves, they are fighting for the right of self determination.”… “Arafat is a comrade in arms.”

4) “If one has to refer to any of the parties as a terrorist state, one might refer to the Israeli government, because they are the people who are slaughtering defenseless and innocent Arabs in the occupied territories.” (1990)

Nelson Mandela and Yasser Arafat

In contrast, Mandela had never said that he saw the defunct Soviet Union as a terrorist state. So, different of Netanyahu, there was no hindrance for Putin to honor the funeral of a man helped by KGB.

Modern South Africa and Its Crazy “Security”

Yet, there is somebody who definitely should not have attended Mandela’s funeral. He was not a world leader, but he was representative of the modern South Africa. His name is Thamsanqa Jantjie and he is a South African. According to the Associated Press, he is a schizophrenic man with violent tendencies. By simulating a sign language interpreter, he was able to be very near world leaders, including just 3 feet from Obama, at Mandela’s memorial.

Obama and Thamsanqa Jantjie (right)

Jantjie has a record of criminal behavior. According to DailyMail, his record involves: rape (1994), theft (1995), housebreaking (1997), malicious damage to property (1998), murder, attempted murder and kidnapping (2003) charges. Many of the charges brought against him were dropped, allegedly because he was mentally unfit to stand trial. He had been in a psychiatric institution for over one year.

The South African government was unable, or unwilling, to explain how he was able to get clearance to be near world leaders.

The Associated Press said that in South Africa, Obama was exposed to “an array of confusion and security risks that typically would not be tolerated by the Secret Service in the United States.” Jantjie is just an example. He was a definite threat to Obama and other leaders.

Obama was at the mercy of the South African government — and at the mercy of its schizophrenic, paranoid, bogus sign language interpreter. By the current South African standard, this was security, and it is much more security than most South Africans will never see in their lifetime.

Jantjie is a small sample of a South Africa the world refuses to recognize: the Marxist change Mandela brought to his nation made it the world’s rape capital, with also a very high rate of murders and assaults.

Thamsanqa Jantjie

Jantjie confessed that he hallucinated during the Mandela memorial. Just he did? What about the world leaders, including Obama and Bush, paying their tributes to a man who was a friend of Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat, and had stances against Israel?

Wait a minute: hallucination or demon possession?

Modern South Africa and Old Witchcraft

Mandela inaugurated in South Africa an era where witchcraft was recognized and respected by the state.

Last year, the festivities of the centenary of the ruling African National Congress, of Mandela, were marked by animal sacrifices and rituals held by witches “to remember their ancestors and remember their own gods in a traditional way.”

This “traditional way,” or African way, is known in Brazil: candomble and other afro-Brazilian religions. By the way, if you disapprove this way by pointing that in the Bible God condemns witchcraft, the Brazilian state response follows the leftist mantra: criticism of the African worship and its gods and demons is discrimination, even racism!

South African witch

Two goats, two chickens and a bull were sacrificed to communicate with supposed dead ancestors in the centenary of the African National Congress. As Jantjie, witches were hallucinating during the ritual, commemorating the “liberation” of South Africa. Any attempt to classify them as “schizophrenic” would be labeled “racist.”

Rituals at Mandela’s funeral were similar. Animals were sacrificed. The ceremonial slaughtering of animals is one of the ways the “ancestors” are called upon for help. Guests in these rituals drink blood of the slaughtered animals. Veneration for the world of the ancestral spirits plays an important role in South African “culture.” (I know these terms very well. In Brazil, we are taught by our leftist government that Christianity is a religion and African witchcraft is just “culture”!)

Following this tradition, Mandela’s body was accompanied by individuals who kept communication with his spirit and other spirits.

I do not know if criticism of such witchcraft involvement in South Africa amounts to racism. But this is not the only problem. South Africa is under the spell of the Western Left.

Murderous Legacy

Mandela and his African National Congress were about to turn South Africa into a violent Marxist, communist country in the Soviet or Cuban model “when they were bought off by the [socialist] American Democratic Party and big multi-national business who showered the new black rulers with wealth and power, and, above all, with favourable international media coverage,” according to Rodney Atkinson, brother of Rowan, the famous “Mr. Bean.” They were bought off by the Western Left. The result? They became a violent socialist nation in the Western model.

Under the spell of this model, South Africa has been implementing moral decadence as no other African nation has done. For Mr. Atkinson, Mandela has a murderous legacy. In 1996, Mandela endorsed one of world’s most liberal abortion laws.

Abortion

The same year, Mandela’s new constitution made, according to LifeSiteNews, South Africa the first country in the world to place “sexual orientation” alongside race and religion as a restricted grounds for discrimination — something that was instrumental for the legalization of homosexual “marriage” a decade later.

In other words, while many other African nations follow the tradition of protecting the family, including against gay “marriage” and abortion, in this respect South Africa under Mandela followed the Western socialist model. Just in regard to religion, Mandela opened the national doors for the traditional African way and its demons.

Calvinism in South Africa

Just as other African nations, South Africa was also strictly against sodomy and abortion, under white administrations. White administration officials were mostly Calvinist, and undeniably South Africa greatly flourished under Calvinist inspiration. Their greatest challenge was to prevail over racial barriers — a common problem in Africa, considering tribal wars where tribes hated, enslaved and massacred one another for racial and “cultural” differences. Just consider Tutsis and Hutus.

The Calvinist difficulty to prevail over racial barriers opened the doors to resistance, especially communist, and a gradual weakening of their own religious tradition.

In 1985, while under white administration, 92% of Afrikaners (South African whites) were members of Reformed (Calvinist) Churches. But after the pro-abortion and pro-sodomy Mandela rule, everything changed. By late 2012, this figure had dropped to 41%, while actual weekly church attendance of Reformed Churches is estimated to be below 25%.

Gandhi, Apartheid and Racism

Their weakening follows a strange societal idea that Apartheid is worse than any evil South Africa has been suffering since the end of Apartheid.

Apartheid has been elevated above the rampant rapes, including of children and babies, in South Africa.

Apartheid has been elevated above the troublesome personal life of its greatest opponent, Mandela, described by DailyMail as a “womanizing wife-beater.”

Apartheid has been elevated above the evil of socialism, abortion and other threats.

And it is very suspicious that Marxism, adhered by Mandela, embraced a supposed fight against racism. According to American Black academic Walter Williams, Karl Marx was a racist man. How then did Mandela espouse Marxism to fight Apartheid and, later, used Marxism to legalize abortion?

And now, Marxists, whose father was a racist, put Mandela in the same mythical level of Mahatma Gandhi — another racist! For Gandhi, Africans were no better than the “Untouchables” of India. He thought black people were subhuman.

Mahatma Gandhi

The deification of Gandhi intentionally eclipsed the real Gandhi, just as the deification of Mandela has intentionally eclipsed the real Mandela: the high-rank member in the South African Communist Party and an abortion and homosexuality advocate.

Gandhi was, according to HuffingtonPost, elevated to a 20th century messiah by both European and American Protestant clerics and missionaries. For example, John H. Holmes, a liberal Unitarian pastor from New York, praised Gandhi in his writings and sermons with titles like “Gandhi: The Modern Christ” and “Mahatma Gandhi: The Greatest Man since Jesus Christ.”

Will Mandela be the new messiah deified by Protestant clerics and missionaries? Any doubts?

Calvinism and Pentecostalism

Perhaps Calvinists in South Africa might have averted the catastrophic destiny of their nation by opening the doors for spiritual revival. Some 100 years ago, when the African National Congress began its fight against Apartheid, the United States began to experience an abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the Pentecostal movement was born. The Holy Spirit did no distinction of race and color: whites and blacks were baptized in the Holy Spirit and whites and blacks became leaders in the Pentecostal church.

While leftist and feminist birth control campaigner Margaret Sanger preached the extinction of blacks through birth control some 100 years ago, poor whites and blacks were united in their Pentecostal experiences.

Pentecostalism, rejected by many affluent and proud Calvinists, has been God’s way to address racial issues since the early 1900s.

Calvinists, who blessed South Africa over three centuries with their capitalism and hard work, needed such Pentecostal experiences to face the 20th century challenges. Failure to do so eventually became victory for Marxist idols and their “liberation” with epidemic rapes, abortion and homosexuality.

Netanyahu: No to the Anti-Israel Idol

So I am not amazed at Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter going to South Africa to pay their tribute to their pro-abortion and pro-sodomy comrade. Yet, what was George W. Bush doing among them? Where was his courage just to say “no”?

South Africa is today an anti-Israel nation, in contrast with the past white administrations, which were pro-Israel.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had the courage to say “no.” He could have made the very expensive travel, to see, as other world leaders did, the crazy antics of Thamsanqa Jantjie, a demon-possessed man who was hallucinating near Obama in a sad representation of the witchcraft, rape and murder culture in South Africa. He could see world leaders in their antics to pay tribute to an Anti-Israel man. But he did not do so.

An American reader in Charisma magazine noted, “Mandela was a supporter of Palestinian terrorism and an ardent critic of Israel. For the Israeli Prime Minister to participate in honoring him would be akin to him going to a tribute to the Ayatollah. It would be an insult to everyone who was a victim of Palestinian terrorism.”

Netanyahu, not Putin, has been under fire for not following world leaders, especially US leaders, in their attendance of Mandela’s funeral. But Israel should get used to be criticized and isolated. In the future, Israel will suffer more criticism and isolation, and all of this has been prophesized in the Bible.

Babylon and Its Idols

Old Babylon ordered citizens over its control to bow down to its mythical idol: “And the herald proclaimed aloud, ‘You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace.’ Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.” (Daniel 3:4-7 ESV)

Daniel the Jew did not bow down to the idol set up by Babylon.

Modern Babylon, especially represented by the socialist United States and Europe, wants the whole world to bow down to its mythical idols.

Netanyahu the Jew did not bow down to the anti-Israel idol set up by modern Babylon.

While America follows the ways of the nations, and nations follow the way of Babylon, Israel follows her own way and destiny.

Portuguese version of this article: Benjamin Netanyahu é criticado por não se prostrar ao ídolo mítico Nelson Mandela

Source: www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com

Recommended Reading:

Nelson Mandela: Israel Is Terrorist and Islamic Arabs Are Innocent

Anti-Israel Activist Speaks at Open Doors Brazil

Calvinism and Pentecostalism in Brazil

Nelson Mandela: Israel Is Terrorist and Islamic Arabs Are Innocent

By Julio Severo

If you believe the leftist Christian press, Nelson Mandela was… a Christian! Sheer indoctrination by the mainstream secular media? No doubt. The secular press has portrayed Mandela as a hero.

A major Protestant news site in Brazil published a list of nice quotes by Mandela. By reading exclusively these nice quotes, you could say that he was a hero and even a Christian.

Yassir Arafat and Nelson Mandela

Yet, what about the other quotes?

Since the mainstream media and even the Christian press will not show you his quotes which are not nice, I will do it. Here is a list of some of these quotes by Mandela:

1) “But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” (Address by President Nelson Mandela at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, December 4, 1997, Pretoria.)

Comment by Julio Severo: The World Conference against Racism held by the United Nation in South Africa in 2009 was used as a platform against Israel, whose government boycotted it.

2) “I believe that there are many similarities between our struggle and that of the PLO.” (1990)

Comment by Julio Severo: PLO, or Palestine Liberation Organization, was a terrorist Islamic group responsible for many terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens, including children.

3) “We identify with the PLO because, just like ourselves, they are fighting for the right of self determination.”… “Arafat is a comrade in arms.”

4) “If one has to refer to any of the parties as a terrorist state, one might refer to the Israeli government, because they are the people who are slaughtering defenseless and innocent Arabs in the occupied territories.” (1990)

5) “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings.”

Comment by Julio Severo: Mandela had bad feelings about America under Ronald Reagan. Under Obama, the praises were mutual. Mandela praised Obama, and Obama has praised him too.

Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela

6) “Long live the Cuban revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro … Cuban internationalists have done so much for African independence, freedom and justice. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of a vicious imperialist campaign designed to destroy the advances of the Cuban revolution. We too want to control our destiny. … There can be no surrender. It is a case of freedom or death. The Cuban revolution has been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people.”

7) “[T]he people of Asia and Africa have seen through the slanderous campaign conducted by the USA against the socialist countries. They know that their independence is threatened not by any of the countries in the socialist camp but by the USA, who has surrounded their continent with military bases. The communist bogey is an American stunt to distract the attention of the people of Africa from the real issue facing them, namely, American imperialism.”

Comment by Julio Severo: Understand that Mandela’s complaints are applicable only to America under Reagan. The US government without Reagan sees Mandela as a hero and espouses his socialist agenda.

8) “Under a Communist Party government, South Africa will become a land of milk and honey.”

Comment by Julio Severo: This “land of milk and honey” is a reversal of the Bible imagery. Since Mandela, the rate of sexual violence in South Africa has been among the highest in the world. An estimated number of 500,000 rape cases take place in the country every year and children, including babies, comprise 41 percent of all rape victims. South Africa is believed to have more people with HIV/AIDS than any other country in the world. Even a son of Mandela has died of AIDS. A significant contributing factor for the escalation in sexual violence against children and even babies is the widespread myth among South African Blacks that having sex with a virgin will cure a man of AIDS. South Africa is now considered the world’s rape capital. It has also a very high rate of murders and assaults. In all of its history, South Africa has never seen so much rampant violence. This is just one of the Mandela legacies. Other legacies are: under his administration, South Africa legalized abortion and homosexuality.

9) “Yasser Arafat was one of the outstanding freedom fighters of this generation, one who gave his entire life to the cause of the Palestinian people.”

10) “The cause of communism is the greatest cause in the history of mankind!”

Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro

11) “There’s one place where (Fidel Castro’s) Cuba stands out head and shoulders above the rest — that is in its love for human rights and liberty!”

12) “The victory of socialism in the U.S.S.R., in the People’s Republic of China, in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Rumania, where the living conditions of the people were in many respects similar and even worse than ours, proves that we too can achieve this important goal.”

13) “Communists everywhere fight to destroy capitalist society and to replace it with socialism, where the masses of the common people, irrespective of race or color, will live in complete equality, freedom and happiness. They seek to revolutionize society and are thus called revolutionaries. Those who support capitalism with its class divisions and other evils and who oppose our just struggles to end oppression are called counter revolutionaries.”

14) “In our own country, the struggles of the oppressed people are guided by the South African Communist Party and inspired by its policies.”

These policies led South Africa directly into the embrace of the culture of death.

In 1996, Mandela endorsed one of world’s most liberal abortion laws.

The same year, Mandela’s new constitution made, according to LifeSiteNews, South Africa the first country in the world to place “sexual orientation” alongside race and religion as a restricted grounds for discrimination — something that was instrumental for the legalization of homosexual “marriage” a decade later.

These policies led South Africa also directly into the embrace of the culture of violence.

There was no skyrocketting epidemic of white on Black rapes in South Africa before Mandela. But is it any wonder that since Mandela, South Africa has a skyrocketting epidemic of Black on white violence, including rapes? Dave Jolly says,  

 “In the cities, whites became the preferred targets for assaults, burglaries and rapes. My friends’ teenage daughter feared for her safety and modesty every day she traveled to and from school.  Their daughter had classmates that were raped and robbed by blacks and the police, which were almost all black, and did nothing about it. These are only a few of the many racial horror stories that have been happening to many of the whites in South Africa. Conditions have become so dangerous that many whites are leaving the country.”

Marxism makes any nation violent.

About “nice” quotes of Mandela, do I need to say anything else? The man has said everything, and it is not nice or Christian.

With information from WND and Al-Jazeerah.

Portuguese version of this article: Nelson Mandela: Israel é terrorista é árabes islâmicos são inocentes

Source: www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com

Recommended Reading:

Anti-Israel Activist Speaks at Open Doors Brazil

Archbishop Tutu: Rather Go to Hell Than Go to a Homophobic Heaven

Globalization “Elders” want female ordination as ministers, priests and rabbis

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.”

While the warning of Shoebat, published on WND last May, was being directed to Americans, Bishawa Awad, founder and president emeritus of Bethlehem Bible College, was visiting churches in Brazil, including as a keynote speaker in a major conference commemorating the 35th anniversary of Open Doors Brazil in the same month of May.

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.

Mackenzie has also been denounced in my blog for its rabid cessationists. See my article A Charismatic Response to “The Growing Crisis Behind Brazil’s Evangelical Success Story.”

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.

Portuguese version of this article: Ativista anti-Israel faz palestra em Portas Abertas do Brasil

Spanish version of this article: Activista anti Israel ofrece conferencia en Puertas Abiertas de Brasil

Source: www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com

Recommended Reading:

Brazil to Host World’s Biggest Pro-Palestine Event

Palestinian Gays Want World Boycotts against Israel

What every Christian should know about Israel