From the Church of England Newspaper.
Disturbed by the rising tide of anti-Semitism, a lay-led pressure group has formed within the Church of England to support Israel.
Founded by London solicitor Simon McIlwaine, ‘Anglicans for Israel’ hopes to avert further erosion in Anglican and Jewish relations and halt attempts to punish Israel by Synod and the Anglican Communion.
Mr. McIlwaine told The Church of England Newspaper he was troubled by the "increasing hostility of many in leadership positions in the Churches towards the State and people of Israel" and their "willingness to apologise for Islamic terrorism".
Many within the Church of England have been silent, or abetted the "mendacity" of "Christians who falsify history, and attempt to belittle or even deny the existential threat that Israel faces" from radical Islam, he charged, pointing to the June actions of the Anglican Consultative Council in Nottingham as an example.
In Nottingham, Bishop Riah Abu al-Assal told the ACC "Jews have notsuffered at the hands of the Arabs," denying Jews had been expelled from Arab states after 1948.
The Church should encourage divestment from Israel on the model of the anti-apartheid campaign against South Africa, the leaders of the Anglican Peace and Justice Network told the ACC. "The resolution has nothing to do with punishing Israel" Bishop Riah said, noting that an international Zionist alliance already supported the Jewish state. "Israel has enough support from the American Administration and the Jewish Lobby".
Only two ACC delegates challenged the report. The Dean of St. Paul’s, John Moses, questioned its evenhandedness while the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, successfully diluted the report’s recommendations.
"If the Church were to boycott or punish Israel" Mr. McIlwaine said, "it would raise very serious theological issues" as it would "be disavowing the Abrahamic Covenant with the Jewish people" and would be "rejecting Jesus’ Jewish identity. Do advocates of divestment really think that our Jewish Lord wants us to hurt His people and His nation?"
Dr. Irene Lancaster, a lecturer at the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester, welcomed the formation of Anglicans for Israel, saying "much ignorance of Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish State abounds in the Anglican Church at the moment. ‘Anglicans for Israel’ appears to me to represent an oasis of sanity and commonsense."
‘Anglicans for Israel’ has nine principal aims, Mr. McIlwaine told CEN.
It seeks: to resist the call for a boycott of Israel; to support the people of Israel and to secure defensible borders for the State of Israel; to promote bonds of fellowship and interfaith understanding between Anglicans and the Jewish people; to recall the Church to God’s Covenant with the Jewish people and to call the Church to affirm the centrality of Israel to the Jewish faith; to call Anglicans to repentance for the wrongs, of both word and deed, inflicted by Christians on the Jewish people and the nation of Israel; to fight all libels against Israel and the Jewish people and their State; to promote reconciliation and ties of friendship between the people of Israel and the righteous Arabs who oppose terrorism and wish to have peaceful relations with Israel; to protect the Christian communities threatened by Islamic extremism in the Middle East; and to bring the Church back to an understanding of the Jewish roots of our faith.
The issues facing the Church, he argued were political and theological, Mr. McIlwaine said, noting he was dismayed the Church had "learned nothing from the persecution of our Jewish brothers and sisters".
He objected to the supersessionist doctrines propounded within some quarters of the Anglican Communion that argued the Church had superseded God’s covenant with the Jews and that Jews were outside of God’s economy of salvation. Christians share with Jews the "same Western moral code, worship the same Heavenly Father" he said, "and of course face the same existential Islamist threat".
A board of patrons has been established, Mr. McIlwaine said, led by the Rev Dr Peter Mullen, Rector of St Michael’s Cornhill and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange and other clergy, academic and political leaders. He encouraged Anglicans who support Israel to take an active stance with the counsels of the Church and make their position know to General Synod.
"The Bible calls us, as Christians, to bless Israel and stand with the Jewish people," Mr. McIlwaine said. "It is as simple as that."