In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

65 Christian Fundamentalism October 21, 2002 Friends, we have a pathetic situation in which the sharing of delusional ideas by two unlikely sources may be the actual spark of an international conflagration. I’m speaking of the very strange relationship between fundamentalist Christians and the Likud Party of Israel. Groups of Christians, who focus on Armageddon and the Rapture and stupidly translating this as the need for a war between Muslims and Jews to bring about the Second Coming of Christ, are capable of transforming the Israel/Palestine conflict into a war of civilizations that will be worldwide. Young George Bush is in the loop of this anti-intellectual, ahistorical and fanatical trap. As the United States directs its attention to Islamic Fundamentalism , it refuses to see the Taliban-like elements of Christian and Jewish fundamentalism. As we wage war on Islam at home and abroad, we continue to support extremist settlers in the occupied territories of Israel. While Muslim charities are shut down in the United States without the government offering any evidence of links to terrorists, known terrorist organizations such as the Jewish Defense League are not placed on the government’s list of terrorist organizations. Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and other fundamentalist leaders are now supporting the most extreme Israeli positions. They claim they are hastening the Second Coming of Christ. Biblical literalists generally seem to miss the entire point of scriptural language and this case is no exception. They have dug up dispensational premillennialism, the theology of John Darby in the 19th century as reflected in the works of Hal Linsay’s, The Late Great Planet Earth or the Left Behind books by the Rev. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. They claim that Christ’s faithful will be caught up in the clouds and given new, immortal bodies while the rest of the population faces the horrors of the last days. 66 All of this requires that the Jewish Temple destroyed in 70 AD be rebuilt and after a period of tribulation Jesus will return. Jews who accept Jesus will enter the Kingdom along with faithful Christians . . . others will perish violently. The fundamentalist Jews, however, claim this will be the establishment of the state of Israel and the extension of its sovereignty to the West Bank, Gaza and beyond. The Temple will be rebuilt, the Messiah will arrive and the redemption of the world will be at hand. Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak states of the fundamentalist settlers: “They are very problematic because they are going to cause World War III. There’s a complete denial of any rights that the Arabs might have. There’s an attempt to use the Bible as a land deed . . . it’s fantastic the length of religiousnationalisticjingoismthesepeoplearepreparedtogo,”saidBeliak. There is no distinction between the settler movement and the current Israeli Government. Sharon is the architect of the settler movement and the creator of the idea that there is no room for Arabs to live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There is simply no support for these fanatical fundamentalist interpretations in reputable Catholic or mainline Protestant theological perspectives . It seems to me that there is only one fundamentalism wearing different costumes. It is simply the psychological fixation that, “I have the truth and outside my truth there are only devils. What is more, I have to kill the devil.” ...

Share