Tikkun Daily Blog � Blog Archive � A Right-Wing Zionist Threat: Vandals Strike Tikkun Editor’s Home

The phones have been ringing off the hook here as word spreads of the threatening intrusion upon our editor’s home. It’s heartening to hear some empathetic voices after weathering the days of hate mail that followed Tikkun’s decision topresent an award to Judge Goldstone for standing up for human rights in Israel/Palestine.

Sometime late last night or in the wee hours of the morning, vandals glued threatening posters to Rabbi Lerner’s door and around his home. Some posters attacked Lerner personally; others targeted liberals and progressives more generally, accusing them of supporting terrorism and “Islamo-fascism.” Here’s an excerpt from the statement that he and his assistant Will Pasley sent out via email this afternoon:

They posted a printed bumper sticker saying “fight terror — support Israel” next to a caricature of Judge Goldstone whose UN report on Israel’s human rights violations in its attack on Gaza last year has been denounced as anti-Semitic and pro-terror by right wingers in Israel and the U.S. The caricature has Goldstone talking about his being kept from his grandson’s bar mitzvah, and the caricature of Rabbi Lerner responds by saying “any enemy of Israel is a friend of mine” …

In the 24 years of Tikkun’s operation, we have received many death threats and vicious hate mail, including phone calls to our office announcing that “Rabbi Lerner is dead” and others saying “We will kill all of you.” This particular attack has two worrisome elements not previously there: 1. They attack Rabbi Lerner’s home. As law enforcement people told us, this is a way of conveying the message to Lerner: “We know where you live, we know your house is vulnerable, so don’t ignore our threats.” 2. By linking Lerner to alleged terrorism, they provide for themselves and other extremists a “right-wing justification” to use violence against Lerner, even though Lerner has been a prominent advocate of non-violence. He regularly critiques Palestinian acts of violence when they occur, including the shelling of Israeli towns by Hamas, just as he critiques the violence of the Israeli occupation, and as he critiques the U.S. war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the occupation of Chechnya by Russia, the occupation of Tibet by China, the human rights violations against their own people by the rulers of Iran, the acts of violence of those resisting the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the violence against women and homosexuals in many Arab and African countries (and in the U.S. and Israel as well), the genocide in Darfur, the violence against Jews in some parts of Europe, and the list goes on.

Needless to say, this latest attack, on Lerner’s home, has caused great concern to his family.

The full statement about the threatening intrusion on Rabbi Lerner’s home includes more information about Tikkun’s engagement with Judge Goldstone and the vitriolic reaction it has provoked from hate-filled critics. For background context it’s also worth reading the editorial on the Goldstone Report from Tikkun’s November/December 2009 issue, ourQ&A with Judge Goldstone, and Dave Belden’s post on this topic.

The vitriol has been particularly intense since April 29, when Alan Dershowitz published a hyperbolic screed against Lerner and the other rabbis who showed support for Goldstone. Dershowitz accused the rabbis of using the occasion of the controversy over Goldstone’s grandson’s bar mitzvah “to make virulently anti-Israel claims, including the blood libel that Israel deliberately targeted innocent Palestinian civilians without any military purpose” (as if the claim of a “military purpose” could ever justify attacks on innocent civilians). He went on to call them “bigoted … rabbis for Hamas,” building up to this ludicrous attack:

Not surprisingly, the worst of these rabbis (and that’s saying a lot), Michael Lerner, after attempting to politicize the bar mitzvah by offering his anti-Israel synagogue for the event, has decided to honor Richard Goldstone with Tikkun Magazine’s “Ethics Award.” I guess all it takes to be honored by Tikkun is to pass Lerner’s litmus test of lying about Israel. That’s Lerner’s definition of “ethics.”

It’s deeply saddening that the defensiveness around Israel has grown so great that any allegations of Israeli war crimes — even those bolstered by reports from respected human rights groups such as Amnesty International, B’Tselem,Breaking the Silence, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Human Rights — are dismissed in a kneejerk fashion as lies.

Michelle Goldberg, a senior correspondent at The American Prospect, wrote an incisive piece about the unfounded hysteria surrounding the Goldstone Report last fall:

Even given the extreme defensiveness typical of Israel’s government and its apologists, the reaction to Goldstone’s investigation has been astonishing in its hyperbolic fury…. [The critics'] ideology depends on Israel being the blameless victim. To criticize how Israel fights is to try to deny Israel the right to fight at all, since Israel is by definition a moral paragon. In this view, nothing Israel has done could invite Goldstone’s conclusions, so Goldstone must be driven by existential hostility to the Jewish people. Israel’s finance minister went so far as to call Goldstone an anti-Semite.

This takes more than a little chutzpah. In fact, those who wanted a fair hearing for Israel couldn’t have asked for a more honorable investigator. Goldstone is a Jew and a Zionist with an impeccable record as a defender of human rights. When he was appointed, Yuval Shany, the director of the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, expressed happy surprise. “Richard Goldstone is a fair-minded jurist, and I don’t think anyone can say he’s hostile to Israel in any way,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

Tony Klug’s article in the May/June issue of Tikkun raises similar concerns about how instrumental claims of anti-Semitism are being leveled against legitimate (Jewish and non-Jewish) critics of Israeli policy in order to silence them. He writes:

It now seems that it is the stance that groups and individuals take toward the Israeli state and the policies of its government of the day, that is becoming, bit by bit, the standard by which anti-Semitism is measured and assessed, steadily replacing the former gold standard of enmity toward the Jews qua Jews.

Many of the people who have called in today have asked what they can do to be supportive. Here’s our answer: please try to raise awareness in your communities that this sort of thing is happening in the Jewish world to people who critique Israeli policies.

Tikkun Daily Blog � Blog Archive � A Right-Wing Zionist Threat: Vandals Strike Tikkun Editor’s Home

The ASEM Dialogue: Opportunities For Southeast Asia?

Indonesia’s participation in the sixth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) interfaith dialog held in Madrid, Spain from 7-9 April, themed as "Consolidation of Religious Freedom and of Mutual Knowledge of Societies through Inter-religious and Intercultural Dialogue" sent across the message of a gradually strengthening Europe-Southeast Asia bilateral relations. The three-day meeting brought together 200 delegates from ASEM partners, and was co-hosted by Spain and Pakistan and sponsored by 14 ASEM partners, including Austria, The Netherlands, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Britain, Germany, Italy, China, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand. It becomes imperative to analyse this dialogue for political and economic connotations, specifically for Indonesia which is the largest Muslim, pluralistic country among the initiators of the dialogue.


The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) is an informal get-together that addresses political, economic, and cultural issues with the objective of strengthening the relationship between the two regions in a spirit of informality and equal partnership. Recently, these issues have been further broadened to include human rights, rule of law, global health threats, sustainable development, and intercultural and interfaith dialogues. Apolitical and cultural dialogues become important as they hold the prospect of improving bilateral relations between countries.

To begin with, there is a need to explore the various facets of this dialogue and its working. The key characteristics of ASEM include four main pillars. First is the ‘informality’ which provides an open forum for policy makers and officials to discuss any political, economic, and social issue of common interest rather than duplicate the work already being carried out in the bilateral and multilateral forums. Second is the ‘multi-dimensionality’ which covers the full spectrum of relations between the two regions and devotes equal weight to political, economic, and cultural issues. Third is the ‘emphasis on equal partnership’ which eschews any aid-based relationship. Last, is the ‘Dual focus’ on high-level and people-to-people contact which provides a platform for a meeting of the heads of the states, and an increasing focus on fostering contacts between societies in all sectors of the two regions.

Although it creates a multilateral forum for a much encompassing cooperation in terms of issues among the members, a critical assessment of the ASEM Dialogue exhibits a rather dismal picture of its role and existence. First, the only permanent physical institution of ASEM, the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) established in the year 1997 has never been in the limelight or used as a concrete platform for discussions on serious issues.

Second, Interfaith Dialogue is a tricky and consequently rarely tackled subject in Europe. European countries are diversely populated and some of them – like France, Germany, Denmark or Belgium – currently question their relation with their Muslim populations and its links with immigration, unemployment, and extremism issues. Therefore, it becomes imperative for Europe to develop some kind of an intra-European dialogue simultaneously to provide a platform for the religious, ethnic, and cultural issues of people within the region rather than imparting all the attention to a multilateral dialogue with Asian nations. Could the ASEM Interfaith Dialogue, if taken seriously by all participants, be a first step towards a better understanding within Europe? Does Asia serve as a role model on that matter? And what can Indonesia specifically bring to the Dialogue?

The inter-religious organization, ASEM fails to shed any light on this. The dialogue does discuss issue of economic cooperation and transaction of meagre grants from Europe to Asian nations. This is very nominal taking into account the lump sum deals among European Union and Indonesia or with any other Asian member. Therefore, ASEM needs to prioritize and choose issues of relevance rather than expanding the list with human rights, rule of law as they are purely political in character.

It is important to remember that ASEM is not a substitute for existing bilateral or multilateral forums between Asia and Europe. However, through the ASEM dialogue, Indonesia can garner collaborative synergies and optimally utilize them as a catalyst for enhancing overall Southeast Asia-Europe relations. It is evident from the past ASEM dialogues that this level of informal engagement with Europe holds great significance for the Indonesian Foreign Policy. It acts as a bridge to reduce the existing economic gap between the two regions. ASEM can also be utilized by Indonesia as a medium to strengthen its position among the Asian countries.

ASEM has definitely helped Europe and Asia in having a more global vision and promoted the overall Asia-Europe relations on international and inter-regional issues of common interest. By bringing together different cultures and civilizations, ASEM fosters common understanding and dialogue and this should be encouraged.

The ASEM Dialogue: Opportunities For Southeast Asia?

A New Kind of Future

by Eric Rauch
(This is Part Nine of a series. go to the following link for other parts:http://christianreader.com/?p=678)

The eighth question that is “transforming the Christian faith,” according to author Brian McLaren, is the biblically and politically heated question of eschatology. For those not familiar with the term, eschatology refers to the study of “last things,” and specifically, in this case, to the interpretation of what the Bible has to say about these last things. McLaren rightly points out that some version of the dispensational view, which was “invented somewhat recently…[and] popularized worldwide through the Scofield Reference Bible” (p. 191), is far and away the most popular and accepted interpretation among the modern evangelical church. I would go even further and say that dispensationalism has become so synonymous with modern evangelicalism that most churches are dispensational simply by default. Many are not only unaware of the “newness” of the system, but they would be shocked to learn that any credible alternatives to it actually exist.

McLaren is justified in his frustration with dispensationalism. In its short 200-year lifespan, the sensational and headline-grabbing claims of dispensationalism have taken it from being the “new kid on the block” to being nearly the only kid on the block. McLaren correctly laments that “in recent decades, dispensationalism and its eschatological cousins have become significant factors in the foreign policy of the [United States]” (p. 192). This is only to be expected in a nation that practically demands church attendance by its politicians (keeping up appearances is a 24/7 job). On the off-chance that any of these politicians actually listen to the sermon being preached on any given Sunday, they will most likely hear some form of dispensational premillennialism. Enough of these sermons given at various churches across the country will invariably affect how they view the future. If nothing else, they will no doubt be convinced that the nation of Israel is the relief valve on the pressure-cooker that is foreign relations. They believe that opposing Israel closes the valve and leads to more and pressure build-up in foreign affairs, while standing beside them keeps the valve open and buys at least one more day of relative “peace.” McLaren also blames dispensational thinking for a lack of concern in general for things as diverse as the environment, interfaith dialogue, climate change, the economy, energy consumption, and genocide. He writes: “Who gives a rip for endangered species or sustainable economies or global poverty if God is planning to incinerate the whole planet soon anyway?” (p. 192).


Of all the questions that McLaren has presented so far in his book, A New Kind of Christianity, this question of the future is the one that I have the least to debate with him about, in principle at least. McLaren is spot on in his condemnation of the nearly unquestioned dominance of the dispensational view. I agree with him that it has promoted many counterproductive solutions to social and ecclesiastical problems because of its ultimately futile view of the future. Dispensationalism’s distinct separation between the church and Israel has twisted Scripture into an interpretational pretzel that few Christian’s ever fully understand. When people in the early 20th century read their Scofield Reference Bibles, the notes so nearly resembled the biblical text that readers weren’t sure when they were reading Cyrus Scofield and when they were reading God. The two became so intertwined that it was nearly impossible to separate them. Thus, Scofield’s system came to be viewed as the Bible’s system. Rather than using the time-tested and orthodox practice of the analogy of faith—Scripture interprets Scripture—to interpret the Bible, 20th century Bible readers began to use the analogy of laziness—Scofield interprets Scripture.

But as much as I agree with McLaren in principle, I cannot follow him in practice. Once again, his theology (which he would recoil in horror at my calling it that) does not allow for an explanation of what it actually is, only what it isn’t. McLaren is quite clear about what he doesn’t believe, but his clarity is almost nonexistent when it comes to describing what he does believe. We are treated to descriptions like the following:

In [my] view [of the future], God is not in control in the sense of being a machine operator pulling levers or a chess master moving bishops and pawns. Nor is the universe out of control in the sense of being chaotic, random, and purposeless. Instead, God and the universe are in relationship. That in-relationship vision is captured in a number of metaphors in the Bible. For example, God is like a rider guiding a horse with a will of its own, or God is like a parent guiding a child with a will of her own. (p. 196)

This may sound all nice and warm and cozy, but it is as far from the biblical description as one can get before crossing into the “zone of heresy.” McLaren may not like the connotations of it, but God is large and in-charge of the universe. He is sovereign; He is like a machine operator, One that holds all the rights of refusal and veto power. God doesn’t ask for our cooperation, He demands our obedience. He is the Potter and we are the clay (Isaiah 29:16; Romans 9:19-26); clay can’t do anything until the Potter transforms it into something useful. McLaren’s usage of the horse and child metaphors interestingly have no biblical reference. It is true that the Bible uses metaphors such as these, but they are not to be used to extrapolate out into a description of the relationship between God and His creation, or God and His people. Metaphors should not be used to build doctrine, only to illustrate it. Even the potter and clay metaphor has its limits. McLaren is so enamored with the idea of working with God that he ends up employing God in his own service. He refers to his eschatology as “participatory,” and asks: “What does the future hold?”

In a participatory eschatology…the answer [to this question] begins, “That depends. It depends on you and me. God holds out to us at every moment a brighter future; the issue is whether we are willing to receive it and work with God to help create it. We are participating in the creation of what the future will be.” (p. 196)

Yet, despite all of his talk about us participating with God and creating a glorious future, McLaren feels empowered to impose limits on who or what kind of individuals are allowed to “participate” in this new and hopeful future. It makes sense enough for him to bar the door to premillennialists and amillennialists, because they both share in what he calls “pessimistic determinisms” (i.e., the world gets worse and worse until God has to step in and save the day), which is obviously contrary to the optimistic view of the future which he is promoting. But he also bars the door to postmillennialists, who (for the most part) are in basic agreement with his hopeful view of the future. He accuses postmills of being “triumphalistic determinists,” and claims that they “justify Christians seizing political power and even using violence (against native peoples, for example) to ‘bring God’s kingdom’ to earth.” He further states that postmillennialism got a boost in popularity in 1970s and 80s due to the Reconstruction movement, which he claims “inspired and influenced the American religious Right in the late twentieth century” (p. 285). And here is the real rub for McLaren. The problem is not that postmills are optimistic, the problem is that postmills are generally politically conservative. Although McLaren completely misrepresents the influence of the Reconstruction movement during the later decades of the 20th century [1], he has no problem discrediting an entire group of individuals who were actually “participating” in their view of the future. Apparently, mere participation is not good enough, only a certain type of participant is welcome in McLaren’s “undeterministic” view of the future.

Yet it is not really undeterministic, because as hard as he tries, McLaren still can’t shake the undeniable doctrine of final judgment from his eschatology. Even though he can’t deny it, he attempts to reinterpret it, and this he does with magnificent appeals to emotion. After explaining that God won’t be concerned about beliefs or outward signs of religion (like circumcision) at the final judgment, McLaren confidently states that it will be our works that will speak on that day. Completely ignoring the fact that Christ is speaking only to the sheep (not the goats) in Matthew 25:31-46, McLaren writes:

God will examine the story of our lives for signs of Christlikeness—for a cup of cold water or a plate of hot food given to one in need, for an atom of mercy shown to one who has been unkind or unthoughtful, for a visit to a prisoner or an open door and warm bed for a stranger, for a generous impulse indulged and a hurtful one denied, like Jesus. These are the parts of a person’s life that will be deemed worthy of being saved, remembered, rewarded, and raised for a new beginning. All the unloving, unjust, non-Christlike parts of our lives—and of our nations, tribes, civilizations, families, churches, and so on—will be burned away, counted as unworthy, condemned (which means acknowledged for what they are), and forgotten forever. (p. 204)

For someone who assertively stated that the doctrine of eternal torment in hell is not taught in the Bible, McLaren seems pensively less sure of himself when he actually steps close to the biblical teaching. Rather than conscious torment in flames, he gives us annihilation in the flames as a happier alternative. One would be forgiven for asking the question: What does the non-Christlike part of a civilization look like? I hate to put words in McLaren’s mouth (because I know he will deny them anyway), but wouldn’t the non-Christlike parts of a civilization (or a tribe, or family, or nation, or church, etc.) be the non-Christlike people that are a part of it? And wouldn’t they be non-Christlike because they are not “new creations” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17)? Therefore what Jesus said in Matthew 25 is very relevant to the discussion of the final judgment:

All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, “Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat… Then He will say to those on His left, “Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat… (Matt. 25:32-35a, 41-42a)

The works themselves are not what is being thrown into the fire, but the workers of the works. Try as he might, McLaren’s “participatory” eschatology cannot dismiss the final judgment awaiting each of us. McLaren continues to selectively take what he wants from the Bible, while ignoring the rest. In his 1985 commentary on the first 18 chapters of the book of Exodus, Dr. Gary North (one of those “influential” Reconstructionists”) explains that “liberation theologians keep appealing to the Book of Exodus as their very special book.” The liberation theologians were the ones promoting the social gospel in the 1970s and 80s. Interestingly, McLaren appeals to the book of Exodus as one of his “very special books” in an earlier chapter. North further points out: “The misuse of the Exodus story by liberation theologians is another example of the misuse of the Bible generally to promote anti-biblical social, political, and economic views.” [2] North’s point is not to be missed, because it neatly summarizes all attempts to “liberalize” the Bible as a book concerned more about social issues than about obedience to God. Like the liberation theologians that came before him, McLaren picks and chooses the portions of the Scripture that say what he needs them to, and discards the rest. North shows that these types of interpreters use the Bible to promote ultimately unbiblical ideas. In other words, they use a portion of the Bible to undermine its full message of salvation. Just as the liberation theologians used the first half of Exodus to strengthen their theology of political deliverance and ignored the last half of the book, filled as it was with rules and regulations about what the Israelites should and should not do, so does McLaren ignore the whole message of biblical eschatology, choosing instead to fabricate one—using only the verses that serve that purpose. McLaren is quite correct that the modern evangelical church needs a “new kind of eschatology,” but it most certainly does not need his. The social gospel is nothing new, and if a renamed version of it is the best McLaren has to offer, he might want to retreat back into his study for another twenty years. Maybe by then it will be “new.”

A New Kind of Future