If we want the children to value the King Holiday; we must not only tell them of the Baptist preacher’s life and legacy, but we must also tell them how hard and long Black people and allies struggled to get the U.S. Government to honor him.

Enjoy the clip below.

November 2, 1983: President Reagan Approves MLK Holiday

Jim Wallis, Founder of Sojourner Magazine

Jim Wallis writes a thought-provoking article about the “end” of the Iraq War entitled, It’s Finally Over – and it was Wrong.”

It made me think about the first time I was arrested for direct action and civil disobedience in protest of the military invasion and occupation of Iraq four years ago. The action was planned and promoted in large measure by the Sojourner’s community. I kept the cuffs that restrained me that cold night so that I can show my sons that sometimes living with convictions will cost you something.

But Wallis’ article on Iraq also pricked something else in me. It made me think of the ever-expanding U.S. military action now under President Obama. The same convictions that catapulted me to the White House in protest four years ago are the same ones that critique this president. Obama is not above critique and is NOT greater than the foundational spiritual tenets that I embrace as a follower of Jesus. Here is the comment that bubbled up from my soul onto Wallis’ website in response to his article:

Great article, Jim.

I marched with you and others during the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq in March 2007.

Reading how you rightly described the distortions and lies that justified war in Iraq under Bush made me think of the lies spewed to justify military action in Libya, Uganda, and other parts of the world under Obama.

I didn’t march in 2007 against a republican president. I marched because I embrace the ethic of the Prince of Peace and am co-laboring with others to experience the Beloved Community. With the American military empire spreading now under a democratic president; I believe it’s time for another gathering and mobilization of people of Faith.

To march when Bush calls for war and withhold from marching when Obama expands war across the world threatens our credibility as people whose “citizenship is in Heaven.” It’s easy to stand for conviction when it’ll be embraced and applauded (as it was under Bush). It takes a greater level of resolve to act on convictions when it won’t be popular and will cost us something.

The Church is in danger of losing its voice.

Time to Blow the Trumpet,

Pastor Heber Brown, III
Baltimore, MD

John Hagee supports Tree Planting Campaign in Israel

Those of you who know me or have been reading my blog for a little while know that I have a heart for “Simple Living” – an alternative Way of life that juts against the grain of popular, consumeristic culture. This affinity for alternative living has engendered in me a deep appreciation for the environment – a part of what my Bible calls “God’s good creation”.

You can imagine my surprise and dismay, then when I learned that the Israeli Government and pseudo-government agencies plant trees in Israel not so much in reverence for Creation, but as an environmental attack on Palestinian existence. One of the sinister purposes of these Tree Planting Campaigns is not only to expropriate land from Palestinians, but to conceal the remains of their villages which they were forced from. When I was in Israel driving along the Israeli-only highways, we were often surrounded by a canopy of trees. Little did I know, that hiding in the shade of said trees was evidence that Palestinians used to live there.

This was made utterly clear to our group when we visited Saffuriyya. Most of what remains of this Palestinian village is an old Palestinian cemetery and hidden under the canopy of trees are dilapidated structures that provide proof that somebody – or in this case somebodies lived there. The Isareli Military bombed the town in 1948 during Operation Dekel and forced inhabitants from their village. After the village was attacked and the Palestinians were ran out, the town of Saffuriyya was claimed by the modern state of Israel and is now called Tzippori. Palestinians who fled the bombings of Saffuriyya in 1948 were forbidden by Israel from returning to their village and then fell victim to Israel’s Absentee Property Law. (Source – scroll to the bottom half of page)

Below you will see a picture of our guide, Ziad, showing us a pre-1948 Palestinian calendar which features a landscape photograph of Saffuriyya compared to the same landscape view now. The Jewish National Fund which solicits support from synagogues, churches, and people from all over the world has used the collected monies in part to blot out the view of the remains of Saffuriyya with an awning of trees. They don’t even want you to know that people used to live here because then you might begin asking questions like: “What happened to the people who lived here?” “Where did they go?” “Where are they now?” and “Are they allowed to come back to their ancestral village?”

Ziad shows us how Tree Planting campaigns help erase Palestinian Villages in Israel

Ziad, who’s father and grandfather lived in Saffuriyya, is one of the few Palestinians who are allowed to come back just to maintain the ancient Palestinian cemetery.

As you can see in the picture at the top of this article, Pastor John Hagee is supporting this malicious effort by encouraging visitors to his website to “plant your roots in Israel”. Don’t be mistaken, Hagee has not been baptized in the pool of Creation Care or Environmental concern. He is not looking to fight global warming or do his Christian duty to help in the absorption of carbon dioxide. He is using the influence of his name and worldwide ministry to help blot out Palestinian existence. It becomes clearer when you click through on the link. Couching his effort in an ignorant and random selection of scripture from the prophet, Isaiah, three times Hagee uses the word “barren” to get you to believe that no one lived on the land in which these trees will be planted. He describes Jews as the “faithful stewards of the land” leaving the door open for you to conclude that even if there was someone else on the land in which these trees are being planted, they are not the “faithful stewards”.

As we left Saffuriyya on our bus, one of my co-delegates from Canada told us about how she remembers seeing the blue “Plant a Tree for Israel” boxes in her synagogue while growing up and how it was strongly encouraged to do good for the environment and for Israel by planting a tree. She expressed dismay at how the acts of her goodwill were used to do ill toward Palestinians.

I have no doubt that Tree Planting Campaigns as a feature of oppressing Palestinians will one day have its own special chapter in the history books to come. I just pray that the chapter also includes names of the villages and the stories of the people who are currently prisoner in the shade of Occupation.

Pastor John Hagee

In terms of slavery in America in the 18th and 19th centuries, Catholic Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore was a slave owner and Patrick Lynch, bishop of Charleston not only was a slaver owner, but published a pamphlet in defense of slavery. Additionally, it is reported that the Jesuits (The Society of Jesus) had more than 400 slaves working on their Maryland plantations.

The Roman Catholic Church was also involved in the genocide and Stolen Generations of the Aboriginals in Australia which prompted Pope John Paul II to offer an official apology in November 2001.

It’s been said of Apartheid in South Africa that without the support of the Dutch Reformed Church, it would not have survived as long as it did. While there were many members of the clergy and representatives of churches that challenged apartheid, the Dutch Reformed Church was helping to prop it up. In fact, the South African Prime Minister who led the campaign for complete segregation, Daniel Francois Malan, was a Dutch Reformed Minister.

A few years ago, I was deeply moved to read the confession of Father George Zabelka. He was the Airforce Chaplain for the U.S. airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. He was the one who used God’s name to quiet the conscience of conflicted airmen as they prepared to murder en masse. Years after, he came to deeply regret his role in using the cross of Jesus Christ to justify the annihalation of innocent civilians and penned his conversion in a piece entitled, “Blessing the Bombs.”

I am becoming more and more convinced that Pastor John Hagee will one day be viewed as being a part of this unfortunate fraternity of clergy who were trusted to preach the truth of God and instead proclaimed a lie. For his personal and political gain, he is preaching a message of separation, discrimination, and occupation in light of Palestinian people. Apartheid literally means “separateness“.

And what I saw while in Palestine/Israel with Interfaith Peace Builders was state-sponsored separateness based on ethnicity. There are different laws in Israel based on your ethnicity alone. For example, there are Israeli-only roads that Palestinians are prohibited from driving on. (Imagine the outcry if there were “White-only” highways in today’s American cities.)

SOURCE: Annainthemiddleeast.com

Furthermore, Palestinians have a white and green license plate on their car. If you’re Israeli you have a yellow license plate. If you’re a Palestinian driver you are subjected to checkpoints (stationary and “flying checkpoints”) where you must stop and present information to an Israeli soldier about who you are, where you’re going and your car may be subjected to a search just because you’re Palestinian. Even with all of this the soldier still may not allow you pass the checkpoint – no matter the urgency of your situation. These are just two of the MANY discriminatory practices that hound Palestinian lives.

Just being a Palestinian is a crime in Israel and there are a mountain of laws to prosecute you for that “crime”. The laws that Israel has enacted to occupy the lives of Palestinians in Palestine/Israel is in many instances identical to the Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws that Africans in America endured.

There is growing international awareness of the occupation and oppression of Palestinians. The Government of South Africa funded and coordinated an International Legal Study entitled “Is Israel an Apartheid State? Do Israel’s Practices in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Amount to Crimes of Apartheid under International Law?” The conclusion was that Israel’s practices in these territories constitute both colonialism and apartheid.

This is the system that Pastor John Hagee is staunchly defending. In his role as pastor and televangelist, he is invoking the name of God on the suffering and murder of innocent people and while he should be censured by responsible clergy, he is welcomed into pulpits across America.

(In fact, this weekend, Bishops in the Baltimore area – Bishop Harry Jackson and Bishop Clifford Johnson are opening the doors of the Black Church to his apartheid sermon. How sad and ironic it is that the descendants of American slaves are providing sanctuary to a sermon of state-sponsored segregation!)

Future days will show that Pastor John Hagee is decidedly on the wrong side of history and is the vocal leader of an egregious movement to affix God’s stamp of approval on this devastating social sin.

As Lincoln and Mamiya point out, for Black Christians it was (and is) in the context of oppression that there was “greater weight given to the biblical views of the importance of human personality and human equality implicit in the ‘children of God” (SOURCE: The Black Church in the African American Experience) He goes on to describe how the Black Church’s understanding of Christianity is “premised on the rock of antiracial discrimination” – a feature that is not central to the White Church.

Pastor John Hagee

The doors of the Black Church should be closed to Pastor John Hagee not because of his race or personality, but he should not be welcome in the Black Church because of his message.

Not necessarily his theological justification and insensitivity of the nearly 2,000 people killed during the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina…though that would be issue enough. Not necessarily because of his advertised “slave auction” at his San Antonio, Texas church as a fundraiser…though that certainly would be enough.

But the doors of the Black Church should be closed in Hagee’s direction because of his racist and discriminatory theology as it relates to Palestine/Israel. Hagee is founder and director of Christians United for Israel and is one of the country’s most vocal Christian Zionist. Christian Zionism is an exclusive form of theology which views the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of God’s covenant with biblical Israel. It promotes exclusive Jewish ownership of the land of Israel, views Jews as God’s “Chosen People,” expresses hostility and hatred for Arabs and Palestinians, and believes that the gathering of Jews in modern Israel will usher in the end of history and the return of Jesus Christ. (even if that gathering of Jews in Israel includes the theft, oppression, and occupation of Palestinian people and land.)

Christian Zionism is founded on an ultraliteral and uncritical interpretation of the Bible which has mutated into a vile political agenda. In the name of obedience to scripture, Christian Zionism promotes intolerance, occupation of Palestinian people, discrimination, and sacredly sanctioned human rights abuses by the Israeli Government and Military.

What Pastor John Hagee is doing in the name of Christian Zionism is akin to what American slave masters did in the name of justifying the enslavement of my ancestors in this country. They used a perverse reading of the Holy Bible to provide divine sanction for the dehumanization and oppression of my forebearers. Hagee shares kinship with a long line of ministerial miscreants who misinterpret scripture for personal gain. To be clear: John Hagee is to Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims in general, what the supporters of slavery where to Africans in America.

The doors of the Black Church should be closed to Pastor John Hagee, but unfortunately they are not. With a nod to the high level of biblical illiteracy and uncritical acceptance of any preacher that has a television platform, I have encountered an alarming number of African American Christians who embrace John Hagee’s message. Not just laity, but in fact, local Bishops of the Baltimore Metropolitan area have opened their pulpits to a man who could care less about their congregation or community and who simply wants to pimp Black pulpits for personal and political gain.

Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville is hosting Hagee on Sunday, July 11, 2010 7PM. Jackson, a conservative and political right-leaning African American clergyman, characterizes Hagee as having a “timely message for our community and nation.” It’s very explicitly communicated on the website that Hagee will be representing Christians United for Israel during the event.

John Hagee flyer on Hope Christian Church Website

Bishop Clifford Johnson of Mt. Pleasant Ministries in Baltimore is also promoting a breakfast with Hagee slated for Monday, July 12, 2010 9AM – 11AM. Though it cannot be found on his church website, Bishop Johnson has mailed out this invitation inviting clergy to share in a breakfast where Hagee will be talking about “Evangelism, Church Growth, and Bible Prophecy Concerning Israel.”

Bishop Clifford Johnson's Hagee Breakfast Letter

Additionally, Hagee will be at Evangel Cathedral in Upper Marlboro, Maryland where Bishop Don Meares, a White pastor leads a congregation with a significant African American and Hispanic population. This CUFI event, “Unidos por Israel“, is specifically targeting Hispanics on Sunday, July 18, 2010 11AM.

These events are clearly Hagee’s attempt to garner support and no doubt, funds from African American and Hispanic Christians as he makes his way to the 2010 Legislative Summit for Christians United for Israel in D.C. from July 20 – 22, 2010. Unsuspecting and ill-informed Christians, with the permission of their Bishops, will be exposed to a message of intolerance, racial discrimination, and theological perversion in the name of Jesus Christ. They will hear about a God who has a perpetual preference for Jews over all other people and has divinely sanctioned the slaughter of Palestinians in the Middle East.

Therefore it is time for Christians of conscience… Christians who remember God’s heart for the marginalized and Jesus’ commitment to the disinherited to stand up and publicly rebuke Hagee’s message of hate, ethnic discrimination, and intolerance. Of all people, Black folks know the pain of being persecuted by the perverse theology of White pastors. We should identify in very intimate ways with Hagee’s assault on Palestinian humanity and his support of Israeli Apartheid. The Zionist message should not find sanctuary in the Christian Church and most certainly not the Black Church! The doors of the church should be closed!

In the days following the attack, thousands of Palestinians, Israelis, and Internationals stood together in solidarity to decry the attack and raise our voices in resistance to the Israeli Occupation.

In this video, I marched in a nonviolent demonstration with many others in the Palestinian cultural city of Ramallah. While marching, I was able to interview a passionate Palestinian community activist who had a special message for American citizens.

I am in Palestine/Israel right now with a delegation from Interfaith Peace Builders to learn more about the conflict here. We have been here for a week and have been meeting with people on all sides of this issue. We have visited the Gaza Strip and Palestinian refugee camps while here.

We have also been following the news related to the Freedom Flotilla that left Turkey in an effort to deliver 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to the people of the Gaza Strip who are currently under blockade by the Israeli Government.

We were shocked this morning to learn that the Israeli Military boarded one of the ships of the Freedom Flotilla and killed at least 10 of the unarmed passengers and wounded 30 others. This is outrageous! Innocent people have been killed while trying to deliver aid to the 1.5 million Palestinians who are trapped in the world’s largest open-air prison.

I strongly urge you to explore every avenue available to you to bring to justice those who were involved in this murder and to end the blockade of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Upon my return, I will immediately be in contact with your office to explore this matter further.

Because of the substantial financial and material support that the United States Government provides to the Israeli Government and its military; we are complicit in this atrocity as well.

Sincerely,

Pastor Heber M. Brown, III

Wailing Wall and Dome of the Rock

Today, the morning started with a call home…as it does most mornings. While I’m so thankful for this wonderful experience being in Palestine/Israel; I must confess that I miss home. I miss my wife, sons, and extended family members the most. There’s nothing in particular that I miss as it is the rhythm of life that I have become accustomed to which involves their presence. In so many ways, I know who I am because of them. Dr. Naim Akbar would describe this as a part of the African World View: There is no “me” without “we.” My family provides for me a sense of identity.

And if there was a theme to this past Thursday, “identity” would be it. We started the day with a tour of two very important sites for Jews and Muslims: the Wailing Wall (which is part of the remains of the Second Temple built by Herod the Great) and Haram al-Sharif (where the Dome of the Rock – a very holy place for Followers of Islam) can be found. These two very holy sites which mean so much to these two passionate people groups are almost side by side. It is amazing looking at the Wailing Wall which Jews are praying toward and then look up and see the golden dome where Muslims believe that the Prophet Mohammad ascended to the heavens with the angel, Gabriel. Though I’m not Jewish or Muslim, I felt a deep and abiding spirit of reverence while at these locations. I decided to wear my Ghanian garb and it brought with it a few questions from the Muslim elders. I greeted them in Arabic and with my brown skin and traditional attire it made them pause and either invite me into the mosque for prayer or ask where I was from.

I could not enter the mosque for prayer (only Muslims are allowed into the al-Aqsa mosque), but the two Palestinian women who are a part of our delegation did accept the offer to enter for prayer. Already being two very proud Palestinians, I’ve seen them be edified even more so by walking the ground of their ancestral homeland. Being “home” truly does make a difference.

Which is part of the reason that I wanted to come on this trip. I wanted to learn more about the land, the peoples, and the conflict here that involves approximately 4.5 million Palestinian refugees who just want to return home to their land and to their lives.

That’s a side of the “Middle East” conflict that Americans are not allowed to see according to our media. When we see Palestinians in American news they are most times one-dimensional characters. They are stone-throwing, angry, irrational, terrorists who hate “our” way of life and don’t want peace. They are never portrayed as people living under the harsh boot of the Israeli Government’s occupation. They are never portrayed as people who at the end of the day just want to go back home. I’m going to continue hearing the un-filtered stories of Palestinians and Israelies while here and look forward to sharing my experiences in fuller detail with you when I get home…(I also look forward to throwing my television out of the window!)

That’s all for right now.

Salaam.

The Israeli Apartheid Wall

Today was an extremely full day that started bright and early at 8AM. Well, for me the day started at 5:00AM. After going to bed at about 11PM the night before, I found myself lying in bed staring at the ceiling at 5. I tried to force myself back to sleep, but I couldn’t do it. After showering and getting dressed, I made my way to the roof of the hostel. And in the pre-dawn hours of a beautiful Jerusalem morning I shared in conversation with a fellow delegate and we watched the sunrise in this beautiful place.

The beauty of the sunrise, however, was quickly eclipsed by the facts on the ground which we learned about during a tour with a amazing guide named Miya from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. She’s an extremely passionate 20-something Israeli female who gave us a crash course on the modern history of this complex conflict. After sharing stats, facts, and maps from Jeff Halper’s lastest book, Obstacles to Peace, we left the lecture hall and piled up in our bus to take a tour of East Jerusalem.

It was a tour that was almost surreal. I’ve blogged about the blatant racism, discrimination, and oppression of the Palestinian people by the Israeli Government over the years, but being up close and personal is a whole different story. We toured East Jerusalem – the Palestinian side of Jerusalem (with pretty big caveats called Jewish settlements) and saw how they were being forced to live in utter squalor within what Jeff Halper calls a “matrix of control.” It’s much deeper and complex than I can go into right now, but to give those who are unfamiliar a picture of what the situation is like here, think about Jim Crow laws, Black Codes, segregation, racism, and lynching of people of African descent in the states. I propose that when you can put that mental image in your mind, you are very close to envisioning what I’m seeing here right now.

I have to leave now, but real quick – the picture above is a photograph of a wall that has at least two names. The Israeli Government calls it the “security fence” and the many Palestinians and their allies call it the “Apartheid Wall.” We saw this wall today and learned about how it is used to intentionally make life unbearable for Palestinians in the West Bank – separating family members, making employment difficult if not impossible, making freedom of movement impossible, and by way of its placement – snatching even more land from the Palestinians. Many would conclude that the Israeli Government is trying to ethnically cleanse the land of all Palestinians and if that’s so – this wall is an integral part of that plan. It sounds like “Apartheid Wall” fits better.

That’s all I have time for tonight, but stay tuned. More updates are on the way.

Salaam.

As I type this, I’m sitting on the roof of a hostel in the breeze of a cool Jerusalem night. My group has recently retired for the evening after a long two days of travel. I’m here in East Jerusalem with a delegation from Interfaith Peace Builders - an organization that focuses on education advocacy for the Middle East. The purpose of this group is to learn more about the occupation from people who are directly impacted by it. When I say the occupation – I’m referencing the systemic oppression of Palestinian people by the Israeli government. Palestinians have been forcefully removed from their land, piled up in refugee camps, and are generally harassed every day as official policy of the state.

I joined this group, with the support of so many, because I was tired of being a sympathetic, yet inactive observer to the unrest here in the Middle East. I felt that I had to do something more than just sympathize. I had to do something more than just write blog articles about what’s going on here. I had to do more than just repeat that catchy, but all too easily stated phrase:”Peace in the Middle East.”

I believe that peace does not just happen. Peace is born by those who work to nurture and establish it. The “more” that I felt God calling me to was to actually come here and learn. This was by no means an easy decision. It actually was an “inconvenient call” from God. By most logical accounts, this was not the right time to be here. Family considerations, financial issues, church obligations, and other concerns were at the forefront of my discussion with God about why the timing wasn’t right. But if the invitation by God to this type of service wasn’t convenient, I’d doubt that you could call it discipleship. I believe that a part of walking with Jesus along The Way involves an embrace of sacrifice.

For that and many other reasons, I truly feel that it was providence for me to be here right now. After meeting amazing people in the last year like David Hosey and Na’im Ateek; I felt a special kinship to Palestinians and Israelis working for a just peace. I knew that at some point I would be here in the land that is called “holy” to bear witness to the unholiness of occupation and to meet people who are living and standing up courageously in its shadow daring to declare that there is another Way.

While, I think I’m going to deposit the bulk of my Palestine/Israel experience in another medium, I will be blogging as I have opportunity during my short sojourn here. Internet connection isn’t always reliable so forgive me if I’m not able to promptly respond to your comments.

I solicit your prayers for my family, myself, and to the fellow pilgrims on this journey with me. I already feel it in my bones that this experience is going to change me forever. I thank God for the blessing of this opportunity which I know has nothing to do with vacation and everything to do with vocation.

Until I return – Salaam