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!

Pastor John Hagee

Some of you remember my announcement not long ago that this month’s Sunday School at my church would be different than the norm. This month we’ve focused our energy on the issue of the Middle East and particularly Palestine/Israel.

Before beginning this, I wasn’t sure how it would all turn out. However, I’m glad to report that things have gone quite well. The discussion has been engaging, the searching through scripture has been eye-opening, and we all are learning so much from and about each other.

For the first two Sundays, we’ve focused pretty sharply on the question of the Jews being “God’s Chosen People.” While I’ve always had an opinion on this question, it was only until engaging in this study that I’ve had the opportunity to pin down passages of scripture which suggest a biblical pattern that challenges mainline traditional thinking. I’m confident now that those who have been attending our sessions are on the path to new understanding on the question of “God’s Chosen People” and are able to articulate by way of scripture where they stand.

Now that we’ve begun turning the soil over on the theological and religious aspects of the Palestine/Israel issue, we’ll begin this Sunday grappling with the political angle. It doesn’t hurt that last week the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held it’s annual conference in DC. Not only will we review their perspective on the Middle East question, but we’ll also review the growing counter-argument from activists themselves and even other Jews who decry what’s being done in their name.

Deepening our perspective on the intersection between Faith and public policy, we’ll review the Pope’s recent statements regarding a two-state solution and we’ll hear from Pastor John Hagee of the Cornerstone Church in Texas and Founder and National Chairman of Christians United for Israel (CUFI). CUFI has designated Sunday, May 17, 2009 as Christians United for Israel Sunday.

Before the month is out we’ll also explore how the American media helps to shape our perspective on the Middle East question. I purchased an amazing documentary from the Media Education Foundation entitled, Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land. I’ve never seen a documentary that more accurately analyzes how American media broadcasts a distinct bias on the issue.

Feel free to join us in dialogue this month around this very important issue every Sunday morning from 9:30 – 10:30AM at Pleasant Hope Baptist Church.

One day I turned on the television and started watching TBN and other religious broadcasts to get a sense of what the religious leaders were saying. 

I happened upon Pastor John Hagee – a man whom I consider one of the most vocal proponents of Christian Zionism and unconditional support of Israel.  He was giving his usual “pro-Israel at all cost” religious banter.  I took as much of it as I could take then turned to another station.  It was an African American preacher talking about going to the next level in God or something.  I was completely disgusted.

The fact of the matter is, Hagee and some others like him are using their platform to speak to world issues.  The majority of African American preachers on television are using their platform to discuss issues that have little everyday reality significance to regular citizens of this nation and the world.  Many African American pastors put information on the screen about how to become a “partner” to their ministry, when the next conference is coming up, or how much your life will be blessed by their latest sermon series.  Don’t get me wrong, televangelists of other ethnic backgrounds do this too, but as an African in America preacher I hold other African American preachers to a higher standard.  They’ve been given much – I require much. 

Back to Hagee.  This man has gone so far as to create an organization called Christians United for Israel.  The purpose of the organization according to their website is to: “provide a national association through which every pro-Israel church, Para-church organization, ministry or individual in America can speak and act with one voice in support of Israel in matters related to Biblical issues.”  They are galvanizing the strength of their religious influence to speak to political issues. 

Other televangelists like Benny Hinn, Pat Robertson, and Rod Parsley support this organization and similarly espouse “pro-Israel at all costs” socio-political theologies.  Remember – it’s Christians United for Israel – not Christians United for Social Justice so these preachers don’t care anything about the volumes of injustices committed against the Palestinian people nor do they speak of the Israeli military largely underwritten by American taxpayers.

Where are the African American preachers on television who maximize their platform to speak justice to injustice, liberation for the oppressed, and truth to power?  I look at Creflo Dollar – he has a School of Prosperity, a record label, and a magazine, but no where on his website or in his ministry does he speak to justice issues nor does he give any sustained attention to international social issues though he calls his ministry “World Changers International“.  TD Jakes submitted commentary in July that discouraged African American ministers from speaking to social issues.  He said now we have elected officials to speak to those types of issues.  What if those elected officials have large lobbying groups like AIPAC in their pocket, Bishop, thus buying their opinions?

I am more convinced than ever that a whole generation of preachers (particularly the baby boomers) will need to pass off of the scene before a new era of preachers can assume leadership positions in this complex society and engage it aggressively in ways that will bring about theologies and policies that benefit the common good.  Hagee and his right-wing neo-con Chrisitian Zionist buddies are heavyweights in using the power of their influence for local/national/and international issues.  Jakes and the gang don’t stand a chance. 

(NOTE: For a refreshing and thorougly Christian commentary on the Middle East situation please read the “Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism” submitted by local heads of churches in Jerusalem.)