Jan. 12th, 2006

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Finally, Pat Robertson's ugly comments have had some negative repercussions for him. I'd like to think that my LJ entry on the topic played a role in this, but i'll just settle for the knowledge of being right.

Israel has suspended contact with evangelist Pat Robertson for suggesting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip.

The controversy has cast doubt on plans for a Christian tourism center that would showcase the growing flow of money and influence from U.S. church groups.

... Tourism Minister Abraham Hirchson said he gave instructions to "stop all contact" with groups associated with Robertson. Last week, Robertson implied Sharon's massive stroke was a blow for "dividing God's land" with the withdrawal from Gaza and four West Bank settlements. But Hirchson said the order did not apply to "all the evangelical community, God forbid."

Robertson is leading a group of evangelicals who have pledged to raise $50 million to build the Christian Heritage Center in Israel's northern Galilee region, where tradition says Jesus lived and taught. Under a tentative agreement, Robertson's group was to put up the funding, while Israel would provide land and infrastructure. Hirchson had predicted it would draw up to 1 million pilgrims a year, generate $1.5 billion in spending and support about 40,000 jobs.

But the fate of the project is now in question, said Ido Hartuv, spokesman for the tourism ministry.

from Israel stops contact with Robertson: Move follows Robertson's comments about Sharon


Edit. In one of the early lectures in Prof. Koester's class, he mentioned that the Gospel of Mark originally ended with the empty tomb, with no mention at all of interactions with the risen Jesus. The meaning of this, Prof. Koester asserted, was not that Jesus had risen from the grave and was walking around and talking to people, but rather, that Jesus did not have a grave at which to worship him, the way heroes were typically worshipped in that day. Pilgrimmage to the "grave of Jesus" was thus precluded.

I do understand that experiencing firsthand the place where Jesus walked and talked might be a spiritual experience for many people, but it comes threateningly close to idolatry: it contributes to the overshadowing of his message with focus on him as an icon.
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In Hebrew, ha-satan means "the adversary."

Elaine Pagels argued in The Origin of Satan that the term evolved as the Tanakh was written so that by the time of Jesus it referred to the spirit of social discord. That is, Satan was not necessarily God's adversary, so much as Satan was the embodiment of adversity between people.

Jesus placed above all of the laws and commandments two which he called the greatest: to love God with all of one's heart, mind, and soul, and to love one's neighbor as oneself. If these principles indeed took center stage for Jesus, then that casts his workings against Satan in a new light. Satan is then his opponent not for opposing God but more for causing people to oppress and abuse one another.

Combine this with an argument i made in the past, that Jesus was far less concerned with the transgressions of ordinary people than he was with oppression and exploitation. In fact, to recast God's judgment so that it seems to be about everyday transgressions is to subvert and misappropriate the message of the prophets, who were concerned with social justice. It then becomes a tool of the oppressors, as many ex-Christians can tell you it was used against them to hound them into submission.

During the course of events in the early church 'heretics' were accused agents of discord and therefore were called antichrists or agents of Satan. This is further misappropriation: dissidence is not discord.

By this interpretation, then, to promote peace, understanding and togetherness, to promote justice and equality, no matter what your beliefs or background, is to be in accord with the wishes of God and Jesus, and to promote intolerance, discrimination, and abuse, to promote war and exploitation, is to be an agent of Satan.

It is more truly Satanic to misuse religious teachings to promote discrimination against or abuse of others than to commit individual transgressions.

In fact, Jesus gave special attention to those who take on the appearance of being righteous while acting as agents of Satan. This is why he gave so much of his scorn to hypocrites: he knew that this particular guise of Satan would be the hardest for people to see and understand.
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Who's going to Arisia?

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