Religions > Atheism > OT: Jesus Fucking Christ Shrub's Mindless {Bush White House checked with rapture Christians}
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"stoney" |
| Date: |
19 May 2004 12:03:56 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Jesus Fucking Christ Shrub's Mindless {Bush White House checked with rapture Christians} |
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/perlstein.php
Bush White House checked with rapture Christians
before latest Israel move
The Jesus Landing Pad
by Rick Perlstein
May 18th, 2004 10:00 AM
In Focus: George W. Bush
# The Painful Lessons of Abu Ghraib: Is This America? For Now, Maybe.
# The Divine Calm of George W. Bush So Iraq's a mess and half the
country hates you. Just keep praying.
# Mondo Washington: So Many Questions . . . . . . But where are the
answers? Bush and Cheney's private chat is a public disgrace.
# Get Back, Loretta Bush's rollback of women's rights
# Mondo Washington: The Royal Business In this slick little Bush family
saga, Bandar is the prince, and we're the paupers
See More ...
It was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our eyes were the
notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with
Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on
gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the
Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in
cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"—this to a
group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been
attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry
Potter. Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National
Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic
Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their
sectarian doomsday scenarios.
But now we know.
"Everything that you're discussing is information you're not supposed to
have," barked Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton when asked about the
off-the-record briefing his delegation received on March 25. Details of
that meeting appear in a confidential memo signed by Upton and obtained
by the Voice.
The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African
Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress
and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian
Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea
of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might
enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old
Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David's
temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.
Abrams attempted to assuage their concerns by stating that "the Gaza
Strip had no significant Biblical influence such as Joseph's tomb or
Rachel's tomb and therefore is a piece of land that can be sacrificed
for the cause of peace."
Three weeks after the confab, President George W. Bush reversed
long-standing U.S. policy, endorsing Israeli sovereignty over parts of
the West Bank in exchange for Israel's disengagement from the Gaza
Strip.
In an interview with the Voice, Upton denied having written the
document, though it was sent out from an e-mail account of one of his
staffers and bears the organization's seal, which is nearly identical to
the Great Seal of the United States. Its idiosyncratic grammar and
punctuation tics also closely match those of texts on the Apostolic
Congress's website, and Upton verified key details it recounted,
including the number of participants in the meeting ("45 ministers
including wives") and its conclusion "with a heart-moving send-off of
the President in his Presidential helicopter."
Upton refused to confirm further details.
Affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church, the Apostolic Congress is
part of an important and disciplined political constituency courted by
recent Republican administrations. As a subset of the broader Christian
Zionist movement, it has a lengthy history of opposition to any proposal
that will not result in what it calls a "one-state solution" in Israel.
The White House's association with the congress, which has just posted a
new staffer in Israel who may be running afoul of Israel's strict
anti-missionary laws, also raises diplomatic concerns.
The staffer, Kim Hadassah Johnson, wrote in a report obtained by the
Voice, "We are establishing the Meet the Need Fund in Israel—'MNFI.' . .
.. The fund will be an Interest Free Loan Fund that will enable us to
loan funds to new believers (others upon application) who need
assistance. They will have the opportunity to repay the loan (although
it will not be mandatory)." When that language was read to Moshe Fox,
minister for public and interreligious affairs at the Israeli Embassy in
Washington, he responded, "It sounds against the law which prohibits any
kind of money or material [inducement] to make people convert to another
religion. That's what it sounds like." (Fox's judgment was e-mailed to
Johnson, who did not return a request for comment.)
The Apostolic Congress dates its origins to 1981, when, according to its
website, "Brother Stan Wachtstetter was able to open the door to
Apostolic Christians into the White House." Apostolics, a sect of
Pentecostals, claim legitimacy as the heirs of the original church
because they, as the 12 apostles supposedly did, baptize converts in the
name of Jesus, not in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Ronald Reagan bore theological affinities with such Christians because
of his belief that the world would end in a fiery Armageddon. Reagan
himself referenced this belief explicitly a half-dozen times during his
presidency.
While the language of apocalyptic Christianity is absent from George W.
Bush's speeches, he has proven eager to work with apocalyptics—a point
of pride for Upton. "We're in constant contact with the White House," he
boasts. "I'm briefed at least once a week via telephone briefings. . . .
I was there about two weeks ago . . . At that time we met with the
president."
Last spring, after President Bush announced his Road Map plan for peace
in the Middle East, the Apostolic Congress co-sponsored an effort with
the Jewish group Americans for a Safe Israel that placed billboards in
23 cities with a quotation from Genesis ("Unto thy offspring will I give
this land") and the message, "Pray that President Bush Honors God's
Covenant with Israel. Call the White House with this message." It then
provided the White House phone number and the Apostolic Congress's Web
address.
In the interview with the Voice, Pastor Upton claimed personal
responsibility for directing 50,000 postcards to the White House
opposing the Road Map, which aims to create a Palestinian state. "I'm in
total disagreement with any form of Palestinian state," Upton said.
"Within a two-week period, getting 50,000 postcards saying the exact
same thing from places all over the country, that resonated with the
White House. That really caused [President Bush] to backpedal on the
Road Map."
When I sought to confirm Upton's account of the meeting with the White
House, I was directed to National Security Council spokesman Frederick
Jones, whose initial response upon being read a list of the names of
White House staffers present was a curt, "You know half the people you
just mentioned are Jewish?"
When asked for comment on top White House staffers meeting with
representatives of an organization that may be breaking Israeli law,
Jones responded, "Why would the White House comment on that?"
When asked whose job it is in the administration to study the Bible to
discern what parts of Israel were or weren't acceptable sacrifices for
peace, Jones said that his previous statements had been off-the-record.
When Pastor Upton was asked to explain why the group's website describes
the Apostolic Congress as "the Christian Voice in the nation's capital,"
instead of simply a Christian voice in the nation's capital, he
responded, "There has been a real lack of leadership in having someone
emerge as a Christian voice, someone who doesn't speak for the right,
someone who doesn't speak for the left, but someone who speaks for the
people, and someone who speaks from a theocratical perspective."
When his words were repeated back to him to make sure he had said a
"theocratical" perspective, not a "theological" perspective, he said,
"Exactly. Exactly. We want to know what God would have us say or what
God would have us do in every issue."
The Middle East was not the only issue discussed at the March 25
meeting. James Wilkinson, deputy national security advisor for
communications, spoke first and is characterized as stating that the
9-11 Commission "is portraying those who have given their all to protect
this nation as 'weak on terrorism,' " that "99 percent of all the men
and women protecting us in this fight against terrorism are career
citizens," and offered the example of Frances Town-send, deputy national
security adviser for combating terrorism, "who sacrificed Christmas to
do a 'security video' conference."
Tim Goeglein, deputy director of public liaison and the White House's
point man with evangelical Christians, moderated, and he also spoke on
the issue of same-sex marriage. According to the memo, he asked the
rhetorical questions: "What will happen to our country if that actually
happens? What do those pushing such hope to gain?" His answer: "They
want to change America." How so? He quoted the research of Hoover
Institute senior fellow Stanley Kurtz, who holds that since gay marriage
was legalized in Scandinavia, marriage itself has virtually ceased to
exist. (In fact, since Sweden instituted a registered-partnership law
for same-sex couples in the mid '90s, there has been no overall change
in the marriage and divorce rates there.)
It is Matt Schlapp, White House political director and Karl Rove's chief
lieutenant, who was paraphrased as stating "that the Presidents
Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural,
economical, and social struggle on every level."
Also present at the meeting was Kristen Silverberg, deputy assistant to
the president for domestic policy. (None of the participants responded
to interview requests.)
The meeting was closed by Goeglein, who was asked, "What can we do to
assist in this fight for these issues and our nations [sic] foundation
and values?" and who reportedly responded, "Pray, pray, pray, pray."
The Apostolic Congress's representative in Israel, Kim Johnson, is
ethnically Jewish, keeps kosher, and holds herself to the sumptuary
standards of Orthodox Jewish women, so as to better blend in to her
surroundings.
In one letter home obtained by the Voice she notes that many of the
Apostolic Christians she works with in Israel are Filipino women
"married to Jewish men—who on occasion accompany their wives to
meetings. We are planning to start a fellowship with this select group
where we can meet for dinners and get to know one another. Please Pray
for the timing and formation of such." Elsewhere she talks of a
discussion with someone "on the pitfalls and aggravations of Christians
who missionize Jews." She works often among the Jewish poor—the kind of
people who might be interested in interest-free loans—and is thrilled to
"meet the outcasts of this Land—how wonderful because they are in the
in-casts for His Kingdom."
An ecstatic figure who from her own reports appears to operate at the
edge of sanity ("Two of the three nights in my apartment I have been
attacked by a hair raising spirit of fear," she writes, noting the
sublet contained a Harry Potter book; "at this time I am associating it
with witchcraft"), Johnson has also met with Knesset member Gila
Gamliel. (Gamliel did not respond to interview requests.) She also
boasted of an imminent meeting with a "Knesset leader."
"At this point and for all future mails it is important for me to note
that this country has very stiff anti-missionary laws," she warns the
followers back home. [D]iscretion is required in all mails. This is
particularly important to understand when people write mails or ask
about organization efforts regarding such."
Her boss, Pastor Upton, displays a photograph on the Apostolic Congress
website of a meeting between himself and Beny Elon, Prime Minister
Sharon's tourism minister, famous in Israel for his advocacy of the
expulsion of Palestinians from Israeli-controlled lands.
His spokesman in the U.S., Ronn Torassian, affirmed that "Minister Elon
knows Mr. Upton well," but when asked whether he is aware that Mr.
Upton's staffer may be breaking Israel's anti-missionary laws, snapped:
"It's not something he's interested in discussing with The Village
Voice."
In addition to its work in Israel, the Apostolic Congress is part of the
increasingly Christian public face of pro-Israel activities in the
United States. Don Wagner, author of the book Anxious for Armageddon,
has been studying Christian Zionism for 15 years, and believes that the
current hard-line pro-Israel movement in the U.S. is "predominantly
gentile." Often, devotees work in concert with Jewish groups like
Americans for a Safe Israel, or AFSI, which set up a mostly Christian
Committee for a One-State Solution as the sponsor of last year's
billboard campaign. The committee's board included, in addition to
Upton, such evangelical luminaries as Gary Bauer and E.E. "Ed" McAteer
of the Religious Roundtable.
AFSI's executive director, Helen Freedman, confirms the increasingly
Christian cast of her coalition. "We have many good Jews, of course,"
she says, "but they're in the minority." She adds, "The liberal Jew is
unable to believe the Arab when he says his goal is to Islamize the
West. . . . But I believe it. And evangelical Christians believe it."
Of Jews who might otherwise support her group's view of Jews' divine
right to Israel, she laments, "They're embarrassed about quoting the
Bible, about referring to the Covenant, about talking about the Promised
Land."
Pastor Upton is not embarrassed, and Helen Freedman is proud of her
association with him. She is wistful when asked if she, like Upton, has
been able to finagle a meeting with the president. "Pastor Upton is the
head of a whole Apostolic Congress," she laments. "It's a nationwide
group of evangelicals."
Upton has something Freedman covets: a voting bloc.
She laughs off concerns that, for Christian Zionists, actual Jews living
in Israel serve as mere props for their end-time scenario: "We have a
different conception of what [the end of the world] will be like . . .
Whoever is right will rejoice, and whoever was wrong will say, 'Whoops!'
"
She's not worried, either, about evangelical anti-Semitism: "I don't
think it exists," she says. She does say, however, that it would concern
her if she learned the Apostolic Congress had a representative in Israel
trying to win converts: "If we discovered that people were trying to
convert Jews to Christianity, we would be very upset."
Kim Johnson doesn't call it converting Jews to Christianity. She calls
it "Circumcision of the Heart"—a spiritual circumcision Jews must
undergo because, she writes in paraphrase of Jeremiah, chapter 9, "God
will destroy all the uncircumcised nations along with the House of
Israel, because the House of Israel is uncircumcised in the heart . . .
[I]t is through the Gospel . . . that men's hearts are circumcised."
Apostolics believe that only 144,000 Jews who have not, prior to the
Second Coming of Christ, acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah will be saved
in the end times. Though even for those who do not believe in this
literal interpretation of the Bible—or for anyone who lives in Israel,
or who cares about Israel, or whose security might be affected by a
widespread conflagration in the Middle East, which is everyone—the
scriptural prophecies of the Christian Zionists should be the least of
their worries.
Instead, we should be worried about self-fulfilling prophecies.
"Biblically," stated one South Carolina minister in support of the
anti-Road Map billboard campaign, "there's always going to be a war."
Don Wagner, an evangelical, worries that in the Republican Party, people
who believe this "are dominating the discourse now, in an election
year." He calls the attempt to yoke Scripture to current events "a
modern heresy, with cultish proportions.
"I mean, it's appalling," he rails on. "And it also shows how
marginalized mainstream Christian thinking, and the majority of
evangelical thought, have become."
It demonstrates, he says, "the absolute convergence of the
neoconservatives with the Christian Zionists and the pro-Israel lobby,
driving U.S. Mideast policy."
The problem is not that George W. Bush is discussing policy with people
who press right-wing solutions to achieve peace in the Middle East, or
with devout Christians. It is that he is discussing policy with
Christians who might not care about peace at all—at least until the
rapture.
The Jewish pro-Israel lobby, in the interests of peace for those living
in the present, might want to consider a disengagement.
(c) 2004 Village Voice
Stoney
"Designated Rascal and Rapscallion
and
SCAMPERMEISTER!"
When in doubt, SCAMPER about!
When things are fair, SCAMPER everywhere!
When things are rough, can't SCAMPER enough!
/end humour alert
alt.atheism military veteran #11
{so much for the 'no atheists in foxholes' rubbish}
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| User: "SMChristenson" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Jesus Fucking Christ Shrub's Mindless {Bush White House checked with rapture Christians} |
19 May 2004 08:10:18 AM |
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On Tue, 18 May 2004 22:03:56 -0700, stoney wrote:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/perlstein.php
Bush White House checked with rapture Christians
before latest Israel move
Why am I not surprised?
Why would anybody be surprised that Colin Powell is turning over when he
heads a State Department nobody is using?
I suppose Dubya wouldn't let Pickles have an astrologer like Nancy Reagan?
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Jesus Fucking Christ Shrub's Mindless {Bush White House checked with rapture Christians} |
19 May 2004 02:03:27 PM |
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On Wed, 19 May 2004 08:10:18 -0500, SMChristenson <smchris@visi.com>,
Message ID: <pan.2004.05.19.13.10.17.632356@visi.com> wrote in
alt.atheism;
On Tue, 18 May 2004 22:03:56 -0700, stoney wrote:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0420/perlstein.php
Bush White House checked with rapture Christians
before latest Israel move
Why am I not surprised?
I suspect most are very unsurprised.
Why would anybody be surprised that Colin Powell is turning over when he
heads a State Department nobody is using?
Rice, Powell, a bunch of others are merely decorative 'fronts' while
others are doing the actual jobs.
I suppose Dubya wouldn't let Pickles have an astrologer like Nancy Reagan?
That would be a helluva, imo, hefty upgrade from current.
Stoney
"Designated Rascal and Rapscallion
and
SCAMPERMEISTER!"
When in doubt, SCAMPER about!
When things are fair, SCAMPER everywhere!
When things are rough, can't SCAMPER enough!
/end humour alert
alt.atheism military veteran #11
{so much for the 'no atheists in foxholes' rubbish}
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