A one-time dear friend of mine sent me the following links as “must watch!” They make me weep inwardly.
1. Christian Palestinianism from the 2011 Berean Call Conference
Paul Wilkinson is a soft-spoken, gentle young English junior pastor of a small Church near Manchester. His voice and attitude is very compelling (although speaking in the US and dressed for the part). He seems sincere and humble, genuinely convinced of his position.
But his stance – addressing equally entrenched Dispensationalists – exploits subtle intonation with strategic pauses after quoting words like “ecumenical”, “inter-faith”, “Christian Palestinian”, “Rome”, “Jewish Apartheid”, “so-called Evangelical”, making it clear that the persons in question are automatically disqualified as satanic heretics, without for a moment giving honest consideration to their point of view. In fact, he doesn’t bring any arguments at all, neither biblical nor political, just innuendo and suggestion, merely waving a Bible in the air.
He claims he’s not trying to pick a fight nor to get into politics. But he seems unequivocally to reject all Palestinians (and all Muslims), showing not the slightest indication of concern for them, let alone love. And he manages to throw all peace-loving, justice-seeking Christians with an ear for the Palestinian plight into the same pot with Arafat, Hamas and Ahmadinejad, etc. He scathes against people I deeply respect, like John Calvin, Desmond Tutu, Elias Chacour, N.T. Wright, Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo, etc., accusing them of Replacement Theology (although he admits they call it Fulfilment Theology), and unashamedly bases his position entirely on Darby and Scofield.
The worst is the horrible and totally unfounded title “Chrislam”.
This is scarcely disguised subliminal Republican election propaganda! Merged with insiduous hate-mongery.
David Wood comes on as extremely arrogant and complacent, presenting his personal interpretation of a few koranic suwar and his personal analysis of islamic strategy, which he claims to be so clear that a six-year old would understand. The whole account sounds tragically like a childish imitation of Church history.
I suppose I need to see/listen to such things so that I know what’s going on in this world, but they make me weep inwardly. Why do we Christians spend so much effort on infighting instead of following Jesus, loving the lost, and even one another? One of the founders of the Berean Call, Dave Hunt, is a man I used to have fellowship with years ago, and highly respected. Why? Why? Why?