What's stopping them? The 15 million+ Israelis and Jews alive today or the powerful, politically-connected 70 million Evangelicals in the US with 600+ million followers world-wide?
Are Evangelicals waiting on God to break the peace or is God waiting on the Evangelicals?
“Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.”
Aleksandr L Solzhenitsyn reminds the best and the worst of us: “… truth eludes us as soon as our concentration begins to flag, all the while leaving the illusion that we are continuing to pursue it. This is the source of much discord. Also, truth seldom is sweet; it is almost invariably bitter."
To paraphrase Solzhenitsyn, I am sharing with you a measure of bitter truth. ‘Christian Zionism … Enraptured Around a Golden Calf’ hopes to guide Christians back to the Land Without Borders.
So often, we navigate the highways of life, thinking we’re on the right track, only to discover we’re about to hit a brick wall. To reset our coordinates, we rely on tools, like a hammer to smoothen our dents caused by the many bumps on the road.
Some pick up their hammers to shatter glass, to harm, injure and destroy.
Others work their hammers to forge steel, to shape something that lasts.
It's a love feast sharing this theo-geo-political eye-opener expounded with compassion, common sense and conviction; sprinkled with lots of personal anecdotes; and, amplified with 500+ quotations, excerpts and testimonials, including more than 150 biblical references.
I look forward responding to your reaction. With every good wish to you, dear reader, I am,
Abraham A. van Kempen
A Word from Saint Pope John Paul II
"Prayer is not only speaking but, above all, listening." 7 Then a cloud appeared and covered them with its shadow, and a voice came from the cloud, “This is my own dear Son—listen to him! (Mark 9: 7 Good News Translation GNT)”
Dedicated to All Our Children ...
Our Children ... Jewels More Precious Than Stone
My wife and children and the Staff of the Building the Bridge Foundation, The Hague, join me in dedicating this work to all the children in the Region. Too many are now imprisoned. Too many are being emotionally, mentally and spiritually molested. Too many kids are killed, beaten, and kidnapped. Our future generation should be in school, not foregoing their optimism, innocence, and youth in tyrannical and exploitive military jails.
Some slap a soldier in the face. Others throw stones. Many are in jail for no reason at all, other than they fit the profile, not necessarily the crime; or, their brother or sister might just have been picked up.
If the baseball pitcher in Yankee Stadium throws a stone, it is lethal. But kids? Israeli Journalist Larry Derfner reports that 99 percent of the time, stones thrown by kids, land on other stones, on the street or against a building. If, in the most unlikely event, a stone strikes a soldier, rest assured the soldier wears riot gear, protected with a helmet and a bulletproof vest.
Nonetheless, their reprisals are 1,000 Eyes for 1 Eye.
On the other side are children who do not know better. They follow in the footsteps of their role models. They, too, are traumatized for life.
We dedicate our work to all children, the future of our planet, especially those who are presently in anguish, separated from their parents, because of a regime that knows not better. They fix blame rather than fix problems. Isn't it time to unbridle our moral imagination?
Our hearts are with all the children, everywhere.
In Search of ...
Preface
Would an extra-terrestrial, an alien from outer space, eyeing from afar, view Evangelicals as more focused on Israel than on Christ, glorifying Judaism as much as Christianity, if not more?
“It is Biblical,” I hear Evangelicals tell me here in Bible Belt USA1, our winter home in the sun, where I’m piloting impromptu get-togethers to explore and grapple, examine and scrutinize, probe and grasp the question: “Is the Israeli-Palestinian Quest to Co-Exist God’s will, or not?”
As a Jew, born on the outskirts of Israel-Palestine, I feel challenged with what I’m doing and feel blessed being in the land of the blind where the one with one eye is king. And to quote my friends in Ghana, "one with one eye shouldn't play with sand ... " Even one granule of sand could temporarily blind one with one eye.
“Folks,” I’d like to start our talks with: “where and what is the Promised Land”?
“Israel,” everyone says almost unanimously.
“OK, fair enough, that’s what is said in the Old Testament … But how do Jesus and the Apostles define the ‘Promised Land’ … what does Jesus say about the Promised Land?”
Quiet! Everyone is trying to all at once come up with the proverbial answer, realizing it’s got to be one of those obvious pieces to the puzzle … but they’re stuck in their thoughts.
After a few moments, I break through the silence with:
“Dear people, you all know the answer. You’ve learned it since Sunday school. The ‘Promised Land’ depicted in the New Testament, told by Jesus Christ, the Messiah, God in the flesh is, are you ready … the Spiritual Kingdom of God; and, can anyone tell me, where are the borders of this spiritual Promised Land?”
“None,” says the youngest kid in the room.
“The Deed of Trust of your Promised Land, the Spiritual kingdom of God is vested in the New Testament, set in blood on Calvary2. You know what I’m getting at, don’t you?”
You almost have got to be a Jew to understand Christianity. Salvation is so much more than a mere ticket to heaven before death. Eternity starts at the moment of your salvation. From that moment on, you’re enveloped in the spiritual kingdom of God with God’s Holy Spirit residing inside your soul, your being, your consciousness, your conscience.
And, how has this come about … God basically decrees, there’s no way that mankind can live up to the Law of Moses.