ISRAEL : THE JESUS LANDING PAD
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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 Solomon's temple
rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.'>
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
The Village Voice, May 18th, 2004 10:00 AM
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 Solomon'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.