The recent issue of ELCA’s denominational magazine reports that organizers of a Lutheran-sponsored conference explicitly chose to not invite Israelis to an event where a Hamas-supported politician – Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh – condemned Israel’s security barrier.
CAMERA asked the Christian Century to correct the errors of its longtime columnist. The magazine's editor and publisher, Rev. John M. Buchanan, refused.
During the 2006 holiday season, Israel's Christian critics used Bethlehem, the scene of Jesus's birth, as a centerpiece for a distorted narrative that portrays Israel as an aggressor nation and the Palestinians as blameless victims.In a piece defending Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Rev. James Wall, senior contributing editor of Christian Century, fails to disclose that he ran the former president’s political campaigns in Illinois during the 1976 and 1980 elections.
The Episcopal Church's Executive Committee approved a resolution urging Hamas to acknowledge Israel's right to exist and to abide by previous agreements, but distortions remain on the church Web Site.James M. Wall, star columnist for Christian Century, the house organ for mainline Protestantism in the U.S., downplays Hamas rejectionism when he insists Israel and the United States should accept Hamas's hudna at face value.The Episcopal Church's leaders and constitutive bodies routinely issue one-sided anti- Israel statements, and church publications portray Israel as exclusively responsible for violence in the region. The church has also provided substantial support for anti-Israel activists in both the U.S. and the Middle East. Its so-called peace activism amounts to an ad hoc anti-Israel media campaign that serves to delegitimize Israel's rightful place amongst the nations of the world.