Money power from above, voting power from below
A look at American Israeli Public Affairs Committee\’s (AIPAC) website, reveals that Israel is selling war at the Washington DC Convention Center on the first week in March. Every front page story is about war against Iran, except one that is against Palestinian statehood. AIPAC is in Washington to get Americans to pay for its war of choice upon its distant neighbor that just happens to produce a great deal of oil.
Our American president will address this foreign lobby. Newt Gingrich and many members of Congress will also be there. Is AIPAC a danger to world peace? Sure it is.
A second danger to world peace is the Christian Zionist churches that are selling their congregations on the need to finance Israel\’s wars. (1)
Zionist Christianity has some 70 million Americans under its influence; it is AIPAC\’s trump card. We, who claim to follow Christ, must examine the forces that are deliberately pushing for war; we must know why and how they do it, and we must figure out how we can generate peace else we will be locked into in unending wars. Can\’t happen? The USA first attacked Iraq 21 years ago! Can we afford AIPAC and Christian Zionism?
We asked our Christian pastor and writer friends in the DC area to name the most influential, Zionist Christian, mega church. They named Pastor Lon Solomon\’s McLean Bible Church, located in Vienna, Virginia, about fifteen miles northeast of the Washington Convention Center where AIPAC will meet on Sunday, and where hundreds of protesters calling themselves “Occupy AIPAC” will picket.
But hours earlier on that day, in front of Pastor Solomon’s giant church in Vienna, WHTT"S Project Strait Gate will confront and challenge some 13,000 members of his congregation. We will appeal to the good sense of those congregants, who are being indoctrinated with Zionism and Pastor Solomon\’s own personal "Messianic Christianity."
Solomon’s congregation members are family oriented, racially mixed, businessmen, academics, and university educated, federal employees. His sermons are controlled and moderate, by comparison to Christian Zionists like John Hagee & Benny Hinn. He is awaiting a "rapture" to take him and his congregation to Heaven, but he does not claim earthy, health miracle cures, as Bennie Hinn does; he does not pray for war, or, as far as I know, ask his followers to blow Israeli horns at the start of service or sing Jewish ethnic songs, as burlesque- like John Hagee does. * ( Hagee/Hinn)
First and foremost, Pastor Solomon tells everyone he is a Jew who was rescued from a hippy past by Christianity. He preaches against Islam, but he does not scream or demand that his followers burn the Qur\’an, as Terry Jones in Florida did. Pastor Solomon is polished, intelligent, and smooth. He sells Zionist Christianity like Geico sells insurance, with humor and geniality.
Solomon bends the Bible cleverly to his Zionist needs; he teaches that the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy; one detects a holy connection. In Solomon’s Zionist Christianity, the political state that is peddling war and controlling America through AIPAC and other lobbies, is the same "tribe of Israel" named after Abraham\’s grandson three thousand years ago. Lon teaches the land God gave Abraham then, now belongs to today’s Jews in the state of Israel, never mind the UN mandate in 1948.
The only record of there ever being an "Abraham" is in the book of Genesis, referred to in later books of the Hebrew bible, none of which were written down until a thousand years after Abraham is supposed to have lived. Abraham only exists as a matter of faith in the minds of a billion or so Christians. Christ followers do not require proof he lived, because we do not use the tale to claim the property of others. Only Christian Zionists do that.
Here are a few quotes from one of Solomon\’s sermon\’s notes entitled, "The Life of Moses, The Origin of the Jewish People, Gen. 12, 1-9," dated October 16, 2005.
Two major headings of Solomon\’s sermon notes were:
1. "How the Jewish people came into being"
2. "How the Promised Land became their inheritance"… "the origin of the Jewish People all start with a man named Abraham"
We are told in these few words that the "Jews" of today are the same lineage as those in Abraham\’s time, and that God gave the land of the Philistines to the present day state of Israel, which Lon assumes are Abraham\’s "seed."
Solomon continues with six headings listing the promises God made to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12:1-3. The last three are:
"v-3, all the people of the earth will be blessed through you"
"v-7, to your offspring I will give this land"
"v-3, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you."
It is important to note Solomon believes God blessed is imputed to today\’s political Israel. He does not say why the alleged promises to Abraham and “his seed,” as the King James Bible words it, would accrue to himself or today’s Jews in Palestine. The United Nations divided the land more or less 50-50, but AIPAC and Solomon justify taking the other half by force, based on this "Abrahamic covenant" from Genesis.
Solomon teaches (in his notes) that God\’s ancient curses and blessings apply to states that did not exist when Abraham, or even Jesus, lived: among those he claims are cursed by God are "the Pharaohs of Egypt, the Philistines, Haman (from the book of Esther) Spain, Russia under the Tzars and Russia under Communism, and Hitler." among the blessed are "Persians, Alexander the Great, and the USA." Needless to say, Solomon has put his own spin on the words from the Christian Bible. Note "Philistine" is the Arab word for Palestine.
Solomon claimed God blessed the "Persians," but what he would say today, is probably quite different. If Iran is, in fact, "blessed by God," it would be blasphemy for Solomon to join AIPAC in wanting to destroy Iran! But, since Israel wants to bomb Iran and Israel is holy, to Solomon, a preemptive strike by the US or Israel on the people of Iran is justifiable. Solomon must have overcome his former belief that the Iranians are blessed by God. This makes an interesting point, Christian Zionists modify their concepts of history to meet the needs of their sermons; they rewrite history to conform to their ideas of Bible prophesy. Sadly, most would vote to bomb Iran without giving a thought to the human and financial cost.
The Israel-first politicians attend AIPAC conferences to ensure Jewish donations to their campaigns base. Solomon\’s claim that Jews own the land of the Philistines based upon Bible revisions, going back to Cyrus Scofield, John Nelson Darby, and others in the evangelical movement in the 19th Century. It is easy to see from reading Lon Solomon\’s quotes that he gets most of his ideas on Scripture from the Zionist, Scofield Reference Bible, 1967 edition, which, on page 19, interprets Genesis 12, in the footnotes:
"2) That God made an unconditional promise… to the present day nation of Israel to inherit a specific land territory forever…"
(Therefore the Palestinians have no claim to any land upon which they live)
"3) God made a promise of blessing on individuals and nations who bless Abram\’s descendants, and a curse laid on those who persecute the Jews…"
There is not a scrap of first hand witness, physical evidence, archeological or DNA evidence that proves “Abraham” was more real than a character in a folk tale. Not one delegate at AIPAC can prove a drop of blood or strand of DNA in common with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Joseph, etc. Israeli scholars, including Professor Shlomo Sands, in "The Invention of the Jewish People," join those of us with simple common sense in saying there is no connection between biblical Israel and today’s state of Israel, 2-3000 years apart. Pastor Solomon’s legitimization of AIPAC and Israeli land theft makes him dangerous to every Palestinian child who wants to grow up free, and, to every member of his congregation that might have become a follower of Jesus, the Peacemaker, instead.
Traditional Christianity abhors wars and killing and respects legal and just property and human rights. The words of Jesus tell us over and over again that: Christ is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, and Jesus does not share that throne with Israel or the USA or any other man-made government; land changes hands by acts of men (some of whom are violent), and God is not in the real estate business; Jesus said he would judge each man, never did He say he would judge countries, tribes, states, or churches, and finally, Jesus is a peacemaker, never a warmaker.
Christ Following includes the teachings of Jesus plus the first 10 commandments. Jesus added only one more,"Love your brother…even your enemy." We do not require hard evidence to prove it, belief comes only from faith, which is why it is called a "faith."
Lon Solomon claims to be both a Jew and a Christian. If he lived in Israel today as a Christian, could other Jews kick him out of his home as they do to Palestinian Christians when they want their land for a "settlement"? Or, if he lived as an ethnic Jew, could he invoke the Abrahamic covenant, claim to be the "seed" of Abraham, and kick out Christians who happen to be Arabs? Which would Pastor Solomon choose to be, a Jew or a Christian? Both? In fact one can not be both in Gods kingdom any more than you can be both in AIPAC\’S Kingdom.
"Messianic" or Jewish Christians, are the the ultimate Christian Zionists. As Caesar Aharon, a Jew by history, and a true Christ follower once said, "Messianic Jews run churches whose attendees are largely Christian, and who are slowly converted to a form of Judaism." He might have said "converted to Christian Zionism", but the term was not in wide use then.
Pastor Solomon writes in The Life of Moses, The Origin of the Jewish People, dated October 16, 2005, that God cursed a man called Haman. He is found in he Hebrew book of Esther, which is the basis of the Jewish celebration of Purim. But the name of God is not even mentioned in the book of Esther, and the celebration of Purim celebrates the "Jewish" murder by hanging of Haman and his 12 sons. What civilized people would hang the children of an enemy. Judaism fashions a national holiday around the event?
The book of Esther and the celebration of Purim is good reason to understand why Talmudic Judaism plus Jesus does not equal Christianity, as Messianic Christians like Lon Solomon would have us believe. Instead, Judaism is corrupted Israelite-ism, which is what Jesus said and why Christ Followers believe God sent Jesus. It is corrupted by 30 or 40 books called the Talmud, with entangled rules that no one person can understand.
Traditional Christianity is also corrupted by the 1908 Scofield Reference Bible footnotes, and by many other books written by various men. Can two wrongs combined make a right? Corrupted "Israelite-ism" plus corrupted "Christianity," as combined in the Messianic Christian church by Pastor Solomon, can not produce truth. This is why Project Strait Gate is challenging McLean Bible Church on Sunday, March 4.
A recent Poll by The Hill found that 49% of Americans who are likely to vote, think war on Iran is justifiable to keep it from getting nukes; all AIPAC has to do is convince a majority that Iran is trying to get fuel for nuclear weapons, and war against Iran will have the support of a simple majority. Who are these warring 49%? You may depend upon this: the majority is influenced by hundreds of Christian Zionists like Lon Solomon.
AIPAC FOR WAR
Video: Christian Zionists: Praying For War
The John Hagee by Jewish Voice for Peace
The Unacceptable Cost of Judeo-Christianity, Its Legacy of Pain By Charles E Carlson
Pastor Lon Solomon The Life of Moses: The Origin of the Jewish People, dated October 16, 2005, PDF Sermon Notes
Pastor Solomon 2/1/1991 Islam
Pastor Solomon: 11/11/01, Armageddon (coming of state of Israel, rapture) Jerusalem in the hands of the Jewish people.
