April 25, 2007
Pastor Mac Hammond
Living Word Christian Center
9201 75th Ave N
Brooklyn Park, MN 55428
Ph: (763) 315-7000
info@lwcc.org
PROJECT STRAIT GATE will soon hold a vigil at your church.
Dear Pastor Hammond:
Project Strait Gate will hold a Vigil for Peace With Justice outside Living Word Christian Center on the morning of April 29, 2007. You may learn about our Vigils by touring our Project Strait Gate website www.whtt.org We are not mass demonstrators, but are quiet and respectful and aim our information at your attendees, not at passing traffic. Please feel invited to come out and meet us on the public right of ways, or contact me in advance if you have questions.
We are choosing Living Word because we already know it is, sadly, an apostate church. We know this because you have invited John Hagee to use your good name and facilities for purposes that would cause Jesus to turn over many churches, as he once turned over the tables in the corrupt temple. John Hagee and Christians United For Israel stand for war, even nuclear war. He has openly called for preemptive bombing of Iran, and he supports Israel’s 58 year-old inhuman occupation of its neighbors.
Project Strait Gate s purpose is to influence fellow Christ-followers to oppose continued slaughter in the Middle East based not on secular conclusions, but on Jesus’ words. Neither John Hagee nor you can have any answer to Jesus’ clear statements, one of which is:
BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS
Among the tragic deaths are over 3300 of our own men, with 25,000 of them wounded and maimed. We have no choice but to hold churches responsible for their role in enabling these false “wars.” Christians in places like Lebanon and Gaza are among the victims.
Worse yet from Christ s point of view, we now know our professional military has been trained in the ugly art of mass execution and torture. Our society will live with the permanent aftereffects of training 500,000 men and women to kill (some even to torture) without remorse. And can anyone deny that the para-military slaughters at Columbine high and Virginia Tech U, are related to war training of young people to kill other humans without remorse? Even video games, not to mention Fox Network’s “24” depict the murder of Arabs “terrorist.”
Worse than the horrors of Iraq, is the undeniable fact that leaders of churches…including Living Word Community Church are tacit enablers, if not overt supporters, of Israel’s 59-year occupations of Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. This is where your guest speaker, John Hagee loses his reason. The most ungodly damage done by mass execution is the destructive affect upon Christianity itself, making “Christianity” a laughing stock religion worldwide…the religion of the Warmakers. The war-enabling church is apostate, and we see it as an insult to the name of Christ. Jesus is the peacemaker. He bombs no one. One sign in front of Living Word will read:
APOSTATE CHURCH
Christ Followers Do Not Kill
I would welcome dialog with you personally and invite you to call me, as other pastors have done. I would like to know your personal views and if you are in any way rethinking your interpretations of “end times” prophesy and the state of Israel? The defining questions are:
1) Is Israel a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy?
2) (Assuming you say “yes”) is there anything that Israel could do to its neighbors that would cause you to change your mind about supporting it?
Pastor Hammond, a wise man told me in my youth that the acts of the man at the bottom reflect the thoughts of the man at the top. Our own military’s inconceivable acts of brutality and cowardice, such as the torture at Guantanamo and the murder and rape at Abu-Ghraib, are a reflection of the will and desire of our leaders at the top. Those who go to your church need to be told something is very wrong there. We believe that if a thing is wrong one should act like its wrong.
Race hatred in church starts with distorted End Times prophecy that God holds Israelis (or any Jew) to be more precious in his sight than the rest of us, especially Muslims. You cannot teach that God granted the Philistines’ land to present day political Israel without causing belief that Israelis have a right to kill Palestinians, destroy their homes, and drive them out. Richard L. Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention, stated this awful apostasy: “It’s God s way or the highway.”
Israel’s progressive assassination finally resulted in killing a 68-year old Palestinian grandmother a few weeks ago to prevent her from delivering a human bomb to an Israeli Military post. This woman s son was previously shot to death; another son crippled and in a wheel chair; the family’s home had already been deliberately destroyed, and finally it was the grandmother’s turn to die fighting for a little bit of dignity. The following week Israelis in tanks shelled and killed four women, wounding many others. These women were surrounding a Mosque inside Jambalaya camp in Gaza to protect those inside with their bodies.
Pastor, do you know what a flechette round full of steel darts does to the body of a child or a woman? These acts are not flukes, or accidents, the Israelis John Hagee extols and literally worships routinely shoot children who throw rocks. Over 300 women and children are prisoners held without charge in Israel. Pastor Hammond, Israel could not get away with one of these acts without the unequivocal support of churches like yours! You are personally responsible. You may not have known this when you started the church as a young man, but you must know it now.
Scripturally there is no more reason to support Israeli Jews than Muslim Arabs. They are all, according to a missionary named Paul, ” one in Christ Jesus and heirs to the promise,” if and when each one believes. Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise to Abram, not a political State of Israel created by man in 1947. As long as you deny this you will be an enabler of death and destruction.
Churches like Living Word Community must turn, or “burn” in the scriptural sense. In the last election the first signs of “turning” came through loud and clear. Evangelical leaders stood by the “Bush family war” in lock step; but in spite of their leaders, a very substantial percentage of Evangelical laymen turned against the war in November. This change was enough to account for the overwhelming swing in the election. We covered these results in our story, Post election query: Is the Christian Right seeking the Way? (Note 3)
Pastor Hammond, we want to be on the strait path together, but Living Word Community Church cannot be a peacemaker church unless you change. The purpose of Project Strait Gate is not to change your congregation or to take them away from you, but to call out to those whom God has already changed and who think they are alone inside Living Word Community Church. They will awaken with or without you, why don’t you lead them?
It is not too late to cancel John Hagee’s visit. But you can’t take back his words after it happens on April 29; it is then too late to stop the damage. I once felt alone in my church before I walked out. I want to convince you to change before the brightest and best in your congregation awaken one by one.
I would welcome dialog with you personally and invite you to call me, as other pastors have done. I would like to know why you committed your church to the work of CUFI?
Toward the Strait Gate,
Charles E. Carlson
Stan Jakubowski
Endnote 1) Vigils in Motion: Announcing a Series: Vigils for Peace with Justice at Christian Coalition for Israel Night of Honor for Israel
https://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=1294
Endnote 2) Post Election Query: Is the Christian Right seeking the Way?
https://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=1079
Endnote 3) Christian Zionism’s Roots: Audio/video (www.whtt.org/show
Endnote 1) God’s Terrible Law that Judeo-Christians Break
https://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=998
