November 30, 2006
Pastor Jack Hayford
The Church on the Way
14300 Sherman Way
Van Nuys, CA 91405
Dear Pastor Hayford:
Project Strait Gate will hold a Vigil for Peace With Justice outside your church on the morning of December 3. You may learn about our Vigils by touring our website. As you will learn we are not mass demonstrations, but are quiet and respectful and aim our information at your attendees, not at passing traffic. (1)
Project Strait Gate s purpose is to influence fellow Christ-followers to oppose continued slaughter in the Middle East. Americans are among the victims of the war every day. Worse, from a follower of Christ s point of view, we now know our professional military has been trained in the art of many unChrist-like acts. “War” is better described as mass execution, and has become unthinkably evil. There is no need to detail it here. Worse, if possible, than torture and mass executions, leaders of churches…including Church on the Way are undeniable tacit enablers, if not overt supporters, of Israel’s present occupations of Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.
The most ungodly damage done by mass execution is the destructive effect on Christianity itself, making “Christian” a laughing stock word worldwide. The warmaking church is an apostasy and an insult to the name of Christ. Jesus is the peacemaker. He bombs no one.
Project Strait Gate has learned that yours is a prophecy church. We also assume that you believe Jesus Beatitude, and you would likely assert you do not openly support war in Iraq. Although I know you have retired as the Senior Pastor at The Church on the Way, you are still are very influential. 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? The defining questions are:
1) Is Israel a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy?
2) (Assuming “yes”) Is there anything that Israel could do to its neighbors that would cause you to change your mind?
Consider Lebanon where the Israeli press reports 20 civilians have died since Israel withdrew, and of wounds from unexposed cluster bombs that went off when stepped on or picked up.
Sadly, your interpretation of prophesy leads to, and in fact calls for, the oppression of Arab people whenever it is in the political State of Israel s interest to do so. Your congregation has been taught to accept it. As one example, Charisma Magazine carries the following statement by Jack Hayford:
“I don t mean how you read the prophetic handbook,” he said. “I mean recognizing that this is a moment that God is at work in our world. It s manifest first in the recovery of Israel, the challenge to that recovery by hostile forces that are more than political forces. They clearly are spiritual forces that are antichrist-nourished, antichrist in spirit.”
This says the “hostile forces” that support the Arab s right to live are anti-Christian. We Hold These Truths says you have this exactly backwards. Such statements can only spawn racial hatred, death and worst of all, rejection of the true words of Christ, and this is happening in epidemic fashion worldwide. The growth of Church on the Way is not a measure of how well people understand Jesus words.
One of our teams members reported a remark by a Church on the Way member in response to his offhand comment about the bloodbath from the US initiated civil war in Iraq, to which she responded: “we need to kill more Iraqis”. I do not blame Church on the Way for every bloody remark spouted by your members, but we find support for this ladies ideas in the teachings of Church on the Way. In our many vigils across the country we have learned that the ideas of the pastors show up in the remarks of the members.
A former Marine, a Promise Keepers volunteer at an extravaganza, told me whatever the Israelis do to the “Philistines” is justified by the Biblical accounts in the Old Testament where “God told the Israelis to spare no one to cleanse the land of all living things.” This man means the Arabs, and firmly believes (or rationalizes) that “End Times” Bible prophecies justify his every military act in Iraq, including his own. There, he told me, he was part of the armored battalion called Desert Storm. They slaughtered an entire entrapped army of Iraq s youth in a few days. Then they plowed the evidence, including live men, under the sands of Kuwait with specially built snowplows mounted on tanks. This Marine tried to tell me the Muslims practice is to use their children as shields. I had to call him a liar; he was willing to lie to cover his conscience, as the sands plowed under the bodies. This Marine (and those who commanded him) needs forgiveness, not justification.
Million of “believers” bought into the false prophecy interpretations we find taught by Jack Hayford in dozens of recorded messages. One is entitled Why stand for Israel, eight reasons:
“Every believer is charged to make the Jews a priority in their value system and to” —-
“Our place in God s present order inextricably links us with the Jews as a people and thereby the land of Israel according to the Word….”
“God made a unique declaration regarding the land of Israel which has never been rescinded”
“there have been two witnesses that have stood for God throughout history- the Jews and the Christians.”
Pastor Hayford, your last statement is outrageous. God s Word says exactly the opposite about the tribes of Israel, condemning them time and time again for unfaithfulness and apostasy. Today’s Israel is some 80% atheist, according to its own count.
Pastor Hayford, you also list, “Actions you can take to stand-up for Israel…Acknowledge the terrorist habits of radical Muslims, be gracious to others.”
This is like saying crocodiles eat people, but you may pat those who are not hungry. How does one tell which one is hungry? You set a pattern of patronizing racism that can only be manifest in hatred. We see it reflected in the anonymous parishioner from Church on the Way, and the Marine volunteer at Promise Keepers. Race hatred in church starts with End Time prophecy. It is the ungodly notion 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 Philistine s 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 stated this awful apostasy: “its God s way or the highway.”
Israel’s progressive assassination has finally resulted in killing a 68-year old Palestinian grandmother to prevent her from delivering a human bomb. This woman s son was previously shot to death; another son crippled and in a wheel chair; the families’ home deliberately destroyed, and finally the mother. The previous week, Israelis in tanks shelled and killed four women (wounding many) who were surrounding a Mosque inside Jabalya camp in Gaza to protect those inside.
Do you know what a flechette round does to the body? These acts are not flukes, or accidents, the Israelis routinely shoot children who throw rocks. Over 500 women and children are prisoners. Pastor Jack Hayford, Israel could not get away with one of these acts without the unequivocal support of churches like yours! You are personally responsible for every such act that happens. You may not have known this would 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, according to a missionary named Paul, “all are 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 Church on the Way 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 Hayford, we want to be on the strait path together, but The Church on the Way cannot be a peacemaker church unless you change. The purpose of Project Strait Gate is not to change your congregation, but to call out to those whom God has already changed, and who think they are alone inside The Church on the Way, as 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 abandons it as, one by one, they awaken.
Toward the Strait Gate,
Charles E. Carlson
Endnote 1) Vigils in Motion:
https://whtt.org/straitgate/index.php?id=14&news=1
Successful Vigil at Promise Keepers “UNLEASHED”
https://whtt.org/straitgate/index.php?news=2&id=222
Endnote 2) Why stand for Israel, Hayford
http://daytopray.com/uploads/3343.pdf
Endnote 3) Post Election Query: Is the Christian Right seeking the Way?
https://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=1079)
Reference: Christian Zionism’s Roots: Audio/video (www.whtt.org/show
Enclose: Haggard s Apostasy, More Destructive than his Personal Life
https://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=1036
God’s Terrible Law that Judeo-Christians Break
https://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=998
