From Bias to Bias

Note from Ron: Richard Gibson has written a masterful response to Elias Chacour’s (Archbishop of Akko, Haifa, Nazareth and All Galilee of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church) anti-Israel book, Blood Brothers. I am begging you to read this! He has more external references in his article than Chacour has in his entire book, most of which is mostly biographical opinion that ignores history. Richard Gibson is in full-time ministry and is the leader of a Messianic Fellowship in the north of England.

From Bias to Bias

(Orginaly published in One16 Journal) In the wake of the book, an Evangelical anti-Zionism has developed which justifies itself by, amongst other things, claiming that Christian support for Israel is an obstacle to the evangelisation of Palestinian Muslims. Brother Andrew, for example, stated at the Christ at the Checkpoint conference 2010, ‘The justification of the State of Israel by Christians in the West is a hindrance for the preaching of the gospel in the Middle East. No hindrance whatsoever is acceptable to us as Evangelicals, or to the church at large taking the great commission seriously. Whatever hinders it is not of God; we must reject it. Whatever hinders it delays the return of our Lord Jesus Christ…’1 That increasingly popular view is not substantiated by the facts, however. Ant Greenham, who has a PhD in Missions with a focus on Islamic Studies, recently conducted a series of case studies among Palestinian Muslims who have come to faith in Christ and in none of his case studies did Christian Zionism or Christian anti-Zionism play any role in conversion. 2