Share this story!            

Apocalyptic Christians advise White House on Middle East

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The US National Security Council (NSC)’s top Middle East aide consults apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure that American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios, according to Village Voice, a popular, well-circulated paper.

So “far out” are these groups that an Israel representatives of one of them believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of the children’s bestseller Harry Potter.

Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton when asked about the off-the-record briefing his delegation received on March 25 was not willing to talk. However, Village Voice has obtained a confidential memo signed by Rev. Upton. It shows that NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sat down with the Apostolic Congress to “massage” their theological concerns. Claiming to be “the Christian Voice in the Nation’s Capital,” the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state.

They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David’s temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won’t come back to earth.

Abrams attempted to assuage their concerns by stating that “the Gaza Strip had no significant Biblical influence such as Joseph’s tomb or Rachel’s tomb and therefore is a piece of land that can be sacrificed for the cause of peace.”

Three weeks after this meeting, President George W. Bush reversed long-standing U.S. policy, endorsing Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank in exchange for Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

In an interview with Village Voice, Rev. Upton denied having written the document, though it was sent out from an e-mail account of one of his staffers and bears the organisation’s seal, which is nearly identical to the Great Seal of the United States. Its idiosyncratic grammar and punctuation tics also closely match those of texts on the Apostolic Congress’s website, and Rev. Upton verified key details it recounted, including the number of participants in the meeting (“45 ministers including wives”) and its conclusion “with a heart-moving send-off of the President in his Presidential helicopter.”

According to Village Voice, affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church, the Apostolic Congress is part of an important and disciplined political constituency courted by recent Republican administrations. As a subset of the broader Christian Zionist movement, it has a lengthy history of opposition to any proposal that will not result in what it calls a “one-state solution” in Israel. The White House’s association with the congress, which has just posted a new staffer in Israel who may be running afoul of Israel’s strict anti-missionary laws, also raises diplomatic concerns.

The Apostolic Congress dates its origins to 1981, when, according to its website, “Brother Stan Wachtstetter was able to open the door to Apostolic Christians into the White House.” Apostolics, a sect of Pentecostals, claim legitimacy as the heirs of the original church because they, as the 12 apostles supposedly did, baptise converts in the name of Jesus, not in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Ronald Reagan bore theological affinities with such Christians because of his belief that the world would end in a fiery Armageddon. Reagan himself referenced this belief explicitly a half-dozen times during his presidency.

While the language of apocalyptic Christianity is absent from George W. Bush’s speeches, he has proven eager to work with apocalyptics - a point of pride for Rev. Upton. “We’re in constant contact with the White House,” he boasts. “I’m briefed at least once a week via telephone briefings. I was there about two weeks ago. At that time we met with the President.”

Last spring, Village Voice report says, after President Bush announced his Road Map plan for peace in the Middle East, the Apostolic Congress co-sponsored an effort with the Jewish group Americans for a Safe Israel that placed billboards in 23 cities with a quotation from Genesis (“Unto thy offspring will I give this land”) and the message, “Pray that President Bush Honors God’s Covenant with Israel. Call the White House with this message.” It then provided the White House phone number and the Apostolic Congress’s Web address.

Village Voice reports that in addition to its work in Israel, the Apostolic Congress is part of the increasingly Christian public face of pro-Israel activities in the United States. Don Wagner, an evangelical, worries that in the Republican Party, people who believe in greater Israel for Christ’s second coming “are dominating the discourse now, in an election year.” He calls the attempt to yoke Scripture to current events “a modern heresy, with cultish proportions.

“I mean, it’s appalling,” he says. “And it also shows how marginalised mainstream Christian thinking, and the majority of evangelical thought, have become.” It demonstrates, he says, “the absolute convergence of the neo-conservatives with the Christian Zionists and the pro-Israel lobby, driving US Mideast policy.”

The problem is not that George W Bush is discussing policy with people who press right-wing solutions to achieve peace in the Middle East, or with devout Christians. It is that he is discussing policy with Christians who might not care about peace at all -at least until the rapture. The Jewish pro-Israel lobby, in the interests of peace for those living in the present, might want to consider a disengagement.

Home | National

Share this story!