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European Anti-Semitic graffiti

COGwriter

A 21st century form of antisemitism has been agreed to by a German court:

17 November 2017

Kuwait Airways is not obliged to transport Israeli passengers, a German court has ruled.

The verdict – delivered over a case in which the airline cancelled a passenger’s ticket – has led to accusations of anti-Semitism. …

German law covers discrimination based on race, ethnicity or religion, but not nationality. …

In response to the ruling, the passenger’s lawyer told the Jewish Chronicle: “the statement by the court that my client was supposed to accept transportation on other airlines is nothing more than capitulating to anti-Semitic discrimination by Kuwait Airways.”

Gelbert said he and his client intend to appeal the verdict, calling the ruling: “shameful for democracy and for Germany in general,” a sentiment echoed by Germany’s Central Council of Jews. The council criticised the decision, saying it was: “unbearable that a foreign company operating based on deeply anti-Semitic national laws is allowed to be active in Germany.”

In 2015, the US government ruled that Kuwait Airways had violated American law after an Israeli citizen was denied travel between New York and London. The airline subsequently dropped the route rather than alter its policy. http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/kuwait-airways-refuse-service-israelis-cancels-passenger-tickets-german-court-ruling-laws-a8059876.html

A court in the German city of Frankfurt ruled on Thursday that Kuwait Airways was within its rights to refuse to transport an Israeli because of their citizenship.

In its judgement, the court said it was “not reasonable” for the airline to transport a person if doing so risked severe legal consequences for its employees in Kuwait.

Kuwaiti law prohibits companies from doing business with Israelis.

The passenger had sued the airline for discrimination after it refused to fly him from Frankfurt to Bangkok via Kuwait City in 2016. http://www.dw.com/en/kuwait-airways-can-bar-israeli-passengers-german-court-rules/a-41414435

This form of antisemitism against the Jews is wrong.

Sadly, in the Greco-Roman world, various ones who claimed Christianity have long promoted antisemitism. Sometimes they have used the legal system to do so–that is what Adolf Hitler did (see also Anti-Jewish Legislation in Prewar Germany).

Currently, many in Europe want a “Christian” Europe:

November 17, 2017

European intellectuals published a conservative manifesto with 36 tenets defending ‘old Europe’ and its values …

9. Christianity encouraged cultural unity.

The true Europe has been marked by Christianity. The universal spiritual empire of the Church brought cultural unity to Europe, but did so without political empire. This has allowed for particular civic loyalties to flourish within a shared European culture. The autonomy of what we call civil society became a characteristic feature of European life. Moreover, the Christian Gospel does not deliver a comprehensive divine law, and thus the diversity of the secular laws of the nations may be affirmed and honoured without threat to our European unity. It is no accident that the decline of Christian faith in Europe has been accompanied by renewed efforts to establish political unity—an empire of money and regulations, covered with sentiments of pseudo-religious universalism, that is being constructed by the European Union.

10. Christian roots nourish Europe.

The true Europe affirms the equal dignity of every individual, regardless of sex, rank or race. This also arises from our Christian roots. Our gentle virtues are of an unmistakably Christian heritage: fairness, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, peace-making, charity. Christianity revolutionized the relationship between men and women, valuing love and mutual fidelity in an unprecedented way. The bond of marriage allows both men and women to flourish in communion. Most of the sacrifices we make are for the sake of our spouses and children. This spirit of self-giving is yet another Christian contribution to the Europe we love. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-16/europe-we-can-believe

But what kind of Christianity?

Well, one that the Vatican approves of.

Consider also the following about European culture:

Anti-Semitism is not only part of European history but also an ingredient of its culture. The lengthy anti-Semitic history of Europe is rife with defamation, discrimination, double standards, pogroms, expulsions and other persecutions. It reached its profoundly low point with the Holocaust. The genocide was implemented not only by Germans and Austrians, but also by many of their collaborators, not necessarily all pro-Nazi, in the occupied countries. …

A variety of leading European novelists were extreme anti-Semites. One of the more famous ones was the Frenchman Louis-Ferdinand Céline, who was convicted after the Second World War for collaborating with the occupiers. There are also ancient anti-Semitic sculptures on buildings, for instance on the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris.

In popular European culture, such as drawings and cartoons, one finds anti-Semitic motifs as well.

It is a mistake to believe that Nazism and its evil “culture” ended with the defeat of Germany in 1945. …

The fact that a substantial number of Europeans today agree with the statement that “Israel conducts a war of extermination against the Palestinians” is a major example of contemporary European anti-Semitism. This statement was deemed accurate by more than 40 percent of EU citizens aged 16 or older. It fits the anti-Semitic culture of Europe perfectly. 06/24/15 http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Why-anti-Semitism-is-part-of-European-culture-407050

Since the time of Emperor Constantine, the Europeans who professed Christ had issues with the Jews as well as Christians who had biblical practices deemed to be too Jewish. According to Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, Book III chapter 18, the Eastern Orthodox saint and Roman emperor Constantine in the fourth century stated:

Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way.

Of course, Jesus was Jewish. The way He taught was love. Jesus never taught to have ‘nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd.’ Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox refer to Constantine as ‘Constantine the Great,’ but he obviously held anti-Semitic views.

Anti-Semitic views still exist in Europe today.

Around 332, Constantine issued what is known as the Edict Against the Heretics which included persecution against Christians who held to the original faith and had practices, such as the date of Passover, the same as the Jews (see also Persecutions by Church and State).

In 387, the Eastern Orthodox saint and bishop John Chrysostom preached the following:

The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews are soon to march upon us one after the other and in quick succession: the feast of Trumpets, the feast of Tabernacles, the fasts. There are many in our ranks who say they think as we do. Yet some of these are going to watch the festivals and others will join the Jews in keeping their feasts and observing their fasts. I wish to drive this perverse custom from the Church right now…If the Jewish ceremonies are venerable and great, ours are lies…Does God hate their festivals and do you share in them? He did not say this or that festival, but all of them together. (John Chrysostom. Homily I Against the Jews I:5;VI:5;VII:2. Preached at Antioch, Syria in the Fall of 387 AD. Medieval Sourcebook: Saint John Chrysostom (c.347-407) : Eight Homilies Against the Jews. Fordham University. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/chrysostom-jews6.html 12/10/05).

John Chrysostom preached the following in his Homily Against the Jews (of which there are at least eight anti-Semitic homilies):

But do not be surprised that I called the Jews pitiable. They really are pitiable and miserable (I:II:1).

So the godlessness of the Jews and the pagans is on a par. But the Jews practice a deceit which is more dangerous (I:VI:4).

Do you see that demons dwell in their souls and that these demons are more dangerous than the ones of old? (I:VI:7).

Since it is against the Jews that I wish to draw up my battle line, let me extend my instruction further. Let me show that, by fasting now, the Jews dishonor the law and trample underfoot God’s commands because they are always doing everything contrary to his decrees. When God wished them to fast, they got fat and flabby (VI:IV:2).

Indeed, the fasting of the Jews, which is more disgraceful than any drunkenness, is over and gone (VIII:I:5).

John Chrysostom is considered to be a major Roman Catholic saint. He is one of the four ‘doctors of the church’ who is shown supporting a large black chair that is called the Cathedra Petri (Chair of Peter) in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. The late Joseph Tkach once referred to this chair as Satan’s throne (see Satan’s Throne).

The improperly named Protestant publication Christianity Today once had a link titled, “Person of the Week: John Chrysostom” which went to an article titled: John Chrysostom Early church’s greatest preacher. So, Protestants too, endorse an anti-Semite. More on him can be found in the article John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople and Antisemite.

These anti-Semitic views have included persecutions against Christians who the Greco-Romans considered to have “Jewish” practices.

Notice something that Jesus the Jew said what would happen to Christians:

20 If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. (John 15:20)

People like the Albigenses were condemned by various Greco-Roman councils. And one, the Council of Albi (sometimes spelled Alby) in 1254 apparently stated:

They savour of Judaism…they observe the Jewish sabbath, but say that the holy Dominical day is no better than any other day; let them be accursed (Quoted in Davis, Tamar. A General History of the Sabbatarian Churches. 1851; Reprinted 1995 by Commonwealth Publishing, Salt Lake City, p. 64).

Notice what a former Roman Catholic priest reported:

It has been reckoned that in the last and most savage persecution under Emperor Diocletian about two thousand Christians perished, worldwide. In the first incident of Pope Innocent’s Crusade ten times that number of people were slaughtered. Not all were Albigensians. It comes as a shock to discover that, at a stroke, a pope killed far more Christians than Diocletian (De Rosa, Peter. Vicars of Christ. Poolberg Press, Dublin, 2000, pp. 160-161).

(The entire persecution that Roman Emperor Diocletian unleashed lasted from 303-313 A.D; the inquisition-persecution that Pope Innocent III unleashed lasted hundreds of years.)

It perhaps should be pointed out that sometimes those in the true Church of God have been considered to be secretly Jews by some in Greco-Roman faiths:

In the Middle Ages, the Popes and the Councils were successful in destroying the Jewish revolutionary movements which appeared within Christianity in the form of false teaching and which were introduced by those who were Christians in appearance but Jews in secret. The latter then recruited upright and good Christians for the arising heretical movement by persuading the latter in a crafty way.

The secret Jews organised and controlled in secret manner the movements, which were the creative and driving force of wicked false teachings, such as those of the Iconoclasts, the Cathars, the Patarines, the Albigensians, the Hussites, the Alumbrados and others. (Pinay, Maurice. The Plot Against the Church, Part Four Chapter One. Translated from the German and Spanish editions of the same work. 1962)

The above book is still recommended by and for many Catholics (though some others distance themselves from it). Hence, some of the Greco-Romans have considered some of whom we in the Continuing Church of God include in our tracing of our spiritual ancestors (like some of the Cathars and Albigenses) to have been a secret Jewish group that only professed Christ.

As far as Protestant leaders themselves with anti-Semitic views, one can notice some of the teachings of Martin Luther, who wrote in the 16th century:

My heart is fuller of these thoughts than my tongue can tell. I have come to the conclusion that the Jews will always curse and blaspheme God as all the prophets have predicted. He who neither reads nor understands this, as yet knows no theology, in my opinion. And so I presume the men of Cologne cannot understand the Scripture, because it is necessary that such things take place to fulfill prophecy. If they are trying to stop the Jews blaspheming, they are working to prove the Bible and God liars (“Martin Luther’s to George Spalatin,” from Luther’s Correspondence and Other Contemporan, Letters, trans. by P. Smith (1913), Vol. 1, pp. 28-29).

Furthermore he wrote:

I had made up my mind to write no more either about the Jews or against them. But since I learned that those miserable and accursed people do not cease to lure to themselves even us, that is, the Christians, I have published this little book, so that I might be found among those who opposed such poisonous activities of the Jews and who warned the Christians to be on their guard against them…They are so blind and stupid that they see neither the words found in Genesis 17 nor the whole of Scripture, which mightily and explicitly condemns this lie…They are real liars and bloodhounds who have not only continually perverted and falsified all of Scripture with their mendacious glosses from the beginning until the present day. Their heart’s most ardent sighing and yearning and hoping is set on the day on which they can deal with us Gentiles as they did with the Gentiles in Persia at the time of Esther…The worse a Jew is, the more arrogant he is, solely because he is a Jew — that is, a person descended from Abraham’s seed, circumcised, and under the law of Moses. David and other pious Jews were not as conceited as the present-day, incorrigible Jews…I wanted to present this to us Germans so that we might see what rascals the blind Jews are and how powerfully the truth of God in our midst stands with us and against them (Medieval Sourcebook: Martin Luther (1483-1546): On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543)

Martin Luther advised his followers:

…to burn down Jewish schools and synagogues, and to throw pitch and sulphur into the flames; to destroy their homes; to confiscate their ready money in gold and silver; to take from them their sacred books, even the whole Bible; and if that did not help matters, to hunt them of the country like mad dogs (Luther’s Works, vol. Xx, pp. 2230-2632 as quoted in Stoddard JL. Rebuilding a Lost Faith, 1922, p.99).

Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is: First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulphur and pitch (Martin Luther (1483-1546): On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543 as quoted from Luther’s Works, Volume 47: The Christian in Society IV, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971). pp 268­293).

The sad reality is that leaders esteemed by the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Protestants have all advocated horrible antisemitism.

Sadly, many in Europe and elsewhere hold anti-Semitic views. The German court decision was certainly not based upon love.

We will see persecution greatly increase before Jesus returns. And this will not be limited to Jews, but will include all real Christians (cf. Daniel 7:25; see also Persecutions by Church and State).

The underlying antisemitism throughout the world will allow for this, especially when the time comes when the Beast’s government will mandate it (Revelation 13:15-17).

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 17th, 2017 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Prophecy.

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