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Aalst carnival float (Wikisid)

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The United Nations took a positive step:

UNESCO removes Belgian carnival from heritage list due to anti-Semitic float

14 December 2019

The Aalst carnival was removed from UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list during a meeting on Friday in the Colombian capital of Bogata. The body decided that the parade, which included a float with caricatures of Orthodox Jews with hooked-noses and sitting atop bags of money, was anti-Semitic.

“They can continue to do the festival. We are not opposing that,” said Ernesto Ottone, UNESCO’s assistant director-general for culture. “What we don’t want is the brand of UNESCO on a festival that for (some) maybe humor, but for us is mockery of some communities.”

Read more: Climate change: Thousands form a human chain in Brussels

Ottone also confirmed that town officials were warned on a number of occasions about anti-Semitic symbolism in earlier carnival celebrations but failed to take measures that would “draw a line” on what kind of displays were acceptable.

Jewish groups described the float as anti-Semitic and the European Union also condemned the parade, saying it was reminiscent of the kind of caricatures disseminated in Nazi Germany during the 1930s.

The carnival occurs ahead of Ash Wednesday in the northern Belgian town … https://www.dw.com/en/unesco-removes-belgian-carnival-from-heritage-list-due-to-anti-semitic-float/a-51667126

There is a lot of antisemitism in the world, and particularly in Europe. It should not be celebrated.

It is great when the United Nations does the morally right thing.

Sadly, antisemitism has deep roots.

The Greco-Roman-Protestant world has a history of antisemitism.

If we start with the pagan Roman emperor Constantine in the fourth century (who is considered as an Eastern Orthodox saint), note that after getting his decision in 325 A.D. that Passover should only be observed on Sunday, he stated:

Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way. (Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, Book III chapter 18)

The way that Jesus, who was Jewish (Matthew 1:1-3; John 4:9-10), taught differently was about love. Jesus never taught to have ‘nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd.’ Emperor Constantine made his statement after the declaration of his Council of Nicea decided to officially denounce two original Christian practices (the Sabbath and the biblical date of Passover).

Sadly it was not just the son-god worshiping Emperor Constantine who had such attitudes.

In 387, the Eastern Orthodox saint and bishop 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 of the old Worldwide Church of God once referred to this chair as “Satan’s Throne.” Anyway, it should also be pointed out, that like Constantine, John Chrysostom was also opposed to the biblical Holy Days (watch also John Chrysostom, Holy Days, and Holidays).

On March 2008, the home page of the Protestant publication Christianity Today had a link titled, “Person of the Week: John Chrysostom” which went to an article that referred to John Chrysostom as the “Early church’s greatest preacher.” Thus, many Protestants too, endorsed that anti-Semite.

Furthermore, notice some of the teachings of the 16th century Protestant Reformer Martin Luther who wrote:

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)

Of course, anti-Semitism is not limited to Protestants.

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. This will set the stage for more persecution against those who hold to Church of God teachings that the Catholics tend to consider to be ‘Jewish.’

Consider that Jesus taught:

2… yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. 3 And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. 4 But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you (John 16:2-4).

Consider that 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).

Many people hate others, and the Jews tend to be one of the more hated groups. But that is not how people are to live.

Notice something that God had Moses record:

8 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18)

It is not just Jews that are hated or will be in the future. Throughout history, true Christians have sometimes been called “Jews” and have been subject to persecution supposedly directed towards Jews. True Christians also had to suffer through the so-called Inquisition, which utilized torture against those that had Church of God beliefs–and more is expected in the future (see Persecutions by Church and State). Protestant leaders have also promoted anti-Semitism and Church of God persecution (see The Similarities and Dissimilarities between Martin Luther and Herbert W. Armstrong) and Eastern Orthodox (see John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople and Antisemite).

Christians have been persecuted for holding doctrines that we in the Continuing Church of God hold and are clearly expected to be persecuted in the future for holding Continuing Church of God doctrines.

Persecution is a fact of history. It has happened before and we should be prepared for the fact that it will happen again.

The underlying anti-Semitism in Europe and throughout the world will allow for this, especially when the time comes when the Beast’s government mandates it (Revelation 13:15-17).

Yet for now, I applaud the move by UNESCO to try to reduce anti-Semitism.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 14th, 2019 at 5:30 pm and is filed under Religious News.

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