Religious Leaders from various Churches have denounced calls of the radical Temple Institute to perform the “Red Heifer Sacrifice”, slated for April 22nd.
Below is the full text of the statement and the signatories:
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May they prosper who love you.’” — Psalm 122
Joining together as Christians from the Holy Land and other parts of the world, we express our concern, dismay, and condemnation of Christian Zionist efforts to bring greater suffering and pain to Jerusalem. Any observer of events in the Holy Land today—a region including the State of Israel, the West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem, and Gaza—knows that its peoples are presently enduring great suffering. As Christians, we are called by our Lord to be peacemakers; we therefore condemn Christian Zionist efforts to promote greater war under the false banner of prophecy.
We have seen news of efforts by the Temple Institute, by any measure an extremist organization, aided by extremist Christian Zionists in the United States, to sacrifice what they claim to be a “red heifer” in the coming days. These groups claim that such a sacrifice is necessary to purify a priest who would then be designated “clean” to enter the Holy of Holies of the Jewish Temple.
This plan has many implications. It is part of the Temple Institute’s plans—supported more by Christian Zionists than by fellow Jews—to build the Third Temple. The group’s plans would require the relocation or destruction of Masjid al-Aqsa, including the Dome of the Rock, within the Haram al-Sharif. Such a plan is not only a great affront to the hope of multi-religious coexistence in Jerusalem but an invitation to regional, if not global, warfare. This plan, many years in the making, will transform the Israeli-Palestinian situation from being a political conflict into a religious conflict with no earthly solution.
While filling believers with expectations for the future, prophetic hope also involves temptations. As Jesus says in Matthew 18.7 and Luke 17.1, certain interpretations of God’s will can be stumbling blocks for faith. This is especially true when Christians are convinced that God is so poor that God needs our help to create miracles on earth. We are called to test every spirit (1 John 4.1). It is clear to us that a manufactured, genetically modified heifer intended to promote violence and unrest is no miracle from God.
As religious leaders, we are saddened to see the cynical self-interest at play in the relationship between the Temple Institute and its Christian Zionist supporters. Christian Zionist support for this plan is based on a warped Christian reading of the Scriptures (premillennial dispensationalism) that expects the Third Temple to be desecrated by the Antichrist before the Messiah comes. We understand our Christian faith to teach that Christ alone is our sacrifice, once, for all (2 Corinthians 5.21).
Thus, the Temple Institute and its Christian Zionist supporters have developed a relationship based on mutually instrumentalizing and exploiting one another—precisely the opposite of the human relationships toward which we are called.
In the face of this madness, we call on all persons of goodwill to condemn this plan by the Temple Institute to engage in a sacrifice of a so-called “red heifer.” Actions like this have been attempted in the past but in vain; they accomplish nothing except for escalating hatred, instability, and violence.
We especially call on Christians around the world to lovingly correct and reprove fellow Christians who have been deluded by any form of the imperialist, colonial, and war-promoting ideology of Christian Zionism. It is imperative that we inaugurate a global intra-Christian dialogue focused on the repudiation of Christian Zionism among other forms of theopoliticalextremism.
No religion—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam among them—has a monopoly on extremism. It is the responsibility of the faithful first to challenge extremists within their own traditions. Only then can we hope to build bridges with others. Today, the Christian Zionist promotion of further violence alongside what is credibly described as a genocidal assault on the people of Gaza presents an urgent challenge to Christians around the world.
We reject in the strongest terms any effort to make Jerusalem into an apocalyptic playground. The anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic prophetic fantasies promoted by many Christian Zionists view the Holy City as a place of war when God has called it to be a house of peace for all nations.
We call on all persons of goodwill to educate themselves on peacebuilding measures for the peoples of Holy Land.
We affirm the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s continued promotion, protection, and stewardship of the Historic Status Quo of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem, especially in the face of coordinated international threats to this peace-preserving order.
We urge all Christian leaders to consider the messages of the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem as well as messages coming from civil society organizations in the Holy Land that seek to promote human rights, peace based on justice, and wellbeing for all people rather than one group alone.
H.B. Michel Sabbah
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Emeritus
Bishop Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit
Presiding Bishop, Church of Norway
H.E. Christophoros Atallah
Greek Orthodox Archbishop and Head of the Jordan Churches Council Bishop
The Right Rev. Dr. Carmen Lansdowne
44th Moderator, The United Church of Canada
Kari Mangrud Alvsvåg
Bishop, Church of Norway
H.E. William Shomali
Patriarchal Vicar for Jerusalem and Palestine, Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
Bishop Dr. Munib A. Younan
Former President, Lutheran World Federation
Rev. Prof. Dr. Robert O. Smith
Northern Texas-Northern Louisiana Synod, ELCA
Canon Dr. Naim S. Ateek
Founder, Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center
Rev. Dr. Mark S. Hanson
Former Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Rev. Prof. Dr. Mitri Raheb
Founder & President, Dar al-Kalima University
Ineke Medcalf
Founder, Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine-Israel
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac
Founder, Christ at the Checkpoint
Kairos Palestine
Rev. Prof. Dr. Chris Ferguson
Former General Secretary, World Communion of Reformed Churches
International Visiting Professor, Universidad Reformada, Colombia
Rev. Dr. Jack Sara
President, Bethlehem Bible College
Rev. Dr. Shanta Premawardhana
President, OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership
Rev. Atle Sommerfeldt
Bishop Emeritus, Church of Norway
Rev. Hans-Erik Nordin
Bishop Emeritus, Svenska Kyrkan
Rev. Dr. Larry Greenfield
Chairperson, OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership
Executive Director Emeritus, Parliament of the WorldsReligions
Rev. Dr. Trond Bakkevig
Canon, Church of Norway
Prof. Dr. Paul Knitter
Professor Emeritus, Union Theological Seminary
Rev. Rafael Malpica Padilla
Former Executive Director for the Global Mission and Service and Justice Unites, ELCA
Rev. Ashraf Tannous
Pastor, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land
Rev. Dr. Evangeline Anderson-Rajkumar
Pastor, St Paul Lutheran Church, Olean
Rev. Ramez Ansara
Union of Congregations of Helsinki
Dr. Marthie Momberg
Stellenbosch University, Nelson Mandela University, South Africa
Rev. Pertti Ruotsalo
Vicar General, OSMTH Finland
Omar Haramy
Director, Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center
Dr. Theol. Martín Hoffmann
Prof. emer. Universidad Bíblica Latinoamericana, Costa Rica
Bergljot Urdahl
Physiotherapist, YM-YWCA of Norway
Alice Goodman
Reader, Scots Kirk Lausanne/International Presbytery Church of Scotland
Melissa Yarbray
Regional Coordinator Southern California, Churches for Middle East Peace
Desmond Sequeira
Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine-Israel (NMJPI)
Dr. Paul A. Wee
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Craig L. Nessan
Professor of Contextual Theology and Ethics, Wartburg Theological Seminary
Rev. Conrad Braaten
ELCA
