During the week covered by this review, we received 4 articles on the following subjects:
Jerusalem / Christian Sites
Archeology / The Bible
Christian Tourism
Political Issues
Jerusalem / Christian Sites
Haaretz, October 11, 2020
Israeli filmmaker, Anat Tal, has made a film about the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, entitled “The Church”. The film focuses on the daily lives and work of various monks and priests from the different Christian traditions who work there. The film shows some of the conflicts that emerge from these relationships and elicits sympathy for an Israeli Christian police officer who tries to reconcile between the conflicted parties. The film focuses less on the history of the church and therefore does not get at why these conflicts run so deep. The author of the article concluded that it is “tempting to see [the film] as an allegory for contemporary Christianity, with its different traditions united against external threats, chief among them secularism, but never thereby becoming authentic allies.”
Archeology / The Bible
Haaretz, October 11, 2020
This was a piece by Dr. Rami Arav, who teaches at the University of Nebraska, about the history of archeological discoveries related to Jericho and Ai. Arav argued that Protestants, in effect, “invented” archaeology as a means of proving the literal truth of the Bible. One of the hallmarks of the Reformation had been to reject the Catholic tendency to allegorize stories in the Old Testament which treated them not primarily as historically significant, but rather as theologically significant, that is, as prefigurations of Christ. In the 19th century, archeologists uncovered the ancient wall of Jericho, which seemed to prove Protestants right – the Old Testament was “real history”. However, years later, British archeologist, Dame Kathleen Kenyon, discovered that the wall was from 1,000 years before the time of Joshua, discrediting the alleged historicity of the Book of Joshua. Arav concluded: “The irony is that biblical archaeology was developed by the Protestants as a means to prove the literal truth of the Bible, showing the Catholics to be wrong, but it turned badly against them.”
Christian Tourism
Haaretz, October 12, 2020
This was a similar piece to last week’s article about Michel Awad from Bethlehem, who established “Save Tourism”, an attempt to harness financial support from Christian pilgrims worldwide who cannot travel to the Holy Land because of the pandemic as a means of helping those working in the tourist industry in Bethlehem. This is a rare time in the history of Christian tourism, with the Holy Land largely empty of pilgrims and religious tourists. The Ministry of Tourism has continued to market abroad, with the hope of renewing the industry as soon as possible. It is believed that religious tourists will be the first to return. However, many religious groups consist of elderly people, who may be nervous to travel. David Parsons, of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, said he did not know what Evangelical tourism would look like in the future, but that in lieu of traveling to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles, Evangelicals were making use of technological developments in order to still enjoy Jerusalem as if they were there. He said: “We’ll bring Jerusalem to them… and hope this is a one-time thing.”
Political Issues
Liberal, October 12, 2020
This piece argued that in order to understand Donald Trump’s power, we need to understand his base, which largely consists of white conservative Evangelicals. The group is characterized as: (1) conservative with regard to family values; (2) caring about the State of Israel, as it seen as the key to the return of Jesus; (3) concerned with the right to bear arms and the right to protect oneself against the state; (4) and finally, anxious to maintain “law and order”, that is, to make sure the government will protect them against those who take the law into their own hands. This last one is generally aimed at the ongoing protests against racial injustice.