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Oliver Kamm

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Oliver Kamm,

Oliver Kamm

Opinion

A damaging document

May 12, 2013 08:46
2 min read

'All men," wrote Reinhold Niebuhr, the great Protestant ethicist, "are naturally inclined to obscure the
morally ambiguous element in their political cause by investing it with religious sanctity. This is why religion is more frequently a source of confusion than of light in the political realm."

Niebuhr was a steadfast friend of Israel. His warnings about the temptations of deploying religion in political argument are confirmed by a document arguing a very different position.

As revealed in the JC last week, the Church of Scotland is considering a report from its "church and society council" that challenges the Jewish national claim to the land of Israel. The Church stresses defensively that the paper (tellingly entitled The inheritance of Abraham? A report on the "promised land") has yet to be debated by its general assembly.

The damage has been done, however. This isn't a rogue opinion-piece: it exemplifies an approach that has become common in recent Christian thinking. Eschewing historical scholarship and running to just 10 pages, the report does little more than apply a radical patina to some highly traditional stereotypes. It obsequiously commends an American activist called Mark Braverman for being "adamant that Christians must not sacrifice the universalist, inclusive dimension of Christianity and revert to the particular exclusivism of the Jewish faith because we feel guilty about the Holocaust".