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Jesus and the Land: The New Testament Challenge to "Holy Land" Theology By Gary M. Burge Our Price $ 20.23   Retail Value $ 22.99   You Save $ 2.76  (12%)   Item Number 1126206   Buy New Item Quantity: 1              2              3              4 ABOUT TRUST ONLINE

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	Warning! This book may harbour a hidden neocolonialist agenda  Jun 10, 2010
You have no idea what you are doing to disenfranchise all the more Christian people from their traditional heritage! Well, let me tell you this Mr Burge! We will refuse every attempt by colonialistic forces to continue to disenfranchise us. Indigenous Christian connections with the land have absolutely nothing to do with garbagey jihads and Zionist extremism that you try to link tribal territorialism to. The Crusades were nothing to do with Christianity despite their appropriating of the name "Christian" and using certain cultural symbolisms to foster their own megalomaniacal exploits. Christianity will always have ties to the territories of its birth as a culture and nothing you say Mr Burge to counteract these ties can ever detract from this truth. Admonition and reproof are Biblical values that exhort us to correct others when and where they are wrong - get this, correct, - not judge - because contrary to popular opinion, there's a big difference between the two. I feel strongly that it is my responsibility as a member of the Christian community to do this both for the sake of our cultural integrity and for that of human beings who, in error, have taken to fallacious beliefs like the ones promoted in your book, about how we should practice our own culture, and how others should see us. It is not my place to judge but it is mine to correct and I am doing readers a service by giving them the native view of how Christians, like other aboriginal peoples have traditional relationship with the land. And of course I sound militant in my tone - that is because tenacity is necessary for advocating and ensuring cultural survival - and again, there is a difference between militancy and dogmatism. It is a fact that native peoples worldwide are realizing the necessity to take hold of their inheritance to the places and cultures God has endowed them with and if you want to argue with me on the so-called theological in/correctness of these movements, go ahead - I can guarantee you, disguised racism never supersedes the truth bestowed by the Creator of the universe. I furthermore noticed how you try to convince people that Jesus advocated bowing to Caesar through "going two miles" and that you have interpreted His statement about "loving enemies" to mean co-operate with colonialists and pagan regimes (p.29). You have grossly misinterpreted what Jesus was talking about because God was serious in the Old Testament when He avowed to His people that it was in their best interests not to consort with the pagans - and that meant that it was best for them not to adopt their ways or to obey their decrees. Moreover, your claim that because Jesus was "apparently" vocally silent about many issues meant that He agreed with the workings of that system of corrupt rulership is total rubbish! Perceived silence or vocal silence in terms of not talking with one's mouth does not mean He was complicit with the system or that He advocated complicity with the world's system. In His culture, Christianity, there are some things (values and so on) that are not spoken about directly but are referred to in other ways and by other means other than talking - I am speaking here about gestures, ceremonial acts, and general conduct - the intentioned ways a person responds to people within and outside of their own culture relative to the values espoused by their culture. You have not understood this cultural distinctive and because of this Mr Burge, you miss the point about these matters. The example of the healing of the Roman Centurion's servant is not about Jesus two-timing it with Rome (in fact the only people who ever really did that were Israel's tragically sold-out ruling elite comprised of rich men, scribes and Pharisees), rather, that story is about how He, Jesus, sympathizes with the plight of all whom God has made and desires to free them from whatever bondages they may be under the yoke of. The centurion's life had changed in an instant, and was to be nothing like it was before - after he met with Christ. His allegiances would have been profoundly altered just like the lives of all the other people who encountered Jesus. The fact that Jesus doesn't advocate nationalistic agendas does not mean He doesn't have cultural ties to the land. Nationalistic agendas and cultural ties are two completely different things but unfortunately are sometimes confused. Tribal allegiances are not necessarily nationalistic because nationalism by its very nature necessitates a sophisticated rulership where there is a state-oriented hierarchy of some description. Whilst it is true that Israel had gravitated towards this paradigm by turning from being a simple nation of tribal groups who had non-state oriented sovereignty of Divine decree to one that consorted with a state-oriented societies (Babylon, Philistia, and Greece to cite a few), eventually adopting pagan ways and means of doing things into their own routine strategies for maintaining social cohesion, Jesus remained non-complicit with such co-option in and through the very actions of His ministry. He condemned the long history of culturopolitical co-option on the part of Israel as brazen unfaithfulness to their own covenant with God, which is why He had serious run-ins with the then-Jewish rulership. God wanted to set Israel apart as a first nation and not a nation state. This legacy was to be revived in and through the emergence of Christianity as a successive first nation brought forth from the root of Israel. Here we witness the difference between what constitutes first nations sovereignty and that which comprises state nationalism. They are two complete irreconcilable understandings of how society should be organized and therefore, on these grounds, it is clear that Mr Burge has unfortunately in this instance not understood the difference but rather has tended to place all notions of what constitutes sovereignty into one basket. Because of my negative experience of colonialist agendas, I am weary and suspicious of attempts by non-Christians to impose sanctions on how Christians (particularly indigenous Christians) should relate to their culture. It may sound like I am calling Mr Burge a racist when in fact I am warning about the possibility of there being an inadvertent result of racism when paradigms are put forward as 'credible' that seek to deny cultural ties and self-determination rights of groups who by and large, do not seek continuity of these ties and fulfilment of these rights through militaristic endeavours. I noticed one tag for this book was "anti-Israel" - now that's already a tell-tale sign enough to understand why my warning is plausible. It may well be that Zionist extremists and Jihadists currently wage intense military campaigns over political boundaries but this is none other than a continuity of political disputes waged by factions within political elites that have historically propped themselves up as the "status quo" of this place and that. This belongs to the politics of fanatic factions and really has very little substantial relationship to the culturohistoric ties of Christians to Biblical lands. These military campaigns about Israel vs Palestine or vice versa in fact have nothing or very little anyhow, to do with the territorial rights of native Christians. The latter issue is vastly different in both historical scope and implications, although has and still does present a challenge of sorts over questions of sovereignty to these ruling elites. Because of such a difference between these issues, the problem is not about Christians' ties to land but about historic feudal and modern-day state-oriented political markers. To give a comparative example - the modern-day USA is divided up politically into different state territories - these states prior to the European colonial era were non-existent. Native Americans had different tribal boundaries and vastly different ideas to the European colonials in relation to what territories mean - both in political and cultural terms. Just because the US congress may want to hypothetically change state boundaries does not mean the boundaries they are changing are in exact alignment (often they aren't) with pre-contact boundaries because the colonial relationship to the land is totally different to the native relationship and the two relationship types should not be thrown into the same basket as though they are one and the same as not all relationships to land or territory are alike, and this must be considered when speaking about different cultural contexts. Native ideas concerning sovereignty are often in ideological conflict with official takes on this matter. Whilst it concerns the same continent, i.e. Turtle Island, native groups do not share the same conceptions as the state of how sovereignty as such should be acted out. While it is true that often first nations have to consult with state bodies and the court system over land claims and so on, there is some measure of autonomous management in certain locations - the management in these locations falls outside of state (either county or federal) jurisdiction. The ways in which first nations conceive of sovereignty and the ways in which the state conceives of it are two different ball-games and should not be confused or crossed over where there is no dialogic relationship between them. In the case of Israel-Palestine, the militarists are both, (irrespective of sides), taking a statist approach to their issues - these are a matter of state as it were and have little or no relationship to genuine tribal affiliations as pre-determined by God in Biblical history. As for the sharing of land between tribal groups, this does not mean that the particular group which had inherited a specific territory has to relinquish the customary tie - what it does mean though, is that it is not to set this customary tie up as a political football, as an excuse not to share - for God said in Old Testament times that it was right and good for His people to welcome those from other nations, to treat them as equals and to develop wholesome relationships based on mutual respect with them but at the same time not to compromise on cultural values, which meant Israel was commanded to remain in unswerving allegiance to the covenant with the Lord. Because I recognise the need to discern between the different ideas of sovereignty - the worldly one and the Biblical one, I am in favour of claiming my God-given right to maintaining my cultural ties with the land the He has created and given to His people. I will always cherish the spiritual significance that the sacred spaces and lands belonging to my culture-ancestors speak of for the entire creation is groaning for the Day of Redemption and in order to fulfil God's purpose, we must, all of us, every human being, must be willing to honour God through respecting the earth He has given for our sustenance and for that of every living being He created. No more of this ignoring the needs of the entire creation under the deceptive lie that humans can go on satisfying their own egos at the expense of every other member of God's created universe. Because the end times are not about the earth imploding or combusting - that's pagan theory. The Biblical truth is, God wants to redeem the whole creation - what will end however are the ways of the world - the world-system will come to an end, it will be burnt up, but not creation - creation instead will be renewed. This is why it is the responsibility of Christians to realize our unique role as custodians of this earth because our life here as brief as it may appear, is but a test of how we respond to the call of the Lord in how we live life and how we relate to Him and His creation, to the world as He wants us to relate to it - for God so entrusts us to be show-ers of responsibility in smaller things - the things of this life so that ultimately we may be fit for our eternal inheritance. This is just saying that God has given us this earth to teach us valuable lessons for our next life - do not think that we can begrudge this earth or treat it with folly and expect God to be pleased. To respect and cherish means to be able to understand and appreciate why it is that God has placed things in their respective places as He actually has. It is no mistake that He placed Jesus in the land of Israel-Palestine. He did that for a reason and this has to be acknowledged as honourable. God never slights His creation or His creative plan - nor should we.
	Excellent analysis  May 24, 2010
Burge's latest book on land theology and its political consequences is thoroughly exegetical and, IMO, utterly convincing. He demonstrates sound biblical theology, interpreting the OT promises in light of what the NT writers and Jesus say about them. The chapters on John's gospel and Paul's letters are worth the price of the book easily. The only drawback here may be that the discussion gets a bit technical at times. However, I'd strongly recommend the book as a noteworthy correction to misplaced Christian Zionist theology and ethics.

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