Jerusalem has no capitol. we have no god?

Israel has no capital and we have no God

Dr. David Jeremiah – Guest Columnist
http://www.davidjeremiah.org/

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Christians across the U.S. should note that the Democratic Party has made a conscience decision to turn away from God.

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As an evangelical Christian pastor who has devoted his entire adult life, nearly 50 years, to sharing God’s unchanging Word with an ever-changing world, I was shocked at what transpired at the Democratic National Convention last week.

On the first day of the convention, the Democrats approved their 2012 party platform. Notably absent were two things: there was no affirmation of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and there was no mention of God.

Three paragraphs of the hefty 26,000 word platform describe the Democratic Party position on the Middle East. Two of those paragraphs address the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The first two sentences are reassuring: “President Obama and the Democratic Party maintain an unshakable commitment to Israel’s security. A strong and secure Israel is vital to the United States not simply because we share strategic interests, but also because we share common values.”

The platform also states that defense spending to Israel has increased by $10 billion over the past three years, demands that Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist, and calls for a two-state solution.

But nowhere did the platform affirm Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel. The 2008 Democratic Party platform, like virtually every platform before it, made the recognition explicit. Removing that acknowledgement is a dangerous shift in the official position of the Democratic Party. Given the importance of Jerusalem to our ally, the omission is a striking one. Does Israel have no capital?

Apparently the party leaders also had no need for our Creator. Out of those 26,000 words, not one of them was ‘God.’ Previous platforms acknowledged God: four times in the 2000 platform, seven times in 2004, then just once four years ago. This year, even that lone reference was excised.

Since the references to God and to Jerusalem were present in previous versions, but were deleted from the 2012 document, at some point the platform committee decided to strike the references.

Lots of people noticed, however, and there was a scramble to put down some boards to cover the hole. Wednesday afternoon, former Ohio governor Ted Strickland, an ordained Methodist minister, introduced a motion to reinsert the reference to God and to acknowledge that Jerusalem is, indeed, the capital of the state of Israel.

When Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the DNC chair, called for a voice vote, the ayes and nos sounded roughly even. Mr. Villaraigosa certainly thought so; he called for not one but two more votes. With each ballot it became clear that if there were more ayes than nos, it wasn’t by much and surely fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass.

Curiously, despite the clear lack of a definitive approval for the motion, Mr. Villaraigosa simply opted to declare the amendment adopted.

That’s when the jeers started. It wasn’t completely clear whether the delegates were unhappy with the content of the amendments or the way they were implemented, but right there, on the floor of the Democratic National Convention, a significant number of delegates actually booed.

This is extraordinary. The United States is a Christian nation, not in the sense of a theocracy, of course, but by virtue of the fact that it was founded and established on Judeo-Christian morals, values and principles.

Omitting God from the platform would push us farther from our roots and closer to being a wholly secular society. President Ronald Reagan described the result of such a slide most succinctly when he said that, “When we stop being a nation under God, we will be a nation gone under.”

Removing the recognition of Jerusalem as the one, true capital of the nation of Israel seriously weakens our historically strong support. It emboldens anti-Israel terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas and I shudder to consider the impact it could have in the palaces of Iran, which has publically called for the total annihilation of the Jewish state.

Since the Jewish state’s founding in 1948, the United States has been its most consistent and ardent ally. In the parlance of the early 21st century, we have always “had Israel’s back.” In my 2011 bookI Never Thought I’d See The Day!, I dedicated an entire chapter to our nation’s relationship with Israel and I can tell you that the implications for that relationship are profound. Here’s what I wrote more than 18 months ago; the words are as relevant today as they were then, perhaps more so:

You and I can do two things to influence America’s support of Israel: First, we can use whatever means are available to influence those who establish national policies in Washington. We can vote, write letters, or call our senators and representatives — in short, fulfill the dream of the founders who wanted our nation to be governed “by the consent of the governed.” We are the governed who need to make our voices heard by saying, “The United States simply needs to recognize that Israeli lands belong to the Jewish people and that Jerusalem is, indeed, the capital of Israel — and has been ever since God declared it to be so.

Second, we can pray, both for our leaders (1 Timothy 2:1-4) and for “the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6). As the spiritual children of Abraham, Christians everywhere can enter into the spirit of Psalm 122, which David wrote to express his heart for the city upon which God has chosen to place His name.

One of our political parties has made a conscience decision to turn even farther away from God with the goal of changing America into a more secular society. Christians across the country should consider that when they go to the polls in November.

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Dr. David Jeremiah is founder of Turning Point Radio and Television Ministries and senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in San Diego County, California.

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