As a Christian, one hopes for a different tone from Wall when he addresses points like this one:
The Times says the [Christians’] letter is intended to “put the Palestinian plight and the stalled peace negotiations back in the spotlight”. That is balderdash, as Joe Biden likes to say.
The 15 leaders make no reference to a “motive” for writing the latter. They do not have to. The New Testament is their motive.
There is another way to put this – one that doesn’t sound like “New Testament” is something to whack Zionist-flack news correspondents in the chops with.
Why, after all, would any news reporter, regardless of her ethnic or religious background, be expected to couch the point in Wall’s terms? Christians can speak in such shorthand to each other – “The New Testament is our motive” – but a New York Times correspondent isn’t writing for an in-house Christian forum. It isn’t entirely clear from the original Goodstein piece, but she does quote from interviews given by three of the Christian leaders after the letter was sent. In suggesting their motives for the letter, she may well have been drawing from comments the Christian leaders actually made.
I guess the opening salvo of Wall’s post should have been warning enough (bold face in original):
You have to know American Jewish “leaders” are really riled up when they call on the New York Times to flack for them against 15 leaders of Christian churches who had the audacity to send a letter to the US Congress, which said, with proper Christian indignation…
Regrettably, Wall’s whole piece fits well with the turgid, sarcastic, scare-quotes-laden anti-Semitism of the Veterans News Now website.
Is this the face of Christianity, as Christian Century would like to see it displayed? For my part, I repudiate it without hesitation. It’s not even that Mr. Wall’s oeuvre at VNN is out of place there; it’s that it’s not. Whatever he may have been in the past, Wall must now be considered a mismatch with any journal that aspires to serious leadership in Christian thought. I don’t know if he may come someday to repudiate what goes on at Veterans News Now, but I do urge Christian Century to repudiate it, and to remove James Wall’s name from the masthead.
Today, CAMERA posted Christian Century’s rejection of an appeal to do just that. That’s why I write this tonight. I hoped the Christian Century trustees would respond in a more responsible way. Christians everywhere need to know about the unacceptable connection of Christian Century editor James Wall with anti-Semitism – and know how the trustees have responded so far to the concerns expressed over it. Silence in the face of anti-Semitism is consent.