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Source: (consider it) Thread: Visiting the Holy Land(TM)
lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:

It's possible if they had seen 'one group oppressing another' it would've taken away any appreciation they had of the geographical nearness of walking where Jesus walked, or seeing the Sea of Galilee etc. But I doubt it.

This is a massive problem. One is contributing to the flouting of Jesus' message for the privilege of a spiritual selfie.

I think this is seriously fucked up.

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Doc Tor
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I would concur. Those people - Christians, often evangelicals - whose support for Zionism is unequivocal and faith-mandated are amongst the people who need to be confronted with the consequences that has for the Arab population of Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Looking away in case 'it spoils their spiritual experience'? [Disappointed]

[ 28. October 2017, 15:54: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]

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Anglican_Brat
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I would concur. Those people - Christians, often evangelicals - whose support for Zionism is unequivocal and faith-mandated are amongst the people who need to be confronted with the consequences that has for the Arab population of Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Looking away in case 'it spoils their spiritual experience'? [Disappointed]

The trip into Bethlehem is one grievous example, evangelical tour buses who head through the checkpoints and the wall tend to receive the best courtesy from the IDF soldiers, so much that it leaves the impression for many evangelicals that the wall/check points are no big deal and that the Palestinians are complaining for no reason.

However, I had the opportunity to go through a checkpoint with a Palestinian deacon at the time, and it was one of the most humiliating and racist incidents i ever encountered.

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mr cheesy
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I suppose I also want to say that I think there is something oppressive about being a tourist in many places. For me it was the connection with my own faith which made the whole experience sickening.

But there is also incredible poverty and injustice in Egypt, India, Jordan and elsewhere. There is arguably incredible injustice in London.

For me there is something about describing a visit as a pilgrimage which makes takes the whole thing onto a different level.

I don't really know what or why that is. And I recognise the hypocrisy of saying that having a "fine old spiritual time" in Israel is inconsistent when there is injustice on the doorstep but then being prepared to put up with the injustice to have essentially the same experience in Egypt or India.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
The trip into Bethlehem is one grievous example, evangelical tour buses who head through the checkpoints and the wall tend to receive the best courtesy from the IDF soldiers, so much that it leaves the impression for many evangelicals that the wall/check points are no big deal and that the Palestinians are complaining for no reason.

I used to know a owner of a largish hotel in Bethlehem.

It is hard to run a tour guide company from inside the West Bank, so the vast majority of pilgrims travel on Israeli plated buses and stay in Israeli hotels. Few tourists overnight in Bethlehem, in consequence outside of Christmas and Easter seasons (which is extended due to celebrating both Eastern and Western Calendars), it is possible to stay in entirely empty hotels and see no tourists.

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Anglican_Brat
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Assuming the standard New Testament interpretation that Jesus critiqued the Temple institution, its entanglement with Rome, the priesthood's distance from the ordinary people of Judea, I suspect that our Lord also had this ambivalent attitude towards this Holy City.

It has been remarked that Luke exalts the Temple as the setting for the Presentation of our Lord, and Jesus' 12 year old self conversing with the scribes, so the Temple has a positive depiction, but Luke, like all the evangelists, also has Jesus throwing the tables, and the money changers out of the Temple.

So our ambivalence towards the Holy Land is not new. It dates back to Jesus himself.

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:

But there is also incredible poverty and injustice in Egypt, India, Jordan and elsewhere. There is arguably incredible injustice in London.

I do think that there are places that being a tourist is harmful. There are also places that spending that tourist £/$ helps the poor in ways their government cannot or will not. It really depends on the place and how one interacts. Package tours are generally the worst, as well as being the least interesting, educational and interactive. More like going to a zoo than experiencing a country.

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I would concur. Those people - Christians, often evangelicals - whose support for Zionism is unequivocal and faith-mandated are amongst the people who need to be confronted with the consequences that has for the Arab population of Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Looking away in case 'it spoils their spiritual experience'? [Disappointed]

I agree-- but in defense of my fellow evangelicals I would add that it appears that the Israeli govt is (not surprisingly) very complicit in this. In my experience, one has to be very intentional about seeking out a specific kind of tour from one of the peacemaking groups that are intentionally designing tours with that in mind to get any exposure to Palestinian experience whatsoever. Meanwhile, the Nice Sunday School- Bibleland Tours Led by Real Live Jews are marketed to pastors up the whazzo with lots of free benefits for pastors who take their flock on them.

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Meanwhile, the Nice Sunday School- Bibleland Tours Led by Real Live Jews are marketed to pastors up the whazzo with lots of free benefits for pastors who take their flock on them.

But how in the Hell can any reasonably concious person not know this is bullshit?
Not care? That I can see, but not know?

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Meanwhile, the Nice Sunday School- Bibleland Tours Led by Real Live Jews are marketed to pastors up the whazzo with lots of free benefits for pastors who take their flock on them.

But how in the Hell can any reasonably concious person not know this is bullshit?
Not care? That I can see, but not know?

I think there are a whole lot of us Americans who just don't know what's going on outside of the US. Particularly in the Bible belt there is such a strong pro-Israel narrative as well that its hard for anything else to get thru the clutter.

And, as noted above, it's not just in Israel. The first time we taught in Zambia, we lived as close as we could to/with our students. But we had our young kids with us and wanted to take them on a safari, so went down to Livingston for one of the marketed tours connected with a large British-style hotel. Upon arriving and being greeted to our great amusement by what I guess were supposed to be native Zulu warriors or something we began referring to the place as "Afro-Disney". Playful monkeys in the trees and tame zebras roaming the place. At the Western style buffet with their carving stations and salad bar, a waiter stopped my youngest son when he headed straight for the small table off to the side of Zambian food to fill up on nshima (the nat'l dish), thinking he's mistaken it for mashed potatoes. He was delighted to learn that son actually loved nshima.

otoh, Africa is also full of the opposite-- "compassion tours" filled with visits to "orphanages" and ministries to "street children" that in reality aren't really orphans or street children (in some cases there's not even a school there-- just some kids rounded up and given a few coins or treats for the day to sit thru the predictable VBS).

Hard to say which is worse.

Short term travel/mission trips can indeed be problematic and faught but there is also still value in them IMHO. For us, going back to the same place year after year and building relationships with locals has been helpful.

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wild haggis
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Israel does pollarise people - that includes its own inhabitants.

How can you say it is like Jesus' time with a whopping great wall across the county dividing it? What's holy about that? Tourists can whiz through check points when residents can't - and that includes Israeli Christians, waiting many hours just to go to work on the other side of the wall. I once listened to a Christian shopkeeper from Bethlehem, who could trace her family back in that city for a great many centuries - long before Israel was even a twinkle in Balfour's eye, long before even the Ottoman Empire. She had to pack up and leave because the wall was built yards from the door of her shop. He custom dried up. She lost her living.

When I was doing my Masters in RE, years ago, a group went from our uni to visit Israeli/Palestinian Christians. Much of their trip was fraught with difficulty as the Israeli authorities only wanted them to go where they wanted, on the well trodden tourist trails, controlled by what they wanted the tourists to see.

Many years later, our son visited Israel as part of the techie team for a dance company's tour there. He hated the sight of soldiers with guns everywhere, including on the beach where he wanted to relax on his time off. I said his descriptions reminded me of N Ireland in '70s, when I was there. Horrible.

Quite a few years ago a friend who worked for an authorised organisation in Israel, saw the house she was boarding in, with its indigenous Christian family, being bull-dosed at 24 hours notice. Why? No one knew. They hadn't done anything to upset the Government. For as log as people could remember Jews, Moslems and Christians had lived side by side peacefully in the village. That is until the Israeli Government decided it wanted to build a Jewish Settlement close by and houses began to be bulldozed for no reason.

Why should we call the land "Holy" anyway - Jesus isn't there any more. He wouldn't recognise it if he were. He would cry yet again, over what has happened to Jerlusalem.

Holy is more to do with us and how we feel and what brings us closer to God or not. A divided community, soldiers with guns and a wall don't do it for me. Nor does providing the Israeli Government who are engaged in racially cleansing Israel, with revenue from my £. (And I'm not anti-semetic as most of my husband's family died in the Shoah. I'm a human being who cares for people no matter what their race or religion.)

Yes, Lindisfarne is a "thin" place, as many other places where you feel close to God, can be. For me walking up the market street in Salamis as Paul and Barnebus did was one such place - but it might not do it for you; visiting the old train station converted into a tiny Russian Orthodox chapel at Walsingham; or visiting the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in the Faner in Istanbul where there are tombs of some of the Early Church Fathers, ..... so many other places.

Here in Wales there are many "thin" places. Come, listen to the stories of those early saints who brought Christianity to these shores of Britain. It's moving and just as holy. OK not so hot and sunny - but cheaper!

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Gamaliel
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The thing with any of this is that we can none of us not bring presuppositions, confirmation bias or 'baggage' into the equation.

That neither validates nor invalidates these things.

I once visited Little Gidding, subject and setting for the fourth of T S Eliot's Four Quartets.

I was alone and felt mounting excitement and anticipation as I drew closer. I knew the poem well and never cease to be moved by it. There was no-one there and the nearby retreat house was closed due to illness. In the stillness and solitude I recited the whole of the poem using a copy conveniently provided on the choir stalls.

It felt like a deeply spiritual band almost liturgical thing to do. I was in tears by the end of it and couldn't have cared less if someone had come in and seen or heard me.

Now,would my visit have been different had I not been familiar with the poem? Of course.

What was happening was that I was bringing a whole interwoven pattern of associations to a physical location that had inspired or helped shape those associations.

We are physical beings. The Word became Flesh.

I can read Little Gidding at home, I can listen to Paul Schofield reading it on CD in my car. But how special and how powerful to go to the actual physical location and do something physical with it ie read it out loud?

Pilgrimage and trips to the Holy Land or to Lindisfarne or wherever else serve a similar function.

I've 'felt' close to Wordsworth and Coleridge in places associated with them, not in a heeby-geebie way.

I've felt saddened on visits to battle-fields.

Would I have felt that way had I not known the associations?

No, of course I wouldn't.

I do have a well-developed 'sense of place', I can certainly say I regard particular locations as 'holy places'.

Does that mean I regard those who don't have any inclinations that way as miserable, Puritanical unfeeling gits?

No, I can understand reactions to the tacky and the territorial. I share those.

Nevertheless ...

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

I do have a well-developed 'sense of place',

I've strode historic battlements, walked bloody battlefields, stood where significant speeches were made and strode the paths of heroes and felt.
The events which happened to make those places notable have an effect on my life even should I have never visited or even known where they were. Being there, though, felt greater than merely knowing.
It isn't that I do not understand why people want this for the holy land. It is that they pretty much must ignore the shit that happens there which is direct contradiction to the values of the person who makes this place special to them. And ignore that they are fairly complicit in said shit by visiting.

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Forthview
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As one or two people have already remarked the 'Holy' Land in the days of Jesus would have not been as calm,as 'holy' nor as conducive to quiet contemplation as some posters would like it to be.
In the days of Jesus there would have been the same pushing and shoving and groups of people of all types who wanted to visit the Holy City of Jerusalem.

I haven't been to the 'Holy' Land but I have been regularly to the Catholic shrine of Lourdes in France. Obviously not as extensive as the 'Holy' Land,but it attracts for all sorts of reasons the same broad mass of people, those looking for a spiritual experience, those looking for a cure as well as many who are simply curious.

Of course it is a miniature world seen through the prism of the Catholic faith. For some the many churches and the many different ceremonies, particularly Reconciliation,Eucharist and Anointing of the Sick fulfil a deep spiritual need. For others it is an opportunity to be of assistance to those who are in need. Yet again for others it is simply a place to observe the faith (or gullibility ?) of others.
Some are repelled by what are seen as tacky souvenirs, though many of these are taken back as precious momentoes of an unforgettable experience.
Others don't like the shopkeepers who sell the souvenirs, although they don't mind people selling tacky souvenirs in other places.
Jesus came with a message for all people, not just those who are able to meditate quietly . You will see people pushing and shoving to get at the taps and fill up their bottles of Lourdes water.You will overhear a good number of unspiritual conversations amongst the 'brancardiers' (those who help the sick)
The last time I was there, there was a big Mass in one of the churches in Catalan. Sprawled on the steps outside the basilica, not paying any attention to the service proceeding inside, were about 50 young people. I had to remember, however,that they had given up a week of their time (unpaid !) to accompany the sick and wheelchair bound to the pilgrimage and that they spent all
day from dawn to dusk helping to care for them ,pushing them and pulling them in their chairs.F or me that is a great spiritual experience and reminds me of the actions of Jesus at the Last Supper when he washed the feet of His disciples.

Pilgrimages to the Holy Land, to Lourdes etc are indeed what we make of them.

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
As one or two people have already remarked the 'Holy' Land in the days of Jesus would have not been as calm,as 'holy' nor as conducive to quiet contemplation as some posters would like it to be.
In the days of Jesus there would have been the same pushing and shoving and groups of people of all types who wanted to visit the Holy City of Jerusalem.

all the more reason to include Palestinian experience in the trip, then, to get that sense of oppression, tribalism, us vs. them, nationalism, injustice, etc. etc that was as present in the 1st c as it is today.

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Ricardus
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quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:

Some are repelled by what are seen as tacky souvenirs, though many of these are taken back as precious momentoes of an unforgettable experience.

This is true. I'm the sort of person who sneers at tacky souvenirs, but if they are sold, that means there's a market for them, and therefore they must be meaningful to a significant number of people. In which case, the problem is my snobbery rather than the souvenirs themselves.

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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)

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mr cheesy
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Someone said something about about there being some places that it is impossible to go without participating in a very overt injustice.

Sorry if I've paraphrased, I think it was a while back so I'm not going to go hunting for the exact phrase.

Anyway - I'm wondering if there are other places that it is basically immoral to visit as a tourist. Turkey is a popular tourist destination, but isn't exactly a liberal democracy any more. Some of the Eastern European countries haven't exactly been friendly to weary refugees on their borders. Morocco is fighting a largely ignored ongoing war in Western Sahara. Egypt is.. well, a mess.

Are these all to be put into the immoral category? Is immoral the right word in this context? How does one decide when somewhere is too bad to visit?

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lilBuddha
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I think one should assess the impact of one’s travel. It is possible to go nearly anywhere and be a positive, or at least neutral, influence. Some considerably more difficult than others, of course.
I am a firm believer in travel and the positives that it can have for the traveler and the visited. But it should always be done in a conscious, engaged way.
As twee as it sounds, be a traveler and not a tourist.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

I think one should assess the impact of one’s travel. It is possible to go nearly anywhere and be a positive, or at least neutral, influence. Some considerably more difficult than others, of course.

I don't know what this means. How can a traveller objectively assess their impact?

ISTM that no traveller anywhere is ever going to have a neutral impact on the place they visit. If the traveller is considerably wealthier than the majority of the people living in the country, the impact is almost always negative.

quote:
I am a firm believer in travel and the positives that it can have for the traveler and the visited. But it should always be done in a conscious, engaged way.
As twee as it sounds, be a traveler and not a tourist.

I don't think I am that believer. I have seen too many negatives everywhere I've been.

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
If the traveller is considerably wealthier than the majority of the people living in the country, the impact is almost always negative.

Not to take away from the very obvious and egregious damages you are no doubt alluding to, it should be noted that tourism dollars can be a vital source of income for many. Fraught with problems, yes, but a default "wealthy people traveling is always a problem" seems like very much of an over-reach. And the inevitable consequence of such a simplistic dictate would be that rich people only ever visit other rich people-- only exasperating the already existing segregation of the wealthy from the real lives of the poor, which IMHO is a huge part of the problem we're experiencing here in the US right now.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Not to take away from the very obvious and egregious damages you are no doubt alluding to, it should be noted that tourism dollars can be a vital source of income for many. Fraught with problems, yes, but a default "wealthy people traveling is always a problem" seems like very much of an over-reach.

I don't think it is. The "good" that comes from the tourist dollars is by far outweighed by (for example) the environmental cost of getting them there, the inerrant corruption in the tourism industry which means that the rich siphon off the majority of the wealth so that the weakest gain almost nothing. And so on.

quote:
And the inevitable consequence of such a simplistic dictate would be that rich people only ever visit other rich people-- only exasperating the already existing segregation of the wealthy from the real lives of the poor, which IMHO is a huge part of the problem we're experiencing here in the US right now.
I don't know, if you want to have this conversation then maybe let's talk about it in another thread.

I'm not persuaded that many poor people would be worse off if they suddenly lived in a country with no tourists.

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arse

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
How can a traveller objectively assess their impact?

Does adding potential to impact help? Learning about the cultures and conditions of where one chooses to travel.
quote:

ISTM that no traveller anywhere is ever going to have a neutral impact on the place they visit. If the traveller is considerably wealthier than the majority of the people living in the country, the impact is almost always negative.

Do you have a negative impact if you visit a shop in Rochdale in Manchester? Why is it inherently true of another country?

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Do you have a negative impact if you visit a shop in Rochdale in Manchester? Why is it inherently true of another country?

I don't think the impact is the same when one is visiting another part of the country where one is a tax-paying, responsible citizen as when visiting another, much poorer country.

Incidentally, the only time I visited Rochdale was to help a women's co-operative. So in that particular example, I can be fairly sure that I didn't make anything worse.

[ 30. October 2017, 15:07: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

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When I go to France, a country clearly better run and governed than mine currently is, I am certain my tourism has no effect upon the populace. (Americans get sympathy, especially when we cry out "I didn't vote for him!") But I'm certain that if I went to a country well on down in the scale my presence would have a different effect.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
the shit that happens there which is direct contradiction to the values of the person who makes this place special to them.

Like Islamofascists firing rockets at schools in an effort to murder Jewish children.
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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
the shit that happens there which is direct contradiction to the values of the person who makes this place special to them.

Like Islamofascists firing rockets at schools in an effort to murder Jewish children.
Equating the actions of militants with the same behaviour from a government is completely asinine.
Par for the course, though, and consistent with the type of hypocritical, dumbfuck Christianity* that thinks it is OK to abuse everyone for the actions of a few as long as those abused are not Christian or Israeli Jews.

*Not tarring all Christians.

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mr cheesy
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Irony is that a fair proportion of Palestinians are Christians.

That said, many have already left.

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arse

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Irony is that a fair proportion of Palestinians are Christians.

That said, many have already left.

Poor mr cheesy, did you not know? All of Palestine is filled with blood-thirsty Islamacists lining up to drink the blood of Israeli babies. It is anti-Zionist propaganda that anyone else is there.

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Gamaliel
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

I do have a well-developed 'sense of place',

I've strode historic battlements, walked bloody battlefields, stood where significant speeches were made and strode the paths of heroes and felt.
The events which happened to make those places notable have an effect on my life even should I have never visited or even known where they were. Being there, though, felt greater than merely knowing.
It isn't that I do not understand why people want this for the holy land. It is that they pretty much must ignore the shit that happens there which is direct contradiction to the values of the person who makes this place special to them. And ignore that they are fairly complicit in said shit by visiting.

Well yes, which is why I'd be more inclined to visit 'holy places' here or elsewhere in Western Europe rather than traipsing over to the Holy Land.

Meanwhile, I've not been around for a bit but notice that Kaplan hasn't changed his spots ...

Yes, there are Islamofascists trying to murder Jewish children.

We all know that.

Tell us something new.

Two wrongs don't make a right and that doesn't excuse the Israeli state from acting bastardly as it certainly has done from time to time - and still does.

Nor does the presence of tack and shite invalidate the idea of pilgrimages or visits to places people associate with things that are important to them, be it a shrine, be it a football stadium or an art gallery, a concert hall or an historic site of some kind.

I come from a similar low-church evangelical background to Kaplan and find a lot of these things difficult. Of course I do.

But it always makes me smile how some of the most vociferously anti-pilgrimage or anti-special places of evangelicals think nothing of travelling across half the world to visit somewhere they think is special ... The Toronto Airport Vineyard anyone?

I once met some lovely Brethren guys from New Zealand at the museum in David Livingstone's former home in Lanarkshire.

They'd have probably despised a visit to Chartres Cathedral or Lourdes, Walsingham or wherever else. But because it was a Protestant site, and an interesting one at that, their visit was all ok.

I've come across similar sentiments at sites associated with the Wesleys.

Sure, tack is tack and is pretty awful but somehow these things are always ok when they represent our own tradition but somehow beyond the pale when they come from someone else's.

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SvitlanaV2
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I've visited a few sites associated with the Wesleys, but it's never occurred to me that I was making a 'pilgrimage' as such. The MethodistsI've known don't seem to use that terminology. As a consequence, perhaps their expectations are somewhat different from those of 'true' pilgrims. I don't know.

But this thread has reminded me that many 'pilgrims' aren't particularly looking for a 'religious' experience so much as a connection to a certain cultural heritage. And regardless of your religious beliefs, you might find value in any kind of journey whose purpose is to stimulate reflection, and has done so for many, many other people.

[ 30. October 2017, 21:51: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

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Anselmina
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:

It's possible if they had seen 'one group oppressing another' it would've taken away any appreciation they had of the geographical nearness of walking where Jesus walked, or seeing the Sea of Galilee etc. But I doubt it.

This is a massive problem. One is contributing to the flouting of Jesus' message for the privilege of a spiritual selfie.

I think this is seriously fucked up.

So tourists visiting Israel for spiritual reasons is 'fucked up'?

What about tourists visiting Israel for non-spiritual reasons? Presume that's not fucked up - because Jesus' 'message' isn't being 'flouted'? Or those who visit for non-spiritual reasons but accidentally get blessed by God (surely not?!)? Are they free from the sneering condemnation? They're not flouting Jesus' message either. You know, that message Jesus used to teach about never being a tourist in a country where the government practice inequalities and injustices against certain sections of the population?

For pity's sake. Get perspective. You and Doc Tor both. Yes, some people - and no doubt some travel companies actually exploit the tourist potential of a significant place regarded as holy by huge numbers of religious, and non-religious, people. And I certainly share the distaste of how some of this feeds into the rampant pro-Israelism of some forms of fundamentalist Christianity.

But unless you actually believe that all tourism to all countries who perpetrate policies of unfairness injurious to parts of their population should be banned on moral grounds, this is shite.

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
So tourists visiting Israel for spiritual reasons is 'fucked up'?

What about tourists visiting Israel for non-spiritual reasons? Presume that's not fucked up - because Jesus' 'message' isn't being 'flouted'?

Anyone who supports Israel's poor treatment of the Palestinians, is fucked up. People who do so and are Christians add hypocrisy on top of that.


quote:

For pity's sake. Get perspective.

On the contrary, I think it is perspective that informs my view.

quote:

But unless you actually believe that all tourism to all countries who perpetrate policies of unfairness injurious to parts of their population should be banned on moral grounds, this is shite.

If you'd read farther than my reply to you, it should be obvious that my position is more nuanced.

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Gamaliel
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SvitlanaV2, I'm using the term pilgrimage in a looser sense.

My point is that some Protestants would think nothing of visiting sites associated with the Wesleys or hymn-writers, Reformation heroes etc yet he all hot under the collar when more Catholic types do similar things only connected with their tradition.

--------------------
Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.

http://philthebard.blogspot.com

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If you'd read farther than my reply to you, it should be obvious that my position is more nuanced.

I'd still like you to explain the criteria you are using to determine that visiting Israel is worse than visiting Turkey, Egypt, India or Kenya please.

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arse

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crunt
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I would like to go to the so-called Holy Land, but apart from other, perhaps more obvious, dangers and problems related to such a trip, I am also a little bit nervous about this.

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
SvitlanaV2, I'm using the term pilgrimage in a looser sense.

My point is that some Protestants would think nothing of visiting sites associated with the Wesleys or hymn-writers, Reformation heroes etc yet he all hot under the collar when more Catholic types do similar things only connected with their tradition.

Putting to one side the obvious point that some Protestants simply aren't keen on whatever the RCC does, what interests me in particular is this 'looser sense' of pilgrimage. It obviously creates confusion. Who really knows if a 'similar thing' is going on when two very different groups of people go off on their journeys?

Indeed, when you consider that the RC pilgrimage in the link I mentioned, the Camino di Santiago, attracts people with so many different agendas, I should think it's hard to say what's really going on. I can see why even a devout RC might disapprove.

I suppose charismatic evangelicals can at least be thankful that groups of atheists and bullish backsliders are never going to go on a pilgrimage to the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church! (Or are they...?)

[Biased]

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If you'd read farther than my reply to you, it should be obvious that my position is more nuanced.

I'd still like you to explain the criteria you are using to determine that visiting Israel is worse than visiting Turkey, Egypt, India or Kenya please.
Well, worse is going to be partly subjective.
I am saying Israel is worse for the sort of Christian who goes the "holy" land to recharge their spiritual batteries. For other people, it depends on how one travels.

--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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Nick Tamen

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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I am saying Israel is worse for the sort of Christian who goes the "holy" land to recharge their spiritual batteries. For other people, it depends on how one travels.

Maybe. I know quite a few Christians for whom hearing the voices of and being in solidarity with Palestians and actively exploring and pursuing avenues of peace and justice has been integral to recharging their spiritual batteries on “pilgrimage”* to “the Holy Land.”

* It may not be a traditional pilgrimage, but those I know readily use that term to describe the experience.

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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Well, worse is going to be partly subjective.
I am saying Israel is worse for the sort of Christian who goes the "holy" land to recharge their spiritual batteries. For other people, it depends on how one travels.

This doesn't seem to me to mean anything.

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arse

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