From The American Spectator:
The 5 million member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) recently hosted a conference in Berlin, Germany about sinister "walls." The walls under examination were the former Berlin Wall, the security wall that Israel has constructed between itself and Palestinian territories, and the as of yet unbuilt partial wall to be erected along the U.S. southern border to inhibit illegal immigration.
"We insist that God calls us to be peacemakers," explained ELCA missions executive Rev. Said R. Ailabouni. "We are committed to peace, not walls." The conference was called "Mighty Fortresses and Mustard Seeds: Life in the Shadow of a Wall," referencing, of course, Lutheranism's flagship hymn: "A Mighty Fortress is our God."
But in typical fashion for liberal Protestantism, which has largely forgotten the robust moral certitude of "Mighty Fortress" author Martin Luther, the conference was befuddled over any moral distinctions among these very different walls.
The Berlin Wall for nearly 30 years incarcerated East Berliners who chaffed under Communism. But liberal Protestantism, during almost all of those years, had little to nothing to say about that wall. At most, church liberals saw the wall at the time as merely a tragic symbol of misunderstanding and mistrust between East and West.
Only since the Berlin Wall fell have mainline church liberals, Lutheran or otherwise, been more willing to acknowledge the unpleasantness of Soviet-imposed Communism. In recent years, the Berlin Wall has become a useful metaphorical tool for condemning the Israeli security barrier and, even more recently, for assailing a security barrier along the southern U.S. border.
The moral distinctions among these walls should be obvious. The Berlin Wall was built by an oppressive government determine to imprison its own citizens. The Israeli security wall is intended to block Palestinian suicide bombers. The U.S. security barrier is meant to minimize the inflow of illegal immigrants. There is tragedy involved with each wall. But the intent behind the Israeli and U.S. walls is protection, not imprisonment of citizens. The Lutherans meeting in Berlin were nonetheless painfully disturbed and confused.
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