The Kairotic Times Call for a Global Circle of Prophets

<시운이 예언자들의 서클을 부른다.>

A message delivered by Prof. Kim Yong-Bock at the prayer meeting of the Korean Christian Network for Peace in Palestine (KCNPP), at the Christian Building, Seoul, Korea, in May 2015

In the history of politics of the people of God, King Ahab's regime is identified as a paradigm of evil, as the extreme example of a king who was "more evil than all the kings before him" (1 Kings 16:30; 1 Kings 16:29 through 20:40). This is the background against which the prophetic movement of Elijah arose; and the prophetic movement of resistance against King Ahab was a prophetic paradigm for justice, peace and life together.

2) The Ahab regime had a militaristic background; Ahab was the son of Omri, who became king through a military coup. Ahab was able to mobilize a military force of 2,000 chariots and 20,000 troops for battle.

3) Ahab's regime was deeply entrenched in the religious ideology of greed in the form of Baalism. His wife Jezebel, a believer in Baal, mobilized her priests to attack the prophetic movement and even to murder Naboth. King Ahab was surrounded by this religious ideological force.

4) The illegal expropriation of Naboth’s vineyard, which had been allotted to him by God, was a “paradigmatic act” in violation of the divine covenant. The prophet Elijah confronted Ahab over Jezebel's execution of Naboth to take possession of his family's ancestral vineyard (1 Kings 21:1-16). This act of Ahab violated divine sovereignty over the property of the people, guaranteed for their sustenance.

5) The forging of the Ahab regime was closely connected with the Assyrian and the Babylonian Empires, as the geo-political context and arena of imperial hegemony. The Ahab regime reflected the political dynamics of those empires.

In this context of the political regime of Ahab and imperial hegemonic politics, the prophetic movement arose and was sustained throughout the history of the people of God. The movement of the prophet Elijah and his colleagues sprang up to resist the ruling powers and to struggle for justice for the people of God on earth.

The Prophetic Movement of Jesus as the Omega Point.

In the New Testament, Elijah accompanies Jesus spiritually and theologically in his prophetic stance. Jesus the Prophet resisted the Roman Empire together with the people of the land (Am Ha'aretz) in Palestine.

I believe that the movement of Kairos Palestine is a continuation of the prophetic movement of Jesus and Elijah.

The state of Israel was established arbitrarily by the Western colonial and hegemonic powers in the 19th and 20th centuries. This was the establishment of a foreign nation-state against the will of the people in the land of Palestine. It was an occupation and settlement from the outside by Zionist Jewish power, a present-day Ahab-style political act of “taking Naboth's vineyard.”  The state of Israel continues to expropriate the land of the Palestinian people, illegally occupying it and creating settlements against the will of the people of Palestine.

Let us look at the situation from a prophetic perspective.

1) The political regime of the state of Israel resembles the Ahab political regime.

2) The political regime of present-day Israel is grounded on the religious ideology of Zionism.

3) This Zionist religious ideology is in symbiotic relationship with global money and power that seeks to maintain and expand its hegemony, especially in West Asia.

4) The Zionist state of Israel is undergirded by a military power that wages illegal wars and violence, massacres children and adults, and rules over occupied Palestine by military force. The state of Israel exists through its military and geo-political alliance with US/Western global hegemonic power. (Recently President Obama gave $1.9 billion in weapons sales as a gift to Israel’s racist government.)

5) The Zionist regime of Israel manifests its cultural hegemony through the major media that serve the globally linked economic and military forces. This cultural hegemony is designed to maintain Israel’s supremacy.

6) The Zionist regime is closely linked with and supported by global Christian Zionist factions and by the Christian right in the heart of the empire and around the world.

The state of Israel is in outright violation of the divine covenant of justice and peace for life together among all living beings on earth.

Kairos Palestine is a faith movement of prophetic resistance against Zionist domination and hegemony over the land of Palestine, West Asia and elsewhere.

Kairos Palestine is calling for a Global Kairos Movement. The background of this movement is the Nakba and the Intifada, which the Palestinian people know by experience as a faith and peace movement and struggle. Kairos Palestine is calling for a global prophetic movement for justice on earth, for the fullness of life among all living beings.

I believe that the year 2015 is a Kairos that calls for a global circle of prophets. In support of the movement of Kairos Palestine, there have been prophetic responses from South Africa, Brazil, Europe and North America. There are emerging Asian responses from India, the Philippines and Korea.

KCNPP (Korean Christian Network for Peace in Palestine) is a faith response to the call for a "Global Circle of Prophets.”We must deal with Korean Christians’ deep involvement with Christian Zionism, which is connected to the Zionist regime of Israel.

We must launch the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement in economic, cultural and military terms. The Korean Christian community in particular must launch a religious BDS movement in relation to “Holy Land Pilgrimages.” In fact, we began this movement last year, in our effort to incubate and establish ATG-Korea.

The paradigm of Ahab's political regime and its connections with the geopolitical hegemony of the empire is reflected in the Korean peninsula, as well as in Palestine. Like an ellipse, the West Asian pivot of prophetic peace movement and the East Asian prophetic peace movement are located in Palestine and in the Korean peninsula.