Wilderness Conversations

Rami Sherman lives in a kibbutz in northern Israel.

46 years ago, Rami was the Operations Officer of the Sayeret Matkal Commando unit in the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force when the news filtered through that an Air France plane had been hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. The plane ended up in Entebbe, Uganda.

Yitzhak Rabin and his defense minister Shimon Peres were fierce political rivals and they spent a week disagreeing on strategy. Rabin wanted acquiesce to the terrorists’ demands — the exchange of the Jewish hostages for 40 incarcerated Palestinian militants and a good deal of money; Peres thought such a response would encourage more terror.

Rabin gave in and authorised the rescue after the terrorists’ extended their deadline — from July 1st to the 4th which gave Israeli military chiefs enough time to come up with a viable plan.

The operation was codenamed Operation Thunderbolt, subsequently changed to Operation Yonatan and the order came to Sayeret Matkal and two other commando units that they were up for a top secret mission.

Rami speaks with Wilderness conversations and recalls the scarcely credible events of July 4th 1976 when he and elite forces of the IDF rescued 102 Jewish and Israeli hostages from capture in Entebbe, Uganda.

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Greg Palmer and Phil Shaw are the authors of the book entitled Hard Questions – Real Answers

We did an introductory conversation in January and due to the request of a number of listeners, Greg and Phil return to discuss some Real Answers to some Hard Questions under the headings of:

Questions about Science and Religion

The cover of the book says:

In an age when the very existence of God is doubted, it is no surprise that the reliability of the Bible, which claims to be His word, is questioned. For Bible believers there is ample evidence to support its claims; even so, it contains statements and incidents that can be difficult to understand.

This book asks a series of challenging questions about life, faith and practical Christian living, and offers some Bible-based answers. Throughout the book the authors endeavour to provide “simple, yet credible solutions so that faith might be supported and thinking realigned to the divine mind”.

The book is available at:

The Christadelphian Office

Christadelphian Scripture Study Service

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Matt Davies lives in the United Kingdom and is a member of the Mumbles Christadelphian church or ecclesia.

Matt is a keen Bible student and is involved with the Media Channel known as

Christadelphian Video

and

the YouTube Channel: Bible Truth And Prophecy

Matt speaks with Wilderness conversations about some of the videos he has done recently on Russia and the return of Christ.

wildernessconversations

Greg Palmer and Phil Shaw are the authors of the book entitled Hard Questions – Real Answers.

We did an introductory conversation in January and due to the request of a number of listeners, Greg and Phil return to discuss some Real Answers to some Hard Questions under the headings of:

Questions about God, the Bible and Israel

The cover of the book says:

In an age when the very existence of God is doubted, it is no surprise that the reliability of the Bible, which claims to be His word, is questioned. For Bible believers there is ample evidence to support its claims; even so, it contains statements and incidents that can be difficult to understand.

This book asks a series of challenging questions about life, faith and practical Christian living, and offers some Bible-based answers. Throughout the book the authors endeavour to provide “simple, yet credible solutions so that faith might be supported and thinking realigned to the divine mind”.

The book is available at:

The Christadelphian Office

Christadelphian Scripture Study Service

wildernessconversations.

In 2017 a large group of young people of the Christadelphian faith toured Israel.

A few months later, fascinated by the fact that a group of non-Jewish young people would chose to spend their time and money visiting Israel, we were invited to a conversation on Jewish Radio in Melbourne.

The host, Maurice Klein, describes Shabbat Shalom as a:

“show that presents information to do with the Jewish community and Jewish world, with a centrality of Israel alone with some music, good humour with no PC or woke, just always wearing my heart on my sleeve.”

Joining Maurice in Feb 2018 was Sarah Perry, Jacquie Casey, now Clothier and myself.

www.wildernessconversations.com.au

www.j-air.com.au

Stephen Hughes was born in London and moved to Australia in 1997.

Stephen lives in Brisbane and for many years has been a member of the Christadelphian Church or ecclesia at North Brisbane.

Stephen has a PhD in Physics from King’s College London and for over 15 years taught astrophysics at Queensland University of Technology.

The October and November 2021 Christadelphian Magazine published a 2-part article written by Stephen, entitled, WHY I DON’T BELIEVE.

Stephen joins wildernessconversations to discuss what he does not believe.

Greg Palmer and Phil Shaw live in Adelaide, Phil attends the Southern Vales ecclesia and Greg, the Happy Valley ecclesia.

Over the last few years they have been working on a book that has just been published entitled Hard Questions – Real Answers.

The cover says:

In an age when the very existence of God is doubted, it is no surprise that the reliability of the Bible, which claims to be His word, is questioned. For Bible believers there is ample evidence to support its claims; even so, it contains statements and incidents that can be difficult to understand.

This book asks a series of challenging questions about life, faith and practical Christian living, and offers some Bible-based answers. Throughout the book the authors endeavour to provide “simple, yet credible solutions so that faith might be supported and thinking realigned to the divine mind”.

Greg and Phil join wildernessconversations.

The book is available at:

• The Christadelphian Office
• Christadelphian Scripture Study Service

wildernessconversations.com

The final part of 7, a firsthand account of the work of Advocates.

In 2007 the AACE – the Association of Australian Christadelphian Ecclesias published a book entitled:

“Conscience in Action – the experience of conscientious objection in Australia”

The book Summary says the following:

As brothers and sisters in Christ, while respecting those placed in authority over us and the laws they enact and administer (Rom 13:1-7), we stand for the principles of Christ in relation to our conscientious objection to military service and related activities, and to political involvement in our country. We try to follow the commandments of Christ that we do not fight because we are his servants and his kingdom ‘is not of this world’ (John 18:36). We do not participate in political activities because we are ‘strangers and pilgrims’ in this world (1 Peter 2:11), looking for God’s kingdom to be established at the return of His Son.

The book is both descriptive but exhortational, out lining the reasons for the principled stand and how that was enacted by brethren and sisters down through these years.

Information was collected from many sources including and most importantly in the case of this podcast – accounts of personal experiences.

Thankfully in the couple of years leading up to the publication, a number of oral accounts of the personal experiences of brothers and sisters were recorded. Now nearly 20 years on, many of these brothers and sisters have subsequently fallen asleep in the Lord making these recordings a treasured resource indeed.

The recordings are available with the book, but we reproduce them here in part for convenience and for those who don’t have a copy of the book.

But we do encourage you to get a copy and it is available at AACE.info.

www.wildernessconversations.com

Part 6 of 7 parts, continuing in the period of 1951 to 1972.

Its slightly longer episode, but do listen to the end, where Bro Rob Crispin, not a conscientious objector per se’ tells his story of finding the ‘pearl of great price’ whilst being in the services, his whole life till then, his career, his aspiration but he was in no doubt as to what he must do.

It might have been assumed that once the war finished, there would be less need to demonstrate ones conscience against military activity, but this was certainly not the case. In fact after a short reprieve, after the National Security Act expired on December 31 1946, with development of the Cold War, the Korean War and communist advances in South East Asia the new Prime Minister, R. G. Menzies successfully introduced new legislation to parliament in 1951 which involved conscription. This was in place until it was repealed in 1972 by the new Prime Minister, G Whitlam.

In 2007 the AACE – the Association of Australian Christadelphian Ecclesias published a book entitled:

“Conscience in Action – the experience of conscientious objection in Australia”

The book Summary says the following:

As brothers and sisters in Christ, while respecting those placed in authority over us and the laws they enact and administer (Rom 13:1-7), we stand for the principles of Christ in relation to our conscientious objection to military service and related activities, and to political involvement in our country. We try to follow the commandments of Christ that we do not fight because we are his servants and his kingdom ‘is not of this world’ (John 18:36). We do not participate in political activities because we are ‘strangers and pilgrims’ in this world (1 Peter 2:11), looking for God’s kingdom to be established at the return of His Son.

The book is both descriptive but exhortational, out lining the reasons for the principled stand and how that was enacted by brethren and sisters down through these years.

Information was collected from many sources including and most importantly in the case of this podcast – accounts of personal experiences.

Thankfully in the couple of years leading up to the publication, a number of oral accounts of the personal experiences of brothers and sisters were recorded. Now nearly 20 years on, many of these brothers and sisters have subsequently fallen asleep in the Lord making these recordings a treasured resource indeed.

The recordings are available with the book, but we reproduce them here in part for convenience and for those who don’t have a copy of the book.

But we do encourage you to get a copy and it is available at AACE.info.

www.wildernessconversations.com

Part 5 of 7 parts, continuing in the period of 1951 to 1972.

It might have been assumed that once the war finished, there would be less need to demonstrate ones conscience against military activity, but this was certainly not the case. In fact after a short reprieve, after the National Security Act expired on December 31 1946, with development of the Cold War, the Korean War and communist advances in South East Asia the new Prime Minister, R. G. Menzies successfully introduced new legislation to parliament in 1951 which involved conscription. This was in place until it was repealed in 1972 by the new Prime Minister, G Whitlam.

In 2007 the AACE – the Association of Australian Christadelphian Ecclesias published a book entitled:

“Conscience in Action – the experience of conscientious objection in Australia”

The book Summary says the following:

As brothers and sisters in Christ, while respecting those placed in authority over us and the laws they enact and administer (Rom 13:1-7), we stand for the principles of Christ in relation to our conscientious objection to military service and related activities, and to political involvement in our country. We try to follow the commandments of Christ that we do not fight because we are his servants and his kingdom ‘is not of this world’ (John 18:36). We do not participate in political activities because we are ‘strangers and pilgrims’ in this world (1 Peter 2:11), looking for God’s kingdom to be established at the return of His Son.

The book is both descriptive but exhortational, out lining the reasons for the principled stand and how that was enacted by brethren and sisters down through these years.

Information was collected from many sources including and most importantly in the case of this podcast – accounts of personal experiences.

Thankfully in the couple of years leading up to the publication, a number of oral accounts of the personal experiences of brothers and sisters were recorded. Now nearly 20 years on, many of these brothers and sisters have subsequently fallen asleep in the Lord making these recordings a treasured resource indeed.

The recordings are available with the book, but we reproduce them here in part for convenience and for those who don’t have a copy of the book.

But we do encourage you to get a copy and it is available at AACE.info.

www.wildernessconversations.com