Some Christians embrace Jews and Israel for the right reasons while others do not.
Matthew M. Hausman, J.D.
Support for Israel among evangelical Christians is a growing phenomenon that has many American Jews scratching their heads and asking questions. Is Christian support sincere or is it merely subterfuge to facilitate the missionary impulse? Do Christian “love offerings” for Israel come with theological strings or are they presented free and clear?
These questions are understandable given the long history of Christian anti-Semitism and missionary excess. However, an alarming number of secular Jews today are so divorced from Jewish tradition and practice that these questions are devoid of historical context. Skepticism regarding evangelical support is often informed by liberal political sensibilities, and suspicion of evangelicals’ motivations is more likely influenced by distrust of their social and political conservatism than by any collective memory of the horrors suffered by the Jews in Europe.
Ironically, those who marginalize Christian Zionists are often the same people who naively sit with Islamist groups in the name of interfaith dialogue, who excuse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (“BDS”) movement because of its progressive roots, and who preach acceptance of a revisionist Palestinian narrative that denies historical Jewish claims.
Many Christians today believe in Israel’s right to exist. Conversely, few Muslims do, if any.
Whereas Muslim groups with whom liberals seek discourse often believe as a matter of faith that the Jews were subjugated and have no right to sovereignty in their homeland, many Christians support Jewish historical claims and are not afraid to back up their words with actions. Regardless of their motivations, many Christians today believe in Israel’s right to exist. Conversely, few Muslims do, if any.
Such words and actions were on display on May 19th at the “United Jerusalem Day Celebration” sponsored by the Victory Assembly of G-d Church in Sharon, Massachusetts. The program featured a diverse array of speakers, including: Shai Bazak, Israel’s Consul General to New England; Colonel Amnon Meir, the IDF’s Liaison Officer to TRADOC; Cathy Lanyard, Executive Director of American Friends of ALYN Hospital-Jerusalem; and Rabbi Jonathan Hausman, an American congregational rabbi who speaks internationally on Islam, Sharia and free speech issues and who serves on the board of American Friends of ALYN.
The keynote address was delivered by Dr. Pat Robertson, Chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, and affecting words were offered by Pastor Joe Green, of Rabbis and Ministers for Israel, Dick Ingram, Senior Pastor of Victory Church, and Rev. Fumio Taku, President of Christians and Jews United for Israel.
The program was billed as “a non-partisan event for all friends of Israel,” and indeed it seemed to be. There was no hint of replacement theology in the remarks offered by any of the Christian clergy, and there were no religious displays that would have offended Jewish sensibilities. Instead of crucifixes, the auditorium was draped in American and Israeli flags. And instead of taking a collection to support church or missionary activities, all donations from the crowd were dedicated to ALYN, consistent with promotional literature stating that all proceeds of “a freewill love offering . . . will be given to benefit the physically disabled children of ALYN Hospital in Jerusalem.” The evangelical community is proving to be a fertile ground for fundraising by Jewish institutions.
The Christian audience gave warm applause as the Jewish speakers offered their insights on Israel, her relationship with the United States, and her future as a safe and secure Jewish nation. Yet, one could not help but wonder whether the crowd was clapping for the right reasons. Were these displays of support for Israel based on a theology that demands the Jews’ return and ultimate conversion, or on the acceptance of Jewish text and history on their own terms without the need to inject Christological meaning where it neither exists nor belongs?
The answer is somewhat complicated and requires analysis of both perspectives. Some Christians clearly support Israel only because they believe that the ingathering and conversion of the Jews is necessary to usher in the “Rapture” as prophesied in Christian scripture. However, others appear to support Israel because they accept the validity of Jewish belief, practice and history.
Some evangelical communities accept Tanach without the need to torture the language and Christianize the message, and many are familiar with Jewish history. Indeed, many evangelicals understand that the Jews originated in ancient Israel and continued to have a presence there after the Dispersion, that their religious and national identity is organically intertwined with their homeland, and that they are connected by descent as well as belief wherever they live.
A generation ago, evangelical supporters of Israel were more likely to believe that the return of the Jews was a prerequisite for Armageddon, and such views were based in part on the corruption or misperception of Tanach and rabbinic literature. However, the understanding of Judaism began to evolve for many evangelicals as their knowledge of Jewish text and history began to improve; and since the 1980s many of them have become staunch supporters of Israel and Jewish institutions. Clearly, many Christians today respect the integrity of Jewish religion and national identity.
Many of them admire the Hebrew canon and are acutely aware of the affinity between the values it contains and American constitutional principles. Moreover, many Christians today have renounced evangelization of the Jews as they have come to appreciate the contextual relationship between the Jewish and Christian traditions. It is not lost on many of them that Christianity could not exist without Judaism, but that its existence is irrelevant to the continuity of Jewish belief, practice and identity.
For some, the frame of reference has changed as they’ve come to learn how Judaism differs from Christianity in certain fundamental respects; for example, in the absence of a missionary imperative. The Rabbis long ago recognized that Jewish observance is incumbent only upon the Jews because of their unique ancestry and covenant with the Almighty, but that other peoples can come to know G-d through their own belief systems and by acceptance of the seven Noahide commandments. Accordingly, some Christians reject replacement theology because they believe that the covenant between G-d and those Jews who intuitively suspect the motivations of Christian Zionists are not wrong for questioning their intent.
Abraham remains unbroken and, consequently, that there is no need to “save” Jews through conversion to Christianity. Then again, there are still denominations, like the Southern Baptist Convention, that continue to target Jews for conversionary harassment.
Those Jews who intuitively suspect the motivations of Christian Zionists are not wrong for questioning their intent. In light of Christendom’s traditionally poor treatment of Jews since the days of Constantine, the burden is on pro-Israel Christians to show that their motives are genuine. However, it cannot be ignored that many of those who distrust Christian intent are secular progressives who seem more offended by the evangelical stance on social issues than by the history of the pogroms, Crusades, expulsions and genocides. Interestingly, these same critics generally have no problem dialoguing with Arab-Muslim groups that reject Israel’s right to exist and whose theological outlook has exuded anti-Semitism since the rise of Islam.
Secular westerners often buy into the myth of Muslim tolerance though they have little understanding of Islamic doctrine or the history of Jews in Muslim society. As those of Sephardic, Mizrachi or Yemeni ancestry can attest, Jewish life in the Arab-Muslim world was precarious at best; and the stark realities of that life characterized Islamic culture long before the rebirth of the Jewish State in 1948. Indeed, Maimonides in his Epistle to Yemen in 1172 addressed the issue of Muslim persecution during a period when the Jews of Yemen were suffering horribly at the hands of the Shiite Arabs. That this persecution preceded the modern State of Israel by eight centuries should debunk the revisionist claim that Muslim anti-Semitism is the result of alleged Israeli aggression and is not endemic to Islamic society.
Those familiar with the Quran know that its blueprint for dealing with Jews is far from tolerant, as illustrated by the account of Mohammed’s slaughter of the Jews of Yathrib (al-Medina). Traditionally, Jews in Muslim society were degraded, segregated, and denied equal rights. Since the early Islamic period, when Jews were forced to wear distinctive clothing and were often physically branded, they have been subjected to all forms of harassment. In many Arab countries, Jews were required to live in ghettos and were not permitted to use the same public bathhouses as Muslims.
Throughout the Mideast and North Africa, Jews were subjected to pogroms, massacres and forced conversions much as they were in Europe. There was little benevolence shown to Jews living under Muslim rule during Spain’s “Golden Age,” when Maimonides and his family fled their native Cordoba after the conquering Almohads gave the Jewish community the choice of conversion to Islam or death.
As a people of dhimmi (i.e., subjugated) status, Jews had few substantive rights, and their survival hinged on the mercurial indulgence of the Muslim majority. Although many in the West believe that Jewish life was more tolerable in Muslim lands, the general treatment of Jews was often not much different than in Christian Europe. In fact, some of the most emblematic symbols of European anti-Semitism, such as laws requiring Jews to wear distinctive badges and clothing, were innovations brought back from the Muslim world by the Crusaders. But as secular, democratic society evolved, Jews in much of the West tended to fare better than they did under Islam. Not surprisingly, the only place in the Mideast where Christians have always enjoyed equal rights and religious freedom is Israel.
The disparate way secular progressives regard Christians and Muslims reflects the misguided endorsement of political Islam as a natural reaction against western chauvinism. This view, however, ignores the history of Islamist supremacism and the expansionist aims of jihad, which instigated Arab-Muslim conquests in Europe and Eurasia long before the first Crusader ever set foot in the Mideast. The clash of civilizations caused by these jihadist incursions continues to fuel tensions and unrest in the Balkans and the Caucasus today.
Those who question whether Christian Zionists should be embraced or rebuffed need to look inward and address how support for Israel and Jewish institutions has dissipated among secular Jews and the nontraditional movements in recent years.
They need to ask why only 25% of American Jews have ever visited Israel and why so many liberal Jews support organizations like J Street and the New Israel Fund, which claim to support Israel and Jewish values, but which in reality promote and enable those who flout those values and seek Israel’s destruction.
They need to ask why so many progressive Jews, including many Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbis, advocate a Palestinian narrative that is fundamentally anti-Semitic and premised on a denial of Jewish history. Finally, they need to ask why so many of their numbers actively support the BDS movement and Israel Apartheid Week, and why they falsely promote the progressive agenda as inherently consistent with Jewish values even when it conflicts with traditional Jewish law.
Secular Jews also need to analyze whether certain establishment organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League, still represent Jewish values and interests or if political correctness has rendered them irrelevant. Jewish advocates should be troubled by the ADL’s preoccupation with “Islamophobia” when law enforcement statistics actually show that anti-Muslim discrimination occurs very rarely in the United States. Though the ADL worries about the dramatic increase in anti-Semitism, it ironically ignores the role that doctrinal Islam plays in spreading Jew-hatred. Instead, it persists in exhorting against an anti-Muslim bias that statistically seems not to exist, and in cooperating with Muslim advocacy groups to lobby against legislative efforts (as in Florida) seeking to prevent the intrusion of foreign laws, including Sharia, into state judicial systems.
A sad reality of American life is that support for Jewish causes – not just for Israel – has fallen dramatically among secular and liberal Jews and in the nontraditional movements. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with Jews supporting non-Jewish institutions such as universities and hospitals, it should not divert their attention from Jewish philanthropies. Those who choose instead to support organizations that promote BDS activities, accuse Israel of apartheid, and oppose her continuity as a Jewish state have no standing to criticize Jewish institutions that accept Christian donations.
If giving to philanthropies and institutions that support Israel or promote traditional Jewish values is no longer a priority for secular and progressive Jews – many of whom instead support organizations that challenge Israel’s legitimacy – then Christian contributions should not be rejected out of hand. However, accepting evangelical support does not obviate the obligation to scrutinize the motivations behind it. Christian supporters should be vetted and screened for conversionary agendas, and their donations should be rejected if they intend to proselytize or enable messianic Judaism in any way.
Because so many aspects of Christian doctrine are antithetical to Jewish belief and practice, any movement claiming to integrate both belief systems is internally flawed and incongruent.
In fact, evangelicals’ regard for “Jewish Christians” may provide a measure of their intentions. Messianic Judaism is simply Christianity with a superficial overlay of Jewish customs and traditions, and a large percentage of its constituency is not halakhically Jewish. Moreover, messianic “rabbi ministers” are missionaries with no rabbinical authority, whose understanding of messianic redemption is Christian rather than Jewish and whose theology is incompatible with normative Judaism. Because so many aspects of Christian doctrine are antithetical to Jewish belief and practice, any movement claiming to integrate both belief systems is internally flawed and incongruent. Those evangelicals who insist on bringing messianic Jews to the table should be regarded with suspicion.
Nevertheless, at a time when support for Israel among secular, liberal and nontraditional segments of the Jewish population is waning, other resources must be marshaled to fill the void. Some Christian Zionists have pure intentions; but even those with surreptitious agendas may well have the capacity to learn and grow. If anything, the warm reception and expressions of good will at the United Jerusalem Day Celebration in Massachusetts seemed to evidence the ability to mature in understanding.
The bottom line is that some Christians embrace Jews and Israel for the right reasons while others do not. Therefore, evangelical donations should be viewed with a healthy sense of caveat emptor until the givers’ true intentions can be determined. But with secular and liberal giving to Israel and Jewish institutions on the decline, and in light of Israel’s need to cultivate allies abroad, it may not be wise to reject all offers of Christian support automatically without first evaluating its purpose.
Matthew M. Hausman is a trial attorney and writer who lives and works in Connecticut. A former journalist, Mr. Hausman continues to write on a variety of topics, including science, health and medicine, Jewish issues and foreign affairs, and has been a legal affairs columnist for a number of publications.
yamit82 Said:
My Grandmother fixed Lute Fish in a dill flavored cream sauce.
@ honeybee:
What about Swedish fish (Herring) in creme or wine sauces?
@ yamit82:
As I have said I make a mean meatboller and Swedish Patas Korve and red cabbage. And of course Sprit and pepperkocker
@ yamit82:
Having Swedish anti seedents I understand the origins of the Xmas celebration. I can still make a Smorgasbord Celebration all by my self. As I remember Jews were NEVER mention by my Grandparents. Mostly it was about food, family and when I was small presents.
My father endured to make my mother happy. He was diabetic and my Grandmother made him special food. The holiday had more to do with remembering their tradition then religion. My grandmother believed herself Christian,but in reality,she practice many old Norse superstitions.
honeybee Said:
Listen to the audio or read the text Here:
yamit82 Said:
bernard ross Said:
and the reasons behind the never-ending pogrom of the jews by the christians.
Saturnalia
@ Samuel Fistel:
@ M Devolin:
@ bernard ross:
I agree!!!
Christian scholar Rt. Rev. George Arthur Butterick, in “The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible”, a book written by to prove the validity of the New Testament, states:
“A study of 150 Greek [manuscripts] of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings…. It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the [manuscript] is wholly uniform.”
There are 304,805 letters (approximately 79,000 words) in the Torah. In the over 3,000 years since Moses received the original Scripture from Mt. Sinai and wrote the 13 copies (twelve of which were distributed among the Tribes), spelling variants have emerged on a total of nine words — with absolutely no effect on their meaning. The Christian Bible, in comparison, has over 200,000 variants and in 400 instances, the variants change the meaning of the text; 50 of these are of great significance.
Remember that the English translation of the Tanach (which they call the “Old Testament”) in nearly every Christian Bible is taken from the Septuagint, one of many Greek translations that differed considerably from the Masoretic text. It is this Greek Septuagint, not the original Hebrew, that was the main basis for the Old Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, Slavonic, and part of the Arabic translations of the Old Testament.
@ Samuel Fistel:
It’s too bad that G-d doesn’t show the christians in a dream a day in the life of Jesus. They would never believe it was him!! This is how they would respond – ‘oh my! he just sinned!!! he just sinned again and again and again!!!’ of coarse it would be their interuptation of sin which is contrary to true teachings – ‘oh my goodness!!! is that REAL wine that he is drinking???? how could that be?’…..we get the last laugh. Should we become what we are accused of? Thieves? Maybe we should just steal their rapture and bring all the righteous home…..
Why don’t christian missionaries come right out and tell Jews that they will burn in hell forever unless they convert?
In the “good old days”, when christians held all their Jews captive, they could gleefully tell us Jews that we would be damned in hell forever if we did not convert. To stress the point, they made life for the Jews a hell on earth.
Now, christians can no longer order us Jews to answer their questions, and kill us if they don’t like our replies. So christian missionaries have to seduce us with sweetness, instead of compelling us with violence.
Now, they tell us that we Jews will be saved if we just accept jesus as messiah. “Saved” means we will go to heaven. They no longer proclaim from the start that we will burn in hell forever if we don’t accept jesus, not only as messiah, but as a man-god, and prove it by eating his body and drinking his blood. First, they try to hook us, and only then to reel us in.
And of course, they never say why we need to accept jesus as messiah at all. That is because, from a Jewish viewpoint, jesus, as a dead guy with nothing to show for it, is a failed, false messiah. So instead, they say that you have to believe in jesus in order to go to heaven. However, there is obviously no need to convert to christianity if a Jew can still go to heaven without converting. So, the christians are forced to declare that only christians can ever go to heaven, and that everyone else, especially the Jews who knowingly reject jesus (and count me as one who proudly does so) will burn in hell forever.
So look at this: they say that their man-god is the “god of universal love”; but instead of love, he sends the majority of humanity straight to hell for not accepting him.
We Jews should never allow christians to tell us that jesus is the Jewish messiah, as this implies they have replaced us as the real Jews. Similarly, Jews should never allow christians to call the Torah the “old testament”. And Jews should never refer to the christian bible as the “new testament”.
“I sometimes wonder if you are here not because you believe what you write but are here because subconsciously you realize something is amiss.”
The Good Doctor is here because he is besotted with a people (the Jews) who continue to reject both him and his faith: this religiously driven infatuation is the primary mover of all Christians fascinated with the Jewish people: they pine for the day when the Jews would approve of their idolatry, but that day, in the end, is too long in coming. And so, consequently, as a man retires from his wife when she has died, so the Christian, when he/she realizes that Judaism and the Jews will never accept Christianity as a legitimate sect of Judaism, when he/she realizes that the observant Jew actually and zealously despises the Christian belief, he/she becomes angry and bitter as a devout religious publicly rejected by G-D (which, in essence, this is what a Jewish rejection of Christianity actually is) and resorts to the sort of hatred the Good Doctor exhibits on this blog: not so overt as to be easily identified by the inexperienced but covert enough that only those who have smelled and exposed such pernicious Jew-haters will pick up his revolting scent. This is why I refer to CA as “the Good Doctor” because like Augustine, outwardly he feigns salubriousness, but on the inside he is full of a malefic hatred against the Jewish people. Hence his habit of being here where his very presence is offensive, and his obsession with trying to blame the Jews for something (even “the pay is good”), anything. Personally, I can’t stand the sight of his name on this blog.
sorry benard……didn’t realize you were one of us…..CA can start the forum elsewhere……
@ honeybee:
GET A ROOM!!
bernard ross Said:
I think I meant to say “debate”
@ CuriousAmerican:
Further to my last comment to you:
I sometimes wonder if you are here not because you believe what you write but are here because subconsciously you realize something is amiss. Like someone seeking opposing views to reinforce their own may actually be seeking answers to their own subconscious questions and conflicts. Subconsciously they are seeking the truth.
CuriousAmerican Said:
why would you expect it to be differently? For a Jew christianity is not just another religion: it is an ideology which has intentionally created itself, at Nicae, to be the enemy and destroyer of the Jews. why do I have this opinion? Christianity cannot exist in the absence of the Jews. It has co-opted the jewish bible as the foundation upon which it is based; without the Jewish bible it is non-existent. It has co-opted a Jew to be its central figure and god to be worshipped. Without this Jew there would be no christianity. If christianity could exist without the Jewish bible and the jew jesus it would not have found it necessary to slaughter, libel and swindle the Jews during its entire existence. Because Christianity cannot exist without the jewish bible if must revise and reinterpret it to support its claims. In order for these claims to be credible it must destroy the jewish interpretations which conflict and the jews who disagree. as long as the jews exist they are a witness to the grand larceny of the christian culture of the jewish bible, the swindle of christian chutzpah in arrogantly reinterpreting the bible which they stole(similar to repainting a stolen vehicle to disguise its true identity), it has claimed the jewish bible as its own(similar to rubbing off a VIN number and replacing it with a different one to obscure the true identity, it has sought to destroy the jews(similar to a mafia hit to kill all the witnesses to the crimes), it has sought to replace the jews identity with its own by calling itself the new or replacement Jews(similar to assuming the identity of the victim in order to claim ownership and authenticity). Christianity has engaged in the most depraved of crimes without true remorse because true remorse must acknowledge the thefts of the jewish bible, the jew jesus, and the reasons behind the never-ending pogrom of the jews by the christians. I view todays times as a temporary hiatus whereby christianity operates clandestinely but is basically continuing its MO. As long as the basic grand larceny is not acknowledged, then truth is not served and christianity continues its crimes. The problem with christians who support the Jews is that they do not acknowledge the revision of the jewish bible in order to perpetuate the christian ideology which is the contiuning swindle and crime. That which has no basis in truth can only exist through deception. I can understand the christians who remain ignorant just as those jews who are ignorant; they think these are just 2 religions or interpretations. However, those who have come to know the facts of the crimes cannot claim ignorance when they continue to engage in deceptions. I wonder how they reconcile themselves to their beliefs. This must result in pathologies on an individual and collective cultural level, it already has repeatedly, whereby the deluded must eliminate the victims in order to maintain his delusions. Until the deluded perpetrator comes clean he remains a danger to himself, the jews and the world.
@ bernard ross:
CA isn’t the least bit concerned about showing respect to Ted or any other Jew who visits this site. CA knows that Ted will shut him down when he goes too far – that’s the ONLY reason he shows some restraint. Why should Ted supply a forum for theological debate? Why don’t you? It’s time consuming and costly. Why should we Jews always be expected to pay the price? Haven’t we paid a high enough cost already? Put YOUR money where YOUR mouth is…..caution….don’t be disappointed when the Jews don’t visit your site…..it’s nothing personal but we are pretty much set in stone – nothing really to debate…
@ bernard ross:
CA said that because he is losing his arguments with Yamit 82.
CuriousAmerican Said:
Lucky for you, Yamits questions go unanswered. perhaps Ted should dedicate an ongoing forum for just theological date such as this.
@ dove:
He is just very passionate and romantic.
@ M Devolin:
Ah thank you, you aresssssssooooooo correct, CA is a disgraciado. Why do you cal him the Good Doctor.
The Good Doctor, Honeybee, is the anti-Semite “Curious American.”
@ M Devolin:
Please forgive me but who is the doctor,I mis understood you.
I’ll mess with the Good Doctor, anywhere, anytime. He’s an anti-Semite. Why would you defend him?
@ honeybee:
lol…you think?
@ dove:
Just between you and me, I think Yamit82 is a bit of a zealot hismself. sssssshhhhhhhh don;t tell anyone.
@ yamit82:
This may be but Paul was a zealot. He was against marriage and did not believe in second chances. As the true founder of Christianity (Paul) his religion was fire and brimstone. Christians would be better off with the theology of Jesus (albeit it was Judaism). Some day some of them will figure that out and when they do they are welcome to be grafted into ‘our vine’.
@ M Devolin:
Don’t mess with the “Good Doctor”,before you get stung by a bee.
The Good Doctor can’t help himself. As a dog returns to his vomit. I’m so very happy that I no longer exist as such a religious fool as him. Thank you, HaShem.
CuriousAmerican Said:
I Corinthians 8:4 …and that is none other God but one. 5For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there may be many gods, and many lords,) 6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
I Corinthians 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
I Corinthians 15:28 When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.
I Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…
Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 5:7 [Jesus] offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard. 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.
I Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Thank you for”La Cucaracha”.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Says you you sick soul. Almo perdido