Critiquing the theologies and connections of some pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel leaders: a series # 1

I am beginning a series that will  focus on those Christian writers and speakers who are currently involved in pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel organizations, conferences, films and in many cases have written books. I am writing this series for several reasons. It is now clear that several well known Reformed and Evangelical pastors and leaders have begun circulating within these conferences as speakers themselves. 

Undoubtedly some neither understand the theological implications nor do they grasp some of the more anti-Semitic connections that they are involved in. Besides the first concern is the sorrow of watching this movement grow within my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). My focus will be on the theological views of various leaders within the movement but at the end of each analysis of an author I will, if necessary, point out their connections to the wider world of anti-Semitism.

I am writing this, not as a Christian Zionist, but as Reformed and Evangelical. I invite my friends who are Christian Zionist to comment and correct me if I misunderstand their biblical or even political positions. I also invite my Jewish friends to speak up if I misunderstand a Jewish position. Actually I invite all to comment as long as there are no insults tossed about.

My first posting is on Vicar Stephen Sizer of Christ Church in the United Kingdom. It will take several postings to both look at his theology and his connections.

Stephen Sizer: A warrior against Christian Zionism

Stephen Sizer, an Anglican priest in the United Kingdom is a frequent speaker at pro-Palestine, anti-Israel and anti-Zionists conferences. He has written several books on Christian Zionism his latest being, Zion’s Christian Soldiers. Sizer has been accused, by several bloggers, of connections with anti-Semites and even Holocaust deniers. I in fact put an endnote on a posting that he had linked to Holocaust denier, Charles Carlson at Strait Gate ministries in one of his postings. While Sizer is not a Holocaust denier himself, it is important to critique his theology, as it relates to Israel, since he is adversely influenced by some anti-Semitic ideas and in turn influences a small cluster of evangelicals.

As I have pointed out Sizer’s theological thrust is toward critiquing Christian Zionism and he does so from an evangelical position finding it’s teaching heretical. I, on the other hand, coming from a Reformed and Evangelical position, disagree with much of Christian Zionism while also disagreeing with Sizer’s position on Israel and even more so his poor opinions of the Jews and the Old Testament. While he finds Christ in the Old Testament he pours scorn on the history of the Jews in this manner:

In the second Millennium BC, the place to live was called Canaan. The estate agents described it as “a land flowing with milk and honey”. After 400 years in Egypt and another 70 wandering around in the desert, God’s people were keen to muscle in on the Promised Land. They would literally kill for it. They promised God and Joshua, everything under the sun if they could just get their hands on it.

Because Sizer has posted an article “Seven Biblical Answers to Popular Zionist Assumptions,” which he states is taken from his latest book, Zion's Christian Soldiers. I will critique his article.

The biggest problem with Sizer’s article is not what he states but what he leaves out. The first Christian Zionist' assumption is:

1. God blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who curse Israel

Quoting, Genesis 12:2-3 & 22:17-18 with Eph. 2:8-9, Sizer makes three points against the assumption. The first is that God is only referring to Abraham not to those descendants who follow him. Secondly in the New Testament the promise is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and in those who receive him by faith, since it is not by works but by faith that we are saved.

Sizer also quotes Gal. 3:16, 28-29 to show that the word seed, as in the seed or descendant of Abraham, is singular pointing to Jesus Christ. In other words in Jesus Christ, the seed of Abraham, all the nations will be blessed.

And Paul makes it clear with Gal. 3:16, 28-29, that Jesus fulfills the promises given to Abraham. But, consider, it is the Jews, the children of Abraham that bless the nations with Jesus the fulfillment of the promise. And Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well, “Salvation is from the Jews.” (John 4:22b) The problem with both the Christian Zionists and Sizer is that they both leave out part of the biblical picture. The Zionist seemingly divorce the completeness of the promise, which in reality covers the New Testament believers who see the promise fulfilled, and the Old Testament believers who look forward to the promise fulfilled.

But Sizer is far worse; he cuts the Old Testament off from the New. It is as though he takes the scissors and cuts away only that material that pertains to Jesus in prophecy, typology and analogy. What Sizer ignores is God's active blessing of the very people from which Jesus descended. He does not take their history seriously. In a sense, Sizer is removing the humanity of Jesus by maligning the history of his people.

There cannot be a fulfillment if there is not in reality a physical nation with an important history that descends from Abraham. That nation is important and is God’s work in history. There is a promise of land to Abraham, (see Genesis 15:18), which is maintained through his descendant's faith and obedience to God. Likewise there is a promise of blessing and cursing for the Jewish people. One sees this when God uses pagan nations to punish Israel and then punishes the pagan nation because of their misuse of Israel. These: the land and blessings must be considered the material blessings of God. My disagreement with Christian Zionists is that land and blessing have anything at all to do with the future promises of God. The ethical position the Christian must hold toward the Jewish people both in Israel and elsewhere is love, fairness, truthfulness and humility

On the other hand, those who belong to Jesus Christ have far greater promises than this particular promise to a single chosen ethnic people. And those promises of salvation, eternity and union with Jesus Christ extend to both Jew and Gentile, but always through Christ. But this brings up the next assumption. That is:

2. The Jewish People are God’s “chosen people”

For Old Testament references, Sizer uses Deuteronomy 23:7-8; Psalm 87:4-6; Isaiah 56:3-7. For the New Testament he uses Romans 2:28-29, Roman’s 9:6-8 and Col. 3:11-12. And once again Sizer lifts up some truth. He writes, “Both Hebrew and Christian Scriptures insist membership of God’s people is open to all races on the basis of grace through faith.” That is the gospel. But then he goes on to state, “When the Lord Jesus died on the cross he was the sole remnant of Israel.” Now here is where there is a real problem for Christians and it is simply a matter of confusion. Both Christians and Jews, who have received Christ as their Savior, are spiritual Israel. They have been grafted into the root of the faithful of the Hebrew Bible.

But there is still a physical Israel disconnected from Christianity but nonetheless not forgotten by God. Although Sizer may quote Romans 2:28-29, “A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God,” he has not proved that Israel has no more importance to God. With this verse Sizer has not proven that the Jews are not chosen.

This understanding of circumcision is found in the Old Testament. Except for the Philistines, all of the nations around Israel were circumcised, but they were not in covenant with Yahweh. Neither did they adore him inwardly. Paul is not saying something new; instead he is using the Hebrew Bible to insist that there is no need for the Gentiles to be circumcised.

F.F. Bruce, a Reformed theologian, in the Tyndale Commentary on Romans, points out that Paul, after stating the above “imagines someone breaking into his argument and saying, “will then, if it is being a Jew inwardly that counts, … is there any advantage in belonging to the Jewish nation, or in being physically circumcised?” And Bruce writes that we can be surprised at Paul’s answer.

The answer is, “much in every way.” And why is that? Paul writes, “Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.” And Bruce in his comment states, “Of course it is an advantage to belong to the circumcised nation. Think of all the privileges granted by God to that nation – privileges in which other nations had no part.” Bruce in a note adds that further privileges are listed in Romans 9:4-5. That is, “…to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.”

So are the Jews as an ethnic people chosen? Here again Paul, in Romans, gives an answer. He writes:

From the standpoint of the gospel they [the Jews] are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.” (11:28-2)

Jesus, when speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, counters her argument that the Samaritans worship on a mountain, with the truth that the Jews who worship in the Temple know who they worship and that salvation is from the Jews. (John 4:22) But Jesus further reminds her that the time is coming and now is, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Jesus does not divorce his people the Jews; instead he points his followers to himself the one rooted by his humanity in the Jewish nation.

In my next posting I will look at the next several assumptions, two, like Sizer, I fervently disagree with, however I with the same fervency disagree with his solution.

The goodness of the gospel

For Thanksgiving here is a truly beautiful piece of music. And not only is the music beautiful but the video is beautiful. Someone has taken the time to highlight various instrumentalist as they play.

Plus remember as you listen that this was background music to a movie that captured the goodness of the gospel as South American indigenousness  peoples came to Christ through their love of music. It was also a movie about the evil of those who wanted slaves rather then righteousness. The selfishness of humanity was willing to tear apart peoples, missions, even buildings to have their own way rather than God's way.

And yet, God's way, Jesus Christ, has gained the victory already, on the cross, out of the tomb, in the lives of his own, and at last in His final coming.

Forgetting Tom Paine: the word, temptation and Bonhoeffer

In this season of flux, and for some despair, I am truly thankful for God’s word. I started to write about Tom Paine’s posting “Biblical Authority,” but it seems so unimportant at the moment. Sure it is easy to refute his thought that the writers of Scripture were inspired, after all most who read Scripture from an orthodox position know that it is the word that is inspired not, as Paine states, the writers. Men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke the word of God, or so Peter tells his readers. Or, all Scripture is inspired by God, Paul states. It is God’s word, the living word and although it contains mountains and valleys they all speak God’s truthful word to us. But all the other things have been hashed out so many times-it is enough. Tonight I have been reading Bonhoeffer.

I just received a book I ordered, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theological Education: 1937-1940. It is from a series, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 15. The book, tome really, is filled with letters by Bonhoeffer to his Finkenwalde students after the seminaries were closed by the Gestapo. There are Bible study outlines, sermon notes, and so many letters as well as studies on such words as joy and temptation. And temptation is one of the important subjects in the letters written at the time. As the editor to the English Edition points out, the former students of Finkenwalde and other Confessing seminaries were deeply bothered by temptation.

The seminaries were developed by the Confessing Churches and their Councils of Brethren to help those called to ministry receive a proper education without being infected by the German Christians who at the time had taken over the official seminaries. But even at the beginning there were problems. The seminarians knew that they could not be ordained in the proper way. So they would have to rely on the Council of Brethren to ordain them and the Confessing Churches to use and pay them. And then the German Christians stepped in with the larger temptation. They would ordain them if they would come under the official consistories and take the exams given by the German Christians.

The temptation became greater when the Gestapo closed the Confessing Seminaries. Afterwards to be an unofficial pastor meant great risk. The first letter from Bonhoeffer that one reads to the former students mentions that four of them were in prison. Some of them stood strong. But not all.

In a letter to the “Young Brothers in Pomerania,” Bonhoeffer, writing of the earlier joy and unity of the Confessing Church, writes:

… but what made us joyful and ready to fight and, perhaps even prepared to suffer was one thing, namely, that we knew again that a life with Jesus Christ and his church is worth the whole effort. We believed that in the Confessing Church we not only had found the church of Jesus Christ but through God’s great goodness had actually experienced it. A new life under God’s joy-giving word began for individuals, for pastors and congregations. If only God’s word was among us then we no longer wanted to be afraid and worried about the future. With this word we were willing to pass through struggle, through suffering, through poverty, through sin, and through death to fully reach God’s eternal kingdom. Young people and fathers of large families stood here side by side. What was it at the time that united and fortified us with such gladness? It was the one and ancient realization, given to us once more by God himself, that among us Jesus Christ wishes to build his church, which lives solely from the preaching of the pure, unadulterated gospel and by the grace of the sacraments, and which in its actions is obedient solely to him. Christ wishes to hold fast to such a church; he wants to protect and lead such a church. Only such a church is permitted to be free of all fear. (29-30)

 Christ will hold fast to his people.

Some family blogs for Thanksgiving week

This is a time of thankfulness, and to begin my week of thankfulness I am going to feature some family blogs. Some I have featured before and some are new.

A very new blog is one just started by my niece, Kristen, "City Girl Gone Ranch Mama." Kristen lives with her husband and four children in the very wild and cold reaches of Montana on a guest ranch. Her husband is the General Manager of the ranch.  She is an excellent writer and I believe you will enjoy her hair-raising stories. The first covers a lot of snow-or is it the snow covers a lot of ground.

Kristen's brother Wes Andersen, on the other hand, has a blog that he has maintained for a long time. If you remember and know of the comic strip Mary Worth and like satire you will enjoy this one. It is called "Mary Worth and Me," and the best thing to do is explore it.

Another blog written by my grandson, Ethan McHenry, is "Ducks with hats." Ethan is in his second year at California Maritime Academy part of the California university system, but a university which teaches both the piloting of and the engineering on ships. (And I have a feeling my grandson is going to laugh at that sentence.) You can watch a news video about it on his front page. Ethan is a great photographer so go through the postings with an eye on his pictures. But read them too.

And finally, there is the blog of my granddaughter Melissa, the granddaughter who is an artist and writer. "A Freeform Life" is a blog, Melissa started sometime before she and her husband, Spencer, attempted to relocate to New York City. God seemed to have other plans but they had a great cross country trip, until they got to New York. They now are again living in Sacramento, raising chickens (three) and thinking about farming-well Melissa is... anyway enjoy because Melissa is such a great writer.

In fact, here is a paragraph from her last posting, "I meant it! but I am a heartless meany" :

Spence and I ordered the Saint James Daily Devotional Guide, [that is what I use] and it finally came a week ago, but the devotions don’t start until December 4th. I am itching to get at that thing. Even though Spence and I met at a Bible study, and used to host one at our house some years ago, we’ve never done a devotional or study just the two of us. It sounds so nice to sit together and read that Good Book. It’s fun to read any book as a couple, to laugh at the same funny spots and commentate on it to each other. But it’s extra nice to talk about Jesus and His book, and laugh at it’s funny spots (“Hey, I’m alive again–and look, I made you breakfast”), and ponder over the troubling ones together too. Cause He’s the third party of our marriage, and our best friend, and our King, though we ignore Him half the time to our own detriment.

Morality & reason: what is Noushin Framke really saying?

Morality and reason, the two are linked in incalculable ways. But too often in the name of reason morality is flung out the door. And although I believe, as a Christian, that it is both the word of God and the Holy Spirit that draws the individual up out of the morass and shows them the reasonableness of righteous behavior, warning when evil is being called good and good evil, still reason and morality do work together. And this problem of morality and reason is also mixed with the issues that surround the Middle East conflict. A recent article written by Noushin Framke of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network, for Ecclesio-com started me thinking about the connections. Her article is “Switching Costs.”

Framke is writing about those people some have called “PEPs,” that is, “Progressives Except on Palestine.” The conclusion by Framke and others is that if you are for all of what is called progressive issues such as fair labor laws, immigration reform and abortion you must be totally on the Palestinian side in the Middle East conflict. Framke’s contention is that those who are not totally for the Palestinians are afraid to take a stand. According to Framke they would be called anti-Semitic. Framke’s article is divorced from reason in several ways.

One of Framke’s unreasonable thoughts is that what a person believes about an issue is or should be determined by a label. That particular view lends itself to dictatorial rulings since it takes away individual freedom of conscience. Labels can be very misleading. I am both orthodox and Evangelical, and I am also a Democrat, who does not vote the party line, but who does agree with the need for both immigration and prison reform. Few progressives such as Framke realize that in the early twentieth century many progressive pastors and churches were heavily invested in the eugenics movement. Labels often mean one thing in one era and other things in a different era.

Making decisions about ethical issues cannot, must not, be determined by following any list that can be neatly tucked under a label. I think conservatives need to learn that also. Instead each issue must be looked at from its own particular set of circumstances. And for a Christians that means finding out what God’s word says about the issue. It may not have a direct imperative but there are biblical values that cover most issues.

Making it even worse, Framke fills in all of the qualifications for progressive with what she believes about issues, making her self the epitome of what a progressive is. Because she does this, Framke can find no other reason for disagreement with her views than fear. If the other progressives weren’t afraid of ridicule they would believe like her. Not only is this kind of argument not based on clear logical thinking it is tainted by arrogance.

There is a third issue here that totally wipes out any reasonableness. That is that the issue Framke writes about, the Israeli and the Palestinian conflict, has both a history and many complex sides. But by insisting that all progressives take one side, Framke is avoiding even looking at the other side’s needs and she is refusing to look back at the history that explains why there is so much contention on all sides.

As communications chairperson for IPMN, Framke links to internet sites that supposedly give information about the issues. But because she is not a PEP and certainly not a PFI (Progressive For Israel-I made that up-but I like it) she is one-sided to the extreme. If she finds a Jewish rabbi in the United States who has been indicted for a crime, she links to the article. If she sees an article on crime in Israel she links to it, but not to any crime article in Gaza. If she finds an article where the IDF have bombed militants in Gaza because they have fired rockets at Israel she links to that but not to an article about the original rocket attack.

Reason and morality; they have always been important in Christian ethics. Disagreement over complex issues is not a sign of fear. Rather, suggesting that other people’s disagreement with your views happens only because of fear is itself a sign that you have not looked into why the person disagrees. You may find after you do that that you still disagree with the person’s views, but at least reason and respect have become a part of your argument. Perhaps Framke should take the time to ask fellow progressive Presbyterians why they disagree with her views.

What I heard-listening to N.T. Wright

I didn’t take notes. I generally don’t take notes for later study, but the act of writing notes helps me remember what was said. But in this case I just wanted to absorb the lecture given by N.T. Wright on Jesus and the Kingdom. After having just read some of Nain Stifan Ateek’s book A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation Wright’s lecture was like eating hot buttered English muffins when you still had the taste of cold burnt toast in your memory. Ateek divided up the various pictures of the promised messiah as competing paradigms; he was either the Davidic king or the suffering servant. Finally, in the New Testament, the suffering servant wins. Wright on the other hand pulled the whole Hebrew Bible into the New and allowed Jesus to bless the promises with his life.

Wright spoke of four themes about Jesus in the Gospels and how sometimes we in the West listen too loudly to several; Jesus as the second person of the Trinity was one we listen to at full volume. We don't listen to his life enough. But Wright used the Old Testament to show how the life of Jesus fulfilled the promises of the kingdom to Israel.

One highlight, at least for me, was Wright’s use of Daniel. And he used a great deal of Daniel. One surprising detail was a rarely used excerpt, except by dispensationalist trying to make a different unhelpful point. The passage is chapter 9, Daniel’s prayer of confession and hope for the fulfillment of God’s return of his people since the promised seventy years of Israel’s exile was finished. But Gabriel restates the prophecy; it is 70 weeks of years. And Matthew’s genealogy holds that detail intact showing how Jesus fulfills the promise of God’s presence to his people. Jesus’ birth and life, according to Wright is God returning to Israel in fulfillment of the promises and in answer to Daniel’s prayer that God would “let” his “face shine” on his “desolate sanctuary.”

And here, to make a jump, Wright reminded his hearers that the new Kingdom, the promise to Israel could not really be found in the second temple built after the exile. And that was because God had not yet returned to Israel, they were still waiting. And although I don’t remember exactly the verses that Wright quoted he did go to Malachi. And there is God’s word, “And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, ‘He is coming,” says the Lord of hosts.” (3:1b)

Returning to Daniel, the picture of the kingdoms of the world that rise in King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream are shattered by a stone cut out without hands. The stones smash the kingdoms of the world to fine dust that is blown away. And the stone “becomes a great mountain,” and so the kingdom of Christ. And then Wright pulls in the suffering servant, that beautiful picture in Isaiah of the coming Messiah. Wright covers Isaiah 40 to 52, reminding his listeners of the shepherd who carries the lambs and leads the nursing ewes. But this is God who bares his arm in the midst of his people, this is the Incarnation. Now Jesus fulfills the image of the suffering servant. God comes back to Israel and to all the nations, in the suffering servant who is nonetheless a king.

So the whole life, not just his birth and death are a fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel. He is the promised one whose kingdom fills the whole earth. And then, at the end, Wright did write the cross large in our minds, because he connected the cross of Christ to the kingdom. Jesus challenges Pilate with his kingdom, coming from above, his kingship that is not like worldly kings, his truth. And truth often brings suffering—so Jesus dies but the resurrection—brings the cross to us, his followers. We too must speak the truth and bear the cross and so the kingdom comes.

When one finishes on a note of suffering and crosses it is best to bring in real witnesses. Wright spoke of those he knew in Nigeria and Sudan. We could add so many places, Egypt, North Korea, and Iran. But the Kingdom comes through suffering. In the coming of Jesus it will be over. But God is with us now.

Liberation theology or Christian Zionism? Why not Reformed instead!

My friend Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, and Rabbi Abraham Cooper wrote a piece for the Jerusalem Post that caught my attention, Palestinians to Evangelicals: Zionism is a Sin. They are concerned about a conference “Christ at the Checkpoint (CATC) conference under the aegis of the Bethlehem Bible College, aimed specifically at Evangelicals.” And it is aimed at Evangelicals.

But I think Adlerstein and Cooper take a wrong turn when they write “Evangelical and conservative Christians – Israel’s most important allies – are increasingly targeted for conversion from Christian Zionism to Christian Palestinianism.” They in fact did what the leaders of the conference did they put all of their eggs in the Christian Zionist basket.

The reason, and my good friends, please bear with me—I am both Reformed and Evangelical and, as you know, care about Israel and the Jews but I am not a Christian Zionist. There are many of us. Christian Zionism is just a straw man being used by various pro-Palestinian groups to made evangelicals feel like there is no other ground—to make a pun—worth taking. And not all that they write about Christian Zionism is true. But that is another posting.

So let me proceed to examine the true position of the people who spoke at the conference not from a typically evangelical position but from liberation theology and other theological positions.[1] They were obviously attempting to influence the evangelicals but there is a need to hear what they were actually saying. In most cases the evangelicals have been seduced because of their love for the marginalized not because they understood the theology.

And I think the harshest words should be aimed at Mitri Raheb, who is the pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Cooper and Adlerstein point out in their article that Mitri makes a horrid anti-Semitic statement in his speech. I will quote it but add a little bit more than they do:

And the second assumption [Raheb’s assumption] is that the Palestinian people and part of the Jewish people are the continuation of the peoples of the land. It’s not Israel, according to what I am going to present to you…. I’m sure if we were to do a DNA test between David, who was a Bethlehemite, and Jesus, born in Bethlehem, and Mitri, born just across the street from where Jesus was born, I’m sure the DNA will show that there is a trace. While, if you put King David, Jesus and Netanyahu, you will get nothing, because Netanyahu comes from an East European tribe who converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages.

For those who don’t understand, Raheb is saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not Jewish at all. And in saying this he is saying that none of the Jews who came from Europe are really Jews. And that is a lie birthed in the pit of hell.

Another speaker, Naim Stifan Ateek, states that he is speaking about contextual theology or as he also calls it liberation theology. He writes that most Christians in the Middle East were in times past Orthodox in faith who emphasized the divinity of Jesus, but now with liberation theology “our emphasis is also on the humanity of Christ. So, for us, Jesus was a Palestinian who lived in Palestine.” But the truth of the matter is, it was the Greek Church from which the orthodox emerged that put great emphasis on the two natures of Christ, his divinity and his humanity.

And Ateek's view of Scripture is very problematic. He states that evangelicals place an emphasis in the Bible on land and he sees it as an emphasis “on that part of the Old Testament that,” for him, “really reflects a tribal understanding of God and I [Ateek] see that tribal concept in the development of religious thought within the Old Testament itself. It is overcome; it is transcended by a much more universal concept of God.”

Ateek develops this thought in greater measure in his book A Palestinian Cry for Reconciliation. In his chapter on “The Bible and Land,” he pictures the Old Testament as possessing various points of view about God. He writes:

Beginning with Amos, we find a theology that vacillated between nationalism and universalism, between bigotry and openness, exclusivity and inclusiveness. And although some learned during the exile that there is one God who is concerned about others (as expressed by some of the prophets), many held to a narrow theology of God and a chosen people. (63)

These kinds of thoughts about the Old Testament are scattered all through the chapter. I hope all Evangelicals reading this will understand. Ateek is saying, with out saying, that not all of the Old Testament is the inspired word of God. This downgrading of the Hebrew Bible is not new. It has happened over and over coming to a head in the years of Nazi Germany.

Two of the speakers spoke about the Holocaust and Evangelicals. One of them, Manfred W. Kohl, using a history of pietism, ended his speech by placing the Holocaust squarely on Evangelical teaching. The connection is extremely speculative. Instead, I would recommend the secular historian George L. Mosse and many of his books on Nazism, Arthur C. Cochrane who was a theologian and friend of many Confessing Church members has written on the subject. And I would highly recommend the new biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which covers many details of the ideological foundations of Nazism. The book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet Spy was written by Eric Metaxas.

Another speaker at the conference, Stephen Sizer [2], uses a chapter from his book; Zion’s Christian Soldiers and writes:

It may surprise you to discover that the New Testament never uses the term ‘chosen’ to describe the Jewish people. It is only used of those who follow Jesus. Does that mean God has two separate ‘chosen people’? Some like to think so. They are usually called ‘dispensationalists’ and this is a popular viewpoint among evangelicals in the United States.

 Although not a dispensationalist I have to counter that with several verses. One is Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” (John 4:22) The Jews were chosen to give a Messiah to the world. Jesus speaks to the Syrophoenician woman, “Let the children [the Jews] be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” (Mark7: 27) Jesus is of course testing the woman’s faith nonetheless he has still called the Jew’s his children. And what is it that Paul states?

From the stand point of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (Romans 11: 28)

I believe that the best way to end this is with the words of David Torrance. He is a brother to James and Thomas Torrance, all Reformed. David Torrance’s views are not different than his brothers and he also believes that the Jews need, like everyone else, Jesus Christ. Yet, he contends that God has chosen the Jews and still, in fact, uses them. This is from a small book with chapters by all three on various subjects that has to do with Christianity: The book is A Passion For Christ: The Vision that Ignites Ministry. The chapter is, “The Mission of Christians and Jews.” I have placed this in a posting before but it should be read again. Torrance writes

“In what way does God confront the nations and peoples of the world today through the Jews?

1. Their remarkable preservation through history, scattered as they have been across the world and persecuted time and again in the most horrific ways, points to the miraculous hand of God who has set them apart for himself and promised, ‘Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,’ declares the lord, ‘will the descendents of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me (Jer 31:36). Their preservation points to the hand of God.

2. The very presence of the Jewish people today recalls us to their origins-to the great things which God has said and done in Israel and which are witnessed to in the Old and New Testaments.

3. The continuing presence of the Jewish people today-particularly their presence back in the Promised Land-reminds us that we and the nations have to reckon with a living, personal God. He is a God who acts in space and time, a God of judgment as well as mercy.

4. Their presence in the Promised Land reminds us in this twentieth century [and 21st] that our destiny is not in our hands. The nations do not hold their destiny in their own hands. It is not in the hands of their governments. Our destiny is in the hands of God who personally intervenes in history challenging the nations to humble themselves and to obey him, even as he challenged Pharaoh of old.

5. The modern history of Israel reminds us that God is over-ruling the continued sin of this world, as he fulfils his purposes of love and redemption. All history is leading up to the consummation of God’s purpose for this world, when he himself will come in Christ and the nations must meet with him and render account to him.

Israel’s return to the land of promise, following as it does an attempt under Hitler to obliterate everything Jewish, reminds us not only that God is the Lord of history but also that events seem to be moving on fairly fast toward the ultimate goal of history. Israel continues to be God’s covenant people and God continues to speak through the Jewish people and through them to show his glory to all who have eyes to see.”


[1] All of the speeches but one can be found at http://www.christatthecheckpoint.com/index.php/multimedia/lectures-2010 The speech I highlighted on the Holocaust will not open on that site but it can be found here: http://christatthecheckpoint.com/lectures/THE%20%20HOLOCAUST%20%20AND%20%20THE%20%20EVANGELICAL%20%20CHURCH.pdf

[1] Stephen Sizer uses revisionist writers in some of his blog writings. http://stephensizer.blogspot.com/2011/07/is-zionism-losing-ground-among.html?spref=fb In this particular posting he refers to a man named Charles Carlson. Charles Carlson is a historical revisionist who thinks the holocaust never happened.