Jewish Christians, Pt. 3, Suspicion and Disunity in the Church: Look to the Machinations of Rome

HMore to say on the interview with Shelly and Scott Volk on Understanding the Times radio from last weekend:

After the clip was played of the traditionalist Catholic denouncing the Jews, first Shelly Volk offers the usual wrong defensive attempt to take the burden of guilt off the Jews for the death of Christ in terms of how we all killed Christ and how He chose to die and wasn't really killed anyway, and then Scott Volk quotes early church father Chrysostom who also waxed vehement against the Jews, and says he got it from a book titled The Roots of Christian Anti-Semitism by Malcolm Hay.

Having been alerted to the possibility of Jesuit deception by Chris Pinto I went looking on the internet for some clue to the frame of reference of this book and its author. I couldn't find much at first but finally I found a reviewer of the book at Amazon saying the author is Catholic and I found out it was written in 1913. As Chris Pinto has pointed out, the earlier the book the more trustworthy a history it's likely to be, especially before the 20th century and especially books purporting to expose "Christian" errors, or the devious ways of the Jesuits and Rome in general.

Scott Volk's reaction alone is enough anyway to raise a suspicion in my mind about the author's agenda in writing such a book. If it is a Jesuitical production purporting to reveal the roots of "Christian" Anti-Semitism it's most likely going to be geared to SEEM to put some of the blame on the Catholic Church by admitting at least the well-known facts about the Inquisition --and in any book written around WWII, their complicity in the Holocaust -- while nevertheless managing to shift the burden of blame to OTHER Christians or at least keep the terms vague enough that the reader isn't going to be able to make a clear distinction. Well, you know, the Protestants were just as bad really.

So Scott Volk reads this book, reads the quote from Chrysostom, and concludes that "this is the nature of what is going on in the 21st century church." Not "the ROMAN Church" where it IS true, but "the church," the true Church where it really isn't true -- not to anywhere near the extent he thinks anyway, and certainly not if the proof of anti-Semitism is the misleading "replacement theology."

But I would expect a Jesuit-inspired book to try to get him to blame the nonCatholic churches or anybody nonCatholic. I'm afraid I can only guess in relation to this book, but there's obviously something askew when "the church" or "Christianity" gets blamed for what the Roman monstrosity did to the Jews -- and for that matter did to far more of the true Christians than to the Jews. Scott Volk seems to have picked up that attitude of blame from this book, or at least allowed the book to confirm what he was already feeling.

But of course perhaps not all of the disunity in the church between Jew and Gentile these days is fomented by Rome. The annoyance I felt in listening to the Volks on the Understanding the Times broadcast I explained in the previous post as

1) about their accusation that "the church" doesn't seriously enough recognize the Hebrew foundations of the New Testament

• which as I show in that post is far from describing my own observations of the PROTESTANT church (not Rome), as I was treated to a great deal of good teaching on the prophetic meaning of the Hebrew scriptures in the tabernacle and the rituals and the feasts and so on, and on the role of Israel in the last days;
• and I go on to show as well that Jesus was most probably NOT called "Yeshua" in His day because Hebrew was most probably NOT the common language of the Jews at that time, but koine Greek.

2) about an apparent false equation they make between "Christian" or "church" and "Gentile" which misreads history, especially Acts 11:26; if they are accepting Roman Catholicism as Christian, of course, then there is a lot that needs sorting out here, Romanism being the great pagan counterfeit of Christianity.

3) and about their objection to "replacement theology" which to my mind misrepresents the position of the TRUE churches that hold the view that the Church is the inheritor of the Abrahamic promise. That's the BIBLICAL view.

Not the ROMAN Church of course, the Roman Church isn't a church at all, but a monstrosity of blasphemy, fakery and presumption.

It isn't just Jewish believers, there are plenty of nonJewish Christians who are taking this position as well these days -- contrary to the idea that the church is denying the Hebrew foundations it seems to me that way too many are going too far in that direction.

Clearly the Church is made up of "the Elect," which means "the Chosen" -- how can they deny this? After Christ has come and His Church is being formed, FULFILLING the promises of the Hebrew scriptures, how can UNSAVED Israel be in any sense God's Chosen People? Yet the Volks call them that.

At one point [around 20:40] Shelly Volk gives false history to support his view: He says it's the Gentiles who came to outnumber the Jews in the Church who came to believe that since the Jews had failed, "therefore they have become the New Israel of God." Going on to say "And this of course is called Replacement Theology and it's taken on a Greco-Roman mentality rather than the Hebrew mentality."

This is simply false. Except for the unbiblical part about God having no future plans for national Israel and the Jewish people, what is misleadingly being called Replacement Theology is BIBLICAL! Paul himself called the Church the Israel of God. Paul described the Church as the Temple of God being built of living stones. Paul spelled out the inheritance of the Abrahamic Covenant by the Church, not as replacement but as fulfillment! NOT the Gentiles, but the Church, the Church that is Jew and Gentile in "one new man."

Jesus Himself is the fulfillment of hundreds of the Old Testament prophecies. He Himself is the New Israel and the Church is the new Temple of God. All this is New Testament scripture. To deny it as the Volks and others seem to be doing these days is very wrong. Shelly Volk at one point says "the ultimate end is, What does the word of God say?" [17:42 on the audio counter] But he's just misrepresented scripture by effectively denying what the word of God clearly says, that the Jews took the curse of the death of Jesus upon themselves, and both he and his son Scott go on to misrepresent the word by denying that the Church is the fulfillment of God's plan of redemption of souls and the Elect.

There is no replacement here. The Church is the fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures, not the replacement of Israel but the true Israel of God. It isn't as if the Jews stopped being the Chosen and the Church took over their role, the Church is what all the scriptures were aiming for from the beginning. It has always been the REMNANT that were God's, not the whole people of Israel. It is the REDEEMED, the FAITHFUL, who are God's. "Not all Israel is Israel." The Church is NOT Gentile, it's JEW AND GENTILE, it's the UNIVERSAL CHURCH, it's the saved out of all lands and all peoples. The Church goes back THROUGH ancient Israel through Job and Noah and all the PRE-Jewish people who put their faith in God.

NEVERTHELESS it is clear that God has continuing plans for national Israel as well and great numbers of Jews are to be saved at the very end.

Clearly there is a fear of the growing anti-Semitism in the world that is partly fueling this exaggerated Jewish emphasis in the Church these days but it is a big big mistake to hang that as a blanket judgment on the Church as that book by Malcolm Hay apparently succeeds in doing judging from Scott Volk's take on it.

As it always has, it is most likely that the majority of the true Anti-Semitism is coming from the Roman Monstrosity, and from Islam, the two legs of the soon-to-be-revived Roman Empire, the Beast that is soon to come back to life and trample down everything on this earth.

However, there is no shortage of anti-Semitism in the world, and probably the Church too. There is a spiritual mystery involved with anti-Semitism I think, it's a way God's judgment against the Jews for the curse they took upon themselves gets expressed in the world, and yet anyone who would persecute the Jews comes under God's judgment as well. We're all under God's judgment -- "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" -- until we're saved in Christ, and that's what we must hope for all the sinners on this planet. God loves mercy over judgment. Vengeance is His, not ours.

In any case it's not right to equate anti-Semitism with true Biblical doctrine as even these Jewish Christians the Volks are doing whether they want to recognize that or not. Scripture says the Jews took the curse of Jesus' death on themselves, scripture says that the Church is the inheritor of the promises to Abraham, scripture says the Church is the Israel of God. This is fact, not anti-Semitism. It can of course be USED for anti-Semitic purposes, but the point is that this whole subject calls for careful distinctions and not the broad statements that came from this radio talk show. Names need to be named so that exactly who is being accused of what can be figured out. A Roman Catholic preaching vehemently even from true scripture against the "accursed Jews" is PROBABLY preaching anti-Semitism, but we need to know he's a Roman Catholic and withholding that information while implying the source is "Christian" contributes to the false equation of Rome the Antichrist with the true church of Christ. This whole subject is a powder keg, it has to be approached carefully and not with broad accusations.

Again, I believe there is definitely to be a role for Israel to play as the end times drama unfolds and huge numbers of Jews will be saved out of it and join the Church which IS the Israel of God.

===================

Apparently it's always necessary to make the effort to avoid any implication of accusing individual Catholics of supporting the horrors of the Inquisition or the Holocaust and so on. I certainly don't have rank and file Catholics in mind when I'm talking about the evils of the Roman Church. Individuals may or may not share the mentality of the Church governors, and any individuals who don't share it or can be brought to see its anti-Biblical and anti-Christian nature, need to obey the Bible and leave the RCC. Catholic authors of books on anti-Semitism or the Holocaust or the Jesuits or whatnot COULD be seeing through the errors of their Church. The reason I suspect that Malcolm May is probably a jesuitical type defender of the Church instead is that Scott Volk seems to have arrived at the conclusion from this book that "the church," including Protestants as well as the Catholics, all equally promote anti-Semitism, which is not exactly your fair-and-balanced perspective on the history of these things. If the book really did expose the truth it should drive a wedge between the Roman and Protestant churches. That's my thought anyway.

Jewish Christians, Israel, Replacement Theology, Anti-Semitism, Catholic connection

Heard last weekend's radio program at Jan Markell's website, Understanding the Times, titled The Church's Missing Agenda, with the show's executive producer Larry Kutzler sitting in for Jan, and I've got to say this was one confusing -- and annoying -- theological experience. I had to listen more than once to try to figure it out.

The guests on the show were Shelly and Scott Volk, father and son, Jewish pastors of churches, Shelly's in Arizona, Scott's in North Carolina. I knew of Shelly Volk because of his earlier association with Art Katz, whose books and tapes I absorbed avidly years ago. Art Katz was an inspiring preacher and he never annoyed me, so I was surprised to have such a reaction to this interview with the Volks.

Let me see if I can sum up my annoyance: They seem to be saying that the "Church" has a "Gentile" flavor to it that denies the essential Hebrewness of the scriptures, which deprives us of a necessary perspective, especially on Israel. Much of the time their way of speaking seems to set themselves outside the Church as in "we" versus "them" although they are believers in Christ and certainly know that scripture tells us "there is no more Jew or Gentile ... but all are one in Christ Jesus." They do emphasize at times that they identify with the Church, but often their language suggests a sense of distance from it nevertheless.

For instance, they refer to the mention in the Book of Acts [Acts 11:26] of the point at which the Church started to be called "Christians" and clearly imply that they think this described a switch from a predominantly Jewish to a Gentile Church, which makes the name "Christian" pretty much synonymous in their minds with "Gentile." But the Church at Antioch was just as much Jewish in those days as all the churches were. Paul and the apostles always went to the Jews first, to the synagogues, wherever they took the gospel. The first believers were ALL "Christians", both Jew and Gentile. This kind of thinking that makes the Church Gentile simply must come from the modern Jewish mentality and not from early church history.

In fact, Matthew Henry makes the point that the name "Christian" would have been a unifier of Jew and Gentile, rather than the divisive Gentile designation the Volks are trying to make of it:

Thus those who before their conversion had been distinguished by the names of Jews and Gentiles might after their conversion be called by one and the same name, which would help them to forget their former dividing names, and prevent their bringing their former marks of distinction, and with them the seeds of contention, into the church. Let not one say, "I was a Jew;’’ nor the other, "I was a Gentile;’’ when both the one and the other must now say, "I am a Christian." [Matthew Henry commentary at Blue Letter Bible for Acts 11:26]

This quote gets at what annoyed me so much about the interview with the Volks. All this emphasis on their Jewishness and the Jewishness of the scriptures and the supposed Gentileness of the Church and so on IS divisive and does bring "seeds of contention into the church." And after you spend some time sorting it out and finding that they are wrong about most of this, wrong about this supposed denial of the relevant Hebrew context of the scriptures and the gospel, which I went on to do and report on below, it is more clearly shown that this IS merely a contentiousness that shouldn't be made so much of.

They don't quote anyone so that we might know who, or what segment of the Church, they are referring to when they speak of "Christians" having a deficient appreciation of the Hebrew background of the scriptures, or what that looks like in action. This is made all the more mystifying in the context of the use of audio clips concerning anti-Semitism, in which the speakers --both pro and con anti-Semitic positions-- are also not identified, but the implication is that "Christians" are somehow the "anti-Semites." We are left having to figure out how to connect these vague accusations with some notion that the Church is rather too "Gentile" and doesn't appreciate the Hebrew scriptures.

A host of objections floods my mind as I try to grapple with this.

First, the Reformers, as I've been most particularly learning from Chris Pinto recently, DID see a role for Israel in the last days, contrary to the accusation that the "Church" has left Israel out of their reckoning. Have contemporary Reformed churches done so? They need to be specific.

Second, I remember a discussion of the translators of the King James Version of the Bible as taking care to preserve the Hebrew forms and rhythms of its language even in the New Testament Greek -- wish I knew where to find that comment now. Certainly the newer translations haven't bothered with such niceties but I don't think this is what the Volks are objecting to.

Third, my own experience since I became a believer in the late 80s has been of a veritable inundation with the Hebrew context of the gospel. Who hasn't learned the "scarlet thread of redemption" that can be traced from Eden to Christ? Who has missed out on a study of the Book of Daniel's direct prophecy of the timing of the coming of Christ, or the prophecies of the world situation of the last days in that and other Old and New Testament books as well, prophecies we are seeing unfolding before our eyes? I had years of Bible study with Kay Arthur's materials for instance, who is strongly pro-Israel. I got this in both a Presbyterian church and a charismatic church. The same pro-Israel position is also true of John MacArthur whose books and tapes I avidly learned from. And Chuck Missler did very interesting in-depth studies of the meaning of the ceremonies and feasts of Israel as depicting Christ. I got from Kay Arthur's studies the analysis of the tabernacle as showing Christ, and that's the sort of teaching Missler also did. Jews for Jesus made the rounds of the churches too in those days with similar teachings; maybe they still do but it's been a while since I got to see them.

Perhaps my experience was not the norm? But if not, then what is needed is a clear reference to the experience of the majority of the churches about which I apparently know nothing, as I would have thought such teaching, at least of the building of the New Testament on the Old, to be essential and unavoidable.

So, I need to ask WHICH part of the "Church" is supposedly deprived of this sort of teaching?

Some of the complaint from the Volks seems to have to do with "replacement theology," which has been the subject of a few recent posts of mine, but it's not clear exactly how that fits in either. WHICH part of the Church teaches this theology anyway? And exactly WHAT IS this theology in their minds? Surely they can't deny that the Church IS the Israel of God, spiritual Zion, the inheritor of the Abrahamic covenant by faith, SCRIPTURE SAYS SO. But they DO seem to deny this and get it all confused with the notion that "therefore" there is no longer a role for national Israel. The latter does not necessarily follow from the former but they seem to put it all together as one package. I've discussed my own view of this in more detail in earlier posts.

SOME PART OF THIS HAS TO BE ROMAN CATHOLIC, AND PLEASE LET'S STOP CALLING ROMAN CATHOLICISM "CHRISTIAN."

Is it perhaps the CATHOLIC "church" that most strongly holds the "replacement theology" that is so objected to? This needs to be made clear.

One clue to this particular confusion did come up in this broadcast as an audio clip was played of a man very aggressively denouncing the Jews as "the accursed Jews" -- without identifying the speaker but implying that he somehow represents something "Christian." It wasn't hard to google "accursed Jews" and trace the clip to a video at You Tube in which a Catholic [identified as Richard Joseph Michael Ibranyi] standing in front of a table full of Roman Catholic paraphernalia, a crucifix with a dead Christ pinned to it, pictures of Christ with a Catholic flavor, a picture of the face on the shroud of Turin, a statue of Mary, candles and so on, goes on ranting against the Jews. The film was made by a group called "Mary's Little Remnant" --Mary, not Christ, Mary the true god of Roman Catholicism.

From his first few minutes on the subject it's clear he's a traditionalist Catholic who rejects the council of Vatican II as apostasy, and some of his objection is that that council said Jews should not be accused of the blood of Christ. Of course his own views are apostate as well, just judging from the table behind him, although he's right that the Jews did take the curse of Jesus' death upon themselves and Vatican II is wrong.

So are the Volks who deny the special culpability of the Jews, and the rest of us who have tried to take the heat off the Jews for this, as I also used to do. Shelly Volk gives the typical defensive denial {17:06]:

I would just say this: Jews for centuries have been called Christ-killers, and you know what, in a sense we even see that written in the New Covenant [so far so good, yes we do], but the reality of it is [could "the reality of it" be something different from what the New Covenant says? Careful here.] that the Roman Centurions killed Him, the Jews killed Him, we all killed Him by sin, but the fact of the matter is, the crucifixion of the Messiah was in the heart of God. In other words ... He wasn't killed, He gave up His life voluntarily to fulfill the will of God and that's what we have to go for. The ultimate end is, What does the word of God say? {17:42]

This is what a lot of us do when we discover the role of the Jews in the Bible, try to get them off the hook. But we have to rewrite scripture to do that. The Jewish leaders brought the charges against Jesus, the Jewish people supported that action with their cheers for the release of Barabbas rather than Jesus, then they took the curse of the death of Jesus on themselves and their posterity:

Matthew 27:22-25 Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? [They] all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but [that] rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed [his] hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye [to it]. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood [be] on us, and on our children.

Scripture is very clear that they did this, it can't be avoided. Yes, in a sense we're all guilty of the blood of Christ, but it was the Jewish leaders who brought the charges against Him while Pilate tried to get out of prosecuting Him, and only the Jews specifically agreed to be cursed for His death.

It's sad, really, they had no idea what they were doing, as Jesus said from the cross, but the curse has followed them down the centuries nevertheless. What should our response be? Pity I think.

I do agree with the Volks about the Catholic guy's ATTITUDE, it is arrogant and boasting against the Jews and you can see how violence could come out of it. I only heard the first few minutes of his talk and it would need a lot of careful thought to sort out the true from the false and all the implications, but acknowledging that the Jews are under a curse for the blood of Christ [until they receive Him as Savior] no way justifies the Roman Church's anti-Jewish pogroms and the tortures and murders of the Inquisition. Jesus rejected all violence against His enemies and the Romanist perpetrators are going to get worse than the Inquisition at the judgment seat, PRAISE THE LORD!

One thing needs to be made clear in these last days: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS NOT CHRISTIAN. Pre-Vatican II or post-Vatican II it's all still the Antichrist system and the Great Apostasy. This is one of the biggest errors being made by the true churches these days, to treat Romanism as just another denomination of Christianity. It is NOT CHRISTIAN AT ALL! If there IS a Rapture of the Church soon, before the last days come to their full expression of horror and evil, the main representative of "Christianity" left on earth is going to be the apostate Antichrist Roman Catholic Church, the Harlot Church, and the Great Tribulation of those days is very likely to look like the Inquisition and the Holocaust (which also had Roman Catholic roots -- go hear Chris Pinto) rolled into one and magnified to unimaginable heights.

It was not right for the Roman identity of this denouncer of the Jews to have been left out of the discussion with the Volks. This is a rant that could have come from Mel Gibson, who was apparently raised in this form of Catholic anti-Semitism.

Also, at the very beginning of the Understanding the Times radio broadcast an audio clip was played of a man with a British accent who is also not identified, who was going on about how anti-Semitism in Europe has been increasing in recent years "as a consequence of pandering to the bigotry of Muslims," referring to the huge increase in the European Muslim population, who then went on to say "not that Europe has ever needed much encouragement in that direction." And here again it occurred to me to ask, WHICH PART OF EUROPE? Catholic Europe perhaps? The Inquisition killed over 50 million people, most of them TRUE CHRISTIANS. It was the ROMAN Church that set itself to exterminate the Jews, along with all the true Christians, along with sundry Muslims, witches and whomever else they felt like torturing and murdering. If there was SOME Protestant or other source of anti-Semitism, this has to be made clear. And try to avoid histories of such things that have a hidden Jesuit connection in them too. The history of the Holocaust often traces it back to Luther's Lies of the Jews, but the predominant role was really the Catholic church. Pinto proves this.

Jewish Christians, Pt. 2, Hebrew Roots, Hebrew Names

The second topic in the interview with the Volks that I want to bring out is:

WAS JESUS CALLED "YESHUA" IN HIS OWN DAY?
Scott Volk says [11:50] "The church of the 21st century has been duped, because we've kind of Christianized the gospel" and goes on to explain that Jesus would have been known as Yeshua son of Miriam rather than Jesus son of Mary and so on, which assumes that Hebrew was the spoken language of His time and place.

But was it? WAS His name "Yeshua?"

I've seen many different opinions on what language Jesus most commonly spoke, and Hebrew isn't the usual choice. The New Testament was written in koine Greek by various of the Lord's Jewish disciples, which makes it very clear that it was common for the Jews to speak Greek. Therefore Jesus Himself must have known Greek and that should have made Him quite familiar with His own name as said the Greek way. In fact it is likely He was fluent in Greek simply because that was the language of the whole Hellenized world since the conquest of Alexander the Great over three hundred years earlier. In fact the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, the translation known as the Septuagint, around the second to third centuries BC because Greek had become the common language of everybody including the Jews, who were losing touch with Hebrew. It would be very odd if Jesus DIDN'T speak fluent Greek.

Did the Roman soldiers who were stationed all over Judea in those days also speak the common Greek or stick to their own Latin or what? Jesus had many encounters with the Romans, from the centurions who came to Him for healing, to Pilate. Did the Romans bother to learn the languages of the peoples they had conquered or isn't it more likely that they all shared the koine Greek?

Some claim that the people of Galilee would have spoken Aramaic which would make that Jesus' native language from childhood, and since at certain crucial moments as recorded in scripture He did speak Aramaic, this may be confirmation. At least it would imply that He was equally at home in that language as well as Greek. According to Wikipedia Aramaic has some similarities with both Hebrew and Arabic. One source I found says Aramaic is more like Arabic than like Hebrew. Jesus' name wouldn't have been Yeshua in Aramaic would it? Could it have been more like the Muslim Isa?

It is also thought by some that He would have been fluent in Hebrew because that is the language of the scriptures He would have heard in the Temple, but if the common language outside the Temple was not Hebrew then Hebrew would not likely have been spoken in any other context except the Temple or the study of scripture. He might have been well-versed in Hebrew, then, but not likely to have used it in everyday contexts. However, it's very possible that Hebrew was not even the language of the scriptures at that time, because the Greek Septuagint translation mentioned above was commonly used.

All these considerations make Hebrew the LEAST likely to have been His native language.

It's fine, I think, for Jewish believers in Christ to be interested in the Hebrew roots of the New Testament in the Old Testament, to appreciate and practice the Jewish ceremonies and holidays and so on, especially those who grew up in a religious Jewish family and studied Hebrew, and to prefer the name "Yeshua" simply because it's more Jewish and doesn't have the historical connotations of anti-Semitism they attach to the name "Jesus" -- even if it wasn't really what Jesus was called.

But too often it seems that unwarranted assumptions are made about how supposedly Hebrew Jesus and the New Testament contexts really were, and what for? Scott Volk says the Church has been "duped" and implies we've been deprived of something important if we don't think of Jesus as Yeshua. Well, now it looks to me like Jesus wasn't known as Yeshua at all. I tend to think that if He was and if it was really important, God would have made sure the New Testament was written in Hebrew. Perhaps He chose Greek partly for the very reason that the Hebrew language can easily become a sort of claim to authenticity the Jews can hold over the Gentiles, as they also tried to do with circumcision in Paul's day. For the same reason it's a good thing Latin wasn't the original language of the New Testament either, depriving the Romanists of at least one way of lording it over all the world -- with any claim to legitimacy anyway. Koine Greek had all kinds of virtues for the purposes of spreading the gospel and recording the scriptures, and the added virtue that it soon became a virtually dead language so nobody would want to fight over its claims to authenticity. All of this should make for a more level playing field for the sake of the unity of Jew and Gentile. What a wise Lord we have.

Hey, I believe that Israel is going to have a big part in the last days, I'm glad that Jews are coming into the Church in greater numbers and I look forward to their eventual inclusion in droves as scripture promises. The Lord said He'd come back to the Mount of Olives and I take that quite literally. I don't even see how it could be taken any other way.

IF there IS a significant trend of denial in the TRUE Church (not Rome) that Israel is going to play such a part in the last days, that's an extreme position that needs to be corrected. But also there is an OVER-emphasis on the role of Israel and the Jews that equally needs to be corrected. I don't see that there is really much of a "missing agenda" in the Church at all, as that radio broadcast purports to tell us. If there is, they didn't do a very good job of showing exactly where and what it involves.

The idea of "Replacement Theology" is false and does not serve the cause of gaining support for the nation of Israel

Is it true that a crucial failure of today's Church is not to be supporting the nation of Israel according to its importance in prophecy? Are we really inviting God's judgment on the Church and the nation for this failure?

I really don't think so. Correction: I don't know but I think the west is under judgment predominantly for lots of other offenses, and I'm less and less convinced of the arguments that put Israel at the center of prophecy. But I've also got to say that there could be some truth to it, but the case has not been made for it if so. Those who promote this idea are guilty of slanderous and divisive attitudes and a failure to put their views into a reasonable perspective so that reasonable people might be persuaded. Right now I don't think their perspective is reasonable.

I'm all for supporting Israel, I think it would be a disaster if we stopped, I think all the pro-Palestinian politics, in the government but also the churches, is as wrongheaded as it's possible to be, backing the wolf against the lamb as usual, utterly ignoring the stated objectives of Palestinian policies to destroy Israel. They don't want a State, they could have had one years ago if that was their objective, but it isn't, and they could have had a lot of help from Israel in developing it too. But they want Israel gone, period. And they've said so many times. And the blindness it takes to ignore all that is almost miraculous. Well, that's not a bad description really; it's certainly a spiritual condition in the end. So yes, I think God could bring us under judgment for failing to support Israel but not necessarily because prophecy requires it, just because it would be wrong.

But then I hear all this theological stuff about "Replacement Theology" which is supposed to explain why the liberal/left churches are pro-Palestine, and that doesn't sit well with me either. All you have to be to support Palestine over Israel is a Politically Correct Leftist who is ideologically committed to what they perceive to be the underdog without regard to how the underdog got into that condition. Which in this case is thanks to their Muslim leaders who want to keep them underdogs to get sympathy from the world and make Israel look bad. The fact that Israel has made itself a prosperous and successful nation is the Great No-No from the leftist point of view, and their success alone makes them the guilty party. This is so obvious it takes extraordinarily perverse thinking to overlook it. But the Left is wonderfully adept at that kind of thinking so what else is new?

I do suppose there must be some theological influence in the position of the leftist churches, but I also have to suspect it's more windowdressing than real motivation. The idea is that the Church has replaced Israel in God's promises and prophecies, but it makes no sense to abandon Israel even if the Church HAD replaced them in theological terms. What does that have to do with the political realities of the situation brought about by the deceitful policies of the Palestinian leaders? Replacement Theology is as nutty an explanation for taking the Palestinian side against Israel as the Leftist lies themselves.

Unfortunately the Right doesn't seem to think so; the main message we hear from the pro-Israel camp is that Replacement Theology is causing the churches to deny the importance of Israel in prophecy, to ignore for instance the immense significance of Israel's gaining of statehood back in 1948. It seems to me that their becoming a nation does have to be understood as fulfilled prophecy, and it's also hard to overlook the times when Israel defeated their enemies by what can only be considered God's hand; but I'd need to see a more rational exposition how it fits into prophecy than what we get from the Christian Right these days. What we're getting is a view of scripture that treats the opposing theology, which they dub Replacement Theology, as little short of anti-Semitic.

Again, as I say above, it is hard to see how anyone could rationally use such a theology to defend a political position that is inherently stupid; the real explanation has to be that the churches that support Palestine have simply been infected with leftist political correctness.

In my context here this is really a side issue, though it needed to be said. Once again the problem for me is the very idea of Replacement Theology itself, which strikes me as just plain bogus. There is no such thing, as I've said many times before. This is really just a slander of the Reformed tradition or Covenant Theology, which has the traditional view that the Church is the inheritor of the promises of God to Israel, and the Church is both Jew and Gentile.

The concept of Replacement Theology is offensive and slanderous.* It utterly misrepresents the theology it is labeling and it accuses innocent people of anti-Semitism in the process.

Again the provocation for my post on this subject comes from Jan Markell's ministry, Understanding the Times Radio, this time from her interview of Dr. David Reagan who recently wrote a book titled The Jewish People, Rejected or Beloved, in which he analyzes current issues with Israel in terms of Replacement Theology. Jan Markell has a lot of great topics that the Church does need to be aware of, but her commitment to this particular point of view is way off base and I wish she'd come to see that. Some time ago I did a post on her interview with Messianic Jewish guests Shelly and Scott Volk, which promotes the same offensive point of view that is being repeated in her interview with David Reagan.

I don't want to be offended by the "Christian Zionist" people, and certainly not by the Jewish Messianic Branch of the Church, I wish this problem would go away, but it isn't going away so I'm giving my view of it. I'm coming to think there is a trend there that amounts to modern-day Judaizing.

Anyway, to get to the interview with David Reagan:

Jan starts off stating that it seems the great prophetic importance of the situation of the State of Israel is being ignored by the majority of the churches, and that this has to do with their having embraced a wrong understanding of scripture. "The Church is silent" on these things, she says, "Instead they hear that the Church is the New Israel."

She could be right, as she says a bit later, that there has been a sea change in the attitude of the churches toward Israel in recent times, from a previous strong commitment to Israel, to strong criticism of Christian Zionism or the Church's defense of Israel. She lists a number of people who represent this point of view but I haven't studied them and wouldn't trust what I get from Wikipedia on them to be sure of what they stand for, so I'm not going to comment. Do they really hold a position that could rightly be called Replacement Theology or is this just the usual misrepresentation of the traditional Reformed theology that says the Church was always God's objective and that believing Israel was always the early form of the Church? I don't know, but I suspect the latter because of the attitudes I encounter among the "Christian Zionists." Just as a matter of fact I'm sure she's right that there has been such a change but what it's really about I'm not in a position to judge at this point. Again, I'm sorry to see Israel abandoned politically when politically they are not the villains in the drama.

"How do we wake up the churches?" Jan asks Reagan, who answers: "I'd do it from scripture because the scripture is very very clear that God has not washed His hands of the Jewish people, all people have to do is start reading Romans nine through eleven." OK, that's clear so far. He goes on: "Those three chapters are the most neglected chapters in Christian history because the Church has hated them with a passion because they teach that God still loves the Jewish people."

But that last statement is pure slander. What churches "neglect" those chapters in Romans? None that I know of. Let alone for the even more offensively slanderous reason that "the Church" has "hated" the Jews "with a passion because they teach that God still loves the Jewish people." This is just unbelievably slanderous and offensive. For one thing it makes no sense. Here he needs to document his accusations: WHICH Church, and quote them please. When he goes on with "He still has a purpose for the Jewish people and He's going to bring a great remnant of them to salvation when they place their faith in Jesus as their Messiah" there is nothing to object to, except the implication that there is any theologian who disputes this. If there is we need to be given the evidence.

He goes on "accounting for" this supposed hatred of the Jews in the Church:

This is something that is deeply rooted in Christianity. You take for example the King James Version of the Bible ...If you go back to the original and look in the Old Testament you will find many chapter headings that read like "God Makes Promises to the Church" and you read that whole chapter there's nothing in there about the Church, they are promises to Israel, but the translators were caught up in Replacement Theology, and they put that mentality into the scriptures in the Chapter Headings.

I have a hard time hearing The King James Bible knocked, which seems to be a favorite pastime of many people in the churches for many reasons these days. I'm afraid this angle on it is particularly offensive, because if there's one thing that's true of the King James scholars it's that they knew their Reformed Theology. They weren't "caught up in" what is here pejoratively and tendentiously being called "Replacement Theology," they knew that God's people Israel were the foundation or root of the Church, which He was building through the Jewish remnant of believers, that would be fulfilled in the coming of their Messiah when all who have faith in Him become grafted in to that Jewish root.

Reagan goes on with his prejudiced and false history of the Church:

This goes back really to the very beginning of the Church. As soon as the Church began to become more Gentile than Jewish the Gentiles turned on the Jews, and then Augustine systematized all this around 400 AD when he simply began to argue, as did others following him, that God had washed His hands of the Jews because the Jews were Christ killers, and they were labeled that over the ages and people were actually taught in the Church that they were to hate Jews, that they were to despise Jews, that they were to mistreat Jews.

Telling it like it is, this is a pernicious lie, in fact it is about three pernicious lies in one, one of which I dealt with in my post about the Volks, but I'll say more about all this after I've finished quoting Reagan.

And one thing we need to get straight about who killed Jesus. The Bible says there were more than the Jews involved in this. The Bible says point blank [sic] that it was the Jews, it was the Gentiles, it was the Romans, and you know who else it was? It was you and me. All of us have the blood of Jesus on our hands because he went to the cross and died for all of us.

And this is a pernicious half-truth which I also answered in that other post.

To try to be as fair as possible, first I'd say that it would help if both sides in this polarized conflict gave a bit here and there. Those who completely dismiss Israel as rejected by God --if there are any, and I'm not completely convinced of this yet because no evidence has been given for it -- need to see that Romans 9 through 11 says that's not the case; they also need to consider that perhaps SOME of the Old Testament prophecies don't apply to the Church but to earthly Israel, or perhaps even to both. They might also learn from the Reformers who didn't dismiss the Jews from God's plan.

But the other side really does have to give on a number of points. They need first to acknowledge that the covenant with Abraham is a covenant of faith that is now the heritage of the Church. If there is an argument that it ALSO applies to earthly Israel, then make that argument, but to deny that Christians are the legitimate heirs of Abraham isn't going to gain them any credibility.

It would also help a great deal if they'd acknowledge that most of the Old Testament references to Israel DO apply to the Church, instead of holding on to their dogged literalist view that they can only apply to earthly Israel. It has seemed to me for some time that some of the passages could very well apply to earthly Israel but there is simply no doubt that most of them look forward to the Church in the time of the Messiah, and ignoring this doesn't do the Zionist cause any good. After all, what was Israel meant to be but the People of God, and what is the Church but the People of God established by faith in the Jewish Messiah?

Instead of bullishly insisting that the Church has been wrong all these years about the Church in the Old Testament, show us that there are at least a few places where earthly Israel is meant or also meant. I would think that could be the case, and it may even have been spelled out by some theologians that I don't know about. But first give up this wrongheaded notion that it's wrong to apply the references to Israel to the Church, which they call Replacement Theology. Which it isn't. It's Continuation Theology if anything, or even Fulfillment Theology: it's what was always intended by God's establishment of Israel as His People: a body of Believers! Unbelieving Jews are NOT true Israel, EVEN IF God still has His hand on them and has plans for them to become believers. Before we're saved we're all "children of wrath," remember?

If you want people to support Israel, stop insisting on your end times theology and focus on the practical situation of Israel; that and the clear message of Romans nine to eleven, which doesn't have to be embedded in a nest of slanderous accusations, ought to be enough to rally support.

Also consider that the traditional Church is not the rabid Jew-hating institution they sometimes make it out to be --excepting of course Roman Catholicism because they promoted the pogroms and all kinds of violence against Jews and others, and had a big part in the Holocaust too. It's irresponsible to impute attitudes to "the Church" without being clear which "Church" you are referring to, and without quoting anyone to prove your point.

The claim that Augustine promoted hatred of the Jews turns out to be just plain wrong. I looked up his views and found a recent book on the subject that says he made a case for the continued existence of the Jews as a recognizable body as witnesses to Christ, and strongly defended the understanding that God would bring the Jews to faith at the end. He said nothing whatever to promote anti-Semitism, with which he is absurdly and falsely charged. The early church fathers, of which Augustine was one of the most prolific writers, devoted themselves to theological arguments about doctrine, and Augustine was one who took apart Judaism, no doubt in pretty insulting terms, but it would be ridiculous to confuse a doctrinal argument with a hatred of the people who hold that doctrine. Arianism was also dissected by the church fathers, and all the other heresies, without any hint of hatred toward the people holding those views.

If later ignorant people used such intellectual work to support their anti-Semitism, that can't be blamed on Augustine.

Another thing that's wrong in their thinking is the apparently entrenched idea that when the Church started to be called Christians at Antioch, that marked a switch from the Jewish- dominated Church to a Gentile-dominated Church that supposedly unleashed hatred of the Jews. There isn't the slightest reason to believe this, and I pointed this out in the post about the Volks that I've linked above. I also quote Matthew Henry's understanding of that event as the point where ethnic identities should have been melted into the Christian identity, "no more Jew nor Gentile but all one in Christ Jesus." And historically that is probably what happened. Instead today we find modern-day Jewish believers falsely making it a cause for accusing the Gentiles of anti-Semitism and promoting the very division in the Church that event should have ended.

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*Here's Replacement Theology Dot Org a website I just found that's dedicated to explaining what is wrong with the concept of Replacement Theology:

What is Replacement Theology? It is a pejorative term used by a growing number of misinformed Christians who unwittingly misrepresent the views of fellow believers. The purpose of this web site is to encourage Christians to cease using this unkind term, for it is theologically inaccurate, divisive, incendiary to honest Christian discourse, and overtly offensive.

...“Replacement Theology” is often used to discredit Reformed or Covenant theologians by ascribing to them a view that they do not hold. When carelessly repeated, the phrase “Replacement Theology” propagates this flawed definition. Furthermore, it drives a wedge between fellow Christians. Damage to the unity of the body of Christ occurs when well-meaning, but misinformed people haphazardly employ the term. It is often done to advance their own theological theory of biblical or end-times interpretation.