Gay Agenda Preach-It-Down Sunday

I'm hoping pastors all over the country are getting the word out about Michael Brown's suggestion that they preach on homosexuality tomorrow, in solidarity with the Houston pastors whose Constitutional rights are being threatened by their current mayor, for preaching and otherwise promoting God's truth about homosexuality.

While any individual pastor might feel intimidated in spite of himself because of the aggressive tyrannical litigiousness of the Gay Rights people, it should help if a majority dedicate a Sunday to a concert of preaching on the same subject all at once, not to mention that that much concentration on a single issue could reach God's ear in a very effective way.

This is the first idea I've heard that gives me any hope whatever for dealing with the horrors of the times we are living through. The Church has seemed to be helpless to do anything about any of it. Our individual voices get muffled in the roar of Political Correctness, and of course intentionally suppressed as well.

AND LOTS OF PRAYER TOO: Although Christians pray about all these things, as individuals, in prayer meetings, in Bible studies and so on, nothing much has been happening.

THROW OUT THE ECUMENICAL ABOMINATION!

Why is nothing happening? I've written on what I think is a major dampening effect on our efforts to move the nation to repentance and move God to give us revival, and the main one is Ecumenical Prayer Gatherings in which Christians pray together with members of other religions, with Roman Catholics for instance, with Muslims, Jews and any other groups traditionally understood to be anti-Christian in their beliefs. George W Bush included Romanists, Muslims and Jews in his prayer for the nation after 9/11 held in the National Cathedral, which could only have increased God's judgment on the nation. All ecumenical prayer gatherings since then on behalf of the nation can only have added to it, and yet these are absurdly continued year after year after year despite a glaringly obvious lack of success, and even obvious negative effects. The most doctrinally perfect gospel-oriented prayer by a member of such a group can't stand up to the God-denying effect of including unbelievers in the group. He won't hear us. We need to throw out all the idols and that means scrupulously NOT praying with unbelievers.

Some wonder why on earth Islam's popularity and influence keep rising after their attack on us, but we still go on practicing exactly the sort of thing that is guaranteed to bring God's judgment on the nation, and Islam is most certainly one of God's instruments of judgment. Where in scripture does God approve of the People of God praying with the followers of Molech or Dagon or Baal? It is hard to understand why Christians don't recognize this problem.

That's the first thing we need to repent of in my opinion. We need to be purified of all such idolatrous deviations if our prayers are to reach God's ear.

Then we need to acknowledge the other sins we are guilty of and the nation is guilty of. With a sincere desire to clean up our act God will also show us individually what we need to repent of, and as we obey individually and corporately the channels of prayer will get clearer and clearer. I know whenever I make a serious effort to pray more, one of the first things that happens is that He shows me where I am not faithfully obeying Him.

One thing I particularly like about this idea of pastors preaching in concert across the nation is that it gives us a powerful way to focus on the sins that are crippling the country and bringing down God's judgment. It could be the answer to our felt helplessness as the devil just keeps rolling on and over us all. If we want revival we have first to finger the sins that need correction, and good solid preaching backed up by prayer against each of the sins we are able to identify. What a powerful voice we should have if thousands of churches join together in one voice, one mind and one heart. He is in the midst of us when we gather together in His name.

I know it's a wild daydream that the churches could agree to a preaching and prayer agenda to deal with all the sins of the nation, but I'm going to let myself hope and pray for such a wild blessing anyway.

But first how wonderful it would be if some churches followed Michael Brown's advice just for tomorrow, and preached on God's view of homosexuality in one impassioned voice. Just for tomorrow. I'll write more about my daydream eventually I'm sure.

I do want to highlight this blog by Larry Kutzler , whom I know from Jan Markell's ministry, who calls for the resignation or impeachment of the mayor of Houston, and on good grounds. She's shown she doesn't have the interests of her constituency at heart, but her own personal private interests and those of a small contingent who share the same narrow interests, as she works to deprive a large segment of the population of Houston of their right to freedom of religion. This is one way the preaching and praying could go for what I'm calling Preach-It-Down Sunday.

The Gay Agenda Aims Its Guns at the Church in Houston and the Church is Called to Respond to it this Sunday October 19th

Eric Barger of Take a Stand! Ministries sent out a newsletter yesterday about the lesbian mayor of Houston Texas ordering the pastors of the city to turn over everything they've said or preached about homosexuality.

American Family Association's One News Now reported the following:

"Mayor Annise Parker and two homosexual city council members pushed through a non-discrimination ordinance that protects homosexual men and lesbians. The proposed 'bathroom bill' ordinance passed 11-6 in May despite vocal opposition by the Houston community, which was led by local churches and their pastors."

The Houston Chronicle reported opponents of the ordinance launched a petition drive that generated more than 50,000 signatures - triple the 17,269 needed to place a referendum on the ballot. However, in August, City Attorney David Feldman invalidated the petition's pages citing "irregularities," effectively ending the citizen-led effort by killing the possibility of the referendum making the November ballot.

Next, opponents of the bathroom bill filed a lawsuit; the city's attorneys responded by issuing subpoenas against several key pastors who were part of a coalition of some 400 Houston-area churches that opposed the ordinance. The city is demanding that select pastors now turn over any and all communications - including sermons - that dealt with homosexuality, gender identity, or Annise Parker herself! Just let that sink in for a second and then ask, "What country is this, anyway?"

He goes on to report that

Commentator and radio host, Dr. Michael Brown, commented, "I urge every pastor in the city of Houston to address the issues of homosexuality and transgenderism this Sunday, announcing this for the entire world to hear but at the same time, refusing to obey the unrighteous decree of Mayor Parker's office to turn your sermons over for government scrutiny."

Here's Brown in the Christian Post:

In light of this egregious example of gay activist bullying – the very kind that I and others have documented for years now – I urge every pastor in the city of Houston to address the issues of homosexuality and transgenderism this Sunday, October 19th, announcing this for the entire world to hear but at the same time, refusing to obey the unrighteous decree of Mayor Parker's office to turn your sermons over for government scrutiny. (This should be done respectfully, in the spirit of Acts 4:19-20; 5:28-29.)

I also urge every congregational member in Houston to tell your pastors that you are standing with them, encouraging them to stand up for what is right in the face of bullying and intimidation.

To my fellow-leaders in Houston and around America, let's seize this moment and use it for the glory of God, preaching His love for all people and His real interest in those who identify as LGBT while at the same time proclaiming that His ways are best, that marriage is the union of one man and one woman and that gender distinctives are not to be discarded or despised.

Good for Michael Brown! I don't support his charismatic theology but I support his call for unity of the Church on issues like this. It would be wonderful if churches all across the nation responded to this call.

Barger rightly adds in his newsletter that the Church needs to respond to this and respond now, that too many younger church members are being persuaded that gay marriage should be accepted and that there won't be time to respond if we wait.

Hey Church! We're all tired of watching the devil triumph in this world lately, aren't we? In this nation and this world, and even in our churches. He's been coming in "like a flood" as scripture describes it. A lot of us are feeling helpless and maybe even scared at what we see happening around us, as evil is put for good and good for evil, as God's judgments are coming down on the nation.

There are lots of us but how do we get our act together as the formidable force we should be?

What are we, Church? Are we the army of the Lord or not? Are we called "Terrible as an army with banners" for no good reason? Are we called The Church Militant for no good reason? Do we have it in us to fight at all? And of course I mean fight with the Lord's weapons, not carnal weapons. I mean praying, I mean preaching, I mean speaking the Lord's word into all these situations where the evil one has dared to raise his ugly head against the Lord.

I love this recommendation that churches all together in one voice dedicate this Sunday's service to calling down this Houston mayor's unrighteous challenge to the people of God, even against our Constitutional rights but mainly against God Himself. Who are we if we don't stand in the power of our God for His honor?

Sure, be polite as Brown suggests, but there's also a place for declaiming and denouncing when it comes to being salt and light and calling down sin. I think of the late Ian Paisley's denouncing of the Pope as the Antichrist in the European Parliament, and in fact his style of preaching which could startle you out of your seat listening to him, not that I recommend it as a general thing, but the point is there is a place for shouting down the devil from our pulpits.

Quote all the scripture references against homosexuality, quote God's judgments. If they're going to call us "haters" and "homophobics" let them call all the churches in the nation "haters" and "homophobics" as we implore God to rend the heavens and act against this unrighteousness.

The angel of the Lord encamps about them that fear him and delivers them.

What a glorious idea.  Concerted preaching and prayer across the nation for a whole Sunday service against this offense against God and all the other offenses we could name in their turn.

Remember, it doesn't have to begin and end with this Sunday either; we have lots of challenges we're facing and lots of Sundays to do it in if the Lord tarries.

 Please inspire Your people to this, Lord.

The Political Correctness of Multiculturalism / Mark Steyn

As I was writing the previous post I came across the video I've embedded below of an interview with Mark Steyn on the subject of The Fraud of Multiculturalism. He's doing a good job on the subject but the interviewer obviously doesn't get what Multiculturalism means, and Steyn doesn't seem to grasp that he's confused.

In fact he contributes to the confusion by failing to make a crucial distinction between melting-pot style mingling of the colorful aspects of multiethnicity, and the insistence of the Politically Correct ideology of Multiculturalism that practices contrary to western democracy must be absorbed by the host culture.

To the interviewer it means the benign multiethnicity that characterizes the melting pot:  that you can come to a western society from any other culture and be treated with respect, which you can't expect by moving to any tribal culture. He's thinking of the melting pot in which a plurality of cultural practices are given free play and doesn't understand why anyone would object to that.

The problem here is what the word "cultural" means. I don't think there is a better term than Multiculturalism for what it refers to, but it makes people think of ethnic foods and colorful festivals and racial differences and languages and other distinctions between cultures that we enjoy, rather than what it's meant to mean, which I think boil down to the laws that govern a culture.

The reason the west can welcome so many different cultures is that we don't operate by tribal laws, but by laws intentionally hammered out over centuries toward the greatest good for the greatest number, for the highest justice for all. Historically it has been acknowledged that the west, and particularly America, have arrived at the best form of justice. No, not perfect, but it does have a consistent character from which ideally imperfections can be corrected over time. The American Constitution even anticipates the need for such change and provides guidelines for bringing it about.

Every kind of ethnic lifestyle from exotic foods and celebrations to the different racial types, can all find a place within this legal system, but the foreigners do have to learn the basic laws and institutions that have formed the larger culture into which they are expected to assimilate. But foreign forms of law cannot be assimilated, and should not. Tribal law is usually oppressive. Yet what Multiculturalism does is invite such alien legal systems to corrupt our own, the very laws that make multiethnic expression possible in the first place.

As Steyn says, MC thinking for instance makes an equivalence between the Common Law inheritance of Canada and the tribal law practiced on any small patch of jungle somewhere. It goes beyond that into proposing that these primitive systems be incorporated into our own, or "tolerating" them in their separate enclaves. And if we argue that foreigners need to adapt to the host culture, and that our system is a better form of justice, we're accused, usually, of racism. So what we have here is one of the many forms of Political Correctness that are designed to destroy western civilization. See the video of Bill Lind on the general history of Political Correctness in the previous post.



More Steyn on Multiculturalism:

Political Correctness, the Devil's Own Doctrine, is killing us all

I don't want to add to the hysteria about Ebola, but on the other hand there isn't much reassuring to be said either. We are in the hands of idiots, another name for people who subscribe to Political Correctness. This pernicious idiocy has been growing for decades and wreaking havoc in society on any number of issues, but who would have imagined it could wreak havoc at the level of giving free rein to a deadly communicable disease?

It's Political Correctness that has brought us officially legalized gay marriage, though not just gay marriage but the criminalization of those who consider gay marriage to be a violation of God's Law. This is an infringement of the First Amendment rights of those dissenters, but Political Correctness has no respect for our Constitution, Political Correctness rewrites our Constitution to support any number of bizarre objectives that no sane society ever even considered before. If a way can be found to identify some group as oppressed by the larger culture by being denied some practice or other, even if that practice threatens the wellbeing of the culture itself, as some "religious" practices do, and even if it's a group that is at best two percent of the population, that group can become the basis for denying First Amendment rights to anyone who opposes the mentality of that group, by calling that person racist or sexist or something like that, and punishing them with fines or other sanctions. But how many see the evil in this and protest it?

It is Political Correctness that has been perverting the American Constitution and most specifically the First Amendment, for decades now. We don't yet have Shariah law anywhere, but the idea is absurdly promoted by the Politically Correct, who simply have no idea what our Constitution is all about, or don't care. It's akin to the American Communist movement in the early part of the twentieth century, the first wave of idiots who had no idea what America is all about and absurdly believed that Marxism was a fairer system. Thus does the devil do his dirty work. By the sixties they had succeeded in eliminating American History and Institutions as a requirement from American Universities, and installing any number of Marx-infected professors who had an irrational hatred for America.

Multiculturalism is one of the idiotic tenets of Political Correctness. The American system of government that was once just about universally understood to be the best form of government ever invented, taken as a model for all nations everywhere, is now treated as nothing more than a mere accidentally developed culture that is equal to all other cultures, including third world cultures, cultures that abuse women and children and still practice slavery, you name it, all we have to offer any more is supposedly a white-man's preference and not a universal boon to humanity at all. We could maybe hope that this insanity would give way to reality eventually but for the fact that our system itself has been systematically undermined in the image of Political Correctness for a few decades now. All fueled by irrational Hatred of America.

The excuse for this is primarily the racism of the southern states that the nation labored under into the twentieth century, which simply became a tool in the hands of the anti-American wrecking crew. It's this hatred of America that is the root of all the PC tenets, and as a matter of fact we can trace Political Correctness to Marxism. There is some reason to think the buck doesn't stop there, however, as some of the influences on Marxism can be traced further back to the stealthy secretive work of the Jesuits, who did have a hand in the training of major Marxists and Communists, including Marx himself. And THEIR motive would be easy to fathom: America was once a major Protestant nation, like Britain, which has also been a favorite target of theirs. Ironically, however, the racism of the southern states can be found strongly represented among Roman Catholics. (Anybody remember that the South got into the Civil War on the encouragement of the Pope? Anybody remember that Gone With The Wind was about an Irish Catholic family?)

Racism isn't the only epithet in the PC arsenal to paralyze normal sane thought and action, but it is probably the main one. The reason we can't keep illegal aliens from crossing our southern border is that it's "racist" to object to it, and then they've perverted the meaning of the rule that anyone is American who is born in America to mean that any alien can have a baby here and be legitimized by that means, and the more children they have they more they outnumber the nativeborn citizens so that they can eventually displace us. Destructive insanity that is traceable back to Cultural Marxism, but pretty obviously to Roman Catholicism above all.

Perhaps the first manifesto against Political Correctness was The Origins of Political Correctness by William Lind.

Besides the article, you can hear him on the subject at You Tube, HERE as well. This presentation gives a complete history of the intellectual development of the concept in all its anti-American inspiration and ultimate success at destroying American culture.



Ben Carson is another one who has spoken out against Political Correctness as an evil ideology that threatens to destroy America, HERE, where his talk at the national prayer breakfast for Obama's second term inauguration is highlighted.



And here are some from Alex Jones:

19 Shocking Examples of How Political Correctness is Destroying America





And this kind of mind rot is why the west now has Ebola cases which could have been prevented if there was a normal intelligence running the show and preventing the movement of infected people from place to place until the disease is eradicated. You know, it's "racist" to cut off travel from infected Africa to the US. I pray God will have mercy and put the brakes on this insanity, but I don't have a lot of hope for it because it's His judgment on a sinful world, a world that has left Him behind and chosen an idiotic anti-morality to rule us. Of course it's the gradual decline into amorality, thanks to Political Correctness for starters, that has brought the west to this point where Political Correctness is even more virulent than ever. I'm afraid this is just part of the last days' nightmare that is coming on the Earth, and those who suffer the mind rot will just go on getting more rotten while the world collapses around them.

Come soon, Lord Jesus.

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.

Evil Times

Six Catholics, three Jews on the Supreme Court. Decisions coming down that remove the first amendment rights of Protestant businesses to exercise their religious beliefs by refusing specific jobs that give direct support to gay marriage. Latest I've seen a silkscreener who won't do a t shirt advertising gay marriage.

did make a decision in favor of Hobby Lobby's refusal to provide birth control as part of insurance for employees. Birth control is a big Catholic issue. Imagine that.

Vatican reevaluating family issues. Going to come out with some kind of support for gay marriage? How many gay priests are there in the Vatican and elsewhere in the RCC? How many molestations of children have been swept under the rug?

How many Catholics in our Congress? Well there's Boehner on the right and Pelosi on the Left and the two of them got together and invited the Pope to speak to Congress some time next year. If only we had an Ian Paisley who would stand up and denounce him as Antichrist.

Catholics give sanctuary to illegal aliens coming over our Southern Border, they make sure they get American tax money too. They're Catholics too you know.

Remember the Jesuit who came out a couple years ago saying we should get rid of the Constitution?

  England has modified its old law against having a Catholic on the throne.

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While the Antichrist system is doing all this, some parts of the Protestant church are looking for the Antichrist to arise somewhere in the world sometime soon.

  Well, Islam IS an antichrist too.

  We've already had a beheading in America on the basis of jihad, in Oklahoma, though political correctness as usual wants to dispute that as the reason for it.

Actor Ben Affleck had a fit about people making an issue about the murderous tendencies of Islam. It's just a few of them you know. Well, one percent of 1.4 billion people is fourteen million. Is that enough?

  Some lefties on a message board actually come perilously close to defending female genital mutilation as just a "cultural practice" of Muslims, and the burka, and oppression of women in general, same lefties who would have worked hard for women's rights in the west I'm sure, but it would be racist to object to another culture doing far worse.

  World has gone mad, but so mad it's become commonplace. It will never recover.

Some lefties think we shouldn't protect ourselves against Ebola by cutting off communication with Africa. That would be racist.

Did Tamerlane Tsarnaev commit murder long before the Boston Marathon bombing and get away with it?

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Pastor of a church in Alabama just came out and admitted he has AIDS and has had sex with church members, also mishandled church money. And what else, I forget?

Some obstacles to getting the churches, let alone America, to repent, let alone pray down a revival.

There are Christian leaders now calling for repentance by Christians for the sake of America, because the nation is clearly under judgment by God.   There is also the occasional expression of hope that we might still have revival.  Both these concerns occupy me a great deal, and I think both are crucially important.  The church has to repent if we have any hope of saving America at all, and revival is still possible, I haven't given up on it completely.  Both require of us a great commitment of time and dedication.  All that is true.

But when I make a mental list of how far wrong the nation has gone, and the churches as well, what we need to repent of, I lose heart.  For one thing, when I realize that some of the people calling for this kind of commitment are connected with the charismatic movement I get really discouraged.  It's not that there aren't genuine believers in that movement, but the movement itself is something we need to repent of because it promotes false doctrine, false experiences, false Christianity.

One leader I appreciate and would normally trust for his spiritual insight, David Ravenhill, is treating a dream by Rick Joyner as prophetic and something we need to take seriously.  Joyner had a dream about Islamic State militants crossing our borders and murdering people.  But it is at least naïve to believe anything Rick Joyner says.  All you have to do is watch one of his "services" at his Morningstar church on You Tube to know that there is absolutely nothing Christian about his church, it is pure paganism and any spiritual phenomena experienced in such a context can only be satanic. 

Islamic militants invading America is a real possibility with or without Joyner's dream, in fact there are no doubt many sleeper Islamist cells that have already been here for years or decades. In fact it wouldn't make sense for jihadis NOT to be crossing our unprotected borders; they hate us, why wouldn't they be coming in to try to destroy us?   We do not need Joyner's dreams to tell us such things, and it may be that his specific dream is false anyway, if we wait around to find out.  That ought to show him up as a false prophet but charismatics are known for ignoring such obvious proofs against their doctrine.

If we want to save America one of the things we need to do is denounce the apostate movements within the Church such as the Charismatic Movement and certainly particular representatives of it.  When the wolf is the one preaching repentance how are we going to make his nature known so that the Church can be rid of him?

Second, we need to denounce the Antichrist Roman papacy and make it clear that there is nothing Christian about that "church" either, but the people who recognize this are few and far between, and the Charismatic Movement is one huge arena where Romanism is treated as Christian.

If you're going to pray for the salvation of the nation, start with denouncing those apostate elements within the church. 

Then you can move on to denouncing all the "liberal" churches that deny the full sufficiency of scripture, that compromise the first chapters of Genesis in favor of embracing evolution, or that deny the judgments of God against homosexuality.  We need to pray in great numbers against these things or all we will do is contribute to the One World False Church that is rapidly taking form, and contribute even more to the sinking of America under God's hand of judgment.

What good could it possibly do to have a revival with such elements within the public presentation of the Christian Church?  Whatever revival we could get under such circumstances would be counterfeit, like all the so-called revivals we've had through the Charismatic Movement over the last few decades, such as The Toronto Blessing, the Brownsville "revival," the Lakeland fiasco, and something going on in Redding California.  There are gigantic phony "revivals" in other parts of the world too, such as Africa, all based on the counterfeit Christianity of the Charismatic Movement.  Reinhard Bonnke is one of the perpetrators,  No, he is not a Christian.

The possibility of enough people with such a perspective on the situation coming together with the right motives and the will to act is pretty remote.  Perhaps if at least a few of us get the point and pray and tell the truth about these things we can accomplish something, but pushing back God's judgment?  Experiencing a genuine Revival?  Very very remote possibilities indeed.  I'm not giving up but the tide is running the other direction and the commitment needed to counter it is pretty daunting.  Never doubt God's ability though if He wants to bring this about.