Keeping The Issues Clear When Talking About Contemporary Israel

In his ongoing effort to be as juvenile as possible before leaving office, the Obama administration abstained from a vote at the United Nations that essentially condemned Israel in a bunch of ways, allowing it to pass without the courage of an actual vote from the U.S. one way or the other. This has led to the expected angry backlash online from conservative media sources with articles like this from pro-Zionism Frontpage Mag: President Obama Throws Israel To The Wolves.

Of course a UN resolution is as impotent as everything else the UN does. It has no real impact other than serving as a diplomatic black eye and with what appears to be an overwhelmingly pro-Israel administration about to take over in a few weeks, there is little doubt that this resolution will be yet another empty gesture of the sort that has generally marked the utterly useless body of yammering, self-important bureaucrats that bears the risible and inaccurate name "United Nations". In fact it might backfire spectacularly as many Republicans are using this as an excuse to push for defunding the UN, a move I would be all in favor of. For example former Trump Presidential rival Senator Ted Cruz said that he will push to withhold U.S. funding of the UN until the resolution if reversed. As I posted on Facebook, the U.S. pays billions of dollars in UN funding and foots the bill for 22% of the entire budget, a percentage more than double that of Japan with the next highest percentage at 9.68%. The total sum of over $3,000,000,000 is more than 185 other countries pay combined. When you add in the huge amounts we spend on our military the bill gets a lot higher. So much for "United Nations". A more appropriate name would be more like "Bags of Cash From American Tax-Payers To Be Spent By Other Nations In Foolish Ways" but the acronym BOCFATTBSBONIFW doesn't have quiet the same ring to it.

The response is understandable in many ways. Coming as it does at the very end of the Obama reign it smacks of the same sort of petulance that has marked his entire administration and doubly so the month since it was apparent that the American electorate rejected his legacy and replaced him with someone who, at least on the surface, couldn't be more different. But it also raises the same concern that I usually have when the topic of the contemporary nation of Israel is at the forefront of the news, namely the response of American evangelicals.

I want to be crystal clear on this. Whether or not you support the secular nation-state of Israel as a matter of geopolitical preference, a democratic ally of sorts of the United States in an otherwise largely hostile region and whether or not you think the resolution that was passed and the U.S. decision to abstain (itself a cowardly act of inaction, if we supported the resolution we should have voted for it and if we didn't we should have voted against it. Abstention was the cowardly response.) was wise or foolish is a matter of geopolitics and U.S. national security. It is not a theological question, at least insofar as it is not a theological question about specific loyalty from one secular nation toward another.

There are not many issues in American evangelicalism which are more confused and more potentially costly to our witness than the mass misunderstanding of the theological nature of ancient and now extinct Israel as opposed to the contemporary secular nation-state of Israel. When you combine the "America as God's chosen nation" misplaced patriotic fervor with the dispensational confusion over the nature of Israel, you end up with a toxic mix that is dangerous and misguided. The ancient Old Covenant nation of Israel was a covenant-breaking unfaithful people (Jeremiah 31:32). God replaced that Old Covenant, making it obsolete (Hebrews 8:13), with a New Covenant that is in every way better (Hebrews 8:6). People of ethnic Jewish ancestry who are born-again are part of the New Covenant. Those that are not born-again are cut off (Romans 11:13-24 esp. verse 20) and their fate is no different from any other unbelieving people. As such there is no special place for the contemporary nation of Israel as it exists in redemptive history and there is no obligation for Christians to show deference to the secular covenant breaking leaders of Israel over any other nation. We are often reluctant to make that case, even from non-dispensational church leaders, for fears of raising the specter of "anti-semitism" but it is dishonest to pretend that there is a sharp distinction between the historic Old Covenant nation of Israel and the secular reconstituted contemporary nation that bears the same name.

When we associate the church and the Gospel with a secular nation and favor that nation and that ethnicity over others we make a mockery of the Great Commission and tell other people groups that they are second-class citizens of the world even though the overwhelmingly unbelieving citizens of Israel have no special standing with God compared to the people of any other contemporary nation and indeed believers in places like Syria and China have a relationship with God unlike that which any Israelite ever had under the Old Covenant. We do the people of Israel no favors when we extend to them the promise of covenant blessings that they do not possess instead of preaching the Gospel of the New Covenant in Christ to them no differently than we do any other nation or ethnicity.

I think that the behavior of the President via his surrogates was cowardly and petulant toward Israel and pandering toward other nations that are no friend of the United States. I also believe that there are many troubling questions in general about the relationship between the U.S. and Israel that need sober reflection. The entire relationship between the United States, Israel, the rest of the Middle East, the "Palestinian" people and so many other variables is excruciatingly complex. That complexity and the peril of missteps is far too great for Christians to interject a clumsy hermeneutic into it that further muddies water already roiled by decades of antagonism. We should encourage our leaders in America to be even-handed toward all other nations, showing deference where warranted by friendship and mutual benefit but not based on erroneous theological assumptions. It is fine, proper and necessary to have our theological convictions inform our understanding and involvement in contemporary secular issues but let's make sure we have the proper theological framework to make those decisions.

For more on this topic see a couple of prior posts,  Israel, Gaza and the Gospel and One of the best summaries of the relationship between Christians and the modern state of Israel I have ever read.

The Rotten Fruit Of Zionism

You can always count on the John Hagee's of the world to say cringe-worthy stuff on a regular basis. His latest pronouncement? God will destroy America because the President of the United States is not meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his visit to the U.S. in March. Keep in mind that this is a completely secular political squabble. The invitation comes from the Congress as a poke in the eye of the President over the differences in opinion with how to deal with Iran. Still this is a prime opportunity for false prophecy. Behold...


So let me get this straight. A purely political situation where one unbeliever is not being invited to meet with another unbeliever on a specific date will cause God to intervene and re-institute a thousands of years old covenant promise that has been obsolete for almost two millennium. That seems reasonable.

The exegetical gymnastics required to take this passage...

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Genesis 12:3)

...and from that apply a specific promise to a nation that no longer exists under a covenant that is obsolete to a nation that does not have any sort of covenant promise are breathtaking. They are also dangerous and blasphemous. I do not say that what he said is blasphemous lightly but there is not really another way to describe a statement that attributes to God something God Himself has not said. This is perhaps a very extreme example but it is still somewhat representative of the error of the Zionist/Dispensationalist school of theology. Of course there are plenty of teachings in this school that are erroneous but few quite as troubling as this one. While the Rapture is a largely harmless and silly doctrine, the Dispensational notion of dual covenants sets the entire New Testament on its head.

I absolutely believe that the Old Covenant, God-directed nation of Israel held a special and unique place in the plan of redemption. I also believe that the Jews by and large violated their end of the covenant agreement and rejected the Messiah. They no longer have a special claim under the Old Covenant which is made obsolete in the cross and they have the same access as a gentile to the New Covenant. Nor should we want to revive the Old Covenant when we have a New Covenant, a covenant that is infinitely better, giving believers a true King and an eternal Kingdom rather than fallible kings and a dusty land.

I am quite confident that this land where God has placed me is under no special threat based on who does or doesn't have tea in the White House, just as I am sure that John Hagee is speaking presumptuously and treading on some very dangerous ground. We don't stone false prophets anymore but we do and should call them out for what they are, false teachers and wolves among the sheep. I have never found Dispensationalism or Zionism or any other iteration to be compelling. They all fail the sniff test and violate the clear teaching of the New Testament (and yes, there are some teachings that are plain and clear and they can be and should be universally recognized). When someone like John Hagee has a huge audience for his particular brand of error it is incumbent on the church to point it out.

Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn't need the Church to defend him against the big, bad President. What Benjamin Netanyahu needs is the same thing Barack Obama needs which coincidentally is the same thing that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the leaders of ISIS, and every other person who is not born-again need: they need saving faith in Jesus Christ. They need to be born-again, regenerated, dying to self and rising again to newness of life. The Kingdom doesn't need its subjects to take sides in a geo-political squabble or a thumb in the eye of the President inflicted by the Congress. Don't get sidetracked by the world and its petty concerns. We have a much bigger mission that leaves us no time for silliness and no room for false prophets.

Repost: Israel, Gaza and the Gospel

This is a topic that is at the top of the news once again and once again a subset of Christians who grossly misunderstand the Old Covenant and consistently misapply Old Testament passages along with random New Testament eschatalogical passages come out of the woodwork. This is greeted with the glee of a kid on Christmas morning by secular media outlets for the stream of foolish and Gospel harming quotes that these individuals provide. Case in point, a recent Slate article at a convocation of the ever mind-numbing John Hagee and his acolytes, Inside the Most Insanely Pro-Israel Meeting You Could Ever Attend. Now from Slate you should assume the worst when it comes to anything religious but some stuff is hard to deny, especially the last few paragraphs (emphasis mine):

“There is an entire generation being raised in southern Israel, barely any of whom do not suffer from PTSD due to the rocket fire,” said Anthony. “The entire Zionist experiment rests in no small part on what it is we do during this campaign.”

What the IDF needed was a total victory. “Rocket factories can be destroyed,” said Anthony. “Weapon factories can be destroyed. Terrorists can be eliminated. Tunnels can be dug out.” But it could only happen if America resisted the temptation to criticize Israel or to stop the operation.

“Hamas started this war,” said Anthony. “The soldiers of Israel must smash their skulls and break their spines.”

When he said that, a standing-room crowd of pastors and activists and politicians rose to its feet, waving the twin flags of the countries God loved.

What is really disturbing is that even though this is in Slate I have no trouble at all believing this happened.

As I write below you can make a decent argument from a secular, geo-political position that Israel as a sovereign state has a right and a duty to defend her citizens from attack. I have no doubt that Hamas loves to see dead Palestinian children as a PR tool in their war against Israel. People with an agenda, whether the leaders of Hamas or Benjamin Netanyahu, are always looking for the crass PR opportunity to score political points on the talk shows and via their proxies.

Where I have an issue is when this conflict is turned from a secular squabble that never gets any better and into a theological one where Christians in America are assumed to have a Kingdom obligation to support a secular people group in a war that appears to kill far more civilians than combatants against another secular people group. Let me say this as plainly as I can: A nation created by international proxy that is overwhelmingly populated by people who deny Christ is by definition not "God's people". One cannot simultaneously be in favor with God and denying His Son. That was true in the 1st century A.D. and it is still true today. That basic fact of Christian theology didn't change when a guilt driven world carved a new secular homeland for Jews out of Palestine. I seriously do a literal :facepalm: on a daily basis when I see some things fellow believers say about this conflict. We should be weeping and praying for peace and for the innocents killed on both sides, not taking sides against others based on a faulty and dangerous theology that has its roots in Left Behind and other crappy apocalyptic fiction. There is no small amount of manipulation for political gain and for the selling of books that goes on at events like these and still Christians flock to them. People need to put their end-times flow charts away and try reading the Bible for a change. 

Also of note, another post that mostly is a copy and paste from John Piper who pretty much nails in on this issue, One of the best summaries of the relationship between Christians and the modern state of Israel I have ever read.
--------

 

The conflict in the Middle East is rife with danger for Christians because many of us have been inundated with years of bubblegum pop eschatology that inextricably links the Israel of God with the current nation-state of Israel (see, this chart here shows that Hillary Clinton/Ted Kennedy/Barack Obama/insert liberal here is the anti-Christ!). That linkage causes many Christians to reflexively support Israel, no matter what. I happen to support Israel the nation in the current conflict; the same was that I support Taiwan against mainland Red China. I think people should support Israel, but I think we should support Israel for the right reasons.

To begin with I don’t think that the nation-state of Israel is the Israel of God because it bears the same name and is made up mostly of people of Jewish descent.

Is there a Gospel future for the Jews? I certainly think so, one that involves a massive (future?) conversion of Jews to Christ. Romans 11 bears this out. I do not think that this means that God is intending to fulfill the land promises of the Old Covenant. Why would He? So they can have a physical homeland when Christ has provided a spiritual home? So they can rebuild the temple and make sacrifices, putting the cross of Christ to shame? God has a plan for His people, Jews and gentiles, that is so much greater and more magnificent than a piece of property in the Middle East.

I think it is vital that the Christian manage to look at Israel as two separate entities, the Israel of God on the one hand and the political entity of the nation-state of Israel on the other. Being Jewish does not save you. Romans 11:26 says that all Israel will be saved but it is clear through the Bible that faith in Christ is the only way of salvation and many, many Jews have rejected Christ. So if all Israel will be saved, but not all Jews are saved than it must mean that being the Israel of God is not of necessity a Jewish thing. In Acts 2: , Peter was speaking to a Jewish audience and when the asked “Brothers, what shall we do?”, Peter didn’t say “Nothing, you are Jews so you are all set!”, he told them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. There are Jews and gentiles who are God’s elect and they are born-again and come to saving faith in Christ and are saved. There are likewise Jews and gentiles alike who are not elect, who do not come to faith and are lost. Romans 9: 6-8 tells us that “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel”, and Galatians 3:7 and 3: 29 tell us that those of faith are the heirs of Abraham’s promises. So I don’t buy into the corollary that tells us that Jewish automatically equates to Israel. Nor do I think it is logical to assume that a Christian is duty bound to support Israel in her attacks against Hamas simply because they are Christians and Israel is Israel.

From a geo-political standpoint, the nation-state of Israel absolutely has the right to defend herself. Try to imagine living in a nation that is surrounded on all sides by “neighbors” who to some extent are committed to your destruction or at least reject the idea that Israel has a right to exist at all as a legitimate and free nation. We have been at peace with Mexico and Canada for more than a century, Canada probably since the end of the War of 1812, so nearly 200 years. But imagine if you will terrorists in Windsor, Ontario launching rockets into Detroit (pretend for a second that Detroit is a city that would be noticeably damaged by rocket fire). I would hope that the U.S. would take drastic steps to stop the rockets. In fact I think the Israeli response has been pretty measured and restrained compared to what they could be doing. The Israelis have one of the most powerful militaries in the world, even given the fact that the nation itself is tiny. It is not unthinkable that they could simply level the Palestinian settlements in the Gaza strip with minimal effort. So while they have been responding with necessary military force, and that force has caused civilian casualties, the Israeli’s have taken great pains to try to avoid civilian casualties. A spokesman for the IDF stated that they have scrubbed 90% of their proposed targets to avoid civilian casualties.

Ultimately the Palestinians are pawns in this struggle between the nation of Israel and the Islamic radicals who deny her legitimacy and seek the utter destruction of Israel and every Jew. Hamas will never defeat Israel by launching a few crude rockets or using suicide bombers. That is ludicrous and is not the intent. The goal of those who fund and supply these terrorists, terror patrons who live outside of Palestinian territories, is to provoke a response from Israel and use the resulting calamity to turn world opinion against Israel and by association against America. I am certain that there are many who are gleeful when Palestinian civilians are killed, especially children, because the graphic nature of that violence better serves their sick cause. I don’t think the terror financiers in the Islamic world care one bit for the Palestinian people as anything more than a means to an end. If hundreds or thousands of Palestinians have to die, whether in suicide actions or at the hands of Israeli soldiers, so be it. They are mere foot soldiers, pawns, expendable assets in the greater struggle against Zionism. The sooner the Palestinian people realize that they are being used by people who don’t care anything about them, the sooner there can be peace in the Middle East.

Should Christians cautiously support Israel in her actions against terrorist in Gaza? I think they should. Should Christians support Israel because they are Christians and Israelis are Jews? No. There is not a theological basis to support the nation-state of Israel in this or any other endeavor.

Politics, Ron Paul, Israel and Division In the Church

Politics is said to make strange bedfellows. It also causes division like nothing else save perhaps religion (and sports depending on where you live). That is especially true in this day and age as we approach the Iowa caucuses and it is bleeding over into the church to a far greater extent that normal. Nowhere is this more apparent than in how Christians, especially Christians we would call conservative, evangelical Christians, react to one candidate in particular: Ron Paul.

It is no secret that I am supporting Dr. Paul but that is not why I am writing this. If you are interested in the reasons for my support for Ron Paul, check out The Arsenal of Liberty where I blog about politics and do so intentionally apart from my main blog. My concern here and why I am writing is my concern over how the candidacy of Dr. Paul is dividing the church, a division that is not caused by him but by the hyper-political nature of American evangelicalism coupled with the strong current of dispensationalism that exists in much of the church in America.

There is a segment of the church that sees support for Ron Paul, who is fairly unique among Republicans in his lukewarm support for the nation of Israel at least compared to any other nation, as somehow being anti-Semitic and therefore anti-God's covenant people. These brothers and sisters see a vote for Paul as an act of rebellion against God. There are also a lot of Christians who are, putting it mildly, rabid supporters of Ron Paul who get angry at any suggestion that someone else might be a better nominee. Over the last week or so I have seen an incredible amount of angry rhetoric on both sides, and I am afraid I have engaged in some of it, between people who are supposed to be on the same side (see for example this post from the Gospel Coalition Evangelicals, Race, and Politics that generated over 100 fairly strident comments on both sides of the RP Divide). Brothers this must not be so.

We cannot draw dividing lines in the church over secular American politics. 

Who wins the U.S. Presidential election in 2012 is not going to make or break the Kingdom of God. If you are my brother or sister in Christ, that trumps your political allegiance and mine. A political liberal who votes for Barack Obama and is a Christian is my brother. A staunch conservative who supports Ron Paul or Sarah Palin or heaven forbid Newt Gingrich but is not a Christian is not my brother and is instead someone I need to tell about Jesus.When Paul warned us about not being unequally yoked he wasn't talking about staying clear of lib'rals! We must be more concerned with our witness to the unbelieving world than we are about electoral victory and right now we are not comporting ourselves very well.

That does not of course mean that we must avoid civic involvement entirely. Just that we need to keep in mind that who we support politically has absolutely zero impact on who we will spend eternity with.

Kim Riddlebarger and Tim LaHaye

What do they have in common?

This is just an off the cuff post, so I haven't really taken the time to work through all of the arguments. These are just thoughts floating randomly in my head. But it seems a common thread between both Kim Riddlebarger, arch-Reformed guy, defender of amillenialism and paedobaptist and the far kookier Tim Lahaye, he of the Dispensational, free-will theology mindset, is the way they misrepresent the covenant promises to Israel.

Riddlebarger and other paedobaptists err by assuming that the mode and recipient of the sign of the Old Covenant model in ethnic Israel must continue on into the New Covenant administration. It seems to me that there is an odd discontinuity that is forced into relationship between the rejecting of the Dispensational hermeneutic but the continued embrace of the paedobaptist hermeneutic for church membership. Riddlebarger gets Israel right on eschatology, but misses badly on the Old vs. New Covenant administration.

LaHaye and other Dispensationalists err by assuming that all of the Old Covenant promises to ethnic, national Israel will be fulfilled without modification by the New Covenant. Clearly not all Jews are of Israel (Romans 9:4-8), and those who are of faith are the heirs of Abraham (Galatians 3:29). But when Dispensationalism morphs into a two track salvation, restoration of temple sacrifice in a rebuilt physical temples, inheritance of the land, etc. it loses it way. There is a dangerous overemphasis on ethnic Israel to the detriment of the Scriptural record and Jewish evangelism.

It is my contention that only an amillenial (or perhaps post or historical pre) Baptistic view is consistent in hermeneutic and jives with the Biblical record with a continued but different and improved covenant promise. I know this is an oversimplification, but hey it's my blog.

Just something I was musing about this evening.