Posted on 08/28/2019 8:31:47 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Evangelical Christianity remains one of the few topics about which it remains permissible, and possibly even praiseworthy, for a Jewish liberal to know nothing. Take evangelical attitudes toward Israel. Almost every time the subject comes up, someone will explain that Christian Zionism conceals, under a cloak of philo-Semitism, a nefarious agenda. Christian Zionists support Israel, supposedly, to hasten the end-times, when, as Bible professor Candida Moss writes, “Jews must convert or die.” Political scientist Elizabeth Oldmixon explains that evangelicals are part of “movement in Christianity that’s as old as Christianity itself,” and want to hasten “a millennium in the future,” in which “the Jews, will convert” or be damned.
This narrative is very popular with liberal and leftist Jews. Benjamin Koatz writes of Christians United For Israel’s “esoteric anti-Semitism” and that Christian Zionists believe Jews “will be prodded into conversion by the horrors of anti-Semitism… [or] God will inspire revelation in our hearts at the last moment, allowing us to proceed willingly into rapture.” The same logic underlies Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb’s article, “Anti-Semitism Behind the Christian Zionist Lobby.”
Liberals, and especially liberal Jews, enjoy this story, which allows us to score points against our more conservative co-religionists. The only trouble is that it isn’t true. […]
Christian Zionism isn’t age-old; its founders were innovating, largely in response to the Holocaust. Christian Zionists do not secretly want to convert Jews; in fact many argue vociferously against missionizing, flirting with the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy in the process. Nor is the movement fundamentally apocalyptic: end-time prophecies motivate some believers, but by no means the majority. Finally, Christian Zionism isn’t even entirely Christian, since it began with interfaith dialogue and was carefully cultivated by the Israeli government. …
(Excerpt) Read more at forward.com ...
Christians know there is nothing they can do to hasten the return of Christ. That day is God’s choice, and His alone. “Christian Zionism” is a lie.
Hey wow.
That was a great (and something that didn’t occur to me) answer.
Christian Zionists do not believe in the kind of “hastening” mentioned here, which is left-wing propaganda.
Judaism - the original.
Would this young man care to carefully explain just how Jair Bolsanaro qualifies as a "Fascist"?
Does he even know what the word means?
In fact, that answer kills the whole thread, discussion AND argument from the left.
They can’t with a straight face say that they think any Christians think they can speed up Christ’s arrival.
It is not bizarre to anyone who actually reads the Bible. This is The Plan. We are 23 months into the Book of the Revelation. The next 19 months are going to be very exciting. Hold fast to what you were taught when you first believed.
See post 23.
It is mentioned in Scripture that Christians are supposed to look for the hastening of the coming (2 Peter 3:12), but still, the day and hour are known to nobody but the Father (Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:32).
Not exactly. The unbelieving Jews were given a blindness in part as prophesied in the OT. Once the time of the gentiles is fulfilled God’s focus will turn again to the jews( not that it really ever left) and Christ will establish a Jewish kingdom on earth and rule the earth for 1000 years.
A very thoughtful piece relevant to this topic:
https://kehilanews.allisrael.com/some-thoughts-on-dual-covenant-theology/
I know at least some conservatives/Hasidic Jews aren’t big fans of Zionism either. Can’t see adding Christianity to Zionism will make it any better for them, ha.
Freegards
So they are to look for SIGNS of it coming?
“God does not exist—religion in science is an absurdity, in practice an immorality and in men a diesease.”Fascism is wholly left-wing; any search for quotes by Mussolini (above) will bear that out.
“What does ‘social justice’ mean? It means work guaranteed, fair wages, decent homes; it means the possibility of continuous evolution and improvement. […] As the past (19th) century was the century of capitalist power, the 20th century is the century of the power and glory of labor.”
“When the war is over, in the world’s social revolution that will be followed by a more equitable distribution of the earth’s riches, due account must be kept of the sacrifices and of the discipline maintained by the Italian workers.”
no it isn’t bizarre- God’s word is all about His people being restored to Him in the end- all through His word he has archetypes showing Israel obeying, then falling away, then being restored etc- this mimics even Christians who fall away and get restored- (Though we don’t lose our salvation- but God’s word is about restoring fallible sin proned man)
His love is so great and long suffering that He puts up with rebellion knowing one day they will come around again- His word promises He will not leave them simply because they reject Him- and honestly, a lot of Jews do become Christians-
My Jewish acquaintances get spooked by any mention of support for Israel by me. Being liberal, they don’t like Netanyahu either but at the local level (here in the South) they assume that Christian supporters of the Jewish state are either:
a. Bible-thumpers hoping to eat popcorn while watching the End Times unfold on satellite TV,
b. Racists who like it when the IDF beats up Arab Muslims (who want the extermination of the Jews),
c. Theocrats who want prayer reintroduced to public schools (one told me when she heard the words `school prayer’ that she also heard the crash of jackboots),
d. Militarists who during the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War cheered Israel’s victory as a victory for the West in general. And don’t speak of Gen. Moshe Dayan; he is only remembered as a “thief of antiquities”.
e. Rednecks who admire a successful warmaker (Dayan again). I made people cringe when I pointed out that anti-semitism took a nosedive in 1967 and good ol’ boys everywhere were cheering, “Well, great day! It looks like them Jew boys know how to fight!”.
And this month I listened to a distinguished professor under whom I once studied absolutely tear apart Netanyahu & Trump for keeping Omar and Tlaib from entering Israel and stirring up trouble. “They are members of Congress and should travel wherever they want!!”
WTF? Following that strident defense of Congressional privilege, I decided further discussion would accomplish nothing.
Certainly. One of the biggest signs was increased immorality; we see how far and fast things fell during the Obama administration, for one sharp example.
That was never my point. In fact my point was not related to the topic of the article, but rather the degree to which his sources accurately represent the bulk of American Christian theology At All.
Support for Israel is higher in the smaller churches because expository churches do not grow into megachurches with few exceptions.
Smaller churches are pretty much entirely outside of the scope of this guy’s research, and their views don’t tend to be entirely congruent with the sources he is using.
Though my theology isn’t in lockstep with the late J. Vernon McGee, or R.C. Sproul its closer than any of the pastors this guy lists because I prefer a church that studies the Bible verse by verse and doesn’t skip any of it.
Churches that teach the Bible in that way are unlikely to sustain the theological view this guy describes.
Or, say, an actor having to apologize for saying a 3 year old shouldn’t be able to determine its own gender?
“Conservative” Judaism is liberal; that’s a misnomer. Hareidim are hypocritical insofar as they are just fine living in Israel while proclaiming that it should not exist as a Jewish state.
That’s certainly a microcosm of the larger problem.
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