Christian Zionism


John Everett Millais, The Good Samaritan


Christian Zionism

Christian Zionism
Deuteronomy 28
The Potter and the Clay
Nebuchadnezzar
Traditional Values
Neo-Conservatives
October Surprise
Self-Evident
Gods' Helpers
Mother Ship
Red Heifer
Liberation of Iraq
Racialism
So Shall We Ever Be
Titus 2:13
Second Chance
Patriotism
A Repentent Jihadi

Proverbs 3:30


Christian Zionists

Before promoting the Iraq War to its present constituency, its architects directed their sales pitch elsewhere. The world leader they first approached was Benyamin Netanyahu, then prime minister of Israel. The prime minister prudently refrained from buying. Later the very same plan was dusted off and offered to the American people. They bought it. Some now suffer buyer's remorse.

One way to evaluate people's intentions is to look at what they actually accomplish. Pre-invasion, Iraq was a regional military powerhouse, a strongly unified and centralized state. This has been corrected. Iraq today is a basket case, a borderline failed state hovering on the brink of dissolution, in no position to threaten its neighbors. Historical enemies with reason to be concerned by Iraq's military strength include Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. All three nations had an 'in' with policy-makers in Washington. It might seem strange to list Iran, a hostile Islamic state whose population likes to pour into the streets chanting against the "Great Satan," among nations with political clout. But this hostile nation employed a paid spokesman, Ahmed Chalabi, who at one time enjoyed a wide following in the Bush administration.

Israel also was concerned by Iraq's military strength, now a distant memory. Israel has many defenders, including the people called "Christian Zionists." The cheer-leaders for the Iraq War promised only good things, as if invading another nation is the very nicest thing you could possibly ever think of doing. Who they were struck a discordant note: the people clamoring for liberation of Iraq's oppressed were not Amnesty International types who can be counted on to speak up for the Third World's down-trodden. But at least some of war's backers did, it would seem, pursue more traditional motives for going to war: to humble and weaken an adversary. This mission has been accomplished. Was it the real one? If so, was it America's mission?




  • "I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome."
  • (President George W. Bush, December 12, 2005).

  • "And history has proven that democracies don't war."
  • (President George W. Bush, March 21, 2006)

  • "I'm not the expert on how the Iraqi people think, because I live in America, where it's nice and safe and secure."
  • (President George W. Bush, September 23, 2004, dubyaspeak.com)





Deuteronomy 28

Christian Zionists perceive in the Bible a guarantee of perpetual tenancy: “God considers this land to be His. When you read the Bible, He said this is my land. For any Prime Minister of Israel who decides he will carve it up and give it away, God said, 'No, this is Mine.'” (Pat Robertson, PatRobertson.com).

In Deuteronomy chapter 28, God lays out how He intends to treat the nation should they fail in "diligently observing all His commandments and decrees." These disasters include,

"The LORD will bring you, and the king whom you set over you, to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have known, where you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone." (Deuteronomy 28:36).

In the present-day nation called Israel, only a minority even aspire to obey the law whose disobedience, according to the Bible, triggers such monumental disasters. Perhaps Christian Zionists think that God was just talking. If so, Bible study should correct this underestimate of His character and capabilities. Both Northern and Southern kingdoms failed in their pursuit of independent national life, the one falling to Assyria, the other to Babylon. The populace of the present-day secular state called Israel includes a high percentage of atheists and agnostics. Those who reside there should thank their lucky stars they are not living in God's Israel, because their tenancy would not last a heart-beat.

The Potter and the Clay

The battle-cry that 'God is on our side' did not originate with Israel. The pagan nations thought their gods, too, fought alongside their armies. What is distinctive to the religion of Israel is the realization that the living God retains His freedom to sit on the side-lines, or even commission enemies to lay Israel waste. God is not for Israel when Israel is in the wrong.

"Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: 'O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?' says the LORD. 'Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel! The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.'" (Jeremiah 18:5-10).

The Christian Zionists have crafted a religion in which God is simply for certain nations and against others, regardless of circumstances, regardless of justice; His 'foreign policy' is race-based altogether, they believe. The New York Times quotes the Rev. John Hagee as saying support for Israel is “God’s foreign policy.” (New York Times, For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel Is ‘God’s Foreign Policy,' David D. Kirkpatrick, November 14, 2005). They have missed the point of the Bible altogether.

Nebuchadnezzar

The king of Assyria was God's razor hired beyond the River:

"On that day the Lord will shave with a razor hired beyond the River—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will take off the beard as well." (Isaiah 7:20).

and God punished the king of Assyria for what he had done:

"Therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I punished the king of Assyria." (Jeremiah 50:18).

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, was another of God's instruments. God can use any person or circumstance: human will, weather conditions, wild animals,-- to work His will. That does not mean He offers a grant of immunity to those He uses in this way. Nebuchadnezzar served God's design, and he was punished. Babylon accomplished God's will and fell: "As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon the slain of all the earth shall fall." (Jeremiah 51:49). People who are doing things which are objectively wrong, supposing they are acting to advance God's plans, can expect no immunity on that account.

Christian Zionists subscribe to a system of Bible prophecy called Dispensationalism. It would be charitable to describe the Biblical evidence for this system as 'thin.' Because their system requires a nation called 'Israel' to exist at the latter days, they were greatly excited when such a state was established in 1948. Prophecy teachers like Hal Lindsey encourage their listeners to vote in a certain way so as not to hinder the fulfillment of prophecy. But God does not need human help to advance His designs, if indeed they have divined His plans rightly. If they do things which God has forbidden, such as encouraging intransigence and oppression, they can expect immunity no more than the kings of Assyria and Babylon. People should always do what is right; that is how to hear God say, 'Well done.'




In the first century A.D., under brutal Roman military occupation, Jesus did not advise that violence was the answer. Is His advice obsolete?


Just War Pre-Emption
Ezekiel 28 Utilitariansim
King David The Centurion
John the Baptist The Sword
Southern Baptists Christian Zionism
Terrorism The Crusades
Adolf Hitler Civilization
Confederacy



Torture a Traditional Value?

The United States of America, from its founding through the year 2000, was a City on a Hill, a beacon for human liberty. Unlike the autocracies which trampled on human rights, American government respected respected the God-given rights of her citizens, including the right to due process, the right to a fair trial, freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure,-- and the right not to incriminate oneself, a vital fire-break against torture. Read this anti-Bush tract and see:

Now this once-free land is debating which torture techniques it likes best. Water-boarding, of which Torquemada was fond? The SS liked it too; they called it the 'bath-tub.' Induced hypothermia and sleep deprivation, favored by the KGB?

Torture is not and never has been a way to discover the truth. It is a way to get the bound victim,-- the witch, the dissident, the captured American flyer,-- to speak with his own mouth the torturer's reality. In countries where torture was not practiced, witchcraft prosecutions petered out. The accused women went to the gallows proclaiming their innocence, as they did at Salem. On the continent of Europe, where torture was allowed as an investigative tool, they confessed...and named their confederates. When torture ceased to be practiced, witchcraft disappeared along with it. Ask an expert:

"A person that's beaten will give the kind of confession that the interrogating agents want, will admit that he is an English or an American spy or whatever we want. But it will never be possible ot know the truth this way." (Lavrentii Beia, speaking at a secret Politubro meeting after Stalin's death in 1953, quoted p. 465, The Iron Curtain, Ann Applebaum).

When medieval Europe was wracked with plague and the sullen, hostile peasantry wanted to believe the Jews were somehow responsible, how could such a thing be proven? Torture, of course: "But it is possible that the madness might never have spread across Europe if it had not been for the trial at Chillon in September 1348 of Jews said to have poisoned certain wells at Neustadt and the disastrous confessions of guilt which torture tore from the accused. Balavignus, a Jewish physician, was the first to be racked. 'After much hesitation,' he confessed that the Rabbi Jacob of Toledo had sent him, by hand of a Jewish boy, a leather pouch filled with red and black powder and concealed in the mummy of an egg. This powder he was ordered, on pain of excommunication, to throw into the larger wells of Thonon. He did so, having previously warned his friends and relations not to drink the water." (The Black Death, by Philip Ziegler, p.76). So there you have it: the Jews caused the Black Death. There is no investigative technique, other than torture, that can deliver such results. That is why any just society must avoid it like the plague.

Incredibly, a group calling itself the "Traditional Values Coalition" wants it understood that this nations' Christians are so enamored of torture they will not tolerate any candidate who is against it. They ought not to call themselves the "Traditional Values Coalition," but the 'Coalition for Radically New and Radically Worse Values.'



Election 2004

Bush and the Bible
Impeach Bush
Election '04
Repackaging
Stay the Course?
WWJD
Links

Christians Against Bush


Neo-Conservatives

It is normal for immigrant communities to retain an interest in the welfare of their ancestral peoples. Who is surprised or upset when Greek Americans speak up about Cyprus? In the case of American Jews, to fit in with culture and custom, this natural concern is obliged to express itself as an ideology, called 'neo-conservatism.' The original neo-conservatives abandoned their prior ideological commitments when they perceived the nations of the Middle East lining up into two camps: Israel with its American backers, and the front-line Arab states, aligned with the Soviet bloc. As Marxists, they did not expect that socialism would fall without a shot being fired, ultimately collapsing from inability to deliver on its promises. Instead they demanded more military spending and a more aggressive American policy, as the only hope of derailing the socialist juggernaut and saving Israel.

Is neo-conservatism a world-view, or only a preference?: 'if it's good for Israel it's good, if it's bad for Israel it's bad.' As evidence, this ideology has had some difficulty attracting converts who do not already hold the preference. Even its proponents acknowledge as much when they accuse critics who lambaste 'neo-conservatism' of 'anti-semitism,' when the critics said nothing about race or religion. Adherents of this ideology prefer to substitute 'democracy' for 'Israel.' Thus, regional adversaries of Israel 'hate democracy.' However, should Israel suffer a military coup and become an autocracy, the forces arrayed against her are little likely to change sides. Though objective observers cannot discern what America has gained from her costly alliance with Israel, neo-conservatives nonetheless insist America is the true beneficiary from this one-sided alliance, as George Washington warned:

"So likewise a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils.—Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification." (George Washington, Farewell Address).

Christian Zionists use the same terminology as neo-conservatives, even to the point of accusing critics: Christians not of the dispensational persuasion,-- of "anti-semitism." The love-fest between these two groups is all the odder when one reflects on what dispensationalism holds in store for unconverted Jews: mass death. The Christian Zionists are adamant that Israel not make peace with the Palestinians, not because they see a bright future in armed confrontation: they look instead for a holocaust on a scale of which Adolf Hitler could only dream. Nor does this tender theory allow a second act, because those Jews who die in this projected twenty-first century holocaust follow the antichrist, whose eternal destiny is well known: "Although Israel will consider this thoroughly evil man to be the messiah, he will be Hitler reborn." (John Hagee, 'Final Dawn Over Jerusalem,' p. 189). The genocide the Christian Zionists foresee for the Jews is a double death, death now and death forever. Fortunately, some will survive,-- or else over whom will Christians rule during the Millenium? With friends like these, does Israel need enemies?

Reality's failure to confirm the neoconservatives' expectations seems not to have diminished their power and influence. Perhaps the extravagant expectations: of a "cake-walk," troops welcomed as liberators, and a self-financing, oil-slicked occupation,-- were only for public consumption.





Election 2004


Reflections on the Fourth of July

What was the logic behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq? Did the teaching called 'Christian Zionism' make it easier to start this war?:









  • "...a man which hates -- who hates America, a man who loves to link up with al Qaeda, a man who is a true threat to America, to Israel, to anybody in the neighborhood."
  • (George W. Bush, on Sept. 28, 2002, describing Saddam Hussein to an audience in Phoenix, Arizona as "a man who loves to link up with al Qaeda.")


  • "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."
  • (George W. Bush, Sept. 25, 2002, quoted in Newsweek, Michael Hirsh, Column, 'Making Enemies,' copyright 2006 Newsweek.)

  • "Q. What did Iraq have to do with that?

    "THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

    "Q. The attack on the World Trade Center?

    "THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack."
  • (George W. Bush, August 21, 2006.)




Furthering the Islamic Revolution

What was accomplished by the invasion of Iraq?








Hebrews 12:14


War in Iraq

The Wrong War



















Romans 12:18


October Surprise

Ominous rumblings from the blogosphere warn of the fire next time. One-time Presidential hopeful Gary Hart warns of an "October Surprise:"

"It should come as no surprise if the Bush Administration undertakes a preemptive war against Iran sometime before the November election.
"Were these more normal times, this would be a stunning possibility, quickly dismissed by thoughtful people as dangerous, unprovoked, and out of keeping with our national character. But we do not live in normal times.
"And we do not have a government much concerned with our national character. If anything, our current Administration is out to remake our national character into something it has never been." (Gary Hart, September 23, 2006).

Avoiding the proliferation of nightmare weapons is a worthwhile goal. It would be well if the goal could be pursued without use of the weapons in question. Reportedly Iran has buried its sites at a depth conventional weapons cannot reach. No doubt on the eve of our sneak attack, Mr. Bush will explain to us that it was to show how very bad 'nuk-u-lar' weapons are, that he nuked Iran.




  • "See, free societies are societies that don't develop weapons of mass terror and don't blackmail the world."
  • (President George W. Bush, Interview with Meet the Press, February 13, 2004).

  • "See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."
  • (President George W. Bush, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 3, 2003, quoted in Slate.)



Self-Evident

The United States of America was born in the radical conviction that all men are created equal, and endowed by God with certain rights:


  • "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
  • (Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776)


When the founding fathers say "all men," they mean "all men," not some sub-set of men such as U. S. citizens. It is not only Americans who are created by God, but "all men."

Christian Zionists do not believe either that all men are created equal or that they are endowed by Nature and Nature's God with political rights. That portion of humanity which are Palestinian Arabs, whether Christian or Muslim, they believe enjoy no rights, at least none that need be respected by the world community. Though other populations, created equal, share the right to national self-determination, this group alone has no such right.

'Unamerican' is one way to describe this view. 'Unbiblical' is another, because God's word says: "Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:. . . " (Acts 10:34).

God's Helpers

"Why should we know prophecy? I'll tell you one of the most important reasons is because it will help shape even political policy of our nation, because we must be careful not to be trying to implement things that are against the very predicted plan of God." ('Why Study Prophecy,' video by Hal Lindsey, excerpted in 'The Rapture: Biblical Fact...Or Left Behind Fiction?,' Lighthouse World Ministries).

Prophecy students in the past mostly sat like spectators in the grandstand, observing and commenting on the action below. Those who look to the final judgment and the descent of the new Jerusalem see the futility of supposing any human hand could help or hinder such manifestly supernatural events.

Yet Christian Zionists pursue an active political agenda, which they justify by their system of prophecy. They are a standing lobby for war. Liberals are the "enemy that hides in the shadows, doesn't play by any of the rules, and is determined to use any means to bring about our literal annihilation." (Hal Lindsey, quoted at Biblio.com.) Prophecy teachers adopt the alarmist tone of contemporary grudge politics, warning their listeners they better do something quick. . .


  • ". . . Golda's words echo with haunting clarity. 'The Arabs can fight, and lose, and return to fight another day. Israel can only lose once.' Let us pray that Israel has learned a vital lesson before it is too late. May they boot out the present appeasement minded government and get into power someone like Binyamin Netanyahu."
  • (Hal Lindsey, www.hallindseyoracle.com).

or else. . . or else. . . or else what? This group believes the contemporary state of Israel to be the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. On the one hand they boast that God Himself fights for Israel:

"No nation in the world can match the defensive force guarding the State of Israel. . .The Lord stands watch in the darkest night with an eye trained on the nation of Israel and, more specifically, Jerusalem. Those who fight with Israel fight with Him." (John Hagee, 'Final Dawn Over Jerusalem, pp. 19-20).

Yet somehow they also fear that, should Israel's leaders prove insufficiently intransigent, or American tax-payers balk, it will all fall apart. Their founder, John Nelson Darby, was likewise disposed to see events getting away from God, portraying the Church as a last-minute improvisation after God's 'Plan A' had failed. This way of looking at things is not Biblical.

The Bible emphasizes God's freedom, foresight and sovereignty over human affairs:

"Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." (Acts 15:18).
"But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases." (Psalm 115:3).
"Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he takes up -*the isles as a very little thing." (Isaiah 40:15).
"For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword, nor did their own arm save them; but it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance, because You favored them. . .For I will not trust in my bow, nor shall my sword save me. But You have saved us from our enemies, and have put to shame those who hated us. In God we boast all day long, and praise Your name forever. Selah." (Psalm 44:3-8).
"I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are on the ground, by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and have given it to whom it seemed proper to Me." (Jeremiah 27:5).
"Then Job answered the LORD: I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." (Job 42:1-2).

Does God, before whom the nations are as dust, require the assistance of these eager helpers to perform His wonders? And whose agenda are they advancing when they promote perpetual war? Not God's, and certainly not America's.

Mother Ship

Dispensationalism begins with the premise that nation Israel has in some way been 'cheated.' The dispensationalists posit the millenium as a time for the fulfillment of Bible promises which they claim remain as yet unmet: promises of this-worldly well-being, promises of Israel's national glory.

But if anyone were to ask the 'coloreds' under South Africa's old apartheid regime whether they felt blessed to be, not at the bottom of the social pyramid, but one rung up, they would hardly describe this experience as glorious or blessed. It stings to be a second-class citizen, and it is very small consolation that there are others even lower.

Hovering above the this-worldly Jerusalem in which the Jews are enjoying their national felicity during the millenium, according to some dispensationalists, is a space-ship called the heavenly Jerusalem:

"This view contemplates the heavenly Jerusalem as in existence during the millennium over the earth as the habitation of the resurrected saints, and is in contrast to the city of Jerusalem located on the earth. . .It provides a clear distinction between resurrected saints who inhabit the New Jerusalem and the millennial saints on the earth who will inhabit the millennial earth. . .Though the major difficulty of the relationship of resurrected saints to those who are still in their natural bodies in the millennium is explained by the residence of the resurrected saints in the heavenly Jerusalem, Scriptures afford several instances in which there will be some relation of resurrected saints to those in the millennial earth. . .It is further promised believers who participate in the first resurrection that they 'shall reign with him a thousand years' (Rev 20:6)." (The Millennial Kingdom, John F. Walvoord, pp. 328-329)

So while the Jews are enjoying their earthly felicity down in the lower Jerusalem, living to a ripe old age before dying, the Christians, who never die, enjoy reigning over them. It is far from obvious why the dispensationalists accuse those who do not share their views of 'anti-semitism.'

While it's distressing enough to watch the dispensationalists assign to Israel a second-class national destiny, it also leaves one wondering. Where the Christians are is where Jesus is, because the Bible says, "And thus we shall always be with the Lord." (1 Thessalonians 4:17). After the resurrection, our paths do not diverge from His. So is He on the Mother Ship with His people, or down consoling the mortal sinners below, whose millenial fate it is to watch others of like nature with themselves enjoy greater felicity?

Red Heifer

Radio listeners nowadays hear often about a purported plan to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. As a practical matter this project, although ostensibly Jewish, is funded by dispensationalist Christians. The New Testament teaches that the temple sacrifices of the Old Testament were ordained to foreshadow Jesus Christ's once and for all sacrifice. These animal sacrifices are not understood by Christians to retain any independent value once the reality to which they pointed has come: "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins." (Hebrews 10:4). It is difficult to imagine how even nominal Christians could fund a project premised on the notion that the blood of Jesus is insufficient, given that the Bible says,

"Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?" (Hebrews 10:29).



Liberation of Iraq

The dispensationalists undeniably facilitated the American invasion of Iraq. They have been demonizing the former head of the Iraqi state for years. Although Saddam Hussein never had any plausible connection to Bible prophecy, these writers had portrayed him as representing more than merely mortal evil for some time:

"It is difficult to explain the bizarre behavior of Saddam Hussein without thinking him quite possibly demon-possessed. . .Religiously, Saddam may give lip service to Muhammad and act like a devoted Muslim, but there is strong indication that he is actually a Satanist. . .Saddam Hussein's abnormal hatred for the Jews, Jesus Christ, His followers, and anyone else who would stand in the way of his goal to conquer the world, might be be understood by demonic possession--a virtual foretaste of the Antichrist to follow, who will be indwelt by Satan himself." (Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Are We Living in the End Times?, pp. 139-142).

This book is copyrighted 1999. The dispensationalists were banging the drum for this war before Mr. Bush ever came to office.

To my knowledge, Mr. Bush has never stated whether he subscribes to the dispensational viewpoint. In this editorial, Hal Lindsey seems to categorize Mr. Bush as an adherent of 'replacement theology:'

"There is a lot of discussion about George Bush and whether or not he is a 'real' Christian, as if that in some way had a bearing on whether or not they will vote for him. . .That is not to say he isn't a truly born-again Christian, because, as I've argued in the past, I don't know. One can't assume he isn't because he adheres to replacement theology unless one assumes Protestant Christianity doesn't contain any true Christians, since most mainstream Protestant denominations do, too." (Hal Lindsey, 'The difficult question of George W. Bush,' March 11, 2004, WorldNet).

(By 'replacement theology' dispensationalists are referring to the concept of the church as the "Israel of God" (Galatians 6:16). Dispensationalists do not think the church, both Jew and Gentile, 'replaced' unbelieving Israel as God's salvation community; indeed many of them, who apportion the land to Israel and heaven to the Christians, do not think Israel ever was a salvation community.) What, if anything, Mr. Bush thinks on these topics is unknown. Certainly though he must be grateful to the dispensationalists for demonizing his enemy, because otherwise you have to pay people to do that.

As to the Christian Zionists, when reminded that the policy they promoted has led to disaster for their country, they chirp up, 'See? The end times are upon us!' Success is good, failure even better.

Up

Who are They? Boundary Line
Retrogression Apocrypha
The Gentiles and the Kingdom Test Case
Psalm 96 In the Belly ofthe Fish
Ruth What Then?



Racialism

To the dispensationalists, the key to the question 'Who is a Jew?' is racial purity. According to these authors, not the thousands of believing Jews who established the church in the first century, but the unbelieving synagogue which established itself in opposition to Jesus' claim as Messiah, are the true Jews and heirs of Abraham, because the latter have retained their racial purity whereas the former succumbed to race-mixing:

"America is a good example of what happens when Englishmen, Swedes, Poles, Frenchmen and others live together. Slowly but surely there is a blending of the nationalities and races until a new strain emerges. Many countries, such as Mexico and the South American nations, have such a blending in just three or four hundred years until it is difficult to detect the original ancestry. The Jews provide the one international exception. Although scattered all over the world these last 1,800 years, exposed to practically every genetic strain that exists, they are still a people with ethnic social, and religious similarities which no one can fail to identify." (Tim LaHaye, 'The Beginning of the End,' p. 44).

The first expositors of this system can only have derived their preoccupation with racial purity from old-fashioned, nineteenth-century racism; they cannot have derived it from the Bible. Certainly not from the New Testament, which says,

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Galatians 3:28-29).

But neither did they derive it from the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the bottom line on who did and who did not belong to the community was, not biologic descent, but faith. Those who clung to the God of Israel were Israel, even Ruth the Moabitess:

“But Ruth said:
'Entreat me not to leave you,
Or to turn back from following after you;
For wherever you go, I will go;
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
And your God, my God.'” (Ruth 1:16).

The dispensationalist assumption that the true Israel follows racial descent is not even faithful to the Old Testament, much less the New. Neither is it found in pre-Talmudic Judaism. While the temple still stood Judaism was an actively proselytizing religion. Later, after suffering defeat and dispersal at the hands of pagan Rome, Judaism turned inward. At this later period the accusation surfaces in the Talmud that proselytes are not really Jews, nor on a footing of equality with those who are Jews by racial descent. It is unhistorical to project that later belief into the New Testament, and odder still for Christians to believe it. Many thousands of Jews heard the gospel and believed: "And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." (Acts 2:47). But the dispensationalists insist the true Jews are those who do not believe,-- even atheists and agnostics, who abound in the present day state of Israel. This is an inversion of the Bible.

The apostles throw the gate, which was always open, open even wider: “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 'For whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.'” (Romans 10:12-13). At the present time, reform Judaism does not require circumcision of male converts. Yet the dispensationalists regard these as real Jews, while converts made by the apostles are, in their eyes, illegitimate! The Lord broke down the wall, "For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation. . ." (Ephesians 2:14), which the dispensationalists industriously build back up again. If there is now, as the Bible says, no distinction between Jew and Greek, then where is there room for their system? And if they do not believe the New Testament, then by virtue of what are they Christians rather than Jews, or more precisely Jewish wanna-bes?



Corporate Personality

Jacob Singular Pronoun
Abraham's Seed John the Baptist
Racialism



Has this approach enhanced, or lessened, American security?


Pet Goat

9/11
Jubilee
Karla Faye Tucker
The L-word
Bringing Home the Bacon
False Prophecy
Red States
Vengeance is Mine


Revelation 21:8


So Shall We Ever Be

"A little girl was asked by a scoffer of the Second Coming of Christ, 'How can you enjoy heaven? Christ is supposed to come down to earth!' The scoffer's question bothered her only a moment before she replied, 'It really doesn't matter, because wherever he goes I'll go with him!'" (Tim LaHaye, 'The Beginning of the End,' p. 29).

This clever little girl has placed her finger on the spot where it unravels. Biblically, after the rapture, believers are ever and always with the Lord: "And thus we shall always be with the Lord." (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Yet in this complex and difficult system, that's an awkward spot. The promise is clear; they reiterate it themselves: "The Lord then promises that together with our loved ones we will be with the Lord Jesus wherever He goes--forever." (Hal Lindsey, 'The Terminal Generation,' p. 179). Dispensationalists place Jesus on earth in the millenium, ruling from the throne of David out of Jerusalem. Is that where they place the church also?

Let's go that route: "At the end of the seven years when Jesus Christ returns, Revelation 19 speaks of His coming with clouds of his saints --- and that's us. We will come back with Him and be co-rulers with Him on the earth which He will set up." (Hal Lindsey, The Terminal Generation, p. 177). Thus we have immortal, perfected human beings socializing with mortal sinners -- as their rulers, of course. These mortal sinners are the survivors of the dispensationalists' "holocaust:" "Men who have studied events that were to occur shortly before the great holocaust known as Armageddon are amazed as they see them happening before their eyes." (Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth, p. 34). But this same situation is supposed to represent Israel's national glory: "For God unconditionally promised Abraham's descendants a literal world-wide kingdom over which they would rule through their Messiah who would reign upon King David's throne." (Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth, p. 165). In the racialist perspective of dispensationalism, "Abraham's descendants" are solely those of Jewish ethnicity, Galatians 3:7 to the contrary notwithstanding. So how can the Jews of the millenium simultaneously be second-class citizens in their own homeland, ruled over in an apartheid regime by immortal Christians, and also rulers?

Or we can go the 'mother ship' route. But then how can this little girl be ever with Jesus, as the Bible promises?

Titus 2:13

When challenged to produce a scripture verse which reports more than one of their seven judgment days, or both of their two second comings, the dispensationalists are not silent. Thus Dr. LaHaye offers Titus 2:13 as proof of two separate and distinct second comings:

"Titus 2:13 speaks of Christians at the Second Coming of Christ 'looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.' The blessed hope is a reference to the Rapture of the Church -- the cause for great rejoicing by the Church. The Glorious Appearing, however, refers to the public coming of Christ in his majesty and power to rule the earth. They both refer to the Second Coming but to different stages of that coming." (Tim LaHaye, 'The Beginning of the the End,' p. 24).

It's interesting that Titus 2:13 comes up in discussions of the deity of Jesus Christ, because of the phrase "the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." Granville Sharp's rule, which applies to two nouns "of personal description" (Sharp's rule, quoted, p. 271, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, Daniel B. Wallace), requires the reader, according to some interpreters, to identify rather than distinguish "the great God" and "our Savior Jesus Christ," because the first carries the definite article, but not the second. Since Granville Sharp's rule pertains only to nouns "of personal description," it does not address the earlier case in the same verse, namely "that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing" [την μακαριαν ελπιδα και επιφανειαν της δοξης]. The first element carries the article, not the second; but "hope" and "appearing" are not personal nouns. However, it should be apparent that "and" [kai] in Greek does not always intend to differentiate the two items it joins together; sometimes it can identify them! There is no proof from his phraseology that Paul intends to distinguish two events, rather than identify just one.

As should be evident, the arrival of the Judge is cause for rejoicing to those who may expect to be exonerated, but only despair to those who may expect condemnation.

Second Chance

The most dramatic feature of the dispensational system is the second chance it affords those 'left behind.' According to this theory, those not caught up with the Lord when He returns are not necessarily lost, but get a second chance to decide for Christ, becoming 'tribulation saints:'

"Scripture teaches that a fantastically large number of those 'many' Jesus came to ransom are what we call 'Tribulation saints.' Yes, the Tribulation is a time of fury and wrath and terrifying judgments, but it is also a time of long-suffering grace and mercy." (Tim LaHaye, 'Are We Living in the End Times?,' p. 158)
"Some interpreters have a hard time believing that the Tribulation could usher in such an enormous soul harvest, but we are convinced this text shows that more men and women will be won to Christ in this period than at any time in history. (Tim LaHaye, 'Are We Living in the End Times?,' p. 308)

No doubt this promise attracts those with unsaved friends and family. Fortunately this feature is, not only the basis of a lucrative genre of the publishing industry, but a testable prediction made by this theory.

"'Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. . .But if that servant says in his heart, "My master is delaying his coming," and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.'" (Luke 12:37-46).

Notice that the disobedient servant does not get a second chance as the theory requires. Thus the theory is disconfirmed.

Apostates

What is the acid test for finding Israel?: race, as the Christian Zionists claim, or faith, as Paul teaches? One good way of determining this question is to ask, what becomes of apostates? Those who renounce their ancestral faith, or are believed to do so, still carry the same genes as when they learned that faith on their mother's knee. Are the 'Jews for Jesus' still Jews, or are they not? To the Jewish racial supremacist it is "blood" which makes a Jew: "With the blood of King David flowing in their veins, these pioneers came back once again to banish the local Goliaths." (John Hagee, 'Final Dawn over Jerusalem, p. 10). Once a Jew has found Jesus, does he still have the "blood of David" coursing in his veins, or not?

Some answer, 'no:'

"At a protest fast at the Wailing Wall, the J.D.L.'s rabble-rousing Rabbi Meir Kahane announced, 'If you lose a Jew in Auschwitz or through conversion, it's still a soul lost.'" (Time Magazine, 'Unwelcome Immigrants,' Monday, March 26, 1973).

The idea that converts to Christianity cannot remain part of God's congregation is deeply rooted in Judaism. The Judaism of the present day defined itself, at Jamnia, with eighteen benedictions. What Christians are accused of is what their founder was accused of:




Notice that even the rabbis testify for Paul's view! It is not "blood," but faith, which makes a Jew, or as Paul said, "For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. . ." (Philippians 3:3). According to the Biblical view, there can be no division in the Messiah's body:

"Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands—that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity." (Ephesians 2:11-16).

Where the Messiah is, there is Israel. Who is the "servant" in Isaiah: Israel? or the Messiah? or both? But this popular new religion of Christian Zionism breaks asunder what Jesus made one at the cross. The logic of the racialist position, to be consistent, is that 'Jews for Jesus,' whether of the present day or the apostles Peter and Paul, are still Jews; after all their DNA has not changed. But if so, then who is Israel after the flesh? All those thousands of Jews whose story is told in Acts, who thronged into the church, the holy remnant, and their descendants? Did they cease to be Jews by joining the church? The rabbis, chanting the eighteen benedictions, including the benediction against Christians: ". . .let all Your enemies be speedily cut off, and the dominion of arrogance uproot and crush, etc.," say they have.

On this point, the Christian Zionists follow, not their own racial logic, but the finding of the rabbis, that only that entity which has continually, down through the ages, purged itself of followers of Jesus of Nazareth is truly Israel. By their reckoning, the Israel of prophecy is exclusively this latter body, and includes none of Peter's descendants, none of Matthew's, Mark's, or John's. They follow this finding out in detail: ask John Hagee, how many Jews were left in Spain after Ferdinand and Isabella's expulsion of Jews and Muslims? Those Jews who were willing to convert to Catholicism were allowed to remain. His anser?: None!: "All Jews who were willing to convert could remain in Spain, all others were forced, upon pain of death, to leave immediately. The Seed of Abraham left Spain at the same time Columbus sailed across the Atlantic. . ." (John Hagee, 'Final Dawn Over Jerusalem,' p. 36). "The Seed of Abraham left Spain"!-- the thousands who remained were not the "Seed of Abraham," because according to this author, not only are Christians not the Seed of Abraham as Paul teaches, but those Jews by ethnicity who he will allow to be the "Seed of Abraham," upon adopting Christianity cease to be such! They defer to the rabbis in defining a Jew, but the rabbis agree with Paul, not with the racists!

Incidentally, 'Pastor' Hagee is wrong to think the only way to avoid such human rights atrocities is for Christians to toss aside everything the New Testament says about Jesus' trial in favor of a face-saving fiction that it was really about divorce. Contrary to 'Pastor' Hagee and Abe Foxman, the New Testament is not the problem. If the Spaniards had lived by the New Testament, they would have loved their enemies, not expelled them. The Spaniards did not ask the Muslims to invade and conquer their nation. Under Muslim occupation, the Jews enjoyed a status much like that the Kurds in American-occupied Iraq, because they welcomed the occupiers. While Muslims and Jews remember Muslim-ruled Spain as a golden age, the Christian populace at the bottom of the social pyramid cannot so recall it, because they were not free to practice their religion. Should the American occupation of Iraq collapse, the Kurds will find themselves in a vulnerable position. The solution was not to adopt Muslim methods as the Spaniards did once they regained the upper hand, but to obey their Lord and do as He taught them. Though these people had for centuries suffered the bitter experience of being second-class citizens in their own country, they should not have paid back evil for evil, but overcome evil with good.

The Christian Zionists are racists, but they are not even consistent in their racism. They wait for the rabbis to define Israel by faith, then plug that faith-based entity into their racial equations. Christian Zionism came about in part because, while this country fought a war to end slavery, the south never underwent a true Reconstruction. The apologists for slavery, who re-interpreted the Bible along racialist lines, never discovered their error, because they never had to sit still and hear a Bible-believing abolitionist explain it to them. The defeated South stealithly disenfranchised the freed slaves while the North averted its eyes. Were the slave-owners right all along about the Bible? No!:




Are Christian Zionists Patriots?

These authors often identify themselves as American patriots and indeed impugn the patriotism of others. Yet what they have to say about this country is not old-fashioned boosterism, to say the very least:

"The United States will not hold its present position of leadership in the western world; financially, the future leader will be Western Europe. Internal political chaos caused by student rebellions and Communist subversion will begin to erode the economy of our nation. Lack of moral principle by citizens and leaders will so weaken law and order that a state of anarchy will finally result. The military capability of the United States, though it is at present the most powerful in the world, has already been neutralized because no one has the courage to use it decisively. When the economy collapses so will the military." (Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth, copyright 1970, p. 173).

There is no 'chapter and verse' cited because there is, of course, no such information found in the Bible. These authors' view of their fellow-citizens is quite jaundiced, and their attachment to their country quite equivocal, especially as contrasted with their devotion to the state of Israel. They constitute a 'fifth column:' inhabitants of one nation whose primary loyalty is to another nation.

Neither do these authors do not think much of our form of government, the pride of American patriots:

"The U.S. government, on the other hand, changes from liberal to conservative depending on the mood of the voters, and politicians who want to ensure their election cannot focus on what is best for their country but on what will garner them the most votes. This does not lend itself to a strong, stable government." (Tim LaHaye, Are We Living in the End Times? p. 165).

Nor do they promote civility. Google the question, 'Is Barack Obama the antichrist?,' and see how many thousands of responses you get. Demonizing a popular politician is not the American way; rather it is the way to turn America into Lebanon.

For a chilling glimpse of the Christian Zionists in full-throated war-cry, check out You Tube. The speaker sure enough succeeds in the task he sets himself, of evoking Germany in the 1930's:


'Christian' pastor John Hagee bellowing for war with Iran.

A Repentent Jihadi


  • "I'm trying to say this in a nice way. I spent the first seventeen years of my life assuming that you as Christians hated me. I mean I'd never been in a church, I'd never really been around too many Christians. There's not that many of them in Turkey or in Sweden. And coming to America, I had lived under the misconception that you hated me as a Muslim. That really affected a lot of what I did in my younger years. I'm not really proud of the fact that I'm part. . .was part of the Islamic jihad. I'm not proud of the fact it actually was my people who were involved in what took place, in the horror."
  • (Ergun 'Mehmet' Caner, speaking at the Prestonwood Baptist Church, Plano, Texas, post 9/11, 2001)


  • "Until I was 15 years old, I thought every single one of you hated me. See, I'd been taught my entire life that Christians were hateful, vengeful - that you'd have nothing from me but death - and that we were at war. We came to America through Brooklyn, NY, that's where I learned English."
  • (Ergun 'Mehmet' Caner, speaking at First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida, transcribed at Turretinfan.blog)




Ergun Caner a.k.a. 'Jihad Butch'


A Repentant Jihadi

The strange case of Ergun Caner came to light, at least insofar as Christian audiences began to question his claims, in 2010. Ergun came to this country as a toddler not quite three years old, from his native Sweden. The terrorist attack of 9/11 shone a spot-light on radical Islam, opening up an opportunity for those poised to take advantage of it. Ergun accordingly built up a career as a public speaker and expert on Islam. Feeling his actual biography was not as marketable as it might be, he invented a new one:


A Repentant Jihadi
Danger Warning
Polygraph
The Bible on Lying
Damage Assessment
Those Hyper-Calvinists
Bloopers
Turkish TV
Ergun 'Mehmet' Caner



On September 11, 2001, the United States suffered an unprovoked assault by al Qaeda, a non-governmental militia with a history of enabling support by nations such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. In response, the United States would have been justified in retaliating against any of these nations; however, in the event, our principal retaliation was aimed against Iraq, a secular socialist state in the region with no history of support for al Qaeda. How was this target-shifting justified? Here is one hint:

"The War on Terror was not a war over money or territory or politics. This was a war over worldviews. One worldview, based in Judeo-Christians [sic] beliefs, was that all men are created equal, endowed 'by their Creator,' as Thomas Jefferson wrote, with the right to be free. The other worldview, based in the teachings of the Q'uran [sic], held that all people on earth were to be subject to Allah and to Sharia law. In this jihadist view, those who refused to bow would be murdered." (Lieutenant General William G. Boykin, Never Surrender, p. 312).

In fairness to this author, it is difficult to get a fix on his opinion because he also says that the radical wing of Islam is to Islam as the Ku Klux Klan is to Christianity. It is in fact true that terrorist base their worldview on the Qu'ran and the Hadith, but, as other Muslims point out, in so doing leave a few things out. Is the terrorist viewpoint indeed based in the teachings or the Qu'ran, or more to the point, defined by those teachings? Do the Qu'ran and the Hadith mandate world conquest? Or are terrorists "evil people who have hijacked a great religion"?:




At the time of the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S. homeland, the evangelical church hopped aboard what seemed to be the popular, speeding band-wagon of the Bush administration. Some have since experienced buyer's remorse, such as in this listing of "skewed gospels:"

"White American Cultural Gospel. Here the message of Christ crucified is mixed with a lot of patriotic music, 'stars and stripes,' and 'amber waves of grain.' It's as if Jesus was born in Georgia! Its sister, the Conservative Political Gospel, is a development that has brought irreparable harm and confusion to those wanting to know who Jesus is." (Jim Cymbala, Storm, p. 108).

Others have continued on full speed forward, is if this train has no reverse gear. This martial emphasis is without doubt a deformation of the gospel of love: "The cross was also the place where Jesus would refound the world. Instead of being arranged around an axis of power enforced by violence, at the cross Jesus rearranged the world around an axis of love expressed in forgiveness. Jesus would not torture and kill his enemies; he would be tortured and killed. . .and forgive his enemies." (Brian Zahnd, A Farewell to Mars, Kindle location 1835). But certainly, wherever conscientious examiners locate the error, people of good will can agree that public policy should not be based on the comedy routines of an outright fraud, as was Ergun Caner, the Southern Baptist Convention's 'expert' on Islam.

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