Abdication
“It’s remarkable that much of Christianity does not highlight that there is a physical/literal Second Coming.”
So wrote @Exodus15_11 on X this week.
This week I want to have more of a theological discussion, rather than what is going on geopolitically with Israel. Because it is always important, I think, to assess where the Church is regarding Israel. As regular readers of this column know, I am not so sure that pro Israel sentiment is all that high in the American Church. Two things are clear to me: many churches are still faithful to Scripture, and they have the blessing of a faithful pastor that teaches the scriptures. But also, large swaths of the Church are committed to pragmatism, Church Growth technique, and the inevitable minimizing of the Bible.
In too many cases, the Church has abdicated its role in teaching the whole counsel of God. We know that about 35 percent of the Bible is prophecy, yet prophecy is ignored by a ton of churches. The Second Coming is not a popular topic. My theories about that are that the Kingdom Now people like Rick Warren rightly see that God’s sovereignty in history is an obstacle to man’s best-laid plans. If Jesus return to rescue the planet is imperative, how does He also wait for the Church to be at its best, so that it can be “handed-off” to Jesus?
An added problem is a topic I return to again and again: too much of the Church simply does not like Jews. I base this on my research, and 25 years of conversations with leaders and laity that betray their dislike of Jews. They by extension resent a strong Israel. In the world of pretereists and amillennialists, modern Israel is an unfortunate coincidence.
It is the question of what one thinks of Jews and a restored Israel that is the key. It causes people to interpret Scripture in a skewed way. If you are taught that Jews are shifty and greedy and control the money in the world and foment wars, you are not going to like the good things promised to them in Scripture. What one thinks of Jews influences how we see the Bible.
As much as I like some things the scholar Oswald Allis wrote (though he was a fierce opponent of Dispensationalism), I see in his discussions of the Jews a bias that comes from human perception.
In his 1945 book, Prophecy and the Church, Allis is almost obsessive in minimizing the amazing last days’ role of Israel and the Jewish people. He tries repeatedly to make the point that Paul did not linger much on the issue of the Jews’ return to the land in the last days. Actually, this is known as the argument from silence. If Paul was mostly concerned with the spiritual rebirth of the Jews, he likely would not have spent considerable time on the return to the land…but his brethren like Ezekiel, Zechariah, Jeremiah, et al, were very much concerned with it and God was quite clear that it was going to happen.
But Allis continued in his personal need to minimize the Return (one of the very greatest prophecies to be fulfilled, as promised in antiquity). In the appendix to his book, Allis wrote:
“Paul’s great concern for Israel was not earthly, but heavenly. Whether Israel was to be restored to the land did not apparently interest or concern him. His great concern was that Israel might be saved. Is it not there that we should leave this question of the earthly promises? The hope of Israel is to be found in the acceptance of that Gospel which Paul preached first to the Jew and then to the Gentile, and in inclusion in that Church in which this ancient distinction is unknown and forever done away. Whether, consistently with this all-important teaching, we may expect a literal restoration of the Jewish nation to Palestine, is a question of minor importance, if indeed it can be regarded as important at all.”
It is supremely ironic that Allis wrote this two years before the United Nations voted to partition Palestine, thus giving the Jews there a toehold in establishing a state, which of course we know happened in 1948. I would love to know what Oswald Allis thought about the re-establishment of Israel, just months after he expended considerable effort to convince us that the Return is no big deal.
Allis had a Jew problem.
That dislike of the People has promised to preserve and love continues to this day, unfortunately.
Mega media star Tucker Carlson, whose popularity exploded after his departure from FOX and the establishment of his own online show, has a problem with Jews and Israel. I have been dismayed to see just how much this is the case.
Carlson, with the reputation as a conservative commentator, is a member of the Episcopal Church, I do believe. Last year, after a great start to his new endeavor, Carlson took a sharp turn backward as he began interviewing anti-Semites. He’s too smart for this to be a mistake.
“Under the guise of advocating for Palestinian Christians, Tucker Carlson launched a two-pronged assault on Israel and American political and Christian support for the Jewish State. To provide legitimacy for his campaign, he enlisted the help of Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem and notorious propagandist for the Palestinian anti-Israel narrative. Carlson’s interview with Isaac aired on April 9, 2024, on “Tucker Carlson on X,” receiving tens of thousands of likes and shares.”
“Munther Isaac has a long history of promoting falsehoods about Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict in his roles as pastor, academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College (a self-identified Evangelical university that promotes a Palestinian Christian theology), and director of Christ at the Checkpoint conferences (the infamous venue where anti-Israel libels are proclaimed in the name of Christian love, justice and peace).
“For many years, CAMERA has exposed the deceptiveness in Isaac’s teaching, as well as the fallacious theological and historical foundation of the narrative promoted by Bethlehem Bible College and Christ at the Checkpoint. Examples of that documentation can be seen here, here, and here. In light of the blatantly anti-Jewish activism of Isaac and these institutions, it is appalling that Carlson would provide a platform for such thinly-veiled hatred.”
Carlson has hosted others that have problems with a “Jew-centric” view of Scripture. His interview with music star John Rich was really disturbing as they sought to bear false witness against Dispensationalists and the Scofield Reference Bible. This is stunning in light of the fact that the Bible was recorded by Jews, in Jewish culture, and the whole thing is about a Jewish Messiah. Jewish names are on the gates and foundation of the New Jerusalem.
This the world hates. The Church has abandoned its mandate to teach the whole counsel of God. I recently did a podcast with Chris Quintana of Old Path Ministries, one of my favorite teachers. One of the comments went like this:
“My husband taught small group in our last church and we met an entire group of people that have been in churches for years and, I kid you not, they had NO idea who Israel and the Jews even were. It was crazy. They said all they needed was a relationship with Jesus.”
Who do they think Jesus is?
This kind of anecdote is stunning, given the fact that we have had hundreds of years in this country to teach the Bible in free churches. I believe of course that the tactic of minimizing the Jews and Israel is satanic.
It infects otherwise smart scholars, smart political commentators, and ordained ministers.
In all this, we are seeing fulfillment of prophecy. Let us rejoice in this, even though it is painful to realize where much of the Church is. This must be how Charles Spurgeon felt in the late 19th century.
Let us not, as individuals, drop the ball in what God has given us to teach!
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