Our Achilles’ Heel

The onslaught of anarchists in the West today—Antifa, social media thugs, roaming anti-Semites—has brought about something that leaves me dismayed. This problem was highlighted this week with the strange case of Demi Lovato.

Lovato is an American singer and actress. Honestly, I’d never heard of her, but she has 74 million Instagram followers, so she is a big star. She seems to have some type of spirituality (even posting photos of being baptized in the Jordan River), yet she is also a major supporter of “LGBT” agendas.

Evidently a group sponsored her trip to Israel last week, and quickly the online thugs sent her blistering messages via social media. She even turned off the answer feature on her Instagram posts, given the sheer number of hate messages she received.

So what did she do then?

She apologized.

(At the same time, a photo was posted online of a Jewish student literally on his face, kissing the shoes of a Muslim. This grotesque image is really dismaying.)

Still basking in her trip, before the hate started, she stated:

“I am an American singer. I was raised Christian and have Jewish ancestors. When I was offered an amazing opportunity to visit the places I’d read about in the Bible growing up, I said yes.

“There is something absolutely magical about Israel.  I’ve never felt such a sense of spirituality or connection to God…something I’ve been missing for a few years now.  Spirituality is so important to me…to be baptized in the Jordan river – the same place Jesus was baptized – I’ve never felt more renewed in my life.

“This trip has been so important for my well-being, my heart, and my soul.  I’m grateful for the memories made and the opportunity to be able to fill the God-sized hole in my heart. Thank you for having me, Israel.”

Then the thugs began shouting. That prompted the following pathetic response from Lovato:

“’I’m extremely frustrated. I accepted a free trip to Israel in exchange for a few posts. No one told me there would be anything wrong with going or that I could possibly be offending anyone. With that being said, I’m sorry if I’ve hurt or offended anyone,’ Lovato wrote in a post to her 74 million Instagram followers.

“’Sometimes people present you with opportunities and no one tells you the potential backlash you could face in return. This was meant to be a spiritual experience for me, NOT A POLITICAL STATEMENT and now I realize it hurt people and for that I’m sorry,’ she added.”

Her statements came after pro Palestinian goons berated her (and worse) online.

A few years earlier, she expressed her views on homosexuality, and I expect this offers a clue to her cratering in the aftermath of the Israel trip:

“I believe in gay marriage, I believe in equality. I think there’s a lot of hypocrisy with religion. But I just found that you can have your own relationship with God, and I still have a lot of faith.”

Aha. When one is not grounded in Scripture, taking a principled stand, a true moral stand, is not easy.

And every time the Left bashes someone’s skull in and gets away with it, every time a band of “progressive” students scuttle a speech by a conservative…the Left grows stronger.

I remember having dinner with a prominent Israeli once, and he said that if one is not willing to defend himself, his family, and his property, in essence he deserves what comes his way. I agree.

Of course, Millennials view things much differently, and I’m sure Lovato just wanted this incident behind her. But I can’t help but think that if she had told her critics to (symbolically) drop dead, our side wouldn’t be so much back on our heels.

Passiveness in the face of aggression will get you killed. Just ask the Jews from antiquity until 1948.

I am truly dismayed by the passivity of the Right. And now we are seeing a tipping point, a place where talk show hosts like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh stare, open-mouthed, struggling to come up with answers or solutions to the onslaught from the Left. I think those two in particular totally understand what we’re up against, but the Right is frozen in time, unable to demonstrate a willingness to stand up for our worldview. The Left counts on that, just as it did in Russia a hundred years ago, just as the Nazis did in the 20s and 30s, and just as the Left does now in America and Western Europe.

It seems to be okay for the Left to unleash any outrage—and outrageous behavior—but not acceptable for the Right to defend itself. And I also absolutely believe this environment was intentionally created by Barack Obama.

I write “Israel Watch” of course as a Christian, and if you disagree with my view that we should not always turn the other cheek, that’s fine. Do what you need to do.

But I’m not going to kiss anyone’s shoes, and I’m not going to apologize for loving Israel and Jews.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes They’re Relevant

Some interesting stuff happened this week regarding Christian Millennials opposed to Israel. I’ve written about them a lot.

First, there was the jolting news that Relevant magazine founder and publisher Cameron Strang is stepping down from his role. I would guess it’s temporary, but we’ll see. Strang’s “downfall” came, ironically, because he wasn’t Woke enough for some of his radical staff.

You see, because certain young people have been allowed to get away with nonsense like “gender equality” and “racism behind every bush,” they are emboldened. The very community Relevant publishes for—young Christians—has now turned on Strang due to alleged racist statements and his creation of a “toxic work environment.”

I have no idea about the internal stuff at the magazine, although my interactions with Strang after his 2014 cover story, “Blessed Are the Peacemakers” indicated that he was stubborn and arrogant in his worldview.

Where this is “relevant” for Israel is to see if the magazine will continue in its animosity to the Jewish state, or whether it will chart a more balanced course. Again, I don’t believe Strang is gone for good.

But as I looked at the latest issue, I saw a tiny glimmer of hope. Titled, “Stop Taking Jeremiah 29:11 Out of Context,” writer Thomas Turner took Christians to task for appropriating an Old Testament verse meant for the Jews. Turner writes:

“Like any author worth his salt, the writer in Jeremiah begins by stating the subject of the passage: ‘This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon … ‘ (Jeremiah 29:4).

“This verse, quoted to countless individuals who are struggling with vocation or discerning God’s will, is not written to individuals at all. This passage is written to a whole group of people—an entire nation.”

Wow, this sounds like something David Lewis would have written! Bravo!

Turner then goes on to explain that the verse was meant as a comfort for the Jews exiled after the Babylonian invasion in the sixth century B.C. It’s quite an amazing article, given Relevant’s embrace of Palestinian faux-history. I’m hoping it’s a sign of things to come.

I also reflected this week that many of the people who were running interference for the Palestinian Authority’s official version of the conflict—among American evangelicals—are now sidelined. No doubt some simply went “underground,” but many have been neutralized by the spotlight on their work. I hope in some way this is reflective of Strang as well. For different reasons, Strang, Donald Miller, Lynne Hybels, and Mae Cannon no longer are active publicly in defaming Israel. I think the public didn’t appreciate their propaganda efforts.

The Relevant magazine situation is one to watch in the coming months. When/if Strang reappears, we’ll see if he is contrite enough to admit fault where he should: bashing Israel.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com