Hamas isn't the greatest hater of Jews: that title goes to Christians

Before the last half of the 19th century, if you’d ask any Jew who the Jew-haters were, the answer would be Christians. It's still true today.

This morning, we face the fifth day of what will become a long, horrible war, filled with death, destruction, and the grim reality that Israel’s fate is to fight. But I don’t want to talk about that. Not directly, at least.

Photo by Thomas Delacrétaz on Unsplash

Since we all witnessed the latest catastrophic failure of Rousseau’s ideals regarding the human condition, I’ve been confronted online by one of the more pernicious and dangerous theological lies that’s poisoned theology and driven Jew-hatred for a score of centuries. Taking a detour through college Philosophy 101: Now, I’m no Hobbesian—it was Hobbes who wrote that absent a political state to elevate people to good deeds, life is “solitary, poor, nasty brutish, and short.” Sometimes, the “social contract” Hobbes touted is quite daft and evil.

Rousseau believed that people are essentially good beings, and left to our own devices, we will self-organize into peaceful groups, uncorrupted by the evils of the state and government. Romanticism. Reality is writ different. The human heart, feelings, drives the person, and especially the tribal group, to horrific acts of cruelty, and can also elevate someone to incredible nobility of purpose. People can be stubbornly immune to facts, logic, critical thinking, or basic decency.

Class dismissed on that point. In the real world, Israel left Gaza in 2005, to end the physical occupation of that slip of land on the Mediterranean coast between the heart of the Holy Land and Egypt. Gaza has been around since Biblical times, and has never been friendly to the Hebrews—ancient or modern. To think that in the 21st century, Israel could leave Gaza its own devices, history would cry “folly!” and history is proven right. Gazan Palestinians elected Hamas as their government. Hamas tried its best to look like a real government, but never abandoned its heart of terrorism.

Now don’t say it was entirely Israel’s fault here. When Israel forcibly removed its citizens from settlements in north Gaza, Hamas burned the homes and businesses left intact because Jews had lived there, as if Jewishness itself infected a place. The terrorists immediately began planning to make war, have spent the last 19 years planning one, and now they have it. They will reap exactly what they’ve sown, and the crop will be much larger than they planted. I have little sympathy for those who planned this, and possibly even less sympathy for the Israeli government officials responsible for ensuring it can’t happen.

But Hamas is not the only, or even biggest, source of Jew-hatred in the world. For centuries, Jews and Muslims lived in relative peace. It wasn’t really until the Zionist movement began calling Jews back to the Holy Land that the modern conflict between Jews and Muslims erupted. Tens of thousands of Jews lived in Iran, Egypt, Turkey, and other places where you find none today. Before the last half of the 19th century, if you’d ask any Jew who the Jew-haters were, the answer would be Christians.

The photo used for today’s post is the church of the Diocese of Minorca. It was here in 1286, a theological lie about the Jews, money, and their practices formed in the church. In 1390, Jews were prohibited from carrying weapons or defending themselves. In 1391, Christians murdered 300 Jews in the sister island of Majorca, and the rest were forced into baptism. Over the next 100 years, Jews—even ones who became secular and intermarried—were systematically oppressed, libeled, and killed.

Many of us know this period as the “Spanish Inquisition,” where an inquisitor would demand a confession of Christ from Jews, who many times, to save their own lives, complied, and sometimes, refused, in which case they were horrifically tortured (things like flaying of the skin or various other awful devices). In fact, many European nations had inquisitions. In Russia and Poland, riots against Jews were called pogroms.

Jews fled from nation to nation, where at first Christians welcomed them because of their education and wealth. And after some time, it was Christians who tried to convert the Jews to Christ (not “win them”), and finding them resistant, resorted to more violent methods. Finally, Jews would be expelled or oppressed to the point where they left voluntarily. This continued all the way through World War II and the Holocaust. In the wake of that Bacchanalia of death, Israel emerged as the one place that would never—could not—expel or persecute Jews.

But the persecution of Jews by Christians has not ever stopped. And even today, I see the bad seeds of “Replacement Theology” on social media and in our churches. One church that is in the same community where I live boasts a membership of some 30,000. The pastor of that mega-church, a well-known preacher, at one time suggested Christians should “un-hitch” from the Old Testament, which he later defended as out of context. This church is focused on growth, from Gentiles.

I have written thousands of words on the falsehoods in Replacement Theology. I am going to get into theology now. If that’s not your bag, you can stop here, and trust me that Christians who say the Church is the true Israel are following whacked theology that will lead to more Jew hatred.

But here, let me quote one paragraph from a previous article.

To believe that Israel has no special place in God’s order as a nation, you have to believe that God has not called the Jews back to their land, that Zionism is a human invention, and that God has no plan to gather Israel at the end times. You have to believe that Jacob’s (Israel’s) purchase of the land near Shechem, where he built an altar which he called El-Elohe-Israel (God, the God of Israel) was his own personal transaction and had no prophetic value. You have to believe that Deuteronomy 4:40 “I am giving you these instructions so you will enjoy a long life in the land the Lord your God is giving you for all time” is not really for all time. You have to believe that this scripture in 1 Chronicles 17 is false.

The entire Old Testament is filled with God’s promises to the Hebrews—the Jews—and to Israel. Yet modern Christians say that the Jews, especially Israeli Jews, aren’t really the ancient Hebrews. Despite a thousand years and more of avoiding intermarriage, living in isolated groups from Gentiles, having their own culture, Torah, education, and customs, somehow these people think the Jews became something else than what they were in Jesus’ time. Nothing could be less true.

• To believe God is finished with the Jews, you have to believe that Christ was raised as a descendent of the line of David for some other reason than to fulfill this scripture.

• You have to believe that Jesus was a King for everyone except those for whom He was prophesied and promised.

• You have to believe that the sign Pilate had placed above Jesus’ head on the cross “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” means that Jesus was the king of a dead, discarded people.

• You have to believe like the Sadducees, who questioned Jesus in Luke chapter 20, where Jesus answered: “But now, as to whether the dead will be raised—even Moses proved this when he wrote about the burning bush. Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, he referred to the Lord as ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So he is the God of the living, not the dead, for they are all alive to him.”

Some claim that the Church is the new Israel. If that’s so, then why hasn’t the Church been called to the Holy Land and to occupy it and gather there? Why has the Church, as a whole, focused everywhere else except Israel? (The Crusades was more an effort to control the land—the relics—than it was to occupy Israel for the Lord’s return.)

But the prophet Zechariah wrote of the Lord’s return in Jerusalem.

And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives,
Which faces Jerusalem on the east.
And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two,
From east to west,
Making a very large valley;
Half of the mountain shall move toward the north
And half of it toward the south.
(Zechariah 14:4)

This is the same prophet who wrote in Zechariah 9 “Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.” If Christians believe that Jesus fulfilled that former scripture at His first coming, He will surely fulfill the latter in His second. But logic fails here.

It’s foolish to believe that the Church will somehow develop a longing to occupy the Holy Land and take Israel’s place there. It has never happened, and in fact many Replacement Theology believers think Israel is irrelevant (and therefore the Old Testament prophets are also irrelevant, and the Jews are the enemy of Christ). The Bible—the one Christians are supposed to believe, all of it—says it’s foolish to believe that God will fulfill scripture and prophecy outside the context of His people Israel.

From Replacement Theology adherents, I get the question, “what about salvation?” Yes, Jews, like anyone, need to confess that Christ is Lord, and believe that in their hearts, to be saved. There is no special salvation for individual Jews. But the Bible says “all Israel will be saved.” What does that mean? It means that what Paul wrote in Romans 11:29 is true today if you believe the Bible: “For God's gifts and His call are irrevocable.” God has called the Jews to be His people, and they will continue to be until the “fullness of time” has come and Jesus returns. At that time, they will see Him as the true Messiah. Many (including me) have come to see Him that way even now. Many Messianic Jews live in Israel (though it’s very much discouraged by the government).

Do you need evidence that Jews have gifts?

Jews have won 20% of all Nobel prizes, with an astonishing 41% in economics and 26% in physics. This means that Jews have a 100-fold impact on the world in fields considered to be important by Nobel standards. In economics, Jews have a 200-fold impact, which is pretty evident if you look at Hollywood and Wall Street.

This is really a statistical impossibility, not just an outlier, but a singular case which in any scientific study would necessitate investigation of a cause. The typical causes offered up by those who believe Jews are just another ethnic group, emphasis on education, cultural values of thrift and hard work, and preferences for helping other Jews, hold no water. The same values can be attributed to other cultures whose impact is statistically in line with the world’s population. The conclusion has to be that God is using Jews to be a light to the nations: a very bright light that attracts a lot of attention.

It is this attention that breeds conspiracy theories. If Jews as a group are so successful, then there must be a shadowy group controlling them and arranging that success. This kind of stuff is coming from Christians who yell “Bless God!” because they believe He healed a mole on their back. But they discard entire chapters of the Bible because they refuse to believe the Jews are still God’s chosen people. I don’t know, is it jealousy? Do they wish to be Jews (even if it means resisting the call of Christ?). Is it frustration because Jews are suspicious of Christians trying to convert them (with good reason!).

I don’t honestly know. But I do know that in order to hold this terrible theology you have to discard the Bible, including most of the Old Testament prophets. Doing so puts a Christian in a bad position. When love fails, nothing is left to please God. I certainly don’t want to pin my eternal destination on such a frayed tether.

I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind with just one article. If these people don’t trust the Bible as their source, they’re not going to listen to me. But beware of them. They are the ones who will come out as “Christians” and stand against Israel and Jews. They are the ones who will spout “Synagogue of Satan!” and “whitewashed tombs.” But it is they who are in grave error.

We are in terrible times right now. I believe God’s promises, but I also believe in His justice. Whoever puts their hand to God’s people is attacking the apple of His eye. Do this at your own peril.