A PLEA TO MY JEWISH BRETHREN

We said, “Never again,” but it’s happening once again before our very eyes. If there was anything we should have learned from Adolph Hitler, it is to listen to what our enemies are saying.

For years, Hitler had said that he wanted to get rid of the Jews. Yet, we refused to listen. There were even Jewish groups in Germany who had supported Hitler, despite his threats.

However, the Muslims are speaking even more directly about the extermination of the Jews than had Hitler, but we are not listening. Unbelievably, there are Jewish groups in the USA who are still supporting Islamic rights to speak their hatred on College campuses. Meanwhile, they refuse to hear their threats or look at what they are doing, even as tens of thousands of Jews are fleeing Islamic violence in Western Europe.

Do we not know? Have we not heard? When I warn Jewish groups about the encroaching genocide, they respond, “This is not our focus.” When I warn individuals, they treat me as if I am an Islamophobe.

Well, perhaps there is a legitimate threat. Perhaps, in some sense, we are responsible for our own impending sorrows. Our ears are shut. We refuse to listen to the warnings, both from our G-d and from our enemies. We have even turned our backs on God, the very thing that the Prophets of Israel had continually warned Israel against. Moses had warned:

·       Deuteronomy 8:15-18 Beware that you don’t forget the God who led you through the great and terrible wilderness with the dangerous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! He fed you with manna in the wilderness (it was a kind of bread unknown before) so that you would become humble and so that your trust in him would grow, and he could do you good. He did it so that you would never feel that it was your own power and might that made you wealthy. Always remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you power to become rich, and he does it to fulfill his promise to your ancestors.

However, we no longer trust in G-d. We have willfully forgotten Him. We have closed our ears to Him as we have towards our enemies. Instead, we have placed our hope in our own resources – our successes and abilities, albeit given to us by G-d. However, through Moses, G-d promises:

·       Deuteronomy 4:27-31  And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you… But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey his voice. For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

Anti-Semitism in the Spirit of Hitler

I’m not quick to call anyone anti-Semitic. In fact, I can’t remember ever having applied this terminology directly to anyone. Instead, I am more inclined to laugh at anti-Semitic jokes. However, anti-Semitism – the kind that calls for the death of the Jews, the kind that has been past-ripe in Muslim lands - has resurrected the long-dormant cries for the “death to the Jews” and “Hitler didn’t go far enough” in Western Europe.

This is troubling. As our heart gives birth to our words, our words also bear violence – a truth that has been demonstrated repeatedly in our history.

This kind of thinking is even leaking over into the church, of course, without the calls for death. Recently, I re-posted an article on the persecution of Christians in Islamic lands. One Christian responded back about the death of Christians in Gaza in the wake of the Israeli invasion, as if the incidental death of Christians in Gaza is equivalent to the purposeful death of Christians elsewhere. Is this an anti-Semitic response? How can we know what is in a person’s heart!

Another Christian just blogged that the Jews are not chosen of God:

• As for Jews being God’s chosen people: This is a matter of biblical and/or theological understanding. I consider being chosen (in this context) to mean elected unto salvation; and I believe salvation is to be found only in Christ. God’s people are saved (in both Testaments) by grace through faith. Biology saves no one and never did. That is to say, no one has ever been or ever will be saved simply because he or she is Jewish.

Although I agree that salvation is matter of believing in Messiah Jesus and that “biology saves no one,” this Christian is certainly taking an extreme and unbiblical position by denying that Israel is chosen. I cannot fathom what motivates this blogger, and I will not try. However, such a message of Israel’s supposed non-chosenness will inevitably serve to undermine support for Israel among those who take the Bible seriously.

Instead, Scripture uniformly attests that God chose the Jewish people as His own special possession:

• For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. (Deuteronomy 7:6)

• For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession. (Deuteronomy 14:2)

As His chosen, God also made many indelible promises to Israel:

• “But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish. Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who wage war against you will be as nothing at all.” (Isa 41:8-12)

Has God utterly washed His hands of Israel, as many falsely allege?

• For your Maker is your husband—the Lord Almighty is his name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—a wife who married young, only to be rejected,” says your God. “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the Lord your Redeemer. (Isaiah 54:5-8)

Nor does the NT revoke these truths. Paul affirmed that Israel, as God’s chosen but errant people, still has a place within God’s plans:

• For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches. (Romans 11:15-16)

Clearly, in God’s mind, Israel remains special and holy. Also, His promises remain in effect, despite Israel’s rebellion:

• I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. (Romans 11:25-29)

What should our response be to all of this? The Gospel:

• For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last. (Romans 1:16-17)

However, there is also a place for seeking justice and speaking truth. Everyone has a right to protect themselves, their families and their communities. However, this is a right that is now being denied to Israel. Why? According to author and commentator Charles Krauthammer:

• “When it comes to Europe, I think the overwhelming factor is raw native deep-seated anti-Semitism,” he told Fox News on Tuesday. For a long time, the anti-Semites of Europe discovered that by using the “veneer of anti-Zionism,” they could get away with it, he said.

• “Now, the veneer and cover are gone,” Krauthammer said. Signs used by European protests saying “Hitler was right” and chants about gassing Jews makes anti-Israel protests into “raw anti-Semitism finding a semi-respectable outlet,” he said.

Enough said!

Can Jews be Anti-Semitic?

There is a strange and commonly observed phenomenon among Jews – a disdain for Israel. We see various indications of this. Here’s one I just read about:

·         Jewish students at Swarthmore College have become the first in the nation to break with the global student association Hillel and agree to open their doors to groups and speakers who do not support Israel. The Swarthmore student board unanimously voted to renounce Hillel International's restrictions, which bar chapters from sponsoring events, hosting speakers, or partnering with groups that oppose Israel's right to exist or support a movement for universities to end investments in Israel because of its policies toward the Palestinians.

Interesting, we don’t find this kind of thing among the Muslims. I experience this same phenomenon up close. Just last week, a Jewish woman – and she had visited Israel on numerous occasions but reflected an unbalanced sympathy for the Palestinian cause – expressed this disdain for Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

I tried to balance her disdain by presenting other factors – Muslim atrocities, suicide bombings, threats, resolve to exterminate Israel, and their unwillingness, under any terms, to accept Israel’s right to exist. I even pointed out that Arabs live in Israel under more favorable conditions than they do in their own Islamic countries.

However, she would have none of it and fired back, “I hold Israel to a higher standard.” I wanted to point out that her “higher standard” was nothing more than a double-standard – a violation of justice and fair-mindedness – but the words didn’t come to me at that moment. However, it started me thinking about this strange Jewish phenomenon.

Some would ascribe it to Jewish anti-Semitism, explaining that the Jews had absorbed this contempt from the surrounding society. However, this woman didn’t seem to suffer from self-contempt; nor did the many other Jews who have expressed similar opinions.

(I would imagine, perhaps wrongly, that the Jews of Germany could have done much to stop Hitler, but they didn’t. I lean toward this conclusion because I have observed so many Jewish groups in denial about the present threat of Islam and the mass-exodus of Jews from Western Europe because of Islamic violence. Instead, they are content to run programming about the Jews of Eastern Europe and the Holocaust and refuse to see the growing Holocaust in their present midst. I talked to one director of a local NYC Jewish group about this absence among their programs, and she blithely informed me that the Islamic threat just wasn’t part of their vision.)

How then do we account for this obviously self-destructive tendency?  I don’t sense that it is a matter of anti-Semitism but rather of pride – a special Jewish pride. I know something about this, because it had been Jewish pride that enabled me to accept myself in the midst of crippling feelings. When I felt bad, I would remind myself that I belonged to a great race of people – a people that had produced Einstein, Freud and 30% of the Nobel Prize recipients. It was this pride that enabled me to get out of bed in the morning.

However, I didn’t realize that I was paying a great price for this elixir. Pride, as with any psychological dependency, requires continual feeding or fixes. I had to continually remind myself of who I am and who my people are. I had to be superior and so also my people. I was not content that my people be as other people. They had to be superior. My ego and self-image depended on it! Consequently, Israel had to be better than the other nations, and when it was not, Jewish pride required that Israel pay the price of our censure. The Jews now unjustly indict Israel for failing to live up to the inflated standards that we require to maintain our self-esteem.

What then is the answer? Transparency, honesty, and a re-evaluation! We need to recognize our unjust double-standard and why we produced it. However, this is almost impossible. We remain stuck in darkness, our self-constructed prison – a darkness that blinds us to the surrounding dangers. God help us!

Islam and its Enabling West

Islam’s agenda is world domination, but why are the Western elites enabling them? In his “must-read” book, Raymond Ibrahim explains:

• Christian persecution is perhaps the most obvious example of a phenomenon the mainstream media wants to ignore out of existence – Islamic supremacism. Vastly outnumbered and politically marginalized, Christians in the Islamic world simply wish to worship in peace, and yet they still are hounded and attacked; their churches are burned and destroyed; their children are kidnapped, raped, and enslaved…they must be subjugated, according to Sharia’s position for all others, for all infidels…If the mainstream media were to report honestly on the persecution of Christians under Islam, the obvious implications that Islam is dangerously hostile to all non-Muslims would be inescapable. Hence, journalists develop an instinct – or make a deliberate choice – to ignore or minimize these uncomfortable facts. (Crucified Again, 232)

Some horrific stories are merely ignored or denied, like Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti’s statement that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches” in the Arabian Peninsula (223). Islamic acts of genocide are often described as “sectarian strife” (227).

What then is the agenda – the cultural bias – of the Western media? The liberal bias that we can all live peacefully together under secularism! Ibrahim’s book is partially an expose’ of this faulty, insupportable narrative:

• The abuse of Christians where Muslims are in power has the capacity to completely undermine the liberal narrative that has dominated politics for decades. Muslim violence in Europe or against Israel poses no challenge to that narrative: in both cases, Muslims are seen as the underdogs, who may be sympathized with no matter how much they lash out. They may be screaming and rioting, firing rockets, and destroying property – all while calling for the death and destruction of the “infidel” West or Israel’s Jews to cries of “Allahu Akbar!” Still the bloodlust can be portrayed as a natural byproduct of the frustration Muslims feel as an oppressed minority, “rightfully” angry with the “colonial” West and its Israeli proxy.

Sadly, many well-meaning Christians are reluctantly complying with the liberal narrative in hope of not stirring up more genocidal attacks. Robert McManus, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Massachusetts, stated on February 8, 2013:

• "Talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims."

However, this is reminiscent of the Pope’s misguided Concordant with Hitler. He had been ignorant of Hitler’s ultimate plans and thought that he could placate the idealistic Hitler. However, there is no placating the designs for world domination, especially when it is fueled by a racism or chauvinism that regards the infidel as worthy of death. This is something that liberalism refuses to see, as Ibrahim points out in many areas:

• As far as former U.S. president Bill Clinton is concerned, “inequality” and “poverty” are “what’s fueling all this stuff” – a reference to Boko Haram’s jihad to enforce Sharia and eliminate Christians. Clinton further called on Nigerians to “embrace the similarities,” adding, “It is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence with violence” – apparently a suggestion that Nigeria’s government not retaliate with any severity in response to Boko Haram’s mass murderers. (241)

Denial is not a good way to deal with reality. Denial had been the solution of Neville Chamberlain. Fortunately, there was also a Churchill!

Neville Chamberlain and the Naïve Media

We believe what we want to believe, and the media is little different. Jonathan Rosenbloom described how the press and the BBC fawned over their gullible Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his politics:

• That included self-imposed censorship on the information reaching the British public. After the Anschluss [the German forced merger with Austria in 1938], British papers carried no pictures of the hundreds shot in the first days after the Nazi takeover, of the tens of thousands arrested and sent to concentration camps, or the Nazi soldiers forcing Jewish doctors, lawyers, and professors to scrub the streets and clean toilets on their hands and knees. When reporters asked Neville Chamberlain about such matters, he snapped at them for believing “Jewish-Communist propaganda.” (Jewish World Review)

Instead, today we are called “Islamophobes” if we raise any question about the Islamic agenda for world domination and the subjugation of all others. However, in both cases, the evidence is unmistakably before us. Rosenbloom wrote that Chamberlain probably never read Mein Kampf, but he certainly should have:

• Hitler laid out in startling fashion both his future plans for the Jews and for German conquest.

We find the same battle plan laid out in detail in the Koran and the Hadiths (the sayings of Mohammad), but yet the Western media continues to refer to Islam as a “religion of peace” and that the Islamic terrorists aren’t real Muslims, despite their unequivocal declarations to the contrary.

Chamberlain and the press clung to a hope, albeit unsupported by any evidence:

• Chamberlain…”could never bring himself to believe that [Hitler and Mussolini] wanted to go to war. Clinging to the security of his ignorance, he created a peace-loving image of them that defied reality.” For a decade, the English and French did nothing in response to fascist aggression in Abyssinia, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, and precious little even in the wake of the German invasion of Poland. France and England thereby encouraged Hitler to believe they were too weak to prevail.

However, we are giving Islam even greater encouragement. We invite radical Islamic groups to our White House, employ them in our Homeland security, sponsor pro-Islamic propaganda, bellow out that  “The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam,” and list Evangelicals and Catholics as terrorist groups. We have never seen a red carpet unfurled so elaborately. We should not be surprised when our carpet is trodden under.

Privatization: A "Gospel" of Accommodation

The Gospel comes with costs, and they are high. Jesus warned His disciples:

•  “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.” (John 15:18-20)

However, we have conveniently found that we can reduce these costs if we adopt a private and low-key approach to the Gospel. A campus missionary confessed that his missions group must sign a statement saying that they will not evangelize in order to gain access to the university. Meanwhile, he assured me that they are still able to evangelize, but in a quiet and private manner.

We find this kind of accommodation over the broad spectrum of Christian activity. In a huffingtonpress.com article – Dan and Me: My Coming Out as a Friend of Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A - gay activist leader, Shane L. Windmeyer wrote:

• Yes, after months of personal phone calls, text messages and in-person meetings, I am coming out in a new way, as a friend of Chick-fil-A's president and CEO, Dan Cathy, and I am nervous about it. I have come to know him and Chick-fil-A in ways that I would not have thought possible when I first started hearing from LGBT students about their concerns over the chicken chain's giving practices. (Jan. 28, 2013)

Windmeyer and his organization, Campus Pride, have been campaigning against Chick-fil-A for years:

• For nearly a decade now, my organization, Campus Pride, has been on the ground with student leaders protesting Chick-fil-A at campuses across the country. I had researched Chick-fil-A's nearly $5 million in funding, given since 2003, to anti-LGBT groups.

Recently however, Cathy initiated contact which resulted in friendship, conversation, and invitations into their most personal and private gatherings. When it comes to their private beliefs, they have agreed to disagree and to enjoy their friendship despite these differences. Consequently, Windmeyer has called off his bulldogs.

Some Christians have heralded Cathy’s initiative as a model of Christian love, and it is, in a sense.  Christ is our example, and so we are required to lead with His love. However, we have to inquire about the costs. Was it merely Christian love that made the difference, or did Cathy make some concessions along the way? At some point, as their friendship was forming and developing, Cathy revealed to Windmeyer his latest IRS form. Windmeyer writes:

•  The funding reflects Chick-fil-A's promised commitment not to engage in "political or social debates," and the most divisive anti-LGBT groups are no longer listed. Even as Campus Pride and so many in the community protested Chick-fil-A and its funding of groups like Family Research Council, Eagle Forum and Exodus International, the funding of these groups had already stopped…This is why, after discussions with Dan and Chick-fil-A, Campus Pride suspended our campaign.

Understandably, Windmeyer and Campus Pride are happy with this turn of events. Cathy is now publicly silenced, and he will serve as a trophy and a warning to other evangelicals who want to follow their Master into the public arena. However, does this transaction represent real friendship and “mutual respect” or a peace predicated on capitulation?

I don’t want to judge Cathy or even minimize the pressure that he has had to endure, but I think we need to ask ourselves the question, “What honors our Lord?” Are the benefits of our interactions with the world worth the cost of failing our Savior?  Should Cathy’s initiative be a model for us?

Let’s take a closer look.

Exodus International, one of the groups which Cathy has now defunded, is a ministry that supports people of faith who want to exit the gay life. (In fact, this group has even caused some debate within the evangelical community by reaching out to gay “Christians” as “fellow brothers” in the Lord.) However, Exodus represents an offense to homosexuals. It suggests that there is an alternative to the homosexual life, and this is unacceptable to practicing gays. However, such groups provide a much-needed refuge and alternative for those who are broken because of this life-style.

What if the entire Christian community followed Cathy’s example and defunded such groups? And what if they defunded, for the sake of “peace” and “friendship,” all groups that spoke out against the dangers and costs of sinful sex? Would this honor God? Would it serve the ultimate interests of society?

Aren’t we required to be public about our faith, exposing sin and sheltering its victims?  Instead, we are accommodating ourselves to the culture, remaining mute in the face of so many of the hot-button issues of our day. 

For example, the Gospel cannot be carried openly into Muslim nations. Shariah Law criminalizes the evangelization of Muslims and sometimes even carries a death penalty.  Understandably, Christian broadcasting based within the borders of these nations cannot and does not criticize Islam. One such broadcaster admitted:

• “To [expose the faults of Islam] through a broadcast can often lead to a negative reaction by viewers, and…local Christians and churches then pay the price.” (Christianity Today, Jan.-Feb. 2013, 15)

However, many Western Christian broadcasters, operating outside these countries, also follow this reasoning – this conspiracy of silence - claiming that it is the Gospel alone that saves and not any criticism of Islam.  But shouldn’t we expect to find a robust presentation of the Gospel along with an honest and thorough exposure of the true nature of Islam among those who can do so in safety?

 

It is worthy of note that this same kind of reasoning is used to silence the church regarding a whole variety of sins – homosexuality, abortion, pornography and materialism.  It is also used to silence any criticism of other religions and worldviews. However, we must remember that Jesus was not silent or even quiet in His denunciations of the Pharisaic religion. Before the “crowds” (Mat. 23:1), He exposed it for what it was. It was self-aggrandizing; it would make its adherents “twice as much a son of hell” (Mat. 23:15). It was deceptive and superficial – it merely “whitewashed [unclean] tombs” (Mat. 23:27) - and left the believer full of “self-indulgence” (Mat. 23:25). Finally, let us not forget the Apostle Paul’s criticism of the Judaizers.  

A Gospel that doesn’t address sin and self-righteous religion is a defective Gospel. It should not merely tell us what we have been saved for; it should also warn us about what we are being saved from!  

The bad news of our sinful state must precede the good news if the good news is to be esteemed. Good preaching must help us to see our sin and its consequences. It should show us our futile flight into man-made, self-centered, self-justifying and self-aggrandizing religion. We must be made to see that we have no hope apart from the Cross of Christ.  That is the full Gospel message.  No part of it can be omitted. 

Conversely, if we adopt the “Gospel of Accommodation,” then we avoid mentioning such uncomfortable truths as the routine murder of Christians – 170,000 yearly, as estimated by Christianity Today – most of which are occurring in Islamic lands. However, such silence cannot co-exist with faithfulness.

Where does the hiding and denial stop? Certainly not in the Western media and universities, where any criticism of homosexuality or Islam has been silenced! Must the church also follow suit? Must we privatize our faith?

When the Apostles were dragged before the Sanhedrin and warned to not preach Jesus, they could have agreed and signed their names. They could have told themselves that they could still preach Jesus on the QT, in private. However, they refused outright, citing the authority of God:

•       Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29).

Adolph Hitler offered the German church a similar “deal” – a privatization of faith. “Your faith is for the church; your body and mouth are for the greater good – the good of the Fatherland.”  Nevertheless, some pastors spoke out against the abominations of National Socialism and were taken away the next morning.

Following Christ may have its costs.  It might even appear indiscrete or imprudent, but it also might be the life to which we have been called.