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Tag: Antisemitism

The Prejudice of Jonah

December 30, 2024 / / 0 Comments

There is a recent bout of antisemitism within professing Reformed circles and there are some things that should be considered. The argument seems to be that Jewish people are somehow more malevolent and destructive within society and even suggests that Scripture supports this. Furthermore, it is argued that, because Talmudic Judaism holds that Jesus is currently being punished by being boiled in a vat of excrement, they are more wicked than other false religions that consider Christ to be a prophet. Therefore, since Judaism is more malevolent, it is acceptable to hold a certain amount of disdain for Jewish persons and to target them specifically as a kind of enemy of society.

First, it must be considered that Judaism is worse because how it views Christ’s current state is hardly “more wicked” than other false religious views. Yes, their rejection of Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah, as God in flesh sent to redeem men from their sins, is highly sinful. However, their view of His punishment because they think He is a false Messiah is consistent with their false religious beliefs. They are holding to what they believe should happen to one who blasphemes God. It is a wicked view because it rejects Scripture’s prophecies and revelations regarding the Christ but it is still consistent.

By comparison, other religious systems, such as Islam, try to reduce Christ to a mortal prophet to which they give “honor.” While some argue that this is better than Judaism’s view, it is actually equivalently evil, if not worse. It is not honorable to deny Christ’s deity and work of salvation in any fashion. It is a complete rejection of all that God revealed in His word regarding the coming and the work of His Son. His sinlessness, His righteousness, and His obedience to all that God commanded are denied by reducing Him to being merely human. There is also the rejection of the hypostatic union of Christ, being fully God and fully man, without which, there can be no hope of salvation. But, lastly, and perhaps even more wickedly, it is not honorable to turn Christ into the mouthpiece of false deities. It is demonic to take the name of Christ and claim He is nothing but a sock puppet for whatever godless idol one has concocted. To suggest that this means other religions have a “better” view of Christ is simply delusional.

With that aside, it must be considered what has been said about Jews being somehow more wicked than other ethnic people groups. One argument suggests that Scripture supports this by pointing to the Jews’ repeated efforts to oppose Christ when He walked this earth and their continuous persecution the Jews perpetrated on Christians following the birth of the church. This argument suggests that the Jews’ efforts to thwart Christ reveal they, as a people, were unique in their sinful attitudes toward Christ and the church. Therefore, it is not wrong to believe that Jews today carry that same uniquely wicked mindset today. However, this is woefully myopic from a Scriptural standpoint.

First off, Scripture clearly reveals that Israel (aka, the Jews) is the ethnic people group through which God chose to reveal Himself to the world. All that God did with the Jews was to establish the types and shadows that would be fully revealed in Jesus Christ. All His promises and prophecies are given to us through this people. Therefore, Scripture spends a great deal of time with Israel, dealing with both her sins and her obedience, showing us God’s character, requirements, and His ultimate plan to deal with sin. When we see the Jews in rebellion, it is not so that we consider them to be a far more wicked people. Rather, they are an example of sin in the world at large. And, given that they received God’s direct revelation and still rebelled, what hope has the rest of the world which was as deeply stained by sin? Israel’s sinfulness was not something for others to look down upon but a picture of how all people are desperately wicked apart from Christ.

Consider all the Gentile nations and their treatment of God’s people. The Egyptians enslaved the Jews and killed their firstborn male children. The Philistines regularly attacked and took captive Israel (yes, by God’s allowance in response to Israel’s rebellion but they were equally punished for their wicked treatment of the Jews during these campaigns). Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Rome all took captive Israel and treated them wickedly. Are any of these people (or any of their descendants) who assaulted the people of God, and brought in false idols that were imposed on the Jews, more wicked or malevolent? Or is that only to be reserved for a particular people group? It reveals one’s personal bias to suggest that Scripture reserves a special designation of sin for only the Jewish people.

It is necessary to suggest one final consideration for people to think about regarding this debate. There was a particular people group in Scripture that God intended to bring judgment on for their malevolent treatment of His people: the Ninevites. The people of Nineveh hated the people of God and took every opportunity to oppose and persecute them. So wicked were these people that God took specific note to send His judgment upon them. Yet, God would not bring this judgment without warning. He called upon the prophet Jonah to give them a message, that in forty days Nineveh would be overthrown. God, in His mercy to a particularly wicked people, would give them notice of their impending doom. He did not need to do so, for His judgment was justified. Still, God desired to give them a warning.

However, Jonah did not want to go. Why? Because Jonah knew God’s heart. He knew that, should the Ninevites receive a warning and chose to repent, God would stay His wrath. Jonah believed that Nineveh was so malevolent and destructive that they should not receive God’s mercy. Jonah’s hatred was so overwhelming for this ethnic group, that he fled in the opposite direction to avoid the possibility they could be spared. God would not be thwarted, however, and he dragged Jonah back kicking and screaming, in the belly of a great fish, to have His message preached. Jonah’s bias would not justify his disobedience, God made sure of this. And, much to Jonah’s utter dismay, the Ninevites repented and were spared for a time. Jonah judged that his anger toward these people was more justified than God’s willingness to show mercy to a repentant people. God revealed that Jonah’s prejudice did not hold a candle to His perfect plans and purposes.

Those Christians today who believe there is something justifiable about holding antisemitic views simply do not have a leg to stand on. Yes, Jews today are outside the covenant of God because they have rejected Jesus as Christ. This is no different from any other ethnic or religious group that is apart from Jesus. They hold wicked views of Jesus for which they will be held accountable. There are many Jews, just as there are many other non-Jewish people, involved in sinful acts and industries around the world. And, just like the non-Jewish people, they will be held accountable for their sins. Not because they are more inherently sinful as a people, but because they are sinful by nature just as is every other human being who walks the earth. If Christians show bias toward Jews as an ethnic people and treat them as uniquely sinful as compared to all others, we commit the same sin as Jonah. No sinner will escape the judgment of God, yet, He has not called us to be a generation of Jonahs deciding who is or is not worthy of God’s warning of impending wrath. He has called Christians to be His kingdom of priests who preach that judgment is certain apart from repentance and faith in Christ alone.

Therefore, I urge my brethren in the faith, to abandon this foolishness. Stop being hard-hearted Jonahs who take pleasure in seeing others as more wicked than yourself. Rather, admit your self-righteous arrogance, repent of it, and submit to God’s calling to proclaim the gospel to all, regardless of their ethnic background.

NOTE: This article was also published on X.comX.com.

Of Blind Guides, Ditches, and Imbalanced Theology

December 6, 2024 / / 0 Comments

The Christian walk requires us to be ever-thoughtful about remaining on the narrow path. The slightest deviation from God’s prescribed direction for our lives can result in falling into ditches we should have clearly seen had we been paying attention. Proverbs 4:25–27 tells us,

“Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.”

Solomon gives his son this warning to heed his sayings, the guidance that would keep him on the narrow path and free from evil. The Christian has all he needs to keep him on that path in the Scriptures, as Paul writes to Timothy saying,

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16–17)

To avoid the deep ditches that face us on our walk, we must be diligent students of the Word. We cannot approach this flippantly, looking for passages that we affirm our predispositions either. We need to have a fully orbed understanding of God’s commandments so that we might not misapply them and find ourselves deviating from His design for our lives.

In recent years, one such deviation that led into a deep chasm was the inclusion of Critical Race Theory (CRT) into evangelical churches. Attempting to co-opt Scripture’s teachings on justice, CRT adherents preached a gospel of grievance into the church. They demanded Christians recognize what they called “systemic oppression” of certain ethnic groups, which required a dismantling of “power structures” within the church and society. All of this was taught under the guise that God desired justice in His world and that it could only be accomplished by elevating those oppressed ethnic groups while tearing down others. It was a grievous misuse of Scripture, which purposely ignored the Bible’s use of justice (primarily applied to God’s judgment of sinners for their own wickedness) and redefined it with Marxist ideals of monetary and power redistributions in mind. In refusing to read and apply Scripture accurately, CRT proponents led themselves and their followers into a ditch. There was no gospel, no forgiveness of sins, and no joy in the grace of God. Only a perpetual treadmill of victimhood and guilt from which no person could ever be freed.

One might find such a misuse of Scripture easy to identify because the socio-political agenda behind it all runs counter to our own ideals. We can recognize how oppression, which God hates, has been altered to fit the presupposition that ethnicity is the defining characteristic of who is the oppressed and the oppressor. When one party wholly subscribes to an ideology that is so characteristically different from our own, pointing out their sin of changing God’s Word to fit their agenda feels like child’s play. But what about when the ideologies are more akin to our own? Are we so quick to see the ditch for what it is? Or will we fall in line, ignoring the dangers ahead? Unfortunately, some persons within the Reformed camp of Christian theology have not only ignored the warning signs but have led a host of their followers into a ditch of their own making.

The gospel of grievance is not solely owned by the Marxist-driven CRT movement. Today, ostensibly Reformed pastors and social media influencers are preaching a message that white, male, patriarchal Christians are an oppressed group that must rise up and seize the reins of power in our current culture. Unquestionably, they have recognized that our culture is awash in moral depravity. The proliferation of sexual immorality, infant murder in the womb, child mutilation in conjunction with gender confusion hysteria, and more is a real and present danger. Furthermore, the powers that be have made it their goal to isolate certain ethnicities, genders, and ideologies as the scapegoat for all the world’s ills. If there is an “antichrist” in secularism, it is the white, male, conservative Christian. Secularists have made it their stated goal to denigrate and isolate them from any influence in culture. The question is not if these things be true but how then we should deal with the issue at hand.

Traditionally, the church has taught that the answer to a world drowning in sin is the proclamation of the gospel and discipleship of believers. Christians have recognized that, apart from the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, sinners cannot hope to please God. While we desire and work toward societies that do not flaunt or celebrate sin, we know that hearts must be changed for nations to desire to obey God. And changed hearts can only come through the preaching of the gospel. It is a time-intensive, generational work that has impacted societies around the globe. Many cultural transformations occurred because faithful Christians preached the gospel to the lost and taught them to live in accordance with Scripture. However, as time passes, subsequent generations either are not discipled as they ought to be or reject the teachings of their progenitors, following their sinful hearts to do what is right in their own eyes. Today, we find ourselves at such a point, replaying in our day Scripture’s revelation of how Israel time and again fell into sin and depravity.

Within Reformed Christian circles, there is a desire to achieve the end state of years of discipleship by instituting a Christian government by force. Rather than urging Christians and churches to be engaged in massive evangelistic efforts, they are calling for an immediate overturn of the current national governing system and implementation of Christian laws to be enforced by the church. They preach the grievances of how white Christian men have been maligned and emasculated by our culture and call for Christians to engage in sociopolitical activism to create a new form of nationalism. This may seem to be encouraging until examination of their professed ideology is compared with Scripture as a whole. When viewed in this light, it becomes apparent that there is an imbalance in their theological applications, something that must be righted lest well-meaning brethren continue to be led astray.

Some of the concerning issues revolve around issues of ethnic relations and gender roles. As noted above, there is no question that secular Marxist ideologues target white males today. In response, there have been calls by some professing Christians for white persons to find unity solely within their own ethnicity, claiming that nationalism requires ethnic solidarity as part of its foundation. Some have rebuffed any notion that, as Christians, we are to have closer ties to fellow Christians who have different ethnic backgrounds than unbelievers of the same skin color. While Scripture does recognize that distinct ethnicities are part of the makeup of the church (Rev. 7:9), those distinctions are ultimately irrelevant as part of our identity (Gal. 3:28–29). To call on Christians to establish a nation that focuses on ethnicity as part of our identity is to ignore the totality of Scripture.

When it comes to the roles of men and women, especially in the home, some professing Christians are strict adherents to a patriarchal system. It is clear from passages such as Ephesians 5:22–33 that wives and husbands have unique roles involving submission and authority. However, patriarchy, while biblical, is being stretched to bordering on oppression in the Christian home under their teachings. It is not uncommon for some persons to claim women should always be silent, never questioning their husbands, submitting to every whim (as long as it is not sinful by their definition), and elevate the husband’s authority as ultimate in the home. This is contradictory to passages such as Colossians 3:19, which says to not be harsh with one’s wife, and 1 Peter 3:7, which calls on husbands to live in an understanding way with their wives. Even Ephesians 5:25 describes having a self-sacrificing love for one’s wife. The attitude that any perceived dissension between a wife and husband is a direct result of feminism is nothing more than giving cover fire for blatant misuse of Scripture.

These are only a couple of examples of concerning, imbalanced beliefs within this nationalist framework. Yet, these alone should give every Christian cause for concern. While not every professing Christian who adheres to nationalist ideals is a false teacher driving professing believers astray, it is becoming clear that those enamored with this view are adopting similar strategies to the CRT-driven lunacy. And, in both cases, whether they be deliberately misleading or unintentionally misguided, they are falling off the path into deep, cavernous ditches. It is incumbent upon the Christian church to identify these nationalist teachings as a misuse and misapplication of Scripture. We must desire to do all that we can to teach Scripture in its full context and keep sound biblical truth from being distorted to advance agendas, regardless of any good intention, that will lead Christians off the narrow path. This has and will continue to offend the most vocal of its teachers and adherents. To that, all we can do is echo the words of Christ,

“Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Matt. 15:14).

 

This article was also published on X.com.

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