JEWISH ANTI-CHRISTIANITY INTENSIFIES
AS CHRISTIANS IGNORE IT
By Harmony Grant
8 Feb 07
Attacks by Jewish activists on Christianity have never been bolder
in the US than this past year. Some Jews themselves state this fact,
such as Rabbi Daniel Lapin, who warns of his liberal brethren’s
onslaught against Christianity. Zef Chafets, Jewish journalist and
author of A Match Made in Heaven, recently offered a warning, too.
He wrote a Christian-friendly rebuttal to Abe Foxman’s scathing
critique of the church in Time online.
“In early November 2005, the Prime Minister of Iran stated
his intention to wipe Israel off the map,” writes Chafets. “At
almost exactly the same time, leaders of the American Jewish community
declared war on the Christian Right.”
Chafets cites the hostility of Foxman, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, and Rabbi
James Rudin of the American Jewish Committee, who all shrilly attack
Christians’ political efforts as a supremacist threat. “Never
before in U.S. history had Jewish leaders shown such bold hostility
toward Evangelical Christians, the largest Protestant community in
America and, by most measures, the most philo-Semitic and pro-Israel,” writes
Chafets.
Thanks to evangelical support of Bush and the Iraq war, evangelicals
have been at a political disadvantage. Jews like Foxman seized this
disadvantage as an opportunity to attack—even though it was
Zionist influence on our foreign policy that got Bush in this mess
in the first place!
A long string of books and national articles this past year decry
Christian “supremacists.” One of the latest is The
Baptizing of America by Rabbi James Rudin, who claims the most urgent threat
facing America is the religious right. As noted in a previous article,
(See, Open Season on Every Religion but
One) Rudin’s book just
adds to the list of at least 21 major books or national articles
published in 2006 attacking the Christian right.
Jewish leaders like Rudin can hardly even muster up thanks for
the massive evangelical support of Israel. Last October, a rabbis’ listserv
hosted debate about whether rabbis should attend John Hagee’s “Night
to Honor Israel” or similar events across the nation. Rabbis
say they wouldn’t deign to show up; evangelical motives are
not to be trusted. Hagee promises not to witness to Jews (shame on
him!) but other Christians might. Besides, the rabbis complain, Christian
eschatology winds up with Jews having to convert to Christ, a prospect
that horrifies religious Jews more than any other.
Is there any substance to the charge of Christian supremacism?
Hardly. In his rebuttal of Foxman, Chafets correctly notes that the
charge is both alarmist and incorrect. Christians don’t want
a theocracy. “Evangelicals have an agenda,” says Chafets, “but
it is largely the restoration of moral and ethical standards that
have typified the U.S. since its inception but have been neglected
in the last half century. You may disagree with this agenda, but
it is not theocratic.”
Wake up, we’re having a fight!
Even though Foxman and other Jews attack so boldly, most evangelicals
won’t acknowledge Jewish attacks on them and their political
freedom. The church at large continues to lavish Israel and American
Zionists with material and spiritual support. The rabbis who criticize
Hagee and refuse to show up for his “Night to Honor Israel” show
more clarity than most Christian pastors; they are openly aware of
the antagonism between true Christianity and their own humanist,
globalist, Christ-rejecting agenda. They recognize the gulf that
stretches in America between Christian morality and motives and the
Jewish liberal social agenda.
If you don’t think this gulf exists, browse www.jewsonfirst.org.
This website openly displays Jewish hatred of Christianity and Christian
expression. With the tagline, “Defending the First Amendment
against the Christian Right,” the JewsOnFirst site showcases
Jewish efforts to silence Christian expression in America.
The site boasts, for instance, of Jewish activist Rabbi Cheryl
Rosenstein’s attempts to force Kern High School District in
Bakersfield to change the names of school breaks from “Christmas” and “Easter” back
to “winter” and “spring.” The site approvingly
reviews Rabbi Rudin’s previously mentioned book, The
Baptizing of America, with its hand-wringing assessment of the looming “Christocracy” that
will shred our freedoms if the “religious right” isn’t
squelched. Rudin says Christians are taking over in the bedroom (censuring
homosexuality), the schoolroom (questioning Darwin), the courtroom
(“Christocratic takeover of the judiciary”) and “the
newsroom, with its thousands of Christian broadcasts…”
I wish America really was that Christian-dominated. It’s
not, of course. The intelligent design movement, for instance, is
finally getting a tiny toehold of reason in an avalanche of Darwinian
mythology held up as unquestionable truth for the past century. Christocrats
are running the classroom? Yeah, right. Even a small sticker on the
front of a Darwinian textbook—a sticker that encouraged high
schoolers to look critically at the theory—was stripped from
the books. This is just one example. I’m not even going to
get into that ridiculous claim about Christians dominating the “newsroom!”
But JewsOnFirst demonstrates a ferocious allergy to any kind of
Christian expression. This is the same hatred shown by the Anti-Defamation
League whose “anti-hate” laws should really just be called “anti-Christ” laws.
Such laws have been used in Canada to warn pastors against quoting
from Scripture in public and to stifle Christian, conservative expression
wherever they have been enacted. (See, Philadelphia
pursues "Hate
Crimes" Charges Against Christians)
This Dog Ain’t Sleeping
For most evangelicals, Jewish rejection of Jesus Christ is the
sleeping dog they want to leave alone. But this dog isn’t asleep
at all. Modern Talmudic Judaism possesses a virulent hatred of Jesus
Christ and Christianity that is both awake and rabid in Israel and
in the United States.
This antagonism to Christianity is ancient. Israel Yuval, professor
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote the fascinating book,
Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews
and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (University of California Press, 2006).
Only available in English since last year, this controversial book
explodes the myth that modern Judaism is the mother religion of Christianity.
Instead, Yuval reveals, post-Calvary Judaism has been largely defined
by its interaction with Christianity.
Not the Judaism of the Old Testament, modern Mishnaic Judaism developed
alongside and in resistance to Christianity. Organized Jewry opposed
Christianity from the moment the high priests laid eyes on Christ.
The rabbis responsible for His death were not slow to persecute His
followers. The Talmud is woven with anti-Christ and anti-Christian
themes and stories.
Christians, now under vicious attacks by liberal Jews, need to
recognize that they only encourage their attackers by refusing to
acknowledge the basic antagonism of the Talmud. Instead of blessing
Jews with truth and godly rebuke, Christians have aligned themselves,
through unconditional support and material blessing, with the Christ-denying
state of Israel. Their tragically mistaken Zionism has led them away
from Christian fundamentals like justice, mercy, and evangelism (See,
To Pray or Not to Pray ... in Jesus'
Name).
Such Christians sincerely want to “bless” Israel as
the Bible commands. But they falsely believe that blessing another
person means giving them material goods and support for their actions.
In reality, Christ blessed others by speaking the whole truth in
love, calling for repentance and offering the riches of spiritual
salvation through faith. As His servants, true Christian “fundamentalists” preach
Christ and eternal life for all who repent from sin and trust wholly
in Him as Lord. We recognize the spiritual battle between those who
love Christ and those who hate Him and His will for this world.
As the brilliant Israeli Christian Israel Shamir has pointed out
in his book Pardres, among others, the conflict between Christianity
and Jews is not racial. The conflict is spiritual. Shamir believes
you can choose to be a Jew, and you should choose not to be—as
he has done. As he embraced Christ, Shamir became anti-Judaist, rejecting
the globalist anti-Christ ambitions of organized Jewry. Shamir’s
writing sings with tender love of Christ, Palestinians, and the Jewish
brethren he prays will see the Light. The Light is Christ.
This is the true answer. American Christians must open their eyes
to the cross they have scandalized—to the truth they have lost.
Christ is the Savior of all who come to Him in holy repentance. He
offers us spiritual salvation, not material goods. He came to buy
our souls at the cost of His own life, and we owe Him everything.
All people are defined by their response to this question, “What
do you say of Jesus, who is called Christ?” Jews who embrace
the Talmud are poisoned with hatred of Him. Christians who wish to
remain Christians must recognize this fact and defend their Savior
from the defamations pouring on His head. Otherwise, by “blessing” the
Jews, they will be “cursing” the One they call Lord.
