Why I don’t sing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’

Came upon this commentary while browsing recent news stories this morning.

quote…

By Mark Schloneger, CNN (Mark Schloneger is pastor of Springdale Mennonite Church in Waynesboro, Virginia) 

I choose to belong to a strange tribe. Goshen College, my alma mater, made national news this month when its board of directors decided that the “Star Spangled Banner” would not be played before athletic events. As could be expected, the decision was met with confusion and contempt.

Wasn’t this just another example of our traditional values being trampled by the unrelenting march of political correctness? What sort of ingrates object to our nation’s anthem, anyway? Fluffy-headed campus philosophers? Lazy latte-sipping liberals? The decision not to play the national anthem reversed last year’s decision to play it for the first time in Goshen College’s 116-year history. That, too, caught the media’s attention.

It also caused widespread concern and confusion among the college’s students, professors, alumni, supporters and, yes, donors – many of whom felt like playing the anthem compromised the college’s Christian values.

Goshen is a small school in northern Indiana that’s owned and operated as a ministry of Mennonite Church USA. I am a Goshen graduate, a longtime member of the Mennonite Church and the pastor of a Mennonite congregation. Mennonites live in countries all over the world. Though we speak many languages, have different ethnic origins, and express our faith in diverse ways, we all claim the Anabaptists in 16th century Europe as our spiritual ancestors.

The Anabaptists agreed with most of the ideas of the Protestant Reformation but felt that reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin didn’t go far enough. Anabaptists rejected the practice of infant baptism, for instance, believing that water baptism should be reserved for believers who confess a faith in Jesus.

Because they understood the exercise of state power to be inconsistent with the church’s identity and mission, Anabaptists also advocated for the strict separation of church and state. This then-radical stance was prompted by both theology and necessity: Anabaptists had the distinct notoriety of being tortured and killed by both Catholics and Protestants wielding the power of the state against them.

Instead of compromising their core convictions about what it means to follow Jesus, thousands of Anabaptist men and women adhered to their freedom of conscience even as they were mocked by neighbors, burned at stakes and drowned in rivers.

Although there certainly are diverse viewpoints among individual Mennonites today, we continue to advocate for the strict separation of church and state. Most Mennonite churches do not have flags inside them, and many Mennonites are uncomfortable with the ritual embedded in the singing of the national anthem.

That’s because we recognize only one Christian nation, the church, the holy nation that is bound together by a living faith in Jesus rather than by man-made, blood-soaked borders.

To Mennonites, a living faith in Jesus means faithfully living the way of Jesus. Jesus called his disciples to love their enemies and he loved his enemies all the way to the cross and beyond. Following Jesus and the martyrs before us, we testify with our lives that freedom is not a right that is granted or defended with rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air. True freedom is given by God, and it is indeed not free. It comes with a cost, and it looks like a cross.

It’s a strange tribe to which I belong, and sometimes it’s hard to be strange. We struggle to be inclusive in our welcome yet passionate in our identity. Our desire for acceptance, for approval, is strong, and we don’t always live up to the convictions that we set before us.

We must repent of that, for the world cannot know of its brokenness and hopelessness without a people who show a holistic way of life. The world cannot know that there is an alternative to violence and war without a people of peace making peace. The world cannot know that the weak and the vulnerable are cared for by God without a people practicing an economy centered on sharing and mutual aid. The world cannot know the unsurpassable worth of human life without a people who consistently work to protect it – in the fetus, in the convict, in the immigrant, in the soldier, and in the enemy.

These convictions do not reflect ingratitude or hatred for our country. Rather, they reflect a deep love for the church and a passionate desire for the church to be the church. Mennonite beliefs and practices seem bizarre to some and offensive to others. But it’s life in this strange tribe that keeps me faithful to what I believe. I love my country, but I sing my loyalty and pledge my allegiance to Jesus alone.

My Faith: Why I don’t sing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ 

Contrasts: Judaism and Christianity

Interesting video,

Apparently the Jewish religion is not about God as much as it is about Jewish people according to this Rabbi that I watched on a cable program called “Judaism 101″. I wanted to comment on some of what he was talking about from a Christian perspective.

Churches asked to rededicate the nation to God

Tragically, Christians in America today are more concerned with the fruitless efforts of publicly “dedicating America to God”, then they are seeking God for ways in which to heed His command to, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel…Go ye therefore, and make disciples ”  (Mark 16, Matthew 28).  

ChristianPost,

Churches across the U.S. are being asked to rededicate the nation to God during their Sunday services on July 3.

Pastor Steven Andrew, author of “Making a Strong Christian Nation,” is inviting churches to participate in the national covenant prayer as an affirmation of God’s sovereignty over the U.S. and a reminder of the Founding Fathers.

Free resources have been made available by USA Christian Ministries, including a handout and church bulletin insert to enable the congregation to say the prayer together.

“We are encouraging all churches to include the covenant insert in their bulletins on Sunday, July 3,” said Andrew. “We also ask individuals and other patriotic groups like the Tea Party, homeschool groups and pro-life America to distribute the handout and to pray the covenant on July 4. “Pastors know that a national covenant with God brings God’s blessings, including God’s presence, protection and economic prosperity.” (full article at link)

 I get the impression many folks have never understood the spiritual transition from the ‘Moses’ train (old covenant) to the ‘Jesus’ train (new covenant).   

A Response…

A reader contacted me concerning a news article posted and I want to take the opportunity to address it here. The person’s concern was the fact the article was written by a journalist who is not saved, and for that reason (in their opinion) it should not have been posted on a Christian blog.

Was the article concerning bible doctrine? No, it was a current news item. Did the article contain lies? No again. It stated facts.

For these reasons, and in lieu of it presenting further information which tied into another recent topic/post, it was and still is, worthy enough to be shared.

Does this mean we are to go to the natural man for spiritual information or guidance? Paul gives us the answer in Corinthians 2:14,

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.

But it doesn’t mean the natural, unregenerated person (in this instance, a journalist) cannot offer truth on non-spiritual matters. Even Paul quoted Greek philosophers in Acts 17:28,

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, “For we are also his offspring”

And Paul quotes (and agrees with) a prophet among the unsaved circumcision in Titus 1:10-13,

For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, “the Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies”. This witness is true.

Here’s what I think. As there have been a number of news articles (I) considered important enough to post on this blog over the years, (from a number of news organizations both Christian and secular) without similar concerns from the one who contacted me, it’s more then likely it’s the contents of the article itself which has upset the person. For that, I have no solution.

Israel and the Church: (Part 5)

Part (1) – Part (2) – Part (3) – Part (4)

From Israel and the Church – Fulfillment of Promise by Adrian Birks

Part (5) – The Land 

The question of land is at the centre of theological debate concerning Israel and is one that carries with it significant consequences, both politically and missiologically. As we have already seen, views on this subject are quite polarised. On the one hand we have Zionists like Derek Prince claiming that “God attaches far more importance to [the land of Israel] than most of us imagine”57 and that “the land is given eternally to Israel.”58 At the other hand we have Stephen Sizer suggesting that “In the New Testament, the land, like an old wineskin, had served its purpose. It was, and remains, irrelevant to God’s ongoing redemptive purposes for the world.”59

So, what may we say about the land God promised to Abraham?

Firstly, there is no doubt that God promised a piece of land to Abraham and his descendants. Gen 15:18 says “On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites…”” and in 17:1-8 the covenant is confirmed “… I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”” This covenant is then repeated in 26:2-4 to Isaac “… to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father” and in 28:13-15 to Jacob “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring… Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” So, God promised a piece of land (albeit rather vaguely defined 60 ) to Abraham and his descendants.

Nonetheless it was always God’s land and Israel had no claim to the land apart from their walking with Him.

As God said to Moses “the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Lev 25:23). In this regard many rightly make the distinction between promise and possession. Although no conditions were initially attached to the promise of the land – it was purely on the basis of God’s sovereign grace – “entrance into the land was denied to those who lacked faith, and Moses himself was denied entrance because of Israel’s disobedience. Therefore, it is apparent that important conditions were attached to possessing the land. Just as faith and the obedience that flows from faith were necessary to enter the land, so faith and obedience are necessary to maintain possession of the land.”61

While recognising that possession of the land was conditional despite the promise being seemingly unconditional, we must at this point be clear: to even discuss whether modern Israel meets the OT conditions is to presume the promises retain at least an element of physical fulfilment. Nevertheless, it must be said that if the OT promises are being fulfilled in the modern state of Israel (and I do not believe this to be the case) it is highly questionable that modern secular Israel meets the requirements of faith and obedience and thus the promise of being vomited out of the land (Lev 18:28) would appear far more probable than continued possession.62

However, what is clear is that these conditions, imposed under Moses, do nothing to abrogate the original promises to Abraham and his descendants. Consequently the NT never suggests that the new covenant annuls the Abrahamic covenant, on the contrary it is repeatedly seen as its fulfillment. So, for Paul, Abraham is the father of “all those who believe” (in Jesus), both Jews and Gentiles (Rom 4:16) and those who “are Christ’s are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise” (Gal 3:7, 29) and so on.

The Abrahamic promises find their fulfillment in Christ and the new covenant he establishes. As stated earlier, while the new covenant supersedes the inadequate and obsolete Mosaic covenant, it is the ongoing fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. As a result, the issue is not whether the OT promises remain but how they are to be fulfilled.63 Thus, for those looking for a literal fulfillment it is naïve to say “We simply believe the Bible.”64 The issue is not that some believe the Bible when others do not! Rather the question is whether the promises are fulfilled in terms of land in the Middle East or (perhaps ‘and/or’) more widely in all the earth.

Beck, Hagee, and Lieberman Band Together to Fuel Armageddon Panic

Interesting article by Sarah Posner but no surprise here. Well maybe one, that Rick Perry’s name wasn’t included in the title. After all he now considers himself a “Prophet”. (See video: Rick Perry Suggests He’s A Prophet)

quote…

Piling on to Glenn Beck’s scheduled keynote speech to the upcoming Christians United for Israel conference, and his “Restoring Courage” rally in Jerusalem in August, CUFI founder John Hagee is hosting Beck for a conference call tomorrow so he can “address the mounting threats to Israel and what we can do to stand with Israel today.”

This comes on the heels of Sen. Joe Lieberman endorsement of Beck’s Jerusalem event. Lieberman once compared Hagee to Moses, “a man of God” who has become a “leader of a mighty multitude.”

The Beck-Hagee alliance dates back years, too, with Beck hosting the televangelist on his CNN program in 2007 to answer “honest questions” about whether “the apocalypse is almost upon us.” The Hagee-Beck-Lieberman series of stunts is aimed at two audiences: Israel hawks who want to derail whatever shreds remain of a peace process, and biblical literalists who view all these events through the prism of prophecy and the end of days.

The two camps, through the work of Hagee and others, have long been friends of convenience, to no good end for the Israelis and Palestinians, or, for that matter, the world.

Hagee is probably the world’s best known, most politically connected Christian Zionist. (He recently signed on to Rick Perry’s “solemn assembly” coming up in August, an event sandwiched between CUFI’s annual conference and Beck’s Jerusalem rally.) He also has a long track record of leaning on his devotion to biblical prophecy to reveal his conspiratorial thinking about Jews, Muslims, and Catholics.

Lieberman? In a word, it’s a shanda. He’s Exhibit A in What’s Wrong With the Christian Zionist-Jewish Political Alliance: Jews who lionize religious demagogues to put a “godly” imprimatur on their refusal to support an end to the occupation, all while acquiescing to the stoking of apocalyptic panic. Will he compare Beck to Moses, too?

Full article

Israel and the Church: (Part 4)

Part (1)  - Part (2) – Part (3)

 Israel and the Church – Fulfillment of Promise, by Adrian Birk  

Fulfillment Theology 

I have given the third position the title of fulfillment theology since it asserts that the promises of the Old Testament find their true and complete fulfillment in Christ and his Church.

A challenge for those holding to this position is that all are tarred with the brush of Replacement theology or what is sometimes termed supersessionism named after the idea that the church has superseded the nation of Israel as the people of God. 45 This challenge has been particularly acute since WWII largely because it is seen as the source of the church’s historical anti-Semitism and therefore, at least indirectly, the Holocaust.

However, we cannot dismiss anything that is not Zionism so easily. Firstly, we must be clear as to what actually constitutes anti-Semitism.

Surely it would be naive to suggest that all criticism of Israel is purely on the basis of race (or even theology) and has nothing to do with the actions of the Israeli government or their record on human rights issues? It seems that all too often Israel is still -considered simply as a victim and her occupation of Palestine and the oppression of Palestinian people, overlooked and ignored.

As the Jewish philosopher Asher Ginzberg wrote:

“Palestine is not an uninhabited land and can offer a home only to a very small portion of the Jews scattered throughout the world. Those who settle in Palestine must above all seek to win the friendship of the Palestinians, by approaching them courteously and with respect. But what do our brothers do? Precisely the opposite. They were slaves in the land of their exile, and suddenly they find themselves with unlimited freedom. This sudden change has aroused in them a tendency to despotism, which is what always happens when slaves come to power. They treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, rob them of their rights in a dishonest way, hurt them without reason and then pride themselves on such actions; and no one attacks this despicable and dangerous tendency.”46

Though this sounds remarkably contemporary, it was actually written in 1891, sixty years before the holocaust.

As Wagner concludes,

“it remains a mystery how Israel consistently violates legal instruments [in the Geneva Convention, 1949] designed to prevent many of the atrocities committed against Jews by the Nazis.”47

One could expound this point considerably, suffice to say we must be clear: not all criticism of Israel or Zionism should be considered anti-Semitic.

Moreover, it is irrational to argue that all forms of fulfillment theology should be dismissed simply because one form has in the past been misapplied and resulted in abuse. It is all too common for a crude or even false caricature of fulfillment theology to be held up as a straw man then knocked down by Zionists making sweeping criticisms of beliefs that few, if any, hold.48

For instance, Lance Lambert writes

“I most seriously question the view that this promise of God [of the land] has been canceled by the New Covenant. To me, it casts doubt upon the literal veracity of God’s word… I am confused when I am told that God did not mean [what he promised].”49 (Similarly, Driscoll and Breshears state) “Some Reformed theologians see Israel as having been replaced by the church… But that would mean that God reneges on his promises to the ethnic children of Abraham.”50

But who is actually suggesting that the OT promises are canceled by the new covenant or that God ‘reneges on his promises’? The typical language of non-Zionists regarding OT promises is not that of cancellation but of fulfillment. Similarly, it is too easy to assume that all non-Zionists believe that there is no continuity between Israel and the church and even that Gentiles have replaced Jews as the people of God. These are false accusations that do not do justice to the biblical scholarship underpinning alternative frameworks. So, in the same way that we must distinguish between classical and dispensational Zionists, the same courtesy must be extended in distinguishing between caricatured or even traditional replacement views and contemporary and more nuanced fulfillment theologies.

In his commentary on Romans 11, Douglas Moo points out,

 “The picture Paul sketches reveals the danger of the simple and popular notion that the church has ‘replaced’ Israel. For this formula misses the stress Paul places on the historical continuity in the people of God… Perhaps a better word to describe the movement from OT Israel to NT church is the same word that the NT often uses to denote such relationships: fulfillment.’”51

This sense of continuity between the testaments and the fulfillment of the promises is contrary to replacement theology 52 but is at the heart of what Sizer calls ‘covenantalism’ and which I have termed fulfillment theology.’ As Sizer says

“It is not that the church has replaced Israel. Rather, in the new covenant church, God has fulfilled the promises originally made to the old covenant church.”53

To my mind, David Bosch is very helpful at this point:

“Paul never surrenders the continuity of God’s story with Israel. The church cannot be the people of God without its linkage to Israel… The gospel means the extension of the promise beyond Israel, not the displacement of Israel by a church made up of gentiles. Paul therefore never explicitly says that the church is the “new Israel”, as becomes customary from the second century onward, for instance in the writings of Barnabus and Justin Martyr. Indeed, the church is not a new Israel, “but an enlarged Israel” (*Related: Klett’s excellent teaching, Not Replacement…Expansion!)

Moreover, as noted earlier, it is vital that we are clear about the nature of the various biblical covenants and in particular how they relate to the new covenant.

1960 – 2011: From John F. Kennedy to Politicians Today

In the midst of a hotly contested presidential election a little more than half a century ago, John Kennedy went to Houston to give the most important speech of his campaign. No Catholic ever had been elected to the White House, and the young Massachusetts senator chose a Protestant audience deep in the Bible belt — the Greater Houston Ministerial Assn. — as the venue in which to address the so-called religious issue. This is the heart of the case he put to the association and the nation:

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the president — should he be Catholic — how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him…. I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation, nor imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.”

If, as seems increasingly likely, Texas Gov. Rick Perry jumps into the current race for the Republican presidential nomination, Houston also will be the scene of a campaign event that demonstrates just how far we’ve descended from that day Kennedy spoke, and what the consequences of that descent are. Perry has summoned the country’s governors to join him on Aug. 6 in a national day of prayer and fasting sponsored by a fundamentalist, evangelical Protestant ministry.

When it comes to allies, Perry isn’t a bit shy about cultivating some of the more sinister right-wing culture warriors. His event’s website formally endorses the statement of faith of the Rev. Don Wildmon’s American Family Assn., which has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center…. In the late 1980s Wildmon, who is one of this event’s personal sponsors, was denounced as an anti-Semite by the president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the head of the Atlanta office of the Anti-Defamation League after he alleged that Jews controlled the film and television industries and consciously laced movies and TV programs with anti-Christian messages.

Perry is hardly the only GOP candidate to troll for votes in these murky waters. Virtually the entire Republican field went to Washington last weekend to court attendees at Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Conference. Sarah Palin, who has written that Kennedy was wrong in his speech, and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) both play up their evangelical connections. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum wears his conservative Catholicism so prominently on his sleeve that you’d think he was running for archbishop.

This is where all the recent years’ vague talk of “once again making a place for God in the public square” and a historical insistence that America was founded as a Christian nation have brought us. Public religiosity must inevitably assume a sectarian character because belief is such a necessarily particular experience.

In a society as diverse as ours, that is, as John Kennedy argued, a disaster:

“This year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed; in other years it has been — and may someday be again — a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you, until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril.”

From the LATimes, Old-time religion, today’s politics by Tim Rutten 

*Video: John F. Kennedy Houston Ministerial Association Speech 

Israel and the Church: (Part 3)

Part (1) – Part (2) Some interesting facts,

*Christian Zionism, through its active and public support for Jewish restoration to Palestine, predated the rise of Jewish Zionism by at least 60 years. 

*Its origins lie within 19th century British premillennial sectarianism. By the early 20th century it had become a predominantly American dispensational movement and pervasive within all main evangelical denominations.

*While the strategic value of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was a factor in British foreign policy during the 19th century, it became a feature of American foreign policy by the end of the 20th century.

*Conservative estimates suggest the Christian Zionism movement is at least 10 times larger then the Jewish Zionist movement and has become a dominant lobby within contemporary American politics.

*Underpinning Christian Zionism is a novel (new: not resembling anything formerly known or used) theological system based on an ultra-literal and futuristic reading of the Bible..and is essentially the product of early 19th century millennialist sectarianism. (Christian Zionism, Road-Map to Armageddon, chapter 4)  

Continuing from Adrian Birks paper, Israel and the Church – Fulfillment of Promise, in which he looks at Dispensational Zionism, Classical Zionism, and Fulfillment Theology.

Post – Holocaust Theologising  

With regard to Israel, two events in the 20th century have had colossal impact upon how the Jews are perceived as well as upon theological discussion: The atrocities of the Holocaust, and the establishing of the modern State of Israel.

Firstly, the Holocaust has impacted the church in that it has forced it to face up to the consequences of its historical anti-Semitism. David Holwerda says

“The haunting memory of the Holocaust looms large over every discussion and claim. Israel is now Israel-after-the-holocaust, and the contemporary church encounters modern Israel with a guilty conscience.

It is at times shocking to us to read statements by reputable Christian leaders of history who advocated hostility towards and persecution of the Jews. And while we must hesitate before judging those of a very different age to our own, we must surely distance ourselves from such comments. For instance,

John Chrysostom – “The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God there is no expiation possible, no indulgence or pardon. Christians may never cease vengeance, and the Jews must live in servitude forever. God always hated the Jews, and whoever has intercourse with Jews will be rejected on Judgement Day. It is incumbent upon all Christians to hate the Jews.”

Augustine – “The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver. The Jew can never spiritually understand the Scriptures and forever will bear the guilt for the death of Jesus because their fathers killed the Saviour.”

Thomas Aquinas – “It would be perfectly licit to hold the Jews, because of their crucifying the Lord, in perpetual servitude.”

Martin Luther –  “Set their synagogues on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no-one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it…

Not surprisingly, given such a history, “the cross is for the Jews not a symbol of redemption but a horrible sign of oppression” which, Holwerda continues, “complicates enormously any writing on the subject of Jesus and Israel.”6

We must not underestimate the impact the Holocaust has had upon the Jews and the increase in sympathy towards the Zionist cause, and therefore the corresponding determination in the Church to avoid all accusations of Anti-Semitism. As Sizer writes

“the fear of being accused of Anti-Semitism for challenging the Zionist agenda is enough to keep many evangelicals under their beds.”7

Nevertheless, we must recognise that the (possibly subconscious?) desire to alleviate the church’s “guilty conscience” is a very dangerous presupposition when forming doctrine.

This has not prevented some from suggesting that if Christians are to avoid anti-Semitism they must abandon traditional New Testament doctrines. For instance, the Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide, insists that the following 3 ‘errors’ must be rejected:

“that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, that he was rejected by the Jews, and that he in turn has repudiated them.”8

Holwerda claims that such reinterpretations of the Christian message “violate the boundaries of traditionally orthodox Christianity”9 and lest we think such ‘violations’ remain only in scholarly circles, John Hagee who features regularly on Christian TV, claims

“The Jews did not reject Jesus as their Messiah… There is not one verse of Scripture in the New Testament that says Jesus came to be the Messiah… [and] The Old Covenant is not dead.”10 (*related post: Jesus did not come to be the Messiah?)

The second event of the 20th century which has had huge effect upon theology concerning Israel was the establishing of the State of Israel in 1948. In 1917 the British Government issued the Balfour Declaration expressing support for ‘a national homeland for the Jewish people’, and after the First World War the British were given a mandate by the League of Nations to establish a Jewish state and administrate Palestine and Trans-Jordan for the benefit of all its inhabitants.12 Through the 1920’s and 1930’s there occurred violent clashes between Jews and Arabs resulting in Britain handing responsibility back to the UN (successor to the League of Nations) in 1947 who established the Partition Plan resulting in the State of Israel in 1948.

This event, and the occupation of Jerusalem in 1967, are seen by many as the fulfillment of the Old Testament promise to Abraham when God said

‘I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God’ (Gen 17:8).

So, David Brickner states

“I believe the modern day state of Israel is a miracle of God and a fulfillment of Bible prophecy.”13

The above (part 3) is short, but important. Understanding the (open) hostility projected toward Jews by a number of past Church leaders can help us to understand how Christians today can become susceptible to the false teachings surrounding Christian Zionism. Its guilt. But is guilt over the actions of others, actions we (the Church today) had no part in, enough reason to embrace doctrines which are dangerously unbiblical?  

Texas Gov. Rick Perry Partnering with New Apostolic Groups

Rachel Tabachnick has written an interesting article at Talk2Action. It may seem as though I post a-lot about this phenomena of politicians joining hands with these “prophetic/apostolic” groups, but in the past 2 years it’s been totally fascinating, for me personally, to watch develop. After all it was just 3 years ago that many of these same so-called apostles and their organizations were being discussed in relation to Todd Bentley’s Lakeland fiasco. I’ve never witnessed any group, made up of false prophets and/or apostles, go “main-stream” and so quickly be accepted as legitimate by elected officals. You must admit, its eerily fascinating. 

quote…

Another politician joins forces with the apostles. Texas Governor Rick Perry is leading an event in Houston on August 6 with the “apostolic and prophetic” movement, including leaders from Lou Engle’s “The Call,” Mike Bickle’s International House of Prayer, and the American Family Association…

The International House of Prayer (IHOP) is a growing worldwide movement led by Bickle, leader of a Kansas City-based 24/7 prayer in an effort to raise up a generation of young end time warriors.

The event in Houston on August 6 is advertised as The Response: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis and the organizers include: Luis and Jill Cataldo, on the staff of IHOP in Kansas City; Randy and Kelsey Bohlender with IHOP and The Call; Apostle Doug Stringer; Dave Silker of IHOP; leaders of the American Family Association; Jim Garlow, who headed the campaign for Proposition Eight and heads Newt Ginrich’s Renewing American Leadership; and several other Religious Right activists.

Rick Perry’s partnership with the apostles and prophets just prior to his possible announcement of a run for president, would appear to give credence to the warnings of several contributors to Talk2action about the growing political power of the New Apostolic “prayer warrior” networks. The New Apostolic Reformation is where the anti-gay, anti-abortion, and Christian Zionist networks converge with an aggressive form of Christian “dominionism,” or the belief that Christians must take control over society and government. (*See, The Coalescing of the Christian Right with Apostolic Dominionism) 

This network began as part of the campaign in the 1980s and 1990s to evangelize the world prior to the year 2000. One of the major leaders of this mission effort was C. Peter Wagner, [Video] a thirty-year professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary. He left that position to continue these efforts under the banner of the New Apostolic Reformation, moving to Colorado Springs to work with Ted Haggard to develop the World Prayer Center. Haggard wrote that that in 1999 their outreach included 40,000,000 participants worldwide.

Since that time, leading Apostles Dutch Sheets, Chuck Pierce, Cindy Jacobs, and others, have developed a fifty-state communications and mobilization network of “prayer warriors.” Under the leadership of Apostle Ed Silvoso, head of the International Transformation Network, the prayer warrior networks in some American cities are now divided into precincts, with one person assigned specifically to each street – a political organizers dream.

Politicians competing for the support of this prayer warrior network prior to the presidential primaries include Sarah Palin, who has an over twenty-year relationship with Alaskan Apostle Mary Glazier; Newt Gingrich, who was anointed by Lou Engle on an internationally televised broadcast in 2009; Michelle Bachman, Rick Santorum, and now, apparently, Rick Perry….

Engle is one of the co-founders with Che Ahn of Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, but Engle is now based in Kansas City, with Mike Bickle’s IHOP. Ahn now heads the Wagner Leadership Institute, which provides New Apostolic training in prophecy, Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare, and demon deliverance, in training centers across the world. (See video of Che Ahn introducing prophecy by Apostle Stacey Campbell at the anointing ceremony of faith-healer Todd Bentley.)

The Kansas City IHOP is the model for “Harp and Bowl” or 24/7 prayer groups that are now found across the country. The movement, founded by Mike Bickle, is directed toward youth. Bickle is the former leader of the Kansas City Metro Christian Fellowship, a group of charismatic apostles and prophets which was often referred to as the Kansas City Prophets. In the 1980s and 1990s, this group was controversial, even among other independent charismatic groups, but today their unique brand of theology is appealing to millions.

The IHOP prayer centers are modeled after Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf’s community in Herrnhut, Germany in the 18th century. Today’s prayer warriors in the apostolic and prophetic movement view Zinzendorf as the father of modern missions.

There is much more…You can read the complete article here, Texas Gov. Rick Perry Partnering with New Apostolic Groups for Houston “Call to Prayer”.

In case you don’t have time to pour over the complete article, I want to post the author’s closing thoughts, 

If readers are tempted to laugh or snicker at groups forming 24/7 prayer vigils to protect the interstates of America or hold ceremonies divorcing Baal, please think again. The apostles and prophets have become a major force in American politics and both Republican and Democratic political candidates are rushing to curry their favor. They will undoubtedly play a role in the selection of the Republican candidate for president. Despite the clearly demonstrated influence of the apostles and prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation in today’s Religious Right leadership and in political organizing, most mainstream press has failed to cover this movement. One can expect that the press will probably also overlook the significance of Governor Rick Perry’s new partnership with the apostles.

“The church in America continues to bring water buckets to a fire…..”

Rick Frueh has written a very good piece; one which is surely needed as we gear up to watch the coming political circus. 

quote…

This weekend saw a gathering of evangelical leaders and presidential hopefuls. The men and women were “courting” the religious right in hopes of eliciting their votes next year. The main issues were abortion, gay marriage, national security, and the economy. I completely understand the entire political procession and all the temporal accoutrements that accompany such spectacles. Humanism demands the abilities and power of man, usually leveraged by force, or in this case, the gathering of numerical supremacy. That is exactly what the humanistic Greeks thought when they instituted democracy.

But what I cannot understand is why people who know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and who profess to believe He is the only way to eternal life, can engage is such temporal things and in so doing mask the gospel with moral ornaments and political dominance. The church in America continues to bring water buckets to a fire without realizing that the homeowner needs a new heart….

What shall it profit a man if he is on the right side of all the moral issues but loses his own soul?

Read the rest at Following Judah’s Lion, A Form of Great Compromise 

Israel and the Church: (Part 2)

Part 1: Dispensational Zionism

In part 2 the author takes a look at Classical Zionism,

While historic or classical pre-millennialism is distinctly non-dispensational and therefore does not draw such clear lines between Israel and the church, it maintains that the prophecies of the Old Testament remain in force for ethnic Israel today. Thus while acknowledging a partial and spiritual fulfillment of these promises in the church, it asserts that their literal claims will be fulfilled in ethnic Israel. Pawson writes,

“If the Jews are still ‘his people’, then the land must still be theirs. If ethnic Israel is still special, then territorial Israel is as well.”33

Whether ethnic Israel has a significant role to play this side of the millennium is unclear, since, according to Pawson, classical Zionism

“primarily associated the return of the Jews to the promised land with the past promises of God and only secondarily with his future promises.”34

On the nature of these ‘future promises’ Pawson does not expand.

Similarly, Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears consider ethnic Israel and the Church to be “different administering institutions of God’s one-kingdom purpose” but restrict the fulfilment of the OT promises to the millennium age and by Christian Jews rather than all ethnic Jews:

“The Old Testament prophecies of a national restoration of Israel… will be fulfilled by racially Jewish Christians in the Millennium.”35

Nonetheless, according to this position, following a considerable revival in Israel, Jews and Gentiles will take their place alongside each other in the millennial age when Christ will reign from Jerusalem over all the earth.

Pawson terms himself a ‘classical Zionist’ (in preference to Sizer’s label ‘covenantal Zionist’) because “it pre-dated the dispensational and partly because it is the version more characteristic of ‘traditional’ and ‘orthodox’ circles.”36

It is important to distinguish between dispensational and classical Zionists since, despite sharing some of the same conclusions, their frameworks are quite different and therefore cannot be considered as one. Furthermore, classical Zionists would consider themselves less fanatical, as Pawson laments:

“Pastors and clergy have frequently told me they would lend a more sympathetic ear to the Zionist case and cause, were it not for one or two ‘fanatics’ in their congregations (often, I have to add, of the female gender and sometimes, dare I say it, with stronger personalities than their husbands).”37

Enough said!

Classical Zionists affirm that both Jews and Gentiles are saved under the new Messianic covenant by faith in Christ and must take their place alongside each other in his church. As Pawson states,

“… the new covenant has established a new people of God, a new humanity… [in which] distinctions of race, gender and class [are] now irrelevant. This new people, constituted by faith in Christ, has superseded his ‘old’ people, who were constituted by flesh from Jacob, grandson of Abraham and later re-named ‘Israel’… It is difficult to avoid the word ‘replacement’ for this change, in spite of the facts that the link between them is Jesus the Jewish Messiah and many Jews were the nucleus of the new people.”38

In this regard classical Zionists have much in common with many non-Zionists. However, the main area of disagreement is whether and in what way modern ethnic Israel remains God’s chosen people and retains a divine claim to land in the Middle East. For instance, Jews for Jesus represent a typical Classical Zionist position when they state:

“We believe that Israel exists as a covenant people through whom God continues to accomplish his purposes and that the church is an elect people in accordance with the new covenant, comprising both Jews and Gentiles who acknowledge Jesus as Messiah and Redeemer.”39

Therefore, while not going so far as dispensationalists, classical Zionists maintain there are two distinct ‘people of God’; ethnic Israel and the church.

So, despite having said that the new people of God ‘supersede’ the old people of God’, Pawson claims,

“It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that God can and does have two peoples on earth at the present time – his church, made up of some Jews and more Gentiles, all of whom believe in Jesus, and his people ‘Israel’, still in an unbelieving state.”40

Not only so but they maintain their claim to the land as he continues,

“the promises of [Israel’s] return were only partially fulfilled after the first exile and their full actualisation will take place at the end of the second exile, which is happening in our own time.”41

Thus, the existence of the modern state of Israel is to be understood as the fulfillment of God’s promises and Israel has a divine right to the land ranging from the Euphrates to the Nile.

The challenge to both forms of Zionism has been led most recently in the UK by the Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer who asks,

“The most fundamental question Christian Zionists must answer is this: What difference did the coming of the kingdom of God in the person of Jesus Christ make to the traditional Jewish hopes and expectations concerning the land and people?”42

That is indeed a key question.

While classical Zionists accept that for salvation Jews must trust in Jesus, the coming of Jesus seems to have made little or no difference to the promises concerning the land. So, Sizer concludes that Classical Zionists,

“seem to be saying that the unconditional promise concerning the land was made exclusively with a racial group descended from Abraham and applies in perpetuity to his physical Jewish descendants apart from faith in Jesus Christ. And I can’t see that proven from scripture.”43

In fact, although they accept that aspects of the Abrahamic covenant are fulfilled in the church – it is believers in Jesus who are children of Abraham, and therefore it is they who will be ‘as numerous as the stars in the sky’ and it is through the church that ‘all families of the earth shall be blessed’ – they understand the aspect of ‘land’ purely in physical terms without reference to the NT condition of faith in Jesus as a requirement of inheriting Abraham’s promises.

Israel and the Church: (Part 1)

I’ve been doing a lot of reading this week on the topic of Israel, the Church, and Christian Zionism. One book in particular, Christian Zionism; Road – Map to Armageddon by Stephen Sizer, has been very interesting due not only to the author’s research but to the numerous quotes contained in the book from a number of Christian Zionists. Here are 3 picked at random, 

Because the jewish people does in some mysterious way bear God’s name and witness…Christianity was clearly not designed to replace Judaism, instead….there was a continuing covenant with the jewish people…Christians need to lean from observant jews.  (Dr. Margaret  Brearley, Jerusalem in Judaism and for Christian Zionists)

Trying to convert jews is a waste of time…jews already have a covenant with God that has never been replaced by Christianity. (John Hagee, Houston Chronicle, 30 April 1988)

The Church has sought to settle itself here; but it has no place on the earth . . [Though] making a most constructive parenthesis, it forms no part of the regular order of God’s earthly plans, but is merely an interruption of them to give a fuller character and meaning to the Jews. (John Nelson Darby, The character of office in the present dispensation)

(My intention is to include more quotes in part 2)

There have also been a number of articles I’ve read as well. Adrian Birks has written a paper, Israel and the Church – Fulfillment of Promise, in which he explores Dispensational Zionism, Classical Zionism, and Fulfillment Theology. If you are not already aware of the differences in the three perspectives, perhaps this small series will be of some benefit.

 Israel and the Church (Part 1)

…there is considerable diversity regarding the place of ethnic Israel in Christian theology. We will explore this diversity using the three categories of dispensational Zionism, classical Zionism, and Fulfilment Theology accepting that there is a range of views even under these headings. 

Dispensational Zionism

Dispensationalism as a system began in the UK with J.N. Darby in the 19th Century although was popularised in the US early in the 20th Century by Cyrus Scofield and his Reference Bible. Under this system there are seven ages or ‘dispensations’ where God relates to humanity in a different way after the previous way had failed. Thus concerning Israel and the Church, David Pawson explains “[the sixth age] is referred to as ‘the church age’ (from the first coming of Jesus to the second, and mainly gentile) and [the seventh age is] the ‘kingdom age’ (the thousand years of his ‘millennial’ reign, after his second coming and mainly Jewish.” He continues that “[Darby] made a division between Israel and the church. That is, he saw no continuity between the physical people of God (all Jewish) and the spiritual people of God (some Jews but mostly Gentiles). Believing their separateness would extend into eternity, when the Jews would inhabit the new earth and Christians the new heaven, he called them respectively God’s ‘earthly’ and ‘heavenly’ peoples.”15

Modern writers like John Hagee continue this idea drawing a parallel from the promise of Abraham:

the church is the stars in the sky and Israel is the sand on the shore, since “stars are heavenly, not earthly. They represent the church, spiritual Israel. The ‘sand of the shore’ on the other hand, is earthly and represents an earthly kingdom with a literal Jerusalem as the capital city. Both stars and sand exist at the same time, and neither ever replaces the other. Just so, the nation of Israel and spiritual Israel, the church, exist at the same time and do not replace each other.”16

(This interpretation is despite explicit Biblical evidence to the contrary! See Neh 9:23.)

This understanding of the millennial age, which follows the rapture of the church into heaven and when Jesus will reign on the earth from Jerusalem as King of the Jews, means that the unfulfilled prophecies of the Old Testament made to the ancient Israelites are interpreted quite literally and remain in force for their Jewish descendants today.

Such literal fulfillment is very apparent from the numerous Zionist writers who make bold and extremely dogmatic claims about OT prophecies being worked out in contemporary events. For instance, Derek Prince writes, concerning Jeremiah 16:15-16

‘I will send many fishermen … and afterward I will send for many hunters’: “All this was exactly fulfilled in the years following 1933. First, God sent ‘fishermen’… who warned the Jews of Germany… After that, in fulfilment of his prophetic warning, God released the ‘hunters’ – the Nazis.”18 And again of Isaiah 43:5-6 ‘… I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth’

Prince makes the claim that,

“[the ‘north’ is] the western half of the former Soviet Union [and the ‘south’ is] the eastern half of Africa. In the years since 1989 there has been a dramatic fulfillment of these particular prophecies. By the end of 1991, almost 400,000 Jews had returned to Israel from the former Soviet Union and 20,000 from Ethiopia.”19

Similarly Lance Lambert asserts that the promise in Ezekiel 36:8-9 ‘But you, O mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to my people Israel, for they will soon come home…. and you shall be tilled and sown’, has,

“come to pass in our own day: the Lord had spoken it and the Lord has done it” since “the land has been tilled again, and vineyards, orchards and gardens have once more been planted.” 20

Such speculative dogmatism is rife among dispensationalists who do not even qualify their assertions with a ‘might it be that this fulfills that’. Such authoritarian claims have done little to help the dialogue on Israel since to question their opinion is tantamount to heresy and anti-Semitism.21

This literal fulfillment of Scripture in ethnic Israel has resulted in Christian Zionists investing huge amounts of energy and finance into supporting Israel supposedly in order that they may speed the end of the age (and the battle of Armageddon!), the return of Christ and the new heavens and earth. Some of this support seems extremely misguided, if not downright foolish, and, as Sizer points out, could be a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”22 For instance, at the inaugural event of Christians United for Israel, and before four US Senators and the Israeli Ambassador to the US, John Hagee declared,

The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive attack against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West… a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which would lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and the Second Coming of Christ.”23   

Such talk is inflammatory to say the least and while it might please militant Jews, the alignment with the broader Zionist agenda is a substantial hindrance to the evangelisation of Arabic peoples. As David Wagner points out:

[through television and radio broadcasts] Christianity is projected into a predominantly Muslim world as a Western, Zionist religious movement rather than an indigenous Arab religious community that predates the arrival of Islam. When the identity of Christianity becomes that of a Western, Zionist fundamentalism, local Palestinian Christians (and other Middle Eastern Christians) find their identity and historic continuity under suspicion.”24 

Thus, extreme forms of Christian Zionism emphasize a particular understanding of OT prophecies and promises for Israel while riding roughshod over the great commission to ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations …’ (Mt 28:19)

In addition and perhaps most fundamentally, little or no allowance seems to be made by dispensationalists for how the NT reinterprets the OT which is surely a guiding hermeneutical principle for Christians.