When opening a can of political and theological worms, as I did in my column yesterday about Israel’s claim to the Holy Land, one should expect a few to escape. While more than I expected did so, here’s a shot at putting a few of them back:
Joel hates Israel. Actually, I don’t. I think Israel is an important ally in the Mideast – decidedly better than Saudi Arabia. As the only democracy in the region, Israel is the closest thing to an outpost of freedom in the Mideast. Every other regime in the region is despotic and frequently despicable. As a Christian, I can practice my religion in Jerusalem much more freely than in Riyadh. Israel is also hated and despised, and I usually root for underdogs. Arabs with their massive landmass objecting to Israel’s little seaside sliver is like Texans begrudging citizens of some New Mexico border town their rock gardens.
What I said was that we need to carefully weigh the claims and actions of both Israelis and Palestinians and not unilaterally side one way or the other. This to me is simply prudent and judicious. Because of some Christians’ theology, we are frequently given to assume the unquestionable righteousness of the Israelis’ actions. I think such an assumption is unfounded.
At the same time, I think it’s clear from current events that if anyone is being wronged right now, it is largely the Israelis. It is, after all, hard to take seriously the disputes of people who send bomb-bedecked children to argue their case in public.
Strangely enough, I was accused of winking at this violence by one reader: “[H]e excused the Palestinian carnage – and then said he didn’t – insinuating that the Jews asked for it by not accepting the Messiah.” Not only is this wrong – I actually said Palestinian aggressors should be stopped, even killed – it also leads directly to the next misunderstanding:
Joel hates Jews. Not since I last checked. What I was trying to say in the column was simply that the promise of the Holy Land was not unconditional. To show this, I pointed to Deuteronomy 28, when Moses advised the people to follow the law of God or risk his judgments – one of which was being booted off the land.
This is the sense in which I said it was conditional – not in the sense that God will not eventually restore Israel (as I think he will), only that he hasn’t now, as evidenced by Israel’s continued lack of covenant-keeping with God. I here quoted a representative of Neturei Karta, something to which many readers objected.
“Nuts,” one guy called the Orthodox group; another compared them to white separatists. I have no stock in defending the group; I quoted Rabbi Schwartz because of the affirmation of the covenantal nature of the exile and promised land. Seeing as how the group is not representative of Orthodox opinion, I’ll concede the point. Score one for the visiting team.
I don’t think, however, that this undermines the argument. My point was that until the Jews repent, they will be in exile. Making sure to cover my Christian bases – far more successfully than my Orthodox Jewish ones – I quoted respected theologian John Piper to this effect; this seems to square with God’s warning of expulsion from the Holy Land and the promise of return.
I wasn’t, I should point out, emphatic about it. I even said that dispensationalists “maybe” are correct. Either way, this “covenantal tension,” as Daniel J. Lewis calls it, of an agreement with God that is everlasting but with stipulations shouldn’t be overlooked, as it often seems to be.
Joel still hates Jews. This comes from my assertion that the reason the Jews are in this final Diaspora is because of their rejection of the Messiah, Yeshua. I didn’t, for those interested, concoct this idea on an upset stomach.
The tail end of Matthew 23 contains Christ’s lament that Jerusalem would not accept its Messiah; as such, its “house is left to you desolate” (Matt. 23:38). In the coming discourse Christ identifies the desolater as an army that would soon encircle the city (Luke 21:20, Matt. 24:15). Indeed, some 40 years later Romans did besiege Jerusalem and destroy it, killing or scattering the inhabitants.
Jews and some Christians disagree with me on this. Fair enough. The point, as I see it, is that until Jews come to accept their Messiah, they are out of covenant with God and, scripturally speaking, have no divine claim to the land.
One reader called this the “Christian perfidy,” which allowed Christians to persecute Jews. Not so. Israel’s rejection of the promised Messiah, writes Piper, “does not mean that other nations have the right to molest her. She still has human rights among nations when she has no divine right. Nations that gloated over her divine discipline were punished by God (Isaiah 10:5-13).”
I may be wrong about this. Perhaps the presence of the Jews in the Holy Land today is preparatory for restoration. I don’t know – but one thing is clear now: Israel is an unbelieving nation. Saying so is no more hateful to Jews than their thinking that I’m unbelieving for following a false Messiah. It’s a profound difference of faith and opinion, certainly, but it’s not hateful.
Joel smokes weed. This was my favorite. I get it a lot these days. It seems you can’t hold a detracting view in reactionary times without also being accused of smoking dope.
Sorry. A little pipe tobacco now and then, no marijuana. I quoted Piper saying much the same things I did; does he also smoke pot? I doubt it – he’s a Baptist.
It does give me an idea, however: Maybe I should stick to writing about drugs.
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