If You Hate Jews…
Several progressive Christian-types weighed-in on social media (they always do; narcissism demands it) in the aftermath of the Pittsburgh synagogue mass killing. As usual, their words directed at the Jewish community ring hollow, at least for me.
There are also numerous examples of the Left’s absolute hatred for Trump and his supporters in this latest tragedy, inevitably used for political purposes.
Jonathan Merritt, a nasty guy when it comes to pushing his left-wing agenda through the evangelical community, tweeted on October 28:
“Read. This. Now.”
The article in question, another Washington Post hit piece, by left-wing writer Julia Ioffe, coldly used the victims as props, while bashing the President. Ioffe’s loathing of conservatives came out in bizarre minutiae like the following:
“After I published a profile of Trump’s third wife, Melania, that displeased her — and his supporters — the alt-right deluged me with anti-Semitic insults and imagery, culminating in clear death threats — such as an image of a Jew being shot execution-style or people ordering coffins in my name. When Trump was asked to condemn these attacks by his supporters, he said, ‘I don’t have a message’ for them.”
Did you catch that? Trump’s “third wife”? What an odd way to describe the First Lady. Nowhere would you find a conservative writer identifying a political opponent’s wife in that way.
And this is the same Julia Ioffe that was fired at Politico two years ago for posting a tweet about Trump and his daughter Ivanka that was so filthy, I wish I’d never read it. It was crude beyond belief.
On Monday of this week, she also claimed that Donald Trump has radicalized more people than ISIS. Her moral compass is at the bottom of the ocean.
Point being, these are the circles Jonathan Merritt runs in. Ioffe is Jewish, and runs in elitist circles. They use the murder of Jews as a prop. You will never hear Merritt lambast Hamas or the PLO for murdering Jews. That doesn’t fit his narrative, as he works regularly to peel-away evangelical support from Israel.
Ed Stetzer got in the game, too. On Monday he tweeted:
“This morning, in our time of devotion and prayer, our @BillyGrahamCtr team prayed for the Tree of Life Synagogue community and Jewish people worldwide. We stand with our Jewish friends and against anti-semitism.”
This is the same Stetzer that pals around with evangelical interfaith guru Bob Roberts Jr., and Eboo Patel, a Muslim Brotherhood operative welcomed into the Obama White House.
And then, of course, Southern Baptist don Russell Moore blessed us with his font of wisdom. In a piece posted at his own website (apart from the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission site), Moore pens his thoughts, with a curious title:
If You Hate Jews, You Hate Jesus
October 28, 2018
On the Jewish Sabbath this week, a white nationalist terrorist murdered eleven worshippers within Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, in what is being called the deadliest attack on Jewish people in American history. Sadly, in a time when it seems that every week brings more bloodshed and terror in this country, we should not let the news cycle move on without a sober reflection of what this attack means for us as Christians.
What this attack means for us as Christians?
As usual, Moore reveals both his inherent self-centeredness and his lack of true empathy for besieged Jews.
I maintain that Moore (and Merritt and Stetzer, etc.) is one of those evangelical leaders that doesn’t like ethnic Jews, especially Israelis. They do like what I call “Felt Board Jews.” Those are Bible characters that can be used to promote the “Israel of God” worldview that is in fact Replacement Theology. That is, the true “Israel of God” is the Church.
This week, I tweeted some things along this line and a friend replied to me that she had never ever met a Christian who hates Jews.
I’ve met many, many self-described Christians who hate Jews. Many. I’m not questioning her experiences, but I’ve had the opposite experience. I would go so far as to say Jew-hatred (or, the more benign “frostiness” or “dislike”) in the American Evangelical Community is a plague.
Beyond his disdain for the Jewish community, Moore took the opportunity in his blog post to bash conservative Christians:
“Such is especially true as we look out a world surging with resurgent ‘blood-and-soil’ ethno-nationalism, much of it anti-Semitic in nature. As Christians, we should have a clear message of rejection of every kind of bigotry and hatred, but we should especially note what anti-Semitism means for people who are followers of Jesus Christ. We should say clearly to anyone who would claim the name ‘Christian’ the following truth: If you hate Jews, you hate Jesus.”
His loathing of “nationalism” (but not the nationalism of jihadists in Iran, Iraq, etc.) comes out often, as he panders to progressive audiences. His sycophancy among leftists is unmatched, save perhaps for Stetzer, whose painful need for left-wing approval is uncomfortable to watch.
Moore continues co-opting the Jewish experience and forcing it into his Israel of God grid:
“Anti-Semitism is, by definition, a repudiation of Christianity as well as of Judaism. This ought to be obvious, but world history, even church history, shows us this is not the case. Christians reject anti-Semitism because we love Jesus.”
Russ, anti-Semitism is, has been, and will always be an attack on the Jewish people, exclusively. Conflating millennia of harassment of Jews with the Christian experience is one of the more odious things Moore engages in on a regular basis.
And, as Christians we reject anti-Semitism because we love Jesus? Can’t we reject anti-Semitism because we love Jews?
Keep in mind, too, that Moore has referred to Jesus as a “dark-skinned, Aramaic-speaking ‘foreigner.’”
When you have to drag “Jesus was a Jew” out of a guy, you kind of know how he feels about the Chosen People.
Further, in the above quote, Russ also jams-in his love for open borders, by his reference to the “foreigner.”
So in one fell swoop, Moore covered a lot of progressive territory.
There is another aspect of Moore’s perspective that is curious. He refers to the “German Christian Movement,” which pre-dated the rise of the Nazis. This movement sought to sanitize the Old Testament from church curriculum. I’ve written about it a lot, and find it curious Moore would refer to it, especially since he’s been silent on Andy Stanley’s wish to sanitize the OT from the American Church.
He ends by saying that if you hate Jews, you hate Jesus.
He is compelled to qualify his “Jewish support” with some aspect of Christianity. He can’t support Jews because they are God’s Chosen People.
In my view, he is a Replacement Theology guy, and everything is informed by that view.
Beware progressives who profess to care about the Jewish people.