Zionism revisited

In Genesis 17 God tells Abraham, “You shall be the father of a multitude of nations”. I read that many times but that phrase "multitude of nations" really caught my attention recently. Two weeks ago the “Karen speaking” Burmese immigrants had a good bye party for one of their patriarchs who was moving to North Carolina to live with their daughter. The person bringing the mediation was a Burmese woman who came to US in the 90’s as a refugee,. She worked hard since then, even achieving the success of getting her PhD. Quoting this scripture she emphasized repeatedly that we are recipients of this promise to Abraham being one of the many nations who are blessed as children of God.

Instinctively we think that the promise to Abraham was to become “a great nation”, absorbing the political bias of our culture that this great nation must mean the Jewish people, the nation of Israel. Listening to our sister in Christ from Asia claim that she too is the recipient of this promise and a member of this multitude of nations highlighted for me once again how wrong our instincts are compared with what is written or rather what God would have us understand from what is written.

You can find the post in the archive I wrote in December of 2008, where I was grieving the attraction of “pop” theologies which divided the church into multitudes of factions in every generation following independent minded enterprising leaders creating peer group churches among young people. Central to this splintering has been an attraction to the fulfillment of Abraham’s promise that he was the father of “a great nation”, and the land of Israel was the fulfillment of this promise. God is active in fulfilling his promise and what was happening in the Middle East is the true indication that Jesus is coming very soon.

In my growing up serious Biblical scholars in our church quietly questioned this understanding. Certainly, they believed Christ was coming again, he would judge the world, and those who gave their lives to him as children of God would forever live with him in glory. To jump from this understanding to a complicated, violent clash of nations providing the necessary foundation for Jesus entry into this world to rule this world for 1000 years was just too far removed from character of Jesus for them to accept. But the tide of public opinion was too strong for our church leadership to take issue. To keep “the body” together our moderator of conference simply said he was a panmillianiallist, meaning everything will pan out all right. Most ministers simply avoided this issue.

Certainly I am not a biblical scholar so I had no opinion but I was troubled with the nationalistic spirit which came along with this dispensational premillianial view of prophesy. I was excited when I learned of the group called “Jews against Zionism” in the video I posted in that story. I learned there is this small group of orthodox Jews themselves who believe that they should not be engaged in the political struggle, taking and protecting a piece of land. They are a people of exile, a spiritual people, living among all nations as a people of compassion, service, and healing, and not a materialistic people fighting over a piece of land. They pray and protest actively for the speedy dismantlement of the state which has caused so much suffering.

Several months later in 2009 I traveled with a politically minded pastor to Israel and we visited with Arab Christians at the Bethlehem Bible School. Each person we visited my companion asked the same question, “But did not God give this land to the Jews?” Our American volunteer taxi driver from Texas responded. It’s really not that simple, describing the history of the area and theological understanding of Paul that the true Jew is one who accepts Jesus as the Messiah. The president of the collage explained that their history as Christians went back to the time of the disciples and the early church. They had at times been persecuted but most of the time lived in peace under the Romans, the Byzantines, Muslims under Mohammed, the “Christian Crusaders”, The Ottoman Turks, The Europeans, and today under the Israelis. He asked the pastor I traveled with; “Why do the American Christians so strongly support Israel in all their violence when 80 percent claim to be atheist? Does today's Israel represent the righteous nation of the Old Testament that God should bless?  Is Israel God's chosen with no moral requirements?  Our Arab taxi driver, who was the only one employed of his extended family, showed us his home that was scheduled to be taken and demolished to make room for additional illegal Jewish settlements. He answered this pastor’s question saying, He had no problem with the Jews, they have lived with the Jews for thousands of years with very few problems, but he did not understand why they would need to tear down his home.

Coming home I began to think we have a serious problem as an evangelical church. What does it mean to be a Jew? If it is biological then Arabs of Palestine have far more of Abraham’s DNA then any Jew from Europe. In fact many Russian and Eastern European Jews claim they converted to Judaism around the 8th century. My American Jewish friends think it is silly even to ask this question claiming we are all “free range chickens”. This past year it was posted that 1000 Christians converted to Judaism in order to claim land in the West Bank. It seems strange to me that I might qualify for some land in West Bank displacing people of generations if I converted to Judaism. Regarding the land as an everlasting promise, certainly the Early Church said the circumcision was not required of new believers even though that too was an everlasting requirement.

My traveling companion continued to say he “believes the Bible”. He could not let his feelings of pity or compassion get in the way of what God wanted to do in this world. God did all kinds of nasty things in the Old Testament bringing judgment on people. Since he is not God he cannot question what God is doing even today. Since God promised the Jews this land as an everlasting covenant certainly he will deliver even if a million Arab people need to be displaced.

I could not believe this horrific conviction where humanity is viewed as insignificant as ants meant to be stamped out. We had just visited some of the most beautiful persons on this earth expressing their desire to provide food for the hungry, dignity to the displaced, hope for those who experienced so much loss, and joy in the eternal despite circumstances. Why should our “good news” be such bad news for them. I knew something was really wrong here.

So I started to read some books. I first read Alex Awad’s book entitled Memories of his mother. He was born in Jerusalem east side. His father was killed attempting to get some food for his family of 6 children during the war of 48. His mother was a nurse who raised the family even sending him and his brother to Bible School here in the states. Both he and his brother returned to their people in Bethlehem starting first a Boys school which grew into a collage level Bible school. I loved this book as testimony of God’s grace, forgiveness in the midst or severe suffering. Today he is one of the teachers at the Bethlehem Bible School. I loved this book so much I ordered 3 additional copies.

Then my traveling companion gave me another book to read. He said he wanted to give me a book which would tell the other side of the story. It was entitled “Let my people go” by Tom Hess. I don’t believe he could have given me a worst book to read. I checked his website to see if Tom Hess was Christian because I could not know from the book as Jesus was not mentioned. The book was an attempt to scare Jewish people into a Jewish revival. The book was all about generating fear by describing the collapse of US. Escape while you can, sell your assets and bring them to Israel. He pleads “come to Israel” in the book comparing the 1 million who came from Russian to the 80,000 who came from US and asks why are American Jews so apathetic. The whole time I was reading this book I kept wondering if the apostle Paul would have written anything like this. Clearly not.

I then read Gary Burge’s book entitled “Whose Land whose promise?”. Gary is a teacher at Wheaton Collage which is known as an orthodox fundamentalistic type collage. Surprising Gary has spent 20 years studying the Middle East and has changed his views completely from that of his childhood. His book emphasizes the patriarchal covenants, the message of the prophets, the teaching of Jesus, and compares this message with real life situations as he has experienced them during his tenure in Israel. This book is a really hard book for a political partisan to read. Gary has a second book entitled “Jesus and the Land”. I gave this book to my traveling companion because it was totally theological with “no feelings”. It essentially demonstrates how the Land was central to God’s presence, protection, and provision to the Jewish people of the Old Testament. Jesus came as the fulfillment of prophesy but refused all temptations to occupy the land. Saying the time is coming when we won’t worship God in Jerusalem or Samaria but in spirit and in truth. Jesus said destroy this temple and he will raise it in three days teaching he himself is now God’s presence, protection and provision. In Paul’s letters the church becomes God’s presence, protection and provision. Gary treats the scripture with the highest respect. I was pleased my friend could not say Gary doesn’t believe the Bible, even stating he was glad to read where they were coming from.

Stephen Sizer wrote Zion’s Christian Soldiers published by Inter Varsity Press. Stephen Sizer’s book takes issue with the myths we have concocted to support Christian Zionism in a much more direct way. His argument is primarily from scripture exposing the hoops people need to jump through to claim the modern day Israel is a fulfillment of scripture.

Nelson Kraybill from the Mennonite Peace tradition wrote “Apocalypse and Allegiance”. He takes the book of Revelations with all its images and compares the images that John describes to the sculptures of the Roman empire. Many times we read the book of Revelations and it’s hard to understand. Kraybill’s book is really helpful as it reviews the history of the time. It is clear the audience knew that John’s use of Babylon was referring to Rome and the Beast is Caesar and worship of the beast is compared to the worship of the Lamb and the Lamb will live eternally. This worship of the Beast continues today in many countries and is especially relevant in the life of our Karen refugees as well as here in our own country. Even so come Lord Jesus.

So it is high time for the whole of the evangelical world to join with the Catholic church, Aramaic Church, the Orthodox Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the evangelicals of the Arab world, the Asian world, the African world and name Christian Zionism as "heresy". Heresy is a really strong word but that is what all of these groups believe, that zionism is an unbiblical nationalistic teaching contradicting everything Jesus said or represented. We want to say with the “Jews against Zionism” that we are a pilgrim people of compassion among all nations bringing hope, joy and peace to all we meet.