Keeping Our Feet On the Ground

The Dangerous Folly of "Newspaper Exegesis"

We read once about a (fabled) US Naval Captain who enjoyed a stellar career.  In order to keep himself on track professionally, as it were, he used to keep a piece of paper in his cabin safe.  Every day he would get the paper out, read it, then return it.  It was later found out that upon the paper was written a simple message: "Right=Starboard; Left=Port"

Many of us have out grown the foolishness of what is known as "Dispensationalism", but in our late teenage years it was all the rage amongst "Bible-believing" Christians--ourselves included.  Once a year, lest we be tempted again, we get out a piece of paper recounting the number of times Dispensationalism had (wrongly) predicted the end of the world.  Then we replace it in the office safe for another 12 months--lest we forget. 

Historian Dwight Wilson summarized the never-ending litany of exploded claims concerning the "End times".

Ideological Curios, Part II

Israel, Palestinians and the Secular Left

We lament any crass, nationalist idolatry which intones, "My country, right or wrong". But it seems as though, when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the world is filled with ideologues who have fallen into just such an idolatry.  Amongst these groups it is "My Israel, right or wrong" or "My Palestinians, right or wrong".  In both these cases, beneath the surface lies a controlling ideology which frames either Israel or the Palestinians as all good or all bad.

In a previous post we discussed the flawed biblical theology of Dispensationalism which leads professing Christians to side with Israel, right or wrong.  More accurately, they rarely see any wrongs when it comes to Israel.  Ironically, this highly motivated stream of Christians are acutely aware of the depravity and secularity of the West, including their respective host countries, but are blind toward the same failings and evil coursing through Israel's veins.

A similar, but reverse blindness can be found amongst the secular Left in the West.  Peter Hitchens, who for many years deliberately walked in the pathways of the Left, explains:

Ideological Curios, Part I

Israel and the Dispensationalists

One of the great curios of our age is the ideology swirling around Israel and the Palestinians.  Amongst the chattering classes one can find those whose ideological position is that Israel is all bad, and the Palestinians all good.  Or the reverse can also be found: Palestinians all bad, Israel all good.  Neither position is anywhere near close to the truth.  In each and every case, the mutually contradictory positions fall out from a wider and deeper ideology.  It is the respective fundamental ideology which subsequently defines Israel or Palestine in certain ways.  If the ideology is aberrant, the views and positions taken on Israel and the Palestinians will be likewise aberrant and distorted.

The first aberrant ideology we will discuss is nestled within the Protestant churches--initially in non-conformist circles in the United Kingdom, but now particularly in the United States, but not exclusively so.  There is a school of biblical theology called Dispensationalism which interprets Old Testament prophecy in such a way that the Jewish people--who remain the chosen people of God--will return to the lands of ancient Israel and will rebuild the historical institutions of Judaism, namely the Temple and temple worship.

This return of the Jewish people to their ancient historical fastness is seen as a precursor to the eschatological return of Christ Himself, Who will then set up an earthly kingdom, with the present day Jerusalem as His seat of power.  This return of  Jews to the ancient land and the establishment of a nation-state is seen as a literal miracle, a spectacular fulfilment of biblical prophecy--something not seen ever since the restoration from Babylon in the fifth century BC.  The establishment of the nation state of Israel is seen as signifying the imminent return of Christ and the final eschatological battle of Armageddon.  This view happens to dovetail quite neatly with the ideology of secular Zionism, which sees the messianic promises of the Old Testament fulfilled in the modern nation state of Israel. 

Whilst this particular biblical theology of Dispensationalism has come under severe critique in the last forty years, leading many to reject it as contrary to the Scriptures, its influence lingers on in many churches.  Those who believe thus are naturally committed root and branch to the modern nation state of  Israel.  This particular biblical theology has been influential in the US Congress, leading many to support Israel through thick and thin--both materially and intellectually.  For the Dispensationalist, not to support Israel in this way would be tantamount to standing against the Lord Himself, risking eternal damnation. Much of the support for Israel amongst the conservative independents and the right-wing of the Republican party and the supporters of the Tea Party is influenced by latent Dispensational biblical theology.

Naturally, the secularists have few radar screens to detect religious or theological beliefs.  They interpret the "through thick and thin" support of Israel amongst the Right as unthinking idiocy and inveterate ignorance--which, they see, as typical of conservative and right wing folk in general. "They disagree with us and, therefore, are stupid and dumb."  (Consider the immediate "framing" of Sarah Palin when she came to national attention as an untutored rube, for example.  Palin is influenced by dispensational theology.)  Missing the theological and ideological rationale completely, the establishment Left see their pro-Israel conservative opponents as unthinking, irrational, and uneducated.  By so doing they rather confirm their own ignorance and the miasmic thickness of their own hide-bound cant.

Nevertheless, a repeated lacunae amongst Dispensational folk is their unwillingness to see Israel as it really is.  What this group will not see is that Israel is an irreligious nation by virtually every measure.  As Peter Hitchens observes:

. . . Israel is in almost all ways a secular state, founded by irreligious, socialist non-Jewish Jews and actively disliked as blasphemous by many of the most Orthodox Jews.  Its easily evaded marriage laws--one of the few religious things about its legal system--are misleadingly cited by critics as evidence that Israel is a theocracy, when it is nothing of the kind.  [Peter Hitchens, The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), p. 130.]

We recall meeting years ago with some very orthodox Jewish folk in Toronto who hated the nation state of Israel, believing it to be degenerately socialist, secular, and ungodly.  They would have nothing to do with it, and despite being immensely wealthy, refused to support the modern nation state of Israel financially or in any other way.  They, rather, devoted themselves to charitable work amongst the poor and dispossessed in Toronto--both Jew and Gentile alike.  That, they said, was the orthodox Jewish thing to do.

Thus, amongst the "Dispensationalists" and those influenced by their aberrant biblical theology, support for Israel is reflexive, unthinking and implacable.  Israel's promotion of homosexuality, abortion, sexual promiscuity, and every other evil--including the persecution of Christians in that land--are all overlooked and tolerated because of a deeper cause--namely, their belief in the imminent return of Christ to Israel and a false belief that the very existence of that nation is a spectacular fulfilment of biblical prophecy (as they see it).

The corollary is that the Dispensationalist Christians and those influenced by dispensationalist theology are likewise implacably opposed to Israel's enemies--the Palestinians, the Arabs, and the dispossessed.  To be fair, however, were these groups to accept the existence of Israel as a given and work to co-exist in peace, they would rejoice and do all that they could to assist the very same Palestinians and Arabs. (Dispensationalists, like most Christians, tend to be very generous.)

Remove the false under-girding theology of Dispensationalism, and its attendant pro-Israel ideology and one is left looking at Israel as it really is: a secular, pagan, Unbelieving, socialist, irreligious modern democratic state, replete with every kind of vice and iniquity.  Sort of like New Zealand, or Australia, or Canada, or . . .

The second aberrant ideology which controls attitudes to Israel--in this case, hostility--is the European (and increasingly US) secular Left.  We will canvass the ideological grounds of their implacable hostility toward Israel and their reflexive support for Palestinians and Islamism next.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

A Brief for Israel 

Culture and Politics - A Second Battle of Tours
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, 19 November 2012

Yesterday I tweeted this . . .

"If you read the escalating fighting in Israel with anything other than sympathy for Israel, then you need to turn the book right side up."

. . . and the responses I got indicated I needed to say something more. So here it is. A few qualifications first.

First, it is easy for folks to guess where a sentiment like this might be coming from, and unfortunately, to guess wrong. I am no kind of Zionist, and the motive force behind all dispensational support for Israel has been left entirely out of my intellectual and theological framework.

If you want to know the theological term for what I believe, I am a supercessionist -- the Church is Israel now, and is the lawful recipient of all God's promises to Abraham.

Duoglas Wilson's Letter From America

You Play the Hand You Hold

Culture and Politics - Politics
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, May 31, 2011

If you have any opinion at all about the Israeli/Palestinian situation in the Middle East, then your opinion, if implemented, could result in three possible outcomes. It could make things better, it could make things worse, or it could keep things pretty much as they are currently. Given the knife edge that everybody in that part of the world is walking along, the last option seems unlikely in the extreme. So let's go with better or worse.
This means we should be more than a little thoughtful before giving our input.