Germany's welcome to the refugees seems to go above and beyond the call of duty. What is driving it?

Europe is facing an unprecedented population influx of refugees and economic migrants. Increasingly, it is becoming a melting pot of race and culture as thousands flee to what they perceive to be a safe political and economic haven.

But what is the European Union? Is this increasingly uneasy grouping of nations a truly safe and welcoming haven for migrants? Perhaps the only common driver for governments and citizens (and migrants hoping to become citizens) is our relative economic security and a desire to live in peace, or at least the absence of war.

Is this increasingly uneasy grouping of nations a truly safe and welcoming haven for migrants?

Merkel's Faith

The country leading this federation has the worst track record when it comes to treatment of outsiders. Yet Germany is unquestionably Europe's leader and Angela Merkel its most influential premier, perhaps deservedly so. The former scientist with a doctorate in Physics is the daughter of a Lutheran pastor and has declared:

I am a member of the Evangelical Church. I believe in God, and religion is also my constant companion, and actually has been my entire life. I find it very liberating that as a Christian, one can make mistakes, that one knows there is something higher than just human beings, and that we are also called on to shape the world in responsibility for others. This is a framework for my life, which I consider very important.¹

Merkel may belong to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party but public declarations of personal faith are rarely uttered by German politicians. However, Merkel's biographer, Volker Resing, called her life story The Protestant,² illustrating the centrality of faith for the German Chancellor. He reveals that in 2009, when Angela Merkel and Barack Obama met in Dresden they sat together in quiet prayer in the Frauenkirche, an event most Germans remained unaware of because Merkel did not allow pictures.³

Germany may have the worst track record when it comes to treating outsiders, but it is unquestionably Europe's leader and Merkel is its most influential premier – perhaps deservedly.

Attitude to Refugees

In September, speaking at the University of Bern, Switzerland, the German Chancellor was asked about the "dangers of the Islamisation of Europe". In response, she encouraged Christians to embrace their identity: "I would like to see more people who have the courage to say 'I am a Christian believer'. And more people who have the courage to enter into a dialogue".

In Germany where, as in most of Europe, church attendance has declined, Merkel suggested people should go back to the "tradition of attending a church service now and then, and having some biblical foundations". She pointed out that many do not have an understanding of Christian concepts like Pentecost. She suggested that the debate about Islam and the identity of Europe, "could lead us to deal again with our own roots and to know them better."⁴

Angela Merkel, the daughter of a Lutheran pastor, has been encouraging church attendance and calling for Christians to embrace their identity.

Commenting on those who have responded with trepidation to the numbers entering Germany, she said, "Fear was never a good advisor" and "Cultures that are marked by fear will not conquer their future."⁵

The Sins of the Past

Some fear is surely healthy, such as fear of repeating the sins of the past. Merkel has always been quick to own up to German responsibility for the Holocaust. "The Shoah fills us Germans with shame. I bow before the victims. I bow before the survivors and before all those who helped them survive," she said in her address to the Israeli Knesset (parliament) in 2008. "The mass murder of six million Jews, carried out in the name of Germany, has brought indescribable suffering to the Jewish people, Europe and the entire world."⁶

However, anti-Semitism is on the rise in Germany once again. According to one report, "Scrawling swastikas on synagogues, Jew-baiting during demonstrations, desecration of Jewish cemeteries", are taking place today. Apparently, the word 'Jew' is once again an insult and bullying of Jewish schoolchildren comes from Arab children but mainly from those influenced by the far right.⁷

Is it this history and re-emergence of intolerance in sections of German society that is encouraging Angela Merkel to take the lead in the migrant crisis and allowing huge numbers to enter Germany? Germany needs migrant workers, but the scale of immigration surely far exceeds its need. Germany is expecting 800,000 to 1 million by the end of 2015 and its Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has said Germany can take 500,000 a year for several years.⁸

In welcoming so many refugees, is Merkel seizing the chance to show that Germany has repented for the Holocaust and its past intolerance towards outsiders?

Repentant Democracy?

In the face of what many in the Jewish community today are likening to the Jewish flight from Nazi Germany, is this former dictatorship proving itself to be the kindest-hearted democracy of all? Is Germany being given a second chance? Angela Merkel is perhaps seizing the opportunity to show that Germany has learnt the lessons of its history of intolerance and hatred towards the outsider.

It may be that this openness, directly from the seat of power, is a result of the various acts of repentance over Germany's responsibility for the Holocaust initiated by German Christians, such as the Protestant community of nuns known as the Evangelical Sisters of Mary.⁹

Opportunity for the Gospel

European Christians have struggled to take the gospel to the Muslim world, but that world is now coming to Europe and Germany in particular: the former graveyard of Europe is yielding new life and spiritual hope for a wave of ethnic and religious outsiders, as German churches open their buildings to refugees amid reports of mass conversions to Christianity.¹⁰

European Christians have struggled to take the gospel to the Muslim world, but now that world is coming to us.

The pastor of a Berlin church has seen his congregation at the evangelical Trinity Church grow from 150 to more than 600 in just two years, describing the number of conversions as a miracle. Some have raised the concern that these conversions are not genuine but are made in hope of increasing their chances of staying in the country. In Afghanistan and Iran conversion from Islam is a capital offence and so they trust that the German government would not send them back to certain death. However, Angela Merkel has said that Islam "belongs in Germany" and that conversion is no guarantee of asylum.¹¹

Fear or Faith?

Many also fear a stealth or soft jihad, a sleeper population of Muslim insurgents who will in time out grow their host population. However, should we not see the current crisis as a God given opportunity to bring the gospel to those whose national borders have kept them as spiritual prisoners? We need to ask ourselves if God is more interested in preserving our national borders or in the salvation of people groups.

Is God more interested in preserving national borders or in saving people?

In Britain, we too have opportunities to show kindness to refugees and migrants. Do we retreat in fear or welcome in faith? Britain and Europe have squandered their Christian inheritance, but we, the remnant Church, must rise to the challenge to bring comfort and hope to the stranger in our land. Our nation offers prosperity, political freedom and cessation of war, but the Church now has the opportunity to offer true freedom and peace.

References

1 Angela Merkel Believes in God. Dialogue International, 29 November 2012.

2 Resing, V, 2009. Angela Merkel: Die Protestantin. St Benno, Auflage.

3 Warner, M B. Merkel raises eyebrows by raising religion. Global Post, 27 November 2012.

4 'Courageous Christians with biblical foundations' needed, says Merkel. Evangelical Focus, 7 September 2015. 

5 Ibid.

6 Tom Chivers and agencies. Germany is 'filled with shame' over Nazi holocaust, Angela Merkel tells Israel. The Daily Telegraph, 18 March 2008.

7 Asche, C. Anti-Semitism Is On The Rise In German Schools. Huffington Post Germany, 3 April 2015.

8 Migrant crisis: Germany 'can take 500,000 asylum seekers a year'. BBC News, 8 September 2015.

9 See Faithful, G, 2014. Mothering the Fatherland: A Protestant Sisterhood Repents for the Holocaust. OUP.

10 Huggler, J. German churches open the doors to refugees under protection of ancient custom. The Daily Telegraph, 15 March 2015.

11 Taylor, F. Hundreds of Muslim Refugees convert to Christianity in German church. Christianity Today, 7 September 2015.

'Jacob's Tears', DVD documentary by Hatikvah Films (2015, 1 h 44 mins, available from the publisher for £15, or click here to stream immediately for £9.99)

How does one explain the 'why', 'what', 'where' and 'how' of the greatest catastrophe in Israel's national history (known as the Shoah in Hebrew), which took place less than 100 years ago in a highly civilised, cultured European country, during the twelve year reign of Hitler's Third Reich?

A DVD produced by Hatikvah Films, narrated by Peter Darg and Richard Climpson and presented by the late Lance Lambert, is a thought-provoking, arresting narrative of the Holocaust – presenting both Jewish and German viewpoints.

The Seeds of the Holocaust

The seeds of the Holocaust were planted in the German psyche well before World War II. During the 1930s, Hitler became the most successful politician of his era, uniting the Germans by blaming the Jews for the country's post-WWI political, economic and social woes. This created a climate for virulent anti-Semitism.

In 1930 after re-creating and enlarging 'the throne of Satan' (Rev 2:13), an ancient stone altar in Pergamum, as part of the new Nazi rally grounds in Nuremberg, Hitler used the enormous arena to accommodate the masses, who offered their adulation in raised-arm salutes to their Fuhrer. "Heil Hitler" means 'salvation comes from Hitler'.

This DVD by Hatikvah Films, presented by the late Lance Lambert, is a thought-provoking, arresting narrative of the Holocaust, presenting both Jewish and German viewpoints.

Sister Joela Kruger of the Evangelical Sisters of Mary explains the spiritual dynamic in Germany during that time. Hitler sought to eradicate the Christian witness there and to transfer the peoples' allegiance to himself - hence the conflict of the two crosses: the broken swastika and the true Cross of Jesus Christ.

Tragically the Church was silent, even after the horrific events of Kristellnacht on 9 November 1938. German Jews were set upon by the SS and SR, beaten, their homes attacked and looted and their synagogues burnt to the ground. Some brave Christian leaders - Dietrich Bonhoeffer amongst them - did speak out against Hitler, but NOT (significantly) against his treatment of the Jews.

Looking East

As the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Dachau became the hideous killing factories for European Jewry and other despised ethnic groups, Hitler turned his eyes towards Jerusalem. Being a prominent foreshadowing of anti-Christ, he allied himself with the Mufti of Jerusalem. Both men held an endlessly hostile attitude towards the Jewish people and they signed an agreement for the 'extermination' of the Jews.

By 1942, a German conquest of the Middle East seemed a distinct possibility. The British held the Mandate in Palestine (as it was then known) but the country was very vulnerable, completely surrounded by armed and dangerous enemies. The Germans were strategically placed to overcome the Allies but failed to capitalise on their advantage. The Allied victory at El Alamein secured the national homeland of the Jews – the land of Israel; many saw this as a victory by the finger of God.

Curses and Blessings

Many Germans today acknowledge that the Holocaust left a nation under a curse. Families have suffered generationally from the commitment of their forebears to the Third Reich. But praise God, those who come to Christ in repentance have the curse broken by Christ's work on the cross. What grace has been poured out to all sinners!

Is Germany cursed or blessed? Commentaries by Dr Harald Eckhert, Chairman of European Coalition for Israel and Dr Jurgen Buhler, Executive Director of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem are emotionally revealing. Some Germans have led the way into deep repentance for their nation's sins against the Jews. The late Basilea Schlink of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Darmstadt was a guiding light, leading the way. The nation has been rebuilt, is prospering and secure. Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that Germany owes its nationhood to the State of Israel. Both countries maintain a loyal, reliable and strong alliance. As Dr Eckhart asks with fear and trembling "can we as a nation match up to the grace that the Lord has poured out upon us?"

Some Germans have led the way into deep repentance for the nation's sins against the Jews, and God has poured out grace upon them. But anti-Semitism has not been entirely eradicated.

Sister Joela Kruger says that not all Germans are repentant. There is another form of anti-Semitism taking root there. It is opposition to the State of Israel. God's judgement has nevertheless been suspended to give Germany an opportunity to become a sheep nation (Matt 25:32). But he will have the last word.

DVD

I commend the DVD to all who have a desire to understand the role Germany played on the world stage during the 12 years of the Third Reich. The scenes and images on the DVD are familiar to some but traumatising for others - there is a warning about allowing children to watch it.

God Almighty does not change. He has said that whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, BUT whoever curses Israel will be cursed. Let us too, as a nation, take warning.

We have not learnt the lessons of the Holocaust: the Jewish community in the UK is more vulnerable than at any time since the Second World War.

We are launching Prophecy Today UK online on the first day of Passover, 4 April 2015. This date was chosen because Passover is foundational to biblical faith and prophetic understanding, and is an “appointed time” (in Hebrew, moed) in Scripture when God meets with his people.

Passover in 1945

Having chosen this date, we then realised its significance in European history. Seventy years ago on 4 April 1945, which also fell during ‘the Season of our Freedom’ (another name for Passover), the US Army liberated the Nazi death camp at Ohrdruf, Germany, part of the Buchenwald camp network.

Ohrdruf was the first concentration camp to be liberated by the US Army (Auschwitz in Poland having been liberated by the Russians on 27 January 1945). Among the American soldiers was 20-year-old Charlie Payne from Kansas, who later became the great uncle of President Barack Obama. Obama said that when his uncle returned home, "he just went up into the attic and he didn't leave the house for six months”.¹

Also overwhelmed was General Eisenhower, who wrote:

The things I saw beggar description…The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick…I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda.'²

The Allies realised the importance of documenting the German atrocities in film because they thought they would not be believed. As Churchill said, “no words can express the horror…of these frightful crimes”.³ Instead, the images captured by the Allied armies’ film units speak more loudly than words ever could.

In the 1945 film German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, produced by Sidney Bernstein (assisted by Alfred Hitchcock) for the British Ministry for Information, Richard Crossman’s elegiac script commented: “Unless the world learns the lessons these pictures teach, night will fall. But by God’s grace, we who live will learn.”

“Unless the world learns the lessons these pictures teach, night will fall. But by God’s grace, we who live will learn.” - German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, 1945

After the War, many Jews left the graveyard of Europe for the Promised Land. Shamefully, thousands were turned back by the British and were placed in camps in Cyprus and elsewhere. Others were returned to Germany to their horror.

There is speculation that the British government shelved Bernstein’s film so that pity for the Holocaust refugees would not fuel demand for a Jewish homeland in British-controlled territory.⁴ It took until January this year for Bernstein’s film to be shown in its entirety for the first time on British television.⁵ How different would government policy have been, had it been shown to a horrified public in 1945?

Have we learned the lessons of the Holocaust? Or, to echo Crossman’s haunting warning, is night falling? Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme last year, Sir Nicholas Winton, the “British Schindler” who organised the Czech Kinderstransport, said "I don't think we've learned anything...the world today is in a more dangerous situation than it has ever been."⁶

The rise of anti-Semitism in the UK and Europe

Anti-Semitic incidents in the UK reached an all-time high and escalated around Europe during the Gaza conflict in July-August 2014.

In Germany, molotov cocktails were lobbed into the Bergische synagogue in Wuppertal, which was previously destroyed on Kristallnacht. A Berlin imam, Abu Bilal Ismail, called on Allah to "destroy the Zionist Jews…Count them and kill them, to the very last one."⁷ In France, eight synagogues were attacked and one, in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, was firebombed by a 400-strong mob.⁸

In the UK, the Jewish community’s watchdog for anti-Semitism, the Community Security Trust, recorded 1,168 anti-Semitic incidents in 2014, more than twice as many as 2013.⁹

In London, October 2014, “Five girls from a Jewish secondary school were approached by a man at a London underground station who said: ‘Being Jewish is wrong. You are going to die if you carry on being Jewish’ and ‘I will kill you all after school.’ He grabbed one of the girls by the wrist and said: ‘Come with me and be a Christian’. She kicked him and ran away.”¹⁰

In Norfolk, July 2014, “A leaflet found among Israeli produce in a supermarket featured an image of the Israeli flag with the title ‘The flag of Zionist racist scum’. It read: ‘Deny the Holocaust? Of course there was a holocaust. What a pity Adolf and Co didn’t manage to finish the job properly!’”¹¹

Prejudice in the UK public

We cannot dismiss these incidents as the actions of extremists because prejudice against Jews is alive and well among the general public. The government’s Campaign Against Antisemitism found that nearly half of Britons thought at least one anti‑Semitic view presented to them was ‘definitely or probably true’.¹²

In its Annual Antisemitism Barometer 2015, published a week after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, it concludes:

Britain is at a tipping point: unless antisemitism is met with zero tolerance, it will continue to grow and British Jews may increasingly question their place in their own country.¹³

It also reported that:

Well over half of British Jews (58%) believe Jews may have no long-term future in Europe and "The Mayor of London’s office revealed that in July 2014, when fighting between Israel and Hamas peaked, the Metropolitan Police Service recorded its worst ever month for hate crime in London, 95% of which was antisemitic hate crime directly related to fighting between Israel and Hamas."¹⁴

In the media, Jews in Europe are consistently identified with and blamed for Israel’s actions. Reports describing Palestinians and “Jews” rather than Palestinians and “Israelis” in coverage of events in Israel have reinforced this perception. The Jewish people’s unique dual religious and ethnic identity crosses national boundaries and so anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are inextricably linked.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressing the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) commented on how anti-Semitism has been dressed in new clothes:

...in much of the western world, the old hatred has been translated into more sophisticated language for use in polite society. People who would never say they hate and blame the Jews for their own failings or the problems of the world instead declare their hatred of Israel and blame the only Jewish state for the problems of the Middle East.

He also said that while criticism of Israeli government policy is not anti-Semitic, criticism that targets only Israel while ignoring violence and oppression in its neighbours is unacceptable.¹⁵

This 'New Anti-semitism', as it is called, based on hatred of Israel’s nationhood (rather than religion or race), has been identified by a number of commentators from the 1960s onwards, including historian Leon Poliakov, who published From Anti-Zionism to Anti-Semitism (1969), and Holocaust survivor Jacques Givet, who used the term 'neo-antisemitism' about the Left’s anti-Zionism. Much has been written since about this phenomenon.^{16, 17}

The Church has fallen broadly into two camps: Christian Zionists (and supporters of Israel of various hues who dislike the term 'Christian Zionist'), and those who question Israel’s right to exist and are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians.

Paul Charles Merkley in Christian Attitudes towards the State of Israel¹⁸ says that Christian anti Zionism is in part due to the history of missions to the Middle East:

Beginning in the nineteenth century, Christian missionaries from the West – Protestant, Catholic and evangelical – sought the conversion of the Jews of Palestine for about a century, with only the most modest results. On the other hand, missionary efforts among the Arabs did win substantial conversions in the latter half of the nineteenth century and a modest number since. Not unreasonably, Church organizations have been much more open to the political aspirations of their clients than to those of their clients’ adversaries.

He also points out that anti-Zionism “provides respectable camouflage for hostility towards Jews and Judaism that cannot be admitted to oneself or others.” It allows Christians a platform among liberal and fashionable thinkers who condemn Israel as 'apartheid' and 'racist'. It also looks good for the Church to be seen as a champion of 'the oppressed'.¹⁹

Attacks on the increase since Paris and Copenhagen murders

The recent spike in anti-Semitic attacks has continued in the wake of the Paris and Copenhagen attacks, which have spawned a rash of UK incidents.

In Radio 4’s programme Anti-Semitism in the UK: Is it Growing?,²⁰ Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan, the national lead on Jewish communities for the Association of Chief Police officers, said that in January 2014 there were 28 anti-Semitic crimes, but this January there were 100. The increase was due to events in Paris inspiring copycat behaviour but also a greater desire to report such incidents.

Also interviewed on the programme was Mehmood Naqshbandi, who visits mosques around the country and advises government and police on Muslim matters. Asked how common Muslim animosity is towards Jewish communities, he said:

It’s a problem which is endemic in the Muslim community. It’s widespread; it covers generations. It is taken for granted when Muslims are talking to other Muslims, people don’t feel any obligation to hold back from expressing the kind of casual racist views about Jews and about the Jewish community that fits the nasty stereotypes of caricatures of Jewish behaviour, expectations of Jewish conduct and so on. It’s a deep-rooted problem, a problem which is not challenged.²¹

Conflicting analysis of Charlie Hebdo attack and other Islamist terror attacks

The Charlie Hebdo massacre in January 2015, including the related attack on a Jewish supermarket, has been blamed on the disaffection of French Muslim youth. If they were more integrated, better off, less marginalised in French society, these things would not happen.

Similarly, after an Islamist terror plot to kill Belgian police was foiled, Professor Peter Neumann of Kings College London (interviewed on Channel 4 news) said the cause was socio-economic. Disenfranchised young men on the margins of society were the problem with Belgium having the highest number of European fighters going to Syria and Iraq. Channel Four News anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy responded that this was a naive view and that there were also men involved in terror from well-off backgrounds.²²

The debate in the European Parliament on security in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting was no more illuminating. More heat than light was shed, with opinions sharply dividing over Muslim immigration.²³

The roots of anti-Semitism

Pundits and politicians do not know how to tackle Islamist terror because they do not fully understand its roots.

As well as the fierce jealousy for Muhammad which motivated the Charlie Hebdo massacre, anti-Zionism is a key reason for Islamist terror. Beneath that (often ill-concealed) is anti-Semitism. Journalists and politicians insist that you can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic, but the line is frequently crossed. What is certain is that Jews around the world are being identified with Israel and are consequently suffering prejudice and violence, in other words anti-Semitism.

Academics have debated the roots and causes of anti-Semitism to find a unifying factor: is it economic, social, religious, political? Today, Israel’s political actions are blamed. However, that cannot be the cause of anti-Semitism pre-1948 (the year the modern state of Israel was formed).

Anti-Semitism has morphed into different expressions through the ages, but always with one aim: the destruction of the Jewish people. Edward Flannery, in his classic study of anti-Semitism, The Anguish of the Jews,²⁴ concludes that the only unifying aspect of anti-Semitism is its spiritual nature.

Both the religious anti-Judaism of the Christian Church and modern racial anti-Semitism, epitomised by the Nazis, share a spiritual root: an unacknowledged hatred of Christ.

Flannery comments that scholars “have varyingly perceived in the hatred of the Jew an unconscious hatred of Christ, a rebellion against the Christian ‘yoke’ no longer found sweet (Matt 11:30); in a word, a Christophobia.”²⁵ Freud recognised it and said: “In its depths anti-Judaism is anti-Christianity.”²⁶

A number of prominent Nazis were brought up as Catholics: Himmler, Goebbels, Hoess and Hitler. In order to pursue their dream of unfettered German power, they had to throw off moral restraint and embrace a pagan view of man as master of his destiny. Christ and Christianity could serve the Reich but they had to be purged of their Jewish root: the Nazis sought to throw off the shackles of Judeo-Christian morality and return to a mythically powerful Aryan pagan past.

Flannery writes:

His [Hitler’s] genocidal decision against the Jewish people represented, again symbolically, the annihilation of his moral (Jewish-Christian) conscience, which stood in the way of his grandiose dream of a Thousand Year Reich founded on an apotheosis of the German Volk and of himself as its Fuehrer and Saviour.²⁷

In other words, the Nazis did not want simply to destroy the Jews; they wanted to be the Jews. They wanted to be the chosen people, to usurp their place. This usurping spirit is found in scripture. God’s Adversary is described in Isaiah 14:14 as one whose declared aim is, “I will make myself like the Most High.” This is the spirit of Anti-Christ:

He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. (2 Thess 2:4)

"The Nazis did not want simply to destroy the Jews; they wanted to be the Jews."

Flannery asserts that “anti-Semitism is at its deepest root a unified phenomenon and from all angles an anti-religious one”²⁸ which resides “in the deepest chambers of the spirit.”²⁹

The rebellion behind anti-Semitism

Nazism was a perfect storm combination of the legacy of Christian anti-Semitism and modern racial anti-Semitism.

It highlighted that not only Christophobia but nomophobia (from nomos, Greek for law), or fear of law (specifically God’s moral law epitomised in the Torah), are hallmarks of anti-Semitism. It was a revolt against the word and the Word made flesh (John 1:14).

In pre-war Germany, Nazi-sympathising theologians were keen to reposition the Bible and theology to accommodate National Socialist ideology, specifically by undermining the place of the Old Testament. In 1939, a group of German theologians established The Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life, aiming to de-Judaize the New Testament and present an Aryan Jesus.³⁰

This ultimate expression of replacement theology was fuelled by anti-Semitism, but rooted in the rebellion of men’s souls against their Creator and his established order. It was satanically inspired: the one who wishes to overthrow and usurp God’s throne is the one who wishes to destroy the Jewish people because by doing so, he will destroy the hope of the world, the Redeemer, who comes from Israel and to Israel.

"When we reject God’s people, we are rejecting God himself."

Rejection of God’s light and truth

A political satire from the 1960s has been revived in the West End. In The Ruling Class³¹ Jack, a fictional earl and paranoid schizophrenic, firstly imagines he is Christ and then Jack the Ripper. As Jesus, his message of peace and love is rejected as insanity. As Jack the Ripper, he takes his seat in the House of Lords with a fiery speech in favour of capital and corporal punishment. His colleagues applaud wildly (completely unaware the speech is the ranting of a lunatic), in contrast to society's reaction when he believed he was Christ.

The play was intended as an indictment of the establishment, but it also testifies that people are more comfortable with the darkness of sin, condemnation and punishment than with the light of Christ’s love, peace and grace. Man’s rebellious nature is so corrupt that it sees evil in good and good in evil.

The temptation for Adam and Eve was to become the arbiters of good and evil, to dethrone God’s judgement and become their own judges. The Torah, as God’s wisdom, is a “tree of life” to man (Prov 3:18), but it also is the means of our judgement and the harbinger of death to those who reject it (Rom 3:20 and 7:7-9).

We seek to destroy that which exposes and accuses us; Israel as the bearer and enacter of God's Law has paid the price for exposing it to the world and, by its light, exposing the world’s darkness.

The Torah was also the means of keeping Israel separate from other nations: a holy people (Ex 19:6). It prevented them from being assimilated. They had to remain separate in order to be worshippers of God, not idol-worshippers like every other nation, so they could be prepared to receive God himself.

This is why in Israel’s history the Adversary (in Hebrew, Satan) sought alternately either to undermine the Torah by enticing Israel away from God and his Word to make them like all the other nations, or to destroy Israel in order to prevent the coming of the Messiah. If your enemies cannot be assimilated, they must be annihilated and from the Amalekites to Haman, from Herod to Hitler, this murderous desire persists.

The Adversary did not succeed in destroying the Jewish people before the first advent of the Messiah – but he persists because that is only part one of the salvation story.
We await the second coming: Jesus’ promised return in power and glory to reign from Jerusalem over all the earth: “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

Jerusalem is fought over because it is the City to which Messiah will return. He will not find it empty or still being “trampled down by the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24). Instead, he will return to re-gathered Israel:

In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people. (Isa 11:10-11a)

He will redeem Israel and all who have joined with them by faith from among the Gentiles (Eph 2:11-22).

Anti-Semitism and the anti-Christ spirit

The world continually rejects Israel and the Jewish people because they reject God’s call to be joined with them through the Messiah. Through Israel’s particularity, the ‘narrow way’ of the kingdom (Matt 7:14), we are called to become “one new humanity” (Eph 2:15) in spiritual unity (not uniformity) which is the only true peace available to mankind.

However, by placing the Church centre stage in salvation history and declaring that she has superseded Israel in God’s plans and purposes, the majority of believers have failed to understand that the Church is not the main player on the stage of history.

Israel, both people and land, is still the subject of the salvation story because all God’s salvation promises were made to Israel and to those Gentiles who join with her, through her Messiah by faith.

Sadly, before Christian theology was re-assessed in the light of the Holocaust, the Church was the main instrument of Jewish persecution. However, Christians still remain largely unaware of the bleak history of Christian anti-Semitism and how the teaching that the Church has replaced Israel has contributed to it.

Inspiring 'Replacement theology' or supersessionism, the teaching that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s plans and purposes, is the same jealous, usurping spirit, the spirit of Anti-Christ, which aims to overthrow God's end-time plans (for a more in-depth analysis of Replacement theology, click here).

The same spirit is at work in Islamic teaching, which claims that Mohammed’s teachings supersede Judaism and Christianity. Rejected Ishmael jealously insists he was chosen, not his half-brother Isaac: my promises, my land!³² It is a triumphalist theology, unwilling to tolerate difference unless in submission to its rule.

Wherever the Holy Spirit is at work, the anti-Christ spirit, hallmarked by jealousy in man, is also at work. People of all faiths and all religious backgrounds have expressed it. Peace and harmony for mankind, but intolerance and jealousy of the Jewish people are hallmarks of religion of all kinds, including New Age spirituality (one of the main protagonists of the New Age movement, Alice Bailey (a former evangelical Christian³³), equated Judaism with “an evil cosmic energy called ‘The Jewish Force’, which must be eliminated in order for the Age of Aquarius to arrive fully”³⁴).

"Wherever the Holy Spirit is at work, the anti-Christ spirit, hallmarked by jealousy in man, is also at work."

The Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus were said to be jealous of him and that is why they handed him over to Pilate (Mark 15:10). This jealousy continued to be vented against his Jewish followers. In Acts 5:17-18:

Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.

In militant Islam, this jealous, usurping spirit finds violent, implacable expression. It is fuelled by an irrational spiritual jealousy that cannot be appeased (Prov 27:4). Only the Holy Spirit can withstand and conquer the spirit of anti-Christ and in turn counter it with a godly jealousy that cannot be withstood: “I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion” (Zech 1:14).

It is the God of Israel’s land, his city, the place where he has set his name:

In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever. (2 Chron 33:7)

I will put them on trial for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel, because they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land. (Joel 3:2)

The Church’s response

After 9/11, there was much talk of the ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and western secularism. This is not a battle of civilizations; it is a spiritual war. It must be fought with spiritual weapons.³⁵

Ordinary Muslims are shocked and outraged by extremists and many will be seeking answers; the Church must be prepared to explain, challenge and comfort. We must demonstrate that Christianity is an Eastern religion, which speaks to all peoples, and forms the lost and dwindling heritage of the peoples of the Middle East. We also need to show that Christianity is not a religion for the individual but for the community. Western enlightenment thinking is unappealing to Muslims with its focus on individual rights, because Middle Eastern cultures focus on community cohesion.

However, the Church has its own challenge: anti-Semitism is infecting the Church in the form of Christian anti-Zionism and it must also be addressed. In pre-war Germany, theologians were ready to distance themselves from the Old Testament and from a Jewish Jesus so that they could comfortably reject and persecute the Jewish people.

"Today's Church has appropriated God's promises to Israel and denied its role and place in God's end-time plan."

Today’s Church is dangerously misaligned too. We have appropriated God’s promises to Israel and denied the people and land of Israel their role and place in God’s end-time plan. This means we can comfortably distance ourselves from anti-Semitism because we can claim it is bound up with anti-Zionism. Jews have always been blamed for their own misfortunes and the fight for survival in their own nation is cited as the legitimate cause for Islamic violence.

However, land and people are inextricably linked in God’s schema: “I who set the heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the earth…say to Zion, 'You are my people.'" (Isa 51:16). Zion- land and people -are conflated in this verse illustrating that their destinies are linked: salvation for the Jewish people is connected to the land of promise. It is this very link between land and people that is expressed in the final form of anti-Semitism that is increasing and intensifying today: anti-Zionism.

If we say that Israel has no right to the land God promised them, that those rights were superseded, we are setting ourselves against God’s end time plans. It is his land and by his sovereign choice he has restored his people to it.

We are also denying God’s covenant faithfulness if we say that he has finished with Israel as a nation:

'Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,’ declares the Lord, ‘will Israel ever cease being a nation before me. Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel’ declares the LORD. (Jer 31:36-37)

In that same chapter, Jeremiah 31, God promises the New Covenant to Israel, including a Jerusalem that will never be uprooted or demolished (Jer 31:40). This is not a promise to the Church but to Israel. We are the adopted children, the invited guests, but we have arrogantly overrun the party.

Many are sleep-walking in the end times, accepting unquestioningly the world's political narrative that the conflict between Israel and Palestinians concerns a land which is no longer spiritually significant. This is not to say that Christians should uncritically support the Israeli state’s government and policies, but we must view them through the lens of Scripture, not the other way around. We must also still unstintingly love those who persecute us and God’s people Israel: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44).

"We must also still unstintingly love those who persecute us and God’s people Israel: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44)."

We must, though, reject the subtle Christian anti-Semitism which seeks to sever the link between the biblical land of Israel and its current prophetic significance.
Giulio Meotti writes:

The Presbyterian Church USA is considering banning the word “Israel” from its prayers. That anti-Semitic resolution was meant to ‘distinguish between the biblical terms that refer to the ancient land of Israel and the modern political State of Israel’.³⁶

It is imperative that Bible-believing Christians reject this replacement narrative and align with Israel and the Jewish community because the spiritual battle lines are already drawn.

The need for solidarity

A friend doing door-to-door outreach met a Jewish lady who thanked her for calling and commented that the time is coming when Jews and Christians will need to stand together.

That time is now.

The Jewish Chronicle launched a campaign for the government to pay for synagogue security.³⁷ Why should Christian volunteers not show their solidarity with the Jewish community by volunteering to guard synagogues during Saturday services?

After the shooting of a synagogue guard in Denmark, around 1,000 Muslims (5% of the Muslim population) in Norway formed a 'ring of peace' around a synagogue in Oslo.³⁸

Where are the Christian demonstrations of solidarity? We cannot retreat into our safe churches and relax because it is not us at risk. Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous words, written after being imprisoned by the Nazis, still resonate:

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

Dan Hodges in The Telegraph: “…as the Paris attacks proved, they are still coming for the Jews. In reality, they have never stopped coming for the Jews.”³⁹

The lesson from the Middle Eastern nations under Islamic State control is that since the Jews had already left, the Christians are next in their sights. If we withdraw from the Jewish community when they need our support, how can we dare pray for our own protection?

After the Paris terror attacks, some London schools cancelled Holocaust education trips to synagogues. Two rabbis from a Kingston synagogue commented that although the schools felt they were acting in the children’s interests:

...it marginalises the Jewish community to be the pariah within our society, not through active discrimination but through neglect…For us this marks a tipping point, not when Jews are concerned for their own safety but when others are scared of mere connection to our community.⁴⁰

It is time for the Church to stand unequivocally with the Jewish people in the name of their Messiah. The battle surrounding Israel is going to intensify and we cannot again stand by watching from a distance while the Jewish people are persecuted.

We cannot be people who, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, withdraw to a "the sanctuary of private virtuousness. Such people neither steal, nor murder, nor commit adultery, but do good according to their abilities. But in voluntarily renouncing public life, these people know exactly how to observe the permitted boundaries that shield them from conflict. They must close their eyes and ears to the injustice around them.”⁴¹

The rise of anti-Semitism in Europe indicates that we have not learned from history and the rise of Islamist terror as the frontline jihad of raging anti-Semitism masked as anti-Zionism suggests that night is falling.

As the day darkens, as night falls, we must shine ever more brightly with the light of Christ until the daystar dawns (2 Pet 1:19).

References

1 Medoff, R. Death camp liberated Pesach 1945, Israel National News, 31 March 2010

2 Ohrdruf Concentration Camp, Wikipedia.

3 Speech in the House of Commons, 17 April 1945. Churchill, W (grandson), 2003. Never Give In!: Winston Churchill’s Speeches, London: Bloomsbury.

4 Lynette Singer (writer) on ‘Holocaust: Night Will Fall’, documentary broadcast on Channel 4, 29 January 2015.

5 Ibid.

6 Sir Nicholas Winton: I've made a difference. BBC Radio 4, broadcast 28 October 2014.

7 Henley, J. Antisemitism on rise across Europe 'in worst times since the Nazis’, The Guardian, 7 August 2014.

8 Ibid.

9 Booth, R. Antisemitic attacks in UK at highest level ever recorded, The Guardian, 15 February 2015.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Annual Antisemitism Barometer 2015

13 Ibid, p2.

14 Ibid, p5.

15 Goodman, L, PM Harper warns of new age of anti-Semitism in speech to Knesset, The Record, 20 January 2014.

16 Eg Wistrich, R, 2010. A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad, Random House, New York.

17 Kahn-Harris, K, Gidley, B, 2010. Turbulent Times: The British Jewish Community Today, Bloomsbury Publishing, p139.

18 Merkley, P C, 2001. Christian Attitudes towards the State of Israel, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kinston, p215-216.

19 Ibid.

20 Anti-Semitism in the UK: is it growing?, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 5 March 2015.

21 Ibid.

22 Channel 4 News, 16 January 2015.

23 European Parliament debate, 11 February 2015.

24 Flannery, EH, 1985. The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism, New Jersey: Paulist Press, revised 2004.

25 Ibid, p292.

26 Ibid, p292, quoting S. Freud, Moses and Monotheism, New York: Vantage Books, 1955, pp116-117.

27 Ibid, p292.

28 Ibid, p293-4.

29 Ibid, p295.

30 Heschel, S, 2010. The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany, Princeton University Press.

31 By Peter Barnes.

32 See Genesis 16-18, 21.

33  Joseph E, 2004. Krotona of Old Hollywood, Vol. II, El Montecito Oaks Press, p. 340. See also Wikipedia on Alice Bailey-Ross.

34 Harradine, K. New Agers fall for Anti-Semitism, The Jewish Chronicle, 17 September 2013. Also Newman, H, 2005. 'Aquarius, Age of', entry in Levy et al (eds) Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Vol 1, p30.

35 Ephesians 6:10-18

36 Meotti, G. To Anti-Semitic Christians, Israel is an Usurper, 5 January 2015.

37 Jewish Chronicle Online, Secure our shuls, 19 February 2015.

38 Stone, J. Hundreds of Norwegian Muslims form human shield to protect Jewish synagogue in Oslo, The Independent, 22 February 2015.

39 Hodges, D. They are still coming for the Jews. So why is nobody speaking out?, The Telegraph, 19 January 2015

40 Bingham, J. London schools cancel synagogue trips citing security fears after Paris terror attacks, The Telegraph, 6 February 2015.

41 Bonhoeffer, D. Ethics, DBWE 6, 80. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Research Center, University of Bamberg.

Christians are again in danger of being silenced over Israel: Charles Gardner asks if we have truly learnt the lessons of the Holocaust.

Anti-Semitism alive and well in Europe

A controversial church leader has been severely reprimanded for posting a link on Facebook blaming Israel for the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Rev. Stephen Sizer, Vicar of Christ Church in Virginia Water, Surrey, has since apologized for his “ill-considered and misguided” action¹ and removed the link. However, he has been banned from using social media for six months.

A Church of England spokesman said it was a matter of “deep sorrow and shame”² that the posts appeared in the same week as the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, when the full horror of Nazi crimes against the Jews was revealed to the world. The Bishop of Guildford, Rt Rev. Andrew Watson, said Rev. Sizer’s actions were “indefensible” and has set a series of conditions on him keeping his job.³

This small incident forms part of a much more widespread increase of anti-Semitism in recent months. The jihadist attacks in Paris and Copenhagen, where Jewish communities are now living in extreme fear, indicate another source of vehement hatred of Jews: fundamentalist Islam. These examples from within Europe do not touch on the world-wide increase of anti-Semitic action and feeling, most of which is not reported by mainstream media.

Remembering the Holocaust

2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, when the full horror of Nazi crimes against the Jews was revealed to the world. Recently Sister Thekla, a German nun, has spoken of her shame at the suffering caused by her nation through the Holocaust: “It grieves me what my nation has done, especially to the Jewish people,” she told a conference in York on Israel and the Church.⁴

“We had touched the apple of God’s eye and saw God’s judgment poured out on our nation as a result,” she said, in reference to the repeated bombing of Darmstadt. One 1944 attack on Darmstadt killed 10 percent of its inhabitants and made 60 percent of its population homeless.

“We had touched the apple of God’s eye and saw God’s judgment poured out on our nation as a result” - Sister Thekla, German nun, regarding the Holocaust

The Darmstadt bombings prompted local resident Basilea Schlink to found the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, dedicated to reconciliation with the Jewish people. Mother Basilea and a group of fellow Christians wept under deep conviction of the terrible sins committed by Germany against the Jews, dating back to the time of the Crusades. Subsequently they went to Israel to volunteer their services as nurses, and to seek forgiveness from the Jewish people. She said:

We can never heal the wounds. Only Christ can do that. It is a painful memory, but I confess these crimes...If the German community had stood up as one man, the Nazis would not have been at such liberty to pursue their schemes. Where was the Christian church?⁵

She warned that today’s church was in danger of repeating history.

Will history repeat itself?

The tragedy of anti-Semitism is not just something in the past. It is flaring up again. And in the not-too-distant future we Christians will all be challenged about our relationship with Israel. Will Christians once more stay silent?

"In the not-too-distant future, Christians will all be challenged again about our relationship with Israel. Will we stay silent?"

Also addressing the York conference, organised by the Emmaus Group, was Sister Glory, a British member of the order with a Methodist background:

Israel is once again hated by the nations, which is a picture of our Lord Jesus, who was despised and rejected of men. We are called to pray for Israel. They need love, born out of repentance, the only kind that will open their hearts. We have often not presented the true image of Jesus to them.

Britain is complicit

Sister Glory also emphasised that the British have blood on their hands concerning Israel. She referred to 1190 when the entire Jewish community of York were herded into Clifford’s Tower, just across the river from the conference venue, and massacred. A hundred years later Jews were expelled from Britain altogether, before being welcomed back at the time of Cromwell through the influence of the Pilgrim Fathers (a radical Christian group who were themselves hounded out of the country before emerging as the founding fathers of the United States).

More recently, following Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising support for a Jewish national homeland, the Government reneged on its pledge by dividing the allocated land, and acting treacherously to appease the Arabs while forcing the Jews to disarm. Many Jews trying to escape the Holocaust to Israel were turned back and some died when their boat sank.

“We betrayed the greatest trust ever given to a nation”, Sister Glory added. And now Britain is in danger of repeating history, with the strong message of support Parliament has sent to the Palestinian Authority over its quest for state recognition.

Those who bless Israel will be blessed

In experiencing the fulfillment of Genesis 12:3 (that those who bless Israel will themselves be blessed, while those who curse her will come under judgment), Britain has suffered the loss of her Empire along with increasing brokenness within the nation itself.

Sister Glory ended by quoting former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: “The Lord deals with the nations as the nations deal with the Jews.”

What will our response be? For if you really love Jesus, you will love His people, the Jews.

References

1 Sizer, S, Statement of Apology, released 30 January 2015.

2 Church of England, Statement on Rev Stephen Sizer, released 29 January 2015.

3 Bishop of Guildford, Right Rev Andrew Watson, Statement on Stephen Sizer, released 9 February 2015.

4 'The Messiah, the Church and Israel' conference, 22 November 2014, Park Inn York, Emmaus Group.

5 Ibid, quote by Sister Thekla.

Charles Gardner is a journalist originally from South Africa, now living in Yorkshire. He is part Jewish and writes for The Times of Israel.