“Violence targeting Jews and Jewish sites has led to a heightened sense of insecurity"
By Aaron Blumer
Jan
08
2016
"U.S. officials Thursday denounced what one called a 'grotesque' leaflet ordering Jews in one eastern Ukrainian city to register with a government office, but the Jewish community there dismissed it as a 'provocation.'" CNN
Obama appointee, Howard Gutman made the remarks at a recent conference. “The legal experts at the event were visibly stunned by Gutman’s words, and the next speaker offered a scathing rebuttal to the envoy’s remarks.”
Republished with permission from Dr. Reluctant. In this series, Dr. Henebury responds to a collection of criticisms of dispensationalism entitled “95 Theses against Dispensationalism” written by a group called “The Nicene Council.” Read the series so far.
Despite the dispensationalists’ commitment to the Jews as important for the fulfillment of prophecy and their charge of “anti-Semitism” against evangelicals who do not see an exalted future for Israel (Hal Lindsey), they are presently urging Jews to return to Israel even though their understanding of the prophecy of Zech 13:8 teaches that “two-thirds of the children of Israel will perish” (Walvoord) once their return is completed.
Two things: first, while some people like Lindsey (if we can trust the Nicene Council) do accuse other evangelicals of anti-Semitism, it is by no means all dispensationalists who do. Barry Horner’s Future Israel or David Larsen’s Jews, Gentiles and the Church ought to be consulted on this. Some of my former teachers are eminent dispensationalists (Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Robert Lightner, Thomas Ice) and they are all hesitant to use the term “anti-Semitism,” especially against most evangelicals who happen to hold to a different eschatology. However, a minority of dispensationalists do freely accuse other Christians of anti-Semitism. I have been accused of it myself, because I think our focus today needs to be where God’s focus is—on the Church! Still, I have also encountered mild anti-Semitism many times among some, not all, amillennialists and postmillennialists, who believe the Church is the “New Israel” and are thus eager to assign ethnic Israelites in present-day Israel to the status of a geopolitical anachronism. These people often believe what they hear on CBN about “Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.”
“A video of Moroccan youths insulting a rabbi on a street in Amsterdam has prompted the Dutch justice minister to say he might consider using undercover police wearing yarmulkes - called “decoy Jews” by the press - to combat anti-Semitism.” Seattle Times
