OPINION:
It is absolutely stunning that tens of thousands, if not millions, of conservative Christians in the ranks of America’s evangelical church are apparently shameless antisemites.
A case in point is the shocking number of people who are now arguing that if you believe God’s eternal promise to Abraham is still valid, you are a “dispensational heretic” who thinks Jews are somehow saved apart from faith in Christ.
How should we respond to this? Well, by calling it what it is: utter nonsense.
Can these sycophants of Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes not see that two things can be true at the same time? Do they not understand that what the Bible teaches about an individual’s salvation (which is only through faith in Jesus) and what it teaches about Israel’s existence (which has been irrevocably promised by God) are entirely two separate issues?
Yes, it is true that the Apostle Paul told the first-century church in Ephesus that we are saved “by grace through faith, and not by works [or heritage] lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2)
Yes, it is true that he taught the Christians in Galatia that within the Body of Christ, it is your faith, not your family tree, that matters, and that no one is saved apart from confession and repentance at the foot of the cross (Galatians 3).
Still, the soteriological exclusivity of the Gospel doesn’t mean that God’s promises to Israel are null and void. Nothing in the book of Galatians, or any other part of the Bible, suggests that God’s covenant with the Jews — his promise to protect them as a given people and to give them a specific land — has been changed or replaced. On one hand, we are talking about salvation. On the other hand, we are talking about a nation. Both can be true. One doesn’t negate the other.
All the arguments to the contrary seem to be driven by a not-so-thinly veiled antisemitic fervor that we’ve seen before. The same kind of rhetoric now flooding the “evangelical” internet is the same vile messaging that set the stage for the “Christian” nation of Germany to embrace the Third Reich.
Here are just a few examples.
John Calvin referred to Jews as “mad dogs, beasts and animals. … Rotten and unbending and deserving to be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end.”
Martin Luther said Jews were “poisonous envenomed worms and the Devil incarnate.” He called for the destruction of synagogues and schools and the burning of Jewish homes.” One of his final sermons declared Jews to be “public enemies and murderers,” and his book, “On the Jews and Their Lies,” became a foundational text for the Nazis.
Lest you think the Protestants were the only ones guilty of such shameful sermons, we dare not forget that the Catholic Church joined in with its La Civilta Cattolica, a Jesuit journal published in 1922, which promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories, such as claiming that nearly all the Bolshevik leaders were Jewish, a lie later adopted by Adolf Hitler to justify his Kristallnacht as a response to a supposed Jewish-dominated communist threat.
All the nonsense we’re hearing from the modern-day “Church of Candace Owens” is the same old garbage that has been around for centuries. It is arrogant. It’s dismissive of history. And it’s in complete defiance of the Apostle Paul’s command that Christians should “not brag that we are better than the Jews, for they sustain us, we do not sustain them.” (Romans 11)
So, no, believing that the God who has kept his promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for nearly 4,000 years is the same God who will keep his promise to you is not Christian heresy. In fact, it is foundational to the security of believers. In other words, the same God who has kept his word to the Jews is the same God who will keep his word to you if you call on him in confession and repentance to be saved.
The good news is that we can all have confidence in God’s love and forgiveness because of the promises he made and keeps with the Jews, not in spite of them.
One final note: I’ve got news for you. The Jews aren’t the ones who killed Jesus. You did, and I did. It was your sin and mine that led to Christ’s crucifixion. To point the finger at anyone else is akin to being the impenitent thief on Jesus’ left who railed against all his perceived enemies, versus the humble man on Jesus’ right to whom he said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery). He can be reached at epiper@dreverettpiper.com.
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