Two of the more thoughtful Christians I know wrote short enigmatic responses to the entry of June 23rd.
I’m not sure what they meant exactly (perhaps we’ll talk soon) but I can guess.
One has spent his adult life as a Missionary to the Turkish people. The other is ethnic Lebanese (fully American in every sense) and Christian.
By emphasizing Israel I want to avoid understandable but erroneous inferences. There are two camps which define opposite perspectives on Israel among American evangelicals. One is the Replacement Camp. This view insists that the promises to Israel have been forfeited due to the national rejection of the Messiah. Those promises (amounting to prophecies in the Old Testament) which have to do with future Kingdom benefits to the Jews are spiritualized and rolled over to the Church. The promises to Israel are therefore rendered symbolic. This is in fact the majority view of Christian scholars since the Reformation. Recently I read a powerful exposition of this point of view by Herman Bavink the great Dutch theologian who died in 1921. Most who hold this position would deem it a grave error to posit any correlation at all between any current or future resurrection of national Israel and biblical prophecy. Dazzled as I am by many who hold this view I can’t get there. There are lots of reasons. I will mention only two.
After forty days of post-Resurrection instruction the Apostles had one last pre-Ascension question for the Lord. We may assume that many topics were addressed during those forty days. The Holy Spirit inspiring Luke the historian reveals only one. They were taught about the Kingdom of God. And that’s what the last question was about. The disciples wanted to know when the Lord was going to restore the Kingdom TO ISRAEL. The question (after being catechized for forty days) was not about replacement but restoration. Now if the view just outlined were the correct one I would have expected the Lord to say “Don’t you guys ever pay attention? There’s not going to be any restoration to Israel.” But He doesn’t say that at all. What He does say in effect is”The timing is not important for you to know.” (Acts 1:6-7). Also, if we spiritualize the promises to Israel and assign those promises to the Church, huge tracts of Holy Scripture are rendered unintelligible. This is true not only in the Old Testament but in the New Testament as well. Where are the correspondences to the 144,000 in the Church? On what conceivable basis could the Tribes mentioned in Revelation 7 and 14 be identified within the Church?
I would describe the other camp as Israel Boosters. It’s not a designation I wholly disdain for myself because I believe we can see good arguments not only for Israel’s right to exist but for Israel’s right to certain disputed territorial claims POLITICALLY. If we restrict ourselves to political arguments then I think Israel can make a very strong case indeed.
The problem is that the favor Israel enjoys among American evangelicals is not based exclusively or even primarily upon political arguments. The favor is tied to the notion that the Jews are God’s chosen people and we must favor Israel for that reason. Because I do expect a future for (a fully converted and Christian) Israel it would be easy to assume that I am planted firmly in this camp. But it is not so. It is a great mistake to rubber stamp with approval any policy adopted by an Israeli government. Let me reiterate that if we argue politically Israel may make strong cases. But if we approach the question from the biblical point of view alone (which as Christians we must do) then I draw the conclusion that Israel ought to give the land up. I know this seems inconsistent with a Premillennial perspective (the perspective I embrace). I would argue that it is not inconsistent at all, though it is certainly not in line with the way most premillennialists approach the question.
Israel is a socialist state dominated by secularists who have no theistic convictions at all. Those who do have religious convictions are mostly Orthodox Jews who believe that Jesus of Nazareth was an imposter. It is a grave error to think that God favors in any way whatsoever an Israel so disposed toward His Son. In writing this I realize that Romans 3:1ff must be carefully and faithfully interpreted because it can be construed so as to offer a refutation to what I have just written.
“Then what advantage has the Jew…
Great in every way…”
But instead of taking the space to try and explain Romans 3 in context I will simply offer the following: Those Israelis who reject Christ want the Kingdom without the King. It cannot and ought not to be. I believe the critical parable of Matthew’s Gospel is the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen in Matthew 21. Let us be careful here. We must steer clear of any temptation to blame the Jews for the death of the Lord any more than we blame ourselves. I live in a part of the world where the history of anti-Semitism is shameful to a hellish degree. And the poison is not dormant. Often I plead with my Eastern European friends that however much they may be attracted to a political platform if that platform gives in to anti-Semitism in the slightest the thing must be condemned and resisted. That said, the Zionist Jews who spurn Jesus are in the precise position of the tenants in the parable (Matthew 21:33-46). You can’t have the Kingdom without the King. That’s why it’s a real Kingdom. There lives a real King. His Name is Jesus. The promises are only valid in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20).
On June 23rd my emphasis on Israel was purely to make the point that hope in the Lord’s soon coming has been based on real events in every generation. Before 1948 AD (the year Israel was reconstituted as a political entity) Christians found reasons to hope upon grounds which may have had little or nothing to do with Israel. But hope they did. My two correspondents because of who they are and what they do are vitally concerned with the evangelization of currently Islamized peoples. Any positive regard of Israel among those peoples is bound to offend and alienate. But we mustn’t abandon truth to placate unbelief. No lost people whether Jews or Muslims should dictate Gospel emphases. Our responsibility is to declare the whole counsel of God including Israel’s past favor, current condemnation, and future restoration. As for modern, not-yet-Christian Israel the dry bones are not yet alive. But they have been reassembled, are upright and walking. God grant that one day this walking skeleton may receive a heart of flesh. Meanwhile let us love, regard and highly esteem Arab believers, Christian believers in non-Arab Muslim countries and especially the Palestinian Christians who must surely feel like the loneliest and most forgotten Christians in the world at times.
It is certain that no Christian group or individual has flawlessly projected the coming prophetic scenario. After all John the Baptist (distracted by his own suffering) voiced doubts even about the First Coming (see Matthew 11) and he was the Forerunner of that Coming. It is folly not to allow for our own fallibility in this regard. We can be humble and irenic without retreating to a waffling tentativeness. The brunt of our apologetics ought always to rest on prophecy already fulfilled not that broad span of prophetic truth which awaits future fulfillment.
We believers may disagree on the particulars of prophecy but we are united around the larger reality.
This same Jesus, crucified, buried, risen and ascended will come again!
Personally, universally, finally, and undeniably He will return in the same body which hung upon the cross.
WHETHER IT WILL BE IN OUR GENERATION OR NOT WE DON’T KNOW.
But we can ask.
Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus
Friday, June 26, 2009
The Power of Pop Culture (part 2)
This morning in Budapest we awoke to look out upon a world without Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. They have joined what Woody Allen called “The Great Majority.” Like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson they died on the same day. And in America they are at least as well known as our second and third Presidents. Whether it will be so a hundred years hence I like to think not. The receptionist at my Hungarian doctor’s office asked me if I had heard Michael Jackson died. She looked stricken and on the verge of tears. She is about 75 years old. Such is the reach of American Popular Culture.
Michael Jackson came to Moscow while we lived there. Katie was a ninth grader in a secular German school. It seemed the end of the world for her not to go to that concert, not only because everyone else was going, but because Michael Jackson was, she informed me, “the best dancer in the world.” In Moscow it was an Event. For a 14 year old exiled from Munich to live in Moscow it was Everything. I had a bad feeling. It wasn’t just the revulsion of a Christian father over exposure to Michael Jackson. It was the concern of any father about what could happen in a crowd that size on a Moscow night. Moscow was a bit like the Wild West in those days. I could have handed down a decree from on high, but I didn’t. I negotiated. Finally she relented. I don’t remember what her compensation was, but it must have been stupendous. She may still think I owe her one. Maybe I do.
Did we ever hear the word "iconic” 20 years ago? I think rarely. Today the term is ubiquitous. First I read of the iconic television show Charlie’s Angels. I never saw the show. That may be the only boast I can make about a misspent youth. Then I read of Farrah’s iconic hair and her iconic 1976 poster. This morning I am told of Michael’s iconic 1993 Thriller Tour. That must have been the one which came to Moscow. To think that in Russia of all places I could have deprived my daughter of an iconic experience is ironic if I may be allowed to use a word that rhymes.
To my low Protestant understanding an icon is a thing invested with a kind of regard which ought only to be reserved for Deity. Not that I worry that it’s as bad as all that in most cases. It is certain though that the pain suffered by masses of secular people at the loss of celebrities would be substantially mitigated if a fit object for worship could be found. Are there many feeling that loss at this moment who would be pleased if a son or daughter made the choices Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett made? And speaking of sons and daughters Farrah’s son was in prison the day his mother died. They last met on a restricted prison visit in April. Now THAT’S sad.
And is it possible that Ed McMahon could have died the very same week? He and Johnny Carson (on the iconic Tonight Show remember?) used to play out a running gag where Carson pretended to be an old woman. One of the recurring jokes was that the woman would not allow any reference to death. Such references are always uncomfortable and seldom allowed in secular discourse. That we all die is a great embarrassment to non-transcendent philosophies which refuse to reckon with death.
But we all die anyway.
Even the rich and the famous.
Even the iconic.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Thus passes the glory of the world.
Michael Jackson came to Moscow while we lived there. Katie was a ninth grader in a secular German school. It seemed the end of the world for her not to go to that concert, not only because everyone else was going, but because Michael Jackson was, she informed me, “the best dancer in the world.” In Moscow it was an Event. For a 14 year old exiled from Munich to live in Moscow it was Everything. I had a bad feeling. It wasn’t just the revulsion of a Christian father over exposure to Michael Jackson. It was the concern of any father about what could happen in a crowd that size on a Moscow night. Moscow was a bit like the Wild West in those days. I could have handed down a decree from on high, but I didn’t. I negotiated. Finally she relented. I don’t remember what her compensation was, but it must have been stupendous. She may still think I owe her one. Maybe I do.
Did we ever hear the word "iconic” 20 years ago? I think rarely. Today the term is ubiquitous. First I read of the iconic television show Charlie’s Angels. I never saw the show. That may be the only boast I can make about a misspent youth. Then I read of Farrah’s iconic hair and her iconic 1976 poster. This morning I am told of Michael’s iconic 1993 Thriller Tour. That must have been the one which came to Moscow. To think that in Russia of all places I could have deprived my daughter of an iconic experience is ironic if I may be allowed to use a word that rhymes.
To my low Protestant understanding an icon is a thing invested with a kind of regard which ought only to be reserved for Deity. Not that I worry that it’s as bad as all that in most cases. It is certain though that the pain suffered by masses of secular people at the loss of celebrities would be substantially mitigated if a fit object for worship could be found. Are there many feeling that loss at this moment who would be pleased if a son or daughter made the choices Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett made? And speaking of sons and daughters Farrah’s son was in prison the day his mother died. They last met on a restricted prison visit in April. Now THAT’S sad.
And is it possible that Ed McMahon could have died the very same week? He and Johnny Carson (on the iconic Tonight Show remember?) used to play out a running gag where Carson pretended to be an old woman. One of the recurring jokes was that the woman would not allow any reference to death. Such references are always uncomfortable and seldom allowed in secular discourse. That we all die is a great embarrassment to non-transcendent philosophies which refuse to reckon with death.
But we all die anyway.
Even the rich and the famous.
Even the iconic.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Thus passes the glory of the world.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Plausibility and Unbelief
Bart Ehrman, the Moody and Wheaton grad turned apostate, delights in explaining the "reasons" why biblical Christianity cannot be true. Not long ago I heard him being interviewed on NPR's 'Fresh Air.' Ironic title that. As he spoke the atmosphere grew noticeably stale.
One of his arguments majored on the number of Christians in every generation who believed the Lord would come in their lifetime. Inside Prof. Ehrman’s formidable brain this constitutes a kind of “proof” which delegitimizes faith. For some reason the same phenomenon inclines me toward the opposite conclusion.
Is it not striking that the center and burden of prophecies separated from us by a distance measured in millennia should remain so frightfully current? That there could be multi-generational scenarios which plausibly fuel biblical hope is itself a kind of verification of Christianity’s truth claims. In the last few days three issues dominate the news-cycle:
1) The Israeli Prime Minister has conceded the possibility of a Palestinian State.
2) The validity of the reelection of a particularly rabid anti-Jewish savage in Iran is being disputed.
3) Al-Qaeda and the Taliban continue their grisly work of theologically inspired murder, including aid workers (women and children among them) in Yemen none of whom were American.
Does anybody still remember why these stupefying fiends began to hate us in the first place? It was because of an American presence on the Arabian peninsula. And it was because of an American sympathy for Israel.
Why do the heathen rage, and the peoples imagine a vain thing?
What are the chances that the relevance of prophecies about Israel would survive the passage of time when Israel itself did not survive between 70 and 1948 AD? It would be an odd coincidence that current geo-political realities could be construed by ingenious exaggeration to adhere so closely to ancient prophetic forecasts.
Yet they do.
Israel matters.
Jerusalem matters, not just to the Jews and not just to those who live nearby.
There are two kinds of hearts. One believes the witness and opens itself up to what God is saying and showing in all ages. Such hearts incline toward a reverent but (hopefully) also sober and even scholarly calibration of what God proclaims in Scripture and what God performs in history.
By human reckoning two thousand years is a long time to wait for Jesus to come back. Just so two thousand years is also a long time to sustain any resemblance between the world of 2009 and the world now buried in the abyss of time where the original prophecies were uttered. In fact we are warned not to measure this particular expectation in terms of human notions of time. With the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day...
The Lord is not slow about His promise as some count slowness...
Forty days was too long for some to wait on Moses to return from the Mountain. There were skeptics then though they'd been favored with the spectacle of miracles. There are skeptics now though some, like Professor Ehrman, have been favored with study at places like Moody and Wheaton.
The cleavage between the believing and the skeptical constitutes a divide more profound than that between the genders or the races.
One group will see the sky opened.
In Moses' generation the other group saw the opening of the ground.
One of his arguments majored on the number of Christians in every generation who believed the Lord would come in their lifetime. Inside Prof. Ehrman’s formidable brain this constitutes a kind of “proof” which delegitimizes faith. For some reason the same phenomenon inclines me toward the opposite conclusion.
Is it not striking that the center and burden of prophecies separated from us by a distance measured in millennia should remain so frightfully current? That there could be multi-generational scenarios which plausibly fuel biblical hope is itself a kind of verification of Christianity’s truth claims. In the last few days three issues dominate the news-cycle:
1) The Israeli Prime Minister has conceded the possibility of a Palestinian State.
2) The validity of the reelection of a particularly rabid anti-Jewish savage in Iran is being disputed.
3) Al-Qaeda and the Taliban continue their grisly work of theologically inspired murder, including aid workers (women and children among them) in Yemen none of whom were American.
Does anybody still remember why these stupefying fiends began to hate us in the first place? It was because of an American presence on the Arabian peninsula. And it was because of an American sympathy for Israel.
Why do the heathen rage, and the peoples imagine a vain thing?
What are the chances that the relevance of prophecies about Israel would survive the passage of time when Israel itself did not survive between 70 and 1948 AD? It would be an odd coincidence that current geo-political realities could be construed by ingenious exaggeration to adhere so closely to ancient prophetic forecasts.
Yet they do.
Israel matters.
Jerusalem matters, not just to the Jews and not just to those who live nearby.
There are two kinds of hearts. One believes the witness and opens itself up to what God is saying and showing in all ages. Such hearts incline toward a reverent but (hopefully) also sober and even scholarly calibration of what God proclaims in Scripture and what God performs in history.
By human reckoning two thousand years is a long time to wait for Jesus to come back. Just so two thousand years is also a long time to sustain any resemblance between the world of 2009 and the world now buried in the abyss of time where the original prophecies were uttered. In fact we are warned not to measure this particular expectation in terms of human notions of time. With the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day...
The Lord is not slow about His promise as some count slowness...
Forty days was too long for some to wait on Moses to return from the Mountain. There were skeptics then though they'd been favored with the spectacle of miracles. There are skeptics now though some, like Professor Ehrman, have been favored with study at places like Moody and Wheaton.
The cleavage between the believing and the skeptical constitutes a divide more profound than that between the genders or the races.
One group will see the sky opened.
In Moses' generation the other group saw the opening of the ground.
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