The stunning and ominous rise in anti-Semitism in the United States cannot be disputed, but can be resisted. It is particularly the obligation of genuine Christians to participate in the repression through education of the ancient evil. It is the particular obligation of â churches, colleges, publishers and more â to do their part in making this sin once again an obvious source of shame and to help cure those who suffer from it and, where it cannot be cured, to force it back by shaming and shunning into the deepest shadows where it belongs.
Christianity didnt invent anti-Semitism. It existed before Christ and the empires of the ancient world would target Jews for many reasons. But, once Christianity rose to dominate Europe, anti-Semitism spread alongside and within a vast portion of the Church.
Some, but not enough, of the Church always spoke out against anti-Semitism and its costumed version of today â anti-Zionism â and continues to do so. Saint John Paul the Great and Pope Benedict were the most visible and outspoken opponents of anti-Semitism from within the Catholic Church of my lifetime, but many others have noted the obvious intractable hostility of real Christianity to the sin of hatred embedded in hatred of Jews or their country.
When Colorado Christian University â originally founded in 1914 as Denver Bible College, but now a flourishing university in Lakewood, Colorado â invited me to a day of teaching, feasting and lectures, I chose as my topic the reasons why Americans of all faiths, or none at all, ought to support Israel. I included in those remarks the obvious: It is sinful for Christians to hate Jews or Israel.
Thats hardly a lightning bolt for even the “slightly churched.” But. I wanted primarily to stress that America is an for non-theological reasons â reasons with which Christians ought to be familiar. It is bad writing to reproduce speeches and brand them columns, but here in condensed form is the argument I made.
First, in a dangerous world, even the dominant superpower â the United States â needs allies, especially as the Peoples Republic of China stretches to become a peer in military and intelligence matters as well as economic influence.
The State of Israel is, objectively, the most important ally of the United States. It is a nuclear power. It is the equal of any military on the globe in its ability to strike far and hard and to dominate its region. Its an intelligence superpower and an engine of technological excellence and ever-increasing breakthroughs. If any country had to pick one strong ally not named the United States, it would pick Israel.
Israel is also a reliable and fully-integrated-into-our-military ally. Israel takes what the United States makes and improves on it, as had been the case with the F-35 fighter. It sometimes takes the rudiments of a technology and develops them to scale and deploys them, as with Iron Dome and soon Iron Beam. Those advancements will return to America as the Golden Dome and the Golden Beam. Would that Israel got into the ship building business at scale, but we have allies in South Korea and Japan that are doing just that.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Israel shares Americas founding values of individual liberty and democratic governance. Israel is as politically fractious as the U.S., but freedom of speech is as robust there as it is here. Human rights are respected there as they are here. It is a “Western nation” in every respect, despite having to have fought for its very life since the states modern founding in 1948.
I also reminded the audience in quick fashion that, as a matter of American law, both constitutional, statutory and treaty-based law, that the United States recognizes Israel as a nation state with all the rights and responsibilities of a nation state.
“Zionism” â the term originated in the late 19th century movement to re-establish the Jewish homeland in the ancest
