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May 29, 2008 | 3:23 pm
Posted by Brad A. Greenberg
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I mentioned in a post yesterday that leading Jewish organizations have been mum on the topic of the Rev. John Hagee and his now-infamous Hitler sermon, but that some Jews have rushed to his side.
Doris Wise Montrose, L.A. president of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, said her father and his friends rarely spoke of the Holocaust without mentioning God’s hand in it. (How do you talk about tragedy, especially on such an enormous scale, without wondering where God was?)
It seems now that Hagee must be the one asking: Why? Why did the public turn against him so hard when his words weren’t universally offensive, even if they were disagreeable?
“What was most breathtaking about the debate over Pastor Hagee’s statements on the Holocaust was the complete absence of one,” David Brog, Hagee’s right-hand who recently discussed theodicy with Haaretz, wrote in an op-ed titled, “The New Inquisition.”
This was not a case where thoughtful arbiters discussed his words in the context of a rich Judeo-Christian tradition of theodicy. There was no respect given to a quite common worldview. There was no trial. We skipped right to the auto da fe.
Breathe in deeply and you can still smell the embers smoldering around Pastor Hagee’s public persona.
The latest pressure is being exerted upon Sen. Joe Lieberman, who agreed to speak during the annual meeting for Hagee’s Christians United for Israel and can be seen in the above video likening Hagee to Moses. A confidant of John McCain, who pushed Hagee aside, Lieberman has refused to cut ties.
“I believe that Pastor Hagee has made comments that are deeply unacceptable and hurtful,” Lieberman said in a statement. “I also believe that a person should be judged on the entire span of his or her life’s works. Pastor Hagee has devoted much of his life to fighting anti-Semitism and building bridges between Christians and Jews.”
So what’s really going on here? Were Hagee’s words hurtful, misrepresented or, on their face, uncontroversial? The always thoughtful Rick Richman of Jewish Current Issues writes that the case is awfully flimsy. He addresses five points, among them Montrose’s letter, the repeated media criticism of Hagee, the pastor’s talk in March at Stephen S. Wise Temple and a bit of theology:
Pastor Hagee cited two Biblical sources for his belief that both the tragedy of the Holocaust and the miracle of Israel were part of God’s ultimate plan. Both were from the Hebrew Bible: Jeremiah 16 and Ezekiel 37.
These are not obscure references (at least to the “trained ear”). With respect to Jeremiah 16, perhaps it will suffice to note a story told on April 30, 2008 (on Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day) in the pages of the Jerusalem Post, written by Naphtali Lau-Lavie, a former Israeli diplomat, who was among the last Jews of Buchenwald lined up at the gate of the camp on April 10, 1945 when American soldiers arrived:
Recently, while searching in the Yad Vashem archives, I came across the testimony of a survivor from Treblinka, who later immigrated to Chicago. This is what he wrote:
“In the early morning [on October 21, 1942] we arrived at Treblinka on the transport from our ghetto. On the ramp the selection process had begun. Together with a group of youngsters, I was taken from the crowd and pushed aside. We stood and watched the groups being led in the direction of the gas chambers.
“Suddenly, we heard the familiar, strong voice of our rabbi. He was standing in the midst of the Jews of his community reciting the confessional viduy prayer, said when Jews know they are about to be martyred. The rabbi said a verse, and his “congregation” repeated it after him, verse by verse.” . . .
The Jews described were from the city of Piotrkow in Poland, and the rabbi referred to was my father.
My father’s life was taken at Treblinka after he said the viduy. . . . At our last meeting, as . . . we were standing on the doorstep, he recited from Jeremiah 16:6-7: “Both the great and the small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried; neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them; neither shall men break bread for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.”
Then he stopped for a while, looked straight into my eyes, and continued, again from Jeremiah, 13:16: “And there is hope for thy future, saith the Lord, And thy children shall return to their own border.”
Next he addressed me directly: “If you manage to get out of here, go and return to the Land from which we were expelled, because only there will the Jewish people be itself and become strong enough to prevent such tragedies.”
As for the reference to Ezekiel 37, perhaps an even shorter explanation will suffice. Above the parking lot at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the first thing one notices is a prominent quotation in large letters. It is from Ezekiel 37:14, reflecting a promise in the preceding verses that God will “open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves . . . and I will bring you into the land of Israel.” The quotation is this: “And I will put My spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will set you on your land.”
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Hagee is not being judged on this single comment. I have studied Hagee’s sermons and writings as well as those of other apocalyptic Christian Zionist (dispensationatlist) for many years and have a strong background in fundamentalist Protestant theology. It is difficult for me to believe that any Jewish leader would stand with Hagee if he/she knew what was in those writings. Just a small sampling would include: teaching that Hillel instigated the attacks on Jesus; anti-Jewish Federal Reserve conspiracy theory; a narrative of a future New World Order that sounds like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and more. Hagee’s video, “Vanished,” features a series of images that evoke Kristallnacht except in his holocaust the “left behind” Jews, Catholics, and nonbelievers are attacking the newly “born again” Christians of the Tribulation. In his Kristallnacht it is the churches that are burning and New Testaments thrown in the bonfires. You can imagine the effect this imagery has on children that are being raised to believe that their brand of Christianity is being persecuted by liberal Jews.
The similarities between dispensationalists and overt anti-Semites is not surprising. Both are consumed with the supposed supernatural power of Jews and Judaism to maniputlate the future of the Gentile world. The difference is that dispensationalist are outwardly “philo-Semitic” because they are fascinated with the idea that they believe themselves to be the final generation and the one that will bring about the end of the “Jewish question.” They “love” us for what they believe we will be after we are corrected and repent of our rejection of Jesus, either through conversion or in the horrors of their prophesied apocalypse.
While wrapped in Israeli flags and supported by some Jewish leaders, dispensational preachers feel they have the license to attack and denigrate Judaism and Jews who are not cooperating in the apocalyptic timeline in an open way that would have been unthinkable twenty years ago. They feel invulnerable because of their “pro-Israel” status. They have created an environment where it is socially acceptable in much of the country to openly attack the “bad Jews” who are not cooperating with their apocalyptic timeline as the source of moral degeneration in America and as the obstacle to their vision of a utopian Christian millennial.
Hagee believes in a mistaken millennia-old apocolyptic ideology
So what else is new?
We all know it
Nobody cares
as long as he personally does not advocate or facilitate harming Jewish people or the Jewish nation
Capisce?
What doesn’t Acts 5:38-39 apply to in the Christian daily life nowadays? And, am I the only one in the Body of Christ that even applies those verses to everything under the sun? Ooops… “Son”. LOL
really interesting reading! thanks!