There is NOTHING Christian about “Christian” Zionism
Never make the mistake of calling John Hagee a “Christian.” He has all the earmarks of a Satanist.
Let me lead off by saying that this short essay is not intended in a strictly religious sense. Not at all. It can be read and appreciated by an atheist or a Muslim, for example. My goals is to dispel pernicious fables that lie at the heart of wars. It is no exaggeration to say that “Christian” Zionists are the most dangerous people in America.
Cenk Uygur, leader of the Young Turks, has created a video everyone needs desperately to see in this time of insane genocide in Palestine.
Cenk reminds us that one of the fables driving the Evangelical church’s fervor for Israel-perpetrated genocide is a prophecy by Ezekiel is a false exegesis of a prophesy by Ezekiel.
But there are 2 of Ezekiel’s prophecies that contribute mightily to our current wars. Both of these are dangerously misinterpreted by low-brow religious people imagining themselves to be “Christians.” One is in Ezekiel 38, which is falsely interpreted today to mean that Russia is an enemy of Israel. This is the one mentioned by fake “Christian” John Hagee seen in the linked video.
To be clear, Russia is not mentioned in Ezekiel 38 because it did not exist then. This erroneous exegesis originated with a text appearing in the footnotes of a Bible annotated by Cyrus Scofield, a known ex con who had been jailed for fraud.
The footnote in question was to the word Gog, one of the entities that, according to the prophecy, would wage war on Israel. The notes were written roughly in 1909.
I happen to possess a “Scofield Bible,” and here is what that fanciful footnote says:
That the primary reference is to the northern (European) powers, headed up by Russia, all agree. <…> The reference to Meshach and Tubol (Moscow and Tobolsk) is a clear mark of identification. Russia and the northern powers [Scofield doesn’t identify these powers] have been the latest persecutors of dispersed Israel… [Hitler had not yet appeared in world history]
Actually, without the added touch of fantasy, those names are not exactly a clear mark of anything. And if Scofield believed that the enemy of Israel had to be the country that was most prominently persecuting Israel, then that would have been Germany, but clearly all this is the product of an overheated imagination, and I suspect Scofield was influenced by the Russophobia that was then prevalent in Britain. His notes contributed mightily to the Russophobia that now drives NATO’s wars and provocations of Russia.
BTW, Assyrian court records clearly show that Magog was a place located in what is now Turkey, NOT Russia.
Another of the prophecies is in Ezekiel 37, Ezekiel’s dream of the dry bones representing the Israelite diaspora, ie, the expulsion of the Hebrews to various parts of the earth, notably to Babylon in Ezekiel’s time. Ezekiel was one of the expelled Hebrews sent to the “Babylonian captivity.”
When Persian Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and released the captives to return to their homeland in 538 BC, that ended this particular diaspora and it would have been logical to proclaim this event as the fulfilment of Ezekiel’s dry bones prophecy.
Instead of accepting this more logical exegesis, some political activists billing themselves as “Christians” used this chapter as a pretext to support Zionism, the movement to establish a Jewish homeland – something that Jesus never endorsed!
This exegesis grew in popularity to become the dominant doctrine of the Evangelical “church,” though a church based on a heresy can hardly be called a church. It is instead closer to the synagogue of Satan, mentioned in Revelation 3:9.
Simultaneously with this doctrinal shift, unscrupulous actors in and around the federal government started to use this “church” to push wars that are at bottom not at all defensive but, taken under close scrutiny, are in fact nothing but mass murders.
So what did Jesus say about religious tolerance?
I’m going to remind Americans of something that, to my knowledge, no pastor or other Christian leader will ever talk about, and that is, the Good Samaritan parable in its proper context.
Jesus had a seminal discussion with a Jewish law scholar, who asked him what the greatest commandment was. As it turned out, both Jesus and the scholar (who was in fact a wolf in sheep’s clothing whose underlying motive was to trip Jesus up and elicit a response that could incriminate Him) agreed that the greatest commandment was to love God and, as a corollary, the commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself.
But then the scholar asked Jesus what was meant by “one’s neighbor” – a good question because the word in Hebrew, and also in Greek, that we translate as “neighbor” in this context, is somewhat ambiguous and is not a direct equivalent to the English word “neighbor” (analogously to the Spanish word “próximo” used to render it in the Spanish Bible, or the French prochain, German der Nächste, Russian ближний, none of which mean literally “neighbor”).
Here is where Jesus went into his now-famous parable of the good Samaritan.
To understand Jesus’ motive for choosing a Samaritan to be the good guy in the story, it is vital to realize that, at that time in history, the Samaritans (people of Samaria) were hated by the Hebrew elites because of their dissident religious beliefs and form of worship.
In His story, Jesus contrasted several Jewish travelers who saw a wounded man at the side of the road who had been waylaid by highway robbers, vs a Samaritan, who unlike these Jews, showed great compassion toward the wounded man.
Jesus was making the point that religion, in the legalistic sense, was irrelevant, and that anyone of any religion could show kindness, and that it was this kindness and compassion – the love intended by God in the commandment to love one’s neighbor – was central to the Judaic religion. He also was trying to show that it is human love and kindness that saves people. (At the end of this conversation, he asks the scholar whether he obeys these commandments, and when the scholar says he does, Jesus says “do this and you will live,” (meaning have eternal life) Luke 10:27-28.
After telling this intriguing story, Jesus asked the scholar who was the “neighbor” and who had shown love toward him. The scholar naturally said that the Samaritan had shown love toward the wounded man, who was representative of the concept of a “neighbor.”
Jesus had always used various actions to show his preference for loving behavior over Pharisaic legalism. He saved the life of an adulterous who was about to be stoned to death by telling the crowd of would-be stone throwers – who were following the letter of the Hebrew law – “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.
Pharisaic legalism – as distinct from the commandment to “love you neighbor as yourself” – is precisely what the Israelis are displaying toward the Palestinians today.
If typical Evangelicals calling themselves “Christians” today were true followers of Jesus, they would not support the Israeli genocide.
But they are not really followers of Christ. They are legalistic Pharisees hiding behind Christ’s name to support murder.
So what does the New Testament say about this?
First John 3:15:
Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
“Christian” Zionists either outrightly support the murderous Israelis or they make excuses for them.
They have the heart of murderers and are proud that they have the “correct” understanding of the Bible! They believe that if they “stand with Israel,” they will be taken up in the air at the Second Coming.
Nothing could be farther from the loving heart of Jesus, who said that, at the last judgment, He would say to such fake Christians “depart from me for I never knew you.”
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Here’s your daily air strike update for April 16, 2024
Translation with my notes in bold and in [brackets]
April 16, 2024
The Russian army launched a massive attack on military targets in Ukraine last night
Explosions occurred in the Khmelnitsky and Cherkasy oblasts. Eyewitnesses report several arrivals in the area of the Starokonstantinov airfield [Khmelnitsky oblast]. After this, a second detonation occurred, which may mean that an ammunition depot was hit. It is this airfield that is being considered as one of the possible locations for the deployment of NATO F-16 aircraft. [Which is why this airfield gets hit regularly and has been hit for as long as I can remember]
Explosions also occurred in Uman [Cherkasy oblast], striking a large logistics center near the railway station. According to some reports, this is a kind of transshipment base through which Western weapons and equipment are supplied to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
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Trump says MILLIONS killed in Ukraine
https://ria.ru/20240415/ukraina-1939999097.html
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NYT journos forbidden to tell the truth about Israel and Palestine (don’t use the word Palestine, thank you)
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Americans becoming sane?
Poll shows Americans increasingly want Israel to stop the genocide. Republicans – with the highest concentration of “Christian” Zionists – less so.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-israel-gaza-poll-cbs-news/
'Christian'? NOT EVEN CLOSE! The exact OPPOSITE, in fact!.......SATAN-WORSHIPERS!!