One of the most disturbing trends amongst Christians today is the misidentification of the people of God. The Bible has been consistent on this throughout every page: God’s people have always been those who believe in him, no matter their race[1] and those who do not believe in him are not his. As John the Baptist so eloquently says,
“7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming
to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from
the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not
presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you,
God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (Matt. 3:7-9).
John is
telling the Jewish religious leaders something important: it is who you have
faith in and how you live which makes you people of God, not who you are descended
from.[2]
This theme is consistent throughout the Bible and never changes. As Paul tells
us again and again it is those who have faith, who do not trust in the flesh,
who are children of God. God’s people have faith in him and in the New
Testament in Jesus Christ, his Son, and those who are not of God reject him and
reject his Son.
So, knowing
this, we have to say that the only times that God’s people are attacked in Israel
is when Christians are persecuted by those who practice Orthodox Judaism or
sometimes by Islamic radicals (though this is less often).
As the Guardian
reports,
“The head of the Roman Catholic church in the Holy Land has
warned in an interview that Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government has made
life worse for Christians in the birthplace of Christianity.
The Vatican-appointed Latin Patriarch, Pierbattista Pizzaballa,
said that the region’s 2,000-year-old Christian community has come under
increasing attack, with the most rightwing government in Israel’s history
emboldening extremists who have harassed clergy and vandalised religious
property at a quickening pace.
The increase in anti-Christian incidents comes as the Israeli
settler movement, galvanised by its allies in government, appears to have
seized the moment to expand its enterprise in the contested capital.
“The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become
something new,” Pizzaballa told the AP. “These people feel they are protected …
that the cultural and political atmosphere now can justify, or tolerate,
actions against Christians.”[3]
As NBC
news reports,
“But church officials and Christian leaders in Israel say
this was far from an isolated incident. As tensions over Jewish and Muslim holy
sites have erupted in recent weeks, spiraling into violence between Israelis
and Palestinians, Christians in the Holy Land say they’re under attack, too.
Although they blame a minority of Jewish extremists for the
attacks, they say Israel’s far-right government has fostered a culture of
impunity for attacks on non-Jews, emboldening the nation’s most extreme
elements.
In January, ultra-Orthodox Jewish lawmakers allied with Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed imposing jail time for Christian
proselytizing, although after a global outcry, Netanyahu said he would block
the bill.
Dimitri Diliani, head of the Palestinian National Christian
Coalition, said he felt “more threatened” now by “Israeli policies than any
other time.”
“Staying here and protecting our heritage is becoming more
difficult,” he said.
In Christianity’s holiest city, churches have been graffitied
and clergy who live and work here report being frequently spit on, harassed and
even physically attacked by extremist Jews. Christian leaders say most
incidents are never thoroughly investigated.”[4]
“Christian leaders in Jerusalem say never have Israeli
attackers felt more emboldened than under the far-right ruling coalition.
Jerusalem – Nothing about the attack or what happened since
surprised Miran Krikorian. The Armenian owner of Taboon and Wine Bar in the Old
City of Jerusalem was not surprised to receive a call the night of January 26
that a mob of Israeli settlers was attacking his bar in the Christian Quarter
and shouting “Death to Arabs … Death to Christians.”
It didn’t surprise him how little effort the police made to
catch the perpetrators; after some press about the attack and a lack of
arrests, police told him two months later they detained three of the suspects
among the mob. But they also asked for his surveillance video, despite the videos
being already online and surveillance cameras omnipresent in the Old City…
…Hostility by fundamentalist Jews towards Jerusalem’s
Christian community is not new, and it is not just Armenian Christians who
suffer from it. Priests of all denominations describe being spat at for years.
Since 2005, Christian celebrations around Holy Week, particularly Holy Fire
Saturday, have brought military barricades and harsh treatment from soldiers
and settlers alike, with the number of worshippers allowed inside the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre drastically limited, from as many as 11,000 historically
during the Holy Fire ceremony to now 1,800 since last year, with authorities
citing safety concerns.
But since Israel’s new government – the most right wing and
religious in its history – came to power, incidents against Christians in
Jerusalem have reportedly become more violent and common. At the beginning of
the year, 30 Christian graves at the Protestant Mount Zion Cemetery were
desecrated. In the Armenian Quarter, vandals spray-painted “Death to Arabs,
Christians and Armenians,” on the walls.”[5]
As The
Times of Israel reports,
“The picture of safe coexistence painted by Israeli officials
is starkly at odds with the experiences Jerusalem’s Christian leaders
themselves describe. While they readily acknowledge that there is no organized
or governmental effort against them, Christian clergy in the Old City tell of a
deteriorating atmosphere of harassment, apathy from authorities, and a growing
fear that incidents of spitting and vandalism could turn into something far
darker.
And with Netanyahu already under scrutiny from Western allies
over policies toward the Palestinians and attempts at sweeping judicial reform,
deteriorating safety for Christians — or at least Church leaders disseminating
that narrative — could become another serious diplomatic problem for Israel’s
embattled government…
…The next week, the Maronite community center in the northern
city of Ma’alot-Tarshiha was vandalized by unknown assailants over the
Christmas holiday.
Jerusalem’s Armenian community buildings were also targeted
by vandals, with multiple discriminatory phrases graffitied on the exterior of
structures in the Armenian Quarter. According to the Armenian Patriarchate,
“revenge,” “death to Christians,” “death to Arabs and gentiles” and “death to
Armenians” were all graffitied in the quarter.
The attacks kept coming. On a Thursday night in late January,
a gang of religious Jewish teens threw chairs at an Armenian restaurant inside
the city’s New Gate. The vandalism at the Church of the Flagellation occurred
the very next week.
And last week, a resident of southern Israel was arrested
after attacking priests with an iron bar at the Tomb of the Virgin Mary in
Gethsemane.
“Terrorist attacks, by radical Israeli groups, targeting
churches, cemeteries, and Christian properties… have become almost a daily
occurrence that evidently increases in intensity during Christian holidays,”
said the Greek Orthodox Church.”[6]
And lastly, as
Religion News Service reports,
“As anti-Christian incidents perpetrated by religious Jewish
extremists have increased in number during the past several months, church
leaders are pleading with government officials to take the matter more
seriously.
Until recently, those pleas have gone largely unheeded.
Preoccupied with an unprecedented political crisis sparked by the December 2022
election of a government dominated by nationalists and ultra-Orthodox Jews,
Israeli officials have given little attention to the anti-Christian assaults,
say church leaders.
Bishop Rafic Nahra in Nazareth, Catholic patriarchal vicar
for Israel, called the police response “weak.”
“If synagogues were being attacked, the response would be
stronger,” he asserted.
Police have arrested only a handful of the teenagers and
young men who have spat at nuns and priests in the Old City of Jerusalem,
vandalized church property and disrupted Christian prayer gatherings.
This inaction has spurred even more attacks by dozens of religious
extremists scattered around the country, according to resident Christians.”[7]
These are
not isolated reports and they are not new, even though all of these reports
come from 2023, this does not show that Christian persecution is new in Israel,
only that it has recently gotten worse.
Are you
aware that Israel is one of the places on earth where Christians are persecuted
and attacked regularly? Especially on certain holy days? I suspect that you are
not. In fact, I can only think that the absolute complete support many
Christians display for the nation of Israel shows that they are unaware of this
persecution. It is even worse to say that the people who are persecuting
Christians are the people of God.
It is one
thing to condemn terror attacks against civilians. That such an act would
garner a harsh response from Christians is understandable. To then turn around
and say that Israel are the people of God is to go way too far and this needs
to be challenged, even if it is not popular to do so.
This is what
the Bible says about persecution of his people and where it comes from,
“16 But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the
earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from
his mouth. 17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to
make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of
God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea”
(Rev. 12:16-17).
Who are
those that “keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus”?
Christians, whether Jewish or Gentile. Those who hold to faith in the name of
Jesus Christ. There are Christians of both sorts in Israel. There are even some
Christians in Gaza who trace their descent all the way back to the primitive
church of the Apostles. Incredible isn’t it? But such is the perseverance of
the saints, the people of God, they can survive and flourish in even the most
unfavourable conditions.
As Christians
we should not instantly side with any state that tolerates persecution of our
brothers and sisters. Israel needs the gospel as much as Iran, China or many
other parts of the world where Christians are a persecuted minority. It is a
travesty that so many Christians today do not understand the concept of who the
people of God are according to the Scriptures, but then, they have been led
astray by many bishops and preachers who have taught them the wrongs things on
this issue.
List of
References
[1]
Observe in the Bible how many Gentiles joined the people of God, people such as
Rahab, Ruth, Obed-Edom, Uriah the Hittite, Job and many others who were not
Jewish or even Hebrew, starting with Abraham himself who was Aramean to be
begin with.
[2] I
also think there is a bit of an allusion here to the fact that Jesus is going
to extend the invitation to his kingdom to all peoples, and that he is going to
take those with a heart of stone and turn them into hearts of flesh. Praise God
that he did as well.
[3] AP
in Jerusalem, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/13/christians-are-in-danger-under-israeli-government-says-holy-land-patriarch
[4] Josh
Lederman and Shira Pinson, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-palestinians-christians-attacks-holy-land-jewish-extremists-rcna80441
[5] Steven
Davidson, 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/4/9/under-netanyahu-violence-against-christians-is-being-normalised
Good blogging on this topic, Rev. Matt! Even the people I know who have visited the Holy Land (spoken with such awe and reverence, as if the entire Earth were not filled with His glory) have no idea about these goings-on because a) they aren't interested in proselytizing, but in viewing and b) they're kept strictly to the tourist paths. The propaganda is that Jews are just a hair's-breadth from being just like Christians, and barely even need to repent, they're so special! Sharing around. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI am glad you were encouraged and that this post was helpful. It is surprising to me how many Christians are not aware of the reality for Christians on the ground in Israel. What is also surprising is how many people know and just do not care.
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