Theology is Not Neutral.

 

Theology is not neutral.

Bad theology can get people killed, it can be used to justify wars, it can be wielded to grease the wheels of corruption, upset the balance of world order, and cause governments to neglect their own roles and people because "Deus Vault" ("God wills it").

I have written about this before, but it is immoral for governments to give their people’s tax money or debt money, however it is raised, to other nations. Doubly so for war. 

This is why I make no apologies for going against Christian Zionism hard, again and again. It is responsible for many evils in this world, and much destruction. It would be wrong to stay silent on it.

Effectively, what Christian Zionism, or prioritizing of Israel is, is a form of Judaizing, something Paul spent his whole ministry combatting. Judaizing imports the Old Testament, or more specifically the Old Covenant, into the Church in an incorrect way, directing the focus away from how it was completed in Christ and only those who believe in him are now God's people. This is a devastating subversion of so many truths of the gospel. 

There is also certainly no command anywhere in the Bible telling the church, or Christians in government, that they must "stand with Israel". Israel, like any other nation should be treated exactly as Jesus says in Matthew 28:18-20: "disciple all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you." Foreign nations for Christians are not entities to stand with, but entities for which we want good relations and want to seek to evangelize when possible. They are not our fight, though, and it's immoral for Christians in power to redirect government funding away from their own citizens. 

But if you were going to do it for Christian reasons, imagine if someone like Mike Johnson was to use his power to send $30 billion worth of missionaries and gospel mission support to the Middle East, instead of city destroying weapons? I don't think that is the government's role to do either really because it is the Church’s role to do mission, but if he were really trying to bless Israel, or the Middle East, or the world even, at least that would be using his power to do something good, rather than to steal from Americans to pay money to a despotic Middle Eastern pseudo-democracy[1] to continue ongoing war.[2] What a terrible inversion of the Christian message and teaching. It is absolutely deplorable that anyone in power can say this is a Christian responsibility with a straight face, and even worse that many Christians genuinely believe this.

It flies against the face of much of what the Bible teaches, even on war and alliances. Israel was forbidden from making military alliances with foreign nations in the Scripture*. And Christians are commanded to not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. There are many inversions happening here. Inversions which give Christianity a very bad name. I used to laugh at people when they said that American evangelicals are responsible for many wars in the world, but I have been shown how wrong I was many times. The reason I was so wrong is simple: Many regime evangelicals define evangelicalism very differently to how it should be understood. God help the world while they stoke up the flames of war.

List of References

---

[1] I don’t see how we can say a country that does not allow millions of its inhabitants to vote is a true democracy. Not that I am an advocating for democracy either, I’m simply noting that Israel is not the freedom loving country that many westerners appear to think it is.

[2] Yes, I know a lot of that money goes to American weapon manufacturers, which hire American workers. But that money could be spent on many things Americans needed, or not borrowed and spent at all, so that the nation were not so severely in debt. 

*Search alliances on this blog and you'll find many detailed examinations of this.