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Friday, 22 November 2024

Has Standing With Israel Blessed America (Part 2)

 

Last week I began a new series examining whether or not standing with Israel has blessed America. It has gotten some response, much good, some negative, which is too be expected. This is a touchy topic for some people because many Christians have made this a pillar of their faith. For them it is a given: you stand with Israel, or you stand against God. This is why I am examining this, because I have looked in great detail at what the Bible says about who God’s people really are, but that is not the only way to challenge this idea. We can also look at whether or not the idea has real world tangibility.

Before we go further though, I should probably define what I mean by blessing. God says to Abraham in Genesis 12:

“1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

It should be noted that this is not a promise to Israel, but is rather a promise to Abraham, as God says, “I will bless you…” Who is he addressing? Abraham. Then he notes that he will bless those who bless Abraham, and he will curse those who curse dishonour him. This promise is clearly Abraham centric, there is no mention of Israel, the physical nation, in the passage, nor is there mention of the modern nation of Israel. Abraham has been told he will be made a “great nation”, but the blessing is not yet tied to this, and at this point this could refer to any number of physical nations that came from Abraham, and also the Church itself, the holy Nation of God. So, we should note this passage is not able to be used honestly to justify standing with Israel.

However, the promise of blessing is passed on through Abraham’s children,

“15 And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” 19 So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba. And Abraham lived at Beersheba” (Gen. 22:15-19).

This promise is ultimately fulfilled in Christ, as Peter demonstrations in Acts 3:25-26, where he directly quotes verse 18,

“25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ 26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness” (Acts 3:25-26).

Peter applies this promise to Abraham, that blessing would come to all nations through his offspring, to his most significant descendant, Jesus Christ. The blessing of Abraham is fulfilled ultimately in him, and all who are blessed by turning from their sins to Jesus. Paul also demonstrates this in Galatians 3, when he says, “16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16).

So, it is legitimate to see the promise of blessing to Abraham carried on through his descendants, or offspring, though ultimately it is a promise of the blessing of salvation brought through Jesus Christ. However, we see in both Abraham and his family’s line a shadow fulfilment of this promise. Abraham lied to both Pharoah and Abimelech about his wife Sarai, and both these men were placed in danger because of this. However, God enriched the man Abram through these interactions, and in the case of Abimelech we see this king was spiritually blessed, because God personally warned him not to touch Abraham’s wife, because he saw the integrity in Abimelech’s heart. Pharoah was similarly restrained, but through plagues. In the case of Jacob, we see how his presence on his relative Laban’s farm brought material blessing to his entire extended family. To such a point that Laban tried to keep Jacob there.

This gives us a metric for determining whether the promise of blessing is still in effect with the modern nation of Israel today, and whether, or not, the nation of America has been blessed by this connection. We see clear, measurable, material and spiritual blessings being bestowed upon those who blessed Abraham, and we see punishments from God, both spiritual and material on those who sought to harm him.  It’s important we establish this, so that those who make the claim that standing with Israel can’t have their cake and eat it too. That is, so that they can’t claim that America has been blessed, and then say but it does not matter if this is not materially or even spiritually observed, because blessing can be unquantifiable. This kind of assertion allows people to hold this position as a determined dogma, but then wiggle out of the necessity to demonstrate it. We need to hold a blow torch to this idea and test it.  

So, let’s give two examples in this article of America’s support to Israel correlating with what can only be viewed as lack of blessing. The first will be material, and the second spiritual.[1]

In my first piece on this issue I showed that America’s support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war led to both causative and correlative negative flow on effects. I focused on the national debt and degradation to American industry, but that is simply two examples. If you look at America’s unemployment rate since 1973 it has tracked upward over time. It has not remained consistently up or down, but has trended towards worse employment numbers for Americans, as seen in this graph[2]:



Figure 1: US unemployment rate tracked over time.

In October 1973 unemployment dropped to 4.6% but as you can see it skyrocketed across the decade and only got back down to that level in the early 2000’s. This is hardly the sign of a blessed economy. If you look at the graph dating before 1970 you can see the unemployment rate went up and down but was on average much lower, and employment peaked in July 1953. People look back to the 50’s as a golden age for a reason. But when you factor in the fact that unemployment is not counted the same as it used to be, the picture is even worse than this.

The real unemployment rate is far higher than the official unemployment rate. The real rate takes into account the underemployed, the marginally attached, and discouraged workers, whereas the official rate accounts for those looking for work who do not have a job.[3]



Figure 2: The real unemployment rate, verse the official.

This shows that the situation for the American economy is far worse than the first graph even shows. This shows that over time, with some exceptions, American participation in the workforce has been declining. When Jacob was with Laban, the latter’s flocks increased and there was more work and more prosperity for all involved. But over time things have gotten worse for the American worker, though US support for Israel has increased. This is not even counting how real world wages have massively declined since the 1970’s. So, how can one argue that America has risen and been blessed since its very open international support for Israel began? There has been a marked decline across the economy. Americans are worse off.  

And, note this, there was a direct negative impact on employment as a result of that Yom Kippur war, as seen in the graph above. How could there not be? US energy prices skyrocketed. Of course this was going to lead to job losses across the country.

Someone might say, what about spiritual blessings? Has standing with Israel transferred blessings to the American Church? Well, look at US Church attendance going back to 1952[4]:



Figure 3: American decline in religious observance.

As the article notes,

“The resulting decline in religion stopped by the end of the 1970s, when religiosity remained steady. Over the past fifteen years, however, religion has once again declined. But this decline is much sharper than the decline of 1960s and 1970s. Church attendance and prayer is less frequent. The number of people with no religion is growing. Fewer people say that religion is an important part of their lives. All measures point to the same drop in religion: If the 1950s were another Great Awakening, this is the Great Decline.”[5]

So, support for Israel has not led to a revival in Christianity in America. How can the decline of the Church be called a blessing for a nation?

Today there are less than half the churches in America than there was 100 years ago.  This is just one of the startling statistics that reflect the state of the Church in America today there is no doubt that Christianity in America is changing and we will need to adapt along with it.”[6]

In my previous article I tied America’s support for Israel to the 1973 Yom Kippur war, that is not because that is when it began, it actually started before that, that was simply because that war was such a prominent event, its effect on the US was measurable. But no matter where in its history you tie US support for Israel to the American religious situation, Christianity has declined. Yet it has increased massively in other parts of the world. Think of a country like China, which does not have politicians making public statements about believing in blessing for military support for Israel, but there the church grows. Of course, China has its own issues, but a declining Church is not one of them.

But the picture is not all bad. Church attendance in some of the younger generations is increasing. For instance, between 2019 and 2022 Millennials went from having a weekly church attendance rate of 21% to 39%, which is a notable increase.[7] What makes this so interesting is that the younger generations who are increasing their church attendance are also less likely to have a favourable view of Israel.[8] 


 Figure 4: Generation support for Israel.

Of course, Boomers have the strongest support for Israel, next is Gen x, and after that Millennials and then Gen 7, whose support for Israel is in a marked decline. One might turn around here and note that well, Matt, the Boomers are the wealthiest generation in history, therefore, should not other generations follow their support for Israel, to receive the same blessings? All I would say in response to that is: look at the economy that Boomers are handing to their children, it is a far worse one than they ever experienced, and they are the first of the recent generations to hand their children less opportunities than they themselves were handed. So, is this a sign of blessing, or a nation being given over? I think the answer is obvious myself. Maybe if Boomers had invested that money for trips to Israel into helping their kids buy homes or pay for education, the number of Millennials in Church would be higher? 

So, as you can see by both a material and spiritual metric it can be demonstrated that support for Israel has not blessed America. It is harder for Americans to get jobs, and the church is in decline overall, with some positive movements in some of the younger cohort; a cohort that is less likely to support Israel. This idea that standing with Israel means blessing for America is bad theology, and as you can see this is also demonstrated in the figures. 

Till next time.

List of References


[1] Though I should say to some degree I see this as a false dichotomy. All good things come from God above, as Jame the brother of Jesus told us.

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