Posted on 07/23/2006 9:45:15 AM PDT by quidnunc
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To the untrained eye, Megiddo is just another Israeli farm community attached to an archeological dig and tourist gift shop. But tens of millions of evangelical Christians know it as Armageddon, the biblical battleground for the coming war between Jesus and the anti-Christ.
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Jewish Democrats often decry Republican evangelical support on the grounds that these Christians only want to missionize Jews (and if they do, so what? It's a free country) or use them as cannon fodder at Armageddon (which matters only if you believe in Armageddon in the first place).
In fact, the main motive for Christian Zionism is not devious. As Hagee said, paraphrasing the Book of Genesis, Chapter 12:3, "God will bless those who bless the Jewish people."
Now, if you don't believe in the literal truth of the Bible, this probably sounds like a Christian Hallmark card sentiment. But if you do, it's a marching order.
The idea of militant evangelicals mobilizing for Israel frightens those who believe fundamentalists are trying to push the United States into a war to hasten Armageddon. But they miss the point. One of the central attributes of conservative evangelical Christianity is its eschatological passivity. End times will come when God is ready, and there is nothing anyone can do — not give your old clothes to the maid, join the Sierra Club or even go on a Nation magazine Caribbean cruise — that will hasten Paradise.
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(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
As Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda and Islamic Insurgents target the peaceful way we all live on a daily basis, one would surmise that the American Jew, the most despised group of the terrorists, would be the most fervently supportive of the Bush Administration and the War on Terror.
Think again.
As an American Jew, one who naively voted Democratic up until 9/11, but now an unabashed Bush and War on Terror supporter, I have seen the proverbial light. Sadly, precious few others of my ilk have. I can count on one hand the number of Republican Jews I have in my family or close friend base and can count on two hands the number of Bush supporting Jews I know. Yet, to my utter disbelief yet slow acceptance, I would need multiple minutes and a lot of Pepto Bismol to add up the amount of Bush-hating, anti-War Jewish friends and family I know.
Two thoughtful articles in the past year tackle this matter coherently and logically. I sent the first, “Dumb Jews,” out to my Republican-fearing, coastal-residing Jewish friends back in November. None commented back, many blocked my email address. Freedom of speech ends at their inboxes, it seemed. This most recent one, entitled, “When Will They Ever Learn” would likely suffer the same fate, so I won’t bother. To them, a Bush supporter is sacrilegious, not that any of them understand religion nor respect it. That the article makes the important note that Tom Delay, hated amongst Jews, a man who my friend’s mother called “a thoroughly evil man, second only to Bin Laden,” is accurately noted to have been “one of the best friends Israel ever had in American politics, and one of the most effective symbols of Republican support for Israel” is immaterial, it sadly seems. Much as author, David Gelernter mentions, American Jews move left as the left moves away from Israel. That is very telling, or at least it should be.
These lawyers, doctors and successful tycoons have absolutely zero interest in being open-minded and reading something not written in the only bibles these secular peons read, the New York Times or the Washington Post. If one of their counterculture, Ivy league former classmates did not write it, why would it have any relevance? Their legal relativist views go only so far as the left side of the spectrum.
They have no qualms with calling me or any Bush supporter a warmongering fascist and any patriot who waves a flag a blind jingoist, but by golly, if you asked them to watch Fox News, attend temple or tolerate conservative speech in schools, they’d call you Hitler, and tell you to turn on the television and see the “real” atrocities occurring at Gitmo and formerly Abu Ghraib. Their ACLU minds see those places as the major issue while the NSA and Christianity as bigger dangers than Radical Islam. After all, Bob Herbert – who writes bi-weekly op-eds accusing the US (never our enemies) of human rights violations – have told them so many times, so why would they seek out further information and be original when an expert has told them so? Dennis Prager brilliantly explained how this works with Global Warming.
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(Ari Kaufman in The American Thinker, July 23, 2006)
http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5692
This talk of Armageddon is a bit far-out to me.
They may have odd ideas about the end of the world, but the evangelicals' ideology has made them into militant anti-fascists (which is more than I can say for some of my best friends). The truth is, in this war, I'd rather be in a bomb shelter — or a foxhole — with Jerry Falwell than with Jerry Seinfeld.
It'd have to be a pretty big foxhole.
Think you'll like this too. The American Thinker article is sobering.
>>I Want Falwell in My Foxhole<<
I'd trade three Falwell's in my foxhole for one Jessica Simpson.
Judging by the text of this article, as well as the admission of not having a clue what the people Zev was interviewing ("Amen," I said, my usual response when I don't know what she's talking about.), I can't imagine any value a book on Christianity written by this author is likely to provide. Most likely, simply fodder for the godless left to mock Christians utilizing half truths and out right fabrications....the typically modus operandi of the left anyway.
I am thankful that none of us have to trust Jerry Fawell, but we can trust God and the bible. The prophecies will indeed come to pass in their own good time.
I was pretty(pleasantly) surprised that someone finally pointed out,that evangelical Christians don't believe that they can do anything to initiate "Armageddon", and that they're not out there trying to instigate it. We can note things that happen,but only God knows the timeline.
read later
He not writing a book ON Christianity, he's writing a book ABOUT Christian evangelicals, American Jews and Israel — in other words, a book about the interrelationship of the three.
Given is lack of comprehension of at least one of those segments, the prognosis isn't good regarding the end result. But perhaps he'll learn quite a bit along the way....but I won't be laying any large wagers on that prospect.
ANYONE who thinks Iran will not use the big one at their first chance to do so is nuts.Being PC about the whole thing is a giant mistake or miscalculation.History repeats itself.Look at all the nutsos who were given a pass,in the name of 'diplomacy'.
"As Hagee said, paraphrasing the Book of Genesis, Chapter 12:3, "God will bless those who bless the Jewish people." "
If Hagee said "Jewish people" he is not quoting or paraphrasing Scripture at all. It is a false phrase.
He said Israel. So the blessing promised is to those who bless Israel. IF the Jewish people, who took the name Israel for their land, are blood sons of Jacob/Israel then they will be found living by the word of the God of Abraham.
The Talmud is not that word. It is the words of men (the traditions of the elders).
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