A People No Longer Alone
The Jewish people have been “a nation apart” for 3,000 years. Separate in the world, often harassed, hounded and hunted, scapegoats for kings, emperors, religious leaders and demagogues.
Just before the Children of Israel entered the land, Balak, the king of Moab, attempted to entice a mercenary prophet, Balaam, to curse the Jewish people. He did not succeed, but he persuaded Balaam to utter a cryptic phrase which has seemed to define the Jewish people for millennia. The Jews, he declared, shall be “a people who dwell alone.”
There are tangible signs that this historic reality has shifted in our time.
I have just led a delegation of one hundred leading pastors and Christian from the United States, the UK, Hong Kong and Peru, who flew to Israel, in the midst of war, to show their solidarity with the Israeli people and to oppose the rising tide of antisemitism in the world. These leaders wept when they stood on the blood-soaked soil of Kibbutz Nahal Oz and the Nova Festival on the anniversary of the massacre of more than1,200 innocent men, women and children.
Hundreds of millions of Christians stand with Israel as a matter of faith. On Sunday, October 6th, more than ninety million Christians in 175 nations united in the annual global Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem, along with Dr. Mike Evans, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum and many other speakers.
These Christian leaders have pledged themselves to be voices in their churches and communities, to refuse to be silent when radical Islamists and their leftist American enablers call for the extermination of Jews.
Thousands more Christians are signing the “Bonhoeffer Declaration,” a commitment to combat antisemitism and every expression of hate. More than five hundred leading American pastors, theologians, denominational leaders, writers and broadcasters have united to combat antisemitism and hate in America. They are appalled by the explosion of anti-Jewish venom and the lack of moral seriousness shown by the academy, personified by the shameful performances of the presidents of Harvard, Columbia and Penn when they appeared before a Congressional committee last fall.
They stand united with Israel, in the spirit of German pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who saw Nazism for what it was, resisted, and at extreme personal risk, sought to rouse and mobilize the German church to stand against the demonic virus.
Tragically, Bonhoeffer stood virtually alone.
But today, support for Israel and the Jewish people resounds from hundreds of thousands of pulpits and in the prayers of a quarter billion Christians, from urban cathedrals, suburban megachurches and in humble chapels on every continent.
They carry the same spirit as the righteous Gentiles who risked their own lives and those of their families to hide Jews from their murderers during the Shoah. Those brave souls numbered in the thousands; their spiritual descendants are as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore.
These Christians realize that they bear a unique responsibility to combat the most ancient, pervasive, and culturally acceptable form of racism. They understand that Christians owe a deep debt to the Jewish people because their heritage is rooted in Judaism. They know that there is no Christianity without the Jewish understanding of God, history and the Scriptures.
These Christians also recognize that the church has often been complicit and an active agent in the propagation of racism through antisemitic theology and rhetoric. This shameful past requires Christians to commit themselves work to eradicate antisemitism in our world.
For them, silence is not an option. They understand that every morally serious person must resist and reject hate in any form. We can never actively or passively support any racist or bigoted ideology.
This alliance, though potent, is not a defacto guarantee of success. Anti-Israel forces are hard at work trying to sway the younger generation of evangelicals into an anti-Israel stance. So it is more imperative than ever that the Jewish and Christian world come together, especially at the leadership level, in a way that can then make an impact at local levels from coast to coast.
When a Syrian king sent an army to capture the prophet Elisha, the prophet’s servant was terrified. The prophet lifted his eyes to heaven and calmly prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes and let him see that more there are who are for us than those who are against us.” (2 Kings 6:16-17)
My prayer for Israel today is the same, that the G-d of Abraham, Yitzak and Yakov will open the eyes of Jews worldwide to see that they are not alone, that the curse of Balaam is reversed, and that they are surrounded and supported by friends who will not be silent.