The Church’s Jew-Haters—Part 1

My father taught me early on, “We must always support Israel. If the day ever comes when the United States doesn’t support Israel, we’re in trouble.”

I took that seriously. It was only later that I heard things from him that seemed to contradict our Israel support. As evangelical Christians in the Midwest in what I’ll call the “Late Great Planet Earth” days—a reference to Hal Lindsey’s mega-selling book on Bible prophecy in the wake of Israel’s miraculous Six Day War victory—it was easy to come alongside the Jewish state.

But it was that “Jewish” part that seemed to trip-up my dad. I noticed over time that if my mother, for example, mentioned a new co-worker or a new delivery man, Dad’s first question was, “Is he a Jew?”

I didn’t understand that at first, but when I later learned about this pillar of antisemitism, I began to understand that Dad distinguished between modern Jews and the Jews of antiquity. He saw modern Jews as something else. In short, he believed the age-old lies that Jews start wars, control all the money in the world, etc. Up to this moment, dozens of unsubstantiated theories allege that “other” groups are the “real Jews,” or the “real Israel” is not the modern state of Israel. DNA evidence alone would prove that today’s Jewish citizens of Israel are the descendants of their ancestors living in the Land of Israel.

But such evidence doesn’t penetrate a dark and warped heart.

A modern Israeli family in Jerusalem’s Old City, studying their ancient past. (Photo by Author)

For whatever reason, I instinctively understood that my father was wrong. All my life, I have loved the Jewish people with all my heart, unconditionally.

In the last 25 years, I have advocated for Israel in one way or another. I saw 30 years ago that something was “off” in the Church overall, regarding Israel and Jews. The support was waning. I now see there are many reasons for this, but today I want to focus on the outcomes of that erosion. I will focus on the reasons for this stain on humanity in a follow-up column.

Yesterday I saw posted on a friend’s timeline on Facebook a subtle-but-powerful attack on Israel and her Christian supporters. Here I will quote the paragraph in its entirety; the misspellings are so numerous and astonishing, one wonders why anyone would take it seriously.

“The Schofield study Bible was published by the Oxford university press, which was owned by the Rothschilds. And this whole theology was first written out by John Darby whose family owned the most haunted castle in the world, Leap Castle, where 150 bodies were found in the sellers, and where satanic masses were held. John Darby used all kinds of occult terms in his religious writings. He was involved in many secret societies and cult groups, and he is the one who educated Cyrus Scofield. But John Darby was an employee of the Rothschilds. He worked for the East Indi company. The Schofield study Bible literally said that everyone who supported this new Israel would be blessed by God, and everyone who did not support it would be cursed by God. So fear and intimidation was used to force Christians to be on their side, and they succeeded. In our time, the vast majority of Christianity believes that this new political military state of Israel is indeed a fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. But they haven’t got the slightest clue what’s really going on here.”

Too many readers will take it seriously, and it will spread across the Internet.

Let me explain briefly what the poster (who identifies as a Christian) is referring to.

The Scofield (not Schofield) Reference Bible was first published in 1909 by, yes, Oxford University Press. The poster does not provide any documentation in this paragraph that “the Rothschilds” owned the Press. The poster doesn’t provide any documentation for anything else written. John Darby was a 19^th century Irish preacher committed to the study of Bible prophecy. Because, again, the poster offers no citations of any kind, it’s unclear if Darby had any occult leanings (evidence does exist to the contrary), or if he worked for the Rothschilds. Rather than proving the claims of this paragraph, it was sent out with zero corroborating evidence that the details are true.

Further, the reference to Leap Castle has nothing to do with anything…unless you want to lay the groundwork for all these people (who supported the restoration of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland) being satanists. That is a common charge by Jew-haters that demonize all Jews everywhere. It calls to mind the Medieval antisemitism, which has continued unabated to this moment. Such claims are in books found in Gaza’s Hamas strongholds. Along with copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which purported to reveal the nefarious global plans of the Jews.

At the core of this is that the poster wants the reader to believe that the devious Rothschilds forced a Baptist scholar to insert a theological threat into the Bible—support the Jews, or else.

The person that posted this hit-piece on Facebook, and the people that believe it, are identical to Hamas. Violence is violence. Antisemitic filth making its way through the Christian community is placing Jews in danger. It is inexcusable and unconscionable. For 4,000 years, the Jews have been presented as “Other” and it is for that reason they have been hunted, harassed, and murdered for millennia. It is still happening right now, in the tunnels of Gaza and at UCLA and Harvard.

As one last example of the third-rate “background” of this anti-Semitic hit piece, the assertion that Leap Castle is the most haunted castle in the world is just dumb and laughable. How could anyone know if this is true or not? And 150 bodies were found in the “seller”? Honestly, one would have to be as ignorant as the poster in order to believe all this.

C.I. Scofield (Public domain)

The only reason I’m answering this piece of trash is because it was posted at exactly the same moment Jews around the world are fighting for their lives. And, this piece was posted back in October, 10 days after Hamas murdered, tortured, raped, and kidnapped Israeli Jews—and downloaded the images on the internet.

If even one person believes any of this, they are contributing to the violence being done to the Jewish community. I cannot let that pass.

The poster was clever in one regard. By substituting “Rothschild” for “Jews” or “Zionism,” it isn’t immediately clear that this is a grenade lobbed at the Jewish community. The problem is, the ignorant people reading it know just enough to follow the dog-whistles and put together that Jews are satanists.

The last part is equally moronic. The bit about being blessed or cursed by God is a clear reference to Genesis 12:3, long used as a mantra of sorts for pro-Israel folks. The context is that God is telling Abraham that his descendants are the key to blessing or curse, depending on how gentiles treat them. Joel 3:1,2 also speaks to this:

In those days and at that time,
when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
I will gather all nations
and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
There I will put them on trial
for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel,
because they scattered my people among the nations
and divided up my land.

It appears that the poster is seriously claiming that the scholar C.I. Scofield inserted Genesis 12:3 into the Bible in 1909.

One can read this verse, in the Hebrew, from the Dead Sea Scroll of the book of Genesis. How then can it be that this was a Zionist conspiracy to strong-arm Christians into supporting modern Israel? The verse has existed in written form for thousands of years!

The problem with all this is, obvious truth doesn’t always penetrate stupidity.

There are millions of Jew-haters on social media. Sadly, for those that don’t realize they’re being duped by mediocre propagandists, their ignorance will have tragic and lasting consequences.