Evangelicals For Israel - Why?

[Josh]

 

 

Something I was always curious of but too afraid to ask:

 

Why do Evangelicals have any interest in Israel? What is the connection? I googled it, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Now admittedly, I'm not one of faith, so I'm probably looking at it wrong (I was confirmed congregational but that is religion Lite and I've given up on it since).

[Mr King]

Why not? Why would American evangelicals have anything against Jews? American evangelicals are not the stereotypes Hollywood portrays them as.

[toysoldier]

Its. The. Friggin'. Holy. Land.

[Mr King]

Its. The. Friggin'. Holy. Land.

 

Evangelicals are not allowed to be invested in their religious heritage, because they are filthy Evangelicals.

[toysoldier]

 

Its. The. Friggin'. Holy. Land.

 

Evangelicals are not allowed to be invested in their religious heritage, because they are filthy Evangelicals.

But that leaves them only bacon, guns & incest Edited December 6, 2017 by toysoldier

[Rick]

Something I was always curious of but too afraid to ask:

 

Why do Evangelicals have any interest in Israel? What is the connection? I googled it, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Now admittedly, I'm not one of faith, so I'm probably looking at it wrong (I was confirmed congregational but that is religion Lite and I've given up on it since).

Josh, the best answer an Evangelical can give you is to read the Bible.

[Markus Becker]

I think Rick nailed it.

Edited December 6, 2017 by Markus Becker

[Rick]

I think Rick nailed it.

No pun intended

[Murph]

Plus it is the Holy Land, and the Bible says it is the Holy Land.

Its. The. Friggin'. Holy. Land.

[FlyingCanOpener]

Combination of several factors, from an Evangelical who knows this song and dance by heart:

(1) Prophecy in the Old/New Testament says that in the End Times that the nation of Israel would be reinstated.

(2) In the Bible, the Jews are repeatedly spoken as God's Chosen People, and there are several admonitions against going against God's Chosen People

(3) Since if someone is against God's Chosen People, they're automatically bad guys based on (2), hence the pretty blanket support for Israel despite being essentially uninformed about internal Israeli politics

(4) Israel's ability to become a nation with pretty strong Western values and a Western-style democracy and an advanced economy despite a lot of its neighbours being a bunch of backwater sand farmers makes them think of Israel as America wearing a yarmulke. This one is where I stand far more than 1-3.

 

This, of course ignores that:

(1) In the Old Testament the Jews do a whole bunch of dumb things that God smacks them over the head about. Repeatedly. Putting paid the notion that the Jews are some sort of perfect people.

(2) A significant portion of Israel's founders were Communists, and the Soviet Union recognized them as a nation first IIRC.

(3) The internal politics of Israel have some pretty nasty portions that think that Christians aren't the best people on Earth.

(4) Israel is out to keep Israel around, and keeps this image very neat and tidy to keep themselves on their Sugar Daddy's nice side.

Edited December 6, 2017 by FlyingCanOpener

[lastdingo]

I'll repeat the (not very convincing) explanation that I read a few times:

Supposedly, many evangelicals are interested in the apocalypse and somehow Israel is involved.

 

Here are a couple links form a google search for 'israel evangelicals apocalypse':

 

http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/end-times/on-the-road-to-armageddon.aspx

 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-heilbroner/evangelicals-israel-and-t_b_391351.html

 

https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-10-24/why-american-evangelicals-are-huge-base-support-israel

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism

 

 

I must say, hyperpartisan theories about political enemies sometimes go so far off-board that it's difficult to imagine how they were formed in the first place.

Though in this example it may actually be more of a religious nutjob thing.

[Rick]

I'll repeat the (not very convincing) explanation that I read a few times:

Supposedly, many evangelicals are interested in the apocalypse and somehow Israel is involved.

 

Here are a couple links form a google search for 'israel evangelicals apocalypse':

 

http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/end-times/on-the-road-to-armageddon.aspx

 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-heilbroner/evangelicals-israel-and-t_b_391351.html

 

https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-10-24/why-american-evangelicals-are-huge-base-support-israel

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism

 

 

I must say, hyperpartisan theories about political enemies sometimes go so far off-board that it's difficult to imagine how they were formed in the first place.

Though in this example it may actually be more of a religious nutjob thing.

Ok, I volunteer to take one for the team and answer, but will need a 96 hour liberty to recover. See the slightly noticeable text above in red.

 

"...the apocalypse and somehow Israel is involved." OK Mr. Obvious, you want the source, a more honest and accurate source that those you posted -- BIBLE, read it!

[Ivanhoe]

(4) Israel's ability to become a nation with pretty strong Western values and a Western-style democracy and an advanced economy despite a lot of its neighbours being a bunch of backwater sand farmers makes them think of Israel as America wearing a yarmulke. This one is where I stand far more than 1-3.

There's also the obverse view. Choose your friends by who their enemies are.

 

Just by failing to go extinct, Jews have enraged the Left and the Muslim world. Must be doing something right.

[BansheeOne]

(3) The internal politics of Israel have some pretty nasty portions that think that Christians aren't the best people on Earth.

 

Just a somewhat entertaining illustration to that I happened to read yesterday:

 

Rabbi forbids looking at NIS 50 bill featuring poet who married a Christian

Sephardic Rabbi Benzion Mutzafi says he folds note face down in pocket to avoid seeing visage of 'apostate' Saul Tchernichovsky

By SUE SURKES

3 December 2017, 8:52 pm

Followers of an influential Sephardic rabbi will from now have to avoid looking at the country’s NIS 50 banknote because the poet whose image adorns the bill was married to a Christian woman.

Rabbi Benzion Mutzafi issued his ruling after pulling the offending note out of his pocket during a weekend lesson he was giving, the ultra-Orthodox news site Kikar HaShabat reported Sunday.

After one of his students asked for a fuller explanation for the ban, the rabbi — a senior adjudicator of Jewish law in the Sephardic community — wrote, “As regards the illustrated image: It is known he [Tchernichovsky] was ‘married’ to a devout Christian woman who every Sunday would ‘pray’ in church.

“They say that at the time, the late Rabbi [Abraham Isaac] Kook [the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine] pleaded with him, requested of him and tried to convince him that she convert to Judaism. And he refused.”

Tchernichovsky was married to Russian-born Christian Melania Karlova, with whom he had a daughter, Isolda.

He was one of four poets chosen in 2011 to appear on Israeli banknotes, together with Nathan Alterman, Leah Goldberg and Rachel Bluwstein.

The issuing of the NIS 50 note was met with anger by religious and other figures in Israel, when it was unveiled in September 2014.

Dr. Hagi Ben-Artzi, brother of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, said that the use of the Russian-born poet’s image on the bill was “an outrage.”

“Shaul Tchernichovsky has become a symbol of assimilation, of assimilation ideology,” he said at the time, according to Israel National News. “It is inconceivable that such a person, as important a poet as he may be, should become a symbol in the State of Israel.”

Bentzi Gopstein, director of the violent anti-assimilation group Lehava, told Kikar HaShabat at the time that avoiding using the new notes was unrealistic.

“I could say (that) but no one would do it,” he said, though he too lamented the use of the poet. “We should learn who the real role models are.”

Prominent Orthodox rabbi Shlomo Aviner said Tchernichovsky’s portrait on an official bill of the Jewish state was “horribly grating.”

“Tchernichovsky was indeed an incredibly talented author and poet, and is tied to the people of Israel, but a terrible dishonor was deeply imprinted on his life, as he was married to a gentile woman, a very religious Christian,” Aviner, head of the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, told the NRG news website, adding that it was unthinkable that an intermarried poet should be “glorified on the nation’s banknote.”

Last month saw the introduction of the new NIS 100 and NIS 20 banknotes featuring Leah Goldberg and Rachel Bluwstein, better known simply as Rachel the Poet.

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-forbids-looking-at-nis-50-bill-featuring-poet-who-married-a-christian/

 

Assimilation is of course a touchy subject in Judaism because throughout history Jews have been under considerable pressure to convert to Christianity, sometimes to little reward considering that e. g. the Nazis didn't care much even if you were baptized three generations ago. I also recall some years ago there was a bit of a stink from Jewish circles about the Mormon practice of posthumously declaring long-deceased folks converted to their own faith, which you would think would be met with at best an eyeroll by the living.

 

Still, issueing basically a fatwa forbidding to look at the image of a long-dead guy who had the temerity to marry out of faith has to rank right up there with some other silliness from the fringes of Ultra-Orthodoxy that compete well with standard Islamist nutbaggery, like gender-segregated busses, throwing stones at women or spitting at schoolgirls for not covering themselves enough, and indeed no images of women in publications or in public at all; as all extremists tend to try pushing their views on majority society, international companies now design extra women-less adverts for Israel. Ikea recently got caught in a controversy about a catalogue specifically for the Ultra-Orthodox.

Edited December 6, 2017 by BansheeOne

[toysoldier]

Must resist... urge to make... antisemitic joke about Jews and money...

[NickM]

 

(4) Israel's ability to become a nation with pretty strong Western values and a Western-style democracy and an advanced economy despite a lot of its neighbours being a bunch of backwater sand farmers makes them think of Israel as America wearing a yarmulke. This one is where I stand far more than 1-3.

There's also the obverse view. Choose your friends by who their enemies are.

 

Just by failing to go extinct, Jews have enraged the Left and the Muslim world. Must be doing something right.

 

 

But so many Jews are dang lefties/Bolshies/"internationalists" it gets frustrating.

[Panzermann]

 

 

(4) Israel's ability to become a nation with pretty strong Western values and a Western-style democracy and an advanced economy despite a lot of its neighbours being a bunch of backwater sand farmers makes them think of Israel as America wearing a yarmulke. This one is where I stand far more than 1-3.

There's also the obverse view. Choose your friends by who their enemies are.

 

Just by failing to go extinct, Jews have enraged the Left and the Muslim world. Must be doing something right.

 

 

But so many Jews are dang lefties/Bolshies/"internationalists" it gets frustrating.

 

 

 

The Left is far from unified. Though all lefites have a tendency to side with the underdog. As Israel has pretty much established itself, many side with the oppressed Palestinians.

 

 

OTOH there are still a lot of kibbuz around and those are cooperatively organized. Israel is also a social welfare state etc. etc.

 

 

 

---

 

to the original question:

 

 

Why do Evangelicals have any interest in Israel?

 

I think they confound modern day state of Israel with the "Israel" that is written about in the old testament.

[DKTanker]

Something I was always curious of but too afraid to ask:

 

Why do Evangelicals have any interest in Israel? What is the connection? I googled it, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Now admittedly, I'm not one of faith, so I'm probably looking at it wrong (I was confirmed congregational but that is religion Lite and I've given up on it since).

Kindred spirits of the untermensch.

[Jeff]

Ok, I volunteer to take one for the team and answer, but will need a 96 hour liberty to recover.

 

You're a better man than I.

[Josh]

 

Something I was always curious of but too afraid to ask:

 

Why do Evangelicals have any interest in Israel? What is the connection? I googled it, but it still doesn't make sense to me. Now admittedly, I'm not one of faith, so I'm probably looking at it wrong (I was confirmed congregational but that is religion Lite and I've given up on it since).

Kindred spirits of the untermensch.

 

How so? From that sentence, I take it that not being pro-Israeli settlements and their capital in Jerusalem means I'm anti semantic?

 

You do know my name is Josh, and my hair is curly?

 

EDIT: I should have specified the hair on my HEAD is curly...

Edited December 7, 2017 by Josh

[toysoldier]

Yeah the self loath is tangible...

[lastdingo]

How so? From that sentence, I take it that not being pro-Israeli settlements and their capital in Jerusalem means I'm anti semantic?

U sure you meant "anti semantic"?

 

Criticism of Israel is way too-often associated with antisemitism - it's as if it was only politically correct to be critical of the government of Israel's actions in Israel itself.

Haaretz is a more stingy voice of criticism than many alleged foreign antisemites are.

 

The topic was Evangelicals and their kinda weird love for largely non-Christian Israel, though.

[Roman Alymov]

 

(2) A significant portion of Israel's founders were Communists, and the Soviet Union recognized them as a nation first IIRC.

 

Our local anti-Semits and “white supremacists” (who are usually, contrary to what Westerners think, strongly anti-Communist and anti-Stalinists, pretending to be supporters of “White” movement of Rus Civil war – nothing to do with skin color this time) are often describing Israel as “evil state created by Stalin” – reflecting historical facts of USSR was playing significant part in both creation of Israel and aiding it on initial stages of war against other contesters for this land. Of course in reality it was done not because of “Stalin was Jewish agent” but because it was another kick to falling British Empire and colonial system.

[DKTanker]

 

How so? From that sentence, I take it that not being pro-Israeli settlements and their capital in Jerusalem means I'm anti semantic?

 

You do know my name is Josh, and my hair is curly?

 

 

The implication is clear, Evangilists and Israeli Jews, as seen by the leftist intelligentsia are undesirables, deplorables, in short sub-human...untermensch.

 

What has your name and hair style to do with anything?

[Mr King]

 

 

How so? From that sentence, I take it that not being pro-Israeli settlements and their capital in Jerusalem means I'm anti semantic?

 

You do know my name is Josh, and my hair is curly?

 

 

The implication is clear, Evangilists and Israeli Jews, as seen by the leftist intelligentsia are undesirables, deplorables, in short sub-human...untermensch.

 

What has your name and hair style to do with anything?

 

 

Evangelicals are snidely and arrogantly seen as not sophisticated enough to understand what they are supporting. Of the two people in my life who are evangelicals, one is getting ready to go to graduate school for a degree in physics, and the other, was majoring in physics but left school early to take up a job teaching science to better support his family.

Edited December 7, 2017 by Mr King