At their “Americafest” a few days ago, Turning Point USA arranged for a brief debate between a Christian Zionist, Steve Deace, and a “replacement theorist,” or his preferred term, supersessionist, Douglas Wilson. Wilson is a theologian in the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition based in Moscow, Idaho, and was the mentor of Andrew Isker, whose book I reviewed a few days ago (Isker is strongly opposed to Christian Zionism). Steve Deace is a conservative talk radio host on the Blaze Media platform.
Notwithstanding the “debate” format, Wilson and Deace seemed almost terrified to disagree with each other. What was more interesting than their mutual admiration society was the mood of the audience. The young people at Turning Point are decidedly turning against Christian Zionism. I think they are figuring out that it has always been a fraud and a con.
The reason there is a fracture in the conservative movement, reflected in the feud between Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson, is that we elected Donald Trump based upon his repeated promise of no pointless wars, and what we’ve gotten in Trump’s second term is endless wars for Israel and the neocons. The young people at TPUSA’s Americafest can see this just as anyone else can, and they don’t like it any more than older conservatives.
If Trump were doing in his second term what he did in his first term—helping Israel by moving our U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights, and negotiating the Abraham Accords to bring peace between Israel and the Arabs, but not fighting wars of choice on Israel’s behalf—the debate between the Christian Zionists and the supersessionists of mainstream Christian tradition (which includes Seventh-day Adventists) would be an obscure theological curiosity. But given how things are going, a belief system held by millions of conservative American Christians that teaches them that the modern state of Israel is biblical Israel and is still God’s chosen, special people, far above criticism or reproach, will be, and ought to be, subject to a great deal of scrutiny.
One of the questions that came up (at the 25:45 mark) was the genetic source of Ashkenazi Jews, which are the large majority of Jews (of the approximately 15.3 million Jews in the world today, up to 70% are Ashkenazim; before the Holocaust, over 90% of all Jews were Ashkenazim). One theory is that the Ashkenazim originated from a mass conversion of Khazars during the late Middle Ages. Which raises the question: if God made promises to the genetic descendants of Abraham, how do those promises bind God (or us) with regard to those who converted to Judaism during the Christian era who are not genetic descendants of Abraham? I recall that Dr. Walter Veith once looked into that question, and was roundly denounced as a conspiracy theorist (by me among the rest) for doing so.
Wilson fielded this question, not Deace, and handled it by saying that what matters is not genetic descent from Abraham but rather being converted to God’s covenant with Abraham. Being converted to the covenant is what matters, not biological descent. That sounds reasonable, but: 1) Christian Zionists believe that Jews are specially blessed by virtue of physical descent from Abraham, and 2) Scripture plainly states that God’s promise, God’s covenant, was not to Abraham’s seeds, plural, but to Abraham’s seed, singular, which is Jesus Christ. (Acts 3:25-26; Gal. 3:16). Where does that leave those who are not in Christ, whether physical descendants of Abraham or converts to Judaism? Obviously, they are outside of that covenant.
Another question concerned the viciously anti-Christian statements in the Talmud, which constitutes the main document that religious Jews study. Wilson (his comments begin at the 15 minute mark) responded that the Talmud was a collection of writings compiled over 800 years, and there are some bad things and some good things in there. That is a good answer intended to fend off anti-semitism; not having ever read the Talmud, I have no way to know the truth of it. (Wilson has written a book called, “American Milk and Honey” in which he tries to dispel the errors of the dispensationalists while still being careful not to give any grist to the antisemite mill.)
However, it strikes me that Wilson’s answer to the outrageous statements found in the Talmud misses the larger issue, which is this: fundamentalist or conservative Christians (including Seventh-day Adventists) have a romanticized view of Jews in which Jews study the Hebrew Scriptures, but not the Greek Scriptures, whereas Christians study both. In reality, Jews do not study the Old Testament; they study the Talmud, which is commentary upon commentary upon commentary, several layers removed from anything Christians understand to be inspired.
Update:
I forgot to mention Douglas Wilson’s exceedingly strange discussion of the USS Liberty. On June 8, 1967, during the Six Day War, the Israeli Air Force and Israeli torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, an America surveillance ship, in international waters some 25 nautical miles north of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Israel’s combined air and sea attack on the lightly armed American ship killed 34 crew members, wounded 171, and severely damaged the ship.
This would have been a larger incident but for two things: 1) the United States was in the middle of the Vietnam war, and hundreds of America service members were being killed every week, and 2) Israel was in the middle of a war with Egypt and claimed that they accidentally mistook the American ship for an Egyptian destroyer. There were several lines of evidence pointing to the conclusion that the attack was deliberate and intentional, but the Johnson Administration was in cover-up mode and did not dispute Israel’s claim that the attack was an accident.
As a counterfactual to the constantly repeated claim that “Israel is our closest ally,” the attack on the USS Liberty has only grown in significance over the decades. It continues to be talked about and asked about in the context of Israel’s growing promotion of Christian Zionism among American Christians. Douglas Wilson’s response to the incident was included in his opening statement (around the 7:45 mark). He asks,
“how confident are you that we were not playing both sides and feeding intel to Egypt? How confident are you that America can only be double-crossed and can never be the double-crosser? Your confidence in the essential goodness of the CIA is endearing.”
Amazing! He concedes that Israel knew it was attacking an American spy ship in neutral waters, and he justifies it on the basis that the U.S. “deep state” was somehow up to no good. Hence, the 205 American casualties, including 34 killed, apparently had it coming. Which makes you wonder how far Douglas Wilson will go to fight antisemitism.