Is it Antisemitic to Say “Christ Is King”?

Candace Owens speaking with attendees at the 2022 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center. Photo by Gage Skidmore.

In November 2023, political and social commentator Candace Owens sparked an online firestorm by tweeting “Christ is King.” By itself, that phrase would hardly be surprising to read from a person who calls himself or herself a Christian. After all, Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God incarnate, and as ruler of the universe, He rules over everything, including the kingdoms of this world. However, Owens’ words were not said in a vacuum, and they were not stated in the midst of a conversation about Jesus and His position in the cosmos. Let’s unpack this a bit before answering the question of whether Christians should say “Christ is King” to Jewish people.

Comments Made by Candace Owens

Candace Owens is known for taking strong stands on various topics. I can appreciate her boldness, and as a fellow conservative, I tend to agree with some of her views. However, I think she occasionally comes across as condescending, as she did in a discussion with Chris Cuomo where I agreed with her view that we can acknowledge an enemy’s intelligence, but I disagreed with her attitude. And at times, she is very uninformed, such as in her conversation with Jewish comedian Ami Kozak. She told him that the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem was like the segregated South in which her grandfather grew up. She said, “When I’m walking through Jerusalem, and you see, and they say ‘these are the Muslim quarters [sic], this is where the Muslims are allowed to live,’ that doesn’t feel like a bastion of freedom to me.” For the record, Muslims are not restricted to live only in the Muslim Quarter (not quarters) of the Old City. They can live anywhere in Israel and they have full rights as citizens. This is not some apartheid system set up since Israel became a nation in 1948. The four quarters of the Old City existed for at least a century before that time. Thankfully, Kozak quickly corrected her. Owens was badly misinformed, and this gaffe came at a time when she made other statements that could easily be construed as antisemitic.

This conversation with Kozak took place following a tweet where she implied that Israel was guilty of committing genocide against the people of Gaza. She wrote, “No government anywhere has a right to commit a genocide, ever. There is no justification for a genocide. I can’t believe this even needs to be said or is even considered the least bit controversial to state.” There are major problems with this statement. First, Israel is not committing genocide against the people of Gaza. If that’s what they wanted to do, they wouldn’t warn Gazan civilians to move away from certain areas before beginning their bombing, and they wouldn’t be so precise in their attacks. In nearly six months of fighting, close to 33,000 people have been killed in Gaza out of a population of two million. If Israel truly wanted to commit genocide, they would have killed many times more people than they have. It should go without saying that the loss of any life is tragic, particularly innocent civilians during war. Yet, the way Hamas fights practically guarantees that far too many civilians will die. They build their bases under hospitals and launch missiles from schools, essentially using schoolchildren as human shields. When those innocents are killed in a war with Israel that Hamas started, then Hamas is to blame—not Israel.

The second big problem is that Owens did not speak up to condemn Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israeli civilians that left 1,200 men, women, and children dead and more than 200 others kidnapped. In the weeks that followed, she continued to avoid condemning the attack and instead seemed to either equivocate Israel’s military response to the terrorist attack or defend those who attacked Israel. So, she didn’t speak against genocide of Jews, despite it being found in Hamas’ original charter.1

Ben Shapiro speaking with attendees at the 2018 Young Women’s Leadership Summit. Photo by Gage Skidmore.

Keep in mind that almost exactly one year earlier (October 10, 2022), Owens defended Kanye West when he tweeted, “Im going Deathcon 3 on jewish people.” She wrote, “If you are an honest person, you did not think this tweet was antisemitic. You did not think that he wrote this tweet because he hates or wants to genocide jewish people. This is not the beginning of a holocaust.” I’m curious how else a person is supposed to take West’s tweet. Assuming he was referring to “DEFCON 3,” then West was using a term about military defense readiness in relation to the Jewish people, and Owens defended it.

With that background, let’s return to the question posed at the beginning of this post. In the week that followed Owens’ conversation with Kozak, Ben Shapiro told a crowd at a private event that he thought her comments about Israel were “absolutely disgraceful.” He added, “Her faux sophistication on these particular issues has been ridiculous. Everybody can see the moves that she’s making, the things that she’s saying and I find them disreputable.” Until last week, Owens was employed by the Daily Wire, a popular conservative news outlet Shapiro helped start. So, both individuals worked for the same organization at the time of these comments.

It was at this point when Owens started quoting the Bible. She tweeted the following:

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money.

She followed up this tweet with:

Christ is King.

Yes, blessed are the peacemakers. Does Owens realize that these words were spoken by a Jewish man (Jesus) to a Jewish audience? Has Owens ever called on Hamas, Hezbollah, or any of the nations that routinely attack Israel to seek peace? Why did Owens wait to call for peace after Israel responded to the worst terrorist attack on Jews since the Holocaust? Is it possible that sometimes the path to peace involves the destruction of a terrorist organization bent on your destruction? And why has she been so passive aggressive in these tweets rather than just coming out and stating clearly what she is referring to? After all, she is known for being very bold about her beliefs.

As Christians, how should we respond to the use of “Christ is King” given this backdrop? Clearly, there are some who are promoting antichristian ideas who have coopted the phrase, such as the Hitler-praising white nationalist Nick Fuentes. I think we should all agree that it is absolutely wrong for people like him to use it as a weapon in an attempt to justify their hatred for the Jews.

Is Owens’ use of the term any better here? I would argue that her use of it is nearly as despicable because she was using it to mock or troll Ben Shapiro, who is widely recognized as an Orthodox Jew. Given her comments about Israel and the Jews in the prior month, how is someone supposed to read her tweet apart from seeing it as an attack on Jews? She also implied the common antisemitic trope about Jews being all about money. If Owens and Shapiro were having a civil conversation, and she told him that she believes “Christ is King,” then I would have no problem with it, and I doubt that Shapiro would either. He knows what Christians believe, and he would expect a Christian to espouse Christian beliefs. One can watch his interviews with John MacArthur and William Lane Craig to see that he is fully capable of holding discussions about these topics in a respectful manner.

Speak the Truth IN Love

Some people have argued that Owens is just speaking the truth, and she’s quoting the Bible. Well, the Bible also encourages Christians to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Notice, it does not say that speaking the truth IS love. It says to speak the truth IN love. There can be a huge difference, and it is vital that Christians recognize this truth. For example, in 2006, I was diagnosed with leukemia. Imagine if my doctor would have looked at my test results and then pointed in my face while laughing and then shouting, “You have leukemia!” It would have been true, but it would have been extremely unloving.

Far too many Christians misapply Ephesians 4:15 and other verses as a license to bludgeon people with Bible verses as though the Bible were a sledgehammer, and they often seem to exhibit a “righteous” pride after doing so. The same author (Paul) wrote the following in another letter:

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you. (1 Corinthians 9:19–23).

We must be willing to humble ourselves and speak the truth in love. Scripture is not to be wielded like a shotgun to blast truth at unbelievers and let the pieces fall where they may. Paul spent countless hours attempting to convince and persuade unbelievers of the truth. “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:11; cf. Acts 17:1–4, 18:4). For a professing Christian to use “Christ is King” as a taunt designed to mock a Jewish man and act as if you just scored a mic drop moment is petty and disgraceful, and I believe it brings shame to the name of Jesus. This is especially true when one understands how horribly many in the church have treated Jewish people over the past two millennia. The church’s shameful slander, persecution, and occasional killing of Jews reflects the exact opposite attitude displayed by Jesus and His followers.

Michael Brown details the sad history of the church’s mistreatment of Jews in Our Hands Are Stained with Blood.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem after the Triumphal Entry because He knew it would soon be destroyed since its leaders had (for the most part) rejected their Messiah (Luke 19:41–44). Then He lamented over the city, saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Matthew 23:37–39)

At the start of Romans 9, Paul expressed his ongoing great sorrow and grief over the fact that most of his “countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites” had refused to accept Jesus as their Messiah. He even stated that he was willing to be condemned if they could be saved.

Do the statements from Candace Owens come close to matching the attitude displayed by Jesus and Paul regarding the Jewish people? Absolutely not. Paul specifically charged Christians not to boast against the Jews (Romans 11:16–24). Instead of boasting, he said that through his ministry he hoped to “provoke to jealousy those who are of my flesh and save some of them” (Romans 11:14). Paul wanted his fellow Jews to see his godly life and fellowship with God, so that they would long to be restored to a right relationship with God. That is the attitude Christians should have toward Jews. Sadly, the church has a shameful 2,000-year history in this area. As a reminder, Christians are called to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44), love one another (John 13:34), and love our neighbor as ourselves (Luke 10:27–37, in case you’re wondering how to define neighbor, this is in the context of the parable of the Good Samaritan). That covers pretty much everybody. So, we are commanded to love everyone, and I’m confident the Jewish people are included among everybody.

If you are still having trouble seeing how saying “Christ is King” to a Jew can be unhelpful, let’s take a look at a tweet from Jeremy Boreing, the man who helped Shapiro start the Daily Wire.

How is saying “Christ is King antisemitic?

The same way anything becomes antisemitic – when it is used for the purpose of expressing antisemitism. It’s like asking “how does a shovel become a murder weapon?” When it is used to murder someone. This isn’t hard. A shovel is not innately a murder weapon. Saying “Christ is King” is not innately antisemitic. It’s all about how a thing is used. Saying “Eat some cornbread” is not racist if I say it to my three-year-old when she is refusing her dinner. If I start saying it as a response to X [formerly Twitter] posts by black commentators I don’t like, it has taken on a meaning beyond what is innate. In other words, it is connotatively racist, not denotatively racist. So too “Christ is King” may be antisemitic in connotation while not in denotation when it is being used to express antisemitism.

Boreing nailed it. Context matters. Intent matters. One’s heart matters. The truth must be spoken in love because our audience matters.

Conclusion

Dear Christians, if we ever hope to reach Jewish people with the gospel of Jesus Christ, then we must learn to live and love like Jesus Christ. After all, the New Testament confirms that He is the Jewish Messiah. We should be concerned about the souls of all those who are lost, whether Jew or Gentile, and we should be speaking the truth in love and sharing the gospel with all people, because “it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek” (Romans 1:16). Let us get rid of any hint of antisemitism from the church (and anti- any other people group), and show them the love of Christ in hopes that they might turn in faith to our Creator, Savior, and Lord.

Update on 8/26/2024: Sadly, Candace Owens has made many more absurd antisemitic claims. Instead of taking the time to list them here, I encourage you to watch the first ~20 minutes of a recent episode of The Line of Fire with Michael Brown. He plays some of her clips and then sets the record straight on her bizarre claims.


  1. The 1988 version begins with “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” It goes on to quote from a hadith (viewed by Muslims as a record of the words or actions of Muhammad), “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say ‘O Muslims, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’ Only the Gharkad tree would not do that, because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” While the revised charter of 2017 slightly softened the language against the Jews, the actions of Hamas on October 7, 2023 show that they are unwavering in their commitment to annihilate the Jews. 

About Tim Chaffey

I am the founder of Midwest Apologetics and work as the Content Manager with the Attractions Division of Answers in Genesis. I have written (or co-authored) several books, including In Defense of Easter, God and Cancer, The Sons of God and the Nephilim, and The Truth Chronicles Series (see the publications page for more details). Please note: the opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of Answers in Genesis.

Comments

Is it Antisemitic to Say “Christ Is King”? — 13 Comments

  1. Thanks for the reply Tim, I used to be fully in the dispensationalist camp, but I disagree with you on who has misrepresented the other side of this conflict. I believe it is our media, who we all know have a very bad record of telling the truth, and who are also owned by many Zionist sympathizers, and much of the dispensationalist believing churches that have misrepresented the Palestinians. I know that Sammy Awaud, who was the founder of Bethlehem Bible Church, lived through the 1967 war and experienced the betrayal of the Israelis by not letting them come back to their homes after telling them if they left quickly they would be able to come back. I will not go into all the reasons why I have changed my mind on this issue, but I would like to share something with you that perhaps you would be interested in reading? It is a commentary by Matthew Henry on the book of Hosea, which I studied up on in response to your use of Hosea to talk of the future restoration of Israel. I believe the promises of restoration were carried out when the disciples evangelized the Jews and the galileans after Christ’s Resurrection, when he gave them a heart of flesh for their heart of Stone. And they along with the gentile believers became my people from “not my people”. That’s all I will say about that, I hear is the link to that commentary.
    https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Hsa/Hsa_001.cfm

    • Hi Joe,
      Once again, thank you for the civil tone. Please take my response in the same spirit.
      Any form of replacement theology is a non-starter for me. I grew up in a church that taught this as did my undergraduate school. I am well aware of the position, and I absolutely reject it because it does not properly handle Scripture. It reinterprets, ignores, or spiritualizes huge sections of OT prophecy, including the last nine chapters of Ezekiel and last three chapters of Zechariah. And it does not pay close attention to the details of the text, even in the New Testament. Your explanation and Matthew Henry’s explanation does not account for what Paul wrote in Romans 11 (mentioned in my first response). I’m not about to change my mind based on what someone else tells me when I am fully convinced about what Scripture states on the subject.
      Also, the whole notion that our media is run by Zionist sympathizers does not match reality. I’ve been paying attention to these issues for nearly 30 years, and most of our media slants the news strongly against Israel, as they have repeatedly done in this latest war. Hamas accidentally strikes their own hospital and within an hour, our media is reporting that Israel struck a hospital and killed 500 people. One should immediately question this death toll given within an hour of the strike since there wasn’t enough time to clear rubble and count bodies. Yet Israel was demonized for something a Hamas fighter did, and the actual death toll was far less. We have videos posted on social media by members of Hamas on October 7, and many in our media either ignore it or claim that they are videos doctored by Israel. Look at the UN General Assembly. Nearly every year they issue more condemnations against Israel (the only democracy in the region) than all other nations combined (22 to 4 in 2012 and 17 to 6 in 2020). Yet we have nations throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa committing horrible atrocities against their own people. In the current Syrian civil war, approximately half a million people have been killed in the last 10 years, and yet we hear very little about it. Israel rescues their hostages from Gaza, and they are condemned in the media and on social media because they should have supposedly let the people know they were coming. How anyone can claim that Israel is controlling the narrative is beyond me because the reality is the exact opposite. Sorry, I just don’t see any evidence for this.
      I don’t know if Sammy is telling the truth about that or not, but it wouldn’t change my view. As I’ve already stated, Israel is not perfect and they are largely in unbelief at the moment, just as Scripture predicted. Why would I expect them to behave perfectly? What I do know is that they are far more careful than any other nation in how they wage war. Even with the current war being fought almost entirely in urban areas, the ratio of civilians to combatants killed is nearly 1:1 while other nations average about 9:1 in similar circumstances. Yet, Israel is repeatedly demonized even though they did not start this war. We can look on the college campuses and see the stench of antisemitism permeating these places, and the groups supporting them are often the same leftist groups that Bethlehem Bible College also endorses.
      We are not going to agree on this issue, but I hope we can agree that we should be praying for peace in the region and that many Jews and Gentiles will turn in faith to the Jewish Messiah, the Lord Jesus.

  2. East Jerusalem, the west bank and gaza are not part of israel proper. Those are the territories occupied in 1967 and as per international law and several UN resolutions should.become palestine. Palestinians in these territories are not free and subject to military rule, demolitions, check points and the ever growing settlements etc. These facts are verifiable if you just go to the UN resolutions. Even the US considers these occupied and voted the resolutions telling Israel to stop the occupation. Get your facts straight before whitewashing the situation.

    • This article was not about East Jerusalem, the West Bank, or Gaza, so your “Get your facts straight” completely misses the mark. I referred to the Muslim Quarter of the Old City because that is the area Candace Owens misrepresented.
      But if this article was about East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, then I would’ve pointed out that Gaza has not been occupied by Israel in any way since 2005 when they completely withdrew any military presence and forcefully removed Jewish citizens from their own homes that they legally built in the Gaza Strip. And what did the people of Gaza do in nearly two decades since then? They voted for a terrorist organization to rule over them. Hamas has since squandered billions of dollars in aid to build terror tunnels and enrich their own leaders while the people of Gaza suffer. This is not Israel’s fault. You are the one who needs to get your facts straight.
      East Jerusalem and the West Bank are different matters. They were legally won by Israel during wars in which they were attacked (the same is true of the Golan Heights). Thus, according to international law, they have the right to those lands. However, they have repeatedly been willing to return land for peace, as they did when they gave back the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for what has been a tense though lasting peace between the two nations. The West Bank was lost by Jordan, and it consists of both Jews and Arabs, living under various governing structures. The Palestinian Authority controls some areas (where 90% of Palestinians in the West Bank live). In other areas, they have social control but are under Israeli security, while still other areas are completely under Israeli control. Yes, this creates a difficult situation for everyone involved and there does not seem to be an easy solution. The reason there is a wall and checkpoints is because the Israelis were tired of suicide bombs and other terrorist attacks during the first and second intifadas.
      The Palestinian people could’ve had a state of their own, but their leaders have rejected it every time it was offered: 1948, 1967, 1973, 1994, 2000, 2008, and 2019. Why? It is largely because they refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Hence, the whole “river to the sea” chants on college campuses. The reality is that throughout most of Israel (not the West Bank or East Jerusalem), the Palestinian people enjoy more freedom and rights than anywhere else in the Middle East.

  3. This is so pertinent. So much mentoring has been graciously given to me by Jewish Teachers and friends. This vantage point make the “Messianic dig” an atrocity IMHO. I can only say that the same vantage point assures me that my Jews are YHVH’s chosen AND appointed people for this day. Thanks for standing up to confront this callous commenter

  4. So many Christians believe that God has rejected the Jews. They should read “Replacement Theology” available at the tinyurl bibram.

    That article provides the Hebrew text and the Greek text that disproves that theory.

    • Hi Dane,

      Thanks for the comment. The link you attempted to provide didn’t come through. Can you reply to this with the full link?
      I agree that Replacement Theology is a big problem. Those who hold it are not necessarily antisemitic, but this theology can easily lead to it. There are scores of examples of this happening. A proper understanding of Scripture should lead one to love both Jew and Gentile. They should also read Hosea to realize that there would come a time, from Hosea’s day, where the Jews would receive “No Mercy” and they would be “Not My People” (Hosea 1:6–9), but after a period of time, the Lord will say: “I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God'” (Hosea 2:23).

      • I have enjoyed many of you’re explanations to hard to understand biblical questions, and agree with almost all of your explanations. I have a question about your referral to Hosea 2:23, since Hosea lived before the exile of Israel and Judah, how do you know that the return of the Jews to Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile, wasn’t the fulfillment of hosea’s message? Also, how do you know that when Jesus wept over Jerusalem, that the fulfillment of what he said happened on Palm Sunday when they exclaimed blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord? While I certainly believe that Jews can,will and do accept the gospel and enter the kingdom of Grace, I don’t believe that this current state of Israel is sanctioned by the god of Israel. I believe Zionism is a faulty plan, concocted by power hungry people, that has little regard for the people that they have displaced since the early 1900s. I also don’t believe that the current Israelis are at all closely related to the Hebrews, and actually many of the Palestinians could be more closely related to the ancient Israelis. I used to believe totally different, until I met a woman who taught English as a second language in the Bethlehem Bible college to Palestinians. She enlightened me as to the situation that is really taking place there, and the Israelis certainly aren’t representing the God that I know. Just curious as to how you explain these things. Thank you

        • Hi Joe,
          Thanks for taking the time to read the blog and for your kind words and civil tone. There is a lot to cover here, but I’ll try to keep it brief.
          First, regarding Hosea’s message — Yes, he lived prior to the exile, but the context of this prophecy has to do with a time when Israel would be “Not My People” and “No Mercy” (the names of two of Hosea’s children). Then at some point in the future they would be regathered. This is all in Hosea 1. Much of the rest of the book describes the fact that the Israelites would fall under God’s judgment for a time, but they would eventually be restored. So, the context doesn’t fit the Babylonian exile when they were still considered “My People,” as prophets of the exile like Daniel and Jeremiah repeatedly emphasized. The best way to make sense of this is that this time when the Jews are “Not My People” who are shown “No Mercy” is that of the church age. At some point in the future, they will turn to God and be His people again. It’s true that the Jews living in the land today are largely there in unbelief. Of course, there are plenty of genuine believers in Jesus among the Jews in Israel, but they are definitely in the minority. But this is precisely how the Bible describes their return to the land. As Zechariah 12-14 describes, they will be there in unbelief, but at some point in the future, they will look on the one they have pierced and grieve for Him and turn from their sin. “Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east…” (Zechariah 14:3-4). As Paul described in Romans 11, at some point “all Israel will be saved” (v.26), even though right now they are enemies of the gospel, “but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (v. 28). There is so much more in Scripture about the Jews returning to their land in unbelief and eventually turning to God, but let’s move on to the next issue.
          Second, your description of Zionism is not accurate. It wasn’t started by a bunch of power hungry people. It was largely started by the Jewish journalist Theodore Herzl who witnessed a shocking rise in antisemitism in Western Europe near the end of the nineteenth century. He started the First Zionist Congress with the goal of developing a Jewish homeland where they could live in safety. The idea gained traction and many Jews moved back to the land and legally purchased property from those living there. There were already some Jews living there, some Arabs, and other people as well. There was never a nation of Palestine made up of Arabs. The first “Palestinians” (if you will) were Jews when the land was renamed Palestine by Emperor Hadrian as a way of shaming the Jews for their continued failed attempts to throw off Roman authority through revolution. Anyway, it took the awful event of the Holocaust that led to enough nations from the UN supporting the Zionist cause of creating a homeland in the former nation of Israel for the Jewish people. At the time, they were given a small strip of land from the British Mandate. The Arabs were also offered a state, but they refused it, as they have over and over again, such as in 1967, 1994, 2000, 2008, 2019, and 2020. Upon declaring their independence on May 14, 1948, they were immediately attacked by 5 (or 7 depending on how you count them) Arab nations. Many of the Arabs living in the land were told by leaders of the Arab nations to flee until the Jews were wiped out and then they could return. Approximately 700,000 of them did, and they and their descendants have become a tragic story for the past 75+ years (this is where most of the refugees in Lebanon and Gaza are from — none of the surrounding Arab nations took them in). Known as the “Nakba” (catastrophe), this term was originally used to describe the shame of the Arab nations losing to tiny Israel. After all, if Islam is true, then no one but a Muslim can possess any land that has once been controlled by Muslims. So, the fact that Israel is still there is an ongoing affront to their religion. Well, we know what happened in 1948. Somehow, against all odds, the tiny new nation defeated their attackers and gained more land in a defensive war. Known as the A similar thing happened in 1967. These were not wars of Jewish aggression. They were defensive wars for survival. There is much more to this history and plenty of good historical books addressing these issues by both Christian and non-Christian authors. I’ve read about a dozen of them in the past few years as I try to brush up on modern Israeli history. If you’re into podcasts, I’d recommend a podcast called Unpacking Israeli History by Noam Weissman. He’s a Jewish man who would likely be described as a moderate who believes Israel has a right to exist there. But he does a great job of covering so much history in that area for the past 100 years or so, and he doesn’t shy away from the mistakes Israel has made. As for your statement that they show “little regard” for the people they supposedly displaced (not a fair description of what happened), the Arabs living in Israel have more rights than Arabs anywhere else in the region. They can vote, sit in Parliament, etc. The West Bank or Samaria, depending on what you want to call it, is definitely a more complicated issue, but this is largely due to the repeated refusal of Palestinian leaders to accept a two-state solution (and we shouldn’t absolve Israel of mistakes they have made either).
          Finally, I would urge considerable caution about anything coming out of Bethlehem Bible College. They host the biannual Christ at the Checkpoint conference, which has from the start been anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist and loaded with those pushing replacement theology. While claiming to be Evangelical Christians, many of the speakers are outright socialists and neo-Marxists who adopt many of the left’s policies. In the past decade, the conference has shifted to a full-on woke antisemitism (see this article for details). They do everything they can to distance the modern Jews in Israel from the biblical promises given to their forefathers. Yes, their forefathers. There is strong genetic information showing that many Jewish groups today have ancestries that go back to that region of the Middle East, even though many of them were scattered to Europe, Asia, Africa, etc. for a long time. God has indeed brought the Jews back to the land in unbelief, just as He said He would. The promises made to Abraham about that land are still in effect for his descendants through Isaac and Jacob. The Old Covenant (Mosaic Covenant) has been made obsolete by Christ’s work, but His promises to Israel have not been revoked or made obsolete, since the gifts and calling of the Lord are irrevocable. This college skews the truth so badly in relation to what has been going on in this land for the past 75 years. What has really happened is that Jewish and Christian populations have been in sharp decline in Arab nations during that time, and yet all we hear about are the ways that Arabs in the West Bank are treated by Israel. The whole thing is a complicated issue that I’m not going to solve or fully explain in this response, but if you think that the blame lies solely on Israel or solely on the Arabs, then you aren’t really taking an honest look at history. I’ll leave it at that for now. If you’d like the names of some of those resources I’ve been reading, I can share that.

          • Thanks for the reply Tim, I used to be fully in the dispensationalist camp, but I disagree with you on who has misrepresented the other side of this conflict. I believe it is our media, who we all know have a very bad record of telling the truth, and who are also owned by many Zionist sympathizers, and much of the dispensationalist believing churches that have misrepresented the Palestinians. I know that Sammy Awaud, who was the founder of Bethlehem Bible Church, lived through the 1967 war and experienced the betrayal of the Israelis by not letting them come back to their homes after telling them if they left quickly they would be able to come back. I will not go into all the reasons why I have changed my mind on this issue, but I would like to share something with you that perhaps you would be interested in reading? It is a commentary by Matthew Henry on the book of Hosea, which I studied up on in response to your use of Hosea to talk of the future restoration of Israel. I believe the promises of restoration were carried out when the disciples evangelized the Jews and the galileans after Christ’s Resurrection, when he gave them a heart of flesh for their heart of Stone. And they along with the gentile believers became my people from “not my people”. That’s all I will say about that, I hear is the link to that commentary.
            https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Hsa/Hsa_001.cfm

        • It’s vital to search the scriptures . While Rachel was leaving she stole Laban’s Idols. The freed tribes brought the idols with them from Egypt. The chosen people accepted the idols that were present in The Promised Land. Yes Hosea’s message is SPOT ON ! These all were (AND ARE) God’s chosen people… to this day IMHO

    • Thanks for this wise, loving, and well-written article, Tim. I’m troubled by the lack of pastors and teachers speaking out against the antisemitism rearing its ugly head in the West again. It’s beyond time for followers of a very Jewish Messiah who believe in ancient Jewish Scriptures to speak the truth in love about the Jewish people ~ beginning in the church. God bless you and yours, Matthew Langston

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