During the Passover observance in 2019, 19-year-old John Earnest allegedly walked into a synagogue in Poway, California and opened fire, killing one worshipper and wounding three others.
It was later revealed that Earnest was an active member of an Orthodox Presbyterian Church congregation and specifically believed that he was doing God's will by killing Jews.
The revelation that the lone suspect in the mass shooting was a devout Christian stirred reactions from many, including author and columnist Michael Brown, a proponent of Messianic Judaism and host of the nationally syndicated radio show, “The Line of Fire.”
In his latest book, "Christian Antisemitism: Confronting the Lies in Today’s Church," Brown documents a new resurgence of anti-Semitism within American churches.
Brown wrote about what he saw on social media from self-identified Christians and rhetoric espoused by modern Christian ministries and some theologians.
This includes the rise of replacement theology, the notion that the Church has replaced Israel as the new chosen people, with God no longer having any plans for modern Jews.
(source: 'Dangerous' and 'growing': Michael Brown warns about the rise of Christian anti-Semitism by
Michael Gryboski in The Christian Post, 2/1/21.
 |
| 'It's anti-Semitic to
teach that Christians have replaced Jews' said Archbishop John Lupoli
Jr, World Council of Independent Christian Churches in March 2015 |
Archbishop John Lupoli, Jr., presiding Prelate and Metropolitan Archbishop at the World Council of Independent Christian Churches' College of Bishops said at the National Religious Broadcasters Association that Christian anti-Semitism continues to be taught and held against Jewish people and Israel.
The WCICC is a fellowship of churches, pastors, ministries, Christian schools and
individual members in seventy-nine nations around the world. They provide
a platform to independent churches that are deprived of the collective
support and the privileges of mainline denominations.
In this interview with JooTube.TV, Lupoli explains, "I know as a whole, for the most part, replacement theology has taken over and replacement theology makes an effort to say the church has replaced Israel in God's promises."
JooTube: Is that a guiding factor in their attitudes towards Israel politically and socially?
Mr. Lupoli: "I think that the majority of people that we have interviewed are anti-Semitic and don't even realize that they are anti-Semitic. They are so wrapped up in what the church is doing that they forget their their original background which is Hebrew. There is really background they can't exist without it, without recognizing their Hebrew roots. Did exactly if you have to look at the scripture and if you take Jesus as the Messiah - there is no such thing as a messiah without the Old Testament. There is no such thing. If you eliminate is really illuminate the Messiah, but in in their efforts to be totally Christian, whatever that may be, their efforts have have gone overboard with regard to the denial of their Israeli roots."
The Christian Post asked author, Michael Brown, how pervasive a problem do you believe replacement theology is in the American church? Do you see it as more prevalent in some denominations than others?
Michael Brown:
Yes, it’s very prominent. It is certainly growing. It is very dangerous. It is more to be found in what would be called the mainstream denominations — so Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Methodist, etc. It is less found in Charismatic circles or in some aspects of evangelism. But the fact is it’s there. It’s certainly there in Catholic theology.
Those that hold to it don’t like to be put in the category of holding to replacement theology. They would rather say they believe in “fulfillment theology” or put another name on it. But the end result is the same: the promises that God once gave to the Jewish people as a people no longer apply to them, but rather apply to the Church.
And once you begin to say that, then God is finished with Israel, God is through with Israel as a nation, as a people. And you can even see the Jewish people as people forever cursed or rejected by God.
Prof. Emil L. Fackenheim, a professor of philosophy and survivor of Sachsenhausen says that "the same anti‑Semitism that permitted many Christians to accept the Nazi slaughter of the Jews still finds expression today in Christians’ reading of the Holocaust as a universal evil not particular to the Jews at all. Fackenheim goes so far as to deem to be an aspect of anti‑Semitism what he views as Christians’ failure to be even‑handed in judging the competing claims of Israelis and Arabs:
“Why did the Christian press remain undisturbed by nineteen years of Jordanian control of the Christian holy places (and desecration of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues), but become greatly agitated by Israeli control? Why does it fill its pages with accounts of the plight of Arab refugees but rarely even mention the nearly as numerous Jewish refugees from Arab countries? Why are there moral equations between Israel’s claim to the right to exist and Arab claims to the right to destroy her?”
(source: "Jewish-Christian Theology and Relations After the Holocaust" by Gary G. Porton in My Jewish Learning.
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