The Coming War Against Israel

(Sorry for the slow blogging lately; its the day job again. Hopefully, grading will be over in another week.)

Neil Snyder paints a frightening but completely plausible picture of the next Arab assault on Israel in "The Next Gaza War Will Be a Coordinated Attack."

"There should be no doubt that the next Gaza war won't resemble the 2008-2009 war, and it could start at any time.

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Since the end of the last Gaza War, we've witnessed a flurry of activity to rearm Hamas and Hezb'allah. For example, in November 2009, Israel seized a ship carrying Iranian arms bound for Hezb'allah on Israel's northern border. According to Israel's deputy naval commander, Rani Ben Yehuda, the cargo included "dozens of containers with hundreds of tons of arms." Later reports revealed that the shipment contained more than 500 tons of weapons. (One ton equals approximately 2,205 pounds.) Just last week, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad admitted that he has allowed Iranian weapons to flow through Syria to Hezb'allah, and Hezb'allah chief Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear repeatedly that Hezb'allah will cooperate with Hamas if another Gaza war breaks out. Those weapons are needed for an attack on Israel.

In May 2010, the Israeli navy intercepted the "humanitarian aid" ship MV Mavi Marmara, which was bound for Gaza on Israel's eastern border. Nine terrorists posing as passengers died when they attacked Israeli commandos boarding the vessel. Ten commandos were wounded during the clash. Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas called the incident "a massacre"; a host of European Union officials demanded a full inquiry; Turkey erupted in protest; Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vowed to do his part to protect Palestinians in Gaza; and the global media launched a vigorous campaign to smear Israel. Scant attention was given to the fact that the ship's cargo contained weapons of war.

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In February 2011, the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to emerge from the shadows and engage openly in political activity for the first time in 57 years. Following Mubarak's resignation, Muhammad Ghannem, a leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, told the Iranian news network Al-Alam that the Egyptian people need to prepare for war with Israel. Supplying weapons to Hamas is a step in that direction.

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In March 2011, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reached an agreement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to build an Iranian naval base in Latakia, Syria's largest port, from which Iran can operate freely in the Mediterranean Sea. Within days of the announcement, Israel intercepted a Gaza-bound ship leaving Latakia carrying Iranian weapons to Gaza. . . . Will they take part in the next Gaza war? With Assad's power diminishing and Islamist groups in Syria increasing their strength, the answer is probably "yes" -- if not directly as combatants, then as guerrilla fighters.

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Since the Arab Spring began in Tunisia in January 2011, Iran has stepped up its efforts to spread its version of radical Islam throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Jordan's King Abdullah, noticing a tidal shift occurring in the region and feeling the heat at home, decided it was time to make nice with Iran. Both the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda have a presence in Jordan and close ties with Iran, but until recently, they have been kept in check. That's changing, too, and an emboldened Islamist element in Jordan could topple Abdullah's regime and/or force him to rethink Jordan's peace treaty with Israel. Will Jordan join the next Gaza war? The answer isn't an unequivocal "no."

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We're witnessing the fruition of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's plan to destroy Israel. His first step was to announce his intention to the world. Some mocked him, but he meant business. Next, he worked to undermine political regimes in every country in the region and to strengthen Islamist elements beholden to him. All the while, he has worked feverishly to develop Iran's nuclear capability. Today, Israel is surrounded: Hamas in Gaza on the west, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt on the south and southwest, Hezb'allah in Lebanon on the north, a host of emerging Islamist terrorist organizations in Syria on the northeast, and on the east, a weakened monarch in Jordan attempting to restrain radical Islamists. With Ahmadinejad's unswerving support, the only step remaining is a coordinated attack on Israel."

Read it all here.

In September, the PA is going to try to have its state recognized by the UN. That could create a pretext for war once Israel and the US reject it and the US vetos a resolution on it in the Security Council. Or, the strategy could be to mount a war now and have the UN resolution be part of the "peace agreement."

Or, maybe the PA knows that Obama will stand by and let the resolution clear the Security Council, in which case it could be enforced. All the US has to do is stand aside as the enemies of Israel destroy her. Does the PA know something the rest of us do not know?

Palestinian Pathological Hatred for Jews on Full Display

If you lived in Israel, this is what you would be up against. This is a government spokesman for the Palestinian Authority talking about the latest incident in which Israel retaliated after a shell from Gaza hit a school bus. The rhetoric sounds exactly like Western Left-wing, anti-Israel rhetoric.

Even when the terrorists attack innocent civilians deliberately and Israel retaliates in such a way as to minimize civilian casualities, they have the nerve to accuse Israel of war crimes! Where is the righteous indignation of the world? Oh, right, they were just Jews.



People who justify deliberately blowing up children to score political points are not civilized and they do not deserve a country of their own. They only deserve a prison cell - and that is being kinder than they deserve.

Making Public Schools Safe for Paganism

Anti-Christian activism continues to grow and sometimes the results are serious and other times they are a joke. Sin makes you stupid, as can be seen in this little story that seems to sum up what is wrong with public education in much of the US and Canada today.

"A sophomore at a local private high school thinks an effort to make Easter politically correct is ridiculous.

Jessica, 16, told KIRO Radio's Dori Monson Show that a week before spring break, the students commit to a week-long community service project. She decided to volunteer in a third grade class at a public school, which she would like to remain nameless.

"At the end of the week I had an idea to fill little plastic eggs with treats and jelly beans and other candy, but I was kind of unsure how the teacher would feel about that," Jessica said.

She was concerned how the teacher might react to the eggs after of a meeting earlier in the week where she learned about "their abstract behavior rules."

"I went to the teacher to get her approval and she wanted to ask the administration to see if it was okay," Jessica explained. "She said that I could do it as long as I called this treat 'spring spheres.' I couldn't call them Easter eggs."

They know that they want to erase all traces of our Christian cultural heritage from public view and they know that Easter is a threat to neo-paganism, but they don't know that eggs are not spheres. They must be qualified to be public school teachers!

These ham-handed attempts at thought control are ridiculous; one senses that their hearts are really in it. Even thought police must get weary sometimes.

Homophobia and Fascism

The word "homophobia" has now entered the English language and is widely used. However, I reject the word and refuse to use it voluntarily and I recommend that no one use it without questioning its suitability. It certainly has no place in academic discourse in which the goal is to describe Christian or traditional attitudes toward homosexuality.

It is more of a political weapon than an accurate description of anything or anybody. Its purpose is to marginalize, exclude and shame rather than to describe. (It might be described as a term with a passive-aggressive personality!). Let me explain why I think this word is so problematic.

Christians (along with many other religions and people of no religion who accept traditional sexual morality) believe that homosexual acts are immoral and that homosexuality is a vice. But homophobia means something like "bias, accompanied by extreme dislike or hatred." This demotes a considered moral position based on tradition, reason, exegesis and a long and complex moral debate to the level of an unreflective, emotional prejudice.

A prejudice is an opinion without facts. It is to judge before one knows the facts of the matter. Let's say you are Irish and I think all Irish people are lazy, drunken, lying, cheaters. I notice that my pen is missing and, knowing that you are Irish, immediately accuse you of stealing it. That is prejudice and I could be said to be biased against you. But suppose I notice my pen sticking out from under your notebook and I accuse you. That is not an act of prejudice; it is based on evidence. The evidence may be iron clad or tenuous but to accuse on the basis of evidence is a fundamentally different thing - considered from a moral point of view - from accusing you because you happen to be Irish.

Now substitute "homosexual" for Irish. If homophobia (defined as "bias or prejudice" rather than literally as "fear of sameness") means anything, it means that I think of homosexuals as people of bad character and am likely to blame them for things they are not guilty of doing. It means I'm prejudiced toward them. But this is not how "homophobia" is typically used. Christians do not think homosexual people are bad in every way in general; they are specifically condemning the morality of specific behaviors. The term "homophobia" deliberately obscures this fact. Christians are said to be "homophobic" any time they show that they think that homosexual acts are immoral and homosexuality a vice. But that Christian (and traditional) belief is not an unreasoning, emotional prejudice; it is a considered moral position based on a long and complex debate.

Ironically, to call anyone who condemns homosexual acts as immoral a "homophobe" is literally to prejudge that person. It is to redefine a considered moral position into an unreflective, emotional prejudice. Why do pro-sexual revolution people do this? They are saying that there is no rational basis for condemning homosexuality, so the only possible reason why someone might do so is unreasoning, emotional prejudice. To do this is to marginalize, exclude and shame a person and prepare the way for persecution. After all, while a liberal society must tolerate divergent points of view on morality, it need not tolerate prejudice.

In a liberal society divergent moral perspectives must be tolerated in order for social peace to be maintained. If we disagree about a highly emotionally charged moral issue, we must find a way to tolerate each other without resorting to violence. Otherwise, it is war to the death. But if I can find a way to rule your point of view out of bounds by redefining it as raw prejudice, I can relieve myself of the need to tolerate your point of view. This is how the term "homophobia" is used today in the media, in education, in law and everywhere else. It is illiberal and intolerant and even, it must be admitted, fascist in its usage.

That is why I urge Christians not to use the term without challenging its meaning. The battle over language is crucial to social debate. The pro-sexual revolution side has a strong anti-liberal, fascist, element and it wishes to impose what Pope Benedict XVI called the "dictatorship of relativism." If you don't surrender to a relativistic view of sexual morality then you must be marginalized, excluded, shamed and eventually eliminated.

We see court cases in the UK, in Canada and in the US in which this dynamic is being played out. It is no hypothetical danger but a clear and present one. I'm all for toleration in a liberal society but we need to be aware that not all pro-homosexual activists are for either toleration or liberalism. Their attitude renders this term extremely problematic and, in worst cases, fascist.

Dictatorship without the Dictator

According the this story in the New York Times, "Egypt Sentences Blogger to Three Years," an Egyptian blogger has been arrested, tried and sentenced to jail for criticizing the military.

"An Egyptian blogger was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for criticizing the military in what human rights advocates called one of the more alarming violations of freedom of expression since a popular uprising led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak two months ago."

This was not the expected outcome back on Feb. 11, when the NYT was hailing the ouster of Mubarak as a great victory for democracy. The mainstream press in the West has been extremely naive and irresponsible in the way that it has treated the whole series of revolutions in the Middle East. Change is not always for the better and taking power away from one powerful group and giving it to another in not necessarily progress.

The Obama administration has not considered US strategic interests, but has basically taken a hands off approach even in cases where Islamists are threatening to take power, such as Egypt and Syria. That is, it has been hands off except where, as in the case of Lybia, it has actually empowered the Islamists in their revolt. The lessons of Afghanistan in the Soviet era go unlearned.

The NYT story mentioned above has some very interesting fact deeper down in the story. Turns out this blogger is a Christian and pro-Israel. Now, I wonder who his arrest sends a chilling signal to. . . couldn't be a message from the Muslim Brotherhood to refrain from criticizing a shift in strategic alliance away from a pro-Western, peaceful relationship with Israel to a pro-Iran, antagonism toward Israel, could it? Oh, yes it certainly could.

Of course, the NYT is not going to warn against the danger of the gathering storm of war against Israel. But it doesn't have to connect the dots for anyone who is paying attention to the Middle Eastern strategic realignment now in process.

Defending the Gospel Colation and the Revival of Reformation Theology It Embodies

David Fitch continues to criticize the revival of traditional Evangelicalism represented by the Gospel Coalition at his blog. He seems to think that something has happened in history that makes the teachings and practices of the Church outdated and in need of changing. What is this "New Thing" that is so significant that it makes Reformation doctrine and biblical preaching no longer "relevant"? Well, it seems to me to be nothing other than the same old "New Thing" that liberal Protestants have been talking about since the early 19th century.

Fitch claims that we need to eschew a defensive position and embark on a journey into "the unexplored territories of the new cultures of post Christendom." Exactly what territory is left unexplored at this stage in history? Are people really different today? Has technology improved us morally? Fitch claims that what he calls "Christendom" is over, but surely that is old news. He also conflates it with "Modernity" even though Modernity has been a centuries-long assault on Christendom.

Let's go point by point through his criticism of the Reformed revival embodied in the Gospel Coalition. He writes:

"1.) If We Purify Our Doctrine The Rest Will Follow. I have observed an impulse in the TGC that says if we just get our doctrine right (which means a certain version of Reformed orthodoxy), then mission and church renewal in post Christendom will follow. But at least in post Christendom (as it is in the N United States urban areas and Canada) this is not enough. This is not 16th century Europe where the majority Catholic population, under the influence of a corrupt Roman Catholicism, need doctrinal renewal. This is not the 1920′s N. America where the majority protestant mainline Christian population, under the influence of a modernist liberalism, need doctrinal renewal. This is post Christendom territory where there are very few Christians of any kind left who have no doctrine to be renewed."

I would reply that if we don't purify our doctrine nothing else matters. Fitch seems to think that purifiying doctrine is an outreach strategy but it is nothing of the kind. It is a matter of internal church renewal and if the church does not have its doctrine right then even if it grows it does not fulfill its mission. This is why all the calls for "exploring new territory" and being sensitive to the prejudices of the contemporary culture are distractions from the true mission which is to "be faithful" before "going" in mission.

"2.) We Must Return to the Reformation. Is the TGC seeking a return to the Reformation? The Reformation cannot be discounted, but neither can it be returned to. The Reformation was built on the back of Christendom. It gave birth to the Sola’s, especially Sola Scripture and Sola Fide which in their time called people to a renewed purity and personal commitment to the gospel. Today however, those same impulses, aligned with the Enlightenment, have given birth to a modernist individualism, Christian relativism, Cartesian rationalism and experientialism that later became modernity, protestant liberalism and indeed the current manifestations of evangelicalism that the TGC appears to be in critique of. We therefore must go beyond the Reformation, not back to it."

He criticizes TGC for wanting to go back to Calvin, but he himself makes much of his "Neo-Anabaptist" approach. Apparently we can go back to the Reformation, after all.

But I would argue that much of Evangelicalism today, including the neo-Anabaptist sub-group, needs to catch up to the Reformation, not "go beyond it." To view the Reformation as an expression of incipient Modernity is to adopt a controversial liberal Protestant version of the narrative of modern church history. I fear that Fitch is taken in by the self-justifying narrative suggested by liberal Protestantism that covers up its radical departure from the Reformers in order to embrace modernity and accommodate itself to the culture. Calvin, especially, had far more in common with medieval scholastic realism than with the nominalism of the late Middle Ages and the Cartesianism of the modern period out of which modernity grew.

"3.) Woman Cannot Be Pastors. Is TGC seeking to enforce a particular reading of the NT that opposes the role of women in authority within church ministry? I have observed the prominence of a particular view of women in ministry in the TGC. I would characterize this view as a.) based in an inerrancy view of the text, which b.) latches on to texts as if they were isolated units of universal teaching on women, which then c.) leads to a blindness to the NT’s overall elevation of women into ministerial authority in the church. To me, this robs the church of the new politic that was birthed in Jesus Christ. It robs our witness to the reconciled relationship born of Jesus Christ in the post-non-Christendom cultures. I personally have spoken against the egalitarian form of politics I believe has been adopted naively by some evangelical feminists at the expense of both women and Christian marriage. Nonetheless, I believe that the NT calls women into the full participation in the new authority of the Kingdom unleashed in the church (this means I affirm the full ordination of women)."

Here Fitch writes as if his were the majority view in the church, whereas it is a sectarian view of a small and declining portion of the ecumenical church. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches are joined by a large section of the Anglican Communion, the largest Protestant denomination in the US and by a large remnant (in fact, the alive and growing section) of Protestantism in holding to the 2000 year old consensus view that Christ and the NT do not authorize this novelty.

The traditional interpretation of the NT continues to be the majority interpretation and the segments of the church that embraced the ordination of women in the 1970s are declining numerically and spiritually, embracing the sexual revolution including homosexuality, divorce and the family breakdown, and failing to evangelize the world by simply reflecting back to the pagan culture what it already believes. Can a church reject inerrancy and remain counter-cultural? The votes are still being counted but the early returns suggest that the answer may be no.

I suggest that we wait 20 years and see if the Evangelical groups which have recently embraced women's ordination follow the depressing and debilitating trajectory of the liberal denominations that embraced it 20 years earlier. It is too soon to judge how this novelty will work out. (I am particularly interested to see how this plays out in Pentecostalism.)

4.) The New Perspective is Our Enemy. John Piper and Don Carson have energetically sought to dismantle the New Perspective on Paul (most notably here, here and here). I do not agree with everything written by Stendahl, Sanders, Dunn, Wright etc. Nonetheless, I believe it is a mistake to see the New Perspective as the enemy (it’s not even that new any more). I believe there is much to learn from it.

I think the New Perspective is vastly overblown in importance. As historical theology it is highly deficient and has little understanding of the Reformers and tenuous links to Evangelical piety and spirituality. It seems to me to be rather typically modern in its attempt to make Christianity "relevant" by stressing its immanent, social dimensions at the expense of its cosmic, eschatological and personal dimensions. It would be an odd hill to die on.

"5.) The Mega Church Still Makes Sense. Because of the above mentioned Reformed tendencies (exacerbated by American pragmatic evangelicalism) to individualize the gospel, to individualize the reading of Scripture, to individualize salvation, to separate doctrine from “way of life,” the Neo-Reformed do not see the problem of mega church for the future of church engagement with post-Christendom. Mega churches have worked well within Christendom’s modernity."

It is hard to understand why Fitch is so concerned that a revival of Reformed theology would undergird the concept of the mega-church or why the size of churches is such an important non-negotiable. Most mega-churches are seeker-sensitive and would greatly benefit from a dose of solid, Reformed theology, exegetical preaching and counter-cultural ethics. They would no longer be so seeker-sensitive; they would be more God-centered.

Large churches are not the problem; they are a sign of successful mission. Prior to the 20th century they were called cathedrals and they emerge wherever Christianity is successful in evangelizing a large portion of the population. The fact that we live in a largely post-Christian culture is not something to be celebrated but something to be lamented. We should be asking ourselves "Why are we under judgment?" not congratulating ourselves for having become smaller, purer and more righteous.

Of greater concern is the conflating of "Christendom" and "Modernity." Modernity is what triumphed over Medieval Christendom, historically peaking in the Enlightenment. We live in the long sad denouement of Modernity, a culture in decline because cut off from its Christian roots. Fitch seems to have swallowed the progressive myth of history, which is so fundamental to Modernity in always seeing the ideal as out there in the future, something to which we are moving providing we are willing to stop looking back.

Why not admit that we are not progressing, but rather we are regressing (by practically every possible measure) in the West? We live in the culture of death of late modernity and the church is scattered, weak and greatly reduced. In such a situation the rhetoric of "moving forward" is as irrelevant and unhelpful as it was in the days of the 8th century prophets. Much more relevant is looking back to God and God's Word, from which we derive the imperative of repentance and the hope of revival.

Who are the Real Nazis in the Middle East?

In Academic, among professional historians, it is common knowledge that German Fascism took root in the Middle East during World War II and the anti-Semitism that characterizes radical Islam today is directly influenced by German anti-Semitism of the kind that powered Hitler's National Socialism.

The following article, "Iranian Antisemitism: Stepchild of German National Socialism" is by German academic Mathtias Kuntzel and was published in The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 1, Jan. 2010/5769, pp. 43-51. Kuntzel's book, Jihad and Jew Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11, is published by Telos Press and won the Grand Prize at the 2007 London Book Festival.

"Many Iranians — including those in exile — claim that currently there is not any antisemitism in Iran. They point to the fact that the Jews of Iran today constitute the largest Jewish community in any Muslim country, which is true, and that even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not attack “the Jews,” but rather “the Zionists.”

At the same time, no other regime in the world is as antisemitic as that of the Mullahs in Tehran. It is true that Ahmadinejad does not attack “the Jews”, but instead claims that “two thousand Zionists want to rule the world.”^[1] He says, “For sixty sears now, the Zionists” have blackmailed all western governments.”^[2] “The Zionists have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors.”^[3] “The Zionists” are responsible for the Danish Muhammad cartoons. “The Zionists” are responsible for the destruction of the dome of the Golden Mosque in Iraq.^[4] Of course, he invests the word “Zionist” with exactly the same sense with which Hitler once invested the word “Jew”: namely, that of being the incarnation of all evil. Whoever makes Jews responsible for all the ills of the world – whether as “Judas” or “Zionists” — is clearly driven by antisemitism.

Thus, in the special case of Iran we have both individual Jews, who are afforded some degree of protection as long as they agree to live in accordance with the religious concept of Dhimmitude and maintain a low profile, and the Jews in the abstract, i.e. “the Zionists,” who are considered to be the embodiment of global evil.

It is not hard to explain why individual Jews are more or less accepted in Iran: At least since the beginning of the rule of Reza Shah in 1925, the Iranian concept of “Aryanhood” included non-Muslim religious groups such as Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews. This concept of national integration (which also embraces Jews) remains somewhat applicable to this day.

The hatred of the abstract “Jew” and of Israel is more difficult to explain. Israel and Iran have no territorial disputes and there is no Iranian refugee issue; indeed, the pre-1979 period saw decades of good relations with Israel quite unlike the strained relation between Iranians and Arabs. In addition, the delusion of a “global Jewish power” was unknown in the Shia Muslim tradition. It is a hallmark of modern European antisemitism.

Thus the main question is when and how this kind of modern antisemitism, this hatred of the “abstract Jew”, was transplanted to Iran?

In the course of researching my study on the German-Iranian relationship over the past hundred years, I discovered archival documents that at least partly answer this question — documents relating to a period when the intensity of German-Iranian relations reached its peak: during World War II.^[5]

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Politically, the two countries shared common enemies from World War I onwards. Although Iran was officially neutral in both world wars, the hearts of most Iranians beat for Germany. They were battling the same adversaries: the Russians and British and later the Americans and Zionists or Jews. In addition, Germans became immensely popular in their role of technicians and engineers. In the mid-1920s, Germany provided Iran with both the backbone of its industrial infrastructure and the trained personnel needed to run it. Soon the German work ethic was legendary in Iran.

- - snip - -

By the beginning of the World War II, bilateral cooperation between Iran and Germany had become extremely strong. In 1940, Germany accounted for 47,1 percent of all Iranian exports and 42,9 percent of imports.^[6] Eighty percent of all machinery in the country came from Germany. But that is not all that was imported: at the same time, European antisemitic ideology was brought to Tehran in Farsi via a Berlin-based short-wave radio transmitter.

Iran was of strategic importance to Germany. As Hitler envisaged it, after the assault on the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht would also occupy the Caucasus and in so doing, open the way to the Middle East. Then Iran and Iraq would be conquered and the British Empire destroyed from the south. A pro-German movement in Iran reinforced by a concentrated propaganda effort would prepare for the German invasion of that country.

At that time, most Iranians were illiterate and used to listened to the radio in town squares or in bazaars and coffee houses. The German short wave radio station, called Radio Zeesen, was the most popular one in the country.^[7]

“Even if we do broadcast in Persian,” British Ambassador to Tehran Reader Bullard wrote in 1940, “we cannot hope to rival the Germans in interest, as their more violent, abusive style, with exaggerated claims … appeals to the Persian public.”^[8] Bullard had identified one reason for Radio Zeesen’s success. The programs were rabble-rousing rather than factual. Their aim was not to inform, but to incite antisemitism and to boast of German successes. They were targeted at a mass audience rather than intellectuals. Thus, the United Nations was dubbed the “United Jewish Nations,” and the Jordanian king, Emir Abdullah, was mocked as “Rabbi Abdullah” for wanting to negotiate with the Zionists.

The programmes were, however, produced professionally. Inflammatory harangues were skilfully interspersed with Koranic citations and musical interludes adapted to local tastes. In addition, the reception of Radio Zeesen was better than that of any other station broadcasting, since its Berlin transmitter had been upgraded for the 1936 Olympics. Last but not least, in the person of Bahram Sharokh, Radio Zeesen had a first-rate presenter with a good voice and excellent diction at its disposal. A 1941 survey of German propaganda achievements in Iran boasted that “Sharokh [was] always praised as a brilliant speaker and was more popular than even others, including the enemy ones.”^[9]

- - snip - -

It was understood that German-style antisemitism would have little resonance in Iran. “The broad masses lack a feeling for the race idea,” explained the propaganda expert of the German embassy in Tehran. He therefore laid “all the emphasis on the religious motif in our propaganda in the Islamic world. This is the only way to win over the Orientals.”^[12] But how exactly could Nazi Germany, of all countries, conduct a religious propaganda campaign? Ettel had an idea.

“The way to directly connect up with Shi’ite ideas is through the treatment of the Jewish question, which the Muhammedan perceives in religious terms and which, precisely for this reason, makes him susceptible to National Socialism on religious grounds.” Just as hatred of Jews would provide the point of entry into the Shi’ite faith, so religion would serve as the natural medium for the propagation of Jew-hatred. “A way to foster this (anti-Jewish) development would be to highlight Muhammad’s struggle against the Jews in ancient times and that of the Führer in modern times,” Ettel recommended to the Foreign Office. “Additionally, by identifying the British with the Jews, an exceptionally effective anti-English propaganda campaign can be conducted among the Shi’ite people.”

Ettel even picked out the appropriate Koranic passages: firstly, sura 5, verse 82: “Truly you will find that the most implacable of men in their enmity to the faithful are the Jews and the pagans”; and, secondly, the final sentence of chapter 2 of Mein Kampf: “In resisting the Jew, I do the work of the Lord.” “By successfully bringing the country’s clergy under the sway of German propaganda, we can win over broad layers of the popular masses,” Ettel wrote in February 1941.^[13]

Ettel’s proposal demonstrates that the Nazis sought to use religion to create an implacable hostility to the Jews. The first step was to awaken religious anti-Judaism, using references to Muhammad and the Koran. Thus, they built on the foundations of a centuries-old Muslim anti-Judaism while at the same time radicalizing it. One way of doing that was to depict Britain as being under Jewish control. Britain was in any case detested by the majority of the Iranian people. They were well-disposed, however, towards the US, as Ettel bitterly complained.

Thus, from late summer 1942 onwards, Radio Zeesen’s antisemitism was mixed with a special type of anti-Americanism as well. For example, Radio Zeesen emphasised “that the Jewish power policy in the Middle East is being implemented by the Americans.” This linkage is “regularly employed to reinforce our anti-American propaganda in Iran.”

- - snip - -

Among the regular listeners to this material was a man of whom the world was later to hear much more: Ruhollah Khomeini . . .

Here is Kuntzel's conclusion:

"It is not the technology that makes the Iranian nuclear programme so dangerous, but the ideological context within which it arises. For the first time since the splitting of the atom, we find the destructive force of the bomb linked to the fury of a holy anti-Jewish war.

“Without confronting the ideological roots of radical Islam it will be impossible to combat it”, suggested Tawfik Hamid, a former member of Jamaa Islamiya, an Islamic terrorist group led by Dr. Aiman Al-Zawahiri, the second-in-command of Al-Qaeda.^[23] Today, this challenge applies not only to Iran, where hundreds of thousands of opponents of Ahmadinejad want to know what went wrong with Khomeinism and why. The impact of Radio Zeesen also ought to be discussed also in the Western world, where still too many pundits are wrongly trying to scapegoat Israel for the old and new antisemitism of the Iranian regime."

Read it all here. This history is why the term "Islamofascism" is correct as an objective description of radical, antisemitic, political Islam. There is much in Islam's past history that is anti-Jewish going all the way back to the early days of the Prophet. But in the 20th century a dangerous mutation occurred as traditional Islamic-Jewish rivalry fused with the virus of modern, antisemitism of European origin.

For the American administration naively to address Islam as the religion of peace and to treat Islamic terrorism as the work of individual crackpots here and there is just inadequate as a response. It makes Neville Chamberlain's response to Hitler look strong and uncompromising - and the analogy is exquisitely appropriate.

Responding Appropriately to Rob Bell

I have not commented on the Rob Bell controversy mostly because it is a classic example of modern, capitalist, marketing campaign hype by a megachurch star/businessman. If you conclude from that assessment that I do not take Rob Bell seriously as a writer and theologian, you would be correct. So to respond with serious exegetical, philosophical and theological arguments to a marketing campaign would be inappropriate.

Fortunately, however, someone with some real creativity has responded to Rob Bell in a completely appropriate manner: humor.

Below is the Rob Bell video promoting his new book, Love Wins. If you have not seen it yet, you must watch it first in order to appreciate what follows.



Now for the response. (HT to The Brooks at City of God.)

Robbed Hell - C.A.S.T. Pearls Presents from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

A brilliant, pitch perfect, piece of satire. Nothing left to say.

Is Worldwide Anti-Semitism as Bad Today as it Was in the 1930s?

The growing anti-Zionist, anti-Israel rage is fueling the ancient plague of Jew hatred that is the disease of the human spirit which refuses to be stamped out.

In the 1930s people were convinced that Jewish bankers pulled the strings and manipulated the world for their own financial gain. The Left contended that powerful Jews and Capitalists conspired against the masses. Today the powerful state of Israel has taken the place of the powerful Jewish bankers in the fetid imagination of the Jew haters. This way of thinking allows them to claim not to hate individual Jews per se, but only to be concerned about the Bankers/Zionists who have money, power and influence. Basically, anti-Semites resent Jews having any power whatsoever and think that, if they are allowed to live, it should be in ghettos and with severe restrictions that keep them down. So it seems justified to them to resent it when Jews get uppity and dare to fight back against prejudice, hate and marginalization.

Today, the world-wide campaign conducted by the Left and Islam against the State of Israel is so successful that the media is biased, the European Union is almost completely anti-Israel and even Great Britain, which once, when Christianity was more influential in that country, was Israel's greatest friend, has now turned against Israel.

Here is a typical news story from Reuters headlined: "Israeli air strike kills two Hamas men in Gaza." I want to make some comments in [square brackets in red.]

[First, we cannot let the title go by without comment. Notice that they are "Hamas men" not "terrorists" or "extremists" or "child killers" - all of which would be more accuarate as we shall see.]

An Israeli air strike killed two militants from the Islamist group Hamas in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday as a fresh spike in cross-border violence continued for a second day. [And notice that the story leads with Israel's action as if it were not a response to an extreme provocation. The story does not say Israel's action was unprovoked; it doesn't have to when it can subtly imply this by the way it sets up the narrative.]

A Palestinian group said it fired two rockets into Israel around dawn and Israeli shelling also wounded two Hamas militants on a patrol.

The Israeli military said it had "identified two terrorist squads from Hamas" and had hit them from the ground and air.

Two years of low-level skirmishing on the border escalated suddenly last month when the Islamist Hamas group which rules Gaza fired a barrage of rockets at Israel, triggering a surge of fighting which killed 16 Palestinians. [Note the moral equivalence implied by the term "skirmishing." A more accurate way of describing it would be two years of Hamas attacks on Israel and Israeli attempts to prevent further attacks.]

Analysts in Gaza said Hamas wanted to bolster its claim to leadership of the divided Palestinian national movement and divert attention from popular demands -- fueled by the 'Arab Spring' -- for an end to the split with its Fatah rivals.

But it had miscalculated Israel's response. [Again, without saying so explicitly, the subtle implication is that Israel's response was extreme or overdone. "Who could have expected such a harsh response?" is the implication.]

That spurt of violence subsided, but fighting flared again on Thursday when Hamas gunmen fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, wounding two. [At last, halfway into the story we come to the real source of Israel's response. These murderous, evil, inhuman, thugs deliberately targeted a school bus. This is a war crime; it should be condemned as such by the UN, the EU, the US and the entire world. It should prompt international outrage and serious retaliation against Hamas - boycotts, loss of aid, etc. But the silence is deafening. Only Israel cares. Only Israel responds to protect innocent school children. After all, they are just Jews.] Israel retaliated with planes and armored forces, killing five Palestinians. [How could they be so restrained? This type of crime deserves a much more serious response.]

Hamas took responsibility for the bus attack, [They are proud of it! And they obviously, with good reason, expect no significant repercussions internationally.] and an Israeli analyst said it was plainly smarting from recent setbacks, including an April 2 Israel airstrike that killed three Gazans, and which it had vowed to avenge.

But firing a long-range anti-tank weapon at a clearly marked yellow school bus may have been a further miscalculation. [A "miscalculation"? This is the best Reuters can do? A "miscalculation"?]

"Red lines were crossed," Tal Russo, head of Southern Command, said on Israeli army radio. [The only moral language in this article comes in quotes of Israelis.]

The United Nations and European Union on Friday voiced concern over the rising tensions and called on the sides to show restraint and bring an end to the latest round of fighting. [Here is the pernicious "moral equivalence" again. The murderer slashing the victim's throat and the policeman's attempt to arrest the criminal are both morally equivalent. That is how they see it. Killing terrorist murders and shooting a missile at a school bus - exactly the same thing. So both sides need to be addressed in exactly the same way.]

NO "CALM" YET

Minister of Home Front Defense Matan Vilnai said Israel was locked in a "war of attrition" with Hamas.

"We are taking the proper steps, defensively and offensively. Yesterday, without a doubt, there was a serious deviation with the missile fire on the (school) bus," Vilnai told Army Radio.

He declined to say if operations were ceasing.

Gaza militants on Thursday fired 45 rockets and mortars into Israel. Israeli forces struck targets throughout the densely populated territory, including Hamas positions, smuggling tunnels along the border with Egypt and Gaza's derelict airport.

Five Palestinians were killed and 30 others were injured.

Hamas has again said it was interested in restoring "calm" to the front and was trying to get smaller militant groups to halt attacks. [And Reuters just takes Hamas' word for it? School bus attackers are agents of restraint? It is Hamas the peace-loving freedom fighters try to calm down the wild, extremists in the IDF, I guess.] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would take all necessary action to protect its citizens, but that he hoped the "situation will be contained."

During Thursday's barrage, Israel used for the first time its short-range Iron Dome interceptor. Its missiles destroyed in mid-flight a rocket heading for the city of Ashkelon.

Vilnai said Israel will consider deploying further Iron Dome systems near Gaza to join the two that are currently stationed there, but hinted at budgetary restraints.

Hamas, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 from forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The two wings of the Palestinian national movement remain enemies.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ari Rabinovitch; editing by Douglas Hamilton and Paul Taylor)

This article is typical. Such articles appear in the world press every day. And that is the measure of how biased the media is against Israel. The fact that these kind of articles, which portray Israel as being as guilty as Hamas, are common reveals the bias.

By the way, the idea that the "occupied territories" are the reason for the conflict is obviously untrue. All these rockets being fired into Israel now are coming from the Gaza Strip. Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and then unilaterally withdrew from it. So problem solved, right? Wrong. The issue is not the "occupied territories" but rather the existence of Israel. Nothing will satisfy the Islamofascists other than the destruction of Israel and, preferably, the genocide of all Jews.

And even, they will not be happy. They will simply turn all the resources, funding, weapons, fanaticism and energy into the Jihad against the West. Europe will be the next battleground. For the Islamofascists, Spain is as much part of the territory of Islam as Israel is. And Iran will soon have nuclear tipped missiles that can reach European capitals.

As always, Jews are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to human rights. Fighting anti-Semitism is the right thing to do in any case, but it is also in today's world a matter of enlightened self-interest for Westerners. Unfortunately, in order to act according to enlightened self-interest one first has to be enlightened. So until the West wakes up from its dark, nihilistic dreaming, it will continue to slide toward destruction. History repeats itself and the consequences for Europe and the world will be as horrifying as those of the early 1940s.

Michael Horton on the Meaning of "Missional"

Michael Horton recently was interviewed by John Starke at the Gospel Coalition website about his new book, The Gospel Commission: Recovering God's Strategy for Making Disciples.

In the third question of the interview, Starke asks Horton is he is comfortable with the term "missional" and Horton's reply to that question and the two followup questions is very insightful, in my opinion.

When Lesslie Newbigin coined that term, it made sense. I knew what he meant. I had the privilege of getting to know him over tea on several occasions while we were both in Oxford, and I have great respect for his labors as a missionary bishop in India. His point was that the West is now a mission field in its own right and missions isn’t just something the church sends a few people to do, but a joyful task in which all believers are engaged. However, in books like Darrel Guder’s The Missional Church, this idea became more radical. I think that the salutary point about knowing our culture became inflated. Terms like incarnational began to undermine the qualitative difference between Christ and us. Affirming that the church is a people who are active in the world, the tendency was to downplay the church as a place where Christ is the active party, forgiving and renewing sinners. The official ministry of the church (Word, sacrament, discipline)—the three marks of the church—have been dangerously contrasted with being a “missional church.”

A major concern of The Gospel Commission is to reconnect mission and marks; in other words, to see that the mission of the church (according to Jesus’ commission and its concrete execution in Acts) is to bear the marks! So a church that is not reaching out to non-Christians can’t take pride in having the marks of the church. After all, the marks are not only to have true doctrine and practice, but to proclaim God’s Word, to baptize, to commune, and to shepherd heirs of the new creation until together with all the saints we reach our everlasting homeland. At the same time, a church cannot claim to be “missional” if it isn’t preaching God’s Word, administering the sacraments, teaching, and looking out for the flock’s spiritual and temporal welfare. Peter gives us the right balance in his Pentecost sermon: “The promise is for you and your children AND for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God calls to himself.”

What are some problems you see with people identifying their ministry as “incarnational”?

By “incarnational” a lot of people mean that, like Jesus, we should identify with our neighbors in humility, rather than stand aloof. But it often is attended today by a lot of loose language about “doing the gospel” and “being the gospel,” of our work of partnering with God in the redemption and reconciliation of the world, and so forth—“Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary use words,” as the oft-quoted saying attributed to Francis of Assisi goes. The problem is that this confuses us with Jesus, the redeemed with the Redeemer, the ambassadors with the King. In Philippians 2, we are called to imitate the humility of Christ, revealed in his descent from glory in order to save the lost. However, everything else in that passage highlights the ways in which we cannot imitate Christ. We did not share equally with the Father and the Holy Spirit in deity. We did not become incarnate. Our “humiliation” is not for the redemption of others, but for our witness to the name of Christ. So the gospel is something that can only be proclaimed, because it’s about someone else—what he has already accomplished—and that makes it Good News. Like John the Baptist, we point away from ourselves to “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). Although we are called to imitate his suffering humility, Christ’s incarnation itself is not a model for us to imitate, but a wonderful announcement for us to bring to the world. The gospel is not about me or us; it’s about the Triune God and what he has accomplished for us in Jesus Christ.

You regularly raise the concern that many are confusing Christ’s work with our work. Can you briefly explain where the confusion lies?

This concern follows from the previous points. The Reformers made the startling point, so evident in the Scriptures, that in relation to God we are only receivers. All good gifts come down from the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit. So then where do our good works go? God doesn’t need them. I don’t need them, because Christ is my righteousness. The only place for our good works to go, then, is out to our neighbors in love. They need us to bring them the gospel. They also need us to help them fix their roof, rebuild after an earthquake, watch their children while they take a sick child to the hospital, and so forth. Through the many works that Christians execute in their daily lives, God loves and serves the world in common grace. Through our witness to the gospel, God loves and serves these neighbors with saving grace. But if we eclipse God’s service, which we receive supremely in the public ministry of Word and sacrament, into an emphasis on our service, then the salt loses its savor. We may be really, really active in the world, but are we Christian in that activity? Scripture gives us commands as well as promises; tasks to perform as well as Good News to embrace. However, if we take it for granted that everybody already “gets” God’s saving grace in Christ (as though it were merely a matter of assenting to a series of doctrines and then moving on to the real stuff of Christian discipleship), we’re doing things backwards. Works flow from faith and faith feeds daily on the gospel."

Horton is concerned to distinguish between Christian service to neighbor and contributions to culture-building, which are part of common grace, and the specific task of announcing the Lordship of Jesus Christ and calling people to faith in him.

In an article at the 9 Marks site, entitled "Transforming Culture with a Messiah Complex," Horton criticizes much of Evangelicalism for confusing the living out of Christian discipleship in the world with the Gospel itself. He sharpens the points made above when he says:

"If this theological argument is correct, then we should question popular statements like, "All of life is kingdom work." No, proclaiming the Word, administering baptism and the Supper, caring for the spiritual and physical well-being of the saints, and bringing in the lost are kingdom work. Building bridges, delivering medical supplies to hospitals, installing water heaters, defending clients in court, holding public office, and having friends over for dinner are "creation work," given a pledge of safe conduct ever since Cain under God's regime of common grace. In this work, Christians serve beside non-Christians, as both are endowed with natural gifts and learned skills for their common life together.

Only when Christ returns in glory will the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. Until then, the New Testament does not offer a single exhortation to Christianize politics, the arts and sciences, education, or any other common grace field of endeavor.

Of course, Christians will bring their worldview and values to their secular callings. Instead of simply working for the weekend out of pure self-interest, believers should choose and fulfill their vocation as a way of best loving and serving their neighbor. What the church does for those who are of the household of faith is different from what individual Christians do as neighbors in the world.

Where we might hope for triumphant calls to "redeem culture," the New Testament epistles offer comparatively boring yet crucial exhortations to respect and pray for those in authority, to treat employers and employees well, and to be faithful parents and children. We are called "to increase more and more" in godliness through the ordinary means of grace in the church. And in our secular vocations we are called to "aspire to lead a quite life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are outside and that you may lack nothing" (1 Thes 4:10-12)."

Read the rest here. Horton is one of the sharpest thinkers around on the issue of the mission of the church. His distinction between "creation work" and "kingdom work" is very Augustinian and worthy of serious reflection.

Planned Parenthood Under Attack - Finally!

Abbey Johnson is a former employee of Planned Parenthood who has become pro-life and is now speaking out against the eugenics organization that promotes the killing of the babies of poor and minority women as the solution to social problems.

She writes:

"Myths about Planned Parenthood are spreading like grassfire. Thanks to a perfect storm of events, the abortion provider is scrambling to cauterize the biggest PR hit it has ever sustained. November's election of an overwhelmingly pro-life Congress, revelation of numerous violations by its staff and repeated calls for its defunding by social and fiscal conservatives alike have put Planned Parenthood's lifeblood on the line.

Planned Parenthood's bottom line is numbers. And, with abortion as its primary money-maker, that means implementing a quota. I know this is true because I worked at one of their Texas clinics for 8 years, two as the clinic director.

Though 98 percent of Planned Parenthood's services to pregnant women are abortion, Planned Parenthood and its political allies have sworn up and down that taxpayer dollars do not to pay for abortion. But of course they do. Planned Parenthood gets one-third of its entire budget from taxpayer funding and performed more than 650,000 abortions between 2008 and 2009. An abortion is expensive. Its cost includes pay for the doctor, supporting medical staff, their health benefits packages and malpractice insurance. As clinic director, I saw how money affiliate clinics receive from several sources is combined into one pot, not set aside for specific services.

Planned Parenthood's claim that abortions make up just 3 percent of its services is also a gimmick. That number is actually closer to 12 percent, but strategically skewed by unbundling family planning services so that each patient shows anywhere from five to 20 "visits" per appointment (i.e., 12 packs of birth control equals 12 visits) and doing the opposite with abortion visits, bundling them together so that each appointment equals one visit. The resulting difference between family planning and abortion "visits" is striking.

But that's not the only deception Planned Parenthood is spreading.

It also claims to help reduce the number of abortions. Not only is this not what Planned Parenthood actually accomplishes, but its goal couldn't be more opposite. As a Planned Parenthood clinic manager, I was directed to double the number of abortions our clinic performed in order to drive up revenue. In keeping, Planned Parenthood headquarters recently issued a directive mandating that all of its affiliates provide abortions by 2013.

Planned Parenthood is also spending a lot of money convincing its primary income providers - taxpayers - that its highest priority is women's health and safety. Live Action and the Expose Planned Parenthood coalition released numerous undercover videos showing clinic staff aiding and abetting alleged sex traffickers in exploiting underage girls - some as young as 14.

After initially downplaying the first video as a scam, Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey came under so much pressure that it fired the office manager in the footage. New Jersey Attorney General Paula Dow quickly called for an investigation, but Planned Parenthood's problems don't end with firing one office manager. Later Live Action videos revealed an unbroken chain of similar problems in clinics up and down the East Coast."

Read the rest here.

But Planned Parenthood has friends in high places. For example, here is Senator Charles Schumer of New York pledging allegiance to the the cause of abortion on demand.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) vowed yesterday that the provision to defund Planned Parenthood that passed the House earlier this year will “never, never, never going to pass the Senate.”

Schumer made the remarks Thursday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., at a “Stand Up for Women’s Health” rally sponsored by the National Organization for Women, NARAL and Planned Parenthood.

It appears that Barack Obama and the radicals who have taken over the Democratic Party would rather shut down the US government than give an inch on abortion. When Harry Reid calls the Republican "dominated by ideology" he is projecting onto them his own motivations.

The pro-eugenics and pro-abortion side is powerful, well-funded and determined. Only prayer can cause such strongholds to be shaken. Let us pray.

Public Education Needs to Be Union Free

Here is Reason #999 why public sector unions, and teachers' unions in particular, need to be severely restricted, reformed and de-politicized. The Catholic Teachers Union in Ontario is charging all its members an extra $60 to help elect their bosses in the next provincial election. The political party thus elected with union money (the Liberals) will then continue doling out the goodies to the unions in the form of higher salaries, more luxurious benefits etc. It is a corrupt system and one that is going to bankrupt the country eventually.

The National Post reports:

An Ontario teachers union has approved charging its members an extra $3-million to fund a political action campaign aimed at keeping the Progressive Conservatives out of office in the fall provincial election.

The $60-per-member additional fee was passed by 67% of delegates at the Ontario Catholic Teachers Association’s annual general meeting last month in Toronto.

“Our goal is to elect an education-friendly legislature in order to protect the gains in education made over the past eight years,” says a letter from union president James Ryan sent to members.

The letter suggests the fund will not be agitating merely about policy. It says delegates left the meeting “acutely aware of how the election of a Conservative government under Tim Hudak would threaten the common good, particularly education.”

The fee will take effect July 1. All of the $60 will go to the teachers’ union’s campaign for the election on Oct. 6, when Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty will seek a third term. The local bargaining unit will get $12 of each payment to support local election-related activities.

With more than 45,000 members teaching all grades in publicly funded English Catholic schools in Ontario, the fee will generate close to $3-million for the election kitty, said Mr. Ryan.

What amazes me is how out in the open and brazen this corrupt, self-serving system is. Many of the teachers will vote Conservative but the union bosses don't care as long as they elect their Liberal pals and the teachers are forced to pay union dues for purposes they don't agree with forever.

Educational reform is badly needed in Canada. The power the teachers' unions must be broken. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey is doing what eventually every state and province in North America must do in order to avoid fiscal collapse.

But the pernicious effects go far beyond the financial. The unions protect bad teachers and prevent them being fired. They marginalize the wishes of parents and impose the latest crackpot, "progressive" (read cultural Marxist) ideologies on the poor, unwitting students, and they thus decrease educational standards and shortchange students who graduate unable to read, write, and think logically for themselves. They also impose a pansexualist, promiscuity-glorifying, debilitating sexual education ideology on children over parents' objections.

None of these problems can be addressed adequately until the power of the unions is broken. How do we go about it? Maybe the best approach is simply to destroy the unions altogether and impose a process by which salaries and benefits are imposed by legislators beholden to citizens and taxpayers and then people can choose to work for the public education system or not based on whether they really want to teach or are just in it for the money.

Or maybe a move to a voucher system would be better. In that system, parents would be able to choose schools that they think are best for their children and some schools will choose to be union-free. If unions are so great, they should not be afraid of honest competition.