Rev. Ted Pike
National Prayer Network
July 15, 2013
Today any evangelical Christian who attempts to awaken his pro-Zionist church to the dangers of Jewish supremacist control will probably be vilified as an anti-Semite. For over a century, most evangelical churches in America have invited the synagogue of Satan (Rev. 2:9) to teach them Zionist values, displacing a truly Biblical perspective on Israel.
Sincere Christians believe they are duty-bound not to forsake the assembly of believers. Does this mean we and our families must attend churches hostile to new truth? What other choices are there?
In his early career Martin Luther was attracted to Jews as the Biblical children of Israel. After discovering their Babylonian Talmud (See Have You Read the Talmud Lately?) and studying its anti-Christian, anti-Gentile invective, he warned Christians they had no greater enemy than a sincere practicing Jew. He vowed that after he subdued the threat of Catholic persecution he would turn his full energies toward enlightening Christians to the danger posed by Talmudic Judaism.
Yet a century later we find Oliver Cromwell, 17th century ruler of England and chief among British Puritan Calvinists, welcoming exiled Jewry back into England. Dutch Kabbalist and banker Manasseh ben Israel promised Cromwell a huge loan if he would take to heart that “God blesses those who bless the Jews.” Cromwell, like Calvinists who followed, embarked on a mildly pro-Jewish posture.
A little over a century ago, the question of Christian response to Judaism became massively important. Zionism emerged, alongside huge Eastern European Jewish migration to the West. Would the church adhere to the Old Testament requirement that Jews as a people must obey God before they could nationally reclaim Palestine? (See List of Conditional Occupation Verses) Would it respect the New Testament’s warnings that Christ-rejecting Jews are motivated to persecute Christianity? (Rom. 11:28)
Evangelical leaders decided to prioritize the protection of Judaism from criticism and support the Zionist agenda to take over Palestine. Christian Zionism became virtual Christian doctrine for most evangelicals. Leaders welcomed Jewish advisement and education.