An uncomfortable relationship: why Evangelicals support Israel

Israel’s Unbelief

What then shall we say?  That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.  Why not?  Because they pursued it not in faith but as it were by works.  They stumbled over the “stumbling stone.”  As it is written:

“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall,
And the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayers to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.  For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.  Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God, and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.  Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

…

All Israel Will Be Saved

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in.  And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written.

“The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob,
And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”

As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.  Just as you were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so that they too have become disobedient in order that they may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you.  For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that they may have mercy on them all.

The Bible, Romans 9-11[1]

---

[1] The Bible, New International Version (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001), pp. 627-629.

Kant: The crooked timber of humanity

This problem is at the same time the most difficult and the latest to be solved by the human species.  The difficulty which the mere idea of this problem lays before our eyes is this: the human being is an animal which, when it lives among other species, has need of a master.  For he certainly misuses his freedom in regard to others of his kind; and although a rational creature he wishes a law that sets limits to the freedom of all, his selfish animal inclination still misleads him into excepting himself from it where he may.  Thus he needs a master, who breaks his stubborn will and necessitates him to obey a universally valid will with which everyone can be free.  But where will he get his master?  Nowhere else but from the human species.  But this master is exactly as much an animal who has need of a master.  Try as he may, therefore, there is no seeing how he can procure a supreme power for public right that is itself just, whether he seeks it in a single person or in a society of many who are selected for it.  For every one of them will always misuse his freedom when he has no one to exercise authority over him in accordance with the laws.  The highest supreme authority, however, ought to be just in itself and yet a human being.  This problem is therefore the most difficult of all; indeed, its perfect solution is even impossible: out of such crooked wood as the human being is made, nothing straight can be fabricated.  Only the approximation to this idea is laid upon us by nature.[1]

Kant “Idea for a universal history” (1784)

---

[1] Immanuel Kant, “Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim” in Anthropology, History, and Education, tr. Allen W. Wood, eds. Günter Zöller and Robert B. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 113.  See the Sixth Proposition.

Bloody Sands: Mass killings in El Fasher visible from space

 
     Source: Al Jazeera

It appears that the United Arab Emirates is interested in Sudan's gold.  So, it offers material support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan's civil war.  It also appears that the UAE is too rich, or too powerful, to pressure.  So, slaughter by the RSF at El Fasher was tolerated, and killings continue.  In other words, the silence of the West is gold to Abu Dhabi. 

Turn the volume up: Trump envies Mamdani

… in the case of an inferiority, we still desire a greater distance, in order to augment still more the idea of oneself.  When this distance diminishes the comparison is less to our advantage; and consequently gives us less pleasure, and is even disagreeable.  Hence arises that species of envy, which men feel, when they perceive their inferiors approaching or overtaking them in the pursuits of glory or happiness.  In this envy we may see the effects of comparison twice repeated.  A man, who compares himself to his inferior, receives a pleasure from the comparison:  And when the inferiority decreases by the elevation of the inferior, what shou’d only have been a decrease of pleasure, becomes a real pain, by a new comparison with its preceding condition.[1]

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40)

---

[1] David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Ernest C. Mossner (London: Penguin, 1969), p. 425.

War is the mistress of enormity

War is the mistress of enormity,
Mother of mischief, monster of deformity;
Laws, manners, arts she breaks, she mars, she chases,
Blood, tears, bowers, towers, she spills, smites, burns, and razes.
Her brazen teeth shake all the earth asunder;
Her mouth a firebrand, and her voice a thunder,
Her looks are lightning, every glance a flash,
Her fingers guns that all to powder smash;
Fear  and despair, flight and disorder, post
With hasty march before her murderous host.
As burning waste, rape, wrong, impiety,
Rage, ruin, discord, horror, cruelty,
Sack, sacrilege, impunity and pride are still stern consorts by her
        barbarous side;
And poverty, sorrow, and desolation
Follow her armies’ bloody transmigration.[1]

Joshua Sylvester (1563-1618)

---

[1] Kenneth Baker, ed. The Faber Book of War Poetry (London: Faber & Faber, 1996), pp. 547, 548.

On baseball and politics

The Toronto Blue Jays teach us that the “World Series” can be played outside of the USA.  And a baseball itself reminds us that earth is round – not flat.  Given this, and particularly when the games are based in Toronto, the sport helps reinforce the notion that the world is interconnected, that we cannot stay away from each other, and that we must deal with each other. “World Series” baseball when played in Toronto, in other words, is a perfect anti-protectionist metaphor. 

Enter Ontario premier Doug Ford’s viral ad that brings back the words of a free trade icon, former President Ronald Reagan, whose voice is being aired on all four US television networks, including Fox News, for the two “World Series” games this weekend.  The ad is pitch perfect.  Reagan inked the Canada-US free-trade agreement which resulted in NAFTA and paved the way for the World Trade Organization.  Needless to say, Trump felt needled after the ad first appeared on social media, and his subsequent cancellation of all trade talks with Canada was entirely predictable considering the skin-deep presidency.

On Loyalty Oaths: James Comey as Sir Thomas More

There is much to be said in using the early modern period in Europe as a reflection of today’s political and cultural topography across the globe.  At first glance, some might think of the theocratic Middle Ages as being a more apt description of contemporary America, but there is merit in seeing Trump as a latter-day King Henry VIII (1509-1547), well-known for having six wives. 

Just as King Henry broke with the Roman Catholic church (for not annulling his marriage with Catherine of Aragon of Spain), Trump, who openly aspired to Canadian and Greenland sovereignty, has in essence also broken with Europe, in particular NATO and all its member allies.  Upon rejecting papal supremacy in 1534, Henry became head of the Church of England, which clearly is not far from the ambitions of Trump in America, and the role of Christian nationalism there these days.  In 1536, Henry ordered the dissolution of the monasteries, thus making himself a wealthy property developer and enriching his loyal supporters: shades of Trump here given his attack on “elite” (medieval origin) universities, as well.  To be sure, bumbling clown Boris Johnson also probably thought of himself in terms of King Henry, certainly if we look at the Brexit crisis.

Considering specifics, I would like to invite a comparison between former Director of the FBI James B. Comey and Thomas More (1478-1535), a former Speaker of the House of Commons, and author of Utopia, published in 1516.  Both these men refused loyalty oaths, the former to Trump allegedly in his first presidency in 2017, and the latter, a Catholic, who could not in good conscience accept a church without the papacy.  More was executed for treason in July 1535 because he could not swear an oath recognizing the king as the supreme ecclesiastical authority.  While Comey will suffer no such fate in the American judicial system, there will no doubt be attempts to humiliate him, just as Trump had to submit to his infamous “mug shot.”

More’s Utopia, meaning No-place, stands in stark contrast to life under King Henry VIII, and of course, the tomfoolery of Trump.  To write about More without the benefit of featuring some of his work would be a disservice to the man’s humanism.  The following excerpt deals with More’s understanding of the role of Magistrates:

It is stipulated that no issue relating to the public interest may be settled unless it has been debated in the senate on three separate days, and it is a capital offence to devise schemes about public matters outside the senate or popular assembly.  The purpose behind these rules, they claim, is to prevent any conspiracy by the governor and the tranibors to alter the constitution and oppress the people.  For this reason all issues judged to be of importance are referred to the assembly of syphogrant and they, having discussed the matter with the households they represent, consult among themselves and then report their conclusions to the senate.  On occasion a question may be placed before the general council of the whole island.  It’s also accepted practice in the senate that business is never discussed on the day that it is raised, but deferred to the following session.  This is in case someone, after blurting out the first idea that enters his head, should then concentrate on bolstering his own proposals rather than those that might benefit the commonwealth, preferring to risk the general welfare rather than his own reputation, and all because of a perverse and stupid fear that he might have appeared too hasty at the outset.  He should have had the sense in the first place to speak with due consideration rather than impetuosity.[1]

 

---

[1] Thomas More, Utopia, tr. and ed. Dominic Baker-Smith (London: Penguin, 2012), pp. 62,63. See Book II.