The average Western Christians are as racist as Neo Nazis and White Supremacists.
The biblical version of Paul’s gospel is that ethnic Gentiles joined ethnic Israel in providing leadership to the rest of the world.
“Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles…without Christ / Messiah, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
- But now in Christ Jesus / YHVH’s Anointed Savior ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ / Messiah…
- who hath made both one [equal citizens in the commonwealth of Israel]…Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God…
- built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets [like Isaiah and Jeremiah], Jesus Christ / Yeshua Mashiach himself being the chief corner stone…
- In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit / Temple.” (Ephesians 2:12-22)
Most historians agree that Jesus or his followers established a new Jewish sect…The first followers of Jesus were essentially all ethnically Jewish or Jewish proselytes. Jesus was Jewish, preached to the Jewish people, and called from them his first followers. According to McGrath, Jewish Christians, as faithful religious Jews, “regarded their movement as an affirmation of every aspect of contemporary Judaism, with the addition of one extra belief-that Jesus was the Messiah…“characterised by combining the confession of Jesus as Christ with continued observance of the Torah and adherence to Jewish traditions such as Sabbath observance, Jewish calendar, Jewish laws and customs, circumcision, kosher diet and synagogue attendance, and by a direct genetic relationship to the earliest followers of Jesus.
[They] regarded Jesus to be the Messiah, the promised king who would restore the Jewish kingdom and independence. Jewish messianism has its root in the apocalyptic literature…promising a future “anointed” leader or messiah to restore the Israelite “Kingdom of God“, in place of the foreign rulers of the time. This corresponded with the Maccabean Revolt directed against the Seleucid Empire. Following the fall of theHasmonean kingdom, it was directed against the Roman administration of Judea Province, which, according to Josephus, began with the formation of the Zealots and Sicarii…(6 CE), although full-scale open revolt did not occur until the First Jewish–Roman War in 66 CE…
it is increasingly accepted among scholars that “at the end of the 1st century CE there were not yet two separate religions called ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity'”.
Spiritual Israel is clearly a delegated leader over humanity. NOT the population of “saved” people but the leadership over God’s people scattered throughout the whole world in a multitude of cultures.
“IF ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant…ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” (Exodus 19:5-6)
For a long time Christianity regarded itself as part of Judaism. It had its center in Jerusalem (Irenæus, “Adversus Hæreses, i. 26); its first fifteen bishops were circumcised Jews, they observed the Law and were rather unfriendly to heathenism (Sulpicius Severus, “Historia Sacra,” ii. 31; Eusebius, “Hist. Eccl.” iv. 5; compare Matt. xv. 26), while they held friendly intercourse with the leaders of the synagogue (see Grätz, “Gesch. der Juden,” iv. 373 et seq.; and Ebionites, Minim, and Nazarenes). Many a halakic and haggadic discussion is recorded in the Talmud as having taken place between the Christians and the Rabbis (see Jacob the Gnostic). Probably the Christian Congregation, or Church of the Saints, did not distinguish itself in outward form from the “Ḳehala Ḳaddisha” at Jerusalem, under which name the Essene community survived the downfall of the Temple (Ber. 9b; compare Eccl. R. ix. 9: ‘Edah Ḳedoshah)…
The founder of Christian theology…the Apostle of the Gentiles never ceased to consider himself a Pharisee…he was “educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the Law.” Gamaliel was…so learned that the Jews, who keenly honor scholarship, called him “the beauty of the Law,” and gave to him first, as to only six men after him, the title of rabban, “our master.” From him and others Paul learned that shrewd and subtle…manner of Biblical interpretation…he remained to the end a Jew in mind and character, uttered no doubt of the Torah’s inspiration, and proudly maintained the divine election of the Jews as the medium of man’s salvation…
Until 68-70 AD/CE believing & non-believing Jews coexisted, sitting in the same synagogue, and attending the same temple. Early believers kept all the Feasts of God…Jerusalem was between 1/3 & ½ believers in Yeshua before the destruction of the Temple…While many Jews did not agree that Yeshua was Messiah, they respected the believers for their lifestyle & devotion.
The first major split occurred between 68-70 AD/CE. Believers…heeding Yeshua’s words in Matt 24 [to flee the city in advance of the Roman attack caused them to be labeled]…as traitors in the eyes of many Jews [for not helping defend Jerusalem].
Between 70 – 100 AD/CE another major change began, as large numbers of gentiles accepted Jesus…Before 70 AD/CE all leaders in Jerusalem were Jews, after, all were Gentiles.
It was during the last struggle with Rome in the days of Bar Kokba and Akiba [136 AD] that, amidst denunciations on the part of the Christians and execrations on the part of the Jewish leaders, those hostilities began which separated Church and Synagogue forever, and made the former an ally of the arch-enemy [emphasis added]…
The growing schism of Gentiles from the Jewish believers Christianity is evident in 190 when Ephesus’ bishop, St. Polycrates, held a council to consider The Quartodeciman controversy.
Polycrates emphatically stated that he was following the tradition passed down to him: We observe the exact day; neither adding, nor taking away. For in Asia also great lights have fallen asleep, which shall rise again on the day of the Lord’s coming … All these observed the fourteenth day of the Passover according to the Gospel, deviating in no respect, but following the rule of faith. And I also, Polycrates, the least of you all, do according to the tradition of my relatives, some of whom I have closely followed. For seven of my relatives were bishops; and I am the eighth. And my relatives always observed the day when the people[a reference to the Jews]put away the leaven...
nevertheless the Ephesian Church soon conformed in this particular to the practice of all the other Churches…the Council of Nicaea (325), confirmed for Ephesus its ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the whole “diocese” or civil territory of Asia Minor, i.e. over the eleven ecclesiastical provinces…the Council of Constantinople (381) formally recognized this authority.
“by the early 4th century all Christians were celebrating Easter on a Sunday….Emperor Constantine I…rejecting the custom of the Jews, who had crucified Jesus...first of all, it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul…Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd.
Germany’s Churches during the Nazi Holocaust are the perfect examples of Gentiles who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ choosing – or not – to identify with Yeshua’s father YHVH.
Germany’s 45 million Protestants were…members of the Lutheran, Reformed, or United Churches…differed not only in their religious practices but also in their political views. A few openly opposed the Nazis, while others saw themselves as neutral. Still others actively supported Nazism, calling themselves “storm troopers of Jesus Christ…”
The Nazi government ushered in key changes to the Protestant churches in Germany. First, the Nazi leadership supported the German Christian movement, a group of Protestants who wanted to combine Christianity and National Socialism into a movement “that would exclude all those deemed impure and embrace all ‘true Germans’ in a spiritual homeland for the Third Reich.”
Second, the Nazi leadership urged Protestants to unite all regional churches into a national church under the centralized leadership of Ludwig Müller, a well-known pastor and Nazi Party member, who was appointed as Reich bishop. Many German Protestants embraced these changes…In a national vote by Protestants taken in July 1933, the German Christians were supported by two-thirds of voters, and Müller won the national election to lead them.
The German Christian movement made significant changes to German Protestantism to bring it in line with Nazi racial ideology. Instead of classifying people as Christians or Jews based on their faith, as the Protestants had always done, German Christians began to classify people by racial heritage, as the Nazis did. Therefore, church leaders whose parents or grandparents had converted from Judaism to Christianity were considered Jewish and, according to the 1933 civil service law, no longer officially permitted to serve in those positions.
By January of 1934, Müller was vowing to purge Protestant churches of all “Jewish influence,” including removing the Old Testament from their bible because it is based on the Hebrew bible. A public appeal released by German Christian leaders claimed that “the eternal God created for our nation a law that is peculiar to its own kind. It took shape in the Leader Adolf Hitler, and in the National Socialist state created by him. This law speaks to us from the history of our people. . . . It is loyalty to this law which demands of us the battle for honor and freedom . . . One Nation! One God! One Reich! One Church!”…
In response to the growing power of the German Christians, another Protestant faction was formed called the Confessing Church. Its slogan was “Church must remain church,” and its members sought to protect their religion from the grasp of politics and the Nazi government. For instance, the Confessing Church considered that anyone baptized in the faith was a Christian, regardless of his or her racial descent. Also, the members of the Confessing Church opposed the German Christian movement’s changes to the bible…
Despite their opposition to the German Christian movement, the Confessing Church did not object to most elements of Nazism, and some people within the movement were Nazi Party members. The disagreement between the two groups was focused on how much influence the Nazi government should have over how they practiced their faith. Early on, Confessing Church member Martin Niemöller and two Protestant bishops met with Hitler and his top aides. The religious leaders reaffirmed their support for Hitler’s domestic and foreign policies and asked only for the right to disagree on religious matters. Hitler did not compromise, and after the meeting both bishops signed a statement of unconditional loyalty to Hitler; Niemöller did not. As a result, Niemöller was increasingly targeted by the Nazis and was eventually imprisoned for seven years in concentration camps.
Although about 7,000 of the nation’s 16,500 Protestant clergymen openly supported the Confessing Church, they limited their opposition to defending church teachings against Nazi influence. One member of the Confessing Church, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, did resist the actions of the Nazis more broadly. In April 1933, he professed sympathy for Jewish victims of Nazism and argued that National Socialism and Christianity were incompatible. He later became an important symbol of resistance to Nazi Germany and was executed for his role in a plot to assassinate Hitler in 1945.
In general, Protestants in Germany found a way to be both believers in Christianity and supporters of Nazism. In contrast, Jehovah’s Witnesses struggled under the new regime…their faith often prevented them from serving in the army, swearing allegiance to the state, or uttering the words “Heil Hitler,” by this time a common way of saying hello and goodbye…The Nazis destroyed their national headquarters, outlawed their church, and sent many thousands to concentration camps or prisons, where more than 1,000 were killed.
In 1934, as the Protestant Church attempted to come to terms with the Third Reich, [Karl] Barth was largely responsible for the writing of the Barmen Declaration (Barmer Erklärung). This declaration rejected the influence of Nazism on German Christianity by arguing that the Church‘s allegiance to the God of Jesus Christ should give it the impetus and resources to resist the influence of other lords, such as the German Führer, Adolf Hitler. Barth mailed this declaration to Hitler personally. This was one of the founding documents of the Confessing Church and Barth was elected a member of its leadership council, the Bruderrat.
He was forced to resign from his professorship at the University of Bonn in 1935 for refusing to swear an oath to Hitler…The newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung carried his 1936 criticism of the philosopher Martin Heidegger for his support of the Nazis. In 1938 he wrote a letter to a Czech colleague Josef Hromádka in which he declared that soldiers who fought against the Third Reich were serving a Christian cause.
But did that do anything to help any of the victims of Nazi inhumanity?
When Karl Barth wrote the Barmen Declaration, a statement from pastors who did not want the Nazification of the Church, there were no mention of the Jewish problem or condemnation of other injustices in Nazi Germany, it was merely a theological statement…
At an institutional level the Confessing Church did not provide much resistance to the Nazi deportation of Jews because of the worry that resistance would cause the Confessing Church to collapse and fail. Individuals did act, but as an institution the Confessing Church failed to make a stand for the Jewish people, or to even make a strong statement against the Nazi treatment of Jews. Bonhoeffer, in order to project the Confessing Church, cut all ties with the church before he joined the Abwehr to actively resist Hitler and the Nazi Party. Bonhoeffer was concerned that his resistance could lead to his arrest and that the Nazi’s would turn their focus towards destroying the Confessing Church and leaving the Reich Church as the only Protestant Church in Germany…their fear that the Confessing Church would be disbanded and there would be no Christian institution to protect true Christian values in Nazi Germany paralyzed them from offering resistance to Hitler’s rule…
During the holocaust the individuals have more of an impact because they were more willing to act, and they were motivated to act for different reasons. For individuals who resisted some were pushed by a religious cause. Others, often the non-Christians were motivated for a different reason but one connector between all the instances of resistance was they were helping people they knew…
The Ten Booms were a very religious family, Kasper Ten Boom would often read chapters of the Bible to his children both in the morning and at night…In response to seeing Jews being arrested in the town square Corrie expressed worry and pity for the Jews who were being led away. Her father also felt pity to the Germans because he said they have touched the apple of God’s eye, which would surely lead to their downfall…To understand the motives behind the actions of the Ten Boom’s it is important to understand…they wanted to serve God and their faith by serving and caring for others in a time of need and despair…Their response was not to save an institution or an established church either. They simply acted how they felt they should act with little thought to how they might be impacted because the Jews and others needed their help.
Also in the Netherlands was…Miep Gies…a self- described Christian. She would become famous as the woman who hid Anne Frank…While she was a Christian her first motive for helping was not a religious one. The action was out of kindness to a friend…This willingness to act had an impact…it was the effort of resistance that mattered. Both women acted…
The cost of resistance was high…People who decided to resist had to give up their way of life. They could no longer live freely and worry free, at least to the extent they could while being in a country controlled by Nazi Germany. There was the constant threat being raided or having your home destroyed and being separated from loved ones. The Ten Boom’s had to face these as their family was arrested. Kasper died ten days into imprisonment, while Corrie and Betsie were sent to a concentration camp for women called Ravensbruck where Betsie would eventually die because of disease. Corrie herself would be released at the very end of 1944, only weeks after Betsie had died.
Faithfulness in identifying with YHVH’s Savior’s redemptive ministry means enduring great tribulation even unto death for one last surge of witnessing and opportunity for salvation of unbelievers.
And faith in YHVH even to death results in resurrection of the dead.
Whereas faithlessness to YHVH in hope of lengthening mortal life results in everlasting death.
Kingdom Come 