I slowly and reluctantly came to see first that America was the greatest threat to world peace.
I later saw that Israel was even more of a danger.
But in fact the biggest danger to the world is specifically the US Israel lobby.
Calvinists and Evangelical Protestants play a huge role, as they do in many bad things, as well as Jews and neo-cons like John Bolton.
A moment ago I was reading Stephen Pollard, my least favourite journalist in a crowded field, and I learnt that Resolution 3379, which was passed fifty years ago today by the UN General Assembly, declared Zionism to be “a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
He considers the resolution antisemitic.
Of course he does.
I wonder if he approves of English ethnic nationalism.
I rather bet it worries him. He has written against golliwogs.
I think British colonialism did very much good on balance (think of North America) but clearly not in Palestine.
I don't imagine any impartial person will disagree.
Still Israel exists.
But if the American Israel lobby loses its power Israel will have to get along with the Arabs and Persians.
The alternative is Israel being what an American half Jewish friend of mine calls her- the West’s North Korea. This is what she is now.
Jews are central to world history despite being few in number, which is as God intended if you believe in Him.
I'm sorry, but as a lapsed Calvinist I have to disagree with your analysis. I'm not sure that the Calvinism should not be blamed for Zionism. I suspect that the ideas you see as Calvinism ever actually came from the pen of Calvin or is found in the Institutes. or supports Zionism
ReplyDeleteIt requires more theological knowledge than I have to actually pick through what is actual Calvinism- as per the Institutes and what are later developments in example the Synod of Dort.
As well as the Jews there are two communities which are especially keen on the idea of their being the chosen people and set their demand on land on this basis. These are the Ulster Unionists, and the Afrikaner, who both happen to share a Calvinistic basis. The Ulster Prod certainly gets his idea of Covenant from the Scottish Covenant on 1638 which looks back to the First Band of 1558. However by the time that the idea of Covenant was used politically by the Ulster Unionists in 1912 I suggest that the theological input had been lost and it was pure political expediency. As far as the Afrikaners were concerned again it is dubious if they actually had deep Calvinist leanings, but were happy to claim a racial superiority over the community with which they were struggling for occupancy of the Karoo.
It is true that the Ulster Protestants are supportive of Zionism, but again that may not be from Calvinism.
Where you get "Christian" Zionists is from a faith system called Dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is different to the Covenant theology which speaks from Calvin.
Dispensationalism flows from John Nelson Derby an Irish Anglican Priest or minister who developed the idea. It is popular with the nondenominational Churches in America.
Please do not confuse the two systems. There is a superficial resemblance between them but the Dispensationalists believe in the inerrancy and verbal inspiration of The Bible - everything in the Bible is the Word of God, true and consistent, while the Reformed tradition is that the Word of God is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. but you have to look for it and find what it is for you.
The problem is that with growing theological illiteracy people are unable to see the distinction between the two systems and blame Calvinism which gets a bad press anyway with the shortcomings of its much more decent rival.