We have not learnt the lessons of the Holocaust: the Jewish community in the UK is more vulnerable than at any time since the Second World War.

We are launching Prophecy Today UK online on the first day of Passover, 4 April 2015. This date was chosen because Passover is foundational to biblical faith and prophetic understanding, and is an “appointed time” (in Hebrew, moed) in Scripture when God meets with his people.

Passover in 1945

Having chosen this date, we then realised its significance in European history. Seventy years ago on 4 April 1945, which also fell during ‘the Season of our Freedom’ (another name for Passover), the US Army liberated the Nazi death camp at Ohrdruf, Germany, part of the Buchenwald camp network.

Ohrdruf was the first concentration camp to be liberated by the US Army (Auschwitz in Poland having been liberated by the Russians on 27 January 1945). Among the American soldiers was 20-year-old Charlie Payne from Kansas, who later became the great uncle of President Barack Obama. Obama said that when his uncle returned home, "he just went up into the attic and he didn't leave the house for six months”.¹

Also overwhelmed was General Eisenhower, who wrote:

The things I saw beggar description…The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick…I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda.'²

The Allies realised the importance of documenting the German atrocities in film because they thought they would not be believed. As Churchill said, “no words can express the horror…of these frightful crimes”.³ Instead, the images captured by the Allied armies’ film units speak more loudly than words ever could.

In the 1945 film German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, produced by Sidney Bernstein (assisted by Alfred Hitchcock) for the British Ministry for Information, Richard Crossman’s elegiac script commented: “Unless the world learns the lessons these pictures teach, night will fall. But by God’s grace, we who live will learn.”

“Unless the world learns the lessons these pictures teach, night will fall. But by God’s grace, we who live will learn.” - German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, 1945

After the War, many Jews left the graveyard of Europe for the Promised Land. Shamefully, thousands were turned back by the British and were placed in camps in Cyprus and elsewhere. Others were returned to Germany to their horror.

There is speculation that the British government shelved Bernstein’s film so that pity for the Holocaust refugees would not fuel demand for a Jewish homeland in British-controlled territory.⁴ It took until January this year for Bernstein’s film to be shown in its entirety for the first time on British television.⁵ How different would government policy have been, had it been shown to a horrified public in 1945?

Have we learned the lessons of the Holocaust? Or, to echo Crossman’s haunting warning, is night falling? Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme last year, Sir Nicholas Winton, the “British Schindler” who organised the Czech Kinderstransport, said "I don't think we've learned anything...the world today is in a more dangerous situation than it has ever been."⁶

The rise of anti-Semitism in the UK and Europe

Anti-Semitic incidents in the UK reached an all-time high and escalated around Europe during the Gaza conflict in July-August 2014.

In Germany, molotov cocktails were lobbed into the Bergische synagogue in Wuppertal, which was previously destroyed on Kristallnacht. A Berlin imam, Abu Bilal Ismail, called on Allah to "destroy the Zionist Jews…Count them and kill them, to the very last one."⁷ In France, eight synagogues were attacked and one, in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, was firebombed by a 400-strong mob.⁸

In the UK, the Jewish community’s watchdog for anti-Semitism, the Community Security Trust, recorded 1,168 anti-Semitic incidents in 2014, more than twice as many as 2013.⁹

In London, October 2014, “Five girls from a Jewish secondary school were approached by a man at a London underground station who said: ‘Being Jewish is wrong. You are going to die if you carry on being Jewish’ and ‘I will kill you all after school.’ He grabbed one of the girls by the wrist and said: ‘Come with me and be a Christian’. She kicked him and ran away.”¹⁰

In Norfolk, July 2014, “A leaflet found among Israeli produce in a supermarket featured an image of the Israeli flag with the title ‘The flag of Zionist racist scum’. It read: ‘Deny the Holocaust? Of course there was a holocaust. What a pity Adolf and Co didn’t manage to finish the job properly!’”¹¹

Prejudice in the UK public

We cannot dismiss these incidents as the actions of extremists because prejudice against Jews is alive and well among the general public. The government’s Campaign Against Antisemitism found that nearly half of Britons thought at least one anti‑Semitic view presented to them was ‘definitely or probably true’.¹²

In its Annual Antisemitism Barometer 2015, published a week after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, it concludes:

Britain is at a tipping point: unless antisemitism is met with zero tolerance, it will continue to grow and British Jews may increasingly question their place in their own country.¹³

It also reported that:

Well over half of British Jews (58%) believe Jews may have no long-term future in Europe and "The Mayor of London’s office revealed that in July 2014, when fighting between Israel and Hamas peaked, the Metropolitan Police Service recorded its worst ever month for hate crime in London, 95% of which was antisemitic hate crime directly related to fighting between Israel and Hamas."¹⁴

In the media, Jews in Europe are consistently identified with and blamed for Israel’s actions. Reports describing Palestinians and “Jews” rather than Palestinians and “Israelis” in coverage of events in Israel have reinforced this perception. The Jewish people’s unique dual religious and ethnic identity crosses national boundaries and so anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are inextricably linked.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressing the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) commented on how anti-Semitism has been dressed in new clothes:

...in much of the western world, the old hatred has been translated into more sophisticated language for use in polite society. People who would never say they hate and blame the Jews for their own failings or the problems of the world instead declare their hatred of Israel and blame the only Jewish state for the problems of the Middle East.

He also said that while criticism of Israeli government policy is not anti-Semitic, criticism that targets only Israel while ignoring violence and oppression in its neighbours is unacceptable.¹⁵

This 'New Anti-semitism', as it is called, based on hatred of Israel’s nationhood (rather than religion or race), has been identified by a number of commentators from the 1960s onwards, including historian Leon Poliakov, who published From Anti-Zionism to Anti-Semitism (1969), and Holocaust survivor Jacques Givet, who used the term 'neo-antisemitism' about the Left’s anti-Zionism. Much has been written since about this phenomenon.^{16, 17}

The Church has fallen broadly into two camps: Christian Zionists (and supporters of Israel of various hues who dislike the term 'Christian Zionist'), and those who question Israel’s right to exist and are sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians.

Paul Charles Merkley in Christian Attitudes towards the State of Israel¹⁸ says that Christian anti Zionism is in part due to the history of missions to the Middle East:

Beginning in the nineteenth century, Christian missionaries from the West – Protestant, Catholic and evangelical – sought the conversion of the Jews of Palestine for about a century, with only the most modest results. On the other hand, missionary efforts among the Arabs did win substantial conversions in the latter half of the nineteenth century and a modest number since. Not unreasonably, Church organizations have been much more open to the political aspirations of their clients than to those of their clients’ adversaries.

He also points out that anti-Zionism “provides respectable camouflage for hostility towards Jews and Judaism that cannot be admitted to oneself or others.” It allows Christians a platform among liberal and fashionable thinkers who condemn Israel as 'apartheid' and 'racist'. It also looks good for the Church to be seen as a champion of 'the oppressed'.¹⁹

Attacks on the increase since Paris and Copenhagen murders

The recent spike in anti-Semitic attacks has continued in the wake of the Paris and Copenhagen attacks, which have spawned a rash of UK incidents.

In Radio 4’s programme Anti-Semitism in the UK: Is it Growing?,²⁰ Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan, the national lead on Jewish communities for the Association of Chief Police officers, said that in January 2014 there were 28 anti-Semitic crimes, but this January there were 100. The increase was due to events in Paris inspiring copycat behaviour but also a greater desire to report such incidents.

Also interviewed on the programme was Mehmood Naqshbandi, who visits mosques around the country and advises government and police on Muslim matters. Asked how common Muslim animosity is towards Jewish communities, he said:

It’s a problem which is endemic in the Muslim community. It’s widespread; it covers generations. It is taken for granted when Muslims are talking to other Muslims, people don’t feel any obligation to hold back from expressing the kind of casual racist views about Jews and about the Jewish community that fits the nasty stereotypes of caricatures of Jewish behaviour, expectations of Jewish conduct and so on. It’s a deep-rooted problem, a problem which is not challenged.²¹

Conflicting analysis of Charlie Hebdo attack and other Islamist terror attacks

The Charlie Hebdo massacre in January 2015, including the related attack on a Jewish supermarket, has been blamed on the disaffection of French Muslim youth. If they were more integrated, better off, less marginalised in French society, these things would not happen.

Similarly, after an Islamist terror plot to kill Belgian police was foiled, Professor Peter Neumann of Kings College London (interviewed on Channel 4 news) said the cause was socio-economic. Disenfranchised young men on the margins of society were the problem with Belgium having the highest number of European fighters going to Syria and Iraq. Channel Four News anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy responded that this was a naive view and that there were also men involved in terror from well-off backgrounds.²²

The debate in the European Parliament on security in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting was no more illuminating. More heat than light was shed, with opinions sharply dividing over Muslim immigration.²³

The roots of anti-Semitism

Pundits and politicians do not know how to tackle Islamist terror because they do not fully understand its roots.

As well as the fierce jealousy for Muhammad which motivated the Charlie Hebdo massacre, anti-Zionism is a key reason for Islamist terror. Beneath that (often ill-concealed) is anti-Semitism. Journalists and politicians insist that you can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic, but the line is frequently crossed. What is certain is that Jews around the world are being identified with Israel and are consequently suffering prejudice and violence, in other words anti-Semitism.

Academics have debated the roots and causes of anti-Semitism to find a unifying factor: is it economic, social, religious, political? Today, Israel’s political actions are blamed. However, that cannot be the cause of anti-Semitism pre-1948 (the year the modern state of Israel was formed).

Anti-Semitism has morphed into different expressions through the ages, but always with one aim: the destruction of the Jewish people. Edward Flannery, in his classic study of anti-Semitism, The Anguish of the Jews,²⁴ concludes that the only unifying aspect of anti-Semitism is its spiritual nature.

Both the religious anti-Judaism of the Christian Church and modern racial anti-Semitism, epitomised by the Nazis, share a spiritual root: an unacknowledged hatred of Christ.

Flannery comments that scholars “have varyingly perceived in the hatred of the Jew an unconscious hatred of Christ, a rebellion against the Christian ‘yoke’ no longer found sweet (Matt 11:30); in a word, a Christophobia.”²⁵ Freud recognised it and said: “In its depths anti-Judaism is anti-Christianity.”²⁶

A number of prominent Nazis were brought up as Catholics: Himmler, Goebbels, Hoess and Hitler. In order to pursue their dream of unfettered German power, they had to throw off moral restraint and embrace a pagan view of man as master of his destiny. Christ and Christianity could serve the Reich but they had to be purged of their Jewish root: the Nazis sought to throw off the shackles of Judeo-Christian morality and return to a mythically powerful Aryan pagan past.

Flannery writes:

His [Hitler’s] genocidal decision against the Jewish people represented, again symbolically, the annihilation of his moral (Jewish-Christian) conscience, which stood in the way of his grandiose dream of a Thousand Year Reich founded on an apotheosis of the German Volk and of himself as its Fuehrer and Saviour.²⁷

In other words, the Nazis did not want simply to destroy the Jews; they wanted to be the Jews. They wanted to be the chosen people, to usurp their place. This usurping spirit is found in scripture. God’s Adversary is described in Isaiah 14:14 as one whose declared aim is, “I will make myself like the Most High.” This is the spirit of Anti-Christ:

He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. (2 Thess 2:4)

"The Nazis did not want simply to destroy the Jews; they wanted to be the Jews."

Flannery asserts that “anti-Semitism is at its deepest root a unified phenomenon and from all angles an anti-religious one”²⁸ which resides “in the deepest chambers of the spirit.”²⁹

The rebellion behind anti-Semitism

Nazism was a perfect storm combination of the legacy of Christian anti-Semitism and modern racial anti-Semitism.

It highlighted that not only Christophobia but nomophobia (from nomos, Greek for law), or fear of law (specifically God’s moral law epitomised in the Torah), are hallmarks of anti-Semitism. It was a revolt against the word and the Word made flesh (John 1:14).

In pre-war Germany, Nazi-sympathising theologians were keen to reposition the Bible and theology to accommodate National Socialist ideology, specifically by undermining the place of the Old Testament. In 1939, a group of German theologians established The Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life, aiming to de-Judaize the New Testament and present an Aryan Jesus.³⁰

This ultimate expression of replacement theology was fuelled by anti-Semitism, but rooted in the rebellion of men’s souls against their Creator and his established order. It was satanically inspired: the one who wishes to overthrow and usurp God’s throne is the one who wishes to destroy the Jewish people because by doing so, he will destroy the hope of the world, the Redeemer, who comes from Israel and to Israel.

"When we reject God’s people, we are rejecting God himself."

Rejection of God’s light and truth

A political satire from the 1960s has been revived in the West End. In The Ruling Class³¹ Jack, a fictional earl and paranoid schizophrenic, firstly imagines he is Christ and then Jack the Ripper. As Jesus, his message of peace and love is rejected as insanity. As Jack the Ripper, he takes his seat in the House of Lords with a fiery speech in favour of capital and corporal punishment. His colleagues applaud wildly (completely unaware the speech is the ranting of a lunatic), in contrast to society's reaction when he believed he was Christ.

The play was intended as an indictment of the establishment, but it also testifies that people are more comfortable with the darkness of sin, condemnation and punishment than with the light of Christ’s love, peace and grace. Man’s rebellious nature is so corrupt that it sees evil in good and good in evil.

The temptation for Adam and Eve was to become the arbiters of good and evil, to dethrone God’s judgement and become their own judges. The Torah, as God’s wisdom, is a “tree of life” to man (Prov 3:18), but it also is the means of our judgement and the harbinger of death to those who reject it (Rom 3:20 and 7:7-9).

We seek to destroy that which exposes and accuses us; Israel as the bearer and enacter of God's Law has paid the price for exposing it to the world and, by its light, exposing the world’s darkness.

The Torah was also the means of keeping Israel separate from other nations: a holy people (Ex 19:6). It prevented them from being assimilated. They had to remain separate in order to be worshippers of God, not idol-worshippers like every other nation, so they could be prepared to receive God himself.

This is why in Israel’s history the Adversary (in Hebrew, Satan) sought alternately either to undermine the Torah by enticing Israel away from God and his Word to make them like all the other nations, or to destroy Israel in order to prevent the coming of the Messiah. If your enemies cannot be assimilated, they must be annihilated and from the Amalekites to Haman, from Herod to Hitler, this murderous desire persists.

The Adversary did not succeed in destroying the Jewish people before the first advent of the Messiah – but he persists because that is only part one of the salvation story.
We await the second coming: Jesus’ promised return in power and glory to reign from Jerusalem over all the earth: “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

Jerusalem is fought over because it is the City to which Messiah will return. He will not find it empty or still being “trampled down by the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24). Instead, he will return to re-gathered Israel:

In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people. (Isa 11:10-11a)

He will redeem Israel and all who have joined with them by faith from among the Gentiles (Eph 2:11-22).

Anti-Semitism and the anti-Christ spirit

The world continually rejects Israel and the Jewish people because they reject God’s call to be joined with them through the Messiah. Through Israel’s particularity, the ‘narrow way’ of the kingdom (Matt 7:14), we are called to become “one new humanity” (Eph 2:15) in spiritual unity (not uniformity) which is the only true peace available to mankind.

However, by placing the Church centre stage in salvation history and declaring that she has superseded Israel in God’s plans and purposes, the majority of believers have failed to understand that the Church is not the main player on the stage of history.

Israel, both people and land, is still the subject of the salvation story because all God’s salvation promises were made to Israel and to those Gentiles who join with her, through her Messiah by faith.

Sadly, before Christian theology was re-assessed in the light of the Holocaust, the Church was the main instrument of Jewish persecution. However, Christians still remain largely unaware of the bleak history of Christian anti-Semitism and how the teaching that the Church has replaced Israel has contributed to it.

Inspiring 'Replacement theology' or supersessionism, the teaching that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s plans and purposes, is the same jealous, usurping spirit, the spirit of Anti-Christ, which aims to overthrow God's end-time plans (for a more in-depth analysis of Replacement theology, click here).

The same spirit is at work in Islamic teaching, which claims that Mohammed’s teachings supersede Judaism and Christianity. Rejected Ishmael jealously insists he was chosen, not his half-brother Isaac: my promises, my land!³² It is a triumphalist theology, unwilling to tolerate difference unless in submission to its rule.

Wherever the Holy Spirit is at work, the anti-Christ spirit, hallmarked by jealousy in man, is also at work. People of all faiths and all religious backgrounds have expressed it. Peace and harmony for mankind, but intolerance and jealousy of the Jewish people are hallmarks of religion of all kinds, including New Age spirituality (one of the main protagonists of the New Age movement, Alice Bailey (a former evangelical Christian³³), equated Judaism with “an evil cosmic energy called ‘The Jewish Force’, which must be eliminated in order for the Age of Aquarius to arrive fully”³⁴).

"Wherever the Holy Spirit is at work, the anti-Christ spirit, hallmarked by jealousy in man, is also at work."

The Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus were said to be jealous of him and that is why they handed him over to Pilate (Mark 15:10). This jealousy continued to be vented against his Jewish followers. In Acts 5:17-18:

Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.

In militant Islam, this jealous, usurping spirit finds violent, implacable expression. It is fuelled by an irrational spiritual jealousy that cannot be appeased (Prov 27:4). Only the Holy Spirit can withstand and conquer the spirit of anti-Christ and in turn counter it with a godly jealousy that cannot be withstood: “I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion” (Zech 1:14).

It is the God of Israel’s land, his city, the place where he has set his name:

In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever. (2 Chron 33:7)

I will put them on trial for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel, because they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land. (Joel 3:2)

The Church’s response

After 9/11, there was much talk of the ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and western secularism. This is not a battle of civilizations; it is a spiritual war. It must be fought with spiritual weapons.³⁵

Ordinary Muslims are shocked and outraged by extremists and many will be seeking answers; the Church must be prepared to explain, challenge and comfort. We must demonstrate that Christianity is an Eastern religion, which speaks to all peoples, and forms the lost and dwindling heritage of the peoples of the Middle East. We also need to show that Christianity is not a religion for the individual but for the community. Western enlightenment thinking is unappealing to Muslims with its focus on individual rights, because Middle Eastern cultures focus on community cohesion.

However, the Church has its own challenge: anti-Semitism is infecting the Church in the form of Christian anti-Zionism and it must also be addressed. In pre-war Germany, theologians were ready to distance themselves from the Old Testament and from a Jewish Jesus so that they could comfortably reject and persecute the Jewish people.

"Today's Church has appropriated God's promises to Israel and denied its role and place in God's end-time plan."

Today’s Church is dangerously misaligned too. We have appropriated God’s promises to Israel and denied the people and land of Israel their role and place in God’s end-time plan. This means we can comfortably distance ourselves from anti-Semitism because we can claim it is bound up with anti-Zionism. Jews have always been blamed for their own misfortunes and the fight for survival in their own nation is cited as the legitimate cause for Islamic violence.

However, land and people are inextricably linked in God’s schema: “I who set the heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the earth…say to Zion, 'You are my people.'" (Isa 51:16). Zion- land and people -are conflated in this verse illustrating that their destinies are linked: salvation for the Jewish people is connected to the land of promise. It is this very link between land and people that is expressed in the final form of anti-Semitism that is increasing and intensifying today: anti-Zionism.

If we say that Israel has no right to the land God promised them, that those rights were superseded, we are setting ourselves against God’s end time plans. It is his land and by his sovereign choice he has restored his people to it.

We are also denying God’s covenant faithfulness if we say that he has finished with Israel as a nation:

'Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,’ declares the Lord, ‘will Israel ever cease being a nation before me. Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel’ declares the LORD. (Jer 31:36-37)

In that same chapter, Jeremiah 31, God promises the New Covenant to Israel, including a Jerusalem that will never be uprooted or demolished (Jer 31:40). This is not a promise to the Church but to Israel. We are the adopted children, the invited guests, but we have arrogantly overrun the party.

Many are sleep-walking in the end times, accepting unquestioningly the world's political narrative that the conflict between Israel and Palestinians concerns a land which is no longer spiritually significant. This is not to say that Christians should uncritically support the Israeli state’s government and policies, but we must view them through the lens of Scripture, not the other way around. We must also still unstintingly love those who persecute us and God’s people Israel: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44).

"We must also still unstintingly love those who persecute us and God’s people Israel: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44)."

We must, though, reject the subtle Christian anti-Semitism which seeks to sever the link between the biblical land of Israel and its current prophetic significance.
Giulio Meotti writes:

The Presbyterian Church USA is considering banning the word “Israel” from its prayers. That anti-Semitic resolution was meant to ‘distinguish between the biblical terms that refer to the ancient land of Israel and the modern political State of Israel’.³⁶

It is imperative that Bible-believing Christians reject this replacement narrative and align with Israel and the Jewish community because the spiritual battle lines are already drawn.

The need for solidarity

A friend doing door-to-door outreach met a Jewish lady who thanked her for calling and commented that the time is coming when Jews and Christians will need to stand together.

That time is now.

The Jewish Chronicle launched a campaign for the government to pay for synagogue security.³⁷ Why should Christian volunteers not show their solidarity with the Jewish community by volunteering to guard synagogues during Saturday services?

After the shooting of a synagogue guard in Denmark, around 1,000 Muslims (5% of the Muslim population) in Norway formed a 'ring of peace' around a synagogue in Oslo.³⁸

Where are the Christian demonstrations of solidarity? We cannot retreat into our safe churches and relax because it is not us at risk. Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous words, written after being imprisoned by the Nazis, still resonate:

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

Dan Hodges in The Telegraph: “…as the Paris attacks proved, they are still coming for the Jews. In reality, they have never stopped coming for the Jews.”³⁹

The lesson from the Middle Eastern nations under Islamic State control is that since the Jews had already left, the Christians are next in their sights. If we withdraw from the Jewish community when they need our support, how can we dare pray for our own protection?

After the Paris terror attacks, some London schools cancelled Holocaust education trips to synagogues. Two rabbis from a Kingston synagogue commented that although the schools felt they were acting in the children’s interests:

...it marginalises the Jewish community to be the pariah within our society, not through active discrimination but through neglect…For us this marks a tipping point, not when Jews are concerned for their own safety but when others are scared of mere connection to our community.⁴⁰

It is time for the Church to stand unequivocally with the Jewish people in the name of their Messiah. The battle surrounding Israel is going to intensify and we cannot again stand by watching from a distance while the Jewish people are persecuted.

We cannot be people who, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, withdraw to a "the sanctuary of private virtuousness. Such people neither steal, nor murder, nor commit adultery, but do good according to their abilities. But in voluntarily renouncing public life, these people know exactly how to observe the permitted boundaries that shield them from conflict. They must close their eyes and ears to the injustice around them.”⁴¹

The rise of anti-Semitism in Europe indicates that we have not learned from history and the rise of Islamist terror as the frontline jihad of raging anti-Semitism masked as anti-Zionism suggests that night is falling.

As the day darkens, as night falls, we must shine ever more brightly with the light of Christ until the daystar dawns (2 Pet 1:19).

References

1 Medoff, R. Death camp liberated Pesach 1945, Israel National News, 31 March 2010

2 Ohrdruf Concentration Camp, Wikipedia.

3 Speech in the House of Commons, 17 April 1945. Churchill, W (grandson), 2003. Never Give In!: Winston Churchill’s Speeches, London: Bloomsbury.

4 Lynette Singer (writer) on ‘Holocaust: Night Will Fall’, documentary broadcast on Channel 4, 29 January 2015.

5 Ibid.

6 Sir Nicholas Winton: I've made a difference. BBC Radio 4, broadcast 28 October 2014.

7 Henley, J. Antisemitism on rise across Europe 'in worst times since the Nazis’, The Guardian, 7 August 2014.

8 Ibid.

9 Booth, R. Antisemitic attacks in UK at highest level ever recorded, The Guardian, 15 February 2015.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Annual Antisemitism Barometer 2015

13 Ibid, p2.

14 Ibid, p5.

15 Goodman, L, PM Harper warns of new age of anti-Semitism in speech to Knesset, The Record, 20 January 2014.

16 Eg Wistrich, R, 2010. A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad, Random House, New York.

17 Kahn-Harris, K, Gidley, B, 2010. Turbulent Times: The British Jewish Community Today, Bloomsbury Publishing, p139.

18 Merkley, P C, 2001. Christian Attitudes towards the State of Israel, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kinston, p215-216.

19 Ibid.

20 Anti-Semitism in the UK: is it growing?, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 5 March 2015.

21 Ibid.

22 Channel 4 News, 16 January 2015.

23 European Parliament debate, 11 February 2015.

24 Flannery, EH, 1985. The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism, New Jersey: Paulist Press, revised 2004.

25 Ibid, p292.

26 Ibid, p292, quoting S. Freud, Moses and Monotheism, New York: Vantage Books, 1955, pp116-117.

27 Ibid, p292.

28 Ibid, p293-4.

29 Ibid, p295.

30 Heschel, S, 2010. The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany, Princeton University Press.

31 By Peter Barnes.

32 See Genesis 16-18, 21.

33  Joseph E, 2004. Krotona of Old Hollywood, Vol. II, El Montecito Oaks Press, p. 340. See also Wikipedia on Alice Bailey-Ross.

34 Harradine, K. New Agers fall for Anti-Semitism, The Jewish Chronicle, 17 September 2013. Also Newman, H, 2005. 'Aquarius, Age of', entry in Levy et al (eds) Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Vol 1, p30.

35 Ephesians 6:10-18

36 Meotti, G. To Anti-Semitic Christians, Israel is an Usurper, 5 January 2015.

37 Jewish Chronicle Online, Secure our shuls, 19 February 2015.

38 Stone, J. Hundreds of Norwegian Muslims form human shield to protect Jewish synagogue in Oslo, The Independent, 22 February 2015.

39 Hodges, D. They are still coming for the Jews. So why is nobody speaking out?, The Telegraph, 19 January 2015

40 Bingham, J. London schools cancel synagogue trips citing security fears after Paris terror attacks, The Telegraph, 6 February 2015.

41 Bonhoeffer, D. Ethics, DBWE 6, 80. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Research Center, University of Bamberg.

'On Rock or Sand? Firm Foundations for Britain’s Future', edited by Bishop John Sentamu (SPCK, 2015, 258 pages, £9.99).

This essay collection features several members of the various symposia called by the Archbishop of York over the past four years to assess the effects of the recent economic crisis and the challenges facing the nation in areas such as welfare, education, poverty, health and work.

It examines the underlying values of our society and looks for hope amidst the shock and confusion caused by the shaking of our financial and political systems. How firm are our foundations today, and what can be done to make them more stable for the future?

Some of the contributors are well known, others less so, but all are experts in their fields, both as academics and practitioners. The Archbishop’s website offers background information on the authors and their work, but the book provides more depth.

Each chapter contains plenty of analysis with an abundance of facts and figures. For some, this might be heavy going and can be skimmed over to gain the general gist, but by the end of each section there are always principles affirmed and practical approaches suggested, clearly set out and theologically based.

Judeo-Christian values have historically been the lifeblood of the nation but in recent times the body has been bleeding profusely. It is now pale and weakened. A new infusion is required. Solutions to our nation’s ills are sought within the teachings of Jesus and a Christian vision for society based upon the value and well-being of individuals. Too often this has been defined in narrow economic terms. Rather, it is argued, we need a better understanding of real wealth and what it means for everyone in society to flourish.

"Judeo-Christian values have historically been the lifeblood of the nation but in recent times the body has been bleeding profusely."

Perhaps most thought-provoking is the section on ageing. Is living longer a blessing or burden? How does society respond to a greater life expectancy and value those of extreme old age? We are encouraged to look upon the elderly in terms of our own personal futures. One day we will be them. This challenges us to also put ourselves in the shoes of others we may not usually associate with - the poor, underprivileged, those out of work or seriously ill.

Overall, the book advocates a role for the Christian faith in all aspects of the nation’s life. Politics and politicians alone cannot piece together a shattered society. The Church must have a public role. At the very least it should hold up a mirror to society and show what it has become. But before the Church can earn the right to be heard it must demonstrate a clear understanding of what is needed.

"Sentamu suggests that, like the Old Testament prophets, it is essential for religion to speak truth to power"

As Sentamu suggests, like the Old Testament prophets it is essential for religion to speak truth to power (p6). The work of the symposia as outlined in this book provides the necessary clarity to discern what is sand and what is rock, as Britain decides what kind of future it wants to build. In an election year, here is a thoughtful contribution to the democratic debate.

Monica Hill’s recent article Surveying the World Church Scene provides some insightful statistics on global church trends. If we interpret these statistics through the discernment of the Holy Spirit we have some valuable information as to the ‘big picture’ of world affairs and what God is doing.

Those statistics which are particularly eye-catching relate to areas of the world once almost closed to Christians.

The picture of Indonesia is one such area. Monica wrote that whilst it:

still has the largest Muslim population in the world…Indonesia is also home to more Christians than all 20 countries in the Middle East/North Africa region combined…Although the official records still show 88% as being nominally Muslim there has been a tremendous Spiritual Awakening since the 1990s.

For one who has worked in such areas of the world and known missionaries who have prayed for a great harvest but seen nothing tangible for their life’s labours, this is an astounding picture. The extent of the Church’s growth in these countries surprises even me, who was expecting a harvest (though was unsure of the scale and the timing), having received prophetic insight some thirty years ago.

A vision ahead of time

On 1st April 1985 I saw the following. It was a waking vision as clear, I imagine, as when Joseph saw those visions of the famine in Egypt recorded in the Book of Genesis.

I saw a large field that had just been harvested. The field was filled, as far as the eye could see, with large sheaves of ripe corn. From out of the sheaves came wave after wave of young men, serious faced with a glow as if freshly washed. They wore the traditional Middle Eastern Jilaba and on their heads a Taqiyah, the traditional Arabic prayer cap. They struck me as being very serious young men.

At the time I did not know what I had seen, only relating the imagery in a general way to a harvest for the Kingdom of God. It was only later that I realised that I had been shown a promise of a great harvest of souls from the Muslim world.

At the time such a vision and promise would not have been understood by the majority of Christians. It was before awareness had grown of the challenge of Islam and the plans of God for the Muslim world. At the time, across Africa and Asia doors were closed to missionaries. There was estimated to be one missionary to one million Muslims. Yet, ahead of time the vision was given.

Looking forward

Now I see another significance relating to the timing of the vision. Coinciding exactly with this vision, April 1985 was the time of release of the first issue of Prophecy Today in its earlier format. My vision coincided with other prophetic insights being published from the beginning of Prophecy Today. Now, as we release the new online edition, the vision seems especially relevant.

As we look back, we are confident that we heard from God. As we look forward we have a basis from which we can understand the purposes of God as he brings shaking to the world – a shaking that is redemptive for all who will heed His call.

Monica Hill looks back:

In 1985, in the first issue of Prophecy Today, the message was an encouraging one: ‘I will Pour out My Spirit’ (Acts 2:17). Whilst this may still be relevant across other continents, in many parts of Europe Christianity is struggling; a more relevant message may well be the message to the church in Sardis: ‘Wake up and strengthen the things that remain’ (Rev 3:2). For many this has become a rear-guard defensive action, rather than a pro-active, progressive one.

The Overall World Picture

In his many writings in the early part of the last century, Kenneth Scott Latourette put the historical growth of Christianity from the first days of the early church into global perspective.¹ Each period of spectacular growth was followed by a period of decline until a new impetus came on the scene which led on to greater growth than had ever been known before. These cycles or waves of advance and retreat have always led the church onwards and upwards.

"From the first days of the early church, each period of spectacular growth was followed by a period of decline until a new impetus came on the scene which led on to greater growth than had ever been known before."

Global population has more than tripled in the last 100 years (from under 2 billion to 7 billion²). The growth of Christianity has roughly kept pace, being embraced by about a third of humanity.³ In the same time, however, Islam has been expanding much more rapidly, growing from 12% of the world’s population to 22%.⁴

Although Christians comprise just under a third of the world’s people, they form a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, about two-thirds of all the countries and territories in the world.⁵ About 90% of Christians currently live in these majority-Christian countries, where Christian values are mostly accepted; only about 10% of Christians worldwide live as minorities, adapting their living and experiencing different levels of acceptance.

Half (48%) of all Christians in the world live in the 10 countries with the largest number of Christians, where Christianity is widely accepted and deeply established.⁶ Three of these are in the Americas (the United States, Brazil and Mexico), two are in Europe (Russia and Germany), two are in the Asia-Pacific region (the Philippines and China) and three are in sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia).

Movement of the Centre of Christianity⁷

Until 100 years ago, Europe had been the centre of global Christianity for a millennium: in 1910, about two-thirds of the world’s Christians were in Europe.⁸ In the 19th century Europe had also become the biggest missionary sending-continent (North America took over that baton in the 20th Century; time alone will tell who takes it on next).

Today, only about a quarter of all Christians live in Europe (26%). A plurality – more than a third – are now in the Americas (37%). About one in every four Christians lives in sub-Saharan Africa (24%), and about one-in-eight is found in Asia and the Pacific (13%). So whilst there are over 2 billion Christians of all ages around the world, no single continent or region can now claim indisputably to be the centre of global Christianity.

"Since 1910 Christianity has moved from being centred in Europe to being dispersed around the world, shifting from rich nations to poorer ones."

This dispersal also represents a general shift in Christianity away from rich nations towards poorer nations. Last century, the Global North (a short-hand for the wealthiest nations in the world, commonly defined as North America, Europe, Australia, Japan and New Zealand) contained more than four times as many Christians as the Global South (the rest of the world). Today, more than 1.3 billion Christians live in the Global South (61%), compared with about 860 million in the Global North (39%).⁹

Current areas of major growth: Africa and Asia-Pacific

The fastest growth in the number of Christians over the past century has been in Sub-Saharan Africa (a roughly 60-fold increase, from fewer than 9 million in 1910 to more than 516 million in 2010) and in the Asia-Pacific region (a roughly 10-fold increase, from about 28 million in 1910 to more than 285 million in 2010).¹⁰

"In the last century, Christianity has increased 60-fold in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 10-fold in Asia-Pacific."

Indonesia is the 4th most populous country in the world, behind China, India and USA.¹¹ Its population grew from 162m in 1985 to over 253m in 2014, and it still has the largest Muslim population in the world. However, Indonesia is also home to more Christians than all 20 countries in the Middle East/North Africa region combined. Since the bloody coup d’état in 1965 everyone has to be registered to one of six religions – namely Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.¹²

Although the official records still show 88% as being nominally Muslim¹³ there has been a tremendous Spiritual Awakening since the 1990s. When we were there in 2001, reliable Christian sources were reporting that the rate of conversion of Muslims to Christianity was so great that the total number of Christians (both Catholic and Protestant) in the population was approaching 50%, but for political reasons the Government supressed this information.

Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia-Pacific now have a combined population of about 800 million Christians, roughly the same as the Americas. Five of the top 10 countries with the largest Christian populations are either in Africa (Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia) or Asia-Pacific (Philippines and China).¹⁴

In a relatively short time, Africa has gone from having a majority of followers of indigenous, traditional religions, to being predominantly a continent of Christians and Muslims. Christians are now estimated to be 40% of the continent's population, with Muslims forming 45% - roughly divided between the South and the North, respectively.¹⁵

"In a relatively short time, Africa has gone from having a majority of followers of indigenous, traditional religions, to being predominantly a continent of Christians and Muslims."

Christianity is embraced by the majority of the population in most Southern African, Southeast African, and Central African states, and others in some parts of Northeast and West Africa. The Coptic Christians make up a significant minority in Egypt but the strong 1st century church of Tertullian in North Africa is struggling for survival.¹⁶ Nigeria now has more than twice as many Protestants (broadly defined to include Anglicans and independent churches) as Germany, the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation.¹⁷

Other growth areas: Latin America and China

Across the Atlantic, the majority of Latin Americans are Christians (90%), mostly Roman Catholics (Brazil has more than twice as many Catholics as Italy¹⁸).

However, membership in Protestant denominations is increasing, particularly in Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador and Puerto Rico. Latin American Protestants numbered 64 million in 2000 (compared to 50,000 in 1990), with three-quarters of this total being Pentecostal and Charismatic.¹⁹ In the late 1990s, 8,000 Latin Americans were deserting the Catholic Church every day for Evangelical Protestantism.²⁰ Venezuela, which is 92% Catholic, officially recognised 15,000 evangelical churches in 2013.²¹

Finally, in China, after a hundred years of missionary effort there were only 100,000 believers at the time of the 1927 communist coup, followed by the prohibition of religion.²² Despite cruel persecution by the communist regime, until the 1990s the underground church grew and since then there has been a vast increase in the number of Christians and churches – so much so that by 2030 it is predicted there will be more Christians in China than in the whole of the United States.²³

"By 2030 it is predicted there will be more Christians in China than in the whole of the United States."

Areas of major decline, and the challenge from Islam

The most drastic recent declines in Christian populations have been in Syria and Iraq, where there have been significant ancient communities from the early church days. Though the region is often recognised as the birth place of Christianity, Christian communities are being obliterated there as the Islamic State becomes established.²⁴

Indeed, today the Middle East/North Africa has the lowest concentration of Christians (c.4% of the region’s population) and the smallest number of Christians (c.13 million) of any major geographic region.²⁵

Islam is now the world’s second largest religion after Christianity. Since 1985 and the first issue of Prophecy Today, Islam has increased by 25% in North America, by 142.35% in Europe and by 257.01% in Australia and Oceania / Pacific, with the global Muslim population growing at nearly twice the rate of non-Muslim populations.²⁶

According to these statistics, one in five people on the planet are Muslim. Whilst it is difficult to predict future trends, several speculators suggest that by the middle of this century Islam could have more adherents than Christianity.²⁷

What is happening in Britain?

According to the Daily Telegraph, the UK population grew from 56 million in 1985 to 64 million in 2015, with half of the increase being in the last 12 years and the UK now showing the fastest population growth in Europe.²⁸ Through the twin pressures of secularisation and immigration, the religious make-up of the UK has become extremely diverse. The 2011 Census showed that Islam and minority and alternative religions are steadily growing, whilst less than half of the British people believe in a God.²⁹

Christianity in Britain has suffered an immense general decline since the 1950s. Between 1979 and 2005, half of all Christians stopped going to church on a Sunday.³⁰ In 2006, Tearfund found that two thirds of the UK have no connection with any religion or church, even though 59.3% put their religion down as “Christian".³¹ Britain, once a proudly Christian country, is gradually being replaced with ‘post-Christendom’ and all the problems this brings.

  "Between 1979 and 2005, half of all British Christians stopped going to church on a Sunday."

It is, however, unlikely that a religious vacuum will remain for too long. Many of our cities, like Leicester, now have more mosques than churches. But recent news of a wave of Muslim converts to Christianity could signal good news for the future - is the church prepared for this?

In the last 30 years the UK church presence has fragmented into a number of smaller groupings and there has been a significant decline in traditional denominations with many church closures. The Christian presence would have drained much more quickly had new churches not been planted and established, and had a renewed emphasis not been put on taking the church into new areas with evangelistic outreaches.

"The Christian presence would have drained much more quickly had new churches not been planted and established"

Fresh Expressions³² working with the traditional churches has been one of the most successful ways of redefining church, with our personal involvement with the Christian Resources Exhibition and The Sharing Show resulting in publicity being given to the many new initiatives and the Love outreach.

Additionally, whereas in the 19th century Britain was a significant missionary-oriented country taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth, Christians from these countries are now coming here to re-evangelise our nation. Africa and Asia are leading the way. The Black Majority churches are now the fastest-growing in London,³³ and many ethnic-led Bible Colleges and Church Planting schools are also springing up.

What of the Hopes for Charismatic Renewal?

In the early 1980s the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements were at their height, not only in this country but also worldwide, and hopes ran high that Charismatic renewal would penetrate every sector of the church world-wide with new vitality and purpose.

During the intervening 30 years this movement has settled down in the UK and developed an ‘orthodoxy’, so it is seen now as just one aspect of a wider church scene. In many places this institutionalisation has hindered its growth, so that like the Church in Ephesus (Rev 2:4), it may have lost sight of its first love. Increasingly, therefore, all the messages to the churches in Revelation 2-3 are relevant to Christians in the UK today.

Is there any hope for the UK?

We must never give up hope that God is in control as he reveals more and more of his truth and love. Thirty years ago Prophecy Today had links with churches and Christians in many different parts of the world which led to a sharing of their insights and experiences within the pages of the magazine. It is hoped that this will continue in future, so that Prophecy Today will offer people a grounded, biblical understanding of the trends discussed here.

Since 1985 new technology and increased travel and migration has opened more doors to the Gospel within and between countries. Pray that this will continue to fulfil the Great Commission that Christ gave to his disciples in Matthew 28:18-20, which has never been rescinded.

References

1 Latourette, K S, 1953. History of Christianity. Vol 1 & 11, Harper and Row.

2 World population is currently increasing at 1.21% per year and is predicted to continue to grow well into the 22nd Century but at much reduced rates.

3 Growth of Religion (Christianity), Wikipedia.

4 Growth of Religion (Islam), Wikipedia.

5 Pew Research Center, 2012. Religion & Public Life Project.

6 Ibid.

7 Unless otherwise stated, all statistics in this section are taken from the executive summary of the Pew Research Center’s Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population.

8 Historical estimate by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity.

9 The total population of the Global South is about 4.5 times greater than the population of the Global North.

10 See note 5.

11 Demographics of Indonesia: Religions, Wikipedia.

12 Religion in Indonesia, New World Encyclopedia.

13 International Religious Freedom: Indonesia. UNHCR report, 2009.

14 See note 5.

15 Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, p306

16 Coptic Christianity, Got Questions.

17 See note 5, also http://www.history.com/topics/reformation

18 See note 5.

19 Allen, J L, 2006. The dramatic growth of evangelicals in Latin America, NCR Online, 18 August.

20 Study commissioned in the late 1990s by CELAM, the federation of Latin American Catholic bishops' conferences. Allen, J L, 2006. The Pentecostal phenomenon in Latin America, NCR Online, 20 December.

21 Martinez, J, 2013. Venezuelan Gov’t to Legally Recognize 15,000 Evangelical Churches, Christian Post, 11 September.

22 Anderlini, J, 2014. The rise of Christianity in China, FT Magazine, 17 November.

23 Phillips, T, 2014. China on course to become world’s most Christian nation in 15 years, The Telegraph, 19 April.

24 Nazemroaya, M D, 2014. Wiping out the Christians of Syria and Iraq to remap the Middle East: Prerequisite to a clash of civilizations? Strategic Culture Foundation, Centre for Research on Globalization, 30 July.

25 See note 5.

26 Tsang, S, 2011. Muslim Populations in the World, Diversity Statistics.

27 Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 2001. Growth rates of Christianity and Islam.

28 Bingham J, 2014. UK has had fastest growing population in Europe for a decade, 26 June.

29 Crabtree, V, 2012. Religion in the UK: Diversity, Trends and Decline.

30 See note 29.

31 Tearfund, 2007. Churchgoing in the UK report.

32 www.freshexpressions.org.uk

33 Brierley Consultancy, The London Church Census, June 2013.

In the book 'Prophecy Past and Present' Clifford Hill set out twelve biblical tests of prophecy. These were compiled from reading the Didache and other Early Church writings, which present a picture of practices in the early centuries of the Christian church.

When writing to the Thessalonians Paul urged the church not to dampen the fire of the Holy Spirit or to treat prophecies with contempt, but to test everything they received. They were to hold on to that which was good but reject “every kind of evil” (1 Thess 5:19-21). These tests need to be studied carefully by the churches today, and especially by ministers and worship leaders who have leadership responsibilities within the body of Christ.

The following is a brief summary of those tests:

1) Prayer. All prophetic revelation should be received in prayer and should be prayed over carefully for discernment.

2) Witness of the Spirit. Those who have the Spirit of God within them should have an immediate witness of the Spirit as to whether what they are hearing is of the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of truth - or is from some other source.

3) Scripture. No prophecy today will contradict the revealed word of God in the Bible. If it is not in accord with scripture it is false.

4) Meditation. It is sometimes necessary to take time to discern the significance of a prophetic revelation and whether or not it is a clever deception or truly a word from God.

5) Confirmation. If the word truly comes from God there will usually be confirmation of this through various ways.

6) Unity. If the word is truly from the Lord and there is love and trust within the fellowship, a prophetic revelation will increase unity and all the believers will affirm it to be a word from God. If not, there is something wrong, either with the word or in the fellowship, and there is great need for that fellowship to pray together until love and unity flow through the body.

7) Build up. Every true prophetic revelation will build up the faith of the body of Christ even if it is a difficult word.

8) Love. Every true prophetic word will be spoken in love even if it is a call for repentance.

9) Glorify Christ. Every true word that comes from God will always glorify Christ.

10) Conditions. If a prophetic word is one that includes a promise of either blessings or judgment, there will be conditions.

11) Fulfilment. If the word is of a predictive nature and is truly of God, it will be fulfilled.

12) Character. The moral and spiritual character of the prophet was always regarded as of crucial importance in the New Testament churches and in the Early Church of the first few centuries. So it should be today. For God does not use unholy lives through whom to convey his precious word to his people.

Replacement Theology is a denial of the promises of God made to Jacob and his descendants. It is a false doctrine which has long been endemic in the Gentile Church, teaching that the promises made by God to his chosen nation Israel have been rendered null and void by the death of Jesus at Calvary, and are now applicable only to the Church.

Behind this erroneous interpretation lies a darker force: the demonic spirit of anti-Semitism.

God’s Covenant with Israel

The first 11 chapters of the Bible document the increasing corruption of mankind which followed the Fall, the resulting grief and anger of God which brought the Noahic flood, and the subsequent continuing rebellion culminating in the building of the Tower of Babel and God’s judgement in the form of confusion of language and scattering of the rebellious people.

In chapter 12, however, we read of a new initiative on God’s part; his calling of Abram to be the progenitor of a new nation through which the entire world would receive the blessing of salvation.

In Genesis 15 comes God’s further confirmation of that decision, in the form of a solemn covenant with Abram and his heirs which He makes unilaterally and unconditionally. This covenant is reaffirmed to Isaac in Genesis 26, and to Jacob in Genesis 35; and is expressed in Psalm 105:8-10 to be everlasting.

"Jacob’s descendants are irrevocably destined to be God’s chosen earthly nation through whom Messiah would come, and are granted an inalienable right to ownership of the land of Canaan."

Jacob’s descendants are irrevocably destined to be God’s chosen earthly nation through whom Messiah, the woman’s offspring (Gen 3:15), would come, and are granted an inalienable right to ownership of the land of Canaan (Gen 17:8).

What is Replacement Theology?

Replacement Theology is a denial of the validity of these promises of God to Jacob’s descendants. It is a false doctrine which has been endemic in the Gentile Church during most of her history, teaching that the promises made by God to his chosen representative nation Israel have been rendered null and void by the death of Jesus at Calvary, and that in consequence the Hebrew nation is no longer to be regarded as God’s chosen people.

The doctrine effectively declares that much of God’s Word is now obsolete, teaching that Israel has been disinherited and that both the calling and the promises of God are now applicable only to the Church, which is seen to have superseded the Hebrew nation in God’s purposes and to have become the “new Israel”.

However, to quote Malcolm Hedding, former Executive Director of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem:

Replacement Theology is nowhere to be found in the Bible…From a theological perspective, the Replacement doctrine can only exist if one can prove that the Abrahamic covenant has been abolished.¹

"Replacement Theology is nowhere to be found in the Bible…From a theological perspective, the Replacement doctrine can only exist if one can prove that the Abrahamic covenant has been abolished.” - Malcom Hedding

Such a teaching is driven by the spirit of anti-Semitism and the failure to understand that unless allegory is being used, Scripture is to be interpreted according to its plain literal meaning. When God says, concerning the descendants of Jacob, that “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11:29), He means exactly what He says. He will not reject his chosen earthly representative nation, nor will He revoke his stated purposes and promises concerning them.

To teach that God has cast aside the nation of Israel and broken the covenant which he made unconditionally and unilaterally with Abraham in Genesis 15 is to make God out to be a liar, and to reject the plain teaching of Paul in Romans 11: “…has God cast away His people? By no means!”²

Paul explains the truth of what has taken place in the relationship between God and Israel, and warns the Gentile believers against the arrogance of thinking that they now have preference over the Jews and have replaced them in God’s purposes. In verses 28-29, Paul explains clearly that they remain God’s elect people and that He will never cease to love the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, nor withdraw His stated purposes for them.

The Origins of Replacement Teaching

In the light of the plain teaching of the Word of God, what accounts for the error which gives rise to the belief that the Church, which has been almost entirely Gentile since the end of the Second Century, has replaced Israel in God’s affection and purpose; and that Israel has therefore also forfeited the right to the land covenanted to the patriarchs? Why did the early Church Fathers introduce teaching which so twisted and perverted the plain statements of Scripture, robbing them of their clear and unambiguous meaning?

By the end of the second century, the Church had become largely Gentile, influenced by the Greek philosophy of the Roman Empire and becoming separated from her Jewish roots.

As early as 160 A.D. Justin Martyr was viewing the Church as the new Israel. In his ‘Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew’, Justin he declares to Trypho that the Hebrew Scriptures are “not yours, but ours” (chapter 29:2), while in chapter 82 he says, concerning the writings of the Hebrew prophets: “For the prophetical gifts remain with us [ie the Church], even to the present time. And hence you ought to understand that [the gifts] formerly among your nation have been transferred to us.”³

By the third century, early Church theologian Origen of Alexandria was teaching that the correct way to understand the Scriptures was by spiritualising the text and treating it as allegory.⁴

There is a profound difference between the Hebraic method of literal interpretation of Scripture at its face value and the Greek method, which tends to the error of taking the literal words and treating them as if they were simply allegorical. Consequently, where for the Hebrew mind the Word of God determines the doctrine, the Greek mind tends first to form the doctrine and then where necessary, to distort (or totally ignore) the word so as to make it fit.

The Spirit of Anti-Semitism

However, behind this erroneous way of interpretation and consequent false teaching lies a darker force. It is the demonic spirit of anti-Semitism, which is rearing its ugly head yet again in great strength and virulence in our own days. The Gentile Church Fathers were influenced not only by Greek thinking and philosophy, but also by increasing prejudice against the Jews as being a race of unbelievers who were responsible for deicide and had become rejected and cursed by God, the satanic lie which would lead to centuries of persecution and ultimately to the Holocaust.

"Behind this erroneous way of interpretation and consequent false teaching lies a darker force: the demonic spirit of anti-Semitism."

What accounts for the phenomenon of anti-Semitism, which has pursued and persecuted the Hebrew nation throughout their long history? What strange hatred led, for example, to the mass slaughter of all male Hebrew infants in Egypt (Ex 1:15-22); or to the thwarted desire of Haman (Est 3:8-15) to perpetrate the genocide of all the Jews in the province of Persia; of to the massacre at Herod’s command of male infants in Bethlehem (Matt 2:16-18)?

The root cause of the mysterious undying purpose of anti-Semitism to exterminate the Jewish people is to be found first in Genesis 3:15, where God declares that the seed of the woman will crush Satan’s head. Secondly, in Genesis 12:3 and 22:18, His promise to Abram is that “all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you”.

The recognition that this meant that Messiah, the promised seed of the woman, would arise from the offspring of Abraham brought the inevitable consequence of continued satanic attempts to prevent the fulfilment of the Word of God, first by destroying the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob so as to make impossible the first coming of the promised Messiah; and when that had failed, to destroy Jesus during His earthly life and ministry.

Following that failure, the object became to prevent His promised return by continuing attempts to destroy all Jacob’s descendants, so as to make impossible their prophesied return from exile among the nations to the land given by God’s covenant promise (eg Gen 15:18) to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants, summarised in the words of Psalm 105: 8-11:

He remembers his covenant forever...the covenant he made with Abraham…He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant: ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit.’

The 20th Century and Today

This satanic determination to prevent the word of God from coming to pass has had tragic but inevitable consequences for the Hebrew nation through many centuries. It reached a climax after the Balfour Declaration in 1917 (affirmed at the San Remo Conference of 1920) was enshrined into International Law in 1922, by the League of Nations’ Mandate to Great Britain to oversee the re-establishment of the Jewish homeland in the land called Palestine by the Romans, but now the sovereign state of Israel.

That series of events aroused the spirit of anti-Semitism to a new level of activity, resulting in Hitler’s attempted 'Final Solution', the Holocaust; and since 1948, in continual attempts to separate the restored Hebrew nation from the land of Israel by any and every possible means.

The prophecy of Daniel (9:26) concerning Jerusalem is that “war will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed”. The spirit of anti-Semitism will continue to stir up strife and destruction against Israel, and against all Jewish people throughout the nations, until Scripture is fulfilled in the return of Jesus the Messiah to save His people and to establish His rule on the earth.

"Unless we believe and teach that the Word of God means what it says, none of us is exempt from falling into error."

The anti-Semitism which continues the hatred and persecution of Jewish people wherever they may be, and the anti-Zionism which rages against the very existence of the State of Israel, are of one and the same antichrist origin and purpose. The unbelieving world cannot understand this, but the professing Church believes and teaches the anti-Semitic doctrine of Replacement Theology at its peril, for by so doing it is denying the Word of God and encouraging hostility against His people and His stated purposes. If we do, we fall into the trap of cursing the descendants of Abraham and consequently bringing God’s curse upon ourselves (Gen 12:3).

Unless we believe and teach that the Word of God means what it says, none of us is exempt from falling into error. The warning contained in Romans 11:17-21 is as valid today for us, as Gentile believers, as it was for the first hearers to whom Paul was writing: “Do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches…Do not be arrogant, but tremble.” The covenant which God made with Abraham remains guaranteed by the unchanging character of God, and He will remain faithful to fulfil all that He has promised concerning the descendants of Jacob.

References

1 Hedding, M, 2006. Standing with Israel Today, ICEJ Word from Jerusalem, May/June edition (first published in The Jerusalem Post Christian Edition, March 2006).

2 Rom 11:1, New King James Version.

3 Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. 2nd Century AD, transl. George Reith.

4 Eg On First Principles, Book IV.

What Kind of People Ought We To Be?

In 2 Peter 3:11 Peter asks the early Christians, who were suffering more and more for their faith, “What kind of people ought we to be?” As two of the latest-written books to be included in our New Testament, 1 and 2 Peter carried a special message to encourage believers to hold fast in the faith, to know what they believed and to witness where they were placed.

Since then, this message has become precious to thousands of suffering Christians, including many Africans sold into colonial slavery (see bottom of page). It has encouraged believers that even when life gets hard, God is in control and is with us, using every circumstance for his purposes.

The teaching in these two books can change our attitudes so that we become positive witnesses where God has placed us. It gives new insight into the right priorities for communities of believers in every country and circumstance, inspiring effective living which positively influences the future not only of individual communities but also worldwide.

Similarly, there were occasions in the Old Testament as well as the New which brought messages of encouragement to people in hard times. Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles in Babylon (Jer 29) had a transforming effect upon the captives from Judah. Much of Jesus’ teaching was to prepare the disciples for hard times, just as the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which Paul explores in his letters, were given to build up the believers for a purpose- not just for their own growth.

The Day of the Lord and the end of the age

There have been many times throughout history when people believed that the Day of the Lord, with the return of Christ and the coming judgement on the whole earth, was near or already upon them. The personal experience of famines, disease, natural disasters or wars which can destroy the infrastructures of a country can be catastrophic, and can either shake our faith or lead to the belief that the end of the age has come.

However, the Day of the Lord (spoken of in 2 Pet 3) and the end of the age are not necessarily one and the same. The Day of the Lord will come at the end of time, whilst over the centuries many ages have come to completion.

It is hard to maintain our faith when we see institutions we have created, or put our trust in, swept away by natural disasters such as tsunamis, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. It is also hard to keep our faith when our country is being overrun by another – particularly if it is by another religion. All these experiences can make us stop and think more deeply about the purpose of life. Trying to survive in a hostile social environment can create problems for all but the strong-hearted and those with a truly solid foundation to their faith.

"The teaching of Jesus is that we should always be living as though he will return at any moment."

But the teaching of Jesus is that we should ALWAYS be living as though he will return at any moment (Matt 25:1-13). It is helpful to know what the Bible says about the end times, but we are warned against trying to predict times and dates. In his speech on the Day of Pentecost Peter quoted the Prophet Joel indicating that he believed we were entering 'the last days' (Acts 2:14-26). 2000 years later we must be nearer the end of all ages now.

But God is never in a hurry and there are other things prophesied in Scripture that have yet to be fulfilled. God has a great love for his creation and especially for those he made in his own image. He longs to see everyone come into a right relationship with himself through repentance (John 14:6). He is, in fact, waiting for us to do our part.

A Future and a Hope

God’s ultimate purposes are for our good! So we are called to look forward, rather than backward, and we need to ensure that we ourselves live ‘holy and godly’ lives (2 Pet 3:11). We should be aiming to be at one with God, understanding his nature and purposes and being willing to do whatever he asks us to do.

  "The longer our Lord delays, the more people can be saved- and he equips us for this task."

Living in a holy and godly way is not subjective and inward looking – it is positively to embrace God’s concern for the ungodly and to share the Good News with others. Passing on the message to those of our own generation who have not yet heard the message and from one generation to the next are essential tasks. Everyone is needed – there is no retirement - the older generation are given a second chance as grandparents are mobilised to reach their grandchildren.

If we are looking forward to a time of righteousness and justice and to the establishing of God’s kingdom, this is all the more reason to be found doing what God wants, and not to be found lacking (Deut 10:12-13). The longer our Lord delays, the more people can be saved – and he equips us for this task.

Relating to Hard Times: 2 Peter 3 in the African American Jubilee Edition¹

I have a copy of the African American version of the Bible and 2 Peter 3 reads just as though it had been written specifically for those who had been taken into slavery and felt hopeless and I repeat this version below. Read it for yourself as though you were a slave in colonial times - knowing that nothing you could do would change the human situation.

My dear friends, this is the second letter I have written to encourage you to do some honest thinking. I don’t want you to forget what God’s prophets said would happen. You must never forget what the holy prophets taught in the past. And you must remember what the apostles told you our Lord and Saviour has commanded us to do.

But first you must realize that in the last days some people won’t think about anything except their own selfish desires. They will make fun of you and say, "Didn’t your Lord promise to come back? Yet the first leaders have already died, and the world hasn’t changed a bit."

They will say this because they want to forget that long ago the heavens and the earth were made at God’s command. The earth came out of water and was made from water. Later it was destroyed by the waters of a mighty flood. But God has commanded the present heavens and earth to remain until the day of judgement. Then they will be set on fire, and ungodly people will be destroyed.

Dear friends, don’t forget that for the Lord one day is the same as a thousand years, and a thousand years is the same as one day. The Lord isn’t slow about keeping his promises, as some people think he is. In fact, God is patient, because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.

The day of the Lord’s return will surprise us like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a loud noise, and the heat will melt the whole universe. Then the earth and everything on it will be seen for what they are.

Everything will be destroyed. So you should serve and honour God by the way you live. You should look forward to the day when God judges everyone, and you should try to make it come soon. On that day the heavens will be destroyed by fire, and everything else will melt in the heat. But God has promised us a new heaven and a new earth, where justice will rule. We are really looking forward to that!

My friends, while you are waiting, you should make certain that the Lord finds you pure, spotless, and living at peace. Don’t forget that the Lord is patient because he wants people to be saved. This is also what our dear friend Paul said when he wrote you with wisdom that God had given him. Paul talks about these same things in all his letters, but part of what he says is hard to understand. Some ignorant and unsteady people even destroy themselves by twisting what he said. They do the same thing with other Scriptures too.

My dear friends, you have been warned ahead of time! So don’t let the errors of evil people lead you down the wrong path and make you lose your balance. Let the wonderful kindness and understanding that come from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ help you to keep on growing. Praise Jesus now and forever! Amen.

Slaves were not in a position to change their situation, but they knew that God could! – and that he would do it in his timing. So they looked forward to that day and adopted the lifestyle that they felt God would have wanted of them.

References

1 African American Jubilee Edition, Contemporary English Version, American Bible Society, 1995.

Below we have re-published Clifford Hill's lead article from the first print edition of Prophecy Today, March/April 1985. Entitled 'Take Off the Graveclothes!', it was a clarion call to the church to rise up and be counted, and is still highly relevant today.

These are exciting days to be a Christian!

We are living in one of the most significant periods in the history of mankind. There are many signs that these are the times that former generations have longed to see – the times of which Jesus and the prophets spoke. The need for clear discernment has never been greater in order that we may rightly interpret the signs of the times and rightly convey the Word of God to our generation.

In a world armed to the teeth with the most incredible weapons of destruction there has never been greater danger facing mankind. Yet with the mounting evidence of spiritual awakening around the world these are also days of limitless opportunity for the Gospel.

Spirit of violence vs the Spirit of God

There appear to be two mighty forces at work in the world today and moving towards a climax of confrontation. The contrast between the two is almost too vivid and blinding to comprehend. A spirit of violence has been loosed into the world; and, the Spirit of God is at work among his people.

The destructive forces of violence are to be seen in every part of the world. Assassination, terrorism, urban guerrilla warfare, revolution, plus 37 actual wars at present in progress are ample evidence of this. The threat of the world being plunged into a nuclear holocaust comes not only from the clash of the giant superpowers but from the smaller nations. The day is in sight when nations such as Libya, Syria, Iran, Pakistan - all experiencing an Islamic fundamentalist revival – will each have their own nuclear weapons (the threat from militant Islam may one day prove to be greater than the threat from atheistic Russian communism). The world is rapidly entering a highly dangerous and unstable period.

"The Holy Spirit is being poured out on people of all nations today just as the prophet Joel foretold and at precisely the right time when the forces of darkness are threatening to overwhelm the world."

At the same time the Spirit of God is at work in the world bringing new life and hope. In nation after nation there is a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit bringing spiritual awakening and revival. Today the church worldwide is growing at a faster rate than at any time since the days of the New Testament church. The church in Africa, south of the Sahara, is growing at a rate of more than 7 million per year. The new birth rate has overtaken the natural birth rate; so that the day is in sight when most of the population of central and southern Africa will be committed Christians. Similar things are happening in Korea, in China and in many other parts of Asia, also in South America and in Central America. Even in Russia and Eastern Europe there is evidence of a fresh move of God.

The Holy Spirit is being poured out on people of all nations today just as the prophet Joel foretold and at precisely the right time when the forces of darkness are threatening to overwhelm the world.

Re-arming the Church

God has entered the battlefield against the principalities and powers! Through a fresh move of the Holy Spirit worldwide, God is re-arming his church for battle. The time is drawing near when the battle of the ages will take place, the battle of which Paul hints in Ephesians 3:10, when through the church God will take on the world rulers of darkness that have for so long been driving mankind.

The word God spoke to Jehoshaphat are a time when Israel was under threat of annihilation is relevant to us today:

"Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. The battle is not yours, but God's." (2 Chron 20:15)

Traditionalism dying

The greatest danger facing us today is that of missing the timing of the Lord through failure to understand the signs of the times and failure to understand what God is saying to us today. While many of the new and younger parts of the church are full of life and vigour and eager response to the Spirit of God, many of the older and more traditional parts of the Body of Christ are showing signs of geriatric decay and hardening of the spiritual arteries.

Right across Europe many of the traditional churches are sleeping peacefully, occasionally stirring to murmur, 'As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be' or are so caught up in the immediacy of institutional organisation and of social programmes that their spiritual eyes are blinded and their energies are diverted into unproductive cul-de-sacs.

The traditional churches with their centuries of scholarship ought to be the eyes and the ears of the church but they are failing to discern the dangers confronting our world today and the biblical significance of the days in which we live.

Prophecy neglected

For centuries there has been a neglect of the ministry of prophecy due in part to the very right and wholesome fear of being misled but also due to the Reformation emphasis upon Scripture as being not only the final authority on the word of God but also as being the final utterance of God, although this is contrary to the teaching of Jesus in John 14-16 on the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church.

Jesus taught that through the Holy Spirit God would continue to communicate with the believers. He said:

"I have much more to say to you all, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth…he will tell you what is yet to come." (John 16:12, 13)

In times of crisis God has always raised up prophets to speak to his people. The task of the prophet is to stand in the council of the Lord and to bring the contemporary word of God to the contemporary world (Jer 23:18, 22).

"God wants his whole church to be a 'prophetic people' to communicate his word to his world in these days of crisis."

Just as God spoke to his people of the old covenant through prophets to give them encouragement, warning or clear guidance in times of crisis, so God is speaking to his people of the new covenant through prophets today. The major task of the prophet is the forthtelling of the word of God. The prophet gives vision, clarity of purpose and understanding to the people of God. He enables the Body to discern the word of God for our times that it may rightly proclaim that word to the world. God wants his whole church to be a 'prophetic people' to communicate his word to his world in these days of crisis.

The Church constricted

The major blockage to the proclamation of the word of God to the contemporary world is the degree to which the world has infiltrated the Western church destroying its simple trust and expectancy and replacing it with all the complexities of institutionalism, unscriptural theology, materialism, secularism and unbelief. These are the graveclothes with which we have encompassed the Body of Christ. These are the constrictions that are imprisoning the word of God today. But the fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit we are seeing today is a worldwide movement. God is longing to renew his church in the West that it may fully accomplish his mighty purposes in this critical period of world history.

The Lord Jesus is weeping over his church today as Jesus wept over the tomb of Lazarus his friend. He wept for the slowness of understanding and unbelief of those whom he loved. "Roll back the stone!" he commanded. Then followed the words that demonstrated his claim to be the resurrection and the life. "Lazarus come forth!" Slowly Lazarus shuffled out of the tomb, his body completely encased in the graveclothes that enwrapped him and impeded his movements. There he stood, filled with the new life given to him by the Lord but unable to exercise it because his body was imprisoned within the tightly wrapped graveclothes. He had already received the precious gift of new life but he was virtually paralysed by the graveclothes.

"Dead tradition, unbelief, sterility and institutionalism have put the Body of Christ in a straight-jacket as binding as the graveclothes around the body of Lazarus."

That is a picture of the Western church. The precious gift of new life in the risen Christ is imprisoned within the Body by dead tradition, by blind unbelief, by sterile scholasticism, by the complexities of institutionalisation that have put the Body of Christ in a straight-jacket as binding as the graveclothes around the body of Lazarus.

Take off the graveclothes!

When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead he did not rush forward to help Lazarus or remove the graveclothes from his body. He turned to his friends and said to them, "Take off the graveclothes and let him go!" (John 11:44). The Lord of the church is turning to his people today and saying, "l have already given you the new life in my Spirit, now you must remove the graveclothesl Let my church go into all the world with my word of life."

Let he who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches today.

"Take off the graveclothes! Let my church go!" If we do not hear and heed the word of the Lord today we will miss his timing in this most critical period of world history for 2000 years. Tomorrow may be too late!

There is a new well-being fad taking the Western world by storm. Though it has been part of mainstream psychological practice since the late 1970s, it has recently enjoyed a remarkable surge of popularity, sweeping into boardrooms, prisons, hospitals and schools all around the UK, the US and Europe. Yet, it remains poorly understood by most people. The trend is mindfulness.

The mindfulness tide

Mindfulness is a meditation practice which, instead of focusing on emptying the mind, encourages people to focus on ‘the present moment’.¹ It is being extolled as a scientifically provable pathway² to health and well-being, acting to soothe stress and restore peace to busy lives.

Unlike many alternative well-being practices, mindfulness is not merely the domain of specialist health shops. Since being exported to the USA in the 1960s and 1970s through the immigration of Buddhist monks, proponents like Jon Kabat-Zinn have helped to mainstream mindfulness in medical and academic spheres.³ From here it has been promoted to a mass audience and popularised across a variety of sectors, with the help of the internet as well as top-down endorsement from business executives, celebrities and government officials.

In the USA, a pro-mindfulness business culture is spreading thanks to its promotion by giants like Apple and Google, with immense pressure on employees to participate.⁴ This year at Davos, the six mindfulness seminars laid on for global economic leaders were “packed to capacity”.⁵

Nearer home, mindfulness is being promoted everywhere from Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council⁶, to the NHS⁷ and HM prisons⁸. It is being embraced by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Home Office and Transport for London,⁹ whilst the University of Oxford has its own Mindfulness Centre. Enthusiastic independent schools (e.g. Tonbridge, Hampton, Charterhouse) are installing mindfulness programmes and there is currently a campaign for its adoption into the national curriculum.¹⁰

Celebrities are endorsing it (e.g. Ruby Wax, Goldie Hawn, Oprah Winfrey), investigative journalists are raving about it¹¹, mindfulness mobile apps have gone viral, and courses, retreats and themed holidays are widely available. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find an untouched sector or region in the UK.

Finally, an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on mindfulness launched in May 2014 and is currently investigating the possibilities of rolling mindfulness out across “a range of policy areas”¹², with a report on its legislative efficacy due out in June 2015¹³.

Despite all this recent popularity, and freely available information, few ordinary people are really aware of what it is, or where it comes from.

Being mindful: the realities behind the practice

To the unwary, mindfulness seems harmless and uncontroversial. The very name connotes care and thoughtfulness, and it is often couched in descriptive terms like 'clarity', 'awareness', 'acceptance' and 'compassion'. Beneath these comforting descriptions, mindfulness is a deeply spiritual activity: it is actually a Buddhist practice of trying to attain nirvana, or spiritual enlightenment and liberation.

"Beneath these comforting descriptions, mindfulness is a deeply spiritual activity: it is actually a Buddhist practice of trying to attain nirvana, or spiritual enlightenment and liberation."

Despite claims of the easy removal of its religious strings, most mindfulness practitioners openly acknowledge its Buddhist core and its built-in sense of spiritual progression. Mindfulness is often intertwined with practices such as yoga, Tai-chi and Zen, and the more involved you become in mindfulness circles, the more overtly religious it becomes.

However, mindfulness is being carefully dressed and presented in secular clothing to appease Western mind-sets. This is not the hippie-driven New Age of the 1970s and 1980s, but a more subtle, palatable, postmodern update, appearing as one option among many to satisfy 21st century self-help consumers. The result, according to Melanie McDonagh of The Spectator, is a “wildly popular pseudo-religion; a religion tailor-made for the secular West”, encouraging self-centred navel-gazing and introspection.¹⁴ In her view, mindfulness is potentially dangerous because it encourages people to face the darkness of their own souls, without offering any hope of redemption.

The practical, political reality of mindfulness is that it is not a solution to the endemic problems facing UK society; it seems to be more of a narcissistic sticking plaster which appeals to a stressed-out, self-absorbed i-culture. It has nothing to say about injustice or the root causes of mental health problems.

"The message of mindfulness is that the remedy for suffering and evil lies inside yourself, not in the goodness and intervention of God. It erases the need for the Cross."

The message of mindfulness is that the remedy for suffering and evil lies inside yourself, not in the goodness and intervention of God. It erases the need for redemption from the brokenness and sinfulness of human nature (and therefore erases the need for the Cross) and encourages people to look inward, not upward.

Mindfulness should not, therefore, be an option for Bible-believing Christians, despite all that you’ll hear about courses and resources with no Buddhist elements. Whilst the Bible encourages meditation on the rich truths of God's word and character under the leading of the Holy Spirit, this should never be mixed with meditation practices derived from, and rooted in, Eastern religion. God has always made it very clear that he views such mixture as spiritual idolatry, deeply hurtful to him and dangerous for us.

If you are unconvinced about the spiritual dangers of practices like mindfulness, look at some more in-depth coverage of 'alternative' therapies from a Biblical perspective, such as The Dangers of Alternative Ways to Healing by David Cross and John Berry.¹⁵ As living temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19), we should be jealously protecting the spiritual purity of his chosen and beloved dwelling-places, not grieving him by engaging in a spiritual pic-n-mix.

Looking up and out, not in

It should be a cause for deep concern amongst Christians that in an era of global uncertainty, so many are seeking peace, self-control and direction from Buddhist meditation. In business, it represents an earnest search for release from the frenzy of modern Western culture. In the NHS, it represents a subtle recognition that our best medical professionals cannot address endemic problems of depression, anxiety and fear. In Parliament, it is an acknowledgement that our uppermost echelons of leadership lack peace and direction.

Driving the popularity of mindfulness practices are spiritual cries for salvation and freedom: this should be a heart-breaking wake-up call for the Church! Christians should be pointing people to the Solution for whom they are searching: Jesus Christ, who sets the captives free (Luke 4:18) and promises to lovingly shepherd us (John 10:11) and guard us with his divine peace (Phil 4:7), if only we accept him as Lord and Saviour.

Sadly, the mindfulness phenomenon simply highlights that the majority of people in Britain are searching elsewhere to have their psychological and spiritual needs met. This is a terrible indictment of the Church's ineffectualness in offering solutions to modern pressures and problems (if the Church leaves a vacuum, something else will always move to fill it). Christianity is no longer considered even a viable option for personal healing, wholeness and freedom, let alone the only way.

"The mindfulness phenomenon simply highlights that the majority of people in Britain are searching elsewhere to have their psychological and spiritual needs met. Christianity is no longer considered even a viable option."

The Church should also beware the stealth and speed with which mindfulness practices are spreading across the nation. It could easily mean the further incursion of Eastern religious practices into church territory, as groups ask to meet on church premises. We need to equip and support Christian professionals to refuse to participate in company mindfulness sessions, as well as Christian schools that refuse to force children and teachers into daily meditations.

Perhaps the Christian response to mindfulness, therefore, should be watchfulness: instead of focusing inward, we should be looking outward to discern the signs of the times. “It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes” (Luke 12:37).

References

1 Kabat-Zinn, J, 2006. Mindfulness for Beginners, Sounds True Inc, CO.

2 Eg see here and here.

3 Wilson, J, 2014. Mindful America: The Mutual Transformation of Buddhist Meditation and American Culture, OUP.

4 Scharmer, O. Davos: Mindfulness, Hostpots and Sleepwalkers, Huffington Post Online, 26 January 2014.

5 Gelles, D. Amid the Chattering of a Global Elite, a Silent Interlude, NY Times, 21 January 2015.

6 Eg http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/libraryservices/newsandevents/healthevents.aspx

7 Eg http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/10694775/Why-does-the-Government-want-to-teach-mindfulness-in-schools.html

8 Eg http://www.prisonmindfulness.org/projects/network-directory/wpbdm-category/u-k/

9 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/10694775/Why-does-the-Government-want-to-teach-mindfulness-in-schools.html

10 http://www.mindfulnessfoundation.org.uk/

11 Eg http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-health/11161367/Mindfulness-does-it-really-live-up-to-the-hype.html

12 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmallparty/register/mindfulness.htm

13 See http://www.themindfulnessinitiative.org.uk/ for an interim report published in January 2015.

14 McDonagh, M, 2014. Mindfulness is something worse than just a smug middle class trend, Spectator Online, 1 November.

15 Sovereign World Ltd, 2010.

Christians are again in danger of being silenced over Israel: Charles Gardner asks if we have truly learnt the lessons of the Holocaust.

Anti-Semitism alive and well in Europe

A controversial church leader has been severely reprimanded for posting a link on Facebook blaming Israel for the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Rev. Stephen Sizer, Vicar of Christ Church in Virginia Water, Surrey, has since apologized for his “ill-considered and misguided” action¹ and removed the link. However, he has been banned from using social media for six months.

A Church of England spokesman said it was a matter of “deep sorrow and shame”² that the posts appeared in the same week as the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, when the full horror of Nazi crimes against the Jews was revealed to the world. The Bishop of Guildford, Rt Rev. Andrew Watson, said Rev. Sizer’s actions were “indefensible” and has set a series of conditions on him keeping his job.³

This small incident forms part of a much more widespread increase of anti-Semitism in recent months. The jihadist attacks in Paris and Copenhagen, where Jewish communities are now living in extreme fear, indicate another source of vehement hatred of Jews: fundamentalist Islam. These examples from within Europe do not touch on the world-wide increase of anti-Semitic action and feeling, most of which is not reported by mainstream media.

Remembering the Holocaust

2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, when the full horror of Nazi crimes against the Jews was revealed to the world. Recently Sister Thekla, a German nun, has spoken of her shame at the suffering caused by her nation through the Holocaust: “It grieves me what my nation has done, especially to the Jewish people,” she told a conference in York on Israel and the Church.⁴

“We had touched the apple of God’s eye and saw God’s judgment poured out on our nation as a result,” she said, in reference to the repeated bombing of Darmstadt. One 1944 attack on Darmstadt killed 10 percent of its inhabitants and made 60 percent of its population homeless.

“We had touched the apple of God’s eye and saw God’s judgment poured out on our nation as a result” - Sister Thekla, German nun, regarding the Holocaust

The Darmstadt bombings prompted local resident Basilea Schlink to found the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, dedicated to reconciliation with the Jewish people. Mother Basilea and a group of fellow Christians wept under deep conviction of the terrible sins committed by Germany against the Jews, dating back to the time of the Crusades. Subsequently they went to Israel to volunteer their services as nurses, and to seek forgiveness from the Jewish people. She said:

We can never heal the wounds. Only Christ can do that. It is a painful memory, but I confess these crimes...If the German community had stood up as one man, the Nazis would not have been at such liberty to pursue their schemes. Where was the Christian church?⁵

She warned that today’s church was in danger of repeating history.

Will history repeat itself?

The tragedy of anti-Semitism is not just something in the past. It is flaring up again. And in the not-too-distant future we Christians will all be challenged about our relationship with Israel. Will Christians once more stay silent?

"In the not-too-distant future, Christians will all be challenged again about our relationship with Israel. Will we stay silent?"

Also addressing the York conference, organised by the Emmaus Group, was Sister Glory, a British member of the order with a Methodist background:

Israel is once again hated by the nations, which is a picture of our Lord Jesus, who was despised and rejected of men. We are called to pray for Israel. They need love, born out of repentance, the only kind that will open their hearts. We have often not presented the true image of Jesus to them.

Britain is complicit

Sister Glory also emphasised that the British have blood on their hands concerning Israel. She referred to 1190 when the entire Jewish community of York were herded into Clifford’s Tower, just across the river from the conference venue, and massacred. A hundred years later Jews were expelled from Britain altogether, before being welcomed back at the time of Cromwell through the influence of the Pilgrim Fathers (a radical Christian group who were themselves hounded out of the country before emerging as the founding fathers of the United States).

More recently, following Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising support for a Jewish national homeland, the Government reneged on its pledge by dividing the allocated land, and acting treacherously to appease the Arabs while forcing the Jews to disarm. Many Jews trying to escape the Holocaust to Israel were turned back and some died when their boat sank.

“We betrayed the greatest trust ever given to a nation”, Sister Glory added. And now Britain is in danger of repeating history, with the strong message of support Parliament has sent to the Palestinian Authority over its quest for state recognition.

Those who bless Israel will be blessed

In experiencing the fulfillment of Genesis 12:3 (that those who bless Israel will themselves be blessed, while those who curse her will come under judgment), Britain has suffered the loss of her Empire along with increasing brokenness within the nation itself.

Sister Glory ended by quoting former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: “The Lord deals with the nations as the nations deal with the Jews.”

What will our response be? For if you really love Jesus, you will love His people, the Jews.

References

1 Sizer, S, Statement of Apology, released 30 January 2015.

2 Church of England, Statement on Rev Stephen Sizer, released 29 January 2015.

3 Bishop of Guildford, Right Rev Andrew Watson, Statement on Stephen Sizer, released 9 February 2015.

4 'The Messiah, the Church and Israel' conference, 22 November 2014, Park Inn York, Emmaus Group.

5 Ibid, quote by Sister Thekla.

Charles Gardner is a journalist originally from South Africa, now living in Yorkshire. He is part Jewish and writes for The Times of Israel.