Category: Culture

The Ignorance and Imbecility Within Christian Zionism

In the current zeitgeist, there are far too many Israelis, Diaspora Jews, and Christian Zionists who mandate such support for the Israeli government, even decry and label those who refuse to kiss that ring as antisemites (or self-hating Jews).

Discourse on “generic” Zionism must be handled with nuance, distinguishing between a belief that a people, defined by culture and ethnicity, have reasonable expectation to a homeland from that of kneejerk support for the government and/or the general conduct and attitudes of that nation, no matter what injustice, travesty and/or atrocity they commit. It should be noted that there are and have been numerous ethnicities which have been denied that ‘right.’

In the current zeitgeist, there are far too many Israelis, Diaspora Jews, and Christian Zionists who mandate such support for the Israeli government, even decry and label those who refuse to kiss that ring as antisemites (or self-hating Jews).

But even as the God of Israel has ostensibly abandoned the Hebrews/Jews not once, but twice, when they deviated too far from His ethic and ethos, this disingenuous clamor is a bit rich to anyone who is a serious Person of the Book.

The Ted Cruz–Tucker Carlson Interview

Growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed. And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things . . . It doesn’t say the government of it. It says the nation of Israel. So that’s in the Bible. As a Christian, I believe that.

Ted Cruz is one Christian Zionist who claims it mandatory for Christians to bless Israel, based upon his rendering of a biblical passage that Cruz could not even locate.

I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.

– Genesis 12:3

There does exist the essence of this blessing/cursing in Hebrew Scripture. But the aphorism is not directed towards Jacob/Israel, but to Abram/Abraham. Abraham is the father of many nations, including the Arabs by way of Ishmael, and the nation of faith. If, indeed, God extended this blessing/cursing beyond Abraham himself, this would require Christians to also bless all Arabs as well as Jews, even when Jews and Arabs are at loggerheads. However, it says that “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” Honest and competent exegesis concludes, and New Testament Scripture attests, that God is speaking of Abraham individually.

I have caught and corrected a church teacher just recently, who believed that this blessing extended down to Jacob/Israel. But Jacob/Israel was not blessed directly by God.

May peoples serve you and nations bow down to you. May you be the master of your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed, and those who bless you be blessed.

– Genesis 27:29

The above blessing is that from Isaac, Jacob’s father, and a blessing stolen, not a direct divine blessing. There exists yet another blessing directed towards Israel in Numbers 24:9, also spoken by a man, even a foreigner. Yet New Testament Scripture also speaks of that same generation as unworthy of entering God’s rest (Hebrews 3:7–11). Moreover, God’s blessing to the nation of Israel was conditional (Deuteronomy 28).

Simple-minded assertions, taught in Sunday School, especially in Pentecostal churches, might be short on accuracy and nuance.

Evangelicals: Israel’s Useful Idiots

Another enduring meme, especially within Charismatic circles, is that of Donald Trump as King Cyrus the Great (c. 600–530 BCE). The originator of this fabulism, Lance Wallnau, pointed out in God’s Chaos Candidate (2016), the coincidence that Trump would be the 45th president, corresponding with the 45th chapter of Isaiah. Hillary Clinton would have been the 45th American president had she won.

The first problem with this “prophecy” is that the numbering system is not part and parcel of the original biblical Text. Besides, Cyrus is introduced in the 44th chapter of Isaiah, not the 45th. Finally, only a handful of Wallnau’s prophecies, at best, approximate later realities, failing the biblical test of a true prophet (100%).

Moreover, America does not figure explicitly in Scripture. It is Exceptionalist narcissism to make anything in the Bible about America whatsoever.

Most ironic is the fact that Cyrus the Great is the first cosmopolitan, allowing his conquered subjects to retain their own cultural heritage, rather than be ruthlessly assimilated as had prior civilizations within Mesopotamia (i.e. Assyrians). The Greeks under Alexander merely emulated this existing system and acquired the credit.

But the extreme nativism of MAGA Trump and its prejudices represent quite the polar opposite of cosmopolitanism and its ethos.

Nevertheless, this unbiblical and historically illiterate meme persists not only in Charismatic, but strangely, even in Israeli circles, who do or should know better. By this same reasoning, there must have been a special divine anointing upon Hitler for having quickened the Zionist project which Theodor Herzl certainly did not foresee occurring within a half-century.

Jonathan S. Tobin, editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), who until recently seemed a reasonable Diaspora Jew, sponsors this idiocy, albeit with the caveat, “The opinions and facts presented in this article are those of the author, and neither JNS nor its partners assume any responsibility for them.” This has become a standard weaselly sophistry, to promote an erroneous notion which advances one’s agenda, while facilitating deniability when challenged.

But Tobin and JNS are responsible for everything that they sponsor in their ezine. When Tucker had Nick Fuentes on his broadcast, Jews did not accept any of Tucker’s disclaimers about free speech. Arguments about promoting free speech and a wider Overton Window would only be credible if JNS also gave Tucker Carlson a platform in his ezine.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Tucker Carlson: Leading Advocate for Replacement Theology?

Speaking of which, many Jews, even rabbis, have wildly extrapolated from this Ted Cruz – Tucker Carlson interview that Carlson subscribes to Replacement Theology. If Tucker Carlson subscribes to Replacement Theology, honest critical scrutiny will not find any evidence in this verbal repartee. Another Christian Zionist cited another episode as proof.

There is no chosen people. The chosen people are people who choose Jesus. That is the Christian message right there. It’s not an anti-semitic message, by the way. It’s the Christian message. It’s the core Christian message. And yet, there are many self-described representatives of the Christian faith who are daily sending a different message. And we should be very clear, whatever this is, it’s not Christianity, it is heresy. And among the many examples we could pick, we’re going to go with Lindsey Graham:

A word of warning. If a miracle pulls the plug on Israel, God will pull the plug on us.

God will kill you if you don’t support Bibi Netanyahu in the aisle. That’s what he’s saying. He will pull the plug on you like a quadriplegic and intensive care. You’re going to flatline unless you support the secular abortion on demand government of Israel. That’s the Christian perspective really. That God loves some people more because of their DNA. That is not the Christian message.

That’s the opposite of the Christian message. The Christian message is universal. That’s the whole point of it. The chosen people in Christianity are those who choose Jesus. The entire New Testament is that story. And anyone who says otherwise has not read it or is lying.

Whatever dubious understandings exist within Tucker’s position, one cannot find Replacement Theology therein. For Replacement Theology explicitly replaces ethnic Jews with the largely goyim Church as True Israel. This is not what Tucker is claiming.

True Christianity insists that those, like Abraham, who put their trust in God, are ultimately the chosen, this before and after Christ. The goyim churches association with the Kingdom of God is through Abraham, not through Israel. While subscribing to a view similar to Carlson’s, no one could legitimately accuse me of subscribing to Replacement Theology.

Ambassadors for Christ, not of Israel

Christian believers are not mandated to support the state or peoples of ethnic Israel, especially when the Jews go rogue (i.e. Bernie Madoff, Harvey Weinstein, Sam Bankman-Fried, Jeffrey Epsteen), any more than Christians are mandated to support any other ethnic individual or grouping which goes rogue. This is a question of juridical impartiality, equality of treatment, based upon the same criteria of judgment.

Moreover, it is the calling of Christians to be ambassadors for the Kingdom cause of Christ. It is not the calling of Christians to be ambassadors for the cause and state of Israel, especially when the imperatives of the latter undermine the imperatives of the former. The Christian imperative aspires to see the enemies of Christ converted and saved. The Israeli imperative aspires to crush the enemies of Israeli. Hence, even the ethos and psychological dynamics are in conflict.

Eschatological Presumption

Certainly, there are promises and predictions concerning latter day Israel. However, human beings are not privy about the manner by which these shall be fulfilled.

The first great sin by Christian Zionists is that of presumption, operating upon the promises and predictions, which shall be fulfilled at the inscrutable level of God’s Sovereignty in His good time, while neglecting, even violating, the commanded counsels at the immanent and scrutable level of God’s Sovereignty. Many Christian Zionists justify acts by Israel (and become effectively complicit) which they would never tolerate if committed by other nation. Hereby, Christian Zionists become partial and unjust.

Many Diasporic Jews complain of being lumped together with the actions of Netanyahu’s Israel, objecting to the principle of collective guilt when it is applied to them, but actively supporting that principle when conducted against the Gazans. Christian Zionists ride along such hypocrisy, even though Scriptures, to whom they claim inerrant authority, repeatedly disabuses the principle of collective guilt (although not the principle of collective consequence).

Summary

As noted from the start of this essay, there is nothing amiss in Christians believing that the Jews have a reasonable expectation to their own homeland, as do all ethnicities. The noetic errors and moral faults lie in that which exceeds this basic belief.

The greatest of noetic errors lies in conflating Abram/Abraham and Jacob/Israel which affects both statements concerning blessing/cursing as well as land claims.

Moral faults include the presumption that one understands the inscrutable Sovereign Will of God (re: prophecy) and acting upon that presumptive belief while neglecting, even violating, the commanded Will of God. Moreover, the imperatives of the Kingdom of Christ are usually contrary to that of earthly Israel, lending to divided loyalties, sensibilities, and even worldliness.

There currently exists a concerted effort by Jews to vilify and sideline Tucker Carlson (i.e. charges of antisemitism), who questions the existing status quo in America vis-à-vis Israel and the influence of Jews over American policy and interests. This is not a planned conspiracy. There is perceived need by Jews to disparage Tucker’s reputation and denigrate his influence. For Tucker, like an increasing number of goyim in America, wish to reassert national self-interests, which is perceived to have been redirected towards Israeli and Jewish imperatives. There appears to be no ethical boundaries in this effort.

If the patterns of Diasporic history have not been abrogated, the Jews shall invariably fail. A rinse and repeat cycle of Jewish migration has consistently and eventually led to economic resentments by the commons and concerns by the elites in the host country that the Jews’ have too much influence (Maîtres Chez Nous). Hanna Arendt mentioned this social dynamic in The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951). The impetus behind Herzl’s Zionism was in recognition that the goyim would never allow European Jews to rise to the very top of their adopted homelands.

Many Christian Zionists have joined in this Jewish effort, unjustly slandering Tucker, such as the claim that Tucker subscribes to Replacement Theology without supplying incontrovertible proof. Herein is an example of the presumption and divided loyalties which leads to committing evil for a supposed “good cause.”

I am not the greatest of fans of Tucker Carlson for reasons other than the Jewish/Israeli question. That does not, however, justify rhetorical efforts to unjustly vilify Tucker. We ought not to desire to have the name of God blasphemed among the nations because of us (Romans 2:24). Leave the slandering for the Jews.

A Canadian Declaration of Independence

So, while a solipsistic America, or portions thereof, saw in the Carney Doctrine, espoused at Davos, a surreptitious dig at their idiot emperor occupying the White House, I perceived a coherent, cogent vision and plan, one with general geopolitical ramifications, to be sure, yet ultimately a pronouncement, Maîtres Chez Nous!

I once visited an old work colleague who went into business for himself after the company to which we had both worked had folded up. His factory seemed [to be] a thriving place. However, there was flaw in the business model. His company had only one customer.

I recall reading about suppliers in the Great Depression, whose only clients were Simpsons or Eaton’s. These flagship department stores had such greater leverage over their suppliers that they could literally dictate the price that they were willing to pay.

This lesson, learnt in adolescence, never left me. When I became self-employed as an IT consultant, I had six main clients with roughly equal revenues, such that the business could easily survive the loss of one or two clients.

All my life, Canadian politicos have permitted this nation’s economy and, indirectly, this nation’s sovereignty to be vulnerable to the caprice of American dictates. Currently, three quarters of our exports flow to the U.S., with exports constituting a third of our economy. In effect, over 20% of our economy currently involves exports to the U.S. Only 1.64% of the U.S. economy involves exports to Canada. While the collapse of all trade [to the U.S] would not result in the same degree of decline in GDP, that is one whopping economic leverage.

But while Canada has been vulnerable to the caprice of American dictates, only on rare occasions has this become a real crisis of modest proportions. We have generally benefited from the goodwill and prudence of multiple administrations since WW2. And when crises of modest proportions have occurred, it has been the policy of Canadian politicos to placate the U.S.

But as America has become a hubristically evil and unjust nation, we can no longer count upon the goodwill and prudence of their politicos. Nor has this nation the military and economic might, in of itself, to fight against the American behemoth, as impressive as the recent chutzpah and bravado may have been. Moreover, as one Globe and Mail pundit put it, kowtowing to Trump’s narcissism and rapine will only encourage more predatory feints.

This nation is left with but one alternative, which should have been deployed many decades ago. . . Canada must stop playing in the same sandbox as the Bully of the sandbox. Our trade must circumvent the Americans. Let us strike a balanced deal with the Japanese, Koreans, and/or Germans: An Auto Pact in exchange for the type of goods that the Americans are tariffing (i.e. aluminum). Place a cease and desist on all American car plants in this country and end all purchases of their cars. Most of our automobile employees could be transferred to the new Japanese, Koreans, and/or Germans plants that are built here. Car part plants are to be redirected towards these new auto chains. . .

This was written in February last year. Yet, it seems that another Canadian of far greater stature and political clout has thought likewise, independent of my nickel’s worth. Mark Carney went further than I, suggesting that our country should participate in a mesh of overlapping alliances based upon different shared interests and realms of concern. Taking my cues from Otto Bismarck, I am dubious about bringing such policy complication into government which requires a genius level of statesmanship to navigate and sustain. For after Bismarck was unceremoniously dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II, his balancing act was left in the hands of that selfsame idiot.

Nevertheless, after one full term and one year of the Trumpian imbecility, the whole world appears to be navigating around the United States, a facet of natural socioeconomic law, hardly requiring a degree in political science to have anticipated. Trade agreements, inconceivable but a year ago, or having long been stagnating (i.e. EU-Mercosur, EU-India) have been hurriedly signed this last year.

One partisan pundit from the National Post scornfully compared Mark Carney to Willy Loman (re: Death of a Salesman, 1949). But Carney is doing what Canadian politicos should have been doing decades ago.

Carney’s Davos speech is not some fanciful aspiration. Carney has been operating upon this doctrine laid out in his speech this year. Hence, Carney is a conviction politician, something quite rare in our pedestrian politics. This has been especially true of Carney’s Liberal Party, whose pretentions to being the Natural Governing Party, have merely required placing their fingers into the air to discern the current direction of the political winds, and stealing and incorporating the ideas of the Right and the further Left.

A Radical Cultural Difference

The Davos speech shall not be properly understood by contemporary American narcissism which thinks that everything is all about them. American hyperbole on both Left and Right has also acquired the irksome habit of seeing every rhetorical ripple of discourse as constituting some crushing checkmate over their ideological, cultural, and sociopolitical adversaries. This habit appears to be a manifestation of a deeper longstanding cultural motif wherein the American must always be right, to victor, to dominate.

I noticed this when I backpacked around the Mediterranean in 1978/9. The Canadian psyche, on the other hand, appears to be one of just getting along; on reaching consensus. When I visited a suburb north of Pittsburgh in 1997/8 to network a branch office there, a naturalized American from Canada in that office voiced the irritation that his American colleagues had with their Canadian counterparts who delayed their decisions until everybody at their end got on board. For good or ill, this complaint confirmed my observation from twenty years prior. I am not particularly “Canadian” on this count.

Yet it is evident that this American need to victor and dominate contributes to the current profound schism which threatens civic conflagration. Our muddled moderation has so far served the common good by preventing our social fabric from tearing apart, although Trudeau Jr.’s divisive lurch to the Woke Left appeared to inaugurate that devolution that we observe in America and Europe.

Why can’t Americans and Canadians get along?  More specifically, why hasn’t talk about a US-Canadian union ever really caught on?

The two countries have far more in common than might be expected. They share a common language, a common geography, even a common economic landscape. Both are nations of immigrants, particularly Scottish immigrants who in the nineteenth century served as “the shock troops of modernization,” in Bernard Aspinwall’s phrase, providing the first echelon of industrial labor for an emerging America — and for a unified Canada.

Given the commonalities, more than one commentator (including media personality and former Canadian citizen Kevin O’Leary) has raised the specter of a U.S.-Canadian economic union, even a North American monetary union, with Canadians retaining their national sovereignty while enjoying the benefits of integration into the much larger, and substantially more tax-free, U.S. economy.

In their general cultural ignorance, even of their own heritage, and an unquenchable avarice for Canadian natural resources, many Americans are conveniently deluded into thinking that our two peoples have much in common.

However, from the very beginning of our own history, Canadians have had a different mindset than the Americans, for better or worse. Beyond (1) the Québécois quadrant, the Anglo-Saxon colonials were largely made up of (2) those escaping or expelled from the losing side of the American Revolution. The (3) Second Great Awakening and other religious revivals largely escaped our borders, most of which were anti-intellectualist. Even as of 1971, (4) Blacks only numbered around 35,000 in Canada, constituting 0.2% of our population, mostly concentrated in Maritimes. Blacks do not figure in any national trauma. We never acquired, nor had opportunity to acquire, (5) an imperialist mindset through which the Americans have arrogantly lost their soul and their virtue. Although most Canadians dwell along a thin line which parallels the US–Canada border, (6) the extensive and barren north continues to figure in our cultural imagination. The American Frontier was closed over a century ago (c. 1890).

These half-dozen distinctions alone, each of which bear their own ideological/cultural imprint, should suffice to demonstrate the radical differences between our two peoples.

The radical, lift-yourself-by-your-own-bootstraps atomism of the American mindset finds little resonance in Canada except within a geographical stretch from the BC interior to the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. Few here consider the notion of the common good as equivalent to Communism, like almost half of American rubes do. (Nor were the American Founding Fathers and generation averse to the common good. Three of the thirteen original colonies had “commonwealth” in their nomenclatures. Oh! How the American mind and soul have fallen!)

No Canadian conservative, who values their reputation and livelihood, would boldly voice favor of the elimination of the minimum-wage laws (i.e. George Will) or the right of an employer to terminate an employee with impunity, without cause, even without compensation, as do many of the Red States. The radical economic disparities, which overflow into civic, political, and social inequalities and two-tier justice, which are historically known to contribute to social schism, civic conflagration, and the end of free civic polities (i.e. Democratic Athens, Republican Rome), are not yet as well developed in Canada as they are in the United States.

We have fought two skirmishes with the Americans. Our very Confederation is rooted as a response to the American Civil War. Why would any sane Canadian want to be a part of the American Woman, the American whore?

A Declaration of Independence

This country weaned itself off the teats of an imperious and duplicitous Britain after the First World War, officially in 1931. However, it seems that Canada merely replaced its mother, so to speak, with an American wet nurse. Canada has become an overgrown tweenager, still living in the attic, sniping about its effective lack of independence. If Canadians lack for an imperialist mindset, it is partly because we still think like provincial colonials.

So, while a solipsistic America, or portions thereof, saw in the Carney Doctrine, espoused at Davos, a surreptitious dig at their idiot emperor occupying the White House, I perceived a coherent, cogent vision and plan, one with general geopolitical ramifications, to be sure, yet ultimately a pronouncement, Maîtres Chez Nous!

As expected, a petulant toddler in his second childhood decreed a 100% tariff on all Canadian goods. It is doubtful whether this Narcissist-in-Chief sees in this seminal cri du coeur anything beyond an eloquent dig at his misrule.

But from the American standpoint, if Carney’s vision catches on in this country or, indeed, everywhere, despite the certainty of temporary decline in economic fortunes, courtesy of an imperious power losing its grip and geopolitical standing, the Carney Doctrine poses an insidious and enduring ideological threat.

For many overgrown tweenagers, the prospect of losing a life of economic ease and security overcomes the endemic desire to spread their wings and take responsibility. And already, among the business and conservative crowd, they grumble that they want to go back to Egypt.

Hence, in the absence of any viable, let alone cogent, alternative vision, this moment becomes a test of manly maturity so to speak. As for me and my household, being a vision not very different from my own, this seems preferable, even if perilous, then continuing to be hitched to the geopolitical Titanic.

Prevarications of the Anti-Zionists

I have elsewhere commented that contemporary Israelis and Diaspora Jews contribute to their detriment, especially with regard to the propaganda wars. At the same time, the Jews’ enemies often prove to be the Jews’ best “friends.”

Last month, I was compelled to confront a church leader who was promoting some of the propaganda from Israel My Glory and other Christian Zionist ezines. I have no problem with advocacy on behalf of Israel, so long as the claims have a modicum of correspondence with objective realities. But some of the claims, this leader was perpetuating, were so obviously and embarrassing nonsensical that it discredits the Christian witness to spread them.

Moreover, his Christian Zionism was so zealous that I felt compelled to remonstrate that I was under the assumption that we were ambassadors on behalf of the cause of Christ, not an ambassador on behalf of Israel.

No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. – Luke 16:13

One could replace “money” with “Israel,” especially when there exists a wide variance between the concerns of God and those of a mostly secular Israel. The general issue of divided loyalties was the crux of the matter.

So, when a video labelled, “Zionist Pastor Jack Hibbs: SUPPORT Israel Or Else,” was pushed onto my YouTube feed, I took the clickbait. In this 9 minute video, its author, Peter Hager, excerpts twenty seconds of a discourse at an unknown conference.

Host:[From] a theological standpoint, if we think that God will break, what He described as an everlasting covenant with them, how does our covenant of salvation stand?
Jack Hibbs:You don’t have one. If God breaks His covenant promise with Israel, then you now have no assurance that you’ll make it to heaven as a believer.

The ever so brief clip is lifted from out of a longer discourse (33 minutes). Hager provides no link to this video in order for the viewer to understand the context, the minimum requirement of an honest advocacy. (The discourse was between Jack Hibbs and Tony Perkins on October 18, 2025, at a Pray Vote Stand Summit, sponsored by the Family Research Council.) Jack Hibbs follows up his claim of no assurance with the following logic.

Because if He breaks that one, He can break anyone he wants. The good thing is, the great thing is, his nature is that he’s not a man that he should lie. God keeps all of his promises.

From the Evangelical standpoint, the God of Hebrew and Christian Scriptures made promises to ethnic Israel. God has also made promises to all who would come to believe upon Christ Jesus for their salvation. If God violates the former promise, there exists no reasonable grounds for security of person and peace of mind that He will not violate the latter promise.

This is not so much a theological argument, but rather a logical one. It is well substantiated and well known throughout the world that Donald Trump does not keep any trade agreement, which is similar to a covenant, to which he signs. Hence, it is no longer worth the time and effort negotiating any new trade agreement with the Americans. Only a few nations have done so, contrary to the bloated promises by Trump back in April. And those who do, like the effete officials of the European Union, are playing for time, until such time that they can defend themselves. Perhaps, at that time, the Chinese and the Europeans can forge a framework by which the EuroYuan becomes the reserve currency. Regardless, the geopolitical position of America will be much diminished within the decade. And with the end of the Pax America, (just like at the end of the Pax Europa in 1914), the whole world will be chaos.

Serpentine Polemics

According to the ranting Hager:

So, now you have no assurance that you will make it to heaven if you do not accept. You know they say usually in the evangelical church, you know what they usually say is ‘if you do not accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you will burn in hell.’ Well, now it’s ‘if you do not accept your Lord and Master is the state of Israel, you’re going to burn in hell.’

In truncating the Perkins-Hibbs’ video clip, Hager has disingenuously misconstrued Perkins’ and Hibbs’ argument. The rest of Hager’s rant (7 minutes) is sophomoric commentary, at one point insinuating venal motives to Hibbs’ position (grifting) without any attempt to provide evidence to substantiate that claim of corruption.

With all due respect, I have all the respect in the world for people who truly believe in Christ, who believe that living a pious life is the path to salvation.

Nor does Hager understand the Evangelical Faith that he impugns. For biblical Christianity insists that the “pious life,” virtue, righteousness, etc. is not the path to salvation. For no person can be perfectly virtuous and just, which proves to be a reasonable, if humanly impossible, standard. For if the Divine Judge judges according to the pious life, and does not insist on ethical perfection, He has an impossible juridical conundrum. For if God accepts and saves persons with x moral crimes, whereas all others are damned, what about persons with x + 1 moral crimes, or x + 1 + 1 moral crimes, in infinite regress. What is the non-arbitrary, non-capricious juridical divining point which separates the sheep from the goats.

Hence, Christ Jesus voluntarily offered His life (with its infinite ontological worth) as a substitute for the mass of human beings who accept the divine amnesty scheme through trust upon Christ Jesus’ atonement. Herein, a person is justified, the formal juridical basis of salvation.

Such a person must also trust upon all the other aspects of Christ, that is practically operate upon His assertions, counsels, promises, etc., this not in order to be deemed worthy of justification/salvation. Rather, these serve as instrumental means by which one’s trust in Christ endures to the end (Luke 6:46–49).

Know of What One Critiques

When I was in Morocco in 1979, I had the typical youthful habit of denigrating the locals on the basis of Western standards. That is until a Syrian mid-level military official on holidays upbraided me. His point was that one should seek to understand persons and societies within their own cultural and social context. I have never forgotten this invaluable lesson and loathe myself for not remembering the man’s name. (“Honor to whom honor is due.”) For while my views of Islam and Muslim culture have not much changed, understanding inculcates a nuanced Dickensian perspective, rather than a Manichean stick-figure one.

Hager may reject and critique Christianity if he so chooses. But one should, at least, know what one is rejecting and critiquing.

[Evangelicals have] been brought up in this world to make them believe that if they dare question the person who stands at the podium that they’ve committed a mortal sin and that they must repent for their entire life.

Hager is so lazily ignorant about Evangelicalism to the point of sophomoric slander. I recall one pastor, nearing retirement and world weary, complaining that organizing his congregation to common cause was like herding cats. I recall old black ladies in my youth with no theological credentials contending with the pastor over his interpretation of certain passages. ‘Battling Baptists’ is a common epithet thrown at one denomination. Almost all Protestant Evangelical churches nowadays are in state of a schism and church/denominational splits.

Moreover, Protestant Evangelicals do not subscribe to “mortal sin.”

Who Is Peter Hager?

With such all-encompassing lies, dissembling, and other deceits, one might expect Hager to be one of those rubbies, one encounters in down-and-out downtown bars. Or an unemployed youth in his twenties or thirties living in his parent’s basement.

But his resume is somewhat successful. He attended Rutgers University, although it is unclear whether he acquired any degree. He is a commercial realtor for Keller Williams Realty in Plantation FL, and prides himself for building “a solid sales pipeline through years long trust-based relationships.” I do not how one builds long trust-based relationships without intellectual and moral integrity. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

More interestingly, Hager was campaign manager (2020) and now senior advisor for an unsuccessful Democratic Congressional candidate, who lost twice in 2020 and 2024 Florida primaries to Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Considering the latter’s reputation, deserved or not, Jen Perelman’s bid to overthrow this incumbent was near impossible in the first place.

A Hyperpower Lost in Its OWN Lies and EXCEPTIONALIST Self-Delusions

So justice is turned away, and righteousness stands at a distance. For truth has stumbled in the public square, and honesty cannot enter. Truth is missing, and whoever turns from evil becomes prey. – Isaiah 59:14–15a

Even before Trump rode the escalator down in the summer of 2015, I was noticing the increasing frequency of the lies and deceits committed by both factions in the U.S. Certainly, lies and deceits were increasing worldwide. But America, always wanting to be the winner, has also become the champion in prevarication.

What is remarkable is the flamboyant nakedness and brazenness of these lies and deceits. Either the perpetrators think that their interlocutors are really stupid, or they are intuiting, ‘I know that you know that this is a lie. What are you going to do about it?’

But it becomes difficult to conceive how a free civic society does not disintegrate in the face of a pandemic of lies and deceits. The ties that bind any society together require, at minimum, intellectual and ethical integrity and the keeping of promises.

I have become increasingly irritated with the counterproductive dissembling by Jews, Israeli and Diaspora, and their allies; defending in Gaza, for instance, what has become morally indefensible. Yet, their adversaries seem to be worse in this regard. I found little in Hager’s rant that was not fallacious, if not disingenuously so.

The fundamental problem with many Christian Zionists is not their belief that God will keep His covenant with the ethnic descendants of Jacob for the sake of the Hebrew Patriarchs.

 The problem is the sin of presumption, actively operating upon promises belonging to the inscrutable transcendent will of God, (as if they knew how God will fulfill those promises), rather than upon the commanded will of God. Hereby, such Christian Zionists tolerate and justify injustices, travesties, and atrocities by Jews which they would not tolerate if committed by any other ethnic, cultural, and/or religious group. Hereby, such show themselves partial and hence unjust. In so doing, “the name of God is blasphemed among the nations through you.”