Rhetorical Pushback – Returning To Source

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 45^th president, corresponding with the 45^th chapter of Isaiah. Hillary Clinton would have been the 45^th 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 44^th 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.

The Folly of Assassinating Ali Hosseini Khamenei

One of the subthemes in Woody Allen’s Bananas (1971) was the possibility, even likelihood, that in toppling one abhorrent regime, one might spawn something even more abhorrent. In taking out the 86-year-old Supreme Leader, Iran, which despite Israeli and American propaganda, had become a relatively sclerotic regime, weakened by sanctions, geopolitical isolation, internal divisions, and decline of unifying ideological fervor.

An Iranian academic, some of whose students rose to senior government positions in Tehran, once told me that at the revolution’s beginning, the regime consisted of “80 percent indoctrinated believers—largely ignorant of global realities—and 20 percent charlatans and chameleons.” By Khamenei’s final years, he said, the ratio had inverted: 20 percent believers, 80 percent opportunists who flocked around officials for wealth and privilege.

Khamenei was 86 years old. He was enfeebled and about to die anyhow. One cannot emphasize this trite fact enough. What Trump’s America and Netanhuyu’s Israel has accomplished for this Islamic clergyman is his greatest wet dream. Having already lived a full life and then dying a martyr (with promises of 72 virgins), his death now constitutes a rallying cry in the immediate and ensures him a legacy long lasting.

WHAT MAROONS! WHAT BUFFOONS!

Falling into a Pit of Their Own Making

During the 1920s, the Weimar Republic attempted to repress the NSDAP (a.k.a. Nazis) through hate speech laws, often deployed to close an indeterminate number of Nazi newspapers. Goebbels was jailed for three weeks for insulting a Jewish police official in Berlin.

The problem with such machinations is that they are endemically contrary of the spirit of free civic polities and hence prove none too effective, especially in light of sentiments favoring right-wing factions by those in the police and military.

But having established the precedent, if and when those who have been repressed acquire power, especially if they are authoritarian in nature, those powers of repression will be deployed most ruthlessly. Democratic factions, who complained about such repression when conducted against themselves, were rightfully scorned in 1933.

In like manner, in establishing the precedent and new standard of assassinating heads of state and other high officials of adversarial powers, Trump and Netanhayu become themselves legitimate targets, even within their own country, Netanhayu especially since he has been found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

Validating and Perpetuating the Narrative of Jewish Control Over America

There already exists increasing recognition that the Israeli government and Jews in America have outsized influence on American policy (“the AIPIC lobby”). Whenever that perception has occurred or has been perceived to have occurred throughout history (i.e. Weimar Republic, Seneca the Younger), a Maîtres Chez Nous (re: “Masters of Our Own House”) counterreaction ensues, much to the denigration or worse for the Diaspora.

Jews constitute 2.4% of the American population. Yet they constitute 36 of 535 members of Congress (7%) and 10 of 100 Senators (10%). Jews dominate Hollywood, journalism, and social media corporations. Jews have often betrayed the arrogance of their outsized influence.

But there has been a bottom-up groundswell of resentment towards the outsized influence of these Jewish “aliens,” first from the Left and now from the Right, as America becomes involved reckless ventures which might regional benefit the nation of Israel but has dubious benefit for Americans, and may, indeed, prove detrimental to America.

A consistent pattern throughout Diaspora history is that Jews ingratiate themselves to the elites of the host country in which they dwell, hoping that these elites will protect them from the masses. However, whenever the groundswell of antipathy from the commons threatens the survival of these elites, Jews are hung out to dry (Hanna Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism).

This latest venture into Iran has no honest and coherent rationale, no coherent criteria for success, and no exit strategy. Indeed, the arrogance of Donald Trump deems offering any explication to his own people unnecessary for this very unpopular war from the get go.

There exists a consistent pattern in America wherein support for military adventures, which are not the result of threats to the homeland, declines with the passage of time. It explains the stereotypical quickie “get in, get out” nature of most American military adventures. The world knowing this, and a culture given to martyrdom, it behooves the Iranians to rag this current war for some time. As the Taliban demonstrated, patience triumphs over “shock and awe.”

Should this latest military adventure rag on, and American body bags pile up, American treasure be squandered, and the genuine concerns of Americans continue to be neglected, the ensuing resentment and antipathy just might be redirected towards Netanyahu’s Israel and the Fifth Column of Jews dwelling among True American Patriots, especially since there is not even an attempt this time to distinguish between American from Israeli interests. I can imagine a future moment when Americans ask, “who did this to us?”

Pushing Iran Ever Closer to the Russian Orbit

An alliance of very weak sorts already exists between the Iran and Russia. Putin’s Russia did not exactly risk its neck out for Iran in the June 2025 war. And an Iranian theocracy is not likely desirous to come under the “Christian Orthodox” orbit.

However, what would happen if the Iranian military (IRGC) became dominant (or more dominant), while continuing to be supportive of Shiite Islam, which is obviously necessary in that cultural setting. Being constantly denigrated by economic actions, and facing constant, sometimes even unprovoked, foreign incursions like the current one, will not necessity and Realpolitik override existing clergy objections to closer ties with Russia after Putin?

It must be recalled that in 1953, the CIA executed a coup against a legitimate democratic government in Iran in favor of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in order to protect mostly British oil interests from nationalization efforts. This foreign adventure gave impetus to the Iranian Revolution of 1978.

Americans might have twittered memories. The rest of the world does not. The notion that any regime change in Iran would result in the recovery of love for the Americans (or for western-style democratic capitalism) is febrile self-delusion or blatant lie to fool a people who can nowadays be fooled all of the time.

One of the self-delusions, abetted by American cultural ignorance, is that there is widespread antipathy against the existing theocratic regime. No one can say that with any certainty. And the appearance of much protest and opposition, the type of protest and opposition which actually might sacrifice lives, liberties, and livelihoods in support of an overthrow, suffers from the mistake of only considering urban populations. In Iran, as elsewhere, the political base of theocratic and conservative regimes lie in the rural towns, villages, and farmlands. The wet dreams of Trump’s America and Netanyahu’s Israel just might find that replacing a feeble supreme leader ruling over a sclerotic regime with a competent and aggressive military junta, more pliable to a thicker alliance with the Russians, and a population even more and justly antipathetic towards the Americans, a far worse outcome than presently exists. Even some Israelis demonstrate concern for this possibility.

International Contempt and Hatred towards America and Israel

In 1979, when I backpacked around the Mediterranean, I kept finding myself having, or thinking that I had to, defend America against the aspersions of largely north-western Europeans. This was after the folly of the Viet Nam War, which was entered into through duplicitous pretenses and upon false rationales. (At least, there were rationales.)

There are no pretenses and no genuine rationales this time. It is raw 19^th century imperialism in order to make a proud heritage and people bow to a lawless Narcissist-in-Chief in an already unpopular war in America, entered into by defying the Original Meaning of the American Constitution and blatantly ignoring International Law (ius gentium).

How long can one anticipate the overhang of contempt and detestation towards America and Americans ensuing this unprovoked military vanity? Any lifelong student of world history can anticipate the accelerating decline of American power and influence, even within the decade. For history emphatically demonstrates that on the coattails of the loss of moral authority and the legitimacy to govern, a decline and/or loss of power ensues.

Underneath the ersatz golden glitter of Trump’s America is a crud of moral, social, and economic rot, of an economy buttressed by annual deficits which rival those of the Great Depression, and shakily supported by the wealth effect from inordinately and irrationally expensive equity markets; of extreme economic disparities which overflow into civic and political inequality and two-tier justice which precursors civic tumult, even civic conflagration, as has happened often before.

Even before Trump, the weaponization of Reserved Currency status in 2022 has quickened the demise of that status which had given America exorbitant privilege. If the Chinese and Europeans joined hands, they could plausibly replace the U.S. dollar as Reserved Currency.

And Trump has done everything in his power to provoke the Europeans and their politicos out of their complacent subservience to their once American patrons. As much as I like Mark Carney’s revival of ‘non-aligned nations’ notion in his Davos speech, cynical realism suspects that Trump’s animosities will only project another (latent) superpower into an already unstable geopolitical situation, a superpower which will be at times hostile to America, one which will be eventually surpass America in the West, especially after the latter loses Reserved Currency status and it must address the many facets of its decadence.

Blood and Iron

It is not by speeches and majority resolutions that the great questions of the time are decided – that was the big mistake of 1848 and 1849 – but by iron and blood.

– Otto von Bismarck (1862)

History may not repeat. History may not rhyme. Yet there are undoubtedly parallels between epochs. While identifying the proper parallels is possible, the exercise is fraught with errors by those dabbling in historical analogies. Many errors are the result of partisan disingenuity, who posit analogies not motivated by pursuit of truth, but in pursuit of advantage. Yet even for the minority, who honestly seek some framework, however inchoate and porous, by which to understand the times, existential complexities make the task exceedingly difficult.

We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.

Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, is doing his level best to mimic Bismarck. But neither Miller nor his master have anywhere near the same level of Bismarck’s genius. Indeed, neither Miller nor Trump are even at the level of that buffoon, Kaiser Wilhelm II (1888–1918) who dismissed Bismarck in 1890.

Bismarck, at least, recognized the limits of Prussian power and navigated and enhanced Germany’s position within Europe in light of those limits. The Trump administration vastly overestimates America’s relative power.

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.”