Shadowboxing the Apocalypse

Once again I find myself rubbing shoulders with “patriots” and “American Sovereigns” and the old, once forgotten vocabulary is reasserting itself into my consciousness.  I have always shrugged off some of the absurdities of the terminology; I am not me, I am a legal fiction; my name is not my name, it is the name of a corporation; the government is not legal; our money is not real money (but if I sign my name to an IOU, that IS real money); and on and on.

I have even sat quietly as those about me asserted that George Bush personally planned and directed the attack on the Twin Towers to provide an excuse to go to war with Iraq.  Why?  For the oil, of course!  No one has explained to me where W. is putting this oil. In a barn in Crawford, Texas?

But now I am hearing something I cannot abide and about which I cannot remain silent.  And that is, that the Jews are not really Jews and the modern nation of Israel has nothing to do with the prophesied restoration of Israel because it is being run by Zionists who believe the Talmud rather than Judaistic adherents of Torah. 

Now, there are just all kinds of things wrong with this kind of thinking.

First of all, if I claim to be a Bible-believing Christian and I want to know who is a “true Jew,” I only need to look to the sons of Esau and Ishmael to help me locate them.  It will be the people that is most detested, held in the most contempt, and for whom the most animosity is displayed.  Yep.  See how easy it is?

Since it doesn’t make sense, there must be some deeper reason why it becomes so important for these “Christians” to distance themselves from the historic victims of the Inquisition, the Pogroms, and the Holocaust (easily identifiable and traceable—this is the Diaspora that has streamed into the nation of Israel since the refounding of the nation in 1948).  What could the reason be?

As far as I can see, they are motivated by the same hate for the U.S. government in general and George W. Bush in particular that drives Cindy Sheehan and her fellow ditch-dwellers camped out in Crawford, Texas.

This, with a healthy dose of racism, known as the “Christian Identity” movement or the “Israel Identity” movement seems to explain a lot.  These “identity” movements are nothing more or less than blatant racism (many can be traced to the White Supremacist movement) attempting to demonstrate that white, Bible-believing Christians in America are the “true Israel” and the Jews currently in the nation of Israel are half demonic imposters who are not to be supported in any way shape or form.

The intellectual and scriptural contortions one must subject oneself to in order to actually come to a place of believing this are almost beyond imagining.

It seems once one has taken this position, it is just a hop, skip, and a jump to the position that the Apostle Paul was an imposter and that he is not the great Apostle God used to establish the church throughout Asia Minor, but is in fact the greatest corrupter of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that ever walked on two legs.  This is the “new thing” being promoted by Sherry Shriner, Harry Walther, Zeph Daniel, and a host of others.  If you don’t know who these people are, it’s quite alright. 

But what impresses me most is how wonderfully and masterfully the Word of God has been woven, like an intricate tapestry—such that an effort to eliminate even one line eventually causes the entire book to unravel in your hands.  For example, these “Identity-ists” find it necessary to defuse Romans 9 through 11:25. To achieve this, they have to eliminate all of the writings of Paul. But having made a devil out of Paul, they also lose the book of Acts, and to accomplish this (the discrediting of Luke), one also loses one of the four Gospels.  The New Testament now consists of Matthew, Mark, John, and Hebrews through Revelation.

But wait.  Paul’s authorship of Hebrews, although denied by mainline scholars is almost a certainty, and if it is not authored by Paul it is certainly authored by a Pauline wantabee.  So let’s strike Hebrews as well.  But it gets worse.  Peter insists that the letters Paul has written are to be accepted as scripture (II Peter 3:15, 16).  He goes further to say that those who try to twist the writings of Paul to suit their own needs do so at the risk of their own damnation!

No problem.  We can appeal to the textual critics who doubt the Peterine authorship of the epistles ascribe to Peter (as they doubt all things attested to in Scripture).

And if one accepts the argument they use to discredit the writings of Paul, namely that the things he teaches contradict the teachings of Jesus, one could easily make the same arguments against the writings of John.  After all, nowhere in the two gospels that agree did Jesus say anything about a “new birth,” the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or being “saved by faith” as John proposes in John 3:16 and elsewhere.  This concept of being “saved by faith” is said by Sherry Shriner and her ilk to be the most reprehensible false teaching of Paul. Therefore, the gospel of John can be shown to wholly Pauline in its teachings.  So let’s toss all of the writings of John.  Our New Testament now consists of Matthew, Mark, James, and Jude.  We could eliminate the gospel of Mark through his association with Peter, who we have already had to dump.  And it is questionable whether Jude was one of the 12 apostles, leaving Matthew and James.  

Some New Testament!

Don’t mess with Texas… and leave that New Testament alone.  God has it booby-trapped so that you either take the New Testament as whole, or lose the whole thing.

Or as the Grateful Dead sang

The world continues to press on toward Armegeddon.

The Israeli government will begin its forced evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza strip this week.

What a monumental mistake! The Lord God the Holy One of Israel has returned the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to the land which He promised to their fathers, and for the first time in history the leaders of the people are voluntarily giving the land away, abandoning it to the enemies of Israel, God, and all that is good.

Could this be the very "covenant with death" the Lord spoke of in Isaiah 28:15-18, which He said He would "disannul." It certainly has every indication of being suicidal. After all, there will be no peace with the Palestinians. Not ever. Have you ever heard a Palestinian proposal for a Palestinian state and a secure Israel. Why, of course not. The Palestinians are totally of one mind and one accord in their determination to utterly destroy every Jewish man, woman, and child in Israel. And you're going to appease this bunch by surrending a few settlements?

This is going to be a hell of a week.

A hell of week.

We've been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Watch this! For when they say "Peace," then sudden destruction shall come upon them.

Sudden.

Destruction.

The pullout from the settlements, they say, are intended to result in... peace! Hold on to your hat. Fasten your seat belts. The wheel is turning and you can't slow it down. It won't be long now.