Posted by
heresyarch's Contra Mundum on Sunday, January 15, 2012 10:44:57 AM
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
-Major General Smedley Butler
I have been reflecting upon pro-life Christians like Gary Bauer this sabbath, who do not support the most peace loving, anti-war candidate, Ron Paul, but instead endorse warmongers like Rick Santorum. At the Christian bookstore, I perused a book written by David Jeremiah who thinks the US should "bless" Israel by having the US army intervene militarily. He has a chapter in the book entitled that he is shocked that we would abandon Israel....as though not intervening on Israel's behalf is abandoning her. I come away disgusted at what passes for Christianity.....Some thoughts:
1) The nation of Israel (ethnic Israel) is not True Israel. True Israel is made up of followers of Christ. Romans 9:6-8, Gal 3:29
2) There are No false divisions within Abraham seed: " neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." See Col 3:11, Gal 3:28
3) Gentiles are being grafted into True Israel.. Romans 11:17-19. The church has always been those who lived by faith, keeping God's covenants. (Is 56:3,6-7, Romans 2:28-29). The church of believers is the bride of Christ. There is only one bride. Israel is a type, a foreshadow of God's plan which has greater fulfillment and meaning with expanded land boundaries to the entire world. (Hebrews 10, Matthew 28:18-20)
4) Therefore true Israel is the Church, consisting of both Jews (primarily in the 1st century), and later Gentiles as they were grafted in. Today, True Israel consists mostly of Gentiles, but Jews continue to be converted. See Romans 9:6-8, Phil 3:3
There is no plan A for Christians and Plan B for Jews. There are no false divisions created by dispensational theology (Eph 2:11-16) There was only plan A that began with Jews, and was fulfilled (land promises, and making descendents of Abraham as numerous as the stars were fulfilled in particular). But the promises of the Old Covenant has greater meaning and fulfillment with Christ. (Hebrews 10:1). The new land promises extend far beyond the boundaries of Palestine. The shadow of the land promises of Palestine have become the reality: the world (John 3:16, Matthew 28:18-20).
So why again do evangelicals want to use the US military to protect Israel? To usher in the millenium by US military force? Didn't Jesus repudiate such thinking? See Matthew 26:52-54
Gentlemen, the following link shows some of the inevitable consequences of war. Don't be so damned naive. War is wicked and dehumanizes human beings, destroys property and lives, uproots families, and leaves children fatherless, and destroys man's moral sensibilities. Our armed forces come home confused, and suicidal:
We lose far more lives to heart disease, or cancer, or just falling down than terrorism. 1 in 5 will die of heart disease. 1 in 7 will die of cancer. 1 in 23 will die of a stroke, 1 in 36 of an accidental injury. 1 in 100 will die in a car accident. Comparatively, Reason Magazine reports your odds of dying in a terrorist attack at 1 in 1.7million. If 9-11 occurred every year, then it would be 1 in 100,000. Over your entire life of 9-11 annual attacks, the odds would be 1 in 1300......you are still far more likely to die from a car accident.
Is it worth all the moral ambiguities and the 2+ trillion to fight these wars on faulty premises?
When will Christians wake up and realize that war is not the lesser evil....its is the greater evil. It enlarges the state as God. It destroys liberty. There is nothing good.