CHAPTER 26
CONCLUSION PART I
The Theological Imperative
By Doug Krieger
Pergamos Ministries
The Tribulation Network
www.the-tribulation-network.com
The Theological Imperative (welcomed or not) . . . you’ll have to decide now, not later!
I am about to take you on an obscure journey into an “eschatological food fight” that you might surmise has nothing to do with the “real world” in which we live. To the contrary . . . it is at the very heart of our geopolitical consideration . . . and, to treat it blithely would be an egregious mistake, as you shall see. If you do not think that today’s geopolitical realities taking place in the Middle East, and America’s concomitant ascendancy (economic and political) throughout the earth, are not rooted and interpreted within a theological framework by influential power grids throughout the world, then, dear friend, let me disabuse you of that inane and faulty rationalism. That’s right, the secular observant finds it incomprehensible to contemplate a theological dynamic in all this . . . and if there were one, it’s dangerous and, given time, will be proven absurd! Meanwhile . . . events have overtaken us all . . . wherein neither you nor I, in our surmisings, will impede the inevitable madness descending upon this earthly clod.
Francis A. Schaeffer
The late Francis Schaeffer wrote a riveting thesis entitled How Shall We Then Live? as a response to evangelical accountability and weltanschauung during the social and cultural upheavals of the 1960s and early ‘70s in the West. It was an evaluation and synopsis of Western Civilization’s inexorable march toward world economic, political and cultural dominance, and an exposure of the Church’s fickle and oft confusing response to Western hegemony. He attempted to evaluate, and then challenge, evangelical involvement past, present and future within the context of (using my parlance) the rise of Gentile World Powers.
The probing question: How can the Church’s testimony impact the world around us (both then and now)? The Apostle Peter asked the question: “What kind of people ought you to be?” Schaeffer modernized the question in an attempt to focus believers upon the cultural and revolutionary changes impacting the West—where our society’s norms embraced relativism and shunned absolutes and moral boundaries; thence: How Shall We Then Live?
Carl F.H. Henry
The
late
Kenneth S. Kantzer wrote of the educator and provocative evangelical
theologian, Carl F. H. Henry, that here was a man who “will be remembered as
someone who, in a confusing age, held forth the solid middle of a faith that
fortifies the whole human person against the fraying ends of irrationalism and
superstition.” (Editor’s note: Given Christianity Today’s proclivities
to hold to the “center,” it appears Kantzer’s allusions bespeak of those pesky,
irrational, cultural isolationists: Christian evangelical
fundamentalists—Behold, how they fray at the edges!)
Henry’s comprehensive six-volume “God, Revelation and Authority” is a systematic theology concerning the “God who speaks and shows” (i.e., the nature of religious knowledge) and the “God who independently ‘stands’” as “personal sovereign containing in Himself the ground of His Own experience” (i.e., the “God Who ‘stays’ governs in providence and in eschatological consummation of His dramatic plan for man and the world” . . . excerpts from American Evangelicalism and Carl F. H. Henry (Yun Jung Moon, MWT II, 1998-1999).
Schaeffer and Henry, as heirs of Protestant Reformational Christianity, attempted a modern theological and eschatological synthesis of today’s evangelical (especially those of the West). They were particularly anxious relative to what they perceived to be evangelical fundamentalist isolationism and Premillenarian presuppositions (superstitions?), especially eschewing the political and theological dynamic of the day; thus, they sought to define the apparent fundamentalist problem and attempted to steer a course for evangelical engagement in the cultural and political process (i.e., a more “this worldly” emphasis, juxtaposed to an “other worldly” predisposition).
Theirs was an immediate gratification borne of present consequence and insight . . . little did they know that unleashing the “evangelical genie” (i.e., isolated Southern Evangelicals and their Premillenarian allies outside the Solid South) would create an “engagement” now known and recognized by liberal Christianity as the “Christian Right” . . . not as the “moderate evangelical center” desired by the likes of Donald Wagner but of a zealous pro-Zionist, socially conservative voting block which, much to Wagner’s chagrin, ardently backs the current President of the USA, George W. Bush, and, ipso facto, his Middle East preemptive policies and projections.
Donald Wagner and the Neo-Evangelicals
It
is not surprising that the inheritors of Protestant Evangelicalism and its
theological proponents (e.g., Schaeffer and Henry) would produce the likes of
Donald Wagner. Wagner’s organization (Mercy Corps International) advocates for
Palestinian rights (but as a religious NGO, enjoys the federal governments’
ability to dole out humanitarian grants).
Wagner, who purports to be an evangelical, currently holds (since 2000) an adjunct position at the American Islamic College in Chicago . . . his career bespeaks of “mainline evangelicalism” (neo-evangelicalism?) akin to that of Drs. Henry and Schaeffer, to wit: Mr. Wagner’s teaching experience prior to North Park consisted of adjunct positions at McCormick Theological Seminary in 1977 and 1978, at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary fall of 1987, at Lutheran School of Theology, spring 1997 and at Chicago’s North Park College 1994-1995. Since the fall of 1995 he’s held the position of Associate Professor in Biblical and Theological Studies at North Park University and from that vantage functioned as Executive Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies; finally, in July 2001, he was named Director of the new Institute for Christianity, Faith and Culture at North Park University. In the 1960s Wagner was intensely involved in Presbyterian activities both in connection with Princeton and sundry Presbyterian churches in the Northeast. It would be safe to conjecture that his theological training is Postmillenarian Calvinism (i.e., traditional Reformational eschatology).
SO . . . . . . What’s this got to do with the Antichrist and the Gog-Magog War?
. . . As an old friend of mine once said: “Much in every way!” How one, especially a believer in Christ, views the world in which he/she lives, is precisely how they will, in the main, relate to it (and still pay the bills). A defining moment in world and religious history is approaching believers throughout the world, but, in particular, those within the framework of Western culture—especially its “religious culture” which is Christianity.
The
ascendancy of evangelical fundamentalist social and political engagement as
envisioned by Henry’s eschatological prognostications, and encouraged by
Schaeffer’s quest for affirmative evangelical persuasion (though now bemoaned by
Wagner’s eschatological biases), in the midst of societal change, has brought
traditional Euro-Reformational Protestantism and its immediate heir,
American-Puritan/Great Awakening Evangelicalism, into a theological conundrum
with those newly enfranchised Christian Evangelical Fundamentalists (like
William Jennings Bryant and
Lewis Sperry Chafer) that has economic, political and even military
ramifications—
overshadowing domestic considerations like abortion, the death penalty, same sex
marriage, the poor, equity issues, etc.
Likewise, because of their
cultural proximity, Catholic and Orthodox believers in North America (not so
much in post-Christian Europe), are 
similarly
swept into this theological imperative, to wit: The unavoidable “cup of
trembling” affecting the nations (especially the USA) . . . it is one thing to
belabor issues of a “just war” in Southeast Asia, but wholly a different ordeal
to contemplate an altogether dissimilar consequence within the geographical
confines of the West’s religious and political origins!
“Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness (lit. “reeling” or the same reaction one’s body experiences from a poisonous brew, cf. Isaiah 51:17) . . . and it shall happen in that day I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it . . . it shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. . . and I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me, the pierced one (“whom they pierced”). Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn” (Zechariah 12:2-3, 9-10).
SOCIAL JUSTICE vs. POLITICAL REALITY
Try as they (i.e., Wagner, Schaeffer and Henry)
may to dissuade their Premillenarian compatriots from their “Zionist excesses,”
the “eschatological dynamics” espoused by their erstwhile theological comrades
(e.g., within
Christian Reconstructionism, Replacement Theologians, 
Kingdom
Now, Post-Millenarians, and similar minded Dominionists like Cornelius Van Til
(who, like Wagner, taught theology at Princeton University), Rousas John
Rushdonny, Gary North (photo), et al) will have to decide where they stand when
it comes to Jerusalem’s prophetical time clock.
You see, time is running out. Ultimately, and real soon, the nations will come to utterly despise the recalcitrant Jew . . . especially the likes of Sharon, his settlers, and religious Zionists (especially the American Jews who’ve taken their Aliyah most zealously). Worse yet, the evangelical world, the Christian world, will come dragging and kicking but finally facing the inevitable, as they, one and all, reel under the spiritual consequences of Jerusalem’s cup!
Soon, very soon, this whole quest to impact upon Gentile World Powers will come crashing down upon the Church. How Shall We Then Live?
Moses has come down from the Mount . . . the children frolic and despise the God Who speaks into their lives, into their generation. The Tablets are about to be thrown upon us all and the earth opens up to receive its final rebellion! Who is on the Lord’s side? And, what “side” might that be?
It is far simpler, and so much more intellectually sophisticated, to obfuscate such terminal contemplations . . . isn’t the world far more complex than this? Shouldn’t we hold the “center” and refrain ourselves from the volatile excesses of religious history? Wouldn’t it be prudent to stretch the Church’s tent to include all religious priorities, while somehow maintaining our own religious integrity? Can’t someone come up with a sane, ecumenical formula wherein we all can just get along?
Here’s your answer: I WILL MAKE JERUSALEM A CUP OF TREMBLING TO ALL THE SURROUNDING PEOPLES! Embedded within the context of Zechariah’s prophetical pronouncement is the eschatological immediacy of what the Bible entombs: The Gog-Magog Conflagration. You may not like it . . . but it’s staring you right in the face!
In Wagner’s writings on behalf of grants received from Arab/Islamic interests, he gleefully finds solace in the demise of Premillennialists who no longer can point to the “invasion from Russia” as the sine qua non of Ezekiel’s 38-39 Gog-Magog War. Alas! Wagner’s worst fears have befallen him. . . his theological foes, notwithstanding the mid/neo-evangelical, nor their radical Christian Reconstructionist battalions’ protestations to the contrary, now face their Premillenarian Evangelical Fundamentalist brethren who have discovered that their prophetical interpretations were simply “geographically” a little off.
Instead,
as it turns out, a more LITERAL accounting of the Bible’s declaration
should have been considered, to wit: “To all the surrounding peoples,
when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem” (Zechariah 12:2). Now such
“Premillenarian Adjustments” are disingenuous chicanery in so far as Wagner and
his allegorical minions are concerned; for, they delight in ascribing God’s
progressive revelations of grace found in Holy Writ solely to a resurgent and
triumphal Christianity, and not to a disinherited, Christ-rejecting Israel, and
surely not to a bunch of “Secular Jews” and their racist theories on Zionism.
WAGNER, ET AL, ARE IN ORBIT REGARDING THE CONSTELLATION
Again, the constellation of ancient tribal names, and even modern states comprising Gog’s allies (i.e., Magog) designated in the various alliances formed and expounded upon in this text, are so convincing—even the likes of Wagner would have to admit (though I doubt he would)—it does appear amazing and foreboding! Modern Turkey, Iran (Persia), Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Libya (Put), and Cush/Kush (Sudan) are rapidly coalescing in alliance against the West and her surrogate, Israel.
Furthermore, it is just as geopolitically spectacular that those nations which find themselves aligning with the Merchants of Tarshish (the West, headed up by the “little horn” …the USA) . . . Jordan (Ammon, Moab and Edom), Sheba and Dedan (the nations of the Arabian Peninsula, like Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, the Gulf States, etc.) and the omission of Babylon’s leading” nexus, Iraq—simply cannot be coincidental. In particular, those who have the most to lose (Sheba and Dedan) protesteth the most in concert with the Merchants of Tarshish regarding Gog’s economic intentions, to wit:
“Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you, ‘Have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your army to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?’” (Ezekiel 38:13)
The
motivation appears economic . . . for the “Merchants of the Earth” welcome “his”
efforts at Democratic Globalism. They relish the SPOILS of war as much as
“he.” But, think not that the King of Tyre (who through the “abundance of his
merchandising, iniquity was found in you”) aspires for the “hidden treasures”
alone. No, no . . . listen again, and you will surely know from whence spring
his intrusive involvements:
“Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child . . . and the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ . . . (Revelation 12:13, 17) . . . when they (the Two Witnesses) finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them (Revelation 11:7) . . .
“Why do the nations (Gentiles) rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Messiah, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.’ He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: ‘Yet I have set My King on My only Hill of Zion.’ I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel. Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him” (Psalm 2)
Premillenarians and their “Pragmatic Doctrines of Zionism”
Wagner,
along with bewildered and disgruntled evangelical academicians (so-called), is
outraged over the hermeneutical conclusions his/their eschatological antagonists
(especially the likes of John Walvoord, see photo) derive from these passages.
Furthermore, the traditional Protestant Evangelicals hold the greater distain
for those who should know better (i.e., Robert Gundry and Robert D. Culver).
Finally, they, along with their eschatological allies amongst the Preterists and
Historicists, hold in utter academic contempt the superfluous, supercilious, and
superficial marketers amongst the Premillenarians who have wrongfully
popularized the Dispensational Premillenarian “doctrines of Zionism” (e.g., Hal
Lindsey and Tim LaHaye). Would the lot of them to have been “Left Behind” long
ago! Oh that the Church had never heard of the likes of John Nelson Darby and
one deluded soul, C. I. Scofield! Or, for that matter, that President Harrison
had not been lobbied by William E. Blackstone and his ilk prior to the first
Zionist Congress held in the early 1890s in Basal, Switzerland, urging that the
Jews be regathered to their ancient homeland, displacing Wagner’s
Palestinian/Christian and Moslem Arabs, to wit:
“In 1891, Blackstone drew up a petition calling for the creation of a national homeland in Palestine (after visiting Palestine in 1889) for the 2 million oppressed Jews of Russia. ‘According to God’s distribution of nations,’ Blackstone’s petition read, "[Palestine] is their home – an inalienable possession from which they were expelled by force. … Let us now restore them to the land of which they were so cruelly despoiled by our Roman ancestors.’ More than 400 prominent individuals signed Blackstone’s appeal, including the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and Melville W. Fuller, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The petition was submitted to President Benjamin Harrison. In May of 1916, Blackstone sponsored another petition, this one to President Woodrow Wilson asking him to advocate for a Jewish homeland when World War I ended. This later petition was signed by Andrew D. White, president of Cornell University, retail magnate John Wanamaker and Rabbi Judah L. Magnes, chairman of the Kehillah of New York City.” (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/chicago.html)
Then,
to top it off, to have this crass businessman,
William Eugene Blackstone, persuade Zionism’s founder, Theodore Herzl, to
consider only ancient Palestine as the ultimate homeland for the diasporic
Jew—having the “deceptive audacity” to quote Hebrew prophetic passages
substantiating his argument in order to thwart Jewish considerations of Uganda
as a “home for the Jews”—prophetic passages long concluded by Origin, Augustine,
Luther, Calvin and other enlightened progressives to have been “spiritually
appropriated” by the inheritor of God’s grace, the Church!
Why, oh why, would these pugnacious evangelical fundamentalists take their Biblical literalism to such extremes? Don’t they realize how dangerous and “off message” is their embrace of the Jew, to the seeming exclusion of Arabs, especially Christian Arabs . . . how racist can they be? Surely, Pat Boone can be persuaded to think otherwise . . . and, once the “sympathy vote” produced by the Holocaust and Hitler’s “War Against the Jews” wears off, then will the world of evangelical fundamentalism see that the true Israel (a.k.a., the Church) is naught but the beneficiary of God’s continuing grace among the peoples of the earth?
YOU’LL HAVE TO MAKE A DECISION . . .
Friend (including Neo-Evangelicals, Catholics, Orthodox, et al) there really aren’t a whole lot of options left. Those of you “out there” who claim forgiveness through the Cross of Christ must come to terms with a very limited set of alternatives: (1) Hang together, or most assuredly hang separately—Biblically, that will be a very delimiting, as well as defining moment, for us all; (2) “Despise not the root (Israel) that bore thee” or conclude that the sliver of land along the eastern edge of the Mediterranean is naught but a fluke of history or a Zionist Conspiracy; or worse yet, a “Christian-Jewish Zionist Conspiracy” and worthy of moral, civil, and academic outrage; or, (3) Conclude, either way, that the Bible’s eschatology as interpreted by the aforesaid “theological antagonists” abides on the side of Israel’s ingathering from the nations, or is overwhelmed by humanitarian and social prerogatives negating Israel’s claims to peculiarity and “chosenness”. . . this last option (unfortunately for neoevangelicals) holds no middle/compromised ground or resolution, unless you deign to consider the “Treaty with Death and Hell” a viable alternative to irrational, Christian Fundamentalist exuberance—notwithstanding the fervent pleas of the “peacemakers” whose blessed attempts at balance and unity in the face of prophetic inevitabilities inadvertently heap contempt upon the Word which conflict with their naïve aspirations, and not with the prophets who, in their time, stood against it all!
Oh, the ecumenical outrage that echoes through the corridors of time against the bombastic, iconoclastic gyrations of the prophet! “‘How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him’ . . . but the people answered him (Elijah) not a word” (I Kings 18:21).
Now,
let us consider the precipitous consequences which await the Gentile World
Powers, the Church, and Israel at the
close of this age . . . . for the hoof beats of the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse can be heard by him whose ear is close to terra firma and who
understand the “Signs of the Time.”
They who scoff at the “Promise of His Coming” proclaim balance, measured response, rational consideration, and, finally, seek “peace and safety” throughout the land, are to be commended? Yet, are they perhaps reaching out for this final deception as the last best hope for humanity, so desperate is their final solution, their incessant yearning for lasting peace and safety?
Well, he comes in that “spirit” just like he always has, promising much, but behind the White Horse of his falsehoods come the Red Horse of War, the Black Horse of Famine and Disparity of Wealth, and finally, the Pale Horse of Death! Beware of him who comes bearing such gifts, who proclaims peace throughout the land . . . . Wait for Him who “will so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).
NEW EVIDENCE THAT DEMANDS A VERDICT
Josh McDowell’s classic apologetic, New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, is a sequel to his initial text which omits “New.” Indeed, infidels were loathe to challenge McDowell’s apologetics; thence, McDowell’s “second coming” continues to compile overwhelming evidence (and, I’m sure his critics will launch their vociferous counter attacks).
Yes, the “action/reaction cycle” tends to refine the debate, sharpening the fencer’s ability to parry and thrust through repeated exercise.
Even so, the eschatological ramifications and demands presented herein, I contend, are not the rant of a deranged or demented mind struggling with his demons off in some Saudi Arabian cave! Skeptics and scoffers, infidels and religionists, welcomed or not, are encouraged (though most can’t wait) to intrude hereon; however, my axiom should not be dismissed out of hand, to wit: The Theological Imperative demands a verdict; and, its action corollary—How Shall We Then Live?—suggests neutrality is not an option, given the parameters of the debate are soon to implode into intellectual oblivion as geopolitical realities extinguish our peripheral civilities.
Decide? That’s neither intellectually honest nor feasible. Alas! The infidels, burdened with their altruistic baggage, weighted down by their “objectivity” (which should be healthy for them) simply cannot countenance such preposterous conclusions to the course of human history. Surely, all this can be reasonably explained? Well, as they say: “You can prove anything from the Bible?” Right?
Listen, if you’re watching this “eschatological food fight” from the sidelines . . . history will find you and demand your involvement. “Multitudes, multitudes in the Valley of Decision, for the Day of the Lord is at hand in the Valley of Decision!” You’re headed down the slippery slope of amoral rationalism and disgust for all things supernatural . . . in so doing you’re inadvertently committing yourself to, of all things, NONCOMMITMENT! But, mercifully, you, along with the rest of humanity will find yourself in the aforementioned Valley—and, as it turns out, it’ll be a box canyon with no escape!
NAZI GERMANY, LIBERALISM, AND JACOB’S TROUBLE
Increasingly, the Left and the Right blur their contempt toward the chosenness of that presumptuous people: the Jews. Now, they have become a glaring target of political extremities—extremities which daily broaden their composite appeal against the sectarian particularism of Israel’s materiality (and I mean secular and religious complicity against Abraham’s persistence).
The draconian methodologies of the Prince of Darkness to extinguish this potential “Light to the Gentiles” is in and of itself full of inexplicable irrational notions which caused the likes of the atheist, existential philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, to suggest a somewhat oxymoronic conclusion in his Le diable et le bon dieu (“The Devil and the Good Lord”), to wit: The Devil’s existence was secure! The Holocaust and WW II erased any prejudice towards the personification of evil! Indeed, Sartre’s original play, No Exit, set in the Hotel Hell (1944), made people into a “fireless hell” but gradually, as post-war discoveries demanded, behind man’s inhumanity toward man, was the spiritual creep deserving of Sartre’s utter contempt: Satan!
NEW ESCATHOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES DEMAND A VERDICT
“Although I (Daniel the Prophet) heard, I did not understand. Then I said, ‘My lord, what shall be the end of these things?’ And he said, ‘Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand” (Daniel 12:9-10).
Interesting, isn’t it, how persecution tends to clarify the distant blur of the forest . . . the closer the observation, the more distinguishing the individuality of the trees that are viewed? Strange use of metaphor? Not so . . . for the closer we come to the “end of these things” the more pronounced are the discoveries, until the men once seen “as trees” are, through the healing process of divine intervention, seen for what they really are: MEN!
Hitler’s Holocaust, Liberalism’s Assimilation, and the “Final Subterfuge” known as “Your Covenant with Death . . . your Agreement with Hell (Sheol)” have, are, and will be the Dragon’s trident to “persecute the woman who gave birth to the male Child” (Revelation 12:13) . . . and this is of nefarious intensity during the time of Jacob’s Trouble as Daniel’s fulfillment melds with John’s Revelation: “Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly . . . now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman . . . for a time and times and half a time (though she be protected) . . . so the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman (assimilation?) that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood . . . and the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus (the final half of Daniel’s 70th Week?)” (Daniel 12:10; Revelation 12:13a, 15-17).
“The Theological Imperative?” Remember, was it not the writings of one, Dr. Martin Luther, (“The Jews and Their Lies”) that wrought the eve of Krystalnacht?
“It is impossible for modern people to read the horrible passages below (Note: Referring to Luther’s diatribes against the Jews) and not to think of the burning of synagogues in November 1938 on Krystalnacht. Nor would one wish to excuse Luther for this text.” (© Paul Halsall, June 1997, halsall@murray.fordham.edu)
Hitlerian religiosities hold a formidable blame for the Holocaust; however, the vacuous and amoral secularizations of European thought wrought by decades of “enlightenment” made the heart of civilized Europe vulnerable to the dark side of social evolution and the insanity of anti-Semitism.
The Theological Imperative . . . ?
“In short, Zionism was based on a faulty, colonialist world view that the rights of the indigenous inhabitants didn't matter. The Arabs' opposition to Zionism wasn't based on anti-Semitism but rather on a totally reasonable fear of the dispossession of their people.” (The Origin of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East, 3rd. Edition, 2000)
At all costs, avoid the “Theological Imperative?” because the rational mind simply cannot tolerate Zionism’s religious justifications (perhaps its secular relief, but most definitely not its theological embarrassments).
Ultimately, even for the secular Jew (i.e., the Israeli Left), or Ultra-Orthodox Jews’ abhorrence toward the Israeli State, circumvention of the “Theological Imperative” must either be neglected or abused—whichever is the more reasonable or religiously prudent.
Notwithstanding those considerations outside the prevue of the Church’s “food fight” relative to Israel’s “Theological Imperative” . . . my immediate audience of religionists bears the brunt of my rant. It is to them that the Valley of Decision regarding the pending Gog-Magog Scenario bears utmost deliberation and verdict. One thing is certain . . . if you have coursed through this repetitive, and sometimes redundant barrage, you’ll have hopefully prejudiced your weltanschauung. The Bible’s predilections toward inevitability will not go away . . . US policy, energy peak, and “economic pop” are about to shake anything that can be shaken upon this earth!