Antisemitism is always evil. Genocide is always evil. The context doesn’t matter. Don’t do it.

Don’t hide behind the assertion that words and acts of hate are protected by “Freedom of Speech”.

Don’t hide behind the assertion that words and acts of hate are protected by “the Context”. This is moral relativism at its worst.

Don’t waffle in your denunciation of—and opposition to—Antisemitism!

Don’t waffle in your denunciation of—and opposition to—Genocide!

Don’t be lukewarm when confronted by such evils!

Jesus is witnessing your excuses and inactions. He says, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:15-16).

Instead of being lukewarm, be clear and forceful: denounce and oppose Antisemitism and Genocide.

Speak plainly. Say what you mean. And mean what you say.

As Jesus said, “Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No’” (Matthew 5:37).

Moreover, a context that links Antisemitism with Genocide is especially evil. Why? Because in the horrors of the Holocaust, we saw the effects of Antisemitism linked with Genocide!

More than five million innocent people murdered. Sadistic “medical” research. Sadistic starvation. Sadistic slave labor.

How can we overcome the evils of Antisemitism or Genocide?

Never forget the Holocaust. Never downplay the Holocaust.

Visit a Holocaust Remembrance Museum, especially the Museums in Washington, D.C. and Jerusalem.

Hear and understand. See and perceive. Remove the callouses from your heart so you can hear, see and fear the outcomes of Antisemitism and Genocide. (Isaiah 6:9-13).

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:22)—in your life, your family, your church, your business, politics, governments, nations, civilizations, and all Humanity. (Romans 12:21).

Work to establish the ideal America that was first discovered in the hearts of Abraham, Moses and Jesus:

—Blessing ALL people;

—Challenging ALL pharaohs to let ALL people be free;

—Healing ALL hurting people; and

—Insisting  ALL means ALL!!!

Why must ALL people mean ALL people? Meditate upon:

—Genesis 1:28 (“God created [Humanity] in his own image,

     in the image of God he created them;

     male and female he created them.”).

—John 3:16 KJV (“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”);

—Acts 10:28 (Peter said “God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean”; and

—“First They Came” by Pastor Martin Niemoller (1946) (there are different versions of this quote because Niemoller said it on a number of occasions with some variations; this version is a quote from the inscription at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; other versions mention Communists, People with Mental and Physical Disabilities, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.)

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

     because I was not a Socialst.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—

     because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

     because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—

     and there was no one left to speak for me.”

QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT

What do you know about Antisemitism? How? Why?

What do you know about Genocide? How? Why?

What do you know about the Holocaust? How? Why?

READ MORE

When applying Wisdom, context is often essential. We need to curve at appropriate times to stay on the Interstate Highway of Wisdom. (Please read Appendices 1-4 of my book The Promised Land, at pages 153-184, especially Appendix 2 “How To Apply the Bible to Specific Matters”, at pages 160-164.)

But there is no such curving at appropriate times when Antisemitism or Genocide are involved. Following the Way of Antisemitism and Genocide is like leaving the Way of Jesus, driving across the meridian that separates lanes of traffic, and crashing head-on into the on-coming traffic.

Why?

Because the lanes in the Way of Jesus are heading towards the fruit of the Spirit of the LORD: love, joy and peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) (See my blog “The Labyrinth of Light”).

But the lanes in the Way of Antisemitism and Genocide are indulging evil ways: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like (Galatians 5:19-21)—an accurate depiction of Nazi Germany! (See my blog “The Labyrinth of Darkness”).

Some of the most challenging and difficult passages in the Bible are the passages commanding Moses and Joshua to commit genocide.

In that portion of my book The Promised Land, at pages 131-136, I discuss various approaches to reconcile God abounding in love (Exodus 34:6-7; 1 John 4:16) with God ordering Moses and Joshua to exterminate the Canaanites physically and culturally.

Most of these approaches interpret the physical “killing” as spiritual “killing” (opposing evil as illustrated by expelling the Canaanites from the Promised Land, rather than literally killing the Canaanites).

There is no dispute (either in the text of the Bible nor among scholars) that many of the Canaanites continued to live in the Promised Land for a number of generations after the time of Moses and Joshua. Furthermore, there is little archaeological evidence that a mass genocide occurred in Canaan around the time that the Israelites entered the Promised Land.

In light of the current disputes and violence between Israelis and Palestinians, it is also essential to emphasize that the pagan Canaanites whose ways Moses and Joshua denounced are NOT similar to the Muslim and Christian Palestinians of today who—like the Jews—are spiritual and/or  physical descendants of Abraham who was commanded by God to inhabit the Promised Land to bless all peoples. (Genesis 12:1-3; my books The Promised Land, Healing the Promised Land, Hoping in the LORD, Lighting the World, Visions of America, and Visions of the Church).

My final point bears emphasizing in a world where Russia’s Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un are threatening to use nuclear weapons; where about a half dozen other nations (including Israel) have sufficient nuclear warheads and delivery systems to destroy other nations; and where China and the United States are improving and/or expanding their nuclear warheads and delivery systems to improve their capabilities to fight a nuclear war.

As I first wrote in the 1990s, and first published in 2004 in The Promised Land, at pages 134-135:

[W]e should be less concerned with condemning what Joshua did more than 3,000 years ago than with finding the wisdom today to prevent wars and to eliminate all weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons can kill more people in a few moments than Joshua killed in an entire lifetime of warfare. Furthermore, such weapons are so universal in their destructive power that there is no chance to save innocent people such as Rahab and her family.

Indeed, since the 1990s the dangers of the destruction of civilization and Humanity have increased exponentially. We not only face destruction from nuclear weapons. We also face destruction from Climate Change, Cyberattacks, and Artificial Intelligence.

Such dangers risk the destruction of the infrastructure and ideals that enable a civilization to survive, thrive, and, in God’s good time and in God’s good way, become a civilization that is good, that is very good.