Yom Kippur Sermon 5769

defending the First Amendment against the Christian right ...

... because if Jews don't speak out, they'll think we don't mind

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Yom Kippur Sermon 5769

A critical analysis of the Jewish alliance with the Christian Right regarding Israel

By Rabbi Caryn Broitman, Yom Kippur 2008

Caryn Broitman is the Rabbi of the Martha's Vineyard Hebrew Center and has served there since 2003. She was the founding Rabbi of Congregation Tzedek v'Shalom in Newtown, Pennsylvania from 1996 – 2003. She is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

In one of the more surprising speeches of 2007, Joe Lieberman, the most well-known and most observant Jewish member of the Senate, used a Hebrew phrase from the Torah reserved for Moses and applied it to Evangelical Pastor John Hagee: “He is an ‘Ish Elokim,’ a man of God,” Lieberman said, “and those words really do fit him; and, I’d add something else,” Lieberman continued, “like Moses he’s become the leader of a mighty multitude, even greater than the multitude that Moses led from Egypt to the promised land.”¹

Pastor Hagee, the “ish elokim” or man of God to whom Senator Lieberman referred, is the leader of an 18,000 member Evangelical Church in San Antonio, Texas. The great multitude Lieberman referred to is the organization Hagee created 2 years ago called Christians United for Israel or CUFI. The lobbying organization boasts a membership of over 50,000 pastors and their congregations. Their “Nights to Honor Israel” are held at evangelical Churches all over the country. Lieberman gave his speech at such a “Night” held in Washington.

What is so surprising about Lieberman’s words? Certainly people of other religions can be people of God. Perhaps it surprising because John Hagee is a literal believer in apocalyptic prophecies that predict violent punishment at the end of time for Jews who reject Jesus. That would include Joe.

Perhaps it is surprising because Hagee is a member of the religious right whose domestic agenda is far from what the majority of American Jews believe to be core Jewish values. Actually, Jews consistently poll as the most liberal of any ethnic or religious group in America, including those who self-identify as secular, when measured on a range of issues such as separation of Church and State, abortion rights, Gay rights, the environment, and anti-poverty measures. Senator Lieberman himself is liberal on all these issues. So why would he be present at such an event and speak so effusively about Pastor Hagee. And if it were simply about appreciating the friendship of Christian Americans toward Israel, why would Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism call on Reform congregations to distance themselves from CUFI and not cooperate with Nights to Honor Israel?²

Senator Lieberman represents a view that an alliance with the Christian right around Israel and Iran is important for advancing policy he believes is in the interest of Israeli and American security. There are Jews who oppose this alliance, sometimes out of a discomfort with speaking about politics from a faith perspective—a discomfort I generally do not share, and sometimes out of a stereotyping of evangelicals, which I also do not share. It is important, nevertheless, to examine this alliance critically, as Rabbi Yoffie does, because the issues of Israeli security and the security threat of Iran are of vital importance to Jews, and we need to speak to these issues out of a clear sense of our Jewish values.

The beginning of this evangelical-Jewish alliance around Israel goes back to the aftermath of the Six Day War but intensified in the late 1970’s. At that time, two concurrent political developments were taking place in Israel and in the United States: the election of Menachem Begin and the rise of Likud party in Israel; and the rise of the Moral Majority and the religious right in the United States. The Likud party is a secular party, but it emphasizes Jewish rights over the whole of the Biblical land of Israel including the West Bank. Begin made an alliance with the nationalist religious movements of Israel such as Gush Emunim to promote the religious settlement movement on the West Bank. President Jimmy Carter, however, was pressuring Begin to negotiate with Palestinians based on a principle of land for Peace. Begin needed American allies to counter this pressure and who better than Christians who believe, as Pastor Hagee says, that Israel is the only country established by God himself and that “any nation that forces Israel to divide up their land will experience the judgment of God.”³ It was a match made in heaven.

When Menachem Begin became Prime Minister, he made it a point to cultivate relationships with the American religious right. He became good friends with Jerry Falwell, inviting him and hundreds of other evangelical pastors for trips to Israel at the expense of the Israeli government. Falwell responded with endorsements of the Likud Party’s strategy of building Israeli Settlements throughout the West Bank. Begin’s government later gave Falwell his own jet to make his travels to Israel easier.⁵ Falwell and other leaders of the religious right, including Hal Lindsey, Pat Robertson, and Oral Roberts came through when they were needed by Likud politicians to lobby for their policies. In 1998 when Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came on a state visit to the United States, his first stop was to see leaders of the religious right, such as Ralph Reed director of the Christian Coalition. “We have no greater friends and allies,” he said to them, than the people sitting in this room.”⁶

Netanyahu’s statement may be startling to some, but it does make sense if one’s priority for Israel is to hold on to all the biblical land. They were Netanyahu’s best friends, better friends than President Clinton from that perspective, with whom he was meeting the next day and who was pressuring Netanyahu as well as the Palestinians to meaningfully negotiate. For the Likud party and their supporters, this was a smart political alliance. Liberal objections about the real motives of these Evangelicals were not persuasive. True, these Christian right leaders believed the real significance of the State of Israel was its role in the apocalyptic end-times scenario, which they believed would culminate in the wiping out of most Jews and the conversion of the remaining few. This is deeply problematic and offensive for us as Jews. One could argue, however, that we don’t believe in these visions of the end time anyway, so what do they matter? If we agree on what should happen in this world, why not agree to disagree on what happens in the next.

Let’s therefore agree to set aside end-times religious beliefs for the moment. Let’s even agree to set aside broad differences in our respective community’s domestic agenda. Solely on the level of Israel’s security, is this alliance a wise one? Does this help toward building the future well being of Israel - both in terms of how American Jews understand Israel and also how Israel views itself? If one’s priority is holding on to the West Bank, then perhaps the alliance is a wise one. In the face of demographic realities, many Likud politicians including Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and others who formed the Kadima party have moderated their hard line commitment to holding on to the West Bank. They have all been influenced by the demographic reality that if Israel held on to the West Bank, Jews would inevitably become a minority in their own country, creating a state that could not be both democratic and Jewish.

As former Likud politicians such as Sharon and Olmert have moderated their stance, what has been the response of their allies in the American religious right? The response of the Christian right has been to lobby harder against any Israeli government effort to negotiate land for peace and any American effort to lead in that regard. What’s more, Pat Robertson has suggested that Sharon is in a coma because of his evacuation of Gaza settlements.⁷ Pastor Hagee has said that Hurricane Katrina happened because the Bush administration supported Sharon’s Gaza plan.⁸ And Christian Zionist lobbying efforts have played no small part in the Bush administration downgrading of the conflict on the America agenda, with the result that there has been no serious negotiations in almost 8 years. There is an even darker side, to this movement of the religious right that calls itself “Christian Zionism.” Many of these groups have supported some of Israel’s most extreme and most dangerous elements with large amounts of money and legitimacy. They have supported, for example extremist Jewish groups such as the Temple Mount Faithful who want to move or destroy the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in order to build the Third Temple on the site. Pat Robertson had Gershon Salomon, leader of the “Temple Mount Faithful” on his 700 Club.⁹ Salomon has also been invited to speak on many Evangelical tours to Israel.

I don’t have to tell you the apocalypse that would take place if these fundamentalist funded extremists had their way, God forbid, and what a security threat that pose to Israel. The Israeli government takes this threat very seriously. Now if this were only about end-times fantasies, perhaps we could dismiss it. “Christian Zionists” like CUFI, however, don’t just passively hold end-times beliefs like the rebuilding of the Temple. They actively try to make them reality, whether by their effective lobbying or through their support of extremist organizations. And bottom line, if such a conflagration on the Temple Mount did occur, God forbid, for some of these folk this would be the excitement of a prophecy coming to pass, whereas for us it would be a terrifying catastrophe. Zionism is the movement for Jews to take control over our own history and destiny. Christian Zionism, as the religious right has formulated it, is an attempt to move us toward an end-time where Jews are lacking any power other than being passive actors in someone else’s prophetic drama.¹⁰ I do not doubt that the majority of evangelicals have a sincere love and concern for Israel and for Jews, whom they deeply believe are God’s chosen. Many of their leaders, however, have taken this love in the wrong direction. We do not want to be loved, so to speak, to death.

I say these words understanding that many fellow Jews across the political spectrum support this alliance out of a belief that Israel needs friends and allies wherever she can find them. We need to understand, however, that although it is moving to hear declarations of love and commitment to Israel, we need to also look at the particular agendas and lobbying efforts of their organizations to determine whether the political alliance is to our benefit or not. Though there is always room for dialogue with other faith groups, I would agree with Eric Yoffie that the political goals of CUFI allows for no middle ground in which Jews and Arabs can live side by side in peace and security. Their view can only ensure protracted conflict and offers no hope whatsoever for any kind of peace settlement.

While I do reject an alliance with CUFI and the religious right, I do not reject the possibility of an alliance with Evangelicals in general. I have deep respect for the evangelical spiritual tradition and believe there are many issues we can and should work on together as communities of faith. Evangelicals in America are diverse and not synonymous with the religious right. In fact, before the civil war Evangelicals in the North were leading progressives whose piety gave rise to abolitionism, the female seminary movement, and prison reform. William Jennings Bryan, one of the most famous evangelicals, devoted himself to causes such as the Peace Movement and women’s suffrage and was a leading proponent of the progressive income tax.¹¹

Evangelicals withdrew from politics for most of the last century until the rise of the religious right in the late 70’s. This rise was not in response to Roe v Wade, as their organizers would have us believe but in response to a civil rights issue, namely the Supreme Court decision that ruled that institutions that practiced segregation would forfeit their tax exempt status. This decision led to the withdrawal of tax-exempt status for Bob Jones University, who among other things, had did not admit Blacks, and when they did, had a policy against interracial dating. It was race, as well as the desire to maintain control over evangelical institutions, and not abortion, that led to the establishment of the religious right, as historian Randall Balmer has documented.¹² In fact, the first candidate the religious right supported was Ronald Reagan, who had signed into law an abortion rights bill as governor of California. When Reagan was elected, his administration argued, not surprisingly, on behalf of Bob Jones University to the Supreme Court in 1982 to keep their tax-exempt status despite their racially discriminatory policies.

The religious right has never represented all evangelicals, however, and in the last few years there has emerged an alternative voices in the evangelical community that have been suspect of the close alliance between evangelicals and one political party. As Evangelical leader David Gushee argues,¹³ “it is impossible both to represent the ‘Church’ and to function as a bloc within a national political party.” Religion is most faithful to its truth when it speaks from the margins of power, not the seat of power.

These alternative evangelical voices have formed organizations independent of partisanship and closer to what they believe are biblical values including environmentalism (or “creation care”), policies to protect the poor, and policies which promote human rights. Organizations such as Evangelicals for Human Rights, Evangelicals for Social Action and Sojourner have been a growing evangelical voice. Even the mainstream National Association for Evangelicals took a courageous stand for “creation protection” calling for action around climate change, despite Jerry Falwell’s charge that “action to protect creation was ‘Satan’s attempt to redirect the Church’s primary focus.’”¹⁴

There is a growing moderate evangelical voice on the issue of Israel as well. Last year, 30 well-respected Evangelical leaders signed a letter to President Bush who affirmed the President’s “clear call for a two-State solution.” “We, who sign this letter, represent large numbers of evangelicals throughout the U.S. who support justice for both Israelis and Palestinians. We hope this support will embolden you and your administration to proceed confidently and forthrightly in negotiations with both sides in the region. . . . Genuine love and genuine blessing means acting in ways that promote the genuine and long-term well being of our neighbors.”¹⁵

Now that is what I would call friends.

The issue that brought Joe Lieberman to CUFI is not just Israel, however. He and Pastor Hagee also share strong feelings on Iran, and this issue has been an important part of this conservative evangelical-Jewish alliance.

The threat of nuclear proliferation is a grave concern to people of all political persuasions. While people disagree on where the balance of diplomacy and military intervention should be, there is no disagreement that the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is a very serious matter. Here too, however, like with Israel, we need to look critically at which alliances are genuinely in our security interest as well as in accordance with our highest values, and which are not.

Like their ideas about Israel, the views of Pastor Hagee and others on policy toward Iran come from their end-times beliefs—the belief that the apocalyptic visions in the books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelations are blueprints for what will happen in our own times—at any moment. Every event in the political present, they believe, is a part of this script ordained long ago—and this script is violent indeed. While I am a proponent of the contribution of our faith perspectives to the political discourse, I must also say that I see grave danger in making decisions of foreign policy, of war and of peace, based on apocalyptic beliefs or in allying ourselves with people who do, but this is exactly what is happening.

Pastor Hagee belongs to the premillennial strand of Evangelicalism, which refers to the belief that Jesus will return before the millennium, the thousand-year reign of peace and harmony believed to be prophesied. His version of premillennialism believes that Jesus will come for his true believers and rapture the Church, or carry them into the air, so they will not be present for the horrific events of Armageddon that will follow.

While there are many variations of what is to follow, some of the main predictions of premillennialist dispensationalism, the name of this belief system, is that after rapture will come the antichrist, (whom Jerry Falwell says will be Jewish) who will establish a world government, be challenged by a Russian led alliance which will include Iran and Arab states, engage in a nuclear showdown and bloodbath, and finally be defeated by the return of Jesus with the Church to restore David’s Kingdom and begin the millennium.

If you think that I am outlining a marginal belief system, remember that 1/3 of evangelicals, or 25 million people believe this or some variation of this. As to a more general belief in these kinds of prophecies, according to a Time/CNN poll ((Weber p. 11) “59% [of Americans] say they believe that events predicted in the Book of Revelation will come to pass. Almost one out of four Americans believe that 9/11 was predicted in the Bible and nearly one in five believes that he or she will live long enough to see the end of the world.”¹⁶ The “Left Behind” series by Tim LaHaye, which describes these events in all their gory detail, has sold 65 million copies. The Rapture index website, which gives us a number to indicate whether prophetic activity is slow, moderate, or heavy, with the highest rating of “Fasten Your Seatbelts” gets about 250,000 hits per month. In case you were wondering, the last time I checked we were at 162, “fasten your seatbelts.”

Most Jews in the Northeast do not come into contact with the evangelical subculture and do not recognize political language that reflects these beliefs. The phrase “Evil Empire,” for example was said by President Reagan in a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals. That along with President’ Bush’s phrase “axis of evil” resonates with end-times believers who see a final apocalyptic war between good and evil. “No child left behind” certainly resonates with the Left Behind series. Russia has always played a major role in the end-time scenario, which has been adapted to include a war with Iran as part of the prediction.

Premillennialism is an apocalyptic vision, and apocalyptic thinking is more popular at times of crises, when people feel vulnerable and fearful. It is closely linked to messianism and political messianism during Roman times was disastrous for Jews leading to a rabbinic view that highly discouraged messianic and apocalyptic politics. This is exactly the kind of politics, however, that is operating in the religious right including in CUFI in regards to Iran and Israel.

Central to apocalypticism is a belief in drawing lines between a cosmic force for good and force for evil, and putting people in one or the other of these categories: children of light and children of darkness. It believes that a cataclysm between these two forces is inevitable. There is no room for human intervention to make things better. If a particular scenario is prophesied it will take place no matter what, according to God’s plan. When John Hagee writes, “The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty,”¹⁷ he is writing out of his belief in end-times prophecy. In writing about Iran, Hagee combines apocalyptic beliefs with old-fashion hate speech against a religion of one billion people, namely Muslims. He mischaracterizes Islam and Muslims in the most outrageously despicable ways. No doubt there are Muslim extremists who fit his description. Hagee, however, characterizes all Muslims as extremists. On explaining what Islam is, Hagee writes in his book Jerusalem Countdown: “Muslims say their sins can be forgiven, but they have to kill an infidel (non-Muslim) to obtain forgiveness” (p. 3) Or, “Islamics . . . hate us because it is their duty to hate us” (p. 23). Or “Islam teaches that God commands Islamo-fascists to kill anyone who does not believe Allah is the only God” (p. 34). As historian Paul Boyer writes, these and other premillennial writings “demonize Islam as irredeemably evil and destined for destruction.”¹⁸

The usage of the phrase “Islamo-Fascism” by President Bush as well as some Jewish leaders is quite disturbing. We would never tolerate the word Judeo-fascism for our own extremists, nor would Christians appreciate the word Christo-fascism for the Inquisition or South African Apartheid, which was officially sanctioned by the Dutch Reformed Church.

Hagee’s combination of apocalyptic vision and hate speech is not only morally repugnant but also dangerous to Jews and to Israel. As Hagee writes, “If a line has to be drawn, draw the line around Christians and Jews.” Who is on the other side of this line? One billion Muslims? Do we really want to join Pastor Hagee as he draws lines around us? A nuclear clash of Jewish and Christian civilizations on the one hand and a billion Muslims on the other may seem inevitable to him but it seems terrifying to me and I don’t have a hope of rapture to ease my mind. I would rather we work to make sure it doesn’t happen--that it is not a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We do face serious threats; there is no question. I see as much darkness in the world as Pastor Hagee. I believe, however, that we must work together with the goal of defusing threats, not igniting them. In this we will find allies of all religions and nationalities. We will likewise find extremists of all religions and nationalities. I would encourage us, however, to work with different peoples toward a vision of peace and mutual respect rather than draw lines around people based on religion or ethnicity. Such a vision is good for Jews, good for Israel and good for all of us.

On Yom Kippur we acknowledge the power of sin and the power of transformation. While it is tempting to project sin only on the other side of an invisible line, only onto the “them,” Yom Kippur is about looking inside. Sin is in us all, but so is the power of transformation. Evil is not only or even primarily something outside of our societies or ourselves. Here is where I disagree with Pastor Hagee’s religious vision. We are all complex human beings with a yetzer hatov, or inherent goodness and a yetzer hara, or an inclination to hurt ourselves and others. All religious traditions and the history of all religious communities also are complex. Let us avoid the temptation to see others, be they Muslims, Christians, Palestinians or any other group as the embodiment of evil. We can then seek transformation joining with people of all communities and faiths to build a world of human dignity for all.

I wish you all a meaningful fast day, one that enables us all to connect with our highest selves and our deepest values. May we maintain a faith that our actions can and do make a difference in avoiding a catastrophe that at times feel too close for comfort?

May we all walk a path that will inscribe us the Book of Life, Blessing and Peace.

1. “Bill Moyers Journal,” NPR, October 7, 2007.

2. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, “Christian Zionism? Is It Good for North American Jews and Good for Israel? CCAR Convention, April 2, 2008.

3. “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross, NPR, September 18th, 2008.

4. Timothy P. Weber, On the Road to Armageddon (Michigan: Baker Academic, 2004) p.214.

5. Weber, p.218.

6. Weber, p.224.

7. Max Blumenthal, “Birthpangs of a New Christian Zionism,” in The Nation, 8/8/06.

8. Night to Honor Israel, July 17th, 2007. See “Bill Moyers Journal,” October 5th, 2007.

9. Gershom Gorenberg, The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount (New York: Free Press, 2000) p.169.

10. See Gershom Gorenberg, “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross, April 2, 2008.

11. Randall Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical’s Lament (New York: Basic Books, 2006) xiv-xv.

12. Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come, pp. 11-17. See also Balmer, God in the White House: A History ( New York: Harper Collins, 2008) p.93-101.

13. David P. Gushee, The Future of Faith in American Politics, (Texas: Baylor University Press, 2008) p.48.

14. Gushee, p. xii.

15. “Letter to President Bush from Evangelical Leaders,” New York Times, July 29, 2007.

16. Weber, p. 11.

17. Quoted in Max Blumenthal, “Birthpangs of a New Christian Zionism,” The Nation, August 8, 2006.

18. Paul Boyer, “When U.S. Foreign Policy Meets Biblical Prophecy,” Alternet, February 20, 2003.