For Zion’s Sake: Christians United for Israel Leaders Discuss Modern Israeli Advocacy among Christians

on August 3, 2013

By Andrew E. Harrod

“If your eyes are open, you should have cause for concern,” addressed Christians United For Israel (CUFI) executive director David Brog at the July 23, 2013, Night to Honor Israel (NHI) during CUFI’s Washington Summit.   Brog was discussing increasing anti-Israel sentiment in American society, particular in academia, with the admonition that “we can learn from Europe,” where French students indoctrinated in anti-Israeli views on campuses in the 1960s later in leadership positions reversed pro-Israel French policies.  Earlier that evening, Brog and other CUFI leaders elaborated with me upon issues of Israel advocacy among Christians in particular, a group often seen in modern America as pro-Israel yet recently not immune to anti-Israel attacks.

Touching upon a theme mentioned by him and others earlier in the summit, Brog found it “shocking” that Millennial generation (born between 1977 and 1992) evangelicals “can’t be taken for granted” in supporting Israel.  Critics of Israel such as religious left leader Jim Wallis, the Palestinian Bethlehem Bible College, and Sabeel, a pro-Palestinian “Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center,” “are making progress” among Millennial evangelicals as a “soft underbelly” among evangelicals.  Brog noted that some of the “biggest names in the evangelical world” manifest a generational shift from pro-Israeli to neutral or even anti-Israeli views.  As Brog discussed, Millennials “reject the politics of their parents” and seek to support those seen as “downtrodden.”  With images like, for example, an Israeli soldier standing over a crying Palestinian girl it is “easy to fool” Millennials.

Against these trends, Brog observed, Israel’s supporters “must teach history” and “argue the morality of the conflict.”  Hence the key role of CUFI, America’s largest pro-Israel organization with over a million members founded by noted evangelical Pastor John C. Hagee.  Only CUFI, argued Brog, has the resources to confront anti-Israel sentiment on American campuses.  CUFI’s Washington Summit, for example, brings in student leaders from around the country one and a half days early to the conference for activities devoted to them.  Brog cited CUFI currently having 120 chapters, but “we need a thousand.”

Although CUFI has an evangelical background, Brog noted that “we strive to be as broad as our name” in ecumenically encompassing all Christian friends of Israel.  Brog observed that the “entrepreneurial” nature of evangelical churches allowed a single pastor to develop a “pro-Israel church” sporting, perhaps, an Israeli flag.  Catholics, by contrast, had not developed any pro-Israel organization, but rather featured “pro-Israel individuals” as “one-offs.”

In a panel of CUFI regional directors, meanwhile, Eastern Regional Director Pastor Victor Styrsky also noted that there is also “not a movement amongst” Catholics similar to CUFI “at this point.”  Styrsky criticized that “many Catholics’ view of Israel is not biblically-based” such that they are “very prone to the big lie” of anti-Israeli views.

Styrsky also saw no “solid Christian theology” concerning the Jews among many young Protestant Christians.  Such lack of knowledge facilitates heresies such as Replacement Theology, according to which Christianity has voided the Old Testament covenant with the Jews.  Styrsky described Replacement Theology as the “backbone of the church for two millennia” resulting in 1,900 years of abominations towards the Jews.”  Styrsky counts as a success that CUFI “brought the dark forces up” of Replacement Theology that “lay dormant until CUFI came along.”

Styrsky saw other dangers to Israel as well.  “Wahhabism money” influenced academia and some Millennials sided with poor Palestinians against a strong, prosperous Israel because of a perception that “poor is good, strong is bad.”  Yet a strong Israel “has stood for life” as a free, humane society.

Styrsky’s CUFI colleagues, Georgia State Director Jay Bailey and Florida State Director Scott Thomas, concurred.  While Thomas cited Martin Luther as a “headwater” of anti-Semitism in Christianity, Bailey referenced “many tributaries.”  Today Thomas worried about a “lack of teaching at all” among young Christians such that they “swallow anything in the Kool-Aid.”  Nonetheless, Thomas saw in modern Christians a “heart of repentance” in an “awakening” against Replacement Theology and Bailey stated that God’s covenant with the Jews “flows for a thousand generations.”

Irrespective of Christian teachings, Bailey discerned a “huge challenge” in “engaging those who really want to do Israel harm,” particularly at academic “bastions of liberalism.”  Thomas agreed that the young generation, including evangelicals, had been “turned over to an educational system” that is “very anti-Semantic.”  Here anti-Israeli views are effectively the “only thing on the table” for intellectual consumption.  In fact-based argumentation about Israel Thomas saw hope, though, for “people can have their own opinion, but you can’t have your own truth.”

Facts were important to CUFI African American Outreach Coordinator Michael Stevens as well.  Discussing as a black man increasingly common accusations of Israel as an “apartheid” state, Stevens observed that this matter was a “slam dunk conversation” among his African-Americans.  Despite the worst efforts of “anti-Semitic sources” defaming Israel, “African-Americans are able to see clearly” the apartheid charge’s falsity when presented with the truth.

To the contrary, Stevens saw a “nexus” between Jews and African-Americans in a “past of suffering.”  Both groups had suffered under events such as slavery and the Holocaust’s genocide after being “taken from our ancient lands.”  This nexus also extended to Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement, during which Stevens estimated that about two-thirds of all non-African-Americans involved were Jews.  Such shared sorrows and struggles only reinforced for Stevens the “biblical mandate” giving a “clarion call” to support Israel.

CUFI National Hispanic Coordinator Carlos Ortiz referenced as well Hispanics feeling “persecuted” and therefore being able to “feel the sentiment of the Jewish community.”  Additionally, Ortiz stated that the “Hispanic community in the United States is very much linked to the Hispanic community in Latin America.”  Here concern about increasing Islamist influence from Iran and Hezbollah is growing.  For Ortiz, Iran is not just the biggest present threat to Israel, but the “biggest threat also to Latin America.”

The comments by CUFI’s leaders and the organization’s wider resources are well worth keeping in mind amidst ongoing international attempts to isolate Israel.  As Israel’s representative to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, stated at NHI, a “demonization and delegitimization of Israel” analogous to “Chinese water torture” has taken the place of past failed military and economic campaigns to vanquish Israel.  In these current political campaigns, Prosor told his CUFI audience, “each and every one of you is a soldier.”

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) combat veteran Sergeant Benjamin Anthony from the NGO Our Soldiers Speak likewise asked Americans “are you willing to live for Israel.”  Anti-Israeli sentiment on American campuses was for Anthony a “far greater disruption to my nights” than combat memories.  Fittingly foreshadowing the NHI, Stevens cited among the biggest threats to Israel being simply “silence.”

 

  1. Comment by Chris on August 3, 2013 at 5:48 pm

    This administration needs to do more to protect the Christians in the middle east.

  2. Comment by Ezeliel9 InkHorn on August 12, 2013 at 10:32 pm

    It is not just Replacement theology. Covenant theology, based on allegorical Biblical interpretation, has a different twist on the Church which is also considered spiritual Israel. It also adds that, if there is any doubt, any Covenant with Israel was completed on the Cross! Covenant theology has made inroads in Southern Baptist churches and is becoming very popular with many young people.

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