By MICHAEL SLOVANOS
AMIR Tsarfati is a loyal Israeli citizen and Christian, otherwise known as a “Messianic Jew”, who speaks internationally and is this weekend speaking at a Discovering Daniel conference in Perth, expected to be attended by some 800 Christians from mostly evangelical and Pentecostal denominations.
He is touring Australia with American preacher and fellow Christian Zionist Barry Stagner, from Calvary Chapel in the LA district of California, both of whom are pushing the dispensationalist version of Bible prophecy, that cites various Old Testament prophecies (particularly the Book of Daniel) to support the claim present-day Israel is “God’s chosen nation”.
Such a claim is anathema to Israel’s neighbours – not only Palestinian Moslems but Christians as well, such as the West Bank church leader Rev. Dr Munther Isaac, who represents Christians persecuted by West Bank settlers but completely ignored by Christians in the West.
Tsarfati rubs salt into the wound by convincing large numbers of Australian and other western Christians that Israel is in fact God’s chosen nation of prophecy and at every conference he turns on his phone video and records a geed-up crowd shouting “Shalom Israel”,
The scenes are recorded for the benefit of Israeli audiences to let them know how “the Aussies love them so much”.
As for the Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese and Iraqis who are apparently not on God’s radar, they are, as the notorious US Christian Zionist Pastor John Hagee once put it, simply “catfish out of water”.
While we at Cairns News are not advocating any particular theological position and certainly not defending the cause of the militant Islamist forces that Tsarfati himself came up against as an IDF soldier, his “chosen nation” narrative is seriously flawed and objectionable.
The elephant in the room, that Tsarfati seems blind to, is that Israel’s official religion, Judaism, rejects Christ as Saviour and Messiah. Talmudic passages even blaspheme him and his mother Mary.
That dispensationalist messaging comes out of an eschatalogical (prophecy) teaching took root in many Protestant denominations in the early 19th century, It was originally compiled by the English Plymouth Brethren leader John Nelson Darby, who founded the Exclusive Brethren sect that continues today.
It is also claimed that the teaching originated with the Jesuit priest Francisco Ribera in 1590, who wrote a commentary on the Book of Revelation proposing Darby’s “futurist” view, arguing that the apocalyptic prophecies applied to a literal, future Antichrist at the end of time rather than to the Papacy.
Another Jesuit, the Chilean Manuel Lacunza (18th/19th Century) wrote a speculative work on the second coming under a false Jewish name, which was later translated into English by Protestant figures.
What is particularly disturbing about the “Jewish choseness” narrative is that it aligns with, and reinforces, the Jewish supremacism message sprinkled throughout the books of the Talmud.
It is this supremacism – frequently expressed by Jewish settlers in the West Bank – that has a great deal to do with Israel’s inability to get on with its neighbours and the 78 years of bloodshed and fighting since the founding of the modern Zionist state in 1948.
Tsarfati is correct to point out that there has been an outpouring of anti-Israel sentiment worldwide in recent years, somewhat ironically following the October 7th, 2023, attack by Hamas terrorists on a southern Israel music festival and kibbutz community.
Israel is seen by the global Left as “a state of white colonialist invaders oppressing the indigenous population”, which is partially true but a lot more complicated, given that Muslim Arabs make up about 19% of Israel’s population. A further 2-3% are Christian and Druze.
That much-trumpeted October 7 attack was, by the way, very clearly facilitated by the Netanyahu administration, who the BBC reported, ignored the warnings issued by anonymous Egyptian intelligence officials three days before the attack. They warned that an “explosion” and an event described as “very big” was brewing in Gaza.
US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul also publicly stated that warnings were passed from Egypt to Israel three days ahead of the assault. Netanyahu, slyly sidestepped the matter by saying he did not meet with or speak to Egyptian intelligence officials.
On October 7th, 2023, Hamas soldiers literally walked and drove through the Israeli southern border that had been mysteriously abandoned. Furthermore, the IDF took six hours to appear on the scene and when a helicopter appeared, it strafed and killed estimated dozens of people fleeing the music festival.
Israeli wars and politics aside, Tsarfati and Stagner’s pro-Israel dispensationalism completely distorts and misinterprets the New Testament “spiritual unity” teaching of St Paul in addition to the prophecies of Christ’s Olivet discourses.
In the latter case of Matthew chapter 24, dispensationalists commit atrocities against the scripture by taking it wildly out of context and claim that where Jesus tells his disciples of various apocalyptic events that are “at the door” and will be fulfilled before “this generation passes away”, that he is actually talking about a far distant generation some time from 2026 onwards.
Best selling dispensationalist author Hal Lindsey (The Late Great Planet Earth – published 1970) claimed he was living in “that generation” and like many other believers, eagerly awaited a supernatural evacuation from the Earth known as “the rapture” around the expected time of the Second Coming of Christ.
As for St Paul, this highly-educated former Pharisee and persecutor of Christians who was dramatically converted when he met Christ on the road to Damascus, taught that Jews and Gentiles are made one in Christ, and not only one, but “one new man”, as he states in Ephesians chapter 2.
So, as followers of Christ, Jews and Gentiles find a new identity, a point he makes again in Romans chapter 10: “There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all.”
He writes in his Epistle to the (Gentile) Galatians: “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”
Further on he writes: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
The dispensational theology of Tsarfati and Stagner and others would have Christians believe that God has a separate plan going with people who call themselves Jews and this plan was confirmed when the Zionist state of Israel was formed in 1948.
So in effect, they separate Jews and Gentiles, claiming the Old Testament covenants still apply to them, despite the New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews (chapter 8) teaching that God gave Israel “a new covenant based on better promises”, in fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah chapter 31.
Dispensationalism is critically examined at this link from a Protestant/evangelical perspective and partially at this link from a Catholic perspective.
