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Adrienne Luedeking's avatar

Julie, what of the argument that the Church does not replace Israel because the Church is Israel? The Church was founded by a Jew who appointed 12 Jewish Apostles and the first converts were Jews, etc. God instituted a new and everlasting covenant with His people, similar to the covenants He had established before, all of which had typologically prefigured this new one. And Christians today are those who are simply still in covenant with Him and they are the Church...

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@ Little Spiral @'s avatar

I always appreciate your nuance. I have lots of thoughts on this but not enough time, so I will boil it down:

1) I'm VERY grateful you are naming The Thing, which is replacement theology. Reading Jesus so deep into the Hebrew Bible is almost akin to erasing it. Maaaaybe Christians who don't know their shabbats from their shaloms should stop telling Jewish people what their own religion means. It's a misunderstanding at best, anti-semitic at worst.

2) Also thank you for separating out Zionism from all of this, and making your own distinction.

3) End-times prophesy is very hard for me to swallow. I make room for miracles, I make room for ancient people seeing the future. But I do not see the evidence the authors skipped over all 2-3,000 years to zero in on today. It's reading tea leaves that is designed to be up for interpretation by whoever reads it. We can absolutely agree to disagree on this, and I can imagine you are taking great care in your studies about it. But the ultimate point:

4) End-times prophecies and Zionism are absolutely linked. You cannot unlink them or ignore one over the other. There are people in power who want to bring about the end times so Jesus comes back, and they are using the Bible as justification for serious war crimes. Jesus would be furious.

5) I have not read the book you recommended yet, so please let me know if there are passages that address any of this. I am open and curious.

6) I don't want to discourage you from speaking what you are learning, because these are hot button topics indeed, and you and I can't be afraid of the blowback from speaking about this. Keep reading, keep seeking, keep posting. I will be too, over here in my part-time agnostic world.

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