Tag: Chrestomathy

“Zionism as a doctrine was not a good idea. But in just the same way, Manifest Destiny was a piece of impudence cooked up by Americans during our ‘look at us go’ stage. I don’t hold the doctrine of Manifest Destiny at all, along with the assumptions that were underneath it. And yet, here my house is, ensconced in Idaho, right in the middle of Manifest Destiny territory. I own that house, have a legitimate right to it, and would object in quite forceful terms if Nez Perce Indians were shooting rockets at it.”

American Milk and Honey, pp. 37-38

“In the ancient world, there was no clean way to separate combatants from non-combatants. When you besieged a city, the entire city was besieged and not just the soldiers. The law of God assumes that Israel would go to war and that sieges would be part of what they would do.”

American Milk and Honey, p. 36

“Events kept eventing, as they are wont to do, and after a time there was a significant Jewish population there.”

American Milk and Honey, p. 32

“We need to engage with antisemites over the sheer fact of the Nazi atrocities against the Jews. That genocide and attempt at complete genocide really did happen. But we also must debate the meaning of the Holocaust with the Jews. It does not mean what many Christ-rejecting Jews are claiming it means. If Christ rose from the dead, it cannot mean that.”

American Milk and Honey, p. 25

“For the Jew who wants the Holocaust to be treated as absolutely unique, and not ever to be compared with other historical events, what the Holocaust means is either that the Jews themselves are absolutely unique, or that Gentiles are uniquely evil, or a combination of the two. Neither of these are options for consistent Christians.”

American Milk and Honey, p. 23

“Over time, movements tend to turn into rackets. There is such a thing as the Holocaust hustle . . . But while some have a vested interest in the Holocaust’s uniqueness, there are others who have a vested interest in the opposite direction. They want to say that the Holocaust didn’t happen at all. Everywhere you go, you run into people.”

American Milk and Honey, p. 20

“We are actually talking about the blessings of Deuteronomy coming to the Gentile nations that have received the Messiah of the Jews. These Gentile nations will consequently become the head, and not the tail, and Paul knew that this was a strategy that would actually work on his people. Carping envy from Gentiles only reinforces Jewish unbelief. It feeds and nourishes Jewish unbelief. It is a central complicating part of the problem of Jewish unbelief.”

American Milk and Honey, pp. 17-18

“Now if the dogma of egalitarianism has you by the throat, when confronted with hard statistics like this, you only explanation is that the Jews must be cheating.”

American Milk and Honey, p. 14

“What antisemites want to do is point to the outsized Jewish involvement in things that really are nefarious, or in things considered by them to be nefarious. What they overlook is outsized Jewish involvement in things that are helpful, wholesome, and good.”

American Milk and Honey, p. 12

“This is why some conservatives need to stop eating their anger porridge every morning . . . for those who have been around the kind of things I write, you will know that I believe we are supposed to have enemies. And I also believe that it is most necessary that we fight them. At the same time, and this cannot be emphasized too much, we are under the strictest of orders to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:27,35). Love is not inconsistent with a vigorous polemic. It is not inconsistent with prophetic rhetoric. It is inconsistent with scurrilous abuse.”

American Milk and Honey, pp. 10-11