The Worst Equivocation

Equivocation? Non-sequitur? What is the word I am looking for??

I read an article by J. Adam Kane speaking about anti-semitism, and comparing his view with that of Pastor Doug Wilson. I found his article fascinating but, as I mention above, I found a bizarre feature of it in what seemed to me to be two vastly different versions of the idea of ‘worse’.

It seems an amazing… something… to talk about the Jews being ‘worse’ and not notice that the two forms of ‘worse’ you are using are diametrically opposite. When the traditional antisemite speaks of the Jews being ‘worse’ they speak as if they drink the blood of children (and sometimes they say this literally). When this article speaks of them being ‘worse’ it speaks, in part, as if they didn’t reach a standard that was higher than the entire rest of the world.

These are both valid meetings of the word ‘worse’ but they can’t be used in the same discussion. Unfortunately J. Adam Kane seems to do so in his rebuttal to Pastor Doug Wilson’s ideas of anti-semitism.

Envy

Let me start by saying that I agree with J. Adam, and disagree with Pastor Wilson, when he discounts the idea of ‘envy’ as being the root and branch of anti-semitism. I don’t claim to be able to root and branch anti-semitism, but I have seen far too many instances of anti-semitism to believe in a root cause that is quite so simplistic. I don’t deny envy as ‘a cause’, I merely deny it as ‘the cause’.

Personally I am inclined to believe that anti-semitism is caused by spiritual factors. That when one rejects God, it is not long before one starts also rejecting, and hating, things that God has created and values. Thus the attack on sexual ethics and the family, the attack on truth and, along the way, an attack on His chosen people.

A Higher Standard

But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

Luke 12:48

Where more revelation has come in, the sin is graver—even the same sin committed by two different men incurs a differing degree of guilt according to each one’s moral culpability.

J. Adam Kane

It is a simple fact of Biblical doctrine that to whom much has been given, much will be required. And much has been given to the Jews:

I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,

That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:

Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;

Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

Romans 9:1-5

And thus much will be required of the Jews.

But not by us. It is God who will require of the Jews, and of others, in accordance to what they have been given. It is not our job. So to the extent that someone wishes to promote their anti-semitism under the ‘higher standard’ theory, it won’t wash. It especially won’t wash because (as J. Adam points out) this would put Christians even higher on the ‘higher standard’ totem pole. We, even more than Jews, have been given much, so every sin of ours would put as even worse than the Jews.

Worse Sin

So now we come to J. Adam making out that Jews are the worst sinners on the planet. That they are uniquely evil.

Now, I wish to point out right in the beginning that his charge is very like, and yet still unique, the racist bigotry of low expectations that feeds so much of modern anti-semitism.

Now, if his point is really that Jews have done objectively worse things than any other race and religion, then I will merely say that his facts are false. Has he never heard of Islam? Of paganism? Of Nazism and Communism and the Mongols…?

Upper Management

Now one charge that I think is false but understandable I define as ‘upper management’. Suppose that there is a Jew who is the owner of a porn studio. That is, obviously, an evil act. But suppose that the studio employs 500 gentiles. Is the owner ‘worse’ than the employees? Is the sin of the owner equal to that of all 500 employees put together?? Is he worse than the 1000 Only Fans self-employed porn stars?

It may be that the owner does more damage than any one, or perhaps even any 500 employees. But I don’t think that means he has that much more sin.

And, as Doug Wilson points out, there are also many successful Jews who are successful at good things. As surgeons, or chemists.

And while the history of Israel was filled with evil kings and evil prophets, there were also some rather good kings and some rather faithful prophets. Whereas the number of faithful prophets amongst the gentiles was vanishingly small.

God Mentions the Gentiles too

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
I Samuel 15:3

One rather poor part of J. Adam’ post was his condemnation of the Jews as somehow uniquely sinful. He posts a lot of verses, and they are certainly all true. But he also fails to post a lot of passages, and they are also true. And the truth of both of them must be found in the balance with each other. God judged some of the Cannanites to be so bad, morally speaking, that he even required for their children to be killed. He executed some kings of Israel immediately, and some after generations.

So, there is plenty of condemnation to go around in the Scriptures, and God condemns the Gentiles too:

Luk 21:24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

Act 21:11 And when he was come unto us, he took Paul's girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.

1Co 5:1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.

1Co 10:20 But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.

Gal 2:15 We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,

Eph 4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

1Th 4:5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:

1Pe 4:3 For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:

Mat 15:26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

Who is the Elder Brother?

While we’re discussing the Jews and Gentiles, who was/is the elder brother in this parable? Do we remember what God says to him?

Luk 15:31 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.

What Business is it of Thine?

I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,

Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.

But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.

Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

Romans 11:1-5

Let me also say that I agree with J. Adam that there is coming a time when ethnic Israel will be saved. And may it come quickly.

If one can charge me with “antisemitism” because I believe they are worse off for themselves and for the world as Jewish unbelievers compared to being unbelievers of another spiritual/ethnic/social stripe, then this is an empty charge, for the Scriptures give me every warrant for seeing things exactly in this light.

J. Adam Kane

But let me also point out that much of what goes on in his post is, literally, none of our business. Are the Jews sinners? Well, then, our job is to preach the gospel… not to call them out as uniquely evil. Britain and the United States sent missionaries to Darkest Africa… and right now Darkest Africa is considering sending missionaries back.

I believe that a huge portion of the problem of anti-semitism is people who are building a case against people who are not in their court, not under their jurisdiction.

We are called to preach the gospel to the Jews. And the Muslims. And the Buddhists. And the millions of our fellow Americans who are lost in materialism, atheism, evolutionism, and the like. We are not called to try to weigh each of them on the scale of ‘worse’ness.

So while I am not likely to go around accusing J. Adam Kane of anti-semitism (for one thing because I find it a very unhelpful term), I do believe he makes a mistake here. It is literally not his job to try to judge to what extent the Jews are or aren’t better or worse than the Moslems or Buddhists.

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Von

Links

Doug Wilson Misidentifies Antisemitism