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Bad Theology Begets Antisemitism · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending biblical Christianity, no topic, off limits.
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  And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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  Hello, friends.
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  Welcome to another show.
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  We appreciate you sharing us on social media as always.
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  I know it gets to be tedious hearing me say that, but that's how the show gets out there
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  because of you.
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  I got a great guest today, Jonathan Brentner is with us.
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  He's got a book out, and boy, we just really appreciate his writing and his style.
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  He's over at Harbinger's Daily as well, but the book is called The Triumph of the Redeemed.
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  And he does have a page at Harbinger's daily.com, if you want to go check out more of his writing
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  there.
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  And Jonathan is a friend, I've known him for several years now.
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  He is a writer, a speaker.
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  He's a former pastor.
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  His blog is called Our Journey Home, and he provides sound, biblical understanding and commentary
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  on world events.
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  And you can get that blog at johnathanbrentner.com, there it is, Our Journey Home.
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  And today we're going to talk about a very important article that he wrote, the witness
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  of church history, bad theology begets anti-Semitism and friends we've got to dive into replacement
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  theology a little bit more today than we have recently, even though we've been talking
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  a lot about Israel.
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  So, Jonathan, welcome to World View Matters, brother, it's good to see you too.
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  Thanks so much for having me on.
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  Oh, you're very welcome.
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  Thanks for connecting with us today.
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  So, tell us before we get into the article in such an important topic, replacement theology,
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  tell us about your book and where people can get that.
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  Well, my book is basically a defense of the pre-tribulation rapture.
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  It starts out with why we believe in impremalennialism, and from there it goes into the pre-tribulation
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  rapture several chapters.
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  And I also, relating to what we have, and we're talking about today, I do have a couple
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  chapters on church history showing that, you know, the lies that everything started with
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  John Derby, of course, the lies I just said, because we know that these things have roots
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  in church history and that pre-tribalennialism was a dominant view of the church during the
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  first three centuries of the church.
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  All right, we love the subtitle two of your book.
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  It says, an eternal perspective that calms our fears in perilous times.
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  And I'll tell you what, Jonathan, it's prophetic.
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  We are in those, some of those perilous times.
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  I mean, there have been perilous times throughout church history and world history.
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  But today, and what's happening, particularly in Israel, the Middle East, and even in America,
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  we're in perilous times.
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  You're comment on that before we dive into your article.
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  Oh, we sure are in perilous times.
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  And that's one of the things I strive to do in my ministry is address that.
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  In fact, my newsletter that you'll see reference there, you know, my ministry is mainly of writing.
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  And so when I set up my newsletter, especially the past has been with the idea of encouraging believers in their faith.
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  So let's dive into this article now.
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  And friends can get it at JonathanBrentner.com.
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  And they also put it up on Harbingers.
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  They sometimes change the titles a little bit, but you can get his most recent writings at HarbingersDaily.com.
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  Jonathan is one of the featured voices there.
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  So one of the things you say at the very top, Jonathan, let's talk about this.
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  Satan is most certainly the culprit behind the murderous anger directed at Israel.
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  And by proxy, all the Jews living in other nations.
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  And you say replacement theology also contributes to what's happening on college campuses, particularly in America.
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  Let's pause right there for a minute and realize actually just let's just admit friends.
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  If you're watching right now, a lot of us in America did not realize the hotbed of hate that the university system cultivates.
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  And what they put out as far as the indoctrination and the hate, not only towards Israel, but towards Christians, of course, the anti-Christian brainwashing through the, what K through 12 and then the university system.
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  And Jonathan, I want to get your response to a couple of these things that I saw about millennials in a recent, recent poll here.
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  It says 63% of millennials and Gen Z young people didn't know, didn't know that six million Jews died in the Holocaust.
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  And this is disturbing, 49% almost 50% of millennials in Gen Z have seen Holocaust denial on social networks.
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  This is because they're not learning true history in education, right?
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  So your thoughts on that and just walk through the beginning of your article here.
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  Okay, yeah, that is that is quite disturbing.
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  I've not heard those statistics before, but they are while that's shocking that think that they haven't even heard of the Holocaust.
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  And there are so many Holocaust deniers out there that will deny that six million people died.
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  And is it relates to what's going on now?
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  So many people are just unaware of what's happening in Israel and in our nation.
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  And the reason I tied in with replacement theology is that it has been the bedrock of the denominations, the mainline denominations for a long time, such as the presbyterians, the Catholics,
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  and the Methodist to some extent too.
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  And it's become ingrained that the Jewish people don't belong in their land that there's a settlers is our liberal politicians tell us.
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  And that's why I think believe there's a link between replacement theology and what's going on in our campus is because for so long, people have grown up in churches.
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  And they have not been taught that the land does belong to Israel.
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  Yeah, now what you said is very important because we understand why people aren't hearing the truth from the media.
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  We understand why people aren't hearing the truth in the education system or at the university level.
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  We understand that, but you said the churches, the churches are not teaching Bible prophecy.
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  They're not teaching an accurate view of Israel and some you say are teaching that the churches now, the churches, God's kingdom on earth having inherited the promises that he made to Israel.
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  So there's there's a lot of confusion on this issue, isn't there?
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  Absolutely, and even churches that claim to be Bible believing churches that have a history of pre-millennialism are sadly silent on on the issue.
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  And in one of the things I'm seeing also is that I will hear presentations on the gospel that make no mention of eternal life.
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  They'll talk about God's wrath, but and they'll do even a biblically-centric view of the gospel, but they don't mention eternal life.
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  Sometimes in the prayer, they'll say they'll mention John 3, 16 or eternal life, but they don't even mention eternal life that alone Israel or God's promises to them.
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  Wow, astounding. It really is astounding. We're hearing, I mean, different, different versions of an unbalanced gospel, but let's go, we need to look at the origin of replacement theology, which you talk about in your article and on your website and on Harbinger.
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  So let's go back to you say early in the fifth century, I believe, and just talk about what a lot of people don't realize or maybe we have not heard about the origin.
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  Well, in the early church, there was a lot of antisemitism because they blame the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus.
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  And one such antisemite person was Augustine, who was a very capable theologian.
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  And because it is hatred for the Jewish people in his fondness for Plato, who was a Greek philosopher who taught that anything matter was evil.
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  And only the spiritual was good. Because of that, he looked for a way to explain away the promises to Israel, the promises of a kingdom, and he used allegory to do that.
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  And this is the spiritualization of the tux giving it a spiritual meaning rather than what the author intended.
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  Isn't that, is it not the system or some other teachings believe that physical or matter is evil and the spirit is good and they and they teach that Jesus wasn't a physical human being that lived on the earth, right?
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  Some of them teach that.
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  I think you're correct on that.
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  And it's amazing the impact that Plato has had on the church.
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  And Augustine was from this Alexandria school where very early they had a rabbi who wanted to help the Jewish synagogues a dot more of a Greek philosophy.
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  And so he began the practice of allegorizing scriptures so that it would match the teachings of Plato and other Greek philosophers.
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  And this was even before the birth of Christianity he was doing this.
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  So you mentioned in the article Jonathan Brentner that the reformers rejected Augustine's allegorical approach to scripture that had led to so much doctrinal error concern the gospel and their principles of sola scriptura or scripture interpret scripture brought the church back to what the New Testament taught regarding justification forgiveness of sins talk to us a little bit about that.
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  Yes, it even there's a quote in Bernard Ram's book on hermeneutics where he says that kelvin regarded allegory is platonic but they satanic i'm sorry he regarded it.
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  However, they couldn't get past the allegorization of scripture when it came to future things and it was because they also had this view of hatred towards the Jewish people Lutheran, particularly, even though Luther was a great man a great theologian somehow he couldn't get past his dislike for the Jewish people.
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  And that kept them bound to this replacement theology view of scripture of of I'm sorry of israel saying that the church I replaced israel okay and that's that's the basic debate here has the church the modern day church the Christian church replaced Israel I mean if you can also get information
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  in addition to jonathan's article friends you can go to gotquestions dot org and they've got a great little what is replacement theology and they also called super sessionism super sessionism that's a long word so we've got to take a very quick break where with jonathan Brentner you can get his website jonathanbrentner.com and we'll be right back on world view matters.
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  At harbingers daily dot com.
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  Okay, before we wrap up the second half of the interview here with jonathan want to thank some friends who have been sending in your donations to world view matters. Thank you to james.
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  And he's with the national Christian foundation Laura and appear Wisconsin mark and a Jane from apple tin and Susan from jamesville new york brother john from new york we've got a friends from different states thank you so much and I just want to mention we've got a little donation campaign through christmas I don't know if you can see this mug but look at that mug too.
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  You can help support the show and production costs between now and christmas with a twenty five dollar monthly donation or one time donation of two hundred dollars it'll send you this mug here it says world view matters are one side the other side it says keep speaking the truth about things that matters so you can see that on that side there you go I just got mine just got mine so thank you guys for your support.
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  So jonathan let's talk a little bit more about the reformers a lot of people don't realize the anti-semitism of not only calvin but martin luther what do you know about that I know that he tried very different pride very hard to evangelize the Jewish people and when they refuse the gospel he became very angry at them and he preached a sermon that was very anti-Semitic.
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  And it's something that even Hitler referred to later is justification for his persecution of the Jews and so it it all stem from them refusing to respond to the gospel when luther preached it he became angry and the devil used that unfortunately.
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  So it's sad some of the history that you know we don't talk about a lot but it's anti-Semitism certainly is not a new or recent thing but well obviously look at the pages of the Old Testament right Jew hatred so jonathan let's talk now about after the reformation talk walk us through there some just some bullet points from your article to just give us a sense of what that was like we're talking fifteen hundreds sixteen hundreds and after.
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  People don't realize is that after the reformation their their stress on scripture interpret scripture and in scripture only scripture scripture.
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  Yeah so let's get to know those became the driving point for many theologians becoming pro israel and talking about how the church should love the Jews instead of hate them and is pre millennialism became more established because of theologians turning to it the church's viewpoint of the Jewish people changed.
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  And I read and I put a lot from a guy named William C Watson W William C Watson and he wrote.
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  He wrote an article that I referred to and link in my article and I also wrote a book called distanceationalism before Derby and he's done an extensive amount of research going back into the fifteen hundred sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds about theologians who were.
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  Pre millennialism and probably one of the pre millennialism one of the best known of them is Isaac Newton who who predicted that someday israel would become a nation and that was two hundred and 250 years beforehand.
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  But what people don't realize is that later in Newton's life he became a student of of the books of Daniel in Revelation he made extensive notes on them and after his death his family put together those notes into a book but he called he predicted that israel would become a nation over two hundred years before it happened based on his study in scripture.
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  And by the way I'm glad you brought up Isaac Newton I wrote about him a little bit in one of my previous books and he was into science but he was into the god of creation first and foremost he wrote more about the Bible and as you mentioned Revelation in the book of Daniel then he did about all the science work he was involved with so Isaac Newton was a believer in the creator.
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  Let's talk about how more about how pre millennialism changed the church's view of the Jewish people and I want to read something from God questions which basically says contrary to replacement theology dispensationalism teaches that after the rapture God will restore Israel as the primary focus of his plan and the first event at this time is the tribulation you can read about that revelation six through nineteen the world will be judged for rejecting Christ.
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  While Israel is prepared through trials of the great tribulation for this second coming of the Messiah so Jonathan how else did pre millennialism change the church's view of the Jewish people.
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  Okay going back to what happened after the Reformation was that people began to get the Bible in their own language the King James version other other places in Germany they got in their own language and as people began to read the Old Testament scriptures for themselves they became more open to free millennialism it also realizing God's love for the Jewish people.
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  And so that changed their hearts and pre millennialism speaks to the to God restoring a kingdom for Israel and right now we see Satan's opposition to Israel just as throughout the Old Testament and beginning of the New Testament Satan tried his best to stop the first coming he knew that there was a Messiah coming and he did his best to wipe out the Jewish people.
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  In the book of Esther details one such instance where he did that and right now he's doing the same thing with.
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  Instigating these attacks on Israel and raising up these demonic protest going on throughout the world where people are calling for the murder of Jews who would have ever thought it was possible to hear people calling for the murder of Jewish people but that's what we're hearing on our streets right now.
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  Yes and they are if they endorse Hamas that's basically what you're subscribing to I want to mention something thank you for putting in your article the Geneva Bible very interesting and very good Bible translation that goes back to 1557 it was my understanding that that was one of the early translations it came across.
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  With the pilgrims that one of the first translations they had that was brought to America now so they began once they started reading the scriptures for themselves you say they began to believe once again the promises God had made to the Jews elaborate if you'd like Jonathan.
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  Yeah once they had the Bible and their own hands they begin to see and to read about the Jewish people I remember when I was in Sunday schools a little boy you know hearing these stories and I had a good Sunday school background about the Jewish people you know it's sort of engendered a love for them you know we're just reading about all these stories I thought while these are special people and it had that same influence on people as they read.
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  The Bible read the Hebrew scriptures for themselves and so along with the theologians awakening to God's promises for Israel the people were reading God's word for themselves and that changed the opinion of many people towards the Jewish people.
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  So you've got a little section in your article about the resurgence of replacement theology and it's just it's almost surprising but but like we mentioned early on in this show if you understand the indoctrination that people and especially young people children have been fed whether it's the media whether it's you know the education system university system.
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  And now social media we've got a decade or two of that what the kids have been bombarded with it's not surprising that there has been a resurgence of replacement theology in the church would you like to comment on that Jonathan.
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  Yes it is it's so surprising because the church that I grew up in was was very pre-millennial food tribulation back in the 1960s and you know it was just unheard of to have replacement theology being taught anywhere.
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  And I believe it's been probably the last 25 years that has made a resurgence unfortunately and that's I believe that the church growth movement has had a big part of that because you don't want to talk about anything controversial that will scare people off.
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  And pastors are just not equipped to share the blessings of the rapture and they treat rapture is though it's it's taboo and going to cause people to walk out of the church but really a select of hope that's in the sermons that I believe is turning people off.
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  But it's a church growth movement that really took hold and people doing in these pastors who were not well trained just avoided it they avoided studying about it and I think that happens today that a lot of of pastors don't study it.
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  They're just not emphasized in their seminaries and they go forward and and there's just so little emphasis on it and as a result you know people go to the internet and they read about all these various theories and regarding it and you know and one of my articles a while back I stressed you know pastors you don't want people learning about eschatology from social media.
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  Yeah, unfortunately that's happening.
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  Yeah and you mentioned the seminaries Jonathan and what a shift we've seen in the last 50 to 75 years first they dropped the belief in an currency and we've noticed the teaching on how to build a like almost like a CEO the pastor is now a CEO and the church is a business and church growth is important to them.
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  You said that there's been an influx of homilinial teachers into seminaries and they are training our pastors can you share a little bit more about that.
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  Yes and in some ways I think they're kind of sneaking in.
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  I had a long conversation with with a pastor who taught for 10 years at Talbot my own and my mother you know and he described himself as a covenant premillennialist and so I thought okay at least he's a premillennialist.
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  But in talking to him I realized he did not believe in the millennium I believe he equated the millennium with the eternal state and so therefore he could say I'm a premillennialist because I believe Jesus is coming back before the eternal state in that supreme millennium.
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  I didn't believe in a restoration of Israel and he didn't believe in the literal tribulation and yet he taught at my own mother for 10 years was this really shocked me it took it actually took a while for me to understand that he really was not a premillennialist like I thought premillennialist were.
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  So to wrap up here we've got a few more minutes left thank you for mentioning Andy Stanley toward the end we've got a name names friends this this guy is one that apparently minimizes the old testament it's all God's word from genesis to revelation and everything in between it is inspired holy spirit inspired God breathed it is scriptures are an errant and yet people say you know unhitch from the Old Testament it's dangerous and we've got mega church pastors like this saying that.
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  It's just you know and that's where replacement theology comes in as well but you said such advice only opens the door for woke ism to enter and that promotes this these other theology so wrap it up with those thoughts Jonathan whatever you like to.
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  Yes if you want to hit yourself from the Old Testament then you're steering people away from it and I bring up the fact that people are not reading the Bible like they used to especially the young people in the church they're not studying and reading the Bible.
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  They depend on what they hear from the pulpit and if they don't hear about Israel that they're they just don't know about Israel and then one of the things that that really helped me understand the how important the words were when I graduated from seminary I worked a year for the Leckman Foundation on the new American standard Bible.
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  It's also important and what I did was I went into the Hebrew text to figure out what the Hebrew word was for the English word and spending eight hours a day at the Hebrew and Arabic text of the work you know I was anxious to get out and become a pastor but it really deepened my law for God's word in the importance of the words on the page.
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  And that's one of the primary reasons that I just can't abide by this allegorization scripture.
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  Well gosh the new American standards the one I cut my teeth on about my first NAS Bible 1981 I love it still to this day one of the top in my humble opinion versions translations of the Bible you say at the end of your article that pastors need to boldly proclaim Israel's right to the land.
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  We also need to remember the witness of church history bad theology begets anti-Semitism and believers in Christ are to pray for Israel.
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  Yes, pray for the peace of Jerusalem not only during this time when they were attacked by demonic terrorists but always we're called to pray for them you're closing a thought Jonathan.
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  Yes, I've probably been a miss not to pray for Israel's much in the past as I should but right now I do pray for Israel their soldiers that are in harm's way.
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  And also for the American soldiers that are in harm's way to think that it's a very dangerous situation there that could really explode.
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  And so we definitely need to be praying and pray for wisdom for in protection for the Israeli soldiers that are in the ground in Gaza.
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  All right brother Jonathan Brentner dot com we encourage you guys check him out at Harbinger's daily as well Lord willing brother we will talk again.
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  God bless you. Thanks for coming on world of you matter.
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  Okay. Thanks so much.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  All right.
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  Appreciate it.
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  All right. Bye bye.
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  All right guys next week pastor Scott Lively will be with us James Walker of Watchman dot org Laura Perry former transgender and Heidi Saint John.
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  So guys thank you so much again for supporting the show.
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  God bless you and as always keep speaking the truth about things that matter.