I'm Jewish and staunchly pro-Israel, second-to-none.

But like anybody, I try to keep from falling into the dark dungeon of rigid ideological blindness.

It takes ideological blindness not to see Hagee for what he is. A huckster, living in a huge, mega-million-dollar mansion, whose prayer community has astoundingly horrific and shockingly ignorant ideas about Jews. (Whatever Hagee himself might say in interviews with the press. Have you seen his followers?)

This John Hagee is a preacher who thinks buggery caused Hurricane Katrina, thinks all Muslims are mindless, indiscriminate killers (what does he think about the Kurds? or the Middle-class Persians? or the Turks? does he even know what a Sufi is?), thinks Harry Potter fans are Satanists, and thinks the suffering of the Jews over the centuries is divine punishment, and also happens to believe that Hitler was God's proxy on earth in His plan to return the Jews to Israel.

You construct a straw man when you suggest that people like me argue that Hagee likes the Holocaust. I won't argue that he does. I'm sure he understands that the Holocaust was pure Hell. That's not my argument. The argument, and it is correct, is that he believes that God carried out the Holocaust on the Jews, through Hitler. That God brought Hitler down on us. I'm Jewish, and none of my observant Jewish friends believe what he believes. The only Jews I know who believe what he believes about the Holocaust are the crazy, fundamentalist kind that I don't like to associated with very much and that think Reform Judaism (and no, I'm not Reform) is something akin to Nazism.

Does Hagee's church send Israel lots of money? Yes. Great. So it's about money, then. Lovely. If we've gotten to the point where Israel needs Hagee's ilk to survive, then we've totally failed.

Just remember that loving something doesn't mean understanding it. Hagee and his followers "love" us Jews out of a great deal of ignorance---especially his followers. They'll love us right into nuclear Holocaust, with hearts filled with love... And people like you will excuse them for it, because these people say they love Jews. Is there nothing that could ever convince you otherwise?

Hagee is not a huckster, he very much believes what he says he believes. He's too much the fideist and he simplifies things and indulges a reductionist view, in the pejorative sense, far too much for my blood, but he is not duplicitous in any sense whatsoever, so if that's what you intend to suggest by "huckster," you're 100% and absolutely wrong. There are unsophisticated and humble people in the world, that's simply a fact of life. Likewise, there are two billion Christians in the world and few of them possess the intellectual capacities of a Polanyi, a Leibniz, a Locke, an Aquinas, et al. Even if they did, it likely wouldn't matter much since people like Polanyi and Leibniz, precisely because there were Christians, have been subjected to genuinely venomist screeds and attacks (in Leibniz's case, by Voltaire, among others).

(Academe is where you will find many a huckster, btw, yet they're rarely, if ever, called on it.)

Certainly not a bunch of caricatures about Hagee, his beliefs and his followers as you forward...no, that won't convince me. I've met quite a few Evangelicals and don't find they fit the scary ignoramus portrait that you try to paint -- though I've no doubt some do, it's a big group.

What DOES John Hagee believe about the Holocaust? What caused Katrina? The Catholic Church? You should admit you don't really know beyond the selected soundbite. Who cares what he thinks of Harry Potter? How *does* one explain the Holocaust given a world with a loving and omnipotent God? HE explored the issue in a speech and now it's "John Hagee believes..." Does he?

You're a practicing Jew? I can't imagine the number of absolutely absurd things to outsiders that are said and practiced in your Synagogue...not to mention all the people there with a profound ignorance of Christians -- who they are and what they believe. Yet somewhere along the line, we have to figure out what the things are that we can look past and what the things are we can get together on and focus on them. There may be some red line that we just can't look beyond. I haven't seen it yet. What Hagee thinks of Harry Potter ain't it.

As for money, Hagee's people also put their time, their bodies and their hearts on the line.

You can keep their theology at arm's length while not demonizing them and practicing your own form of ignorance and intolerance.

I'm not ignorant about John Hagee, I can assure you. I used to watch his sermons on TV, on TBN. To be honest, it was just for the entertainment value---have you actually listened to this guy for any length of time? He's either crazy, or a huckster. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt by assuming he was a huckster, like so many other televangelist types.

And I know a lot about his life. For example, about the kind, Jewish coach he had in school who really had a strong positive effect on his views about Jews. I've heard many of his interviews, and I've seen many, many interviews with many of his church members. So let's not start making assumptions about my level of ignorance here. And, to be honest, the things his followers have apparently learned from him are frightening in the extreme. Please, by all means, go find them and watch them. And yes, they are horrifically ignorant and mindless in their attachment to Israel. And whatever Hagee might say in interviews, they've all been brought to believe that Jews must all accept Jesus ASAP. So much for loving us for who we are. Again, just go find the videos.

This is not to tar all evangelicals, not by any means. I too know evangelicals, and most of them are not mindless zombies like the many who comprise this guy's audience.

You ask what I do in temple if it's not what this guy goes. If you think that all religions are the same, that they're all like this guy's crazed rantings, then I suggest you go and take another look. Hagee's brand of religion has as much to with, say, Maimonidean Judaism, as it has to do with nuclear physics. Or with the Judaism of Ecclesiastes. Go give it a read some day.

You ask "How *does* one explain the Holocaust given a world with a loving and omnipotent God?" Your knowledge of theodicy must be rather meager if you think that Hagee's explanation is the *only* way to reconcile God with the Holocaust. Where have you been for the last thousand years of theological scholarship? Hagee's simplistic brand of theodicy is certainly not what you hear out of the Pope. (Not that I'm going to defend the Pope. Just a proof of principle.) Go do some more reading. Not that I buy most of the other stuff out there, mind you... (You won't here me defend academia on this.) And he didn't just explore these ideas in just one sermon, as you suggest, either. They appear often in his sermons. They are what he believes, and what he tries to convince thousands of of his followers to believe. For Joe Lieberman to call this guy the new "Moses" is an insult.

If the words "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" applies to anyone, it is to people like him and his followers. Israel would benefit greatly from having fewer people trying to turn it into a vehicle for their theological end-times prophecies, from Ahmadinejad's crazy ideas about the coming of the 12th imam to Hagee's dispensationalism to those crazy hilltop settlers who spit on IDF soldiers whose job it is to protect them. Israel needs all of this like it needs a hole in its head. More than anything, most Israelis would like people to quiet down and stop looking at their country like it's the center of the universe. Ratcheting up the volume doesn't help them.

Seeing this guy and his legions of followers waving Israeli flags and dancing the hava nagila sickens a lot of Jews. Sure, a lot of them will get over it when they get older, but his very, very public associations with Israel, his speeches at AIPAC, harm the country in the eyes of many, many young Jews. This guy makes Zionism look like fanaticism, and that ain't good for us one bit. This is all to spit on the Zionism of Hertz, Meir, or Ben-Gurion.

There's a cost to his support, as I hope you can concede, and I argue that this cost outweighs the millions he raises for the good people of Israel.

My point is that if you are unable to see Hagee for what he is, then you've lost your moorings my friend.

I certainly don't think all religions are the same!

I bet if you liked his politics you'd take some of his religious beliefs as "eccentric" instead of scary.

I can work with his people on some things without buying the whole package, and while disagreeing, still treat he and his with respect.

I didn't ask you about the Holocaust because I necessarily agree with Hagee. The point is that such discussions are very difficult to have at all without somehow sounding "bad" if there are people lurking ready to take a few sentences in isolation. Most people avoid the subject altogether like you cleverly did.

Finally, Israelis may not want to be the center of the world's attention, but I'm afraid that's not a choice. There are an awful lot of people trying to destroy them, my advice is to take the friends, too. The issue of how hard the Hagee people push has, as I understand it, come up, and Jewish leadership does work with them on "cooling it" from time to time. The point is, it's handled...it's a reason to work with them, not shun them.

Let me bottom line this again and come back to where it all started. Does John Hagee (et al) secretly hate Jews? Is it all a deep put-on? Does he think the Holocaust was just dandy? Is there some danger that his followers are standing by and at some point in the future could conceivably begin pogroms in order to drive the Jews to Israel to fulfill God's will? No, no, no, no, none of that is true or conceivable, yet the people putting out these quotes from Hagee don't mind putting out that impression, and all in the name of short-sighted Democrat politics.

I can work with the quirks and eccentricities, and maybe influence some of those people you are very concerned with by actual engagement and dialog (oh god, did I just say that? -- well in this case it's worthwhile). A little respect, a little less caricature and maybe we can get somewhere...

I can assure you that I'm not taking a few of his sentences out of context. The context is just as scary.

It's funny that you say that if I liked his politics, I would find him eccentric rather than scary. No, the point is that I am very pro-Israel, and that's precisely why I find him so scary. Having a guy like this on your team makes the team look really bad, not just to your enemies who'll hate you anyway, but to potential allies and your own people as well.

And I'm under no illusions about Israel being on the center of everyone's stage and why. I know that Hagee isn't responsible. When the period from January 2003 and March 2008 sees Israel, with a population not half that of metropolitan Cairo's, condemned at the UN no fewer than 635 times, while the runners-up are Sudan at 280, the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 209, and Burma at 183, and North Korea cited a mere 60 times, we know that that there's a big problem here, and it's not Hagee. Nor is Hagee responsible for the academic boycotts of Israel, or the divestment campaigns that single out Israel and that are waged by various mainline churches.

But I am saying that if Israel is at the point where for its survival it really needs the support of hordes of ignorant dispensationalist fanatics who want to convert its Jews to Jesus, then Zionism is a failure. Of course, I don't believe that Zionism is a failure, and that's why I believe that Israel should cool it with these people. I'm not saying to tell them to go to Hell. I'm just saying to keep them at arm's length. Maybe not have their leader give the keynote address at the AIPAC meetings. And maybe don't have Lieberman standing up there and calling Hagee "Moses." Surely you can agree to that?

Did I ever say that Hagee hates Jews? That's a bit of a straw man. Sure, the media has played it like he hates Jews. But that's certainly not what *I* argue. Nor is it the argument of many, many Jews who know about Hagee and don't like his role. We're making a somewhat more nuanced argument than that. (And I know how nuance is regarded these days...) We don't like his influence and the attention he brings, for the myriad reasons that I laid out above. When people think of Zionists (I don't mean the anti-Semites, but our friends, and fellow Jews), I don't want his face popping up in their heads. It doesn't help when people think that these Hagee types are the ones giving us all our American support.

I mean, they'll hate us whatever we do. We all know that. But does that mean we should just throw our hands up and make no effort at all? But putting Hagee and his ilk front and center as Zionism's public face is just that---throwing our hands up.

I turn you to the following book by the inestimable Gary Larson:

http://tinyurl.com/5zbg7v

Love without understanding isn't really love, nor is it necessarily helpful in the long run. Hagee is to Jews what George W. is to freedom and democracy. I hope you've heard to old Jewish folk story about the rabbi and the man who pledges his love for him? The rabbi shows that the man doesn't really know the rabbi at all, and explains that real love requires understanding. Look it up.

I'm also reminded of the familiar Aesop's fable, which functions on many levels in the present context:

THE TWO POTS

Two Pots, one of earthenware and the other of brass, were carried away down a river in flood. The Brazen Pot urged his companion to keep close by his side, and he would protect him. The other thanked him, but begged him not to come near him on any account: "For that," he said, "is just what I am most afraid of. One touch from you and I should be broken in pieces."

I haven't addressed yet the language you use to describe people, like me, who have problems with Hagee and his relationship with Jews. You call us an "army of lefty Davids". I can assure you that I'm no leftist, nor are the myriad staunchly pro-Israel Jews who have serious qualms with Hagee and his ilk. You say that Hagee "is the only kind of Mullah the extreme Left is really worried about -- the American conservative kind." You've got to be kidding, right? No, we know full well that the Mullahs with the nuclear program represent the real existential threat here. The Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia (who are Bush's bestest friends), and the nuts in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

These are all straw men that you're creating. You are putting ridiculous arguments in our mouths. We don't think that Hagee is like Ahmedinjad or Khamenei. Not even close. But that doesn't make him good for us, either.

And you say that "This man and his followers have done more for Jews than most Jewish groups have." Really? What Jewish groups are you thinking of? Fringe groups like all those silly leftist peacenik groups? Or the big, mainstream ones, like Hadassah, B'nai Brith, birthright Israel, AIPAC---and that's just American organizations, let alone Israeli ones. These are the organizations that pop into my mind. And you think CUFI has done more for Jews than these organizations have? You've gotta be kidding me. And CUFI and Hagee have real costs for us Jews that you won't acknowledge.

Just because much of the world hates us doesn't mean we should be going out of our way to bring even more hatred upon us. Having a guy shouting pro-Israel slogans while exhorting his congregation about the Second Coming and Armageddon, and preaching that we live on a planet 6000 years old and that gays are evil, this is all very harmful.

None of this is to bring up Hagee's own personal duplicity. I've watched his sermons. He tells his people that Israel is central to their belief system precisely because of its role in the Second Coming and the end of the world. He convinces them that the Jews must accept Jesus or be destroyed after the Rapture. And then in interviews with the press he denies that his support has anything to do with eschatology. You've got to be kidding me. Do you really believe this guy?

If Aesop applies, Matt, you and others should initiate a movement to positively refuse to accept the millions that Hagee and those in his mold offer, not to mention the millions of votes that are applicable in some contexts as well.

In short, you offer many opportunities for a variety of polemics, but that's a temptation I'll resist in the main. I will note however that if complete and absolute understanding is needed before love can be considered to be love and to be effective, then it's an exceedingly rare flower indeed. The point has some merit, but the notion it's applicable in such an absolute binary sense seems utterly preposterous.

There are simple and humble people in the world, Matt. Always has been, likely always will be. When they make their faltering steps to come to terms with life's perplexities, with ontological and metaphysical issues and conundrums, they're not often going to do so in a manner that Matt and others readily agree with, even to the contrary. A profound shame, that.

Matt, You've covered an awful lot of ground I'm not sure it's worth treading over. You act as though I know you and aimed this post at you personally and then run around saying "but that's a straw man! I don't believe that!". I'm reacting to the hysteria around Hagee and the use these recent sound bites have been put to. Where do you think I live? You think I don't hear from liberal Jews? Far from being a straw man, these quotes certainly have been used to make people fear Hagee and his followers, to make people think he has nefarious purposes in mind...yes, they certainly have been used for that, and I don't buy it.

You keep going on about how bad these people make us look to...someone. To whom?

We have never done it just by ourselves. The Zionists have always had help from sympathetic Christians -- men like Lord Balfour to name one prominent example -- men who had their own reasons for helping the Jews and who you wouldn't necessarily want to attend church with.

As far as Joe Lieberman goes, I'll be concerned if he thinks Hagee is literally Moses. Other than that, I don't give much of hoot what gets said at some political kiss-fest. If I didn't like Hagee (like you), I'd worry (like you), but I don't. That's the issue -- close to Hagee or no, not the terminology.

As Michael B implies, I'll be happy to take Hagee's imperfect love rather than wait around forever for Mr. Right. The Evangelicals aren't going to disappear, nor change their beliefs. I'm happy to accept their love and try to help channel it in positive directions.

Again, Mike, a straw man. I am not saying that you have to completely understand Jews to be able to love them. Heck, I'm Jewish, and I don't totally understand Jews. Nobody does. It's not a binary thing. But Hagee's followers don't understand us at all, nor is that one of their central goals---and Hagee isn't trying to get them to understand us in any real way. I've listened to many of his sermons. It's just not on his list of priorities.

His followers' understanding of Jews is close to zero, just from listening to the things they say about us in interviews. But the bigger issue is that Hagee is not driving them to at least try to understand us for who we are. Ignorance is not a crime, but deliberate ignorance certainly is.

Love without any understanding at all isn't really love. Jews are not a means to an end, not simply pawns in some apocalyptic end-times prophecy. We're real, complex people, and it does not serve us to confuse this matter. I should point out that many evangelicals outside Hagee's church understand this very well.

We should be making every effort to get people to understand Jews, to understand what we have done in the world, and to understand what has been done to us by human hands. Ignorance is our ultimate enemy. Ignorance is where anti-Semitism ultimately draws its strength. If we Jews are all that we claim to be, if our cause and the cause of Israel is rational and just, as I indeed believe with all my heart that it is, then our goal should be to educate people about us, rather than try to get them to love us in a superficial way based on arcane citations from the Bible. Hagee's brand of Zionist evangelism does not further the goal of understanding. It paints Jews as pawns in some grand eschatological drama rather than as human beings. And I've heard many of his followers slip into common anti-Semitic tropes when they explain their understanding of the situation. When your goal isn't to educate people, what can you expect?

So should we turn away their money? I don't know. If Jews for Jesus came to your house and offered to help pay your bills, what would you tell them? Probably I'd say no thanks. Or I'd tell them that I'd only take their money with the explicit understanding that they would stop preaching to me and other Jews. That would seem the dignified thing to do. Then again, I don't have rockets falling on my house every day, like the good people of Sderot (and sometimes Ashkelon).

And Martin, I don't think the column was targeted specifically at me. My point is that I'm not alone. The vast majority of Jews in America are liberal, and vote Democratic, and at the same time the vast majority are very pro-American and pro-Israel. I've seen the polling on this. And they are by and large very queasy about the whole dispensationalist/Christian-Zionism thing, for good reason. So to sweep all these concerns under the rug as merely the worries of the "extreme fringe leftists" who are just out to get the Republicans is totally disingenuous. That was my point.

The context within which Rev John Hagee and his Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a ministry of Cornerstone Church, is that he and they have given Israelis hundreds of millions of dollars. Where do I get in line for this "huckster"?

Well, like I said, if you think that our PR can't possibly get any worse, and that it's not even worth trying anymore, then I suppose you should just take their money and do your part to bolster the anti-Semitic trope of the greedy money-grubbing Jew. But if you do take their money, I'd suggest that you refrain from telling them what you really think of their asinine and medieval belief system.

This clearly isn't the place for complicated discussion, so I'll say one more thing. I happen to respect other human beings, and so I feel pretty unseemly taking their money, having Jewish politicians and leaders kiss their asses at these huge conventions, while snickering at them behind their backs about how backwards and primitive they are. That doesn't seem very respectful to me, and one day it might well backfire on us in a big way.

Indeed, the dehumanization goes both ways. The real lesson of the history of anti-Semitism is that Jews are in danger whenever they are dehumanized, when they are turned into abstract forces rather than people. And Hagee and his church do just that, even if at the present moment we Jews happen to be regarded as a force for good in the world. It's always better when people think of us as being just plain human beings.

Incoherent pouts and shouts, Matt, that pretty much sums up what you have to offer. Not feeling understood, not feeling the love, poor Matt. Likewise, literally nothing you offer is truly accessible in a cogent, rationally accessible manner. I note the ironic quality of one thing you offer, but it's dismissed as a strawman - not at all taking reponsibility for the incoherent manner in which it was offered in the first place. You whine about Jews for Jesus, something I wouldn't have thought to bring up, but something tells me if every member of Jews for Jesus were as well educated and philosophically sophisticated as an Edith Stein or a Simone Weil that that too wouldn't satisfy, perhaps even to the contrary. But not only is nothing you shout and pout about not genuinely accessible in a cogent/rational sense, even failing to be properly understood (whatever that might mean to Matt) now reduces to a "dehumanization," i.e. standard antiSemitism, at least so in its ultimate effect?!?! Good grief. Such it is for the Matt's of the world; not sufficiently understood, ergo not sufficiently loved, ergo nothing more than "dehumanization," ergo what, exactly, everyone's a dehumanizing Hitler deep down inside?

Shouts and pouts. And in no way "complicated". I'm not feeling understood, Matt, I'm not feeling loved.

And as for Mark's comment asking where he can line up to get the hundreds of millions of dollars that this huckster Hagee has to offer, well, stop and think about it for a minute. Where is Hagee getting this money from? He's not the one being charitable here. If we are to believe Hagee, then he is getting these "hundreds of millions of dollars" from thousands of churchgoers, most of whom probably aren't terribly well-disposed financially speaking and who are being sold tall tales that their money is going to help bring the Rapture any minute now, and who believe by and large that we Jews are going to accept Jesus (indeed must accept Jesus) any moment now. Meanwhile, Hagee lives in a mega-million-dollar mansion, and rakes in astronomical profits. Oh, he does quite well for himself. By all means, go look it up.

A preacher who tells falsehoods to the masses so that he can enrich himself (and handsomely!) on their monetary contributions is the very definition of a huckster. Whether these preachers offer faith-healing or snake-oil or fee-based-salvation or Rapture-via-Israel, it's all the same. Hagee just found his own hook. And I don't think it's ethical that we Jews should be playing a role in it, in taking these peoples' money. It certainly violates many tenets of Judaic ethics. And I certainly don't want to be around if and when Hagee's followers realize they've been had, and realize Hagee for what he is and send him the way of the myriad other huckster preachers who have been ousted by their flocks. But, again, if money is more important to you, then by all means, go ahead. You're following in a long tradition.

Of course, all of this just puts aside equally big questions, like whether we Jews should be associating ourselves at such a prominent, political, high level with people who hold such medieval beliefs about the world. I suppose one could argue that our enemies have their religious fanatics, so why shouldn't we? They may love us for all the wrong reasons, but we can't afford to be choosy, right? Sure, their grip on reality is questionable and they hate gays and they think the universe is literally 6,000 years old and they want us to become Christians and they believe that the Holocaust was part of God's deliberate plan to get us Jews to go to Israel (conveniently forgetting that most Israelis in 1948, and the majority of their descendants today, weren't Holocaust survivors), but they give us money and votes! These sorts of alliances of convenience may be precisely the criticisms we lay on our enemies, but why should we engage in any self-analysis on the matter? Self-examination is only for bad Jews, right?

As for Michael B, well, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed all that white noise. He's certainly plenty "coherent" and "rational", isn't he?

What it means to be pro-Israel is very much in dispute. The social-justice lefty appeasers (Peace Now, Brit-tzedek, J-Street and the rest of that naive, misguided crowd) claim to be pro-Israel even as they advocate suicidal policies. Shame on us Jews that Pastor Hagee and the Christian Zionists, not all of whom are Evangelicals, are better supporters of Israel than most Jews. Rather than deal with the substance of what Zionists say these post-Zionist S.O.B.s have the arrogance to say they are the true Jewish voice and try to discredit Zionists by demonizing us. They call us neocons and right-wing nut-jobs as if that name-callng settles the argument. And of course, they try to marginalize Hagee and his supporters by turning him into a scary bogey-man.

Matt, this discussion reminds me of a line from Zorba the Greek; Zorba tells Basi "You know what your problem is? You think too much." Try talking with a Christian Zionist. Attend some of their events. Feel the love. And the respect they show Jews. They're often more knowledgable about Jewish holidays and rituals than Jews are. They have a huge pilgrimage to Jerusalem each year for Sukkot, a biblical festival many American Jews are nearly totally ignorant about and certainly unaware of when it happens.

There are lots of good reasons for distancing ourselves from the self-styled "progressive" Jews but no good reasons for shunning true supporters of Israel and lovers of Zion like Pastor Hagee.

The richest irony herein, Matt, is that you're something of a small-time huckster yourself, at least so as evidenced herein. Not one thing you offer here is much more than name calling and, by inference, the idea that you're quite the intelligent, sophisticated, uber modern and Enlightened type. And yet, wading through it all, not a single thing you proffer is genuinely accessible in a cogent, rationally apprehendable sense. Your own hucksterism is of the small-time, petty, egoistically driven type, very common indeed (and therefore not often commented upon, since it's standard issue stuff), but it's hucksterism nonetheless and the fact you're blinded, self-blinded, to it all only enhances the irony.

Hagee's comments were an attempt to answer a question that theologians have been struggling with for a long, long time: "If God is good, and sovereign then why does evil exist?"

This is a question became more pointed for Christians and Jews in the aftermath of the Holocaust. How could theologians square the murder of Jews with the existence of a loving God who intervened in history?

Hagee's answer, as offensive is to a lot of people, is pretty biblical. God put the Jews through the Holocaust to achieve their ultimate redemption.

Now, if this offends you, fine, but lets be clear, his comments are similar, and actually, less bad, than those of Karl Barth, one of the most beloved theologians in the progressive Protestant world. In 1942 -- the year Germans were hunting down Jews in Poland -- Barth wrote that Jewish suffering was a consequence of their refusal to accept Christ. If you read Approaches to Auschwitz by Richard Rubinstein and John Roth (Westminster John Knox Press) you'll find the following passage about Barth:

"In 1942 Barth reproved a stricken Jewish community for failing to understand the Holocaust as divine punishment for its willful refusal to believe in the lordship of Christ. 'There is no doubt,' he wrote, 'that Israel hears; no less than ever, can it shelter behind the pretext of ignorance and inability to understand. But Israel hears—and does not believe.' In 1949, four years after Nazi Germany’s surrender, Barth continued to suggest that the evil that came to the Jewish people was 'a result of their unfaithfulness,' that the Jew 'pays more for the fact that he is the elect of God,' and that the Jewish people are 'no more than a shadow of a nation, the reluctant witnesses of the Son of God and the Son of Man.'

"Although he courageously opposed Hitler and helped to rescue its victims, Barth was part of the problem, not the solution. Beliefs about the Holocaust as divine punishment were to be found even among German religious leaders who opposed Hitler most decisively. This situation indicates that within Germany Christian accommodation to Hitler was no weird, isolated aberration. It was ultimately rooted in beliefs about covenant and which community was truly chosen by God. Those beliefs had made Jews vulnerable for centuries. (Rubenstein and Roth, page 261)."

[End quote]

The upshot is this, Karl Barth wrote the Holocaust was a consequence of the Jewish refusal to accept Christ. Hagee said that the Holocaust was part of God's plan to restore the Jews to their historical homeland.

Both of these assertions raise some really big questions about what kind of God would do such a thing. Couldn't God's purposes be achieve through some more humane method?

The technical term used by theologians to describe the incongruity between the existence of evil and the notion of an all powerful and loving God is called theodicy. Ultimately, any responses to this question become non-sensical, because God either becomes an unloving sadist, or a loving, but impotent deity. Neither are worthy of our worship.

Hagee is no anti-Semite. He does however, regard the Jews in theological and mythological terms that ultimately can contribute to violence against them. When Jews fail to live up to these expectations, the resulting dissappointment can cause a real sense of disillussionment.

But don't think for a second that the religious left doesn't have its own mythology about the Jewish people. They do. Which is more lethal these days?

A hint: Jews got beat up outside of Durban in 2001, but I don't think Jews were attacked after Hagee's speech in the 1990s.

The Jews are a bottleneck people. They go through historical bottlenecks before the rest of us. Right now, they are trying to get through the bottleneck of Islamic hostility and liberal Christian indifference to their well being. And if some Jews are reaching out to Hagee to make it through this bottleneck, so be it.

One bottleneck at a time, I imagine.

Go ahead and post this in its entirety as a blog entry, if you want. I must however, remain anonymous.