Like other forms of predatory behavior, there are common motivations that link fundamentalist Islamist terrorists and fundamentalist Christian missionaries. Both actively pursue the Jewish people individually and as a nation. Jihadists aspire to physically eradicate the Jews and their progeny, and missionaries hope to absorb and consume them spiritually.
Predatory Islamists and predatory Christianity are both the epitome of antisemitism.
For over 3,000 years, Jews have outlived dozens of nations who sought to annihilate us. Jews are and always have been a rabble of irritating, stubborn, and argumentative people who – much as we would like to be like other nations – are destined to be different. We challenge the world and are a challenge to the world, and in our difference and defiance, we pose a challenge to the conventional order of things.
Now, Israel has been physically assaulted and infiltrated on a scale unprecedented in the history of the state. Before October 7, there was hope that Israel could find a workable formula for living among neighboring Arab Muslims and somehow appease the predatory Islamist terrorists among them. But the enemy strives for our total physical destruction. We did not understand predatory Islam.
Israel has also been infiltrated by predatory Christian and Jewish apostate missionaries. “They must be like us: kind, generous, and loving,” we tell ourselves. But they want to convert our souls. We do not understand predatory Christianity.
And, despite our self-flagellation, some of the world – to our amazement, dismay, and confusion – rallies to the “pro-Palestinian” antisemitic cause. They want to disconnect and erase us from our land and the very earth itself. We do not understand the world’s crazed antisemites.
There is something in the collective Israeli psyche that has fostered a lack of understanding and a refusal to acknowledge both the physical invasion of predatory Islamist terrorists and the theological invasion of predatory Christian missionaries.
There is something in the collective psyche of Israelis that does not allow for seeing and acknowledging large-scale movements of triumphalism, dominionism, barbarism, and evil.
WE JUST don’t want more trauma. We have allowed ourselves to be deceived into believing that these cultures wanted cooperation, peace, and a non-confrontational life and lifestyle.
There’s a pattern of dismissiveness by Israelis towards the danger of predatory Muslim terrorists on our border and to the religious invasion of predatory Christian missionaries within our borders.
All too commonly, Israelis project their own Western-influenced Jewish logic onto “the other,” in this case missionaries and Islamists.
We do not adequately understand non-Jewish cultures. We base our understanding on a Jewish mindset and perspective. Understanding the language and culture of “the other” is essential. As we have seen and may yet still see, relying on wrong assumptions can end in traumatic shock.
It has already ended in a physical traumatic shock. We do not want it to end in a spiritual traumatic shock.
Emotional shock and horror occur when our world or worldview is turned upside down. Grievous loss under any circumstances is horrific and life-changing. The loss of a loved one under any circumstances is horrific.
Imagine the emotional and psychic pain of losing a family member who has been manipulated or seduced to leave 140 generations of Jewish family heritage and peoplehood to embrace an alien theology and forbidden beliefs.
The loss of a child, or a family member, whether by murder or by conversion is the loss of generations of Jewish lives.
We do not minimize the horror of the loss of even one Jew by predatory Islamists, neither should we minimize the horror of the loss of even one Jew by predatory Christian missionaries. It is our obligation to strive to save every Jewish life and to preserve continuity.
LAST YEAR, Dr. Billy Wilson, president of Oral Roberts University, spoke about Christian domination while standing on the steps of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Dr. Wilson's statement
He said: “We gathered in New York leaders from across the Kingdom of God, Catholics, Protestants, Alpha, the World Evangelical Association, Lausanne, Baptists, Methodists, the Assemblies of God, leaders from all of these different movements, the top leaders. And together we crafted and signed a commitment. It is called the 2033 commitment. You can find it at 2033.earth we’ve already had leaders from 70 nations, hundreds of leaders saying, that we are committing our life and our energy for the next 10 years to work together, to collaborate together to reach every person on earth with the good news of Jesus Christ...”
This year, David Parsons, vice president and senior spokesman for the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, warned about Islamic domination in a Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs online seminar: “For Hamas, for radical Muslims and the Palestinian Authority, they promote as prophetic fulfillment that they are on the way not only to defeating Israel but conquering the world.”
A small group of activists in Israel has been writing about and researching the influence of predatory Christian missionaries in Israel and the nature of Israelis, who ignore their activities and impact.
Many in the group have reached the conclusion that Israelis allow and enable missionizing out of personal and fundraising fatigue and ignorance, out of a justification for American political support, out of the frank appeal of receiving income and financing from the multi-billion-dollar evangelical industry, and the relatively low priority of conversionary missionary activity relative to physical jihadist threats.
The “shtetl mentality” is still in effect after generations of Jews in Europe learned to ignore social friction to avoid violent antisemitic responses to perceived provocations. The spillover is that in Israel the Jews will tolerate just about anything – including assaults on their very souls – in order not to offend the gentiles and to avoid being labeled as “anti-Christian” or “anti-Muslim.”
It is time to fight back not just against Islamic terrorists but also against conversionary fundamentalist Christian missionaries. Both seek to destroy Jewish continuity.
The writer is a medical and rehabilitation psychotherapist from the University of Washington in Seattle, now living in Jerusalem.