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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 11 December 2023

Jews are known for many things, not least of which is as survivors. What can we learn about God’s purposes by studying the Jewish people? 

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #122 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Jews are in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. Not that it’s their fault. But in the wake of the Israel/Hamas war, antisemitism, i.e., hostility, prejudice, or discrimination, a form of racism – has become a plague throughout Europe, Australia, and in North and South America.

“We know from history that Jew-hatred, the world's oldest and once again most fashionable form of bigotry, is the chameleon of all hates – forever taking on new hues to suit the scapegoating needs of the day. It has always been thus, and it will always be thus.”

Antisemitic incidents in the United States rose nearly 400% in just two weeks after 10/7, this after such incidents reached their highest ever recorded in the U.S. in year 2022.

In a recent congressional hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray “noted in his testimony that while Jews account for less than 3% of the U.S. population, around 60% of religious-based hate crimes target Jews.

Jews are, sadly, no stranger to antisemitism, or more bluntly stated, “Jew hate.”

In the Middle Ages, Jews were called “Christ’s enemies” or “Christ-killers.” They’ve been the victim of what’s called “blood libel,” an antisemitic canard which falsely accuses Jews of murdering Christians in order to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals. In Russia, Jews were massacred in periodic, systematic pogroms, a Russian word meaning “to wreak havoc, to demolish violently.” 

And worst of all, beginning with Kristallnacht or the “Night of Broken Glass” in 1938, Hitler and the Nazis killed about 6 million Jews in what they called the Final Solution and history calls the Holocaust. 

Meanwhile, a list of notable American Jews is astoundingly lengthy – in every field of human endeavor. And this can be repeated in Europe and elsewhere in the world. 

So why, then, are Jews hated historically and globally? Perhaps the principal reason is “because God has a special plan for the nation of Israel, and Satan wants to defeat that plan. Satanically influenced hatred of Israel—and especially Israel’s God—is the reason Israel’s neighbors have always wanted to see Israel destroyed,” and it is the reason why Jews have been despised and persecuted their entire existence.

Ostensibly, the current outbreak of antisemitism on college campuses, in the streets, and, unbelievably, in Congress, is due to opposition to Israel’s policies regarding Palestinians and Gaza and in particular how Israel is prosecuting the war to eradicate Hamas as just retribution for Hamas’s pre-civilizational atrocities against innocent Israelis Oct. 7. But the immediacy and intensity of venom aimed at Jews who had nothing to do with what is taking place in the Holy Land indicates this is an indiscriminate broad-brush racist attack with deep roots in Western Civilization’s ongoing moral collapse.

Yet Jewish people have set a high standard, making contributions in virtually every sector of American society and Western Civilization. Consider these names:

Emma Lazarus, Levi Strauss, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Benny Goodman, George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Jerry Seinfeld, Mark Zuckerberg, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Henry Kissinger, Sandy Koufax, Wolf Blitzer, Stephen Spielberg, Bernie Sanders, Monica Lewinsky, Natalie Portman, Gal Gadot, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Elena Kagan, Doug Emhoff.

This is a small sampling of names quickly grabbed off the internet.The number of notable Jewish Americans who have made our lives immeasurably better is legion.

Prior to World War II, the global Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million. Then the Holocaust occurred. Since then, the population has slowly risen again, and as of 2021, was estimated to be at 15.2–19.9 million. Today, Israel’s population  (including disputed territories) – 9,000,000. And in the United States – 7,600,000.

Certain biblical teachings and subsequent political developments relative to the Jewish people, descendants of the Old Testament Abraham and Israelites, have given rise to misinterpretations, false accusations, jealousy, and recriminations.

• Jews are called God’s chosen people (Gen 12:1-3; 13:14-15). People misinterpret this in several ways, including thinking Jews are given some special spiritual pass to heaven. But this doesn’t make Israel more special; it makes God more special because he keeps his promises. God was setting up the lineage through which Jesus would come. This really is the crux of why God chose Israel to be his chosen people.

• God gave Abraham’s descendants the land of Israel (Gen 13:14-15).

• The Jewish Diaspora resulted in Jewish populations the world over, most subject to persecution, followed in the 19^thC with Zionism and a beginning return to the land. To this day, Arabs, or Palestinians, and others fight what are now called Israelis over Israel’s right to exist on the land as the modern nation-state was established in May 1948. So, who owns the Holy Land? If Palestinians are not allowed to live in the land of Israel, what should be done with these hundreds of thousands of people whose ancestors lived in the land?

• Judaism, Christianity, and Islam claim Jerusalem as a holy place. Who has claim? 

• New Testament Church Age teachings re Israel vs the Church, including Replacement Theology, which “affirms that the Church has completely replaced Israeland will inherit God’s promises to Israel; the covenants, then, will be fulfilled only in a spiritual sense. In other words, replacement theology teaches that Israel will not inherit the actual land of Israel; the Church is the “new Israel,” and ethnic Israel is forever excluded from the promises—the Jews will not inherit the Promised Land as Jews per se.” This theological debate occurs within conservative evangelical Christendom.

What lessons can we learn?

1. “The persecutors of Israelwill come and go, but the persecution will remain until the second coming of Christ. As a result, conflict in Israel is not a reliable indicator of the soon arrival of the end times.”

2. Scripture makes it clear that “there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him” Rom 10:12. Or the Bible states it another way: “Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too” Rom 3:29.

           “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” Gal 3:28.

3. Also in Scripture, the Apostle Paul reminded us that “we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink” 1 Cor 12:13.

4. And in heaven one day, the Word says, “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language,standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands” – Revelation 12:9.

Jewish people are just that, people, human beings made in the image of God, like all human beings loved by God, and like all human beings, Jews are sinners in need of grace or sinners saved by grace.

If you are Jewish, God bless you and may you be safe, surrounded by support, and given every opportunity of liberty and happiness.

If you are not Jewish, as I am not, then we need to remember that Jewish people, like all humanity including Arabs, Palestinians, Iranians, Russians, you name it, are our neighbors, and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Clearly, the Lord is not finished with this world. No climate change, no wars or rumors of wars, no natural cataclysms like the sunspot archipelago releasing solar storms, no nuclear nightmare, no genocidal mania perpetrated by any demonically driven people, no end of the world scenario is ever actually going to end the world until God determines the End Times have come.

And throughout the history yet to come, Jewish people will remain, at times under duress, but remain and flourish because the Lord of Heaven deems it so.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.  

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023    

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 04 August 2023

Have you gotten weary of racial division and discord? We’ve certainly experienced it since the George Floyd tragedy in Minneapolis: riots, destruction, calls for defunding the police, charges of so-called white supremacy. But let’s pause a moment and ask, what does a Christian worldview say about race?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #101 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

The tragic death of George Floyd, May 25, 2020, at the hand of a police officer resulted in nonstop social unrest that plagued American cities, and created a milieu in which it was and is almost impossible to conduct a deliberative conversation about race, racism, police brutality, or police actions.

So much angry momentum fogs the air that anyone questioning the wisdom of what’s taking place does so at risk of reputation, maybe employment, and in some cases personal well-being. At least this is true on American campuses if not also in some corporations or other public venues.

The point is, it’s risky to disagree with the prevailing acceptable narrative endorsed by much of Big Media, Big Social Media, corporations, various celebrities, the political left, and other cultural opinion elites.

This said, I am not suggesting there were or are no issues, i.e., no racism, never any police brutality, no room for police reform. I am, however, suggesting that much of what’s become accepted mantra does not bear up under objective analysis.  

But my point here is not to argue politics as such, much less to be partisan.  

Rather, I want to suggest this is a moment for us all to take a breath and to attempt to better understand, and to work to apply our Christian worldview to life and culture.

Where does our Christian worldview lead us regarding race?

First, let’s begin at the beginning, noting that God created every human being “in his image,” and as such each person is temporally and eternally significant, possesses dignity, and is the highest order of creation (Genesis 1:26-27).

I’ll repeat that. God created all human beings, “Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

I don’t know if Adam and Eve were White or Black or Red or Yellow or some other racial hybrid unknown to us today. I do know God created humanity, beginning with these two people, and you and I, along with 8 billion others in the world, descended from them. So, the DNA for racial variation was built in, and God allowed these differences and distinctions to develop later, like he did with various animal and plant species.

For example, there are more than 400 dog breeds recognized around the world. While I believe God created dogs, I do not believe all the breeds we know today were present in the Garden of Eden. While I don’t buy into evolution from one species to another, I do believe God created, as he said in the Genesis account, various “kinds” of animals that allowed for inter-breeding, tapping gene pools, which in turn allowed the development of new breeds. So, while we don’t see, and there are really no fossil records to indicate, one kind or species evolving into another, much less monkeys becoming apes becoming human beings, we do find record of gene pool variety developing within given species or kinds. This continues to this day within kinds of animals that are sexually compatible, meaning they can mate and reproduce.

Same for human beings. We are all descended from Adam and Eve, via Noah and his wife, their 3 sons and their wives, from whom Gen. 9:19 says, “from them came the people who were scattered over the whole earth.” These scattered people represented a vast and varied gene pool, some of which were later isolated to allow for the development of dominant characteristics, including skin color, hair color, body shape, physical attributes or capabilities.

Think of the blonde-haired people in Scandinavia or both the short pygmies and the tall Dinka or Tutsi people in Africa. Even among Native Americans there was great variety in biological stature and appearance across a continent. While Darwin once argued for multiple races of humanity, though there are variations, clearly God created one human race.

In modern terms, race goes hand-in-hand with skin color. This is the predominant characteristic and the first thing that enters people’s minds when race is mentioned.

So, let’s think about how Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, White people are not as different as we may assume, but how we are similar if not alike:

1. As noted, God created all human beings—including every racial variation—in His image.
2. In Scripture, we also learn that all nations come from one man, and that people’s time, place, and demographics are appointed by God. 

All human beings, whatever their gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, or any other demographic, is who they are because the Sovereign God created them for his purposes: “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands” (Acts 17:26).

3. Each human being is uniquely gifted, individually significant with ultimate value.
4. All human beings are endowed with reason and moral responsibility, thus freedom and accountability. No exceptions.
5. Human beings are directed by God to develop culture, meaning we are to be stewards of the world God gave us, investing ourselves and our creativity in a way that cares for our families and for the environment so that humanity can flourish.
6. In Rom 3:23 we learn that all human beings are fallen, sinful. We have deceitful, depraved hearts in need of forgiveness and redemption (Jer. 17:9).
7. Every human being, regardless of race, needs salvation by grace through faith in Christ (Jn 3:16).
8. Human beings are blessed by fulfilling God’s purposes via faith, family, fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace), free enterprise. This is part of the Cultural Mandate (Gen. 1:28).
9. No individual is reducible to just his/her race, for while part of the beauty of Creation, this characteristic is not the sum of existence. While demographics are important, they are not the ultimate definition of a human beings’ character or value: Scripture says, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
10. All races, ethnicities will be represented in Heaven, the most diverse community ever (Rev. 7:9). 

So, as we can see and easily demonstrate from Scripture, Red and Yellow, Black and White people share far more in common than anything that makes them different.

Meanwhile, contemporary culture and the ideology of the Left constantly pounds a drumbeat of difference, division, victimhood, blame, oppressor and oppression, discrimination, recrimination, hate, all of which is based upon the sins of lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life (1 Jn 2:16).

The Word of God teaches us that God loves all, and we are to love our neighbors, so racism has no place in God’s design.

Still, racism exists, for it is rooted in the deceitful, sinful heart of all human beings. Racism is not just a “White problem.” Despite what we’re being told today, racism is not just about economic power, haves and have nots, though this can be involved.

Racism is about sinful attitudes. All people whatever their race can be or may have been guilty of racism at some time. Racism will always be with us. But this does not mean we should ignore it, much less advance or excuse it. We work to remove and eliminate it because we are to “love our neighbor as ourselves.”

Racism is sin, no matter who expresses it. Substituting one racism for another and re-segregating America is not the answer. Loving our neighbor is the answer.  

We are called of God to live justly, to love our neighbors, to bless and do no harm, for one and all. Race is part of the variety, indeed the beauty, of God’s creation. Race is a gift of God. Shouldn’t Christians celebrate the gift of race?

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 18 January 2021

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 18 December 2020

It’s been a slow build for about 5 years now, significantly faster and more in the last few months, the number of biracial, or mixed race, or interracial couples featured in television or print product commercials. Combos vary, black husband, white wife and vice versa, sometimes mixed-race kids, certainly Latino or Hispanic and white or black, and longer standing back to the overseas wars, white man, Asian woman. 

I like it. Seems like a reasonable, harmless, creative, and now realistic way to acknowledge America’s melting pot. I don’t buy the articles floating around calling this a “war on white men.” I know that exists among the fringes, but this isn’t it. I also reject the racist comments I’ve read about these commercials. Humbug. Ever notice that many (not all for sure) yelling “racist” are themselves racist? 

American society is changing. Of 332M people, 13.1% black, 5.8% Asian, 18.1% Hispanic, Latino, 1.3% Native American, white 76.6%, and while white is increasing at .5%, all others are increasing 1.3% to 3.1%. 

Marriage between two people of different races in America has been legal in all states since the US Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia (1967), held that “anti-miscegenation” laws were unconstitutional. In 2017, 17% of newlyweds and 10% of all marriages involved individuals of different ethnicity or race. 

Again, no problem for me. Despite a sad and checkered history of Christian interpretation, there is nothing in Scripture that questions much less forbids interracial marriage. I’d be more concerned that during COVID-19 lockdowns, divorces have jumped 34% higher compared to 2019, and that’s for any or all races and ethnicities.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020    

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.    

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 02 October 2020

Race, racism, and racial politics continue to bedevil America. 

I’ve shared my views of race and racism, and on race, racism, and social justice, as well as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s Civil Rights Movement. I’ve talked about re-establishing order in urban streets and the Defund the Police movement. I’ve been particularly vocal about the danger of “Woke” ideas for American culture, the threat of “Wokeness” upon education, and the growing influence of “Woke” philosophy upon the Church.

I tried to develop a Christian worldview perspective—though I do not claim to be a philosopher or a theologian or anything other than a person who sees through a glass darkly—to avoid partisan views, which I find singularly unmotivating and inconsistent on both sides of the aisle, or even to buy-in to any ideological philosophy, though anyone who actually reads my writing will know I am conservative, little “c”.

For all this, I find it frustrating that some people seem to think they know what I believe, yet apparently have never read my writing, and others who presume to know what I believe based upon some portion of what I’ve said, or, they simply disagree and therefore find my point of view uncompelling. 

A number of things bother me, here in no particular order:

• When I listen to conservative friends, liberal friends, and a few black friends whatever their ideology, it seems to me they are not listening to one another. By this I mean, for example, that I hear different concerns and the same words used with different meanings.

• I don’t like it when people use social media in an in-your-face fashion, posting “Blue lives matter” or “All lives matter,” both of which I affirm, not alongside but seemingly in opposition to “Black lives matter,” which I also affirm. Why must these value statements be set up as “versus” rather than “both/and”?

• There are extremists on both the Left and the Right who seemed to have gained an outsized voice, who are shouting their vitriolic messages so loudly, and who have been given so much airtime in Big Media as well as Big Social Media that other moderate, i.e. reasonable, voices are drowned in the cacophony. This includes groups like Black Lives Matter or Antifa on the Left and Proud Boys or KKK on the Right, along with various white supremacists, militias, anarchists, and others promoting overthrow of the American political system.

• Black Lives Matter has pulled off an amazing and unprecedented coup gaining alignment and hundreds of millions of dollars from American corporations, universities, public schools, and professional sports associations and leagues. The group has done this in part due to the tragic death of Georg Floyd at the hands of police officers and in part because of the genius of their name. Who can or wants to speak against “black lives matter”? Of course, they matter, but the organization is anything but a simple racial justice advocacy group. It is thoroughly grounded in Marxist theory, promotes anti-biblical values and goals, and whether intentional or not, in much that it does advances a new racism in the name of anti-racism. What’s enormously concerning and frustrating about this is that the supportive corporations, educational, and entertainment organizations noted above are all diving in with both feet, afraid of being labeled anything but supportive, and seemingly doing this uncritically, thus embracing values that can or will undermine their very existence in a free, democratic, and capitalist society.

• Critical Race Theory, now promoted by BLM and being taught in universities and until recently the federal government, is a dangerous and damaging set of ideas that undermines potential for racial reconciliation. There is no redemption or forgiveness in CRT. No dissent, only submission. MLK, Jr. would not recognize and I don’t think support much of what claims to be heir to the Civil Rights Movement. Support for Black individuals realizing the full measure of their citizenship, for sure. Peaceful nonviolent protest, absolutely. Rejection of American constitutional ideals and free enterprise, No. Promotion of Black justice vs objective, truthful justice as such, No. Violence in the name of justice, No. Identifying race as the end-all-be-all of life, No.

• “Defund the Police” makes no empirical or even common sense, yet it is being embraced by cities across the country. But it was not long ago that the Clinton Administration touted its effort to put 100,000 more police officers on the streets. What happened to this? School teachers have long been told, “Don’t punish the class because one kid misbehaves.” Yes, bad or rogue or evil cops exist, and they should be discovered and removed if not put in prison for their own crimes. Yes, sad incidents have occurred in which a black person has been killed by a police officer, only later to discover that this was not a “righteous shoot.” But the number of times this has occurred per capita and accounting for the number of incidents and shootings that take place is very small. This is not to minimize or trivialize the loss of life. It is not to argue that racism does not exist in the criminal justice process. It is simply to say that criminal justice reform and accountability for bad cops can happen without defunding police departments. This is an emotional, unwise over-reaction. 

• I do not agree that “silence is violence,” nor do I agree that all white people are by definition racist any more than I think all black people are racist or possess some other negative characteristic. To argue this is itself racist because it condemns an entire category of people based on an assumption, based on the sin of given individuals. 

• Race politics in America is in a bad place to say the least. Right now, it’s extremists with the loudest voices screaming at each other on the opposite end of the teeter-totter. No real change will take place until right values are identified and embraced:

                     --That all individuals are created equal and loved by God. No one race is better much less supreme. No one race is entitled. 

                     --What people of all races hold in common as human beings is more and greater than what our minds determine divides us.

The Church needs to speak to the moment, not touting Right or Left but applying the whole counsel of God.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020    

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.