Product Description

Many people do not understand or know how to explain Christian Zionism. Some question why evangelicals should support Israel. Based on theological and historical research, David Brog makes persuasive appeals to Christians to embrace Israel and to Jews to overcome their fears of Christian Zionists.

Focusing on a subject that has been covered by various national media, including the Wall Street Journal, 60 Minutes, and Nightline, Standing With Israel goes beyond politics to: • Profile leading Christian Zionists and detail the views and motives that drive their politics. • Spotlight Jews who have been at the forefront of forming a budding alliance with Israel’s Christian allies. • Explain why so many American Jews are deeply uncomfortable with this outpouring of Christian support.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #193548 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 285 pages

Review
This well-reasoned and thoughtfully presented book will appeal to readers inside and outside the Christian market.

—Christine D. Johnson -- Christian Retailing, April 17, 2006

From the Inside Flap
The phenomenon of evangelical Christian support for Israel has garnered increasing media attention in recent years. Yet almost all of this coverage has been shallow and skeptical. Few have bothered to go beyond recycling the conventional wisdom. David Brog went behind the headlines to find the truth about Christian Zionism. By spending time with Christian Zionists, attending their churches and events, and reading their books and publications, Brog discovered the real motives and goals of an increasingly powerful political movement.

In the process, Brog became convinced he was tapping into something far deeper than politics. Brog, a Jew, came to believe that he was witnessing the birth pangs of a Christian/Jewish reconciliation that has been over two millennia in the making. In this important book, David Brog stands the conventional wisdom about Christians and Jews on its head. In so doing, he helps to further the very reconciliation he seeks to chronicle. This book is required reading for anyone who cares about the future of Christian/Jewish relations and the State of Israel.

From the Back Cover
Breaking the Shackles of the Past

Evangelicals have been israel’s staunchest defenders for most of my lifetime, but rarely for the reasons many people assume. David Brog explains evangelicals’ position theologically and historically, making practical sense of complicated issues. I’m grateful for this work, and I hope to see it on the shelf of every politician, pastor, journalist, and student I know. —Ted Haggard, Senior Pastor New life Church, Colorado Springs, Co

This important, persuasive book argues that "Christians who embrace the Jews as the elect of god are ascendant both theologically and politically. In twenty-first-century America, the righteous gentiles have taken over the church." Brog explains how and why "evangelical Christians have become a powerful pro-israel force in America." He also challenges the american Jewish community to recognize the change and take it to heart. An eloquent and well-crafted presentation of an urgent proposition. —Jacob neusner Research Professor of theology Senior Fellow, Institute of Advanced Theology, Bard College

Customer Reviews

Valid Points Plowed Under By Right-Wing Dogma.
"Standing With Israel" has some somewhat fascinating moments where it explores the long history between Judaism and Christianity and how both basically share the same root. But David Brog's study eventually loses any real value when it turns into an ignorant, rabid right-wing pamphlet supporting imperialism in the Middle East and Israeli atrocities in the occupied territories.

Brog belongs to the same fanatical pro-Israel lobby headed by the likes of John Hagee, who enjoy ignoring modern history and instead dwelve in ancient history and twist it around for their own apocalyptic use. Like Hagee, Brog rabidly backs every single Israeli policy (except giving back some land to Palestinians of course) no matter how bloody or militant. Consider Brog's passages on the 2000 Intifada, he complains about U.S. pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and paints it as poor innocent Israel being pressured by her U.S. masters, of course Brog fails to mention the brutal aspects of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the horrific conditions Palestinians endure in what can only be described as an apartheid state. Brog also praises immense military aid packages given to Israel by the U.S., again ignoring what all the hardware is used for, the brutal occupation of Palestinian territories. Of course it is justified in Brog's view, God gave the Jews that land anyway, it's the Palestinians who should leave to wherever they accept them.

"Standing With Israel" makes some valid points condemning Christian anti-semitism, that is to be acknowledged, but again, the main faults with Brog's work are the same faults in Hagee's dogmatic (more like politically-motivated) backing of current foreign policies. Brog also makes certain points about Iran, as every pro-Israel author does these days, giving us hard warnings about an impending nuclear doom. Of course Brog again, ignores that Israel is the only nuclear power in the region, or the fact that the hotbed of Islamic radicalism is Pakistan, which DOES have nukes. Brog also ignores basic data concerning U.S. backing for Israel. Like his colleagues, he paints the relationship as a Christian nation aiding God's Chosen, which is a joke. U.S. aid to Israel was pathetic before the 1967 war, when Israel proved itself to be a viable client state in the Middle East.

Brog cites George Bush's messianic (and scary) worldview, praising his "good vs. evil" crusade to spread "freedom," Brog of course never complains about U.S. backing for tyrannical regimes in Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Essentially Brog backs more wars, particularly against Syria and Lebanon, to expand the fulfillment of Biblical scripture, or something.

"Standing With Israel" is just the same recycling of the kind of radical dogmatic, right-wing support of current Israeli policies that conservative Christians promote, there is nothing really here or of high historical value, secular Israeli scholarship is actually much more serious than this sort of book. Like the worst propaganda it just presents a very touching, glossy surface, but never dares explore the darker, violent realities underneath. It is almost frightening how Brog never questions Israeli policy EXCEPT when it comes to what he considers no nos like, again, giving up territories which were ocucpied in a military campaign. Again, for a true look at Israel just read the nation's main paper, Haaretz, or seek more authentic forms of Israeli scholarship, this is just candy for very ignorant, unaware individuals.

Antidote to Jeremiah Wright
For those interested in knowing the origins of Christian antisemitism, as well as the modern-day cure to this age-old disease, this book is an excellent tutor. As other reviewers have stated here, the discussion herein is quite calm and collected. It is filled with fact and history, and contains no hyperbole or exaggeration whatsoever.

It's too bad that the supposed saint Obama evidently never read this book---not (apparently) recommended it to his "uncle" Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

For whereas Wright's Christianity is entirely race-based, Afrocentric, and highly antisemitic, this volume explains that true Christianity went far astray in rejecting the teachings of the Apostle Paul, who declared "has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I am also an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew." (Romans 11:1-2)

Furthermore, Paul asked whether the Jewish people had "stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not!... Concerning the gospel [the Jews] are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." (Romans 11:11, 28-29)

Alas, the book explains that about 100 years after Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the church abandoned his "struggle to preserve a special status for the Jews in favor of a clear and clean replacement theology." That is, while the church retained souls to plea for the inherent holiness of the Jewish people, by virtue of God's recognition and gifts to them, Justin Martyr (who died at the hands of the Romans), claimed the mantle of Israel for the church itself, naming Christianity as a "replacement" for the Jewish people, or "all Israel."

This idea was hardened further by Saint John Chrysostum of Antioch in 387, when he pronounced several anti-Jewish messages to his followers, declaring that in replacing the Jewish people as "Israel," the former must needs be eliminated. Thus arose outright hatred of the Jewish people. Essentially, Chysostum preached base covetousness: in order to obtain the blessings given to Israel by God, Christianity must usurp their place. And to do that, Christianity must eliminate them.

Thus, according to Brog--who cites the erudite and learned Christian scholar Franklin Littell's The Crucifixion of the Jews, among other works---Christianity and the message of Christ and His apostle Paul themselves became perverted.

Writes the Rev. Clarence Wagner, of Bridges for Peace, "The error of Replacement Theology is like a cancer in the Church that has not only caused it to violate God's Word concerning the Jewish people and Israel, but it has made us into instruments of hate...."

One aspect of this book especially strikes me as truly awe-inspiring---the understated nature of the repentance herein, which drives home by its very subtlety, a sense of intense sincerity hard to overlook. It contains the kind of understanding and warmth that is dialectically opposed to the rantings of saint Obama's pastor.

One cannot choose one's parents and grandparents, whom in any case always deserve respect.

But one can choose one's ministers. Among very many other things, this book sets straight precisely why Rev. Jeremiah Wright is so wrong about so many things---and should be followed by no one, least of all excused by a presidential candidate declaring his devotion as a Christian.

---Alyssa A. Lappen

A fast-paced, engaging history of modern Zionism
Part history, part politics, part comparative religion, David Brog's Standing With Israel reads like an epic novel. In brief strokes, he paints vibrant portraits of many characters in the saga of Israel's creation, some deservedly famous, others more obscure than they should be. Standing With Israel is necessary reading for anyone wishing to understand the history and the theology of Christian Zionism. From Herzl's first contacts in European diplomatic circles to the Balfour Declaration to the United States' acknowledgment of Israel, Brog details how at each step, Christian Zionists paved the way to Jewish Statehood. He traces the history of Christian Antisemitism, and of Christian Philosemitism, and explains how theology is at the root of both.

Brog thoroughly debunks the conventional wisdom that says Evangelicals support Israel to speed the Second Coming. Whereas they believe that Israel is a sign of the approach of the millennium, they believe that other such signs include a general increase in immorality, apostasy, and, ultimately, the rise of the Anti-Christ. Since Evangelicals do everything in their power to fight these other signs of the End of Days, it is not reasonable to believe that they support Israel because Israel's existence is a sign of the End of Days. Furthermore, they believe that the Second Coming will occur after a massive invasion of Israel - so if they really based their Middle East politics on apocalyptic beliefs, they would try to bring about a massive invasion of Israel, rather than staunchly supporting Israel.

Ultimately, Standing With Israel is an eloquent plea to Jewish leaders to embrace the support of Christian Zionists. They would do well to heed it.