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Political Issues | Futurism | FulfilledReplacing Replacement Theology: Part 1, 2, 3
(a statement from Dr. Gary DeMar of American Vision)
Dr. Gary DeMar on Replacement Theology, Promises Fulfilled, or Future Israel? (AUDIO)by Joel McDurmon
“Danger!” the dispensationalist pundits are shouting. “Watch out for replacement theology!” This specter of “replacement theology,” also masquerading under the pseudo-academic moniker “supersessionism,” looms ominously over Christendom. One blogger blogs, “One of the most dangerous and subversive doctrines held by adherents of Preterism, is the view that in A.D. 70, at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, God’s covenant nation of Israel was superseded by the Christian church.”[1] A website adds, “There is a demonic cancer coursing through the life blood of the Church of Jesus Christ and its name is REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY.”[2] Yet another puts it bluntly, “This is a heresy . . .”[3]
These announcements appear all over dispensationdom, pointing out the great fear. A watchdog website warns, “There is a powerful movement afoot called Replacement Theology which states that the church is Israel and the promises given to Israel were primarily for the church. This movement is incurring the wrath of God. . . .”[4] Even noted Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser once wrote, “Replacement theology is just plain bad news for both the Church and Israel”[5]
So I guess I should find out about this looming, dangerous, subversive, demonic, cancerous, heresy! From the trumpet blasts sounded against this rising enemy we should all be shocked and alarmed. But of course you know who the culprits are for this beast of a heresy: If we are to believe these ghost-manufacturing pundits, the replacement theologians are we Reformed covenantal theologians, denying the “blessings” and “land” of genetic Israel, the modern Jewish race.
But it gets even more sinister. We find out from a blogger that this movement actually involves a dark conspiracy: “The fascistic tendencies of many Preterists, who secretly espouse a form of Dominion Theology, has impelled them to join hands with unbelievers in an attempt to halt God’s purposes to restore his chosen people to a rightful possession of their land.”[6]
You’re caught (!), all you who “secretly espouse” this other critter, Dominion Theology (”dominion,” of course, just reeks of “tyranny”). You have become complicit in joining hands with the ungodly in order to thwart the advance of the Great Parenthesis (whatever that may entail. Speaking of tails, you know the devil has one of those, too!). I, for one, am so glad that I have openly espoused Dominion Theology, in order to escape this pundit’s censure. I can also brag that I have never displayed “fascistic tendencies” (except when, as an uncritical, unthinking, nearly pagan, MTV-molded, air-headed 18-year-old, I voted for Bill Clinton, because we were both from Arkansas. God indeed can reform people. But I do digress).
The great problem here is, of course, that no Reformed Theologian I know espouses this boogey-man label “replacement theology” that has been placed upon them. No one really believes that the Church has so replaced Israel that modern Jews are cast aside by God as unwanted, unwelcome, and unsalvable. Just the opposite, the Reformed tradition has always stressed that Jews can come to faith just like anyone else can come to faith. Many have even taught that, on top of this open-door policy for Jews, there will be a mass-conversion of Jews sometime in the future (see the commentaries of Haldane and Murray on Romans 11, to name a couple). Moreover, the Westminster Larger Catechism teaches, under the heading “Thy Kingdom Come,” that we are meant to pray “that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the gentiles brought in; . . .” (WLC, Answer 191). As Reformed believers we are instructed to pray that the Jews would come to Christ! And, by the way, this was written in 1648, a direct product of the Reformation. That this pro-Jewish view of God’s plan has been around for 360 years now should signal to the dispensationalists that we do not, in fact, believe in replacement. Call it Fulfillment, Fullness, Expansion, even Grafting Theology-a dozen other labels will do-but replacement will not do, thank you.
In order, however, to keep decrying the phantom “Replacement Theology,” its critics have to maintain that it is actually a real belief held by many Christians out there. Even highly educated types promote this false fear. David Brog, a Princeton and Harvard Law graduate, former top aide to Senator Arlen Specter, and author of the pro-”Christian Zionist” book Standing with Israel, gave the following definition in an interview: “for most of Christian history the dominant Christian theology towards the Jews was ‘replacement theology,’ which held that when the Jews rejected Jesus as their messiah, God rejected the Jews as his chosen people. The Church replaced the Jews as the ‘Israel’ to whom so much is promised in the Bible.”[7] Brog is not content with tagging “most” of past church history with this label, but sees it at work today as well: “replacement theology under new names and guises is still out there, and it still does theological combat with the more Judeo-centric interpretation that drives the Christian Zionists.” Again, with the “guise” idea, as if it lurked beneath non-Christian-Zionists’ motives and beliefs, hidden. Of course, he does not name any of these people.
Brog then continues, working from his definition, to make what is a very common claim of these crusaders against “replacement theology”: “Once the Jews were thus removed from God’s love, the door was opened to man’s hate. And this was a door through which generation after generation of Christians walked.” The implication is that every pogrom, persecution, and holocaust of Jews in history is justified by this wicked “replacement” doctrine that has consigned the Jews to the position of persona non grata with God.
Footnotes:
[1] http://antipreterist.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/preterism-and-replacement-theology/, accessed November 17, 2008
[2] http://www.graceoutreach.co.uk/3.html, accessed November 17, 2008.
[3] http://www.clearerview.org/view/?pageID=252210, accessed November 17, 2008.
[4] http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/replacement.html, accessed November 17, 2008.
[5] Quoted by Thomas Ice, “What is Replacement Theology?” http://www.pre-trib.org/article-view.php?id=249, accessed November 17, 2008.
[6]http://antipreterist.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/preterism-and-replacement-theology/, accessed November 17, 2008.
[7] Jamie Glazov, “Standing with Israel,” interview with David Brog, Frontpagemag.com, May 31, 2006; http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=4C93FD08-9769-4014-AAEA-328FECEB8722, accessed November 17, 2008.
[8] This is the description used by Barry E. Horner, Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged (B&H Academic).
