Many Jewish people think that the Christian Right is basically well-disposed towards them. After all, conservative Christians in both America and Australia strongly support the bulk of Israel’s foreign and domestic policies as well as providing plenty of tourist dollars.

In fact, however, most Christian fundamentalists and other conservative evangelicals foresee a brief but violent future for the Jews. When Jesus returns ’soon’, Jews will either have to convert to Christianity or die, generally in battle or through plagues and famine. There will be no Jews in Jesus’ millennial kingdom.

While Australian Religious Right organisations generally downplay this message, their reservations about Judaism and Jews are sometimes made plain. Let’s take Melbourne’s Salt Shakers group, led by Peter and Jenny Stokes, as an example.

Most of the time it’s pretty low-key. Richard Cohen, a ‘former homosexual’ converted to Christianity, notes in passing that, ‘As a Jew, I never understood about grace and forgiveness’. A hotel manager ‘who was Jewish’ removed Gideon Bibles from his rooms ‘as he thought Australia was a multi-faith country’. (Salt Shakers Journal [SSJ], Jul. 2001, 6, 15)

An article headed ‘Revision of Biblical History’ (SSJ, Aug. 2001, 8) ramps it up a bit:

B’nai B’rith, the Jewish Anti-Defamation Commission … has now successfully lobbied to change history in student textbooks … B’nai B’rith said the offending material … claimed that ‘Jewish leaders’ convinced the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate that Jesus was a danger and were thus permitted by Pilate to crucify Jesus.

… The new text [prepared by Dr James McLaren of the School of Theology at the Australian Catholic University] describes Jesus of Nazareth as ‘a Jew who engaged in a public ministry of teaching and healing and who was crucified by the Roman Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate.’

Salt Shakers was shocked and asked readers to complain to the publishers, ‘express[ing] our concern that history is being rewritten and that the Bible is being denigrated by the suggestion it is not true.’

Somewhat later, regular SSJ contributor Murray Adamthwaite helpfully pointed out that:

…[W]hen [Jesus'] Jewish opponents plead that ‘we have one Father, even God’ …Jesus gives his devastating reply, ‘you are of your father the devil’ ([John] 8:44). (SSJ, Apr. 2003, 13)

Peter Stokes himself recently told his supporters that ‘playing the victim’ has become a very effective political tool:

The first group to perfect it, albeit with some justification, were certain Jewish groups. Clearly, their suffering was appalling, as it was for many other groups of people in World War II. Most though, got on with rebuilding their lives and tried to forgive.

Regarding these ‘difficulties’ (!), such as those suffered by Jews in World War II:

We can dwell on them, continually raise them, use them as a constant crutch to elicit sympathy or even to gain compensation (monetary or otherwise). Or, as with transport accidents, we can learn from them, even be strengthened by them, and move on. (SSJ, Nov. 2005, 3)

Stokes makes it clear that Jews were in the forefront of his mind when he wrote this by immediately launching another attack on the Jewish Anti-Defamation League.

Earlier this month, Stokes referred his readers to an article entitled ‘Pokeback Mount’in: Hymn to Dysfunction’ by Henry Makow (attachment to Salt Shakers E-News, 6 Jul. 2006). This review of the film Brokeback Mountain is a crude anti-homosexual propaganda piece, distinguished only by its commitment to the ‘Illuminati’ conspiracy theory. According to this ancient hypothesis, world affairs are orchestrated by a secret society called the Illuminati, ‘many of whom’ are Jews:

… [Brokeback Mountain] advances the Illuminati plan to destroy the nuclear family (also a plank in their Communist Manifesto) … [H]omosexuality is a developmental disorder that the Illuminati wish to foster in order to destabilise and depopulate society …

If the Illuminati (and their feminist lackeys) have their way, fathers will be removed from families altogether and homosexuality will explode [i.e. run riot] … Women waste their most fertile years at university learning to fear and compete with men. The media encourages them to be sluts and experiment with lesbianism …

Makow concludes with this dire warning:

… Our leaders … have literally sold out to the Illuminati, a Luciferian cult that promotes pedophilia, human sacrifice and every form of depravity, corruption and organised crime. They stage wars and atrocities, including the Sept. 11 massacre, for profit and power …

Makow’s website indicates that evil Jews (not ‘regular Jews’, you understand, but ‘evil’ ones) are behind many of these diabolical plots. If Peter Stokes disagrees with any of the eccentric analysis he’s circulating, it would be nice to hear him say so.

Filed in: Biblical criticism, Christian Right, People