Lux Lucet

“Hell is going to be filled with good religious people who have rejected the truth of Christ.”

• Robert Jeffress

“President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at tackling anti-Semitism on college campuses on Wednesday – but one of the speakers at the event said that Jews are going to hell,” thus reported the Huffington Post on Thursday.

Yes, the HuffPo was in a state of high dudgeon that Donald Trump dared to invite to the While House a Christian minister, who actually teaches Christian doctrine.

In this case, the guilty party was none other than noted Southern Baptist minister Robert Jeffress.  At times, I have been critical of Jeffress on this blog. I stand by my criticism.  But today I come not to bury Jeffress but to praise him.

What triggered the outrage at HuffPo and several other news outlets?  I’ll let the HuffPo’s headline speak for itself: “Pastor Who Says Jews Are Going To Hell Speaks At Trump’s Hanukkah Party.”

So there you have it in a nutshell.  Apparently in 2019 America, if a Christian pastor preaches Christian doctrine, he is not so much as allowed to be present in polite society, let alone be permitted to speak, as did Jeffress at the Hanukkah party.

The HuffPo continues,

But Jeffress has a long history of hateful comments toward other faiths.

In 2010, he called both Islam and Mormonism “a heresy from the pit of hell,” then issued a warning to Jews.

“Judaism – you can’t be saved being a Jew,” he declared on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

This is, of course, entirely true.  Neither Muslims, nor Mormons nor Jews are saved.  This is not because they are any worse sinners than others, but because they lack the righteousness that avails before the judgment seat of Christ.

What is especially interesting here is to watch the horrified reaction of the secular press.  The HuffPo’s argument here is an example of what blogger Steve Sailer has termed “point and sputter.” By “point and sputter” Sailer means the act of bringing forth quotes which are supposedly of such a self-evidently fallacious and wrong-headed nature that they render unnecessary any effort to refute them.  “To quote him is to refute him” seems to be the idea behind this approach.

For HuffPo and other journalistic outlets of this ilk, it’s just obvious that the only reason Jeffress would say what he did is because he’s a hater. No other explanation is needed or permitted.

But HuffPo did not stop with the quotes above.  In fact, the fine folks there were just getting warmed up.  Author Ed Mazza went back to 2009 to bring forth further evidence of Jeffress’ bad faith, where in a sermon he said:

Not only do religions like Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, not only do they lead people away from the true God, they lead people to an eternity of separation from God in hell. You know, Jesus was very clear. Hell is not only going to be populated by murderers and drug dealers and child abusers. Hell is going to be filled with good religious people who have rejected the truth of Christ.

The outrage!  The horror!  You mean Jeffress takes seriously what Jesus said about those who clean the outside of the cup but leave the inside filthy?  Such a fellow is not fit to live!

But in all seriousness, Jeffress was quite right to say what he did. As the Scriptures teach, there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.  All who have ever been saved have been saved though belief alone in the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone.  Mormonism, Islam, Judaism – Jeffress should have included Roman Catholicism in his list; based on his past comments, apparently Jeffress erroneously believes Romanism is Christianity –  all deny Justification By Belief Alone and thus “lead people away from the true God”…and “to an eternity of separation from God in hell.”

Jesus himself said, “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”  Doubtless, HuffPo thinks Christ is a hater too.

But as disturbing, and unsurprising – Christians should recall what Paul said about the offense of the cross and not be surprised when the world finds the cross offensive – as HuffPo’s reaction is, there is another troubling aspect of this story.  It seems that the idea has taken hold in the prestige press that, not only is it hateful for Christians to think that salvation comes through faith in Christ alone, but it is also anti-Semitic.

Commenting on Trump’s invitation to Jeffress in Vanity Fair, Bess Levin seemed to imply that it was anti-Semitic for Donald Trump to have invited Jeffress to the White House party.  She wrote,

Trump, obviously, does not like these charges [of anti-Semitism], having previously described himself as “the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” and probably believing it. So on Wednesday he did what any totally not-anti-Semitic person would do: He invited a pastor who thinks Jews are going to the fiery depths of hell to the White House and let him speak at, wait for it, a Hanukkah party.

In similar fashion, Oliver Willis writing in the American Independent commented, “In addition to smearing Jews, Pastor Robert Jeffress has attached LGBTQ people, Mormons, and Muslims.”

In March 2019, The New York Times Magazine ran a story titled “How the Battle Over Israel and Anti-Semitism Is Fracturing American Politics” in which, remarkably, John Hagee, Christian Zionist extraordinaire, was tarred with the brush of anti-Semitism for the same reason as Jeffress.

American Jews — 79 percent of whom voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, according to exit polls — appeared to be divided over which source of anti-Semitism posed the greater risk. On one side was the progressive left, which includes activists like Tamika Mallory of the Women’s March, who has refused to condemn Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader. On the other side was the ostensibly pro-Israel right, which at a time of rising anti-Semitism in Europe and around the world is home to anti-Semitic evangelical leaders like the Rev. John Hagee (Jews “have everything but spiritual life”) and white nationalists, one of whom committed perhaps the deadliest attack against Jews in American history, massacring 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in October.

In 2015, Mondoweiss ran gave a similar assessment of Hagee and his ministry.  In the piece “CUFI Leader John Hagee confirms Christian Zionism is anti-Semitic,” Mondoweiss writer Ben Norton reached the conclusion that Hagee is an anti-Semite because he rejected dual-covenant theology – dual-covenant theology is the idea promoted by some Dispensationalists that Jews can get to heaven by obeying the Law of Moses – and “does indeed believe that the Jewish people are going to burn in Hell for all of eternity unless they abandon Judaism and convert to Christianity.”

There’s more than a little irony in all this.  While both Hagee and Jeffress are Christian Zionists, and while Hagee in particular has spent years of his life promoting all things Israel with a zeal exceeding most Jews, what thanks do they get for all their efforts?  They both get called “anti-Semitic,” and Hagee is lumped in with Nation of Islam racists, white nationalists – whatever this term means, it’s never defined but sounds really scary – and synagogue shooters.

Could it be that the Lord is trying to tell pastors Hagee and Jeffress something?  Perhaps God wants them to stop wasting their time promoting Left Behind fantasies, read “Who Really Owns the ‘Holy Land’?,” repent of their Christian Zionism, and adopt a sound, reformed view of eschatology.  Doing this would please the Lord, help them to edify his people, and save themselves the embarrassment of being insulted and rejected by the very people whose cause they so zealously claim to embrace.