Gary Burge and LCJE (Laussane Conference on Jewish Evangelism)
The remarks of Reformed theologian Gary Burge below reflect both the presupposition error of the replacementist supercessionism that forged him theologically, and an obvious omission of examining the New Testament passages dealing with national and territorial Israel, which can only be the product of doctrinal ignorance, scholarly dishonesty, or both.
To begin with, apostolic New Testament is as much a Jewish Theology reflecting a Jewish World View as The Old Testament. The New Testament reiterates this continually.
* Romans 3:2 state that to the Jews belong ‘The Oracles of God’ (present continuous active – an on-going possession).
* Romans 9:4 in reference to Jeremiah 31:31 state that both covenants (Diatheke – plural), Old and New, belong to The Jews as The New Covenant was made with the Jews (Jeremiah 31:31), not with the church.
* Romans 11: 18 makes clear that the root (Israel’s patriarchal promises) are the ‘reza’ or supporting root of the church.
* Romans 11:29 makes clear that the divine calling of Israel is not revocable.
Thus, the entire pseudo scholarly premise of the anti-Israel diatribes of Gary Burge are grounded only in the ignorant foolishness of man-made church traditions alien to scripture.
In fact, the New Testament repeatedly makes it clear that the Jewish ethnic nation must be present in their ancient God given homeland and capital for the return of Christ to take place (Matthew 23:37-39, Luke 21:24, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, Revelation 11: 1-8). It is only by taking these passages literally that major Old Testament prophetic predictions about the return of Christ (eg. Zechariah 12:1-10) can make sense without resorting to the neo gnostic spiritualisation of texts out of context to facilitate bogus pretexts.
If LCJE were serious about challenging the anti-Israel crusade of supposed Evangelical anti-Zionists such as Gary Burge and Stephen Sizer they would host a formal debate or a scheduled session at their upcoming North America conference with a Question & Answer session, and not invite Burge to an after dinner chat as an optional item on their conference agenda. Their failure to do so is emblematic of why I left LCJE membership years ago, as I do not believe it can be taken seriously despite the fact that its original aims were worthy but its current pretences, that are all too often, are not. LCJE has long ago become more about the theocratic politics of Jewish evangelism than about Jewish evangelism itself.
J. Jacob Prasch
