Via Chuck Cohen. Section headers and minor edits via Christian Comment.
FALL OF THE POST-CHRISTIAN WEST
Dr. Yoram Hazony is an Israeli-American philosopher, a Bible scholar, and a political theorist. Hazony sees the West as “suffering from an immense post-biblical void.” America and Europe have taken the Bible out of their curriculum, so that now they are “falling apart at the seams internally and too weak to deal with their external threats.” Below are excerpts from an Israel Hayom interview from late May 2024.
His Western colleagues want to hear what “the Jewish people, have to say about the crises that the West has been undergoing in the last few decades. From various points of view, they regard Israel as a role-model state.”
THE FIRST INDEPENDENCE DAY
The feast of Passover is “the First Independence Day of any nation in history.” The Bible tells of a nation set free from Egyptian bondage, which “then establishes an independent state in its own land,” yet without trying “to establish an empire to rule over other nations. The Exodus,… the crowning story of Jewish history… has had an unparalleled impact on the political order of the entire Western world. It gave birth to the idea of national freedom and the concept of a nation-state that gives expression to the unique nature of a defined group of people, and which (usually) rise up to resist empires threatening to swallow them up.”
To validate this statement, Hazony gave a short historical review: “From the time of King Alfred the Great,” who united the English tribes and formed the ‘United Kingdom’ in the 10th century based on the precedent of the unification of the tribes of Israel, “then to the Czechs [14th century], the Dutch [16th], the Poles and French [17th], they all looked “to the Bible to establish their own nationhood. The same dynamics occurred…in the US: there is a good reason why the founding fathers of America kept going back to the scriptures, and claimed to be ‘The New Israel.’ Not in the Christian sense” as in replacement theology, “but in the sense that they saw in our story an example to be followed and they sought to imitate our ancestors.”
In the 20th century, this idea of national freedom found in the Tanach [Old Testament], reached the ends of the earth. This concept “does not stem from the other cultural pillars of the West – neither from ancient Greece, where the Greek city-states constantly fought one another, nor from Rome, which was underpinned by a clear imperialist tendency. Passover might well be our national holiday, but its voice is heard far away.”
ROOTED IN OUR TRADITION
Hazony notes that Jewish thinking has made a huge “impact on the West,” which was magnified by some of the “important Protestant thinkers, whose reading was based on the ‘p’shat’ (the plain literal meaning of the verse) of the Biblical text.” He clarifies that he does not mean “that everything the Christians adopted from us has authentic Jewish roots, but the messages that I am talking about are indeed deeply rooted in our tradition.”
Asked about the issue of democracy and individual freedoms, he cautions against idolizing it. “In the right dose, individual freedom is a vitally important value, but when you make individual freedom into the be-all and end-all, then every public question is met with the same answer: Is there any reason to maintain and preserve our boundaries? Individual freedom will tell you no. Is there a good reason to educate our children to serve in the military, to celebrate the Shabbat, festivals, and other important events for our collective Jewish identity? It is always the same answer – the individual should decide what to do with his life. When you espouse only that value without adding additional components to public life, the liberal government collapses within the space of two generations, simply as it has no mechanism that knows how to preserve traditions that are vital to society.”
[Chuck: Recently, I have also become concerned about this idolization of democracy. According to Messiah Yeshua, the furtherance of God’s kingdom and His glory is more important than my personal needs or desires. The growth and maturing of Messiah’s Body is also more important that any individual feelings or inclinations that I may have. As Yeshua said, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Matt. 16:24; see also Luke 9:23)]
EXTREME LIBERALISM
The victory of extreme liberalism (‘progressivism’) in today’s society is obvious and dangerous. Hazony explains, “For the last three generations, liberalism has been winning everywhere. The first thing it did was to convince the masses that they needed to remove religion from public life.” US President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower often said that the war against the Nazis was a “war for Christianity.” He asks if we could even imagine Biden saying something like this today. “Back in the ’60s, following the legal rulings of the US Supreme Court, Bible studies were removed from public schools and were made illegal. Since then, religion has been afforded less and less respect in American public life.”
After communism’s fall, the West thought Marxism was finished, but then radical leftist professors “equipped with neo-Marxist theories” started teaching how “society is built from a struggle between groups of oppressors and oppressed…” The oppressed have no choice but to overthrow “the ruling class…oppressing them,” whether they are men, whites, and after Oct. 7th, Jews. Just like today’s liberals “have no tools to fight against the Islamic supremacist movements in the West, so too they will lack the tools to prevent the neo-Marxists from taking over the universities in the US.”
He also has great concerns for Europe’s future, seeing its current situation as “difficult, perhaps even dire.” Based on what we see today, he does not think the Western world will “be able to contend with the domestic Muslim and neo-Marxist threat, as the only tools it has to do so are liberal tools, which are not capable of confronting these threats.”
NO FRIENDS AT ALL
So how can Israel prepare for a future where it may even lose its few remaining Western allies? He responds by challenging us to recognize this stark truth: “Wherever the belief in God and respect for the Bible and the Christian tradition are lost, there is no vacuum; this almost always gives rise to antisemitism.” This is obvious with today’s “revolutionary left.” Historically, the basic reason why America, the UK, and the West in general “chose to help Zionism was its respect for the Bible and the contribution of the Jews to the West, as well as the belief that God will help the Jews.” Once this was removed, one can “look at Israel as an anachronistic project of a strong nation-state preventing a much weaker group from attaining self-determination.”
The interviewer, seeing this as “a prophecy of doom,” asked if there is also a “prophecy of comfort?” Hazony replied with a truth which is absolutely vital for us as we intercede: “It is important to remember that God is omnipotent. We humans are not so gifted at knowing what the future holds…I draw hope from meetings with nationalist and Christian groups, unbelievably staunch supporters of Israel; it doesn’t matter whether this is in England, Hungary, Italy, or the US. I have been profoundly impressed by their determination and willingness to struggle against the strong forces of the global left. Every one of these people is seriously concerned about the future of his nation and they are really not sure that they will be able to win, but they are investing everything they have in an effort to do so. It is precisely because we are the people of the Bible that we must help them…”
HATE THE NATION STATE
Hazony is part of “The National Conservative Movement” which has been holding conferences among like-minded people. He said that in today’s woke-atmosphere many “people in the academic world feel if they speak out in favor of the nation-state, religion, and family values – they will be dismissed and thrown aside, left with no existence.” Surprisingly, Israel is a model state for many of them. “We wish we could be like Israel” is what he hears throughout the global right. It looks up to Israel with its “high rate of natural increase,” where a large majority of Israelis “fasts on Yom Kippur, holds a Seder on Passover, gets married at a religious ceremony, and serves together in the army…It is a pity that the opinions voiced by these people are not heard in Israel.”
Blessings from Jerusalem, Chuck Cohen
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Steve Maltz’s books speak into some of these issues:
Outcast Nation: https://www.saltshakers.com/shop-israel-jews (looks at Israel and many cednturies of persecution)
Noise: https://www.saltshakers.com/shop-culture (looks at Cultural Marxism)
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