The Battle For Israel Is Now Being Fought Inside The Church

The Battle For Israel Is Now Being Fought Inside The Church

PNW STAFF

For decades, the battle over Israel has been fought in the halls of the United Nations, across university campuses, and in the streets of major cities. But an increasingly bitter confrontation is now unfolding in a place many Christians might never have expected: inside the Church itself.

At the heart of the dispute is a question that reaches far beyond Middle Eastern politics. Does the Jewish people's return to their ancient homeland represent the fulfillment of biblical promises, or has the coming of Jesus Christ changed how those promises should be understood?

The answer is dividing denominations, challenging longstanding theological traditions, and raising fundamental questions about God's covenant with Israel.

Some church leaders are now openly condemning Christian Zionism as a dangerous ideology. Others insist that abandoning the biblical promises to Israel risks undermining the very foundation of God's faithfulness.

And the stakes go far beyond whether Christians support the modern State of Israel. The deeper issue is whether God's ancient promises to the Jewish people still stand.

The controversy intensified when the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem issued a statement condemning what they called "damaging ideologies, such as Christian Zionism."

The declaration, supported by prominent Orthodox and Catholic church leaders in Jerusalem, warned against outside interference in the affairs of local Christian communities.

Their position reflects a longstanding tension between Christian Zionists, who view Jewish restoration to Israel as biblically significant, and many historic churches in the Middle East, whose members include Palestinian Christians living amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But the opposition extends far beyond Jerusalem.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has taken an increasingly confrontational position toward Christian Zionism, including a General Assembly resolution rejecting it and an August conference titled "Christianity Without Christian Zionism."

Other mainline Protestant denominations, including elements of the Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal, and United Church of Christ traditions, have similarly challenged theological arguments used to support Israeli territorial claims.

The Catholic Church takes a different approach. While recognizing Israel's right to exist in security and affirming the enduring significance of the Jewish people, the Vatican does not teach that modern Israeli sovereignty or territorial boundaries are automatically guaranteed by biblical prophecy. It also advocates Palestinian national rights and a negotiated peace.

Eastern Orthodox churches generally interpret Israel's biblical promises through Christ and the Church rather than through the establishment of a modern nation-state.

These traditions do not all share identical positions. Opposition to Christian Zionism does not necessarily mean opposition to Jewish people or even to Israel's existence. Nevertheless, their disagreements with evangelical Christian Zionists reveal a profound theological divide.

On the other side are millions of evangelical Christians, particularly within Baptist, Pentecostal, independent Bible church, and dispensational traditions, who believe the restoration of Israel is deeply connected to biblical prophecy.

For these believers, support for Israel is not simply a political preference or an expression of sympathy for Jewish suffering throughout history.

It is rooted in their understanding of Scripture.

They believe God made specific promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants concerning the land of Israel. Those promises, they argue, were never canceled, transferred entirely to the Church, or rendered meaningless by the coming of Christ.

The modern restoration of Jewish sovereignty in 1948, followed by Israel's dramatic territorial changes in 1967, is therefore viewed by many as prophetically significant.

Christians from several theological traditions affirm the continuing significance of God's covenant with Israel, even while disagreeing over prophetic timelines or the meaning of the modern state.

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Riots in the Streets, Repression in the Markets: Europe’s Collapse Enters Its Next Phase

Riots in the Streets, Repression in the Markets: Europe’s Collapse Enters Its Next Phase

Chris MacIntosh

Every empire dies the same way: slowly, then all at once, and always while its institutions insist all is well.

Rome’s senators kept debating procedure while the granaries emptied. The British aristocracy kept dressing for dinner while the Raj slipped away. And today, European finance ministers keep issuing communiqués about “resilience” and “strategic autonomy” while the economies supporting these parasites fail in real time.

The math is simple.

Debt-service costs now compete with defence and healthcare for the marginal euro and pound. Energy costs have made whole industries uncompetitive against Asia and North America… and that was before the chaos now being unleashed across the energy sector, from Russia through the Middle East.

Demographics guarantee the tax base keeps shrinking just as the liabilities keep growing. And the pointy shoes have responded to all three by borrowing more, regulating more and pretending it’s a communication problem.

We’ve written plenty about the West-to-East capital rotation and the sovereign debt spiral in the US, Japan, Germany and France. Europe is further down that road than most, and Britain is running the experiment furthest and fastest of all.

Most of Western Europe runs structural deficits it has no political mechanism to close, which incidentally is why they’re going to war.

France hasn’t balanced a budget in half a century and is now fighting over pension reform its own street can veto. Italy carries debt north of 130% of GDP into a demographic profile that guarantees the ratio gets worse. Germany, the supposed fiscal hawk, has binned its debt brake in all but name to fund rearmament and industrial subsidies it can’t pay for any other way… so war is the answer.

Sure, we told you all this years ago, but now it’s happening, and it’s showing up exactly where you’d expect: the term premium on long-dated Bunds and gilts, the widening spread between core and periphery paper, and foreign central banks increasingly reluctant to hold the stuff at all.

When your marginal buyer becomes your own central bank, you’ve just moved the problem onto a balance sheet that has to print to close the gap.

From here it’s financial repression, same as every over-indebted sovereign since the invention of paper money. Push real yields negative, force domestic institutions (pension funds, insurers, banks via capital rules) to hold the debt whatever it returns, and inflate the liabilities away while telling the public the money illusion is prosperity.

Germany is the big one.

For 70 years the German export machine made the rest of the European project solvent-adjacent. Cheap Russian gas, cheap Chinese demand, and an undervalued currency (courtesy of sharing one with Greece) let German manufacturers run surpluses that financed everyone else’s deficits. All three legs of that stool are gone. Energy costs several multiples of what US or Gulf competitors pay. The Chinese have moved up the value chain and now compete head-on in autos, machine tools and chemicals instead of buying German kit.

You can see it in the closures: chemical plants idled or relocated, automakers cutting shifts and moving capacity to the US and China, energy-intensive industry leaving for good instead of waiting for a cheaper grid that isn’t coming. Europe priced itself out the moment it decided to kill reliable baseload power faster than it could build the replacement. And once the capital, the supply chains, and the skilled workers leave, they don’t come back on a four-year political cycle.

A Germany without its industrial surplus is simply a much bigger version of the fiscal problem the rest of the eurozone already has.

Then there’s the liability side that can’t be voted away, because every European welfare state was built on a population pyramid that no longer exists. EU fertility has sat well below the 2.1 replacement rate for a generation (closer to 1.4 to 1.5 across most of the core, lower still in parts of the south and east). And that only compounds. Fewer workers paying in, more retirees drawing out, and a state that raises the retirement age by increments too small to matter and taxes by increments too large to ignore.

Immigration was the policy answer. It’s partly offset the raw numbers and created a second, harder problem: large-scale, low-integration migration is now one of the defining political fractures on the continent — the Netherlands, Germany, France

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Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan say ‘Israeli occupation main source of regional instability’

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan say ‘Israeli occupation main source of regional instability’

REUTERS

Foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan say that the “Israeli occupation was the main source of instability in the region and beyond,” calling for the urgent implementation of a two-state solution, according to a joint statement issued after a meeting in Istanbul.

The ministers say Israeli policies have “deepened global perceptions of injustice” and reaffirm their support for a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, Saudi Arabia’s SPA news agency reports.

Possible Meeting of Putin, Xi, Trump Will Be Extremely Important - Kremlin

Possible Meeting of Putin, Xi, Trump Will Be Extremely Important - Kremlin

Sputnik

A possible meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the APEC summit will be extremely important, it draws the attention of the whole world, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

"It is clear that the meeting draws the attention of the whole world. It is clear that this is an extremely important meeting when the leaders of countries such as Russia, China and the United States meet," Peskov told reporters.

Negotiations in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November, where security issues will be discussed, will be held in a trilateral format, Dmitry Peskov said.

"Nothing can be ruled out a priori, but these negotiations that we are discussing in Abu Dhabi, which are scheduled for the first half of November, will be in a trilateral format. And yes, indeed, President [of Russia Vladimir Putin] outlined the topic of negotiations. These are security issues for the two countries, for Russia and Ukraine, after the peaceful regulation is implemented," Peskov told reporters.

A comprehensive solution to the Ukrainian crisis is impossible without discussing security issues for Russia and Ukraine, the official said.

"It is difficult to say how, in what composition there will be further discussions, but ... it is obvious that it will be impossible to discuss the architecture of European security without other participants, but this discussion will begin in a trilateral format," Peskov said.

The Russian concept of world order means that no country imposes its visions on others, the official added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for the Gas Exporting Countries Forum and the Russia-Africa Summit, Peskov said.

"The president is preparing for next week, because, as you know, it will be a Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a very representative and very important forum, and three whole days within the framework of the Russia-Africa summit," Peskov told reporters.

The deliveries of Russian diesel under agreements with the United States have begun and will continue in an orderly fashion, Dmitry Peskov said.

Earlier in the day, a tanker with Russian diesel fuel left the port of Primorsk and is heading to New York, according to vessel tracking data seen by Sputnik.

"In my opinion, there have already been reports from the Energy Ministry that the first tanker has actually gone to its addressees, to its customers. And then they will continue in an orderly fashion," Peskov told reporters.

Gunmen kill 7 at Christian church in Jordan in what king calls act of terrorism

Gunmen kill 7 at Christian church in Jordan in what king calls act of terrorism

Greg Norman-Diamond

Multiple gunmen opened fire and killed at least seven people Friday at a church in Jordan in what the country's leader is calling a "terrorist attack."

The shooting, which also left 34 injured, erupted during a funeral at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak, about 110 miles south of the capital, Amman. Karak is home to a minority Christian population.

"The terrorist attack against Karak will be met with the harshest retaliation. Those who delude themselves into thinking that they can divide Jordanians with their bullets have no chance in the face of our unity," King Abdullah II wrote on X.

"All Jordanians, from north to south, are partners in land and fate, and nothing stands between them. Our deepest condolences to the families of the martyrs and we wish a speedy recovery to those injured," he added. "Every Jordanian life is precious, and we will strike with an iron fist against those who dare to threaten our nation."

Images broadcast on Jordanian state television showed two gunmen who appear to be holding pistols approaching the church and firing shots, according to The Associated Press.

A third man who appeared to be holding a semiautomatic rifle then appeared and opened fire, and all three then ran toward the church.

A government statement said that the attack was "carried out by unknown assailants" but didn't say whether any gunmen were captured or killed. It noted that "investigations are underway at full speed."

Jordan’s director of public security, Maj. Gen. Obeidallah Maaytah, said at a news conference that 27 of the wounded in Friday’s shooting were still being treated.