Stephen Sizer
I attended a "dialogue" between Richard Neville and Stephen Sizer at Laidlaw College in Christchurch New Zealand last night.
They were brought together to debate what the future of Israel might be in the "Last Days" from a biblical perspective.
Stephen Sizer is the Vicar of Christ Church Anglican Church in England. He is well-known as a proponent of peace in the Middle East and his stiff criticism of Israeli treatment of Arabs has positioned him in many eyes as an enemy of the Israeli people.
Richard Neville is a linguist and an expert on biblical Hebrew and Greek. He is a senior lecturer at Laidlaw. Although not an expert in Biblical Eschatology, he was asked to bring an opposing view in this dialog. The dialog had been held a few days before in Auckland.
Sizer alleged that Christian Zionists such as John Hagee and Tim La Haye were expecting an Armageddon and their warmongering was likely to bring it about. He argued that Christian Zionism treated the Jews as God's special, chosen people. Financial and miltary support for Israel was fueled by this misguided idea. This support allowed Israel to build an apartheid state, maintain its Wall which was "officially" built for security reasons and to continue its occupation of Palestine. In Sizer's view, God intended only to build one People of God and that entry into this People was by faith and not by physical birth. The Church is Israel. Consequently the Jews were no longer relevant as a special people and should be treated the same as any other (heathen) nation or people group. Although the land had been given to Abraham, possession of it was dependent on their faithfulness to God. Their lack of faithfulness meant that they had forfeited their right to it. The geo-political land of Israel on this earth had served its purpose and was no longer relevant. For Christians, their home was heaven above, not an earthly one. Since the Jews are just another heathen people group then Christians should treat the Jews and the Palestinians even-handedly, expecting them to adhere to standards of justice and respect human rights just as much as any other race or nation.
Neville reviewed Ezekiel's oracles relating to a glorious and triumphant restoration of Israel. This had fuelled Israel's expectation of a Messiah who would restore Israel to autonomy as a Nation belonging to God. It was difficult to maintain from the passage that this restoration was merely allegorical or spiritual in nature. A physical restoration was what was in Ezekiel's view. These prophecies have not been physically fulfilled. What Ezekiel had in mind has yet to come into being. Some authors have claimed that such a view was held by only a small extremist minority of scholars and theologians. Neville produced a lengthy list of respected evangelical and Catholic scholars who endorsed the idea that a physical restoration of Israel had been prophecied. He quoted N T Wright who admitted that his opinion that only a spiritual restoration of Israel was described, is a minority one.
Sizer felt that Ezekiel's prophecy had already been fulfilled in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah but Neville pointed out that this restoration was hardly the glorious and triumphant restoration described by Ezekiel. In fact, those who were old enough to recall the original Temple wept when they saw the comparatively humble second temple. Sizer admitted that as far as whether or not the modern state of Israel was a fulfilment of biblical prophecy, he was "agnostic", which I guess is a high-brow way of saying "I don't know." In his view, a genuine fulfilment would result in an Israel with a much higher set of ethics and more compassionate behaviour in respect of its neighbours. Sizer then pointed out that Ezekiel also foretold that sacrifices would be carried out at the restored temple. Do we really want to restore temple sacrifices? Hebrews clearly says that they had ended with Jesus' sacrifice.
Neville thought that if Sizer's issue was his objection to Israel's alleged unjust behaviour toward Palestinians, then he should focus on the question of how one people should treat another rather than debating Christian identity. I agree.
I also agree with Sizer's view that Christians are citizens of Israel. However, Sizer then concludes that the Jews are irrelevant. Yet in the book of Romans, Paul clearly says that this is not so (Romans 11:1). Paul says though their part of the branch has been broken from the Olive Tree, their calling and gifting is irrevocable (Romans 11:29). The branch can be grafted back in (Romans 11:23-24).
Sizer's claim that Israel has built an apartheid state undermines his credibility. Arabs willingly serve in the Israeli armed forces, Arabs take part in all strata of Israeli society, even serving in parliament and the judiciary. When an Arab family was evicted from their home in East Jerusalem because a returning Jewish refugee could show bona fide ownership papers for the house, she made a commitment on camera that she would attend an Israeli university, train as a lawyer to seek redress. She could never hope to do this in a real apartheid state.
He doubts that the Security Wall was indeed built to maintain security. Again he need merely look at the numbers of people dying because of suicide bombings before and after the wall had been completed to see how effective the Wall was in preserving life. Yes, the Wall creates hardship. But better to be alive and facing difficulty than mourning another death.
He concedes that there is a small minority comprised of extremists that wish to end the occupation by terrorism. Unfortunately that position doesn't stand scrutiny with the majority of Arabs living on the West Bank and Gaza approving the use of deadly force to destroy Israel. In 2010, a terrorist machine-gunned 19 teenagers in a Jewish school, 8 were killed. The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 84% of Gaza and West Bank inhabitants approved of the attack. In the same poll 64% approved of Hamas' random rocket attacks and 75% agreed that their leaders should cease negotiating with the Israelis.
Although billed as a biblical and theology dialogue I was disappointed that Sizer was able to use it as an opportunity to make his political allegations against Israel without anyone having the opportunity to rebut them. To his credit, Neville restricted his material to the biblical and theological issue. I suppose the Q&A session was an opportunity for someone in the audience to rebut Sizer's political points but the process chosen by Stephen Graham prevented this from occurring. The audience were invited to submit questions during an intermission and then they were to be summarised and representative questions were going to be addressed by Sizer and Neville. No questions relating to Sizer's allegations against Israel were addressed.
Sizer has in some way become embittered by what he has observed of Israeli conduct. It has jaundiced his view of Israel and he seems no longer able to objectively evaluate Middle Eastern events.
Laidlaw should be applauded for bringing Sizer to New Zealand but they could do better by allowing a more open Q&A discussion period that allowed questions to be taken directly from the floor. If they had, justice would have been a bit more apparent.
