On October 16, 2004 President Bush signed into law the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. It establishes a special department within the U.S. State Department to monitor global anti-Semitism, reporting annually to Congress.
This is more "Hate Crimes" legislation, orchestrated by the international Jewish religious, educational, and fraternal organization, B'nai B'rith, and its Anti-Defamation League. The new "Department of Global Anti-Semitism" is designed to make critics of Israel not only into "anti-Semites" but ultimately into "domestic terrorists."
But first, what is anti-Semitism? Simple: It is the racist belief that Jews, because of heredity, are evil, greedy, corrupting, subversive, degenerate, etc. Hitler believed this. So do the KKK and certain "Christian identity" and white supremacist groups.
Such dehumanization of Jews is evil, un-Christian, un-American.
On the other hand, if the actions of individual Jews, Jewish institutions, Jewish religious or secular leaders, or the nation Israel have been evil, then vehement criticism is not anti-Semitic. It is courageous and laudable. Certainly, the Biblical prophets, including Christ, engaged in vitriolic criticism of the sinful nation Israel and its false leaders. No one considers them anti-Semitic.
TWISTED DEFINITIONS OF "ANTI-SEMITISM"
However, in its "Report on Global Anti-Semitism" and "Global Anti-Semitism Report," the U.S. State Department ignores the above perspectives. Here is a list of beliefs or activities the U.S. government now considers anti-Semitic: ...
There are two subjects that one is never supposed to introduce into the conversation at any polite dinner-party: religion and politics. This chapter is all about both; or to be more precise, it is about the religion of politics. The Bible does not discuss politics in the categories of Conservative and Socialist or Republican and Democrat; instead, it speaks of the spiritual alignment of those who exercise political power. Political rulers are either for God or against him, and it is the purpose of Revelation 13 to warn us that, in the period between Jesus' first coming and his second coming, we must expect periods when godless politics manifests itself in particularly vicious ways.
First, the chapter portrays the characteristics of godless politics (1-6); then the techniques of godless politics (11-18); and finally, it presents us with what the Christian response to godless politics ought to be.
1. The characteristics of godless politics
I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name (1)
It is important to read this chapter against the background of what is said in the rest of the New Testament about civil government. In Romans 13, Paul argues that the purpose of government is to reflect the just rule of God within human society. He insists it is perfectly possible for government to exercise power in a way that pleases God, indeed God himself has ordained it in order to maintain justice within a fallen world. Civil government is meant to be God's servant for the good of human society. Paul was of course aware that often civil government did not fulfil its God-given purpose. Indeed, in 2 Thessalonians 2, he anticipates a future time of political and moral rebellion when the "man of anarchy" would set himself up against God and his people; and in this passage from Revelation, John seems to be describing that same eschatological personification of antichristian tyranny. The early church called him "the Antichrist". John here calls him "a beast".
As with all apocalyptic symbolism, John's imagery is not meant to be visualised so much as decoded. In the Old Testament, Daniel had a very similar vision, except that he saw not one "beast" coming out of the sea, but four. The first was like a lion, the second like a bear, the third like a leopard, and the fourth was a hideously powerful carnivore unlike any animal he had ever seen. In Daniel 7 we are told these four beasts represented successive world empires - probably Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. So what John seems to have done is to fuse together these four symbolic animals of Daniel to make one composite monster representing the sum total of all the godless tyrannies the world had ever known.
For John, most immediately, the monster represented Roman Imperialism; to Christians, ... more»
