Replacement Theology Archives

THE ANGLICAN Church of South Africa appears to have endorsed a statement by the South African Council of Churches ‘declaring Israel an apartheid state’. This just weeks after the Archbishop of Canturbury Justin Welby had dismissed comparisons with South Africa’s former racist constitution, by stating Israel’s constitution ‘is unlike the former regime in South Africa, which was built on a system of apartheid that institutionalised racial segregation”,

The resolution by the ‘Church Provincial Standing Committee‘ is thin on detail, and references decisions made by one of the active role-players in the apartheid regime, namely the Dutch Reformed Church, Western Cape — whose synod has without any hint of remorse “also expressed its opinion that Israel should be declared an apartheid state” and has thus asked its church’s National synod “to consider this at its October 2023 Synod.”

Archbishop Welby had earlier refused to support such a resolution and has said Israel is rather a country in “turmoil”, adding: “It remains a risk if the constitution changes to an apartheid constitution, then it obviously would become an apartheid state. But until that happens, I won’t use that word about Israel.”

The statement by the local chapter of the Anglican Church is nothing more than replacement theology and gross supersessionism in furtherance of the Anglican Covenant which seeks to replace and situate non-Christian faiths, and in particular the Jewish Faith, within the ambit of neocolonial dogma. Though Archbishop Thabo Makgoba himself appears at pains to distinguish between Zionist and Non-Zionist Jews, such an interrogation of religious identity, even under a secular regime, is unsustainable and scurrilous — leading to contradictions, inconsistencies and discrimination on the basis of religion, all outlawed by our Constitution.

Attributing race to Jews for instance, in order to make a false comparison with apartheid is racism and anti-Semitism, and meets definitions of anti-Semitism proposed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

Just how discriminatory this modern day inquisition (by latter day saints and self-appointed pontiffs), has become may be seen by the treatment of David Unterhalter by the Judicial Service Commission, where mere association with the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) was grounds for disqualification. My own experience with having my Jewish identity reduced to little more than caricature and stereotype, where I was placed on remand in 2007 for complaining about the intrusion of an apartheid media firm upon my private life, a clear case of Anti-Semitism, amidst the refusal of both media and civil organisations to defend secular rights and freedoms also refers.

The failure of the SACC, the Anglican Church and its allies, the Dutch Reform Church, to fully atone for its role in the creation of the apartheid state constitutes a form of scapegoating and denial in which black persons are now held responsible for apartheid and where the narrative of our own struggle is displaced by a supersessionist movement — one that is authoritarian, theocratic, anti-secular, anti-democratic, homophobic, misogynistic and racist — a topsy-turvy anti-nomian worldview if ever.

The ecclesiastical statements by Makgoba are thus littered with bald-faced ipse dixit assertions and a dogmatic resort to unproven authority — two disputed reports by non-governmental organisations (Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch) are mentioned, perhaps because they are closely tied to the United Nations, but without so much as adoption of a resolution in this matter by the UN General Assembly.

Their terms and references and conclusions have already been debunked, and the influence of these reports must be rejected. It is clear such donor organisations view ‘apartheid’ in euphemistic terms and their reports cannot sustain academic nor legal inquiry — nor withstand the stringency of intellectual scrutiny required, to make such conclusions an honest appraisal of the situation as it is stands viz. viz. the ongoing conflict over the Final Status of Jerusalem.

The local Anglican council resolution, in essence a religious decree much like those delivered during the Crusades, and in particular the discriminatory statements by Makgoba, must therefore be condemned as intellectually dishonest, the exact opposite of secularism, and unhelpful in charting a path to peace in the Middle East.

UPDATE: As I write this an Al Jazeera report claims, “Jews Are Storming the Temple Mount“. The propaganda piece flies in the face of the reality that in terms of the Jordanian Waqf, or status quo, Jews are allowed to ascend the Temple Mount during certain holy festivals such as Sukkot. Under the Jordanian occupation 1948-1967, Jews were forbidden from praying at the Western Wall.

SEE: Anglican Church silent on Hamas’s murder of Israelis

SEE: DEBUNKED: Palestinians and Jews, each form a distinct race & the conflict is thus like apartheid

SEE: Everything you know about the Palestinian Struggle is wrong

SEE: Most of all I am offended as a Secularist

Tag: Replacement Theology

SA Anglican Church’s dishonest prognostications on ‘Israel Apartheid’