Archive for the ‘The Church and Israel’ Category

Posted on November 1, 2008 - by Calvin L. Smith

Second All-Day Israel Seminar on 29 November – Book Now!

Further to the recent MBCDS teaching day on Israel, which was well-attended and highly successful, we are pleased to announce a second teaching day on this topic with papers exploring the subject of Israel from additional perspectives. Full details can be found at the MBCDS website. Be sure to download the promotional flyer and distribute it to anyone you know who may be interested. Please note places are limited and you must book in advance.

Posted on October 24, 2008 - by Calvin L. Smith

Don’t Miss the Extra Israel Seminar and These Audio Resources

On 18 October 2008 MBCDS held an all-day teaching seminar on the subject of Israel, details of which are contained in a previous post. The seminar was a great success, with six challenging papers and attendance by over 150 delegates. So well-received was the event that it was decided to run a second seminar on this subject, providing Christians with further resources on the subject of Israel from various angles, allowing other speakers originally lined up to speak but who could not attend that day to present their research. Further details will be announced on this site today or tomorrow.

Although the papers of both conference days will be released as a book early in the New Year, we are making available several of the recordings from 18th October straight away as audio downloads. The first, by Dr Stephen M. Vantassel, is entitled Israel’s Right to the Land: A Calvinist Explains. This is a most valuable resource for those eschewing supercessionism and seeking a nuanced treatment of this thorny topic. MBCDS’ Andy Cheung also presented an excellent paper entitled What Does ‘Israel’ Mean in the New Testament? This is a short but vital linguistic analysis all Christians need to be aware of. Further audio recordings will be advertised here in due course.

Posted on August 27, 2008 - by Calvin L. Smith

All-Day MBCDS Seminar on 18 October – Various Speakers

The Midlands Bible College and Divinity School will be holding all-day seminar in Reading, Berkshire, on Saturday 18 Oct 2008 entitled The Jews, Modern Israel and the New Supercessionism: Resources for Christians. Speakers are Dr Calvin Smith, Dr Stephen Vantassel, Revd Jacob Prasch, Tony Pearce and Dr Paul Wilkinson. Don’t miss what promises to be a biblically and theologically challenging day. Further details can be found here. Places are strictly limited so book your place now. Non-MBCDS visitors welcome.

Posted on August 25, 2008 - by Calvin L. Smith

Further Israel research: Conference paper available

It has been a hectic few months for the college, and I haven’t posted anything on my Israel research for a while. In fact, it has been a while since I posted anything at all on the College blog. Just to bring you up to speed, the Israel research is going really well and since I last posted anything in this category I have been offered a book contract with Paternoster for publication some time in 2010. In the meantime, I delivered a paper at the annual Tyndale Fellowship conference, Cambridge, in July, detailing the narrative emerging from my research to date. This conference paper is now available on the Christians and Israel section of the Midlands Bible College and Divinity School website. It is entitled Sons of Abraham: The Politics of Faith in the Holy Land. I hope you find it helpful, and I would value any thoughts, comments, or feedback (both positive and negative).

Posted on February 28, 2008 - by Calvin L. Smith

We Wouldn’t Put Up With This, So Why Expect Them To?

This one was a bit of a shocker for me. Watch this video, paying particular attention to the explosion at the end. I didn’t fully appreciate these rockets were quite so powerful (and remember, shrapnel will be cast far and wide from the point of impact). And to think I was in this very town just three weeks ago (three rockets fell in the vicinity an hour after I left, and various more the next day). The place is a bit like a ghost town and people I spoke with are nervous wrecks. There are small air raid shelters every hundred yards or so on some streets, like small, yellow concrete bus shelters. Now read this article in today’s Jerusalem Post. Ashkelon is a major town some way from Sderot. Finally, read the the following opinion that the range of Hamas’ rockets will be extended further within the next year or two. Yet given all this, Israel is under immense pressure, especially from the U.S.’s President Bush, not to retaliate sharply, the aim being to keep this a low intensity conflict. I am quite certain, though, that Britain, Western nations, and especially the U.S. (in fact, most nations of the world) could possibly remain so disciplined (as Israel has in this instance) and fail to retaliate in no uncertain means if it had the arsenal and capabilities to respond harshly and successfully, which Israel clearly does. So why is it that the world always exacts a higher standard from Israel than anyone else?

Posted on February 17, 2008 - by Calvin L. Smith

Brief Review of “Zion Before Zionism, 1838-1880″, by Arnold Blumberg

While in Israel I recently picked up an interesting-looking book from Steimatzky’s Bookshop on Ben Yehuda Street, entitled Zion Before Zionism, 1838-1880. It was written by Arnold Blumberg, professor of History at Townson University for forty years and a noted historian scholar who wrote seven monographs and various journal articles. I was attracted to the book because, together with early Zionist and Israeli history, the pre-Zionist period of Palestine intrigues me. We hear so much false history invoked in the current conflict, that is, false statements that have entered the current debate as “fact”. This is because history is such a powerful weapon in any political and military conflict, and especially where nationalism and nationalist sentiments are involved. For this reason I am always interested in studying the underlying historical facts associated with Zionism and Palestinia nationalism to determine accuracy and dispel myths. I am also fascinated in tracing how the land has changed under Zionism over the past century or more, from a land that was, to all intents and purposes, desolate under Turkish Ottoman rule through to a highly agriculturally productive land today. For this reason, I am also very interested in 19th century travel accounts of the Holy Land, as well as photographs from that period, which can be particularly insightful. (more…)

Posted on February 13, 2008 - by Calvin L. Smith

A Rather Late Englishman Back Home (17)

Sorry. I promised a final update but have been so busy since returning I am only now getting round to it. The trip back was uneventful for the most part. Our original flight was cancelled so they put us on a UK charter flight. The British air hostesses were besides themselves trying to distribute the many various kinds of kosher meals, which they were clearly unused to. Neither are Israelis always the most patient of people. The matter was made worse when the pilot apologised for the late departure, saying this was a brand new airplane in its first day of service and so there had been some teething problems. Talk about sackcloth and ashes! Almost all the passengers (Israelis) were throwing up their arms and wailing as if their time had come. You could tell the British folk present – though not particularly happy about flying in a brand new plane with “teething problems”, they clenched their knees, gritted their teeth, and stared glasily ahead. Ah, that British stoicism, crying and groaning inside while looking so calm and collected. There was no stoicism, I can tell you, running into an hour’s traffic jam at nearly midnight just south of Luton Airport. And I just got home to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury earlier in the day had made some silly comment about Sharia. And the Anglican leadership wonders why it is losing ground in this country. (more…)

Posted on February 7, 2008 - by Calvin L. Smith

Englishman at Ben Gurion (16)

All good things must come to an end, and so it is with this trip. I’m at Ben Gurion Airport, ready to board my `plane in 40 minutes or so, and seeing as they have complimentary wi-fi here I’ thought I’d update you. After this I will run one more of these travelogs tomorrow when I am home. (more…)