The Messianic Jewish community encompasses a wide range of theological perspectives, and cooperates with Christians representing an even wider range. We do not need to become embroiled in doctrinal controversies, but when a prominent Christian advocates a position that directly counters our vision and self-understanding as a community, we need to speak up. Such is the case with Pastor John Hagee’s new book “In Defense of Israel.”

Pastor Hagee, of course, is a key figure in today’s Christian Zionist movement, who has raised tens of millions of dollars for Israel and rallied many thousands of Christians in support of the Jewish state. As with other Christian Zionist and Jewish reconciliation efforts, Messianic Jews have been kept on the margins in Hagee’s efforts. From a practical perspective, this is understandable; if I as a visible Messianic leader were recognized at a Night to Honor Israel (Hagee’s signature event), many of the other Jews in attendance would be likely to walk out. I can accept this sort of marginalization because of the benefit of raising support for Israel, and bringing Christians and Jews together in cooperative efforts. Hagee’s book goes beyond this sort of pragmatic marginalizing of Messianic Jews, however, to theologically marginalize us in a way that demands a response. “In Defense of Israel” distorts the teaching of the Scriptures, attacks the foundation of today’s Messianic Jewish community, and weakens the very cause of Christian Zionism to which Hagee has lent such laudable efforts.

For the sake of brevity, I will focus on Hagee's claim that Jesus did not come to earth to be the Messiah, thus making it inevitable that the Jewish people would reject him as Messiah. Obviously such a claim completely contradicts our Messianic Jewish vision. It also suggests that Hagee’s avoidance of Messianic Jews is not just a tactical step to avoid offending other Jewish people. Rather, in reading Hagee’s book we discover that we do not fit into his doctrinal grid, which reflects an extreme form of dispensationalism. According to Hagee, we are mistaken in thinking that Jesus is Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah, who came for our whole people. Apparently it would be acceptable from Hagee’s standpoint for us to get individually saved, but to maintain our connection with the Jewish world, and to propagate Yeshua among our people, counters his whole idiosyncratic understanding of Scripture.

Hagee writes, “If there is not one verse of Scripture in the New Testament that says Jesus came to be the Messiah … And if Jesus refused by his words or actions to claim the be the Messiah to the Jews, then how can the Jews be blamed for rejecting what was never offered?” (page 136; emphasis in the original). Even a cursory reading of the Gospels leaves one puzzled at how Hagee can claim that Jesus did not come to be Messiah, unless he has made the mistake of reading “Christ” as a different title than “Messiah.” Christ, of course, is based on the Greek for “the anointed one” (as even Hagee acknowledges on page 94), just as Messiah is based on the Hebrew for the same phrase. John explicitly equates the two terms in 1:41 and again in 4:25, but Hagee seems unaware of this connection.

The Gospel of Mark, generally considered to be the earliest of the gospel accounts, opens with the words “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (NRSV), which can also be translated, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus the Messiah . . .” When Yeshua asks Peter who he thinks he is, Peter responds, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” or in the NRSV, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Yeshua affirms this statement with the words, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (Matt. 16:16-17). Only after this, “he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah” (Matt. 16:20). Ironically, Hagee only touches on this crucial passage to make the claim that “Simon son of Jonah” does not refer to Simon’s father, but to the prophet Jonah. Like Jonah, Simon will be forced to go to the Gentiles with God’s message (page 138). In this passage and the others that Hagee cites, Jesus does not deny that he is Messiah, but chooses for various reasons to keep this fact hidden. John, the latest of the Gospel writers, concludes his account with the words, “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31, NRSV).

Hagee defines the term Messiah in a way that seems to reflect the anti-Jewish stereotyping that he deplores. He says, “If Jesus wanted to be Messiah . . . to rally the support of the general public for the overthrow of mighty Rome, he would not go around the country saying, ‘Tell no one!’” (page 139). Hagee spends the next few pages showing how Jesus refused to be thought of as the one who would liberate Israel from the Romans, and concludes, “He refused to be their Messiah, choosing instead to be the Savior of the world” (page 143). In other words, in Hagee’s understanding, the Jews could only conceive of Messiah within a narrow context of national liberation through military-political victory. He seems to reserve Christ, on the other hand, for the loftier notion of universal salvation from sin. Thus, in trying to exempt the Jews from “blame” for rejecting Jesus, he misrepresents the Jewish messianic hope and denies any real role for Jesus-believing Jewish people today. If Jesus did not present himself as the Jewish Messiah, why should Jews today believe in him? But of course, the New Testament in many passages does present Jesus not only as the savior of the world, but very specifically as the Messiah of Israel. Hagee reminds one of Christian attempts throughout the ages to portray Jesus apart from his Jewish context, as someone entirely unique and distinct from any culture, and the Jewish Messianic hope as sadly mistaken.

To be fair, Hagee does imply that Jesus will indeed be the Jewish Messiah at his second coming. The Jews “don’t see Jesus for who Christians believe he is, but they will in the future” (page 7). He draws a parallel between Joseph’s revelation to his brothers in Egypt and Yeshua’s self-revelation at the end of the age: “When the Jewish people recognize Jesus for who he is-—when they actually see him—-‘they will mourn as one mourns for his only son’ (Zechariah 12:10).” In the meantime, in this present age, Hagee provides no basis for a Jewish response to Jesus, and certainly no basis for a communal movement for Yeshua among the Jewish people.

We can appreciate Hagee’s stance against Jewish corporate blame for rejecting Jesus, and against the anti-Semitism that has so often resulted from this blame. But there are, of course, ways to understand the Jewish communal leaders’ rejection of Jesus during his lifetime, and the gradual estrangement of the wider Jewish community over the following centuries without denying Jesus as Messiah. Paul speaks of the Jews who did accept Jesus as Messiah in his own day as a remnant within Israel that served as a reminder and anticipation of God’s unchanging purposes for the whole people (Romans 11:1-6, 16). Messianic Jews are living evidence that Jewish people can recognize Yeshua as Messiah today, and remain loyal members of the Jewish community and committed supporters of the state of Israel.

Hagee’s book also weakens the cause of Christian Zionism to which he has devoted so much of his life’s work. If his theology is so clearly aberrant on the Messiahship of Jesus, why should thinking Christians accept anything he says in support of the Jewish state? Indeed, the book includes a surprising number of factual errors, along with its careless handling of Scripture. For example, Hagee writes, “The Pharisees in the school of Hillel were as mad as hornets because Jesus would not endorse Shammai’s teaching on ‘divorce for every cause’” (page 129)—-a statement so fraught with errors that one can hardly respond. On a similar level, he says of Joseph and Jesus that, “Their names even come from the same Hebrew root word, Yeshua, which can be translated into English as Joshua, Joseph, or Jesus” (page 189).

“In Defense of Israel,” despite Hagee’s good intentions, succeeds in reinforcing the stereotype of Christian Zionism as a branch of far-right fundamentalism. The extreme interpretations that he advocates, however, are not necessary to build the case for support for Israel and the Jewish people. Christian Zionism does not need to diminish the position of Yeshua. There is no incompatibility between faith in Yeshua as Israel’s Messiah and loyalty to Israel and the Jewish people.

To teach that Jesus refused to be the Messiah for the Jews is ultimately anti-Jewish. Jesus becomes the savior of the world, but with no particular relationship to the Jewish people. If they want to respond to him as savior they have to leave Israel and its Messianic hope and become part of something universal. In contrast with this erroneous interpretation, when we declare Jesus to be the Messiah of Israel, we do not invalidate Israel or the Jewish people. Yes, Jews need to respond to Jesus as do all people, yet in this response we discover that he is distinctly Jewish, distinctly relevant to us, and very much part of the Jewish story.