Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth-2 Timothy 2:15

This is an often overlooked verse of Scripture, which is interesting given how it's about Scripture.

There is a common attitude among Evangelical Christians that goes "how dare you suggest some parts of Scripture are more important then others", they feel the integrity of Scripture considers it important they label all Scripture equally as authoritative for every purpose.

In the same Epistle chapter 3 verse 16 Paul says all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness.  But maybe those should be "or" rather then "and", the KJV uses neither.

As charming an Ideal as it is to try and treat every single obscure statement of Scripture as being equally as important as what Jesus said on The Cross or Moses on Mt Sinai, that's incredibly unhelpful.  The Bible is a big book, you can in theory read all of it in a few days if you really pushed yourself, or played an audio book version at double speed.  But you are not going to properly consume it or understand it that way.  So at the very least we should maybe give new Christians some guidelines to what they need to read first.

To a certain extent I think Christians should consider even the least of the New Testament higher priority then even the most vital parts of the Hebrew Bible (commonly called the "Old Testament").  That stuff is all important but Christians should always be reading it through a New Testament filter.  But that is in tension with another part of me that dislikes when Christians are in denial of how often the Christological significance of some passages were not always their original main point.

Top priority should be the life story, teachings and example of Jesus.  We get that in the 4 Gospels and very beginning of Acts (where many Bibles have the words of Jesus in Red) and then the entire Book of Revelation.  

Then next under Jesus in Authority would be the 12 Disciples, and almost about equal with them the Beloved Disciple/Bethany Siblings and maybe also the Maternal half siblings of Jesus.  We get their teachings in the first 15 Chapters of Acts and the General Epistles, and also arguably the narrative voices of Matthew, Mark (who wrote what Peter preached) and the Fourth Gospel.

The rest of the New Testament is basically Paul.  It might concern you that I'm aiding and abetting the Anti-Paul cultists by categorizing him as the least authoritative New Testament voice, but it's consistent with Paul's own claims, he defined himself as the least of the Apostles in 1 Corinthians 15:9.

Judaism traditionally divides the Hebrew Bible into three categories, The Law or Torah which is the Pentateuch the Five Books of Moses.  And then The Prophets and The Writings.  New Testament references commonly taken as referring to the "Old Testament" as a whole are actually just saying The Law and The Prophets.

Now The New Testament is arguably including in the Prophets some material the traditional Jewish reckoning does not, Jesus calls both Daniel and Jonah Prophets, and Peter calls David a Prophet in Acts 2, Davidic Psalms are the most commonly quoted Psalms in the New Testament, but not the only ones, for example Asaph's are quoted and there is justification for labeling him a Prophet as well based on comparing 1 Samuel 1:9 to 2 Chronicles 29:30.

But the New Testament never actually unambiguously quotes the post Torah historical books.  It alludes to history from them, and quotes Psalms they also quote, and Elijah once, but that's it, their overall narrative voice isn't endorsed at all.  They are important for providing context, but perhaps they shouldn't be viewed uncritically as history books.  I have a prior post on comparing Chronicles to Samuel-Kings.

And I have also discussed how the New Testament speaks rather dismissively of Solomon, so perhaps the writings attributed to Solomon should be ranked at the very bottom?

This post isn't me arguing anything should be thrown out.  But when dealing with things like apparent contradictions we should consider who said the verse in question and for what purpose.

Your definition of Fascism is probably wrong, including Umberto Eco.

Including myself in some of my past attempts to talk about Fascism.

Being a Leftist who doesn't like how loosely my fellow Leftists use the word Fascism is an awkward situation to be in.  The problem is we've gotten so used to Fascism as a Synonym for evil that people assume the only reason to argue someone or some ideology isn't Fascist is to defend them as not evil.

What I'm going to argue Fascism means is something I do not like, but the various things most people seem to mean when they say Fascism are things I dislike even more, Authoritarianism, Militarism, Imperialism, Totalitarianism, Nationalism, Xenophobia, Racism, Antisemitism, Bigoty, Eugenics ect, and so I kind of wish they would just use those words which already have negative connotations, saying "Fascism" when you mean one of those just muddies the waters.  The most well known Fascist regimes tend to also involve some or all of those, but what those words mean are still different.

If something I like is being called Fascist by a Leftist then the accuser probably isn't even applying their own definition properly, but if you're accusing someone associated with the American Republican Party or any form of Conservatism then rest assured they're not someone I have any desire to defend as the right path.  If I'm disagreeing with you about how "Fascist" a certain Movie or Anime or Comic Book is, I probably also disagree about how "Conservative" it is.

But it's not just people using it as a derogatory, even some of the people who've called themselves Fascists have in my view not actually understood what the term meant.  Of the three nominally Fascist parties that existed in 1920s-30s Brittan I'd argue only Mosley actually had any idea what he was talking about.  All three were jerks who I'm glad never actually took power, but only one was using the word properly.  Douglas Francis Jerrold was another example of someone Pro-Mussolini but Anti-Hitler, as was Sir Charles Petrie.

Umberto Eco is who I singled out in the title because a lot of Breadtubers treat his Ur Fascism as the Infallible Word of God for how to define Fascism.  The problem is he is one of many who's goal in defining Fascism was not intellectual honestly but a desire to define both Mussolini's Fascism and German Nazism based on what they appeared to have in common rather then how either of those parties defined themselves so that he could back up the mainstream liberal narrative of WW2 as a war against an evil ideology rather then a War fought for the same reasons the first one was.

Yes you got that right, I'm questioning the term's applicability even to the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler, the elaboration on that will come later, my point right now is that's the ideology where the "Palingenetic Ultra Nationalism" was the core of what they were about, for Mussolini the appeals to nationalism were merely a means to an end.

Mussolini invented Fascism as an ideology, he made it clear what he meant Fascism to be was simply his form of the Socio-Economic system called Corporatism which in turn he defined as a "third way" between Capitalism and Socialism.

I say "his form" because I would not even call all forms of Corporatism inherently Fascist, in fact at it's broadest definition Corporatism can be compatible with Leftism.  An American in 2020 may look at that term and think it refers to "corporations" as in big business, however the Cooperatives in mind here are actually more like Unions or medieval Trade Guilds, or collectively owned Co-Ops.  The Corporatism traditionally advocated by the Catholic Church and Syndicalism is a bottom up Corporatism while Mussolini's was a top down Corporatism.  But more importantly then that it was a State run Corporatism.

The chief motto of Mussolini's Fascist party was "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato" ("everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state").  Of all the traits we commonly associate with Fascism, Statism is actually the most important.  And that's why it annoys me when certain American political movements get called (or even call themselves) Fascist that are actually strongly anti-State ideologies, from Anarcho-Capitalism to Posse Comitatus who's ideology is literally Mob Rule.  Again both are ideologies I consider wrong, one is more evil then the other with it's blatant white supremacy but both are bad ideas.

Mussolini and Hitler actually hated each other, they almost went to war over Austria in 1934.  Mussolini did not believe in Biological Racism (he was Nationalist but anyone in Italy was Italian even if you moved there just before WW1 broke out) or Antisemitism.  In 1938 racial laws were passed in Italy because at the time they had become dependent on Nazi Germany, but they were never fully enforced.  I'm not pointing this out to paint Mussolini as some Saint unfairly demonized by his forced association with Hitler, he was a Statist and Imperialist.

I'm simply pointing out that Nazism was not simply Mussolini's ideology applied to Germany.  None of the Far Right Parties of Weimar Germany called themselves Fascist (it seems only former Roman provinces actually used the term which makes sense) but there were a couple of Hitler's rivals on the German Far-Right I would say were much closer to being what German Mussolini might've looked like.  Ernst Niekisch actually had a relationship with Mussolini along with whom we could add the other National Bolsheviks (Heinrich Laufenberg, Karl Otto Paetel) or figures like Waldemar Pabst, Friedrich Minoux, Walter Caspari, Ernst Junger and Herman Ehrhardt.  I'm hesitant to mention Alfred Hugenberg or Oswald Spengler, they were influenced by Mussolini's Corporatism but still more Capitalist then he was.  Otto Schmidt-Hannover and Anton Hilkman are also notable. 

Then there was Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten the Paramilitary Veterans organization of the DVNP that received political backing from Mussolini during the 20s and called themselves "German Fascists" in the 1932 Election specifically to distinguish themselves from the Nazis.

Meanwhile if you want to know what Italian Nazism would look like I'd say look no further then Julius Evola.

The fact is Nazism (and what gets called French Fascism) was much more homegrown then this lazy "Hitler copied Mussolini" narrative implies.  The philosophical core of Nazism was laid out by Houston Stewart Chamberlain in his Foundations of the Nineteenth Century in 1899 and there were Antisemitic German Nationalist movements even before then, Hitler's style was very influenced by Gerog Ritter von Schonerer, there were groups like the Pan German League and the Fatherland Party, but even before them the Berlin Movement of the 1870s-80s.  Meanwhile Ernst Haeckel and Alfred Ploetz laid the groundwork for Nazi Eugenics.

Sometimes people seek to define Fascism based on it's methods of obtaining power rather then actual ideology.  In this case however Hitler actually failed when he tried to copy the March on Rome, meanwhile the Kapp Putsch and various Freikorps came before the March on Rome.  Mussolini's Black Shirts were also predated by the Camelots du Roi founded in France in 1908 and the Red Shirts of the American south in the late nineteenth century who's height of political influence were the elections of 1900 (they actually did much of what Birth of A Nation and the books it's based on attributes to the KKK).

What's interesting about the French far right people we call Fascists of the 20s and 30s is that many became Collaborators with the Nazis and the Vichy Regime during the War like Charles Maurras, Marcel Bucard, Marcel Deat, Jacques Doriot, Eugene Deloncle, Joseph Darnand, Pierre Sidos, Robert Brasillach, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Peirre Plantard and if you count Belgium Henri de Man. But some became part of The Resistance like Georges Valois, Georges Loustaunau-Lacau, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, Jacques Arthuys, Henri Giraud, Colonel Passy, and some would argue Charles de Gaulle himself had Fascist leanings.  Others played both sides like Perrie Taittinger, Francois de le Rocque and Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour.  Those who were unambiguous collaborators certainly can't be said to have actually cared about Nationalism, they were clearly more about opposing Democracy, though Maurras probably cared about Antisemitism more then anything else.

While Mussolini's Corporatism defined itself as neither Capitalist or Socialist, it's not the only way to be neither of those things.  The Nazi Party was originally partly founded on that too, particularly co-founders Drexler and Feder were explicitly opposed to both Capitalism and Bolshevism and that legacy was carried on by the Strasser brothers.  However under Hitler's Leadership the Nazi Party betrayed it's anti-Capitalist roots in 1932 when while in debt they made a deal with IG Farben and Krupp, Hitler's alliance with Emil Kirdorf in 1927 also helped lay the ground work for this change.  Friedrich Flick was another key business partner of the Nazis, along with the Thyssen corporation, and François Genoud was their Banker.

A fact that people today forget is that in the early modern era Capitalism was still new and was itself still seen aa Progressive in that context, even Marx viewed it as an improvement over Feudalism.  Throughout the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries you were only socio-economically conservative if you wanted to maintain or return to Feudalism.  

Reactionary anti-Capitalists included the Confederate States of America with the whole "Southern Gentlemen" stereotype being based on their Neo-Feudalism, the Royalists of Nineteenth and early 20th Century France, Houston Stewart Chamberlain mentioned above along with Theodor Fritsch and Guido von List in Germany and the British Empire Union founded in 1916.  All Reactionary Anticapitalists also opposed Socialism, Communism, Anarchism and Marxism, which is what's left out when Procapitalists talk about the anitcapiitalism of the Fascists, Nazis and Confederates.

Today I feel like Reactionary objections to Capitalism still exist on the American Right, especially among Evangelical Christians, they just don't want to admit they're being anti-Capitalist.  When you're complaining that "degenerate" Art is popular because it sells, when you want Drugs, Gambling, Prostitution and Pornography to be illegal, you are not taking the "Free Market" position.  Also the general attitude that Rural Life is morally better then Urban life is founded upon objections to the influence of industrial capitalism.  Also the Protectionism favored by Trump and Paleo-Conservatives is not a Free Market position, literally the only actual policy position Adam Smith was arguing for was Free Trade in opposition to Protectionism.

And because the Left has forgotten that you can be to the Right of Capitalism, on the modern internet a lot of reactionary objections to Capitalism get mingled in with the progressive ones and unwittingly supported by Leftists.  Cyber Punk is a popular genre of fiction among Communists who feel technological innovation is inherently bad, this also gets tied in with supposedly Leftist objections to the Basic Income, instead of preparing for the inevitability of workers being replaced by machines they would rather stubbornly fight it.  I also feel like anytime you just generically say Consumerism is bad you are being unwittingly Conservative.

I've kind of gone a bit off topic.  The gist of what separates Fascist Corporatism from other "Third Positions" is that it's specifically Top-Down and run by the State.  Putin's Russia actually defines itself as Corporatist, so see I'm still allowing you to call one of the modern Left's contemporary boogeymen a Fascist.

In The Doctrine of Fascism written by Mussolini and Giovani Gentile there are sections about opposition to Marxim and Individualism but also a section called "evolution from Socialism".  In the section "the Totalitarian Fascist vision of The Future" Mussolini defines Fascism as being from his own POV at least Progressive not Reactionary, stating it's not about returning to before 1789 and saying that he's drawing on Marx the same way Marx drew on the "Utopian Socialists" who came before him.  In this Manifesto the word "Capitalism" isn't used instead it's referred to as "Economic Liberalism" which is what Capitalists called themselves back then.  Mussolini did use the word Capitalism elsewhere like when he coined the terms Heroic Capitalism and Supercapitalism where it's clear he views Capitalism as inherently bad.  

My pointing out that Mussolini saw himself as Progressive doesn't mean I'm agreeing, one only has to look at Plato's Laws and Sparta to see how the core of Fascism is really quite Ancient.  I also think Mussolini has more in common with Robespierre then he was willing to admit in this text.

The same points about Corporatist AntiCapitalism apply to the French Fascism of Georges Valois however he combined it with the Orelanist Royalist French Nationalism of Mauraas.  And again the same is true of Oswald Mosley.

My most important point in bringing up TDoF however is that there isn't a hint of Palingenetic Ultranationalism in it, in fact because of points I just made it's outright incompatible with the Palingenetic part.  There is a section on "tradition" but it's the shortest section and really vague in what it's saying.  But he outright rejects the idea of a PreLabsarian Utopia.  "But what about his obsession with Rome? The word Fascism itself comes from a Roman symbol!" you may object. Borrowing terminology and symbols from Ancient Greco-Romans politics was also done by Liberals and Socialists throughout the post 1789 period, that was simply the norm across the Political Spectrum, and it's hard to avoid in a nation that's speaking a descendent of Rome's language.  In fact that same Roman Symbol was already associated with Unions and Syndicalism in Italy by 1889.  That symbol is a Collectivist symbol meaning "stronger together" which does show the absurdity of when people try to paint Fascism as Individualist.

TDoF also says "It is not the nation which generates the State; that is an antiquated naturalistic concept which afforded a basis for XIXth century publicity in favor of national governments. Rather is it the State which creates the nation, conferring volition and therefore real life on a people made aware of their moral unity."  That is absolutely the opposite of what a Nazi or "Palingenetic Ultra Nationalist" would say.  It also later say "Race: it is a feeling and not a reality", meaning no room for Race realism.

The reason that Fascissm, Strasserism and National Bolshevism aren't Marxist theories in-spite of how much they borrow from Marx is that they reject the Class Struggle narrative in-favor of Class Collaboration.  This aspect of Fascism is one of the traits it inherited from Giuseppe Mazzini.

Peter Coffin said in one video, I don't recall which one, that "Communism that's only for White People isn't Communism", I'm sure people defining Communism from the outside won't always agree with that, but my point here is that Communism for Whites Only is exactly what Strasserite Nazism is.

The difference between Fascism and Nazism is that in Fascism the State is more important then the Nation however much it may appeal to Patriotism, in Nazism the State is powerful only to serve the Nation and Citizenship in said nations is usually limited to specific ingroups, often biological "race".  Eco came up with a good thesis for identifying the underlying soul of Nazism ("Nazi" was originally just a derogatory diminutive form of the German word for Nationalist), but it isn't universally applicable to Fascism.  In Brittan Arnold Leese was really a Nazi in-spite of what he called his Party.

Of all the fictional Empires that have been called "Space Nazis", the only one that really fits the proper philosophy of Fascism is maybe the Cardassians of Star Trek Deep Space Nine.  And I'm yet to see one I'm willing to properly call Nazism.  The Empire in Star Wars is more inspired by Bonepartism. [Update: now that I think about it maybe Britannia in Code Geass is sufficiently Nazi.]

American "small government" Conservatives are wrong when they try to define Fascism and Socialism as being the same thing.  But the problem with how Liberals try to prove them wrong is that it is Socialism these Conservatives are defining incorrectly, their definition of Fascism is mostly correct, or at least more correct then how most people define it.  Socialism is not Statism but Fascism is.  And unfortunately too many modern YouTube and Twitter Socialists are still dealing with that problem the same way Liberals do.

Calling Nazism a form of Fascism isn't that far off all things considered, "Reich" by that time basically meant "State".  The real problem with trying to paint the entire Axis with the Fascist brush is Japan, but that's mostly off topic.  

And at the same time there were Fascists and Nazis who fought on the Allies side, the French ones I already alluded to, but also Wilhelm Canaris, Otto Strasser's Black Front and the NazBols in Germany as well as some remnants of the Austrofascists and the Metaxas regime in Greece.  Meanwhile in The U.S. MacArthur, Patton and George Lincoln Rockwell.

Update 2022: Peter Coffin recently told me on Facebook that "defining things based on ideology is an expression of Liberalism" which is typical Marxist "we need to make our own definitions for everything" nonsense.  Like it or not Fascism was a word coined to define an ideology.  If you want to create a theory on what the Fascists, Nazis and other similar reactionary movements of the 1920s and 30s have in common that's fine but Fascism isn't the word to use for that.  

However defining what these groups had in common isn't that complicated, they were Anti-Communists, they were reactions to the Bolshevik Revolution, it really is that simple.  Now you may respond "not all Anti-Communists joined these kinds of groups" and in this context I will distinguish between being a non Communist from being a militant Anti-Communist.  Robert Taft had less ideologically in common with Communism then the Fascists, but he also believed in the right of people who disagreed with him to exist.

The Church of Ephesus and Cessationism

First of all don't read too much into this premise.  I'm not arguing every Cessationist congregation is an Ephesus or that you need to be Cessationist to be an Ephesus.  And even though I'm a Continutationist making this observation, this potential relationship could be true even if Cessationism is true.  Ephesus has the third best review of the Seven Churches so it's by no means an inherently derogatory association, and the two with better reports are NOT praised for their Doctrines.

One of the main things Ephesus is praised for is exposing and rejecting False Apostles, and while in the immediate context I think this refers to the same "ravenous wolves" Paul warned the Ephesians about at Miletus in Acts 20:29, in terms of applying this to then future and now contemporary Church issues I feel it can tie into how I in-spite of being a Continuationsit on the Spiritual Gifts in general do believe the Office of Apostle was only for the first generation of The Church, that being one required being an Eye Witness to The Resurrection and that Paul defined himself as the last to become an Apostle.

So I get uncomfortable when people like the host of The Prophecy Club calls himself an Apostle, but I think this can also apply to the Catholic/Orthodox concept of Apostolic succession, and to the Temple Lot Mormons calling their leaders a Quorum of Apostles.  And any other Pentecostal or Charismatic leaders calling themselves an Apostle.

And I have other areas of disagreement with many of my fellow Continuationists, I have been considering rejecting the usual identification of Thyatira with the Catholic Church and instead seeing it's False Prophetess as embodying many of the excesses of the more problematic Charismatic tendencies.  

My reading of Corinthians on this issue is Paul taking the same Contiuationist position I do and needing to deal with both Proto-Cessationists and overly reckless Charismatics causing problems in the Corinthian Church.

The main criticism of Ephesus is that they lost their First Love.  I feel like rejecting the Spiritual Gifts is quite possibly the only way to truly do that.  But even if Cessationism is true, I think many Cessationsits especially the Baptists should consider that their reactionary response to what some Contiuationists are doing wrong can potentially lead to that.

The fact that Paul's Epistle to Ephesus is one that gets into Spiritual Warfare a lot could also be evidence that Congregation was slowly becoming one that neglected the Spirit.

In which case I also think it's also highly likely for Sardis churches to be Cessationists since they are spiritually dead.  They would be churches with Ephesus's vices but not it's virtues.

I reject calling Mary Theotokos because it's UnBiblical

To me that's what should matter to Sola Scriptura Christians. It's technical accuracy or one's opinion on other issues related to the Nestorian Schism should be irrelevant.  If you want to call Mary a title it should be something Scripture directly says of her.

This issue is not my only area of affinity or at least sympathy with Theodore of Mopsuesta, Nestorius and the Ancient Church of The East.  The main thing that makes me hesitant to simply identify as a Nestorian is that they like Cyril and Augustine strongly stress the Platonic doctrine of Divine Impassibility and are thus hostile to the Theopaschite Formula.  To me that it was the "Fullness of the Godhead" and not merely a Man suffering on The Cross is what makes the Atonement truly work, regardless of what theory of Atonement you take.  But I'm not prepared to make a full post on that topic yet.

I've seen people use Luke 1:43 as Biblical support for Theotokos as a title for Mary, where Elizabeth says.

"And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

Problem is if you want to use this verse as your defense of a Greek title for Mary it should be the Greek words used in this verse.  Which are Meter and Kuriou not Theos or Tokos.  

So yes I'm kind of rejecting even the Tokos part as well.  We tend to translate this phrase as "Mother of God" (and Nestorius's alternative Christtokos as "Mother of Christ") but that's not truly accurate.  Tokos is a very technical term for the act of carrying a baby, you could equally apply it to a incubator.  Meter is the familial title of Mother which I think is far more fitting to describe Mary's relationship to Jesus.

But back to what people are usually disputing.  Using this verse to defend Theotokos is based on assuming every use of a form of Kurios in the New Testament must be merely the Jewish custom of using it to stand in for the Tetragramaton, the Holy Name of God, Yot-Heh-Vav-Heh which I prefer to pronounce Yahuah.  However I believe that assumption is never correct of any occurrence of "my Lord", I believe "my Lord" is always a translation of the Hebrew Adoni which in pre-masoretic texts is sometimes difficult to distinguish from Adonai.

Psalm 110 in the KJV begins with "The LORD said unto my Lord" which in the Hebrew is "YHWH said unto Adoni".  All three Synoptic Gospels quote this with the "my Lord" being in reference to Melchizedek as a type of Christ.

I want to mention the Peshita briefly.  Luke's Gospel is one of the many NT books where I consider there to be no basis for Peshita primacy, the book was definitely originally in Greek.  But looking at it as a witness to how Early Semitic Speaking Christians translated it can still be useful.  For Kurios verses the Peshita uses Mar-Yah whenever it's a stand in for YHWH but simply a form of Mar when it's merely a form of Adon.  This verse in the Peshita uses Mari (my Lord) not Mar-Yah (but the Peshita does use Mar-Yah in reference to Jesus elsewhere).

So the Greek title for Mary I would construct from this verse is one using a form of Kurious and a form of Meter.  But as a Weeb I think I'll go with AkaaSan-no-Sama, or I could use Mikoto instead of Sama but that is a bit more obscure a reference for westerners.

I agree with the Theology and Christology of the original Nicene Creed including Homousian.  However while The Bible supports Jesus being God in a Trinitarian sense, The New Testament is far more interested in stressing Him as Christ, The Lord and most importantly the Son of God.  That's Peter's essential dramatic Confession, and Martha's in John 11 and what the first verse of Mark says, and what 1 John 4:15 says anyone who confesses that God Dwells in them.  

So I do think it's bothersome how often modern Western Christianity obsesses over Jesus as God and forgets to stress that The Trinity is a Family that we are being Adopted into.  The relationship between God and Jesus is that of a Father and Son.  

And as a Weeb I like to refer to The Holy Spirit as Onee-Sama.  Proverbs 7:4 is the basis for calling Wisdom(Sophia) a word for Sister and I've argued elsewhere for her being The Holy Spirit.

The French Revolution is still one of the most misunderstood subjects of History

[Update: My conflation of the Girondins and the Society of the Friends of Truth was a Mistake and Brissiot was ultimately a Liberal.  But it is still true that the primary perpetrators of the Terror were not the Communists and the people who were became victims of it.]

You can be a Zionist and still be critical of the Israeli Government

Of the political disagreements I have with my fellow Twitter Leftists, my belief that Israel has the right to exist is perhaps the most contentious.

I am a Zionist, but I am also an Anarchist, I hate all Governments and much of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is atrocious.  But as long as Nation-States are going to be a thing, on that land it needs to be a Jewish one so the world's most oppressed minority can have a safe heaven to flee to, the Muslims have more then enough.  But I do believe Israel should give the Golan Heights to Jordan, give full citizenship to all Palestinian living in Israel, and stop responding to Hamas in Gaza so badly since their attempts to fire rockets at Israel never even do anything.

None the less every time I allow myself to get involved in one of these twitter threads, they keep trying to make me feel ashamed of my Zionism by talking about things the Israeli government is doing which have nothing to do with Zionism as a principle.  Remember these are the same people who don't like seeing Marxism blamed for the Human Rights violations of Stalin and modern China.  And likewise don't want Islam being blamed for what the Saudis do.

I believe all similar major minorities have a right to a home land, the Kurds, the Yazids, the Ainu and Okinawa and every Native American tribe that still exists.  But the "Palestinians" already have one, it's called Jordan, they are the majority of Jordan's population, the only thing keeping it from being a strictly Palestinian State is that it isn't a Direct Democracy..

I am confident that there is enough habitable room in Israel for all of the world's Jews plus twice the number of Gentiles who currently live there.  It is Capitalism not Zionism that is making these people fight over land and resources.  But it is only with Israel where it is appropriate on the Left to say the answer is one of these people groups shouldn't even be allowed to be there.

They keep calling Zionism a form of Colonialism.  If it's appropriate to refer to Post-Colonial things you don't like as Colonialism then it's also valid to call Pre-Colonial things Proto-Colonialism.  And it was Proto-Colonialism that removed the Jews from that land and placed Gentile "Holy Sites" in Jerusalem in the first place.

The Jerusalem of the Hasmoneans was basically completely annihilated in 70 AD, then in 132 Hadrian began plans to build a Greco-Roman city on the spot named after himself and that sparked another Jewish uprising which he brutally put down.  Then he built his gentile city and renamed the province and Jews were forbidden to even set foot in the city, a policy that shamefully the Christian Emperors kept.

However Jews were never completely gone from the region, many stayed in or settled in Galilee where they had a couple revolts agaisnt Christian Emperors.  But when Calif Umar captured Jerusalem he allowed Jews to return there creating what is now known as the Jewish Quarter which has been continuously inhabited by Jews ever since.  However later Califs eventually built Mosques on The Temple Mount, specifically Abd Al-Malik built them where Mecca was under the control of Rebels, their creation was always political.

There have been a lot of controversies lately about the American Government and/or Corporations building things on Sacred Native land.  I don't understand how religions that are inherently younger then Judaism building Churches and Mosques on the only land Judaism considers Sacred isn't viewed the same way?

So yes, religion is a major factor in why this land specifically was the land we gave to the Jews.  Thing is when you go back to their actual founding Sacred Texts, every still existing religion that gives any amount of sacredness to that land 100% agrees on who it belongs to.  The Koran says that the land of Israel belongs to the Children of Israel.  Muslim opposition to Zionism is a product of modern Wahhabism funded and prompted by the Saudis.  And New Testament Christianity is not interested in tying itself to any specific pieces of geographical real-estate at all.

The cultures that existed in this land before the Ancient Israelites no longer exist, whether or not some Palestinians have a connection to them in terms of genealogical ancestry is irrelevant, they no longer practice the same religion or customs, they are mostly Muslims, some are Christians, some may now be Atheists, and I'm sure some Canaanite Neo-Pagan group exists but there would be no actual continuity there.

Dog Whistles are a term we on the Left use to condemn things not explicitly bigoted as bigotry via guilt by association.  But when it comes to Antisemitism, the only thing constantly said by Antisemites you are NOT allowed to say is inherently Antsemitic is saying the Jews don't have a right to their homeland.  You can't utter the words "international banker" without being called a closet Nazi, but saying something that is definitely unambiguously bigoted when said about any other oppressed minority is perfectly fine.

I think maybe those of us who oppose Capitalism should be concerned about there being an entire subgroup of super rich Capitalists that have become free from criticism because the small number of them who have Ashkenazi surnames are the only ones most people have heard of.  But still it is true 90% of people singling out "international bankers" of all super rich people to complain about are at least indirectly influenced by Antisemitic conspiracy theories.  And likewise Anti-Zionism was founded upon Holocaust Denial and Anti-Rothschild conspiracy theories long before anyone in the west gave a damn about a sub group of Arabs naming themselves after the Latinized form of the Hellenized form of the name of a people who haven't existed since Alexander The Great burned their last city to the ground.

And sometimes people will try to use things like the 1933 Transfer Agreement to say "Zionism and Antisemitism actually go together".  Hitler at first tried to just kick the Jews out because he didn't think he'd have the ablity to do the Genocide he always preferred. But that arrangement was one he was inevitably going to back out of just like the pact with Stalin.

The people currently running Israel can go f--- themselves, but I will not apologize for defending The Jews right to their ancient sacred homeland.

Zionism is an inherently Leftist ideology in origin and in fact predates Marxism, the crimes of the Israeli state should not invalidate the ideology of Moses Hess anymore then those of the USSR, China and North Korea invalidate Marx and Engles.

BTW you may notice I didn't even bring up any Prophecy.  I actually reject certain Eschatological positions assumed to go with being a Christian Zionist.  I'm not Pre-Trib or a proper Dispensationalist and I don't even expect there to be a Third Temple, and I view the Gog and Magog Invasion as after the Millennium.  I actually don't currently solidly believe much of anything specific in regards to Israel's role in the End Times.  While that geographical land definitely has a role to play in what I think will happen, a modern Jewish State being there is not required at all, I only presume Israel relevant because that is the current geopolitical situation we have to start from.  My theories about "the antichrist" focus on their probable relationship with The Church not Judaism.  But at any-rate I don't think the Temple's actual site is on either those Mosques, I currently favor the Dome of the Tablets theory.

So my Zionism is more in-spite of my Eschatology then Because of it.

The New Testament is Collectivist not Individualist

First of all to properly understand what I mean by Individualism and Collectivism in this post I suggest you watch this Peter Coffin video Individualism V. Individuality, it's only half an hour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eijYEYzAQu0

In the modern world Indivdualism is associated with certain ideologies that in America at least are generally classified as Conservative.  Now a lot of these people are Conservative Atheists, Ayn Rand was an Atheist, she knew her brand of Individualism was utterly incompatible with proper Christian values.  But some of these Conservatives are Christians like Jordan Peterson who's technically Canadian but the thing about Canada is if your a Conservative in Canada you probably obsess over America in reaction to how much Canadian Liberalism is founded on hating America.

However a more obscure figure in the modern YouTube Right is a channel called TIK who have made some interesting videos on Hitler and Mussolini being one of the few YouTubers interested in acknowledging their differences, both are bad but they had differences that make Hitler worse, however being better then Hitler is not a grand endorsement.  In one video of his I watched he talks about the history of states and power systems from his POV and then says Jesus introduced the concept of the Individual.  So I assume that means to him the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is that the Old Testament is Collectivist since it's about Israel and the New Testament's innovation was that now God made Covenants with Individuals not a Collective.

This view of the New Testament doesn't hold up.  Anything you can make sound Individualist about the New Testament was already there in The Torah, the punishments already punished individuals for example.  The actual innovation of the New Testament is that it's expanding the Collective, or rather returning God's focus to all of Adamkind.

The TNAK starts out about all of Humanity, the first 10 and a half chapters of Genesis. And on occasion YHWH reminded Israel that he still cares about the rest of the world like in Ezekiel 16 (the parts about Sodom) and Daniel 2-7.

In Matthew Jesus talks about gentiles entering the Kingdom before some of the Children of the Kingdom, that's not an expression of Individualism but of outsiders being let into the Collective.  

The Sheeps and Goats Judgment in Matthew 25 is defined as being of "Nations" not Individuals.

Paul in Romans 5 talks about all being made Sinners because of one Man's Sin, but then all being made righteous because of one Man's righteousness, similar to how he discuses Death and Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15.  Then in Romans 11 he says the fullness of the "Nations" will be grafted into Israel and then ALL Israel shall be Saved.  And that God consigned ALL to disobedience so that He might have Mercy on ALL.

Elsewhere The New Testament talks about The Church being the Bride of Christ and Body of Christ and Temple of God.  Inherently Collectivist symbolism.  Even when Paul brings our Individual being Individual Temples of the Holy Ghost in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 and 6:18-20 it's tied into that grander doctrine and clearly arguing agaisnt Lockean Self Ownership (or Body Ownership as some modern libertarian prefer to rephrase it) our Bodies are ultimately owned by God but also collectively shared with the rest of the Community of Believers.

It was the advent of Calvinism V. Armianism that laid the foundation of Individualizing The Gospel, in both those systems Salvation is a covenant with an Individual they only disagree on who to give the agency in that Covenant.  ColdCrashPictures calls Objectivism "Prosperity Gospel for Atheists" an analogy that immediately reminded me of my own calling Existentialism is Atheistic Arminianism.

But not all Collectivist Ideologies are good, Fascism is very Collectivist as is Nationalism.  That's why I stress how The Gospel is an Inclusivist Collectivism.

It was Gerrard Winstanley who introduced Universal Salvation to the Modern-English speaking world, and he was also a Communist.  What untied the true Gospel and Communism so naturally is that both are founded on the true Collectivist perspective of The New Testament.

Update: Here is another good Peter Hiett Sermon.

https://youtu.be/HfT5YDD_-tM?list=PLehrY6axvoewN-jVBcGc5qH5sZog5RzT3