Jews Angry Over Remark By Falwell
Antichrist Speculation Called Antisemitic
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 23, 1999; Page B11
American Jewish leaders have accused the Rev. Jerry Falwell, one of Israel's most vocal
Christian supporters, of inciting antisemitism by his assertion that the Antichrist will
be a Jewish male who is probably "alive somewhere today."
The Lynchburg, Va.-based evangelist told a group of pastors in Kingsport, Tenn., last
week that the Antichrist--a New Testament figure who will spread untold evil at the end of
time--"will be a full-grown counterfeit of Christ. Of course, he'll be Jewish."
"We deplore the equation of an ultimate figure of evil with a Jewish individual,
especially when made by an individual as prominent as Rev. Falwell is on the religious
right," B'nai B'rith International President Richard D. Heideman said in a statement.
The comments by Falwell, founder of Lynchburg's Liberty University and the now-defunct
Moral Majority, were a double jolt to Jews because he is a prominent Israel booster and
has visited the Jewish state some 30 times.
"Here's a man who professes to be sympathetic to Jewish causes of all kinds, and
at the same time, he indulges in this kind of brutal statement," said Phil Baum, the
executive director of the American Jewish Congress. "Most people who hear it will
think that Jews . . . are responsible for evil in the world. What he's doing is causing an
antisemitic response, and he is accountable for that."
In a telephone interview, Falwell, whose Sunday sermons at Lynchburg's Thomas Road
Baptist Church are nationally broadcast, said his remarks were "very innocent"
and biblically based.
"This pretender, whose mission is to deceive the Jews and everyone else into
believing he is the true Christ, must resemble the Christ of 2,000 years ago,"
Falwell said. "For that reason, many evangelicals believe that he will be
Jewish."
Falwell called it "outrageous" that anyone would characterize his remarks as
an antisemitic statement.
"If there is a person on Earth today outside the Jewish community who has stronger
credentials of being pro-Jewish and pro-Israel outside Jerry Falwell, I haven't met
him," he said. "And when Abe Foxman, of [the Anti-Defamation League], without
bothering to give me a phone call, sends out one of his scorched-earth statements, it
ticks me off."
Falwell was angered by ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman's statement this week
that despite "years of Christian-Jewish dialogue, Rev. Falwell hasn't learned a
thing. Reverting back to a distorted interpretation of the text of the New Testament, he
revisits the worst in intolerance that resulted in persecution of the Jewish people and
inquisitions."
Falwell, who believes the Bible should be interpreted literally and has said he
"wouldn't be a bit surprised" if Christ returns in the year 2000, said his views
about the Antichrist are based on Scripture and widely held among Christian evangelicals.
But some dispute this.
"I think very highly of Rev. Falwell but . . . he's gone beyond what the Bible
says. The Bible doesn't say the Antichrists will be Jewish," said John Walvoord,
chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary and an expert on evangelical views about the end
of the world.
Bernard McGinn, a professor at the University of Chicago's School of Divinity and a
specialist on the Antichrist, said that since early Christianity there have been "two
lines of interpretation."
"One line insists he will be Jewish, and one says he has to be a Christian because
he has to pretend to be Christ," said McGinn, adding that most Christians today
regard the Antichrist as a symbol of evil and not as a person.
The American Jewish Congress urged Falwell to follow "the example of the Catholic
Church, which has demonstrated its sensitive awareness of the great harm that can be
caused by the careless spread of doctrinal antisemitism."
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
Source:
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