Reflecting on Israel at its seventieth anniversary, I wonder why Reformed Christians, or Calvinists as they are sometimes called, are more reluctant and timid about their views on Israel. 

Few would have estimated 70 years ago, let alone one thousand, that this week would arrive. On Monday, May 14, Israel celebrated the seventieth anniversary of becoming a nation. In light of this remarkable and unlikely reality, Christians are faced with the task of celebrating and interpreting this event against the backdrop of the last 70 years.

Ultimately, why Americans see the world through one theological lens or another has a lot to do with whether they identify more closely with a Hebraic or Hellenic kind of Christianity. Put another way, American Christians view the world differently depending on how much they read the Bible, believe the Bible is divinely inspired, and accept the Bible as authoritative in their lives.

In this convicting article, originally published in Christianity and Crisis on March 8, 1943, Editor Howard C. Robbins decries isolationism as the ideology of less prosperous and influential times. He exhorts the United States to assume the responsibility demanded of a large nation-state and work to “end international anarchy.” Evoking the spirit of George Washington’s Farewell Address, Robbins pleads the United States to embrace a central role in international politics. Furthermore, he implores the American public to follow in Washington’s footsteps by shedding partisan politics.

Against the seemingly gentle assertions of pacifism, those who truly want to love in our world must understand there remains a need of coercion to maintain a minimum of justice and to preserve those innocents whom the unjust would ravage.

Christian pacifism became untenable for me because the God who punished, killed, and destroyed in the Old Testament remains the God of the New Testament.

This article about the role and need for the clergy to serve as Chaplains during World War II was originally published in Christianity & Crisis in 1942.