Anti-Semitism and John Hagee

On a forum I frequent there was a discussion about televangelist John Hagee. I decided to watch him for a period to see for myself what the fuss was about. When he did so, he has made some rather odd statements, and I'll paraphrase them as I did not write down the exact words: "Jesus died on the Cross for Gentiles"; "The Jews did not reject Jesus as Messiah"; and "Jesus did not come the first time to be the Messiah." Maybe Hagee was just being inexact in his wording and did not mean what these statements seem to say! It seemed to me obvious and easy to demonstrate that these statements are wrong.

 John 3:16 tells us who Jesus died for?

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Did the Jews reject Jesus? Romans 9 tells us:

³⁰ What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; ³¹ but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. ³² Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. ³³ As it is written:

   “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble 
   and a rock that makes them fall, 
   and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

Did Jesus claim to be the Messiah? Matt. 16:15-17 tells us

¹⁵ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

 ¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

 ¹⁷ Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 

But perhaps the most disturbing comment by Hagee was this:

"If you criticize the Jew across the street, that is Anti-semitism, and that will send you to Hell."

Yes I see no reason to criticize my Jewish neighbor, for being Jewish, but a blanket inability to criticize someone because they are of a particular ethnic group? That makes no sense. Is Hagee saying that one should not evangelize a Jew? 

It seems to me that if we are hypersensitive on this issue, public discourse is impossible. As an observer of the Seven Day Sabbath and the Holy Days of Leviticus 23 (which many consider to be "Jewish" Holy Days) I am sure that most would classify me as a Judeophile, yet some of the very things that make me a Christian (i.e. Jesus is Lord) are regarded by some as Anti-semitic, as we will see in a future blog post.