There’s a popular teaching regarding Israel in the Church. It’s known as the replacement theory or hard supercessionism, and, while it’s been around for centuries, it’s actively resurging in places that ought to quash it.
The replacement theory essentially says this: God has rejected Israel, and the Church has now “replaced” them as His chosen people, meaning the promises, covenants, and blessings God made to Israel no longer apply to them but only to Christians.
But it’s not a biblically viable position to take, and here’s why. Romans 11 is unambiguous. God has not rejected His people. Israel remains central to His plan, and His promises are irrevocable.
As Michael Bird explains, “The church does not replace Israel, but is the representative of Israel in the messianic age … God is not finished with national Israel and salvation will yet avail for them.” Craig Keener likewise notes that God’s covenantal faithfulness is not contingent on human acceptance. God’s promises to Israel endure whether or not all believe.
When replacement theory takes over, Christians are tempted to abandon our God-ordained obligation to bless Israel and, worse, often to embrace idiotic attempts to scapegoat Jews for everything under the sun. We are used to watching Islamists persecute Jews on college campuses and elsewhere, and most of us on the Christian right know better than to side with that effort, because we understand that radical Islam leads to real-world terror.
But it’s a lot more slippery when we somehow convince ourselves that we are replacing Jewish teaching with a brand of Christianity that promises us power and influence at Israel’s expense. I’ve written before about the rise of Christian Nationalism (the scary kind, not the boogeyman slur progressives hurl at anyone right of Mitch McConnell).
When replacement theology seeps into culture, it doesn’t stay in books or sermons; it shows up in how people talk, organize, and target Jews today. Believing the Church has replaced Israel primes the imagination to see Jews not as God’s chosen people but as competitors or scapegoats, a theological error that easily bleeds into real-world antisemitism. Replacement theology undermines God’s truth and opens the door to darker impulses. History shows what happens when theological error becomes moral action.
This slippery slope shows up clearly among some voices on the Right. Take influencer Nick Fuentes, whose overt antisemitism is impossible to miss. He has called organized Jewry the main challenge to American sovereignty, described Jews as “unassimilable” and incompatible with Western civilization, and repeatedly praised Hitler as “very f***ing cool” while promoting conspiracy theories about Jewish control and dual loyalty.
Andrew Torba, founder of Gab, has similarly broadcast antisemitic views, declaring that “we’re done” being told what to do in our own country by a 2% minority (referring to Jews), endorsing the idea that this is an explicitly Christian nation where Christians won’t “bend the knee” to Jewish influence, and reposting content that frames Jews as propagandists or enemies.
Candace Owens has taken this further into outright demonization, calling Israel a “cult nation,” urging people to study antisemitic texts like Der Talmudjude to understand how “Talmudic Jews” supposedly view non-Jews as animals with a right to be owned, deceived, and controlled, and claiming Jews controlled the transatlantic slave trade while spreading conspiracies about Hollywood and global influence.
Tucker Carlson, while not always direct, has lent platforms and sympathy to these ideas. He interviewed Fuentes at length, where the conversation turned to “Zionist Jews” as obstacles and “organized Jewry” as a problem, and he pushed narratives about Israeli “psychological influence” over American perceptions of threats, framing pro-Israel Christians as seized by a “brain virus.”
Now we’re seeing this creep into pro-life activism too. Giants like Seth Gruber have right-hand men posting insanely antisemitic condemnations of “the Jews.” Ben Zeisloft, a Christian conservative commentator and communications director for the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, has made several concerning public statements on X. One post declared, “I don’t want Jews, atheists, sexual degenerates, and adherents to false third-world religions like Islam leading the American right-wing.” He has also expressed concerns about “undue Israeli influence over our government,” framing it as a violation of America First principles in ways that echo longstanding tropes.
This is a difficult needle to thread without stepping on toes or setting oneself up for character assassination or misinterpretation. As Christians, we believe the only path to salvation is through belief in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, a Jew. We do believe that people who die without clinging to that hope go to Hell. There’s no way to sanitize that or make it palatable to those outside our worldview. But that belief ought to inspire aggressive compassion and love for those who don’t know our Jesus, not the demonization of them.
Blessing Israel does not mean we always agree with every leadership decision or policy. It does not mean we aren’t allowed to prioritize our own country first. Think of it like putting your own oxygen mask on before helping others. But what we’re seeing isn’t simple disagreement. It’s outright targeted demonization and scapegoating of an entire people group, exactly as Scripture predicted. We ought not play nice with it.
A brief historical review: For more than 2,000 years, antisemitic conspiracy theories have recycled the same poisonous idea: that “the Jews” are secretly evil, plotting in the shadows, and responsible for society’s worst crises. The details shift with each generation, but the core myth remains constant.
History snapshot:
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Ancient and early Christian days: After the Jewish revolts against Rome, Jews were scapegoated for unrest. Early Christian writers branded Jews as “Christ-killers,” enemies of God, even allies of Satan.
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Medieval Europe: Blood libel accused Jews of murdering Christian children; host desecration claimed Jews “re-killed Christ” via communion wafers; during the Black Death, Jews were massacred for supposedly poisoning wells.
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18th–19th centuries: As Jews gained rights in France and elsewhere, new conspiracies claimed they were plotting to destroy Christian nations from within. Pseudoscientific racial theories added a layer: Jews became an “alien race”, corrupting Europe.
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Early 1900s: Protocols of the Elders of Zion claimed a secret Jewish plan for world domination. Henry Ford published it in America; the Nazis weaponized it to justify genocide.
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Nazi Germany and beyond: Jews were blamed for both capitalism and communism, labeled a parasite race plotting world domination, leading to the Holocaust.
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Modern era: 9/11 conspiracies, Rothschild myths, alt-right rhetoric (“globalist elites”), and QAnon are all the latest iteration of the same ancient lies.
The pattern is unmistakable: when societies are afraid (of disease, war, revolution, or globalization), they reach for an old scapegoat. And again and again, that scapegoat has been “the Jews.”
Yes, there are powerful, wealthy forces that shape policy and markets. That’s real and worth examining. But blaming a whole people for that power is a lazy, dangerous lie. Imagine if we did this with “the Irish,” or “the Ugandan,s” or the “blue-eyed.” Wouldn’t we immediately recognize how stupid we were being?
“Adolf Hitler and Ted Bundy and Josef Mengele all had blue eyes; therefore all blue-eyed people are secretly plotting world domination.”
See how ridiculous that sounds? That’s exactly what antisemitic conspiracy theories do. They take real individuals, exaggerate their influence, and then smear an entire people as if guilt were genetic.
As followers of the Jewish Messiah, we reject this poison. We stand against replacement theology because it distorts God’s Word. We stand against scapegoating because it defies the command to love our neighbor and bless the descendants of Abraham. Replacement theology is a lie. Antisemitism is a lie. God’s promises to Israel are eternal. The Church shares in the blessing, but never at Israel’s expense. The covenant endures. Let our allegiance reflect it.
Originally published at Honest to Goodness.
Kaeley Harms, co-founder of Hands Across the Aisle Women’s Coalition, is a Christian feminist who rarely fits into boxes. She is a truth teller, envelope pusher, Jesus follower, abuse survivor, writer, wife, mom, and lover of words aptly spoken.
