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It's Saturday, September 7, 2024.

Today’s edition covers Enoch Burke’s arrest this week, whether Jews are to be blamed for Jesus’ death, and a healthy helping of other news and knowledge of Christian interest.

“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” (Proverbs 13:20)

“It will cost something to walk slow in the parade of the ages while excited men of time rush about confusing motion with progress. But it will pay in the long run and the true Christian is not much interested in anything short of that.” —A.W. Tozer

Of Christian Concern

IRISH SCHOOLTEACHER ARRESTED THIRD TIME AMIDST TRANSGENDER PRONOUN CONTROVERSY

Screenshot from the video of Enoch Burke’s most recent arrest (Enoch Burke / X).

A years-long conflict that began with Irish schoolteacher Enoch Burke refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronouns continued this week with a dramatic arrest captured on film.

BURKE: “I’m not going to turn my back on my duty to my students.”

OFFICER: “Well, I’m not going to turn my back on my duty...”

BURKE: “No, you don’t have a duty to do what’s wrong.”

On Monday, the High Court of Ireland jailed Burke a third time for breaching a permanent injunction that bans him from attending Wilson's Hospital School in County Westmeath. Justice Michael Quinn ordered him to prison until he purges his contempt of court.

His compliance seems unlikely, as he has a history of declining to purge contempt of court.

The Background

Burke is one of ten homeschooled and high-achieving siblings from an evangelical Christian family known for religious activism and several high-profile legal cases in Ireland. He was suspended from teaching at the Wilson's Hospital School in June 2022 after a public confrontation with the principal over using a student’s preferred pronouns, a policy that Burke maintains violates his religious beliefs.

He continued turning up to teach anyway, resulting in a court injuction to keep away from the school. He was first jailed for breaching that injunction in September 2022, at which time he told the judge he could not “in conscience” obey the order. He was released that December after refusing to purge his contempt because Justice Brian O’Moore determined Burke must have seen “some advantage in his continuing imprisonment” since he had denied the opportunity to end it.

Burke returned to the school in January 2023, despite the order, and was fired. He appealed the dismissal and continues to receive full pay pending the appeal hearing. Despite additional legal measures against him, he kept returning to the school and was jailed a second time in September 2023. He was released in June 2024 when school summer break began.

But when school started back up in August, Burke turned back up, too, leading to his current jailing.

Collectively, Burke has spent over 400 days in Mountjoy Prison.

Burke’s Comment

When asked “why he would not respect the student's preferred identity,” Burke told Sky News:

I teach everyone who's in front of me. I teach every single student.

But when I am commanded, when I'm told that I can't have my religious belief anymore, when I'm told I have to confess belief in transgenderism, instead of my simple belief, which is male and female, that's just a breach simply of my rights.

Also Noteworthy

Screenshot of Trump in interview with Lex Fridman. (Lex Fridman / X)

→ Donald Trump spoke about religion in an interview this week with Lex Fridman:

I think our country's missing a lot of religion. I think it really was a much better place with religion. It was almost a guide. To a certain extent, it was a guide. You want to be good to people. Without religion, there are no real guardrails. I'd love to see us get back to religion, more religion in this country.

→ The New York Times reported Thursday on how evangelicals are reacting to Donald Trump’s “Abortion Flip-Flop”: “They aren’t voting for Harris, but they might stay home.”* On the newspaper’s podcast The Run-Up, Southern Baptist seminary president Al Mohler warns, in light of Trump’s recent comments on abortion and IVF:

Donald Trump is either going to win or lose this election. And I think it’ll, in large part, be on this question in terms of the intensity with which conservative voters, pro-life voters, either vote for him or don’t. And that’s my warning. …I don’t want a situation like this. I called for something other than a situation like this. I’ve done everything to call for the former president to clarify these issues and to stand consistently in a pro-life position. But I don’t get to invent a new reality when I go in the voting booth in November. Discomfort does not mean I’m going to stay home and see what happens.

→ The Vermont Department of Health released new “inclusive language” guidelines advising teachers to use the terms "child" or "kid" instead of "daughter" or "son."

→ An episode of The Tucker Carlson Show made waves this week for featuring Daryl Cooper, a historian who suggested Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II. Many high-profile Christians, like Al Mohler and Larry Taunton, denounced this claim. Others, like Joshua Haymes and Joel Webbon, wondered what’s wrong with questioning long-held narratives. Several posts by Cooper (called “Martyr Made” on X) have been offered to show him espousing views widely considered repugnant by Christians (see here, here, and here).

• Related, here’s a few-years-old stab at the question of whether Churchill was a believer in God: Did Winston Churchill Believe In God?

→ A different episode of The Tucker Carlson Show received some positive attention. Carlson interviewed comedian and recent Christian convert Russell Brand. Journalist Ben Zeisloft describes the conversation as an “entire ninety-minute discussion…about Jesus and the gospel.”

→ TheRealDavidPlatt.com posted a new teaser for an upcoming documentary that purports to expose David Platt and McClean Bible Church for “dark money” payments and “woke” teachings. The film is set for release on October 20.

→ Pro-life activist Ayala Isenberg posted a Substack article confessing to having an abortion in June, then deleted the Substack and her X account. Abolition Women observes, “Although this tweet is viral—not one pro-life org is sharing it. …The pro-life movement will call her a victim, but I won’t. The only victim is the child she murdered.” Isenberg’s deleted article can still be read here.

→ Sixty-two students were baptized during a campus “revival” outreach event at Texas A&M, which around 1,500 students attended.

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*https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/05/podcasts/trump-evangelicals-abortion.html

Content Catch-Up

Recent, notable content of Christian interest.*

The image shared with Abolitionists Rising’s post.

→ Practical Counsel For Pastors Who Are Beginning to Discern the Times: Pastor Michael Clary offers advice on how pastors can engage effectively in a world that has become negative toward Christianity. (Article)

→ Dawkins FINALLY Gets PRESSED On Atheism: Brandon McGuire of Daily Dose of Wisdom reviews a video clip in which journalist Piers Morgan presses atheist Richard Dawkins about the Big Bang. (Video)

→ The Reliability of the Bible: Protestant influencer 5Solas posted a graphic with facts and quotes from scholars about the ancient manuscripts of the Bible, the sheer number of which support a firm trust the reliability of the text as we have it. (Post)

→ September 11th Every Day: Anti-abortion activist group Abolitionists Rising argues that every day in the United States “has been a 9/11 for the preborn,” which none of us hate enough. (Post)

*Not necessarily an endorsement

The Bible, Briefly

Are Jews to Be Blamed For Jesus’ Death?

Photo: Pixabay

“The Jews” Killed Jesus

1 Thessalonians 2:14-15 declares that “the Jews…killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets.” So, are Jews to be blamed for Jesus’ death?

A central principle of biblical interpretation is that context is king. In context, who are “the Jews”? Here are the most relevant verses in their entirety (2:14-16):

For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!

All Jews?

Does “the Jews” here refer to all Jews? No, it cannot. The most obvious clue is the person writing: the apostle Paul, a Jew (“I am a Jew,” Acts 22:3; “For I myself am an Israelite,” Romans 11:1). Paul writes here in Thessalonians not only that “the Jews” killed Jesus but also that they “drove us out.” So, although he is a Jew, he distinguishes himself (“us”) from the group he refers to as “the Jews.”

Likewise, he says these Jews “oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved.” This, too, cannot refer to all Jews, as not only Paul but the other apostles (all Jews) affirmed that “to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:1, 18).

Finally, Paul notes that “wrath has come upon” the Jews. That certainly does not apply to all Jews either, since, as he famously writes elsewhere, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

So, who are “the Jews” Paul refers to? Commentator Warren W. Wiersbe weighs in:

Nowhere does the Bible accuse all Jews of what a few Jews did in Jerusalem and Judea when Christ was crucified and the church founded. The Romans also participated in the trial and death of Christ, and for that matter, it was our sins that sent Him to the cross (Isa. 53:6). There is no place in the Christian faith for anti-Semitism.

As Wiersbe suggests, “the Jews” in Thessalonians are in fact “a few Jews” who did the specific actions Paul describes. It is true, of course, that Jews at large did not (and still do not) accept Jesus as the Messiah, but that does not make each of them guilty of sins that others of them committed (see Ezekiel 18).

Not to be missed is the fact that Jesus’ death was necessary because of the sins of all the redeemed, not only of the ethnic group that facilitated it. All those whom he saved are to blame, and one is remiss to point fingers at others without due consideration of one’s own portion—but, thanks be to God, it was Jesus’ death which took that blame away.

Why This Matters

In a recent internet discussion, someone wrote, “1 Thessalonians 2 says the Jews killed Jesus and doesn’t clarify the statement. The overwhelming need modern Christians have to clarify the statement is troubling.”

However, because context is king, “the Jews” without clarification means something very different to the Thessalonians than what it often means today, when antisemitism is increasing in the U.S. and around the world. Today, a simple, unqualified statement like “the Jews killed Jesus” can be a source of glee for bad actors eager to justify their hatred against God’s people.* That reaction would have been the furthest from Paul’s intent in the letter to the Thessalonians.

If antisemitism is growing among professed Christians (or, perhaps, if Christian professions are growing among antisemites), it is vital always to check the context of any Bible verse someone quotes as support for animosity towards Jews. Fewer errors are so indefensible and easily dismantled, especially in light of the narrative of God’s Word as a whole. The single most pertinent passage may be Romans 11, which is worth reviewing.

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*According to Paul, Jews are still God’s people (Romans 11:1), though not every ethnic Jew is truly a Jew (2:28-29). Some ethnic Jews have been “broken off” and Gentile believers have been “grafted in” like branches grafted into a tree (11:17). Christians must “not be arrogant toward the branches” that were broken off (11:18), who can be grafted back in (11:23-24).

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Why "18:15"? The name Project 18:15 is based on Proverbs 18:15: “An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.” The aim is for this weekly email—a Christian news briefing, a Bible study, and a Church history lesson rolled into one—to be one way you keep abreast of current events and acquire knowledge you might not acquire elsewhere.

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