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Supersessionism

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Supersessionism, or replacement theology, is the idea that one religion ceases to be true!once another religion shows up to supersede[1] it.

Examples

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For instance, Christianity believes that Judaism was true once but that because the Jews rejected Jesus they stopped being the Chosen People and that the New Testament and a faith-based religion replaced Jewish Law. Islam also believes that God gave the Torah alike to the Israelites at Mount Sinai but that the Quran ultimately replaced it.

Antisemitism

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Christianity

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Nowadays, supersessionism is widely deemed antisemitic as it laid the groundwork for the two millennia of Christian antisemitism and persecution of Jews that peaked in the Holocaust, killing at least 6,000,000 Jews – 67% of pre-war European Jews. Supersessionism is no longer backed by mainstream churches, reportedly including the Vatican,[2] which have switched the focus to Christian–Jewish reconciliation.[3]

Some Christians endorse the dual-covenant theology (DCT) which holds that the Old Covenant between Jews and God is eternal, exempting Jews from the need of Christian conversion for receiving salvation.[4]

Radical Traditionalist Catholics

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Despite the growing acceptance of the dual-covenant theology among Christians, the strongest opponents of it are the radical traditionalist Catholics who have significant influence over Catholic churches worldwide, making supersessionism a difficult issue to discuss.[2] Many radical traditionalist Catholics are reported to be Holocaust deniers,[5] who have a huge presence on Reddit's subreddits r/Catholicism (240K members) and r/AskAChristian (21K members), while Reddit has been long been criticized for uncontrolled antisemitism.[6]

Christian Identity movement

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Further information: British Israelism

A similar, or somewhat overlapping, Christian movement that upholds supersessionism is the Christian Identity (CI) movement, whose followers believe that White people to be the "real" descendants of ancient Israelites with whom God have a covenant.[7] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) estimated in 2023 that the CI movement had 10 active groups in the United States.[7][8]

Non-Christian examples

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Black Hebrew Israelites

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Black Hebrew Israelites, who refuse to believe that Jesus was Jewish, protested in San Diego, California against the long-standing depiction of Jesus as a "White man" rather than a Black man.
A propaganda poster made by the Black Hebrew Israelites implying that Black and Native Americans are the "real" descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The Black Hebrew Israelites allege that the said peoples have been "wrongfully" classified by White imperialists into different ethnic groups across the Western hemisphere.
See the main article: Black Hebrew Israelites

Black Hebrew Israelites (BHI) is a modern movement promoting the pseudoscientific belief that African Americans are allegedly the real descendants of ancient Israelites, with some of their factions also seeing Native and Latino Americans as the descendants of ancient Israelites.[9][10]

Alberta Williams King, the mother of Martin Luther King Jr., was shot and killed on June 30, 1974 at the age 69 by Marcus Wayne Chenault, a 23-year-old Black man from Ohio subscribed to the theology of a BHI preacher called Hananiah E. Israel of Cincinnati. The assassin had reportedly shown interest in a group called the "Hebrew Pentecostal Church of the Living God".[11][better source needed] Israel, Chenault's mentor, castigated Black civil rights activists and Black church leaders as being evil and deceptive, but claimed in interviews not to have advocated violence.[12][better source needed] Chenault did not draw any such distinction, and first decided to assassinate Rev. Jesse Jackson in Chicago, but canceled the plan at the last minute.[source?]

The BHI have also been involved in domestic terrorism towards American Jews since the 1970s, the most recent of which include but not limited to the 2019 Jersey City shooting (7 dead and 3 injured) and the Monsey Hanukkah stabbing (1 dead and 4 injured).[13]

Fran Markowitz, a professor of cultural anthropology at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, wrote that the BHI's view on the African slave trade conflicts with historical accounts, as does the BHI's belief that Socrates and William Shakespeare were black.[14] Most BHI factions were classified as hate groups by at least two civil rights groups, including but not limited to the SPLC and Anti-Defamation League (ADL).[9][10] The ADL noted,[15]

Some, but not all, [Black Hebrew Israelites] are outspoken anti-Semites and racists.

On the other hand, political observer Ralph Lenoard further analyzed the BHI,[16]

Black Hebrew Israelism is an ideology [...] that 'black people are the real Jews' has permeated [...] African-American consciousness, given that big-time celebrities like West, Irving, and DeSean Jackson and Nick Cannon [...] amplified some of these views.

Antisemitic BHI factions include but not limited to the Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge (ISUPK), House of Israel (HOI), Nation of Yahweh (NOY), Israelites Saints of Christ, True Nation Israelite Congregation and The Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ (ICGJC).[17]

The ADL documented some antisemitic slurs used by the BHI:[17]

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Other websites

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References

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  1. ↑ take the place of (a person or thing previously in authority or use). Oxford Languages.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1
    • Pryor, J. Christopher (2009). "Traditional Catholicism and the Teachings of Bishop Richard Williamson". Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
    • "Traditionalist Catholicism". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved October 23, 2024. The Vatican has also rejected the idea of supersessionism [. ...] but traditionalist Catholics continue to support this doctrine and believe that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic church [. ...] One of its bishops, Richard Williamson, is a well-known Holocaust denier.
    • Weitzman, Mark (April 5, 2017). ""Every Sane Thinker Must Be an Anti-Semite": Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial in the Theology of Radical Catholic Traditionalists". Antisemitism Before and Since the Holocaust. pp. 83–113. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
    • "Hutton Gibson, Extremist and Father of Mel Gibson, Dies at 101". The New York Times. June 4, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
    • Faggioli, Massimo (October 26, 2022). "The Crisis in the Reception of Vatican II in the Catholic Church and the Return of Antisemitism". Antisemitism Studies. 6 (2). Indiana University Press: 354–372. doi:10.2979/antistud.6.2.08. ISSN 2474-1817. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  3. ↑ Timothy P. Jackson (2021). "The Evils of Supersessionism". Mordecai Would Not Bow Down: Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Christian Supersessionism. Retrieved October 23, 2024.
  4. ↑ "Falwell: Jews can get to heaven". The Jerusalem Post. March 1, 2006. Retrieved October 23, 2024.
  5. ↑
  6. ↑
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1
  8. ↑ The 10 active groups of the CI movement in 2023 are as follows (place names in brackets are their headquarters' locations):
    • Assembly of Christian Israelites (Milford, Ohio)
    • Christogenea (Panama City Beach, Florida)
    • Church of Israel  (Schell City, Missouri)
    • Covenant People’s Ministry (Brooks, Georgia)
    • Euro Folk Radio (Chicago, Illinois)
    • Fellowship of God’s Covenant People (Union, Kentucky)
    • Kingdom Identity Ministries (Harrison, Arkansas)
    • Mission to Israel Ministries (Scottsbluff, Nebraska)
    • Sacred Truth Publishing and Ministries (Mountain City, Tennessee)
    • Scriptures for America Worldwide Ministries (Laporte, Colorado)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Ong, Kyler (September 2020). "Ideological Convergence in the Extreme Right". Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses. 12 (5): 1–7. ISSN 2382-6444. JSTOR 26954256.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Jikeli, Gunther (2020). "Is Religion Coming Back as a Source for Antisemitic Views?". Religions. 11 (5): 255. doi:10.3390/rel11050255. ISSN 2077-1444.
  11. ↑ "The Decatur Daily Review 12 Jul 1974, page Page 6". Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ "Dayton Daily News 03 Jul 1974, page 1". Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑
  14. ↑ Markowitz, Fran (2013). Ethnographic Encounters in Israel: Poetics and Ethics of Fieldwork. Indiana University Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-253-00889-3.
  15. ↑ "Black Hebrew Israelites". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved December 15, 2019.
  16. ↑ "The dangerous rise of Black Hebrew Israelites". UnHerd. 23 November 2022.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Extremist Sects Within the Black Hebrew Israelite Movement". Anti-Defamation League. 7 August 2020.
  18. ↑
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