Jerusalem at night in CIA image
Michael Onifer was curious about the young Jewish woman sitting next to him on the airplane, so he popped the question: What do you think about Jesus?
The woman replied Jesus was just like Muhammad or any other religious leader.
Onifer, being the naïve young man he was at the time, fired back, “Well, at least the followers of Jesus love the Jewish people.”
Whoops.
That was not exactly true, as some of those who claim to be Christians have a lengthy history of anti-Semitism. But Onifer didn’t know that at the time. The woman fixed him with an icy stare before filling him in, and as Onifer later learned more about anti-Semitism, he realized just how kind she was in her response.
“All of church history, the overwhelming majority of church history, is painfully contrary to what I understood and what I thought was true in that moment,” Onifer confessed during a recent appearance on “Stand for Truth Radio” with Susan Knowles.
Today, Onifer directs the Bethlehem Project, a leadership development and job-creation program for Palestinian Christians. He travels regularly to Israel and the West Bank, working with Palestinian Christians to develop Jewish-Christian relations.
Realizing there were many young people just as naïve as he used to be about Israel and the Jewish people, Onifer spent the past 10 years developing a message about Israel for the millennial generation.
The result is his new book, co-authored with Joshua Charles, called “God, Israel, and You: The Scandalous Story of a Faithful God.” The book is set to be released April 26.
“We wanted to write a book on Israel for millennials, by millennials,” Onifer said.
He warned that support for Israel among millennials is falling at a worrisome rate. Too many millennials suffer from what Onifer and Charles call the Arab-Israeli Conflict Syndrome: expressing strong opinions on something they know little about.
“There is a passion and a very strong opinion about the topic, but they don’t really know what’s going on,” Onifer said. “They don’t have the context; they’re not really evaluating the situations that they’re engaging in and that they’re trying to inform other people about.”
Not only are millennials uninformed, but they buy into common stereotypes, according to Onifer. They assume to be pro-Israel is to side with conservatives, right-wingers, imperialists and warmongers, which many of them don’t want to do. They gravitate toward the Palestinians because the Palestinians look like the victims and underdogs – and Jesus loves victims and underdogs.
However, Onifer believes he has discovered how best to talk to millennials about Israel. He was once speaking to an intern about Israel when the young man told him: “Don’t explain to me why Israel is a victim. Tell me what God thinks about Israel, and I can get on board with that.”
Therefore, Onifer’s new book places Israel in the larger context of the knowledge of God.
“So many young people, they don’t want to associate with an issue that has such clear political definitions to it, that’s so polarized, and they’re hesitant to connect with it because of all these things surrounding it,” he said.
Onifer said when he speaks to young Christians overseas, he tells them understanding Israel is about engaging with Jesus, who was himself a Jew who frequently quoted from the Old Testament. Onifer made clear he doesn’t wish to skirt the political issues surrounding the Israeli-Arab conflict, but he believes his message about Jesus needs to be an “on-ramp” for a person’s understanding of Israel. And it is crucial for Christians to understand Israel.
“If you don’t understand Israel, you don’t understand the Bible,” he said. “If you don’t understand the Bible, what god are you looking for?”
Onifer noted millennials are passionate and sincere about wanting to change the world. He said he has met teenagers and young adults from around the world who have left everything behind to fly to Palestine to protest alongside Palestinians.
“They don’t even understand what they’re doing!” Onifer exclaimed. “They can’t talk about the situation they’ve inserted themselves in for more than five minutes. But the thing that’s awesome is that they did it! They got on the plane and they went there. Why? Because they care.”
However, he said these young people need to combine their passion with knowledge.
“If you’re a Christian, if you love Jesus, you can’t just go out there and do something because you think it’s a good idea,” Onifer warned. “You could actually be working against God and not for Him, and that’s why I wrote the book.”
Knowles, the program host, commented that although Onifer wrote the book for millennials, it is actually good for readers of all ages. She said it opened up new insights for her.
“Even for the people who know a lot about Israel, this is a great refresher, and also maybe you’ll learn things you thought you knew but you didn’t really know,” Knowles said.
Onifer agreed “God, Israel, and You” is appropriate for all age groups.
“Millennials didn’t just fall out of the sky,” he reasoned. “They don’t believe the things that they believe on their own. There’s things that the generation before us has sought and believed and done that’s produced a lot of the prevailing paradigms within the millennial generation. And so I think it’s going to be very helpful for anyone to read it.”
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/04/16/israel-made-easy-for-millennials/
from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/israel-made-easy-for-millennials/
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