Extremist anti-LGBTQ activist Scott Lively recently posted a column on his website in which he bizarrely redefined the meaning of the term “anti-Semitism,” alleging that criticism of conservative Christians is anti-Semitism. As a result, liberal American Jews who are critical of the Religious Right, according to Lively, are pushing anti-Semitism.
As Lively sees it, “Semite” does not refer only to Jews, but also to conservative Christians, claiming that the term is really a “religious designation, delineating the followers of Jehovah … By my analysis, a ‘Semite’ cannot therefore be defined by DNA, but only by loyalty to God, and must include both Jews and Christians who are faithful to the principles of His Torah, while excluding those who aren’t.”
Using this definition that he unilaterally made up, Lively attacked liberal American Jews for supporting the Southern Poverty Law Center, which he asserts is practicing “anti-Semitism” by criticizing right-wing and Religious Right organizations and individuals who espouse viciously anti-LGBTQ views and by associating itself “with the militant defense of homosexual sodomy and the rejection of God and sexual normalcy”:
Antisemitism is a plague on the earth, and this article will explain why, but we must first precisely define “Semite” to identify what “antisemitism” actually is. “Jew-hatred” is probably the most commonly accepted shorthand version, invoking a tragic and ugly historical reality in the western world. But the deeper meaning of “antisemitism” is profoundly spiritual and actually indicts many Torah-faithless Jews who unrighteously wield the term as weapon. Their power to smear others with the antisemite brush suppresses scrutiny and criticism of their beliefs and acts that defy God and defile His Creation. Their blatant abuse of that power is itself a form of antisemitism in that it breeds resentment and hostility in the society that all Jews must then suffer.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), for example, is a predominantly Jewish organization. At its founding in 1971, it’s target was hate groups like Nazis and the KKK, both strongly antisemitic by anyone’s definition. Understandably, it’s donor base is reportedly largely Jewish also. Like many Christians, I supported the SPLC goals in those days, perceiving that my Jewish spiritual cousins were acting upon shared Biblical values. Later, however, when the SPLC began to define opposition to homosexuality as hate, Bible believing Christians and Torah-believing Jews were equated with Nazis, and my ministry was libeled as a hate group, as was the group “Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality” (JONAH) which the SPLC successfully sued and shut down in liberal New Jersey.
Public awareness of its malign transformation grew slowly, but today the name SPLC is widely associated with the militant defense of homosexual sodomy and the rejection of God and sexual normalcy. The Christian majority, whose prior sympathy for the SPLC helped it amass its now legendary financial war-chest, is shocked that those resources are now being used to persecute those most faithful to the Torah truths that once defined us as co-stewards of America’s Judeo-Christian cultural consensus.
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Worst and most destructive of all is the overt promotion of sexual perversion, the insane ultimate outworking of the fear-driven impulse to secularize society that, for example, the SPLC’s fundraising so skillfully exploits. Inexcusably, and inexplicably, that has become a defining cultural goal of many American Jews (and leftist Christians) in media, academia, government and the business world … I issue a challenge to the American Jewish community to stop ignoring the antisemitism coming from your own people. Stop funding the SPLC hate group. Stop using your enormous power and resources to undermine Biblical values. Start recognizing the extent to which your rejection of your own Torah’s guidance needlessly fosters resentment and hostility toward you.
You have greatly influenced the rise of secularism and its consequences. I invite you to help undo that damage through the mutual reestablishment of our Judeo-Christian moral heritage.
