Brussels, March 20th, 2025 – The treatment of the Jews is the blackest stain on the Christian record and conscience, acknowledged Author and Social Critic Os Guinness as he spoke in the second edition of the ECI Open Academy webinar on Monday night. Nevertheless, Guinness who comes from a long line of influential Christian leaders, also pointed out how a powerful stream of Evangelical leaders throughout history, including some of his own ancestors, have been strongly in favour of the restoration of Israel even long before the birth of the modern Zionist movement. These were leaders who, beginning in the 17th century, unashamedly stood with the Jewish people and pleaded with their government leaders for the Jewish cause. These leaders included William Wilberforce and the Earl of Shaftesbury in the United Kingdom but also the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and co-founder of the International Red Cross, Henri Dunant in Switzerland.
Today much of the mainline church is affected by the radical left through academia and the TikTok generation who lacks a solid biblical foundation, he said. He warned against the convergence of radical Marxism and radical Islam at our universities which is anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, anti-Western and even anti-human but was equally concerned about the rise of antisemitism on the extreme right.
Looking at the present crisis in our society he asked what it will take to have a human friendly society which is just and free and where we learn to live together. His answer was clear. Jewish ideas are absolutely critical for the future of the world and the future of humanity. All the essential ideas which have made our civilisation great are Jewish, they are biblical. No one concerned with the human future and the present crisis can afford not to understand the place of Judaism and the key role of Israel.
Coming back to the central theme of the webinar, “Jewish-Christian relations at a time of international turmoil” Guinness pointed out that we have to overcome supersessionism (the idea that Christians have replaced the Jews as people of God) and rediscover the truly biblical relationship between Christians and Jews. This is not only critical for our theology but for the future of our civilisation, he said. When we stand with the Jews, we stand with everything which is central to our civilisation.
You can listen to the conversation between Os Guinness and Tomas Sandell below.
(We apologise for the poor audio quality in a few segments due to an unstable internet connection.)
