I just thought I would direct you to a post written by Dr Calvin Smith, a post for all of you who are interested in modern Israel, the Jews and the implications for the Church. In that post he writes about Stephen Sizer, supercessionism and replacement theology which is an ongoing debate within Christendom at the moment. As time goes on — and as Israel and Jerusalem becomes more of a stumbling block in the political world — it will also become a topic that concerns the Church more and more.
Here’s a snippet of the post to whet your appetite…
I note Stephen Sizer will be speaking at Bethlehem Bible College’s Christ at the Checkpoint conference (March 2010), aimed at promoting a reading and reflection upon Scripture from a distinctly Palestinian perspective. The title of Sizer’s paper is "Israel and the Church: Challenging Zionism, Anti-Semitism and Replacement Theology."
Anyway, the notion of Stephen challenging replacement theology appears somewhat incongruous. In the past, several other supercessionists have tried (not very successfully) to distance themselves from the label "replacement theology". You see, ditching punitive supercessionism while holding to variations of either economic or structural supercessionism (see R. Kendall Soulen’s useful book The God of Israel and Christian Theology for definitions of the terminology) doesn’t qualify as having eschewed replacement theology. True, there are technical differences between these variations of supercessionism, nonetheless all mean the same thing semantically and theologically[…]
If you want to weigh in on the debate, I know that Calvin would be all to willing and happy to answer any questions about this ongoing issue regarding The Jews, Modern Israel and the New Supercessionism that we see today.
Please direct any queries and comments to this link: Calvin L. Smith: Stephen Sizer as Anti-Replacement Theology Champion?
living journey 