CONSERVATIVES CLASH OVER ISRAEL AND THE JEWS

In a December 1, 2025 blog post, Kevin DeYoung wrote on his website, “Increasingly, the loudest voices arguing for Christian Nationalism are marked by juvenile insults steeped in online jargon from the dissident right. What’s more, some of these proponents traffic openly in racist ideology, antisemitism, and Neo-Nazi sympathies….” Thus, one question he has for Christian Nationalists is this: “Do you unequivocally renounce antisemitism, racism, and Nazism?”1

What about you? Do you categorically renounce antisemitism (anti-Jewish thinking)?

There has been open antisemitism on the political left for a while now, especially since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. In the last couple of years, many in the U.S. Democratic party have voiced loud support for the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian cause, even though the radical Islamic leaders of that cause (Hamas) expressed a murderous desire to erase Israel from the face of the earth.

But lately we have also been witnessing the emergence of antisemitism on the right, as anyone who follows conservative politics and Christianity in America will have noticed—and I am learning that the issue is complex. Since the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September of 2025, conservatives with differing views of Israel and the Jews have begun to clash openly and bitterly.2

Many on the right support all things Jewish with a fervent zeal. Many Christians support Israel because they believe the Jews are God’s elect people to whom God gave the holy land and for whom Jesus will return and reign for a thousand years. They think God will bless you if you bless the Jews, but He will curse you if you curse (or even criticize) the Jews (based on a wrong view of Genesis 12:3).

But anti-Jewish voices that used to hang out on the fringes of the far right have been edging into the mainstream of the conservative movement.3 These voices espouse conspiracy theories about the Jews, denying, for example, that millions of Jews were murdered by Adolph Hitler in Nazi Germany (known as the Holocaust) and claiming that a large group of powerful Jews secretly control the world.

What should we think of all these swirling opinions about the Jews today? First of all, the Standard Bearer promotes Reformed theology and amillennial eschatology. Thus, we confess that God has loved and chosen a church out of all nations, including Jews and Gentiles, and that church is the true Israel of God (Rom. 9:1-8; Gal. 3:26-28). In the fog of controversy, let this be clear: the nation of Israel led by Benjamin Netanyahu is not God’s chosen people, but His chosen people include all Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus Christ; Christ is not going to come down to reign over the Jews for a thousand years in the future; nor are we in danger of being cursed if we criticize Jewish beliefs, practices, or politics; but we must view Jews who deny that Jesus is the Christ as lost people in need of the saving grace of God (like the Muslims and Nazis who hate them). It is not antisemitic to say that.

But in the second place, we must never allow into our hearts the kind of hateful, antisemitic thinking that led Hitler to execute them in gas chambers or that led two Muslim men to open fire on a group of them as they celebrated Hanukkah on Bondi Beach, Australia on December 14, 2025. We must unequivocally reject the antisemitic and racist thinking that views and speaks of Jews as evil just because they are Jews. We must beware of the racist pride that looks down on Jews or any other race because of stereotypes we have heard about them. We must beware of the racist pride whereby we think our ethnicity is superior to others. Our Lord Jesus was a Jew. He was very critical of His fellow Jews for their pride and unbelief. But He also commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves, no matter who that neighbor is, even if we are a Samaritan and our neighbor is a Jew (Luke 10:25-37). God is no respecter of persons, and we must not be either. May God give us a desire for the salvation of the lost, both Jews and Gentiles.

HUMAN AND CHIMPANZEE DNA

In the end, there is really only one race, the human race, and a new study has shown that we humans are much more different from chimpanzees than we have been told. “A major new study has now completed all the great ape genomes to a very high standard. And they were aligned with each other so that people could start making comparisons. This is a big deal. First, many commentators have claimed that this proves that human and chimpanzee genomes are only about 85% identical. They are spot on.”4

According to this article in Creation magazine, the first estimates of the similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA were made in the 1970s. The claim was that there is something like 99% similarity between us and these African primates, making them our closest living relative. That “fact” was touted as one of the strongest “proofs” that humans and chimps evolved from a common ancestor, but it was accepted without complete knowledge of the genomes of either one. Now those genomes have been sequenced in full, and we know that there are many more differences between human and chimp DNA.

There are long sequences of the two genomes that are 99% identical, which is not that surprising if you just take a look at a few chimpanzees at the zoo and compare them, say, to the elephants. But human and chimp DNA as a whole is only about 85% identical. Yet museums and scientists do not want to admit their grievous mistake or give up their evolutionary talking point, so they continue to make the claim of 99% similarity. If you challenge them, they might whisper the fine print that they are only talking about those sections of DNA that align.

Another reason they do not want to give up their claim of 99% similarity is because the fact of 85% similarity throws a massive monkey wrench (no pun intended) into their theory of human evolution. They thought humans and chimps diverged from each other 6-8 million years ago and evolved down different paths. They thought 6-8 million years of evolution could account for the differences between humans and chimps. But now they must reckon with the facts about human and chimp DNA. Even 6-8 million years would not have been enough time for that many differences to develop.

As the above-mentioned article reminds us, “We are not the product of millions of years of evolutionary experiments and accidents,” and “we do not share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, or any other creature.” We were made by God in His own image as a distinct and special creature above all the beasts of the field, including the chimps.

ASSISTED SUICIDE LEGALIZED IN ILLINOIS AND NEW YORK

But if you think of humans as nothing more than highly evolved animals, you devalue human life and make way for new laws that allow one to end his life if he does not think it is worth living. I have reported in the past on the legalization and advance of physician-assisted suicide in Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. On December 12, 2025, Illinois became the twelfth state to legalize assisted suicide. According to World magazine,

Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday announced that he’d signed a bill that would allow terminally ill residents aged 18 or older to request life-ending drugs from doctors. The measure is set to take effect next September [2026] and makes Illinois the 12th state to legalize medically assisted suicide. State senators passed the measure in the early morning hours of Oct. 31 [2025] during a special veto session and moved it to Pritzker’s desk.5

Only a few days later, it was announced that New York will become the thirteenth state to legalize this tragic evil: “New York Gov. Kathy Hochul reached an agreement with state lawmakers on a bill to legalize assisted suicide in 2026, according to a Wednesday release from Hochul’s office. Medical Aid in Dying, or MAiD, would allow medical intervention to terminally ill New Yorkers with less than six months to live.”6

Pastors in Illinois and New York will soon be in the company of pastors in other places who have an urgent responsibility to teach God’s people the ethics of living and dying. Suddenly you find yourself in a hospital room with a member of your congregation who is very sick or dying. The doctor walks in and gives the grim report. He lays out the options. One of them is a pill that will bring the suffering to a swift and peaceful end. You are consulted for advice. Are you ready to explain in a pastoral way why that brother or sister in Christ may not go that route?

Let us give hope to God’s people in their suffering and dying, so that they can persevere through the dark valleys of every mental and bodily illness and resist the temptation to commit suicide, no matter what euphemism the doctor may use to describe it (“medical assistance in dying,” “dying with dignity,” and such like). “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18).

1 Kevin DeYoung, “6 Questions for Christian Nationalists” (December 1, 2025), https://clearlyreformed.org/6-questions-for-christian-nationalists.
2 Carolina Lumetta, “Out of the Shadows: Strains of anti- Semitism lurking on the edges of the conservative movement have infiltrated the mainstream,” World (January 2026), https://wng.org/articles/out-of-the-shadows-1764648109.
3 Many conservatives view Tucker Carlson’s cordial interview of Nick Fuentes, a right-wing conspiracy theorist and forceful critic of the Jews, and the refusal of many conservative leaders to denounce Carlson for giving Fuentes a platform without pushing back on his ideas, as evidence that antisemitism is infiltrating the conservative mainstream.
4 Robert Carter, “Major update—human and chimpanzee DNA only about 85% similar,” Creation, Vol. 47, No. 4 (2025), 16.
5 Lauren Canterberry, “Illinois becomes latest state to legalize assisted suicide,” World (December 12, 2025), https://wng. org/sift/illinois-becomes-latest-state-to-legalize-assisted-suicide.
6 Christina Grube, “New York governor green-lights assisted suicide bill,” World (December 17, 2025), https://wng.org/ sift/new-york-governor-green-lights-assisted-suicide-bill.