JERUSALEM, Israel – The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem has convened an Emergency Summit this week to address the crisis of antisemitism and awaken churches worldwide to the unprecedented hate campaign against Israel and the Jewish people. The summit is also addressing Replacement Theology in churches and confronting the fear pastors face from intimidation in countries across every continent.
We spoke with ICEJ President Jürgen Buehler about how they’re addressing the critical issues facing the Church.
The text of the extended interview is below.
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CHRIS MITCHELL: I’m here with President of the ICEJ, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, Jürgen Buehler. Jürgen, great to be with you. We’re here for the Jerusalem Summit, but it’s not just a Jerusalem Summit. You’re calling it an Emergency Jerusalem Summit. Why?
JUERGEN BUEHLER: Well, Chris, thank you so much. It’s always good to be with you. The reason why we called it an Emergency Summit is because I believe that we are living in a time where Israel is under threat. The Jewish people around the world are under threat like never before. We see antisemitism rising after October 7 in numbers that are unprecedented. I think in the United States, there is a 200 percent increase. If you look at antisemitism in colleges or universities, it grew 500 percent.
If you go to Europe, almost every country in Europe, anti-Semitic acts and violence against the Jews, up 200 to 500 (percent). That’s incredible. Unheard of. And we feel it’s a time where the church needs to wake up. The sad thing about all that is that many churches around the world, they don’t have to say anything about that. They don’t even know what to say when it comes to Israel or the Jewish people. And this Emergency Summit is here to help pastors around the world to get the tools to stand up on a Sunday morning on their pulpit to address anti-Semitism, to address questions like Replacement Theology, and to inform their churches in an intelligent way.
CM: Would you compare what’s happening now to what people say might have been in Germany in the 1930s? Is it similar? Chris, that’s an excellent question, because I was told for many years, oh, we are living in times comparable to what happened in Germany.
JB: And I always said, well, you know, this was really an extreme time. I wouldn’t compare it. But today, absolutely. I think we are living in times. We see churches. We had a conference in Ireland the other day. It was closed down in two venues because pastors got too scared because of the threats they received. Pastors are telling us they don’t dare to speak about Israel anymore from the pulpit because they are afraid of the ramifications. And we really see there is, number one, the threat level, very similar to how it was then.
JB: And also the response of the churches in many places, not everywhere, but in many places. Similar to how it was in Germany back then in the years leading to Hitler.
CM: Was the church in Germany at that time, was it asleep?
JB: It was, I think, asleep. It was not knowledgeable about God’s purpose with the Jewish people. So they didn’t have the tools in their hand to respond properly. And, of course, it’s also many of them, they just lacked courage because there was a consequence to pay or a price to pay standing up for the Jewish people.
CM: Yeah. What are the tools that you want to bring to the church through this conference, this summit? Well, through this summit, we are addressing three major areas.
JB: We address, number one, global anti-Semitism. We will inform what is happening, what is the proper theology to address that, why Christians should stand with the Jewish people, defend them. Number two, we are speaking about new waves or new types of replacement theology. There is a… A doctrine that is spreading like cancer almost, you can say. It’s called the New Pauline Perspective. It is in itself very helpful to educate you on the Jewish character of Jesus.
JB: But when it comes to the Jewish people today, it actually fails completely. It says their church replaced Israel. It’s all over the world. You hear about it. We want to address that. And thirdly, we are living still in the 1700s. We are living in the second world anniversary of the Nicene Council. 1,700 years ago, church fathers in Turkey met together. It was the second ecumenical council after the book of Acts, chapter 15. And if you think about it, in Acts, chapter 15, the church widely opened the doors to the Gentile Christians.
JB: They said, you are welcome to join us. You don’t need to be circumcised. You don’t need to eat kosher. We just want you to believe in Yeshua. And so far, 250 years later, they shut the door for the Jewish people. They said, if you want to join the church, stop keeping Shabbat. Stop keeping Passover. You need to stick to our holidays. You need to stop being Jewish, and then you can join the Christian church. So it was opening a gap between Judaism and Christianity lasting until today.
CM: Jürgen Bühler, thanks for the summit and what you’re doing. Appreciate it.
