With the surge in public expressions of Jew-hatred emerging from some quarters of the American Christian right, a familiar impulse has resurfaced, especially among well-intentioned Jews and Christian allies. The reflex is to treat antisemitism as a theological problem that can be solved by refuting supersessionism (also known as “replacement theology” by detractors and “fulfillment theology” by champions).
The logic is straightforward: If supersessionism historically contributed to hostility and violence against Jews, then defeating it theologically should weaken antisemitism at its source. This instinct is sincere but counterproductive.
Some context on this internal Christian dispute: Supersessionism holds that biblical references to “Israel” apply spiritually to the church rather than to the Jewish people as a continuing covenantal nation—a view long present in Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant and some Reformed traditions. By contrast, dispensationalism, which rose to prominence in 19th-century Protestantism, and is most common among evangelicals and non-denominational churches, maintains that God’s covenant with the Jewish people remains distinct and ongoing. Both frameworks have been debated for generations; neither is monolithic, and adherents of both can be found across denominations and political orientations.
Supersessionism is not mere theological oversight waiting to be corrected by better proof-texting. It’s not a matter of poor reading comprehension. It’s a durable interpretive framework nearly 2,000 years old, debated by sophisticated thinkers invoking the same scriptures for as long as those scriptures have been read. No New Testament verse recited by an Israeli diplomat, no angry exegesis by a Twitter warrior, and no self-soothing interfaith conference of Jewish and Christian Zionists is going to settle a question that has never been settled because it cannot be—at least not on textual grounds.
Nor is theology a reliable indicator of intent or danger. Supersessionists are not all hostile to Jews and Israel, just as dispensationalists are not all friendly. Treating theological camps as moral litmus tests thus obscures more than it reveals and produces both false confidence and misplaced alarm based on labels, rather than conduct.
There’s also a more basic problem that rarely gets stated plainly.
Most Jews engaging in these debates lack depth in their own religious background, let alone mastery of the texts and interpretive traditions they aspire to refute. At the same time, few on the Christian side—whether arguing for or against a continuing covenantal relationship between God and the Jewish people—can actually read the verses they cite in the original languages. Instead, both sides rely on layers of translation, paraphrase and inherited talking points, often many removes away from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic originals, and filtered through centuries of polemics.
Smugly quoting a handful of verses is thus worse than pointless. It’s a lousy communications strategy, poor public relations, as well as a good way to alienate friends and inflame enemies.
Which is why neither observant nor secular Jews should be in the business of arguing for a Christian dispensationalist reading of the Christian Bible. We don’t share Christian theology, hermeneutics or exegetical traditions. We don’t accept the premises or authorities of those debates, and pretending otherwise for tactical convenience is easily exposed as intellectually dishonest and strategically reckless.
Telling Christians that they don’t understand their own scripture when it comes to the Jews is no more productive than being told by Christians that Jews don’t understand ours when it comes to Christ. It raises hackles and almost always reinforces the most hostile interlocutors. Christian rebuttals to dispensationalism have existed for generations, just as rebuttals to supersessionism have. Nothing new is being introduced and no minds are being changed when the challenger is a Jew. The result is predictable: hardened positions, deepened resentment and the empowerment of those who thrive on dispute and division.
More importantly, the entire approach misses the real issue.
Antisemitism does not primarily function as a theological disagreement. It functions as a conspiratorial mode of thinking—a psychotic pathology that treats Jews not as ordinary moral agents but as a malevolent force operating behind events, power and history. Christian theology can supply language for this impulse, just as nationalist, progressive, socialist, racist or Islamist narratives can. But it’s not the engine that drives it. That engine runs just as easily in secular, revolutionary or post-religious movements.
This is why arguing theology is futile. You are engaging on terrain where your interlocutor is entrenched, rehearsed and unconcerned with persuasion. Worse, you reinforce the premise that Jewish existence itself is a problem to be adjudicated, rather than a reality to be respected.
The current moment, properly understood, is not religious; it is civilizational, cultural and political.
The response, therefore, must be practical and pragmatic, instead of theological or theoretical. In fact, it is better not to treat it as a “debate” at all; a debate must presume shared premises and a common standard of resolution. Neither exists here. What does exist is the collapse of a shared societal value set; a vacuum that is fueling social pressures, incentives, fears, anger, ambitions and power dynamics. Understanding those forces—and reframing relationships, accordingly—is far more effective than attempting to adjudicate ancient interpretive disputes.
This is where conspiracy thinking becomes central.
Going down conspiracy theory rabbit holes is not only philosophically or morally wrong; it’s self-defeating. It has never advanced truth, protected communities or strengthened societies. It distorts priorities, undermines credibility and invariably harms those who embrace it.
Periods of upheaval always produce a glut of manipulators. When fear is high and trust is low, scapegoating becomes easy and even profitable. Unsurprisingly, we are now awash in voices exploiting the current moment. Inflaming suspicion and anger is far easier than grappling with difficult and complex reality.
And this warning is not primarily for Jews. It is for society itself.
Scapegoating Jews has been tested for millennia. It benefits predators, grifters and demagogues in the short term, but devastates every society that succumbs to them. Every civilization that turned Jews into a symbolic explanation for its failures believed it was solving a problem. None survived the solution.
The resurgence of Jew-hatred is America’s early warning signal. The task before us is not to take sides in doctrinal arguments or play amateur theologians in traditions that are not our own. It is to deny legitimacy—to stigmatize—the demagoguery of those who would demonize and dehumanize “the Jews” by making us the avatar of their own fears and failures. That is where antisemitism lives, and that is where it must be confronted
