Shofars for Trump: Christians Who Think They’re Jews
Just when you think they can’t possibly get any crazier, the Christian Right proves you wrong again.
IN THE MIDST of the January 6 protests, a series of images emerged showing supporters of President Trump in Washington, DC, blowing shofars. The image was befuddling to many, especially since the shofars — ram’s horns typically used in Jewish observance of specific holy days — seemed to be in use among Christian groups who were there to support the president.
The scene baffled many, including some Jews. But it doesn’t baffle those brought up in the increasingly unhinged evangelical Christian world. One observer said, “In my evangelical upbringing, shofars were blown at Christian conferences and gatherings, often those with roots in Pentecostal or Charismatic communities (which constitute some of but not all of American evangelicalism). And in recent months, shofars have popped up at rallies held by Christian anti-mask activists like Sean Feucht, and at Black Lives Matter counterprotests. For the ‘Jericho March’ participants in Washington, blowing the shofar carried complicated connotations, ranging from ancient Old Testament symbolism to contemporary pro-Israel politics.”
A recent conversation spurred by journalists confused on the topic included Gary Burge, who is a professor of New Testament and dean of the faculty at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church, an evangelical denomination. Burge explained where evangelical fascination with the shofar originated and what it symbolizes to them.
What exactly is a shofar? And what has it become in our time?
“Shofar is a Hebrew word, and it means trumpet. If you went back 3,000 years ago, or more, in order to have instruments, you had to use the raw materials that are around you. You need a harp. Do you have gut strings? Okay, you can make that. But forging a trumpet out of metal — that’s a very big task. They made them out of ram’s horns, which you can hollow out. They’re curved.
“When you hear about a trumpet being sounded in Israel in what you and I call the Old Testament, it really means it’s a shofar that’s being sounded. Its original use was a call to alert. Then it became commonly used in military campaigns.
“It ended up, along with a drum, as a feature of military conflicts….
“That’s a good analogy for the shofar. This instrument was used in Israel as a call to military action. Remember the story in Joshua about the defeat of Jericho? In that story, the people of Israel march around the city of Jericho blowing trumpets — they’re blowing shofars.
“Then it was used in the temple as well, and that’s why I like to think it’s a flexible idea. It’s a call to Israel. Shofars were used at the temple to call people to prayer during festival times. It is a call to stand up and move in the appropriate direction for that moment. So it could be a festival with its sacrifices. It could be a military campaign.
“Jews have always known about this. It’s a part of their cultural equipment. It ended up getting reduced inside of the Jewish context to two festivals per year. Practicing Jews would go to synagogue, and they’d hear the shofar blown on Yom Kippur and on the high holy days — Rosh Hashanah. Today, it lives there.
“I suspect in my conversations with Jews, just like with a bagpipe, it has an [emotional] value inside of the synagogue. But historically, it was an instrument of war and of religion.”
So what are Christians doing with shofars, then? I suspect that Christians who’ve encountered a shofar today have mostly encountered them in a particular denomination, or in a political context.
“That’s right. So let’s be absolutely clear about one thing: Evangelicals don’t all use shofars. Let’s be really clear about that. But, okay, so how did this suddenly surface? I think there’s an explanation for this, and it has to do with an infatuation among some conservative evangelicals with all things Jewish and all things Israel.
“In the late 19th century, there’s the dawning of Zionism. It takes hold inside of Judaism as a way to reclaim ancient legacies. But also you have Christian Zionism, which really does take form around the turn of the century. Christian Zionism not only anticipates the return of Jews to the Holy Land, but it also becomes deeply interested in the recreation of Jewish practices. This can be complicated to explain, but after World War I, Europe had destroyed itself. The [1918] Spanish flu kills 50 million people. The stock market crashes in ’29. And Europe is warming up for another war after that. The whole world is wondering, What is going on? The wheels have come off the bus in this very interesting period.
Read more:
https://nationalvanguard.org/2021/01/shofars-for-trump-christians-who-think-theyre-jews/
