No Worse Than Other Types Of Racism

There is a sense in which some evangelicals might regard the Jews as more worthy of attention, aid, and love than others, though this is usually paired with an emotionalistically higher emphasis on American citizens than foreigners as a whole.  While some Christians actively trivialize what the Torah and other parts of the Old Testament say about God's relationship with the ancient Jews in order to seem more inclusive, others commit the inverse error of all but verbally exalting the Jews as superhuman beings, taking the side of people just because they are Jews or affiliated with the modern nation of Israel, perhaps insisting that historical antisemitism means Jews deserve greater concern than the rest of humanity.  Though worthiness of greater respect does not follow, it is indeed the case that Yahweh chose the Jews for a special purpose of sorts.

Deuteronomy 7:6 calls the Jews a holy people and a treasured possession of God, but this is in contrast to those who practiced the pagan activities condemned right before this.  If it is wrong to engage in such rites, it would be immoral for everyone, and it is in this context that Yahweh says he has chosen the Israelites out of the world to be his people and his treasured possession.  All humans equally bear God's image even if there can be great disparity in how much voluntarily pursued moral value a person has beyond this, and neither being a Jew nor a Gentile at any time in history dictates one's status as a human being, one's philosophical stances, or one's individual moral character.  There is nothing racist about God using the ancient Jews as a vessel to express justice, love, and mercy to the other civilizations around them.

God could have selected any group of people, no matter how initially aimless or morally and philosophically lost they were, as his chosen people.  Nothing about being born in a certain region or time to a certain family makes one a superior human.  Moreover, Yahweh's relationship with Israel was always intended to be a way to impact foreigners (Deuteronomy 4:5-8).  The ideas of Genesis 1:26-27 already establish very early that racism or nationalism of any kind is unjust on the Biblical worldview, and Isaiah 56:3 makes the following statement: "'Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, "The Lord will surely exclude me from his people."'"  The Old Testament's lack of racist prescriptions or commands from Yahweh (for or against Jews) did not need a New Covenant.  On the level of metaphysics, morality, and soteriology, Jews and non-Jews alike are valuable for reasons wholly other than their race or ancestry.

The same rationalistic truths (for the humanity of all people is true irregardless of moral and religious truths) and the same moral doctrines of the Bible that make antisemitism erroneous, then, also make the special treatment of Jews as if they are more valuable than others equally invalid.  That "There is neither Jew nor Gentile" (Galatians 3:28) in the sense of moral obligation and soteriology is not a truth that contradicts anything in the Old Testament or that is not explicitly affirmed in the words of the Torah and elsewhere long before the New Testament.  Jesus and Paul only spoke and lived in accordance with something that logically followed from the tenet of Genesis 1, the shared metaphysical likeness to God that all people bear.

Whether it is rooted in eschatological fervor or something else, the evangelical ideology (not that every evangelical believes this) that Jews should be revered for being racially Jewish is thoroughly unbiblical, as is antisemitism.  It is irrational and Biblically unjust to side with Jews just because they are Jews or with the political deeds of Israel just because Jewish individuals are behind them, and, yes, some evangelicals might point to antisemitism as a supposed justification for their racism in the other direction.  Antisemitism is no worse than other types of racism.  Support for Israel for no other reason than that it is for Israel (though on the level of personal motivation, the evangelical who holds to this probably thinks they are securing God's favor for prioritizing Jews above many other people) is also no better than the unflinching support of America, China, or any other country no matter what its leadership believes or does.  Racism and nationalism in favor of Jews are just as erroneous by default as antisemitism.