York, 1190. A wave of antisemitic riots culminated in the massacre of the entire Jewish community of York, around 150 Jews, who had taken refuge in the royal castle where Clifford’s Tower today stands. William of Newburgh described the rioters as acting “without any scruple of Christian conscientiousness” in wiping out the Jewish community.
A century later, the entire Jewish population was forced to leave. The monarchy was supposed to give royal protection to England’s Jewish population; instead, it was King Edward I himself who issued the Edict of Expulsion on 18 July 1290.
Fast forward to 2026. It was in York – in the shadow of one of the worst antisemitic crimes England had ever seen – that the Church of England’s General Synod passed a motion encouraging Anglicans at every level of the Church to engage with the Kairos Palestine documents.
One of these documents, Kairos Palestine II, purports to be a cry for the Palestinian people. But it does so while dressing its accusations against Israel in the language of modern blood libel: genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and all the other Hamas-likened propaganda. It also directly blames a self-created enemy: Christian Zionists. The document calls for Christian Zionists to be “held accountable” and for their ideology to be rejected and boycotted. It calls for churches to distinguish between dialogue with Jews and dialogue with Zionism, while advocating the boycott of dialogue with Zionists.
While attempting to distance itself from Hamas’s crimes during the October 7th massacre, it makes every effort to explain why Hamas did it, placing the attack within a framework of “decades of injustice, oppression and displacement”.
Theologically, the position of Kairos Palestine is deep in Replacement Theology. It carries an arrogance, repeatedly referring to “our land” in reference to Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims, while accusing Israel of “Judaizing” Jerusalem. It claims that Palestinian Christians are the original church, even witnessing the Resurrection of Jesus and seeing the empty tomb.
The whole document is a reflection of the damage that Replacement Theology has caused in removing the Jewish roots of the Christian faith and destroying the Jewish connection to their land of inheritance.
There are many within the Church of England who reject Replacement Theology. However, it is clear that it is a very real problem within the Church. Romans 11:18 says, “Do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.”
This motion is another chop at that root.
This is because we, the Gentile Church, have been grafted into the Abrahamic root. It is the root that supports us. All haughtiness against this root is sin. Sadly, the Church of England is cutting away at the Jewish roots of its confessed Christian faith.
Here is the stark warning; it should be proclaimed from the steeples across this land before it is too late for this nation’s established church:
“For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either” (Romans 11:21).
The Church of England motion comes just weeks after the official description of the role of King Charles III – the Supreme Governor of the Church of England – was redefined to emphasise protecting “space for faith within the multi-faith nation”. It was 736 years ago that the throne and the Church forsook its duty to protect England’s Jewish community. Let it not happen again.
We must all take upon ourselves the role of “defenders of the faith”. The Apostle Paul penned, “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
We therefore proclaim, against this wretched deception, the unchanging, everlasting, promise-fulfilling Word of God:
Has God cast away His people? Certainly not!…God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew¹ | who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises² | They are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.³ | “At the same time,” says the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.”⁴ | Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.⁵ |
Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar (the Lord of hosts is His name): “If those ordinances depart from before Me, says the LORD, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.”⁶ |
“Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm.”⁷ | He who touches you touches the apple of His eye.⁸ | I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you.⁹ | He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock.¹⁰ | I will bring back the captives of My people Israel… I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them.¹¹
¹ Romans 11:1
² Romans 9:4
³ Romans 11:28–29
⁴ Jeremiah 31:1
⁵ Ezekiel 37:26–28
⁶ Jeremiah 31:35–37
⁷ Psalm 105:15
⁸ Zechariah 2:8
⁹ Genesis 12:3
¹⁰ Jeremiah 31:10
¹¹ Amos 9:14–15
