You may have likely heard or read something about Christian nationalism. Regular readers of this space will be familiar with this movement.¹ As it exists in the USA, among those who identify as Reformed—whether they are actually Reformed is quite another question since relatively few of them are members of confessional Reformed churches—this movement seeks to have a to-be-determined version of Christianity established as the state church in the USA. As proponents of this movement continue to explain their vision of the future of America it has become clear that, for some of them, a significant feature of their program is ethnonationalism. What is that? The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “[a]dvocacy of or support for the interests of a particular ethnic group, especially with regard to its national independence or self-determination.”² To speak plainly, for this wing of the American Christian nationalist movement, ethnonationalism is closer to the center of what animates them than is Christianity. Some of the advocates of ethnonationalism describe themselves as part of the New Christian Right and identify as kinists.³

The Rise Of Antisemitism In Reformed Adjacent Circles

Another overlapping movement, and the one with which this essay is concerned, is antisemitism. The current controversy concerns a recent interview of Jake Shields, a former mixed-martial arts fighter turned New Right controversialist, conducted by Joel Webbon, a Christian nationalist, pastor, and New Christian Right provocateur.⁴ As near as I can tell, the interview itself is behind a paywall. What is publicly available is a clip in which Shields denounces the view that Jesus is Jewish.⁵ He argued that since Jesus is the Son of God he could not be Jewish. “I don’t think the Bible ever says Mary is Jewish, does it?” Webbon replies by saying that genealogy is very complicated, that there were different people in the genealogy of Christ who were not Israelites, “and then it gets into how do you define Jew? Does it mean Judean or is it just a stand-in or synonymous with Hebrew. To me it’s like, yeah, I know the guys that make the arguments that the Jews were Edomites,” at which point Shields interjects, “I understand the argument but I refuse to say that Jesus is Jewish.” Webbon replies by saying, “I don’t have a problem with that.” Shields, “They can make their argument but I’m not going to say it. They can make their argument but I’m not going to say that Jesus is Jewish.” Webbon replies, “Yeah, that’s fine. To me it doesn’t really matter. If Jesus is Jewish, fine, but in AD 70 Christ spiritually returned, in judgment, through the human agency of Titus and destroyed the temple, destroyed all Jerusalem. So if he was Jewish he still came back and judged his own people, indicting them for their unbelief, their rejection of him, the fact they shouted and demanded that he be crucified. Either way it’s like . . .” He goes on to argue against the view that Jesus was Jewish, therefore Jews are special, and that what matters is faith. “Do you trust in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile? To me it’s a moot point.”

Remarkably, these same arguments are repeated and elaborated in an article published on the New Christian Right Substack, written by J. D. Hall, founder of the website Pulpit and Pen which later became Protestia.⁶ He describes Shields as “J[ew]-Pilled.”⁷ Hall defends Webbon’s responses to Shields on the grounds that Webbon was attempting to “reach him,” that is, evangelize him. Without a hint of irony, Hall writes, “Webbon, navigating a live conversation with a man he was trying to reach, didn’t appear eager to die on that particular hill.” In the video clip available to this writer, there was no evidence that Webbon evangelized Shields.

Hall himself attempts to address the question of whether Jesus was Jewish. He begins by conceding that Jesus “fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies as the Seed of Abraham and the Son of David.” “The question,” he says is, “what it means to call Jesus a ‘Jew,’ whether the term is being used consistently, what assumptions are smuggled in with it, and whether refusing to die on a semantic hill in the middle of an evangelistic conversation constitutes theological compromise.” He argues that to be a Jew is to be a Judean. Jesus is Galilean, and therefore, strictly, not a Jew. He concedes that, by the first century, “the term had broadened in common usage to refer to Hebrews generally, and this transition happened during the second exile.” Nevertheless, he thinks the “J-Piller making this argument is not being irrational . . . he is correct that the Christian habit of asserting Jesus’s Jewishness without qualification is a technical inaccuracy.”

He next argues that, properly, Jewish identity was patrilineal—that is, determined by the father’s identity, not the mother’s. Matrilineal identity was a concession, he argues, to post-temple circumstances. Thus, he again agrees with the “J-Piller” that “Jesus does not qualify” as a Jew. He dismisses any appeal to Romans 1:3 by saying,

Obviously, Paul is not talking about legal lineage there. He is talking about physical, genetic descent through Mary (or Joseph by adoption), through the Davidic line, according to the flesh. The argument doesn’t ultimately hold, but notice what answering it required: a careful exegetical response to a careful exegetical question. The man asking it has looked at how Jewish identity actually worked and applied it consistently.

His third argument is that the destruction of the temple in AD 70 meant the destruction of genealogical records. The “matrilineal switch-over” was an ” innovation with no basis in the Torah, driven entirely by the practical necessity of maintaining community identity after the genealogical records were destroyed and judging paternity was impossible because during this era the Jews became sexually libertine.” From there he moves to DNA studies of Ashkenazi (European) Jews allegedly showing that they are not actually semitic.⁸ His fourth argument is that Judaism was “not the religion of Moses” and was not recognized by the Apostles or practiced by Jesus. His fifth argument is that, given the fulfillment by Jesus of the types and shadows, and that “Jesus Himself is now the object of worship that the entire Old Testament religion existed to foreshadow, then in what sense is Jesus still a practitioner of that religion?” He has the same relation of “Old Covenant religion” that George Washington had to the British crown.

I have tried to report fairly and accurately what Webbon, Hall, et al. are arguing because sons and grandsons in our congregations, who have little grasp of world history, a tenuous grasp of the history of redemption and of the Bible itself, are watching these videos, reading these articles, and are finding them persuasive.

What The Scriptures Say

It does not appear that Shields professes to be a Christian, so when he argues that Jesus cannot be Jewish because “he is the Son of God,” we should not be surprised since who expects non-Christians to know that Jesus is God the Son incarnate (i.e., true God and true man)? By contrast, Webbon and Hall do make a profession of faith, but it does not appear that either of them grasps the ecumenical doctrine of Christ or the teaching of Holy Scripture regarding the true humanity of Jesus. Let us begin with Scripture.

Biblically considered, one is either a Jew or a Gentile. Abraham was a Gentile before he was circumcised. Paul says that Abraham is thus the father of all who believe in Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile, because Abraham believed (Gen 15:6) before he was circumcised and he believed after—that is, when he became a Jew (Rom 4 [all]).

We have genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1:1–17 and Luke 3:23–37.⁹ Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Matthew infallibly recorded God’s Word. He characterizes Jesus as “the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Both Abraham and David were indisputably Jewish. It is true that Matthew’s genealogy is stylized and intentionally not comprehensive. As Leon Morris observed, Matthew is telling the story of Jesus Christ and that Matthew does not “use the full name Jesus Christ very often; “indeed, this is the only place where it certainly occurs in this Gospel.”¹⁰ He further rightly says, “The word is, of course, a title; it means ‘anointed’ and is the Greek way of referring to ‘Messiah.’ The title was used so often by Christians that in time it came to be a proper name, but Matthew’s sparing use of it probably reflects the fact that this was not the case in Jesus’s lifetime. It surely has messianic significance in the way this Evangelist uses it.”¹¹ If we are to follow Webbon, Hall, et al. Matthew, a Jew, who wrote a gospel to Jews, is saying that the Messiah is technically not a Jew. This is as preposterous as conceding that Jesus is descended from Abraham and David but is technically not a Jew.

Hall appeals to the destruction of the temple records to raise doubts about Jesus’s Jewishness, but Morris reminds us,” Josephus begins his autobiography by tracing the names of his ancestors, whom, he says, “I cite as I find it recorded in the public registers” (Life 1); his reference to the “public registers” is significant and points to widespread interest. Jesus’s genealogy shows that he is of royal descent.”¹²

Morris addressed the questions about how the gospel writers were reckoning Jesus’s genealogy, whether matrilineal or patrilineal:

Some commentators suggest that Matthew gives us the genealogy of Joseph (the legal father) and Luke that of Mary (the actual line). This is unlikely, for genealogies were not reckoned through the mother (though, of course, we must reckon with the fact that we have no information about what would happen when there was no human father). In any case Luke speaks of “Joseph the son of Eli” (Luke 3:23), which certainly does not read as though he were giving Mary’s genealogy. Another supposition is that there had been a levirate marriage when Eli died childless; Jacob, with the same mother but a different father, married the widow, and Joseph was his son. This is ingenious, but it lacks evidence. The best suggestion is that Matthew’s list represents the legal descendants of David, those who would actually have reigned had the kingdom continued, while Luke gives the descendants of David in the line to which Joseph belonged. But we have no way of being certain.¹³

It is true, as Morris observes, that Matthew lists four gentile women in Jesus’s genealogy. “Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba—are probably all Gentiles; and since Ruth was a Moabitess, we should not overlook the fact that to the tenth generation a Moabite was not to be admitted to the congregation (Deut. 23:3). Three of the four are of morally dubious reputation. Matthew is surely saying that the gospel is for all people, not Jews only, and that the gospel is for sinners.”¹⁴ As far as birth records are concerned, the gospel writers had access to the temple records before the temple was destroyed.¹⁵ Given Matthew’s location and the prologue to Luke’s gospel, it is reasonable to think that he might have accessed such records.¹⁶

Luke says of Mary that she was a virgin betrothed to Joseph (Luke 1:26). He was of the house of David (cf. Luke 2:4).¹⁷ There is no indication in Scripture that Mary was anything other than Jewish or that she was regarded as anything other than Jewish. The issue in Luke 1:34 is not Mary’s ethnicity but the fact that she is a virgin: “And Mary said to the angel, ‘How will this be, since I am a virgin?’”

Webbon and Hall may doubt whether Jesus is a Jew, but Jesus harbored no such doubts. When he met the woman at the well (John 4:1–30) the tension in the narrative is premised on the fact that Jesus is a Jew and the woman was a Samaritan. Jesus was fatigued from the journey and was sitting by the well (John 4:6). The Samaritan woman comes to draw water. Jesus, breaking a social taboo, engages her by saying, “Give me a drink” (John 4:7).

The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. (John 4:9–10)

The Samaritan woman had no doubt that Jesus was a Jew. After Jesus challenged her about her sin (viz her marital status), she tried to change the topic, and in the exchange, both Jesus and the Samaritan woman make it abundantly clear that they both understood him to be a Jew: “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:20–22). In the next verse, Jesus spoke in the first person plural: “we worship what we know” (ἡμεῖς προσκυνοῦμεν ὃ οἴδαμεν), and then makes it entirely clear who the “we” are: “because salvation is of the Jews” (ὅτι ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστίν). The “we” are the Jews, and it is from the Jews that salvation comes. In verse 25, the Samaritan woman wants to quibble but in her response she uses the noun Messiah (Μεσσίας) to designate the Jewish deliverer.¹⁸ Jesus gives an astounding response, “I AM, the one speaking to you” (Ἐγώ εἰμι, ὁ λαλῶν σοι). This is the same response he gave to his Jewish critics in John 8:48. Those critics, by the way, never suggested that he was anything other than a Jew in John 8, and that dialogue was about who is and is not Abraham’s child. John describes Jesus’s interlocutors as “Jews” (Ἰουδαίους; John 8:31).¹⁹ Jesus concedes that they are “the seed of Abraham” (v. 37) biologically but not spiritually because they do not do what Abraham did—that is, believe in him (John 8:39–56).

The Jesus of the gospels (i.e., the Jesus of history) is set in a thoroughly Jewish context. He is presented to us as a Jew and was received by his critics and his disciples as a Jew. We see him in the synagogue, not as Gentile Godfearer, but as a Jew (Matt 4:23; 9:35; 12:9; John 6:59). In this regard John 18:20 is particularly significant: “Jesus answered him, ‘I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret.'” Jesus was one of those Jews in the synagogue. Both groups addressed him as a Jewish teacher—that is, as Rabbi (Mark 9:5; 10:51; 11:21; John 1:38, 49; 3:9, 26; 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8).

As to who are Jews in the New Testament, the diaspora come to Jerusalem from a great number of places and yet they are all Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the feast:

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” (Acts 2:5–11)

According to the Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the feast, Galileans are Jews. When pushed by the Judaizers, Paul defended his Jewish credentials this way:

Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. (Phil 3:4–6)

How did Abraham become a Jew? By circumcision. Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day (Luke 2:21). Though Hall dismisses the appeal to Romans 1:3 in defense of Jesus’s Jewish heritage, Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says, “who was begotten from David according to the flesh” (γενομένου ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυὶδ κατὰ σάρκα). Paul, whose Jewish credentials were impeccable, regarded Jesus as Jewish just as Matthew did in his genealogy.

notes

1. See the Resources on Christian Nationalism.
2. Oxford English Dictionary, “ethnonationalism (n.),” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1197128732.
3. About this movement see R. Scott Clark, “The CRC is Right About Kinism (Part 1)” Heidelblog (April 3, 2023).
4. Some of Webbon’s controversies are summarized in a ReformedWiki entry last edited on July 11, 2025.
5. The video clip is available on X
6. Bob Smietana, “JD Hall, Pulpit and Pen Founder, ‘Disqualified’ from Ministry by Montana Church,” Ministry Watch (June 27, 2022); Tony Mator, “Protestia Founder J.D. Hall Found Guilty of Embezzlement,” Ministry Watch (October 2, 2024); David Morrill, “The Innocence of J. D. Hall,” Protestia (October 1, 2024).
7. J. D. Hall, “Was Jesus Jewish? Separating Biblical Facts From Political Propaganda,” New Christian Right (March 12, 2026).
8. The Oxford American Dictionary defines “Ashkenazi” as “a Jewish person of central or eastern European descent, traditionally speaking Yiddish.”
9. Kyle G. Anderson, “Jesus, Genealogy of,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Lexham Press, 2016).
10. Leon Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press, 1992), 19.
11. Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, 19–20.
12. Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, 21.
13. Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, 22.
14. Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, 23.
15. Anderson does not speak to Matthew or Luke accessing birth records but his translation is suggestive. “Birth record” (βίβλος γενέσεως, biblos geneseōs) should be translated in such a way that indicates “birth record,” “genealogy,” or “persons of successive generations who are related by birth” (Louw-Nida, Greek—English Lexicon of the New Testament, 114). Kyle G. Anderson, “Jesus, Genealogy of,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary.
16. “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:1–4). Michael J. Wilkins says, “The official extrabiblical genealogies were lost with the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in AD 70, yet private genealogies were retained elsewhere.” Michael J. Wilkins, “Matthew,” in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E, Arnold (Zondervan, 2002), 1.9–10.
17. This answers Shields’s question about Mary.
18. See also John 1:41 where Jesus is also called Messiah by Jews.
19. “Generally as description of ‘one who identifies with beliefs, rites, and customs of adherents of Israel’s Mosaic and prophetic tradition’ (the standard term in the Mishnah is ‘Israelite’). (Since the term ‘Judaism’ suggests a monolithic entity that fails to take account of the many varieties of thought and social expression associated with such adherents, the calque or loanword ‘Judean’ is used in this and other entries where Ἰ. is treated. Complicating the semantic problem is the existence side by side of persons who had genealogy on their side and those who became proselytes on the latter cp. Cass. Dio 37, 17, 1; 67, 14, 2; 68, 1, 2; also of adherents of Moses who recognized Jesus as Messiah s. Gal 2:13 in 2d below; s. also 2eα and those who did not do so. Incalculable harm has been caused by simply glossing Ἰ. with ‘Jew’, for many readers or auditors of Bible translations do not practice the historical judgment necessary to distinguish between circumstances and events of an ancient time and contemporary ethnic-religious-social realities, with the result that anti-Judaism in the modern sense of the term is needlessly fostered through biblical texts.) … one who is Judean (Jewish), with focus on adherence to Mosaic tradition, a Judean, Ἰουδαῖος as noun (so predom.). William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (University of Chicago Press, 2000), 478.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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