Christian Zionism

By John Hubers

“Zion’s Christian Soldiers”

On October 6, 2002, the popular American investigative TV program 60 Minutes introduced its viewers to Christian Zionism in a segment they entitled “Zion’s Christian Soldiers.” Outspoken former Moral Majority founder the Rev. Jerry Falwell was the primary guest. Correspondent Bob Simon interviewed Falwell, asking his opinion on a variety of subjects related to Middle Eastern affairs. How he replied astonished many, infuriated many more. By week’s end his words would be published and republished in every major news venue around the world, most notably in those countries where Islam is the dominant faith: “I think that Muhammad was a terrorist,” he said. “I’ve read enough of the history of his life, written by Muslims and non-Muslims, to say that he was a violent man of war.”1

By Don Thorsen, Ph.D., Professor of Theology
Haggard Graduate School of Theology, Azusa Pacific University
October 4, 2008

Introduction

Let me share with you the story of how I first embodied and then repudiated the beliefs, values, and practices of Christian Zionism. Of course, when I developed my view of eschatology, neither I nor others with whom I was familiar used the terminology of Christian Zionism. Instead my view was best described as premillennial and pretribulational eschatology, including belief in a secret rapture of Christians that would imminently occur. But my largely subconscious view of Israel and the United States’ involvement in Mideast politics was essentially that of Christian Zionism. I gave unconditional preference to biblical prophecies thought to be predictive of Israel’s nationalistic resurgence, and the coming of Armageddon and the cataclysmic end of the world as we know it.

John Mearsheimer, an expert in international relations at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, academic dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, have issued what United Press International calls "a searing attack on the role and power of Washington's pro-Israel lobby." Their study, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," argues that Israel played a major role in pushing the U.S. into the war in Iraq, and it concludes that the Israel lobby's influence on U.S. foreign policy is bad both for Israel and for the U.S.

by James M. Wall

By Andrew I. Killgore

Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia's 8th District, just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC, won his June 8 primary race against challenger Andy Rosenberg by a vote of 59 to 41 percent. The outcome is significant because Rosenberg was openly supported by the Israel Lobby.

The pro-Israel Washington Post, the leading newspaper in the nation's capital, heavily played an accusation by a former pollster for Moran that the congressman privately had made an anti-Semitic remark. Moran denied the accusation, which his dismissed pollster declined to reveal.

An even more significant attack on the Israel Lobby was an almost-unheard-of editorial by the local Falls Church News Press. "This election is not about Moran's ability to lead, or about news headlines [i.e., in The Washington Post] accusing him of questionable public statements or personal finances," the paper stated. "It's about a cabal of powerful Washington, DC-based interests backing the Bush administration's support of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's handling of the Middle East conflict trying to up-end an outspoken and powerful Democratic opponent."

by Marianne Arbogast

On the platform, an Israeli student is telling thousands of supporters how the horrors of the year have only reinforced his people's determination. "Despite the terror attacks, they'll never drive us away out of our God-given land," he says. This is greeted with whoops and hollers and waving of Israeli flags and the blowing of the shofar, the Jewish ceremonial ram's horn. Then comes the mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, who is received even more rapturously. ... The placards round the hall insist that every inch of the Holy Land should belong to Israel and that there should never be a Palestinian state. These assertions are backed up by biblical quotations. It could be a rally in Jerusalem for those Israelis who think Ariel Sharon is a dangerous softie. But something very strange is going on here. There are thousands of people cheering for Israel in the huge Washington Convention Centre. But not one of them appears to be Jewish, at least not in the conventional sense. For this is the annual gathering of a very non-Jewish organization indeed: the Christian Coalition of America. - Matthew Engel, The Guardian, 10/28/02

The influence of Christian Zionists on American foreign policy is cause for concern among many who see their worldview - with its unqualified support of Israeli land rights - as potentially contributing to the outbreak of the world-engulfing apocalyptic battle they predict. Michael Prior, a Roman Catholic priest and biblical scholar at St. Mary's College, University of Surrey, England, describes and critiques the development of political Zionism and the "dispensationalist" Christian theology which has embraced it. Prior, who is the author of The Bible and Colonialism: A Moral Critique (Sheffield, 1997) and Zionism and the State of Israel: A Moral Inquiry (Routledge, 1999) and editor of Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal (Continuum, 2002), visited the U.S. in November 2002 on a speaking tour sponsored by Friends of Sabeel and other Palestinian advocacy organizations.

by Donald Wagner

You know, I turn back to your ancient prophets in the Old Testament and signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if-if we're the generation that's going to see that come about. I don't know if you've noted any of those prophecies lately, but believe me, they certainly describe the times we're going through. [1]

One expects such a statement from the Rev. Pat Robertson on his "700 Club" television program or in one of the Rev. Jerry Falwell's frequent funding appeals. The speaker, however, was the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, in an intimate phone conversation with Tom Dine, Executive Director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israel's powerful U.S. lobby.

Ronald Reagan was not the first high-ranking political official to adopt such a political position as a result of his "understanding" of biblical prophecy. Evangelical Christian Zionists, as this study will refer to them, have been active politically in England since the sixteenth century, and include such influential pro-Zionists as Lord Balfour and Prime Minister Lloyd-George.