Rev. Donald Wagner: An American Evangelical Critic of Christian Zionism
A Presbyterian minister and scholar, Donald Wagner spent decades urging American evangelicals to see Palestinian Christians, and Palestinians generally, as part of the story of the Holy Land.
Long before debates over Christian Zionism reached the mainstream, Rev. Donald Wagner was arguing that American evangelical support for Israeli policy ignored both the Bible's ethical teachings and the Palestinians. That included the Arab Christians whose churches trace their roots to the earliest days of Christianity.
Career
A Presbyterian minister, Wagner worked for years with ecumenical and advocacy organisations focused on the Middle East, including as national director of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign in the United States. He later directed the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at North Park University in Chicago and led many study tours bringing American Christians to meet Palestinian communities. He went on to lead the Christian organisation Friends of Sabeel North America.
Books
His books include *Anxious for Armageddon* (1995), a critique of evangelical end-times theology and its political effects. They also include *Dying in the Land of Promise: Palestine and Palestinian Christianity from Pentecost to 2000* (2001), a history of Palestinian Christians. In them he described how dispensationalist theology led many American Christians to see Palestinians as obstacles to prophecy. In his account, that meant overlooking dispossession, ethnic cleansing and the destruction of the land's environment and communities.
Influence
Wagner's writing and teaching helped build a network of mainline and evangelical Christians in the United States who question Christian Zionism. His work laid some of the groundwork for later movements within American churches, including campaigns for divestment and the growth of evangelical groups focused on Palestinian rights.