Christian Zionism

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On 30 September 1980, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem was dedicated at a ceremony attended by 1,000 Christians from 32 nations who were gathered in the Holy City for the first public Christian celebration of the biblical Feast of Tabernacles. Jerusalem’s beloved mayor, Teddy Kollek, officiated at the opening and remarked: “This has been one of the most moving ceremonies I have ever attended in my life”.

In its early years, the ICEJ’s strongest support came from evangelical Christians in Western nations who identified closely with the Embassy’s mandate to ‘comfort’ the Jewish people in response to the long, sad history of Christian antisemitism. In more recent decades, however, the Evangelical movement has experienced enormous growth in Latin America, Africa and Asia, where there are now tens of millions of new Christians who have a remarkable love and zeal for Israel and are seeking to connect with the Jewish state and people through the ICEJ.

Today, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem remains at the forefront of the global Christian Zionist movement, with branch offices and representatives in over 90 nations and supporters drawn from more than 170 countries worldwide.

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Christian Zionism is largely an extension of the Evangelical movement, which actually dates back to the Moravian revival several decades before Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, when Christians first began rediscovering the ‘born again’ experience of the New Testament. And as the Bible became available again in the common languages of Europe, many new Evangelical believers found that the antisemitic teachings of the established churches were not supported by Scripture. Small Pietist sects arose who studied their Bibles in Hebrew and identified with the Jews as a fellow persecuted religious minority. The Puritans of the 17th century were Christian Zionist by belief, as were those swept up in the great Wesleyan revivals. In Britain, the movement became known as “Restorationism”, which even came to be the prevailing view within the Anglican Church and eventually birthed the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

Thus, Christian Zionism predates the Jewish ‘political’ Zionist movement by decades if not centuries, and Theodor Herzl himself coined the term “Christian Zionist” at the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897.

Today, the Evangelical movement is the fastest growing stream of Christianity worldwide, and pro-Israel Christians can be found in nearly every nation on earth. Estimates now run as high as 700 million Evangelicals worldwide, and most tend to have a favorable view of Israel. This is due to their great respect for the authority and veracity of the Bible, and to their simple belief that modern Israel is the same as ancient Israel – the chosen people of God.

Still, Christian Zionism is a broad, diverse movement, with many expressions around the globe. The ICEJ views itself more as carrying on the work and legacy of the British Restorationists and their very pragmatic, responsible brand of pro-Israel Christian activism. We prefer to be seen as Christian adherents to ‘Biblical Zionism.’ This is the view that the God of the Bible elected both the land and the people of Israel for the purpose of world redemption, and that the modern Jewish restoration to their ancient homeland is evidence of God being faithful to His covenant promises to the Patriarch Abraham to deliver the Land of Canaan as an “everlasting possession” to his natural descendants (Genesis 17:8).

Can a theological case be made from Scripture that Israel still has a claim to the Promised Land?

Christian Zionism is often seen as the offspring of premillennial dispensationalism. But the historical roots of Christian Zionism came long before the rise of the Plymouth Brethren and John Nelson Darby. In fact, the authors of The New Christian Zionism contend that the biblical and theological connections between covenant and land are nearly as close in the New Testament as in the Old.

Written with academic rigor by experts in the field, this book proposes that Zionism can be defended historically, theologically, politically and morally. While this does not sanctify every policy and practice of the current Israeli government, the authors include recommendations for how twenty-first-century Christian theology should rethink its understanding of both ancient and contemporary Israel, the Bible and Christian theology more broadly.

"In certain circles, the cause of Christian Zionism has acquired a bad odor. Some would-be sympathizers cringe at its history of dubious end-times speculation, while others want to avoid blessing the government and military policies of Israel. The theologians and historians included in this volume propose, as its titles suggests, a new Christian Zionism, grounded not in the belief that Israel is 'a perfect country' or 'the last Jewish state we will see before the end of days,' but in sound biblical theology and common-sense political wisdom."

Matt Reynolds, Christianity Today, September 2016

A 2017 survey of evangelicals who support Israel found that the primary reasons for their support were their beliefs that God gave the land of Israel to Jews and that was that Israel is the historic Jewish homeland. Only 12% of evangelicals cited fulfillment of prophecy as the most important reason to support Israel.

But even with that small subset, fulfillment of prophecy does not mean some sort of evil vision where Jesus comes to kill.

“Rapture theology” itself is actually nowhere to be found in the Bible. It was invented in Ireland in the 1830s based on some badly misinterpreted New Testament passages. More importantly it has remained a relatively fringe belief throughout much of American history.

Catholics and Orthodox Christians — the two oldest denominations in the world — have never believed in a rapture, nor have Lutherans.

Among American Protestant pastors, only a third believe in a rapture.

Why do Christians come up to Jerusalem each year to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles?

AN INVITATION TO ALL GENTILES

The Feast of Tabernacles, or Succot, is a unique Jewish holiday in which the Gentile nations were invited to come up to Jerusalem to worship the Lord during this "appointed time".

(Numbers 29:12-35, 2 Chronicles 6:32-33, Isaiah 56:7, Matthew 21:13)

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A PROPHETIC PROMISE

Succot holds the great prophetic call that throughout the Messianic Age, the entire world will come celebrate this grand Feast as it marks the glorious moment when Jesus comes to take up the throne of David in Jerusalem.

(Zechariah 14:16)

Bridges for Peace: Christians supporting Israel and building relationships between Christians and Jews in Israel and around the world.

It is our desire to see Christians and Jews working side by side for better understanding and a more secure Israel.

In 1964 our founder, Dr. G. Douglas Young moved to Israel and established an educational organization, at the same time beginning the work that later became known as Bridges for Peace. Officially founded as a non-profit organization in 1976, Bridges for Peace seeks to be a ministry of hope and reconciliation. Through programs both in Israel and worldwide, we are giving Christians the opportunity to actively express their biblical responsibility before God to be faithful to Israel and the Jewish community.

For too long, Christians have been silent. For too long, the Jewish community has had to fight its battles alone. It is time Christian individuals and congregations speak up for the people who gave us the Bible.

We are committed to the following goals:

- To encourage meaningful and supportive relationships between Christians and Jews in Israel and around the world.

- To educate and equip Christians to identify with Israel, the Jewish people and the biblical/Hebraic foundations of our Christian faith.
- To bless Israel and the Jewish people in Israel and worldwide, through practical assistance, volunteer service and prayer.
- To communicate Christian perspectives to the attention of Israeli leaders and the Jewish community-at-large.
- To counter anti-Semitism worldwide and support Israel’s divine God-given right to exist in her God-given land.

Passages donated $500,000 to two southern Israel communities destroyed in the Hamas massacre on October 7.

The Christian organization that provides free, “Birthright-style” trips for Christian students delivered it to Netiv HaAsara and Kfar Aza this week during a solidarity mission to the South.

They also brought each community a plaque to express their love and solidarity during these difficult times.

According to Paul Weber, Passages’ chief advancement officer, the funds will be used to provide immediate psychological counseling for some of the younger members of the communities to help them try and deal with the horrors of that day. In addition, some of the funds will be earmarked for future memorial projects.

“These are two places where we have taken over 11,000 college students on Passages trips in the last eight years,” said Passages CEO Scott Phillips. “In these communities live our friends, people we know, people we work with, people our students and alumni have interacted with.”

The organization also paid for more than two dozen alums and other supporters to travel to Israel to make the donations. They arrived on Friday.

A connection as Christians
Phillips told The Jerusalem Post that as Christians, “many of us understand that the roots of who we are as Christians exist within Judaism, within the Jewish people and the Jewish story… I think that there’s a natural connection between Christians and Jews.”

Moreover, he said, “God commanded us to stand with Israel, so I think it is an intrinsic motivation to come here, even if there is a war.”

The funds were raised from American donors, Weber said – mostly via micro-donations that eventually added up. When Passages embarked on the campaign to help the communities, it committed that not a single dollar would stay with the organization but be funneled directly to the Israelis in need. Moreover, with the gifts, he said, “We have committed to bringing our future students to these communities year after year, always to remember what took place here, and to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters.”

The group also went to Kfar Aza and saw some of the areas that were hardest hit, as well as to the memorial for the victims of the Nova FestivaL.

Alumnus David Peters expressed similar sentiments. He and his wife traveled from Nashville to Israel “ to support our Jewish brothers and sisters.”

He said that their goal was to return home and speak the truth against mainstream, anti-Israel media.

News flash: The apocalyptic war of Gog and Magog has just begun.

Soon, as per prophecy, most of Israel will be destroyed, while some Jews will remain until the bitter end as witnesses to Jesus’ Second Coming, ushering in the messianic age in which faithful Christians will inherit the kingdom of God on earth.

All this according to the most influential Israel lobbyist in America, Pastor John Hagee.

“Prophetically, we are on the verge of the Gog-Magog war that Ezekiel described in chapters 38 and 39,” Hagee said on Sunday, after over 200 Iranian missiles were fired on Israel, 99% of which were intercepted and destroyed by regional missile defense systems.

And what does Hagee plan to do about this unprecedented attack? “We don’t need to de-escalate,” he said. Instead, Christians United For Israel — the Christian Zionist organization that Hagee founded in 2006 —held an “emergency fly-in” Monday to visit lawmakers in Washington, D.C., in order to “tell them to stop shuffling papers and do something to help Israel.”

Hagee is not some fringe religious wacko. For 20 years, he has built CUFI into the largest (at 8 million members), most-funded and most powerful “pro-Israel” organization in America — dwarfing AIPAC, J Street, and others. House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke to CUFI during the “fly-in.” (He has also fast-tracked the package of aid to Israel that he had previously stalled, though this is likely as much a response to Iran’s attack as to any lobbying effort.)

But CUFI has its own, unique agenda for Israel, which has little to do with the interests of Jews, religious or secular. (Indeed, many CUFI figures have made shockingly antisemitic statements.) It wants Jews to move to Israel to hasten the End Times and bring the Second Coming of Christ. Don’t take my word for it; Hagee wrote all of this in his bestselling 2005 book Jerusalem Countdown. As Abraham Foxman, then national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told the Forward in 2015, “It is for their own salvation, not for Jewish salvation; it’s so they will see the Second Coming of the Messiah. A campaign of Christians to send Jews to Israel is morally offensive.”

Nor is this merely some irrelevant theological position — it influences policy.

Christian Zionists bitterly opposed the Oslo Peace Process, and helped to sabotage it by supporting the Israeli right. They also opposed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the end of which has now made containing Iran harder than ever. They were central to former president Donald Trump’s decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem and his hard-right positions on Israel more generally: supporting settlements and opposing civil rights for Palestinians. They have long supported Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank as part of God’s plan for a Jewish return to Israel — part of the sequence of biblical prophecies that culminates in the Second Coming (and destruction of world Jewry).

Christian Zionists have also been longtime funders of Israel’s extreme far right. Between 2001 and 2015, the John Hagee Foundation donated over $58 million to far-right Israeli organizations, including settlements and Im Tirtzu, an extreme nationalist group that, at the time, literally demonized Israeli progressives (depicting Knesset member Naomi Chazan with horns), helped pass anti-NGO laws in Israel and led a yearslong campaign against the New Israel Fund.

Not only do Christian Zionists stoke regional flames in the Middle East to bring about their messianic ambitions; they are also Christian nationalists. At the same time as Hagee ascribed Iran’s missiles to God’s plan, he also ascribed them to “the weak and pathetic leadership of Joe Biden.” In the past, he has railed against immigration (in an article titled “The Coming Fourth Reich”) and has, numerous times, said that Christian morality and Christian prophecy should dictate the policies of the United States. Just as Israel is meant to play a role in history as the Jewish nation, America is meant to play a role in history as a Christian one.

Hagee has also said that that Hitler was “a half-breed Jew,” that “all Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews,” that “women are only meant to be mothers and bear children,” and that the Antichrist will be gay and half Jewish. This is the man with Trump’s (and former vice president Mike Pence’s, and Speaker Johnson’s) ear.

Sarah Posner, a longtime historian of the Christian right, wrote last fall that, “For many ‘Christian Zionists,’ and particularly for popular evangelists with significant clout within the Republican Party, their support for Israel is rooted in its role in the supposed end times: Jesus’ return to Earth, a bloody final battle at Armageddon, and Jesus ruling the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In this scenario, war is not something to be avoided, but something inevitable, desired by God, and celebratory.”

To be clear, this is not even what the Hebrew Bible says. Its prophecy regarding “Gog from the Land of Magog” (neither name is defined but Gog appears to be some kind of king or general, and Magog is the grandchild of Noah) is contained in Ezekiel 38-39, and concerns supernatural events signifying God’s intervention in history to defeat foreign armies. Says God in Ezekiel 38:20: “The fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the beasts of the field, all creeping things that move on the ground, and every human being on earth shall quake before Me. Mountains shall be overthrown, cliffs shall topple, and every wall shall crumble to the ground.”

Despite its original meaning, this passage has long been understood by Christians as prophesying the End of Days. Over the years, Christian Zionists have associated the Gog-Magog war with the Cold War, the Iraq Wars, and other past military conflicts, as well as Oct. 7 and this past week’s missile attack.

Obviously, Israel’s right doesn’t predict history will unfold this way, but that has not stopped them from enthusiastically welcoming Christian Zionist support. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in particular has, over the years, effusively praised Christian Zionists. “When I say we have no greater friends than Christian supporters of Israel, I know you’ve always stood with us,” Netanyahu told CUFI’s annual conference in 2017. “You stand with us because you stand with yourselves because we represent that common heritage of freedom that goes back thousands of years. America has no better friend than Israel and Israel has no better friend than America. And Israel has no better friend in America than you.”