To millions of Christians, largely evangelicals, uncritical support for the current state of Israel is as biblically self-evident as any other tenet of the Christian tradition. This worldview, in which the fate of Israel holds prime position, has been developing over the last 200 years, initially in 19th century Britain and then 20th century America. The paradigm and lens of Christian Zionism now appears to many as uncontestable orthodoxy.
But upon examination, this view is far from coherent. Its self-justifying logic, giant leaps of speculation, and tenuous biblical foundations can easily be hidden from view in the tumult and hype of our times. Getting perspective requires study, intellectual excavation, and theological skill, as well as patience and compassion.
Christianity was the initial home of Zionist thought; only in the 1890’s did Jews themselves begin organizing their own Zionist movement. And according to estimates there are 10 times as many Christian Zionists as there are political or Jewish ones. So we are forced to contend with this branch of Christian ideology if we are to understand the roots of the conflict in the Middle East.
It is imperative that Christians, those of other faiths, and all concerned members of the human race recognize and identify the danger that the Christian Zionist worldview presents. And it behooves us to reclaim the true Semitic roots of our Abrahamic faiths – compassion, inclusivity, justice, neighborliness and the interconnectedness of all life within one Sacred Unity.
According to the words of the gospel, righteousness is known by its fruits. The fruits of Christian Zionism include dogmatic literalism, artificial historical categories, political bias, spurious biblical connections, self-fulfilling prophecy, a fearful, fanciful and dystopian futurism, and arrogant racist exclusivity. Translated into political reality these lead to bigotry, apartheid, oppression, settler colonialism and genocide and even beyond that – the “hope” of nuclear holocaust and planetary ecocide.
In am indebted to Stephen Sizer whose book “Christian Zionism – Roadmap to Armageddon?”, although written 20 years ago, is a definitive study of the topic and provides much of the background of this study. Building on his work, here are some of the key features of this ideology that have been introduced into Christian normalcy over the last 200 years.
A sectarian, judgmental view of the world, and church
When the early conferences around prophetic writings and the idea of the restoration of Israel took place in 1820’s England, that world was still reeling from the French revolution and reign of Napoleon. It was a frightening and uncertain time in which it was felt that the “Christian order” (“Christendom”) was making way to new forces of emancipation, secularism, and the values of the enlightenment. The imminent end of the Christian world as it had been known meant that biblical “Jewish apocalyptic” texts, especially Daniel and Revelation, caught the imagination of many.
In this era of global European empires, Kings and Emperors under God were at the helm of the historical process. The world was being colonized with a great sense of purpose and confidence. Also, the Romantic era favored big narratives, so interpreting prophetic biblical texts as grand meanings accorded with this tendency.
This was complemented in Christian circles by a pessimistic view of the church. Many felt it was a failed endeavor, and began to look elsewhere for a way forward. They were infected by “remnant” thinking in which a small, sectarian groups viewed themselves as remaining pure, loyal and undefiled while all the rest were deceived and doomed traitors to the true faith. Spiritual pride drove them to think of themselves as indispensable to Gods plan.
In this, inherent Christian dualisms (us/them, church/world, saved/unsaved etc.) were amplified. A new “hope” beyond the failed church and fallen world presented itself: the revival of ancient Israel.
A compartmentalizing view of history
A burgeoning scientific approach to biblical studies led to (among other things like textual criticism and archeology) what became known as “dispensationalism”. In this quasi-rationalist approach to highly mythical prophetic writings, biblical “history” was divided strictly into periods, called dispensations.
The Anglo-Irish father of dispensationalism, John Nelson Darby, proposed 7 dispensations, such as “Law”, “Spirit” and “Millennium”. Part of the sectarian and exclusivist denomination The Plymouth Brethren, where “remnant” thought thrived, Darby took his teachings to America. They gained increasing respectability through American Brethren evangelist Dwight Moody and others. Increasingly the focus moved from faith in the “finished work of Christ” to the restoration of the chosen people of Israel and an attendant fascination with the “signs of the times”.
The idolatry of Futurism
These dispensations included scenarios which created a dogmatic (although still highly debated) vision of the future. This study, called eschatology, included themes such as the Second coming of Christ and its timing, the establishment of his kingdom on Earth, the time of “tribulation”, and the “rapture” or miraculous removal of Christian believers from Earth.
Perhaps the most influential figure in this regard was American Cyrus Scofield, whose still popular version of the bible (Scofield Reference Bible, first published in 1909) includes detailed diagrams of this future, bringing the new approach into sharp and enthralling focus. But he was a morally controversial figure, accused of charlatanism and the abandonment of his family.
Scofield’s legacy is symptomatic of how morality and ideology were separating, and how goodness in the here and now was becoming secondly to interpreting the future. This affected how prophecy was being understood in the new paradigm.
Prophesy as prediction, not proclamation
The study of prophecy, or the writings of Hebrew and Christian figures such as Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, and John of Revelation, increased with a renewed interest as dispensationalism took hold. In these ancient prophetic traditions, utterances and proclamations were always conditional; they challenged the hearers to moral correction. At the hands of dispensational thinkers, however, instead of prophesy being a warning and a choice, it became a tool for prediction.
20th century Christian trends such as the Charismatic movement view prophecy as a present-moment “gift of the spirit”, the proclamation of Gods words in an open, emerging, inclusive, “democratic” community. This is in stark contrast to the dispensational view of prophecy as prediction: defining a decisive interpretation of the future.
Shallow Literalism
One of the perennial problems facing all biblical students or scholars, concerns interpretation, that is, how we read texts, ranging for the literal to the metaphorical. Ancient and complex writings such as Daniel and Revelation, are a genre known as “Jewish apocalyptic”, characterized by complex, deeply mythical images which lead to exceptionally diverse interpretations. There are traditions such as midrash in rabbinical Judaism and ta’wil in Islam that keep texts alive through debate and diverse interpretation.
But literalism, defined by Stephen Sizer as “the interpretation of scripture based on the plain meaning of the words of the text”, tends to simplify meanings. Skillful metaphoric interpretation, keeps us less certain, more flexible, and more open.
Literalism is another idolatry that opens the way to pride, egoic control, and even the weaponizing of our texts. This has been the case in Christian Zionist and dispensational interpretations of scripture. The political bias of most such writers, is almost always pro-American, anti-Russian and anti-Islamic. See for example American author John Hagee’s unapologetically anti-Islamic, anti-peace warmongering book here:
Sensationalizing and popularizing eschatology
Eschatology, generally speaking, concerns a hopeful of future healing and restoration of humankind. But by claiming knowledge of specific meanings of biblical prophetic writings, combined with a vengeful and judgmental image of God, recent writers in the field have played on the morbid and prurient tenancies of modern popular culture from the 1970’s onwards. These writers include Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye of the best selling “Left Behind” book and TV series.
Lindsay has sold tens of millions of books, and is reportedly very wealthy. (And on a side note he has been married 4 times, which might be another flag regarding the place of morality or personal integrity in his thinking). Success of this sort does not lend itself to a deeper examination of oneself or assumptions.
Literalist and sensationalist futurism, using mass media, creates a culture of disempowerment where responsibility for life, the lives of others, and the planet becomes secondary to the all-consuming question of the chosen Jewish people.
Amoral and unconditional support for the secular state of Israel.
As belief in an alternative salvation story – restored Israel – grew, support for a modern Israeli state came to be seen as the primary goal of the church. The moral behavior of that state was not an impediment to granting it unconditional support. Justice, for many Christians the very heart and goal of the biblical story, was sidelined in the process of absolutizing Israeli destiny, at the great cost of the marginalization of indigenous Palestinians.
As a sectarian subculture, Christian Zionism supports the Israeli state and political Zionism unconditionally, largely through its presence in right wing American politics. Despite the continuous condemnation from the international community including the view that it is an “apartheid state” currently committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the USA (together with other leading nations such as the UK and Germany) apply no effective moral conditions in their support for the State of Israel.
Writing after the terrorist attacks on the US in 2001, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, observed
The US- Israel alliance, this strange association of the most religious (developed) nation in the world insisting on the separation of religion and state, and the most irreligious people in the world existing on the religious nature of their state, can thus present itself as an axis of victims. Violence (2008) p. 107.
An ironically anti-Jewish outcome
Many (or possibly most) Christian Zionists hold a belief concerning the future of the Jews that equates to the end of Judaism. In Hal Lindsey’s 1970 best seller “The Late Great Planet Earth”, in reference to Zechariah 13:8, he claims: “Zechariah predicts that one-third of the Jews alive during this period will be converted to Christ and miraculously preserved.” [p 167] The unpleasant implication which neither he nor many other Christian Zionists would want to spell out, is that the other two-thirds perish.
This highly tenuous claim is based on one verse of text, but has nonetheless become a major tenet in the belief system of Christian Zionism. Of course, this outcome – conversion (to Christianity) of one third of Jews and death to the rest, will be at complete odds with Christian Zionism’s key aim, that is the “comforting of Zion”. (Note, many such as the ICEJ, or International Christian Embassy Jerusalem do distance themselves from this particular prediction).
So in practice, instead of comfort, this means the annihilation of Judaism. From an interfaith perspective, this is a heinous travesty and perhaps the most anti-Semitic belief possible. That a contradiction of such magnitude is allowed to fester inside an ideology so seemingly dedicated to the Jewish people, is one proof of how untenable and pernicious Christian Zionism is.
And a violent end to Life on Earth as we know it
The deeply flawed development of apocalyptic dispensationalism, views the end of history occurring with the Battle of Armageddon, a prerequisite for the return of Christ. Its fatalistic reading of history and scripture requires this predetermined dystopian future. It undermines the efforts of those who like God in the Genesis account, see goodness in life, and justice and peace as appropriate goals of living.
Christian Zionism fails both Judaism, and Christianity. It is an accretion to orthodox Christian belief and message of salvation for all, and it uses the Jewish people as a means to an end in the final so-called “triumph of Christ”. Its highly exclusive focus on Israel, expressed politically, has and continues to create untold suffering in the middle east, especially for native Palestinians.
But perhaps even more significant is how Christian Zionism, with its apocalyptic underpinning, is part of a worldview that not only predicts mass destruction, but actively invites or even relishes it. When the heavenly-minded Hal Lindsey says “I wouldn’t make any long-term earthly plans”, he includes ecological plans, civil leadership plans, plans to better life on our shared planet, and significantly, any plans for peace. Thus through this ideology, Lindsey and his ilk gravely endanger the chances for human and planetary survival, dishonoring the inherent sanctity of all that is.
Beyond Christian Zionism
Of course, merely criticizing ideas without providing alternatives is insufficient. This is not the place to start enumerating the many inclusively life-affirming alternatives to Christian Zionism, importantly for example a recognition of interfaith interdependence. But let us conclude for now with a word of hope from evangelical writer Brian McLaren.
Ending the chapter “Can we find a better way of viewing the future?” from “A New Kind Of Christianity” (2010), McLaren speaks to an alternative:
“This is a new kind of eschatology-not an eschatology of determinism and acquiescence, but an eschatology of hope, anticipation, and participation. It probably won’t produce much in the way of scary B-grade movies and end-times prediction charts that map the future. Instead, it will produce vision and motivation to help us participate in the creation of a better future for ourselves and for the world, in this life and history and in the glorious mystery beyond.”
Sound and Silence 