Christian Zionism Is Not Biblical
In the 1980s America experienced a revival of religious fundamentalism, following the more left-leaning Jesus Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Religion and politics became intrinsically tied together in the 1979 with the founding of the evangelical lobbyist organization, Moral Majority.
Southern Baptists, was a powerful force in Southern conservative, voting Ronald Reagan into the White House in 1980 over a fellow Southern Baptist, Jimmy Carter.
Jerry Falwell, an evangelical Souther Baptist and televangelist, advocated American nationalism and Christian conservative values.
Along with powerful evangelical voices like Pat Robertson, Tim LeHaye and Ed McAteer, Jerry Falwell became responsible for Christian Zionism as a geopolitical power.
“Begin developed a close relationship with leading fundamentalists, such as Falwell, who later received a Learjet from the Israeli government for his personal travel and in 1981 was honored with the Jabotinsky Award in an elaborate ceremony in New York”, writes Donald Wagner, professor of religion and Middle Eastern studies at North Park University in Chicago and executive director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
Menachem Begin was a terrorist, member of the notorious Zionist terrorist group Irgun Zvei Leumi, who conducted the first great act of terrorism against Hotel King David on July 22, 1946, killing 91 of various nationalities and injuring 46.
Begin was elected as Prime Minister of Israel from 1977 to 1983. In 1982, in a speech to Knesset, Menachim Begin said:
"The Palestinians are beasts walking on two legs."
Christian Geopolitical Scheming
Another anecdote further illustrates the level of power held by the evangelist, and the enormous sway Israel gained over American politics: Menachem Begin made his first telephone call after the Israeli bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, to Falwell, asking him to explain to the Christian public the reasons for the bombing. Only later did he call Ronald Reagan.
“Falwell also converted former Senator Jesse Helms from a critic of Israel into one of its staunchest allies in the US Senate, where he chaired the influential Foreign Relations Committee”, writes Donald Wagner.
A ripple of enthusiasm went through the evangelical communities worldwide, calling for Christians to not only support Israel morally and politically, but to raise funds to help more Jews settle in Israel under Aliyah Bet, the Law of Return allowing anybody who can document their Jewishness to gain Israeli citizenship.
The movement was popularly known as Exodus Two, simplistically viewing the return of Jews to Israel as a repetition of the Hebrew conquest of Canaan described in the Old Testament book, Exodus.
Darrell G. Young, in "Focus on Jerusalem Prophesy Ministry", explains the Jewish possession of Israel as central to God’s plan:
“God's mission for Israel to the world as spelled out in the Abrahamic Covenant is inseparably linked with her possession and presence in her own land. (For this reason Satan is actively marshaling his forces to oppose Israel's possession of the Promised Land).”
Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 - 1974, had already in a 1971 interview with Le Monde expressed the same fanaticism:
"This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy."
Controlling the Minds of Christians
Since Satan opposes God’s plan, all who opposes the total control of the entire disputed territory, are considered agents of Satan and accursed:
Christian Zionism dates as far back as to the late 19th century, but during the time of the Exodus Two Movement, Zionism became not only the dominant perspective on the Middle East conflict in the evangelical churches, but a political movement so powerful it effectively replaced core Christian beliefs.
“Christian Zionism is a standard position among the Evangelical protestant religious right, especially in the United States of America", writes Ibrahim Abraham and Roland Boer; “God Doesn’t Care: The Contradictions of Christian Zionism” (2009).
John Hagee, in 2007, bragged that he could make any Christian who states he believes in the Bible pro-Israel, “or they will have to denounce their fate.”
He added, quite arrogantly: “So I have Christians over a barrel you might say.”
The empowerment of Zionism through financial, military and moral support from the world's largest superpower, USA, has emboldened Israeli politicans to believe that Israel exists outside the rule of law, and that it is a country with no accountability to anyone.
On March 25 2001 then Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, was quoted in BBC News Online for saying:
"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial".
The hubris is complete, facilitated by the dangerous ignorance of Christian Zionism which, according to "the largest and fastest growing pro-Israel group", has funelled millions of US dollars into Israel, outside of US aid, thereby supporting a fascist regime bent on the annihilation of the indigenous population.
Surely this cannot be the work of God.
Reason 1: Zionism is an Atheist, Socialist, Nationalist Project
Zionism is a socialist, atheist and nationalist project created by Theodor Herzl, an Austrian Jewish journalist.
The corner stone is not the Torah, known to Christians as The Old Testament, but a small book that was published on February 15. 1896 by the publisher M. Breitenstein in Vienna, titled Der Judenstaat: Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage (The Jewish State: Attempt at a modern solution to the Jewish question).
Theodor Herzl was the editor of Neue Freie Presse, a well known Viennese magazine. Theodor Herzl was a self-professed atheist and opposed to Judaism and religious Jews.
"When I remember thee in days to come, O Jerusalem, it will not be with pleasure. The musty deposits of 2,000 years of inhumanity, intolerance, and uncleanliness lie in the foul-smelling alleys ... The amiable dreamer of Nazareth has only contributed to increasing the hatred...", wrote Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, “the amiable dreamer of Nazareth” referring, of course, to Jesus Christ, the central figure of Christianity.
Theodor Herzl’s words are from 1898, following a visit to Jerusalem.
The publication of Der Judenstaat was not fortunate for Herzl. Short after the publication of Der Judenstaat Herzl was divorced, and he lost his fortune, and died in 1904, only 44 years old. There was no great blessing for Theodor Herzl.
Today USA is at the brink of bankruptcy, and still the country continues to funnel millions of dollars every year to support the Israeli military apparatus. There was no great blessing for USA either.
And Israel, in spite of her military prowess and her wealth, is still a stranger to peace.
“He that lives by the sword shall fall by the sword”, said Jesus Christ.
"All your allies will force you to the border; your friends will deceive and overpower you; those who eat your bread will set a trap for you, but you will not detect it," says Obadiah 1:7, instructing the reader not to rely on the temporary comfort of powerful allies.
Those words are conveniently forgotten by the Christian Zionist lobby.
Reason 2: Christian Zionism is Heresy, a new form of Judaization of Christians and Perversion of Faith
All but the so-called Messianic Jews, a small and largely scorned minority of Jews in Israel as well as worldwide, reject Jesus as the Messiah or Christ.
It is clearly stated in the New Testament, the foundation of Christian faith, that all who reject Jesus as the Messiah, will perish. Only those who accept Jesus and follows his teachings will be saved.
Christian Zionists are effectively supporting a secular regime as a replacement for the essential vision of Christianity, as it is laid out in the New Testament:
That the chosen people of God are all who profess a Christian faith, and that salvation and status as a child of God is not reserved to any race or nationality.
It is the fundamental assumption in all of Christianity that the “old contract” between God and the Jewish people has passed away, replaced by the “new contract” or “pact”, known as the New Testament.
St. Paul makes a point of describing how he confronted the twelve apostles to remind them how they deviated from their commission to preach the gospel and to accept into the fold of Christianity people of all nationalities – gentiles.
The apostles were conservative about it. A group of converted Pharisees argued that gentiles – non-Jewish Christians – should also keep the Judaic Law. Paul rebuked them for their discrimination, and for adopting the hypocritical doctrines of the so-called Judaizers.
“When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray,” Paul writes in Galatians 22.
Cephas was a nick-name for Peter, one of the most trusted of Jesus’ disciples. Paul says he “stood condemned” by his own actions.
Paul goes even further in Galatians 22:14:
“When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?’”
These “customs” Paul spoke of weren’t merely customs. They were The Law, the legacy of Moses and thought to be the direct instructions from God himself. Paul, himself a Jew, had the audacity to call these standards, the Holy Law, for merely “Jewish customs.”
17 years after his conversion on the road to Damascus Paul, formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, openly stood up against the assembly of apostles and opposed their leader, Simon Peter, calling him out for having betrayed the gospel and The Great Commission by making it more difficult for gentiles who embraced faith in Jesus.
Modern day Christian Zionism does not try to enforce legalistic religious obedience on Christians, but they do submit faith in Christ to faith in Jerusalem, making Israel and not the cross the centre of worship and the redeeming factor.
“I firmly believe God has blessed America because America has blessed the Jew. If this nation wants her fields to remain white with grain, her scientific achievements to remain notable, and her freedom to remain intact, America must continue to stand with Israel”, said Jerry Falwell, linking America’s preeminence to the Zionist project of a Jewish nation-state.
The idea that prosperity follows those who bless the Jews, whereas poverty is inflicted on those who oppose them, is a core doctrine in Christian Zionism.
God’s favor is dependent on support for a specific political purpose, not confession of faith in Jesus, and not obedience to his moral edicts.
Christian Zionism is a heresy as gross as they come. It is a modern form of Judaization, proselyting not for Jesus, but for a stronger Israel.
Christian Zionists are only dissimilar from the Judaizers of arcane Christianity in the way they have replaced Judaism with Zionism, Jewish nationalism.
Regardless of how you feel about Israel, Christian Zionism is a perversion of faith.
Reason 3: Christian Zionism is a Worldly Vision Contradictory to Both Christian Conservative Values and Basic Spirituality
Among the American Christian Right there are two other dominant themes: Abortion and homosexuality.
In Israel 40,000 abortions are carried out every year, and Israel is among the leaders in equality for sexual minorities.
“Israel today is one of the world's most progressive countries in terms of equality for sexual minorities. Politically, legally, and culturally, the community has moved from life at the margins of Israeli society to visibility and growing acceptance”, writes Lee Walzer, author of “Between Sodom and Eden: A Gay Journey Through Today's Changing Israel and Gay Rights on Trial.”
It is not the point here to criticize liberal abortion standards or homosexual rights, but simply to point out a major discrepancy between the alleged beliefs of Christian Zionists and their practice.
Modern day Israel is not a “Holy Land” if you judge by Biblical standards. If judged by the Judaic Law Israel is an abomination.
Worldliness is rejected in the New Testament, not just in the common form indicated by Jesus, when he says that “he who loves the world and the things in it does not have the love of the Father in him.”
It isn’t just plain secularism Jesus denounces, but also any form of physical manifestation of his heavenly rule:
“Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”(Luke 17:20)
Like the Pharisees Jesus was responding to, the Christian Zionists expect to see the kingdom of God as a physical manifestation, as an invincible Israeli nation-state.
But Jesus told his disciples:
"For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst." (Matthew 18:20)
Christian Zionists replace their spiritual home with a physical homeland, identifying so strongly with Israel the forget the ethereal nature of the preaching of their own Savior.
Their vision is taken not from the New Testament, but from the Jewish Midrash Tanchuma.
As the navel is set in the centre of the human body, so is the land of Israel the navel of the world... situated in the centre of the world, and Jerusalem in the centre of the land of Israel, and the sanctuary in the centre of Jerusalem, and the holy place in the centre of the sanctuary, and the ark in the centre of the holy place, and the foundation stone before the holy place, because from it the world was founded.
The text explains the deep significance of Israel to Jews, and their attachment to the land, the city and temple. Christian Zionists identify with these Jewish aspirations for the land of Israel, for Jerusalem and the Temple, to the point of renouncing their own faith.
In Hebrews 12:18 it is even more clearly pointed out that the physical Israel is not the spiritual Israel:
“You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm…” the author instructs, continuing in verse 22-24:
“But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”
The blood of Abel cried to heaven for vengeance, but the blood of Christ spoke of forgiveness, and reconciliation. In choosing the physical Israel over Heaven the Christian Zionists writes themselves off the list of those who belong to heaven, and onto the list of those calling for blood in retaliation for blood.
Reason 4: Christian Zionism Promotes Hatred and Cultural Conflict, and it Obstructs The Gospel
Theologically, Christian Zionism replaces the idea of a spiritual homeland with a political vision.
Believers are subjected to an ideological project, a mundane project, and condemned if they do not.
In the process the universality of the gospel is sacrificed, for sectarianism inside the church, and for racism outside:
On a practical level, by promoting a special emphasis on Israeli Jews, the Christian Zionists effectively blocks not only peace in the Middle East, but any reasonable chance for the gospel to be preached to the 1.5 billion Muslims who are largely outraged by the displacement and oppression of the Palestinian population.
Tied to Christian Zionism you see a malicious anti-Muslim and even anti-Arab current in which Palestinians are equated with the Philistines or, even worse, with the Amalekites, neither of which were Arabs.
Christian preachers have called Palestinians “dogs”, “a defeated tribe” and “enemies of God” for opposing the Zionist vision, which effectively renders them either second-class citizens in their own country, prisoners or refugees.
The Bible says:
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27-28)
In the passage known as The Great Commission Jesus states:
“…go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” (Matthew 28:19)
Christian Zionists violate both those commands by spreading irrational fear and even hatred of Muslims, thereby effectively preventing Muslims who might be compelled by the gospel from converting.
Christian Zionists fuel a political conflict to the point risking world peace, pitting the Christian world against the Muslim world, making it a horrific social experience for a Muslim to convert to Christianity.
Not only will they face the ostracization and possible persecution from Muslims, but they will also face suspicion, scrutiny and resentment from Christians.
A desperate need for cultural assimilation is often the reason both secular and Christian “Muslims” are more fierce critics of Islam than even Western islamophobes.
Islam may have an intrinsic opposition to out-conversion, but the radicalism of it is enhanced by the ferocity of anti-Islamism in the Christian world, and to a large extent the oppression of the Palestinian Arabs.
Paul states that “a man of God should not be in strife with anybody.” He instructs the Christians to act wisely among those who do not share their faith.
Acts 17:26 establishes the universal worth and equality of every nation:
“From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.”
Revelations 7:9 establishes the vision of all nations, tribes, peoples and languages united in worship of Christ:
“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.”
We must assume the vision includes at least a significant portion of Arab, North African, Turkish and Persian populations.
Christian Zionists are among the most guilty of standing in the way of the gospel by whipping up anti-Christian sentiment, indirectly through their support for Israeli Zionism and directly by consciously utilizing anti-Islamism as a rhetorical instrument in their quest to consolidate Israel immunity to criticism.
The Christian Zionists are promoting their view to a point, where they support the oppression of even their own brothers in faith.
In 1922, according to the British Mandate estimates, 9.5% of Palestinians were Christians. Today the majority of Palestinian Christians live outside of Palestine due to the 1949 War and the Six-Day War in 1967, and subsequent occupation.
There are approximately 4% Christian Palestinians in the West Bank, about 1% in Gaza and nearly 10% in Israel. Their hopes, and their happiness, is flushed out with the bath water, for the sake of the glory of Israel.
This is how deep Christian Zionists fall, when they replace a spiritual object with a physical object.
Reason 5: Christian Zionism is a False Hope, Idolatry and Road to Destruction
There is no hope in Jerusalem, and there is no certainty for Israel.
Even in The Old Testament, the former pact between God and man – represented by the Hebrew tribe – Israel is invaded repeatedly, and overthrown many times, most notably by the Babylonian empire and by the Roman Empire.
Jews have been in Diaspora many times in history, before Emperor Titus of Rome battered the walls of Jerusalem down and destroyed the temple in 70 AD.
During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.
Every time such disasters happened to Jews it was due to the sins of the Jews.
It was punishment, retribution, directly sent from God – according to the Bible itself, and that would be the Torah, not the New Testament or any other Christian theology superimposed on Judaism.
It is constantly pointed out that enemies of Israel are raised up by God because of the wickedness of the Jews.
Jesus prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, before he was crucified, and most likely that prophesy was among the key reasons the Sanhedrin decided he was to be removed.
Most notably the terms of possession of Israel are given in Deuteronomy 28:
“All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.”
But for disobedience the punishment is fierce:
“The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away.”
The passage, in similar terms as the equally gloomy Ezekiel 5, also foresees exile:
“The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the LORD will drive you… You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity… The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, but you will be the tail….
It foretells invasions by foreign empires:
“The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand, a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or olive oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the LORD your God is giving you.”
Christian Zionists are eager to use Biblical prophesies of Jews returning to Israel as proof that God is behind the Zionist project, but these prophesies have been fulfilled many times before.
Long before Israel formed its “special relationship” with the United States of America, she had a long-standing alliance with the Egyptian empire from where the Hebrews originally were said to have escaped.
Whatever happened before, because the Jews were indifferent to the commandments of their God not only may happen again, but will happen again, at least if you believe the Bible is the word of God.
Modern day Israel is far from the standard laid down by God in the Old Testament, and as such – if you believe the covenant between God and the Jews is still operative – every single curse is upon Israel.
It is only a question of time before its fragile supremacy in the region will falter.
Israel is challenged from all sides and depending on arguably the most decadent nation in the world seen from a Christian perspective, USA, a country bordering on bankruptcy and effectively becoming a Third World country in spite of her aid to Israel.
Seven times in the Old Testament Israel is admonished not to oppress "the stranger in the land." It is likened to crimes against orphans and exploitation of the fatherless, and the same severe penalty is threatened for racism against "strangers". On several occasions, Israel is reminded that they were themselves "strangers in Egypt" and should know what how the stranger feels.
Even if you adopt the flawed view that Jews are entitled to Israel the appalling treatment of the indigenous Palestinian population, the dispossession, displacement and land-grabbing, constitutes a crime.
In Conclusion: Christian Zionists are False Prophets
Judaism, in its pure form, is not practiced anywhere in Israel. It cannot be practiced, because the prescribed burnt sacrifices cannot be performed.
The Temple doesn’t exist anymore, and that is one good reason; another is modern standards of animal protection making it a grotesque assumption that burnt sacrifices would be resumed.
If you, as the Christian Zionists, believe that modern day Israel is fulfillment of scripture, you must also believe that the utter destruction of Israel will take place again.
It follows logically from the Biblical scriptures in which the terms of Israel as God’s chosen people are laid out.
There are over 613 “mitzvot” or commandments in the Torah to be observed by all of Israel’s 5.4 million Jews for the blessings to take effect.
Israel was founded on a secular basis. Zionist Israel is rejected by the majority of Orthodox Jews as an invention of God.
It cannot be an invention of God, because it took place without any process of repentance.
It was an atheist, socialist program that laid the foundation, and independence was established on the basis of widespread terrorism, against the British Mandate as well as the local Palestinian population.
From a Biblical perspective Israeli Jews have done nothing to deserve the apparent “blessings”, its wealth and its military prowess.
All the accomplishments of Israeli scientists, scholars, inventers and engineers are merely human accomplishments, drawn from the well of Western secularism, not from divine inspiration.
The statutes of the Torah itself speaks against modern day Israel being a divine project.
The New Testament makes it abundantly clear that God has no end time purpose for the Jewish race or the Jewish religion, except to save a limited number of Jews.
“Save” doesn’t mean rescue from possible invasion, but to bestow eternal life on the exact same terms that as gentiles – non-Jews: By the confession that Jesus is Messiah.
God’s great purpose for the Jews has already been played out: They were to form the basis of Jesus’ 3 ½ year ministry on Earth, a platform for the gospel to be preached, and a first audience.
As the ruling majority denounced his words, the old covenant was overthrown, and replaced by a new universal agreement between God and man: The New Testament.
It does not matter much if you are a Jew and believe in the Torah, or if you are a Christian and believe in Jesus: The modern day Jewish nation-state cannot be justified as a divine project according to neither of the doctrines.
You can argue in favor of Israel with political, economic, social, cultural, ideological and strategic arguments, but if you believe in either the New Testament or the Bible in its entirety as Christians do, you must reject Christian Zionism as heresy.
This is obvious for anybody with even superficial knowledge of the Bible. And for those who have no such knowledge, the Bible is freely available to anyone in the world, and its core doctrines can be investigated without any theological training or scholarly background.
Nothing will change the fact that modern day Israel cannot be justified with Biblical argument, whether from the perspective of Judaism or from the perspective of Christianity.
Those who attempt to do so condemn selves according to the precepts of their own faith.
They are mislead, and they mislead others, as it is so frequently stated about the “false prophets” in their own sacred scripture.
Christian Zionists stand condemned, not only by conscience itself, but by the doctrines of their own belief.
Christian Zionists do not have Christians “over the barrel.”
Christian Zionists are the ones who must either change their mind, or abandon their faith.
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