21st Century Progressivism

Tag: Christian Zionism

  • Christian Zionism Explains Everything

    Reading Time: 4 minutes
    Christian Zionism Explains Everything
    The Dictatorship of Christian Zionism

    If you’ve wondered during the last twenty years at the overheated rhetoric of both Israel and the Western powers, Dr. Stephan Sizer will connect the dots in a video entitled The Historical Roots of Christian Zionism, It’s Theological Basis and Political Agenda. According to Sizer, Christian Zionism is the culprit behind the militant turn. Christian Zionism explains everything.

    What do I mean by everything? From the policies of the George W. Bush administration to the current crisis in Israel and Palestine, the relationship between Israel and the United States has remained important. Also in this period, the Middle East and the rest of the world have criticized U.S. policies. Muslims are painted as the enemy, and there is a reckless drive for war with Iran.

    Definition and influence of Christian Zionism

    Christian Zionism is a movement within Protestant Christianity that views the modern State of Israel as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. It follows that we owe it unconditional economic, moral, political and theological support.

    The Christian version of Zionism began 50 years before the Jewish version. It is a political effort for the most part. But the theological agenda is also important, and far more troubling. Two of the most frightening talking points are the idea of using nuclear weapons on Palestine and going to war with Iran. These can both be explained by the theological influence of Christian Zionism.

    The theological and political agenda

    The theology of Christian Zionism is tied to a literal interpretation of the Bible. But it is as if the birth of Jesus is irrelevant. Key beliefs include the belief that Jerusalem will be the capital of Zion, that the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem, and an antipathy to Arabs and Muslims. There is also the belief that the final battle is immanent. This accounts for the similarities in warlike rhetoric and racist hate speech in American administrations.

    Politically, the Jewish Zionists are aware that they depend on Christian Zionists to influence politicians and pay the bills.

    History of Christian Zionism

    Zionism began with the Puritan movement and the consequences of the Protestant Reformation. The Puritan worldview included the belief that the Jewish people had a place in God’s purposes. Specifically, Puritans believed the Jews would come to faith in Jesus and be returned to Palestine to become a Christian nation. The main proponents were George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards.

    In 1808, the London Jew Society was formed as part of the Restoration Movement. Its purpose was to relieve the suffering of Jews, especially in East London, and to identify Jewish communities around the world. They believed Jews and Gentiles would be one people of God.

    This view was dominant in Evangelicalism, but this changed with the rise of the French empire. Napoleon was the first ruler in 2,000 years to promise the Jews a homeland. Napoleon called himself King of Kings. However, his detractors called him ‘the anti-Christ’. The return of the Jews to Palestine was part of his strategy for world domination.

    Napoleon was not successful with his campaign in Palestine, but his proclamation led to millenarian hopes among certain nonconformist circles in England. From a political point of view, it marked the beginning of a renewed interest of the Western Powers in Palestine as occupying an important international position. 

    The Albury Circle

    According to Sizer, the Albury Circle developed the idea that God had a separate purpose for the Jewish people, apart from the Church. For them, Britain’s Manifest Destiny included controlling the Middle East and assisting the Jews’ return to Palestine. They believed the Jews would then assist Britain in colonial endeavors.

    John Darby and The Brethren fashioned these ideas into Dispensationalism. This sect taught that the Church and Israel were separate people. The Church represents God’s heavenly people, and the Jews represent God’s earthly people. This is now the dominant theology of U.S. Evangelicals, Fundamentalists and Pentecostals. These groups are now underwriting financial and political support for the Zionist Lobby, and are a major obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

    Britain had ulterior motives

    Britain did not deliver on its promises to the Zionists because of its secret agreement with the French to divide the Middle East between them. They actually left a written record of this intention, including their admission that they didn’t think it was necessary to consult the Palestinians. However, this agreement did not come to pass either, and eventually the British tried to solve the ‘problem’ by partitioning Palestine equally between Palestinians and Zionists. Because the Palestinians’ proposed share would be half of what they already had, they rejected the plan. The Zionists accepted it.

    Zionist presidents

    The Rev. Jerry Falwell had come from a tradition that was intolerant of Jews, but he changed his view toward Israel after meeting Menachem Begin in Jerusalem. This was the beginning of a coalition between the Christian and Zionist right, overseen by Falwell.

    Sizer calls Jimmy Carter ‘the first born again president. However, when Falwell co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979, one of his chief aims was to defeat Carter. Falwell argued that Carter was on the wrong side of abortion, homosexuality and prayer in public schools. Carter was also the only U.S. president to identify Israeli apartheid.

    However, most U.S. administrations since 1948 have been supportive of the Zionist agenda. They include those of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Nixon, Reagan, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump, and Biden. The last president to challenge the Israel lobby was Bush Sr.

    Christian Zionism explains everything.

  • Peace is the Only Choice

    Reading Time: 5 minutes

    Five parties are involved in the carnage in the Middle East. They are Israel, the United States and her allies, the Zionists, AIPAC and Hamas. It’s no surprise that it’s complicated. All of the parties have real reasons for being there, however in some cases the real reasons are not stated outright. I believe this is largely due to the long history of the Jewish people and the way they were shaped by their experiences. Many factors have gone into the present turmoil, but there are two sides to every story. Peace is the only choice for Palestine and Israel.

    Reason not the need

    Israel’s stated claim to ownership of Palestine is based on the Old Testament story of Abraham. It is supported in this claim by Christian Zionists. This biblical gift of Palestine to Israel has been debunked by both Jewish rabbis and Christian theologians. (See also: Stephen Sizer on Christian Zionism) However, it is true that there was a desperate struggle by Zionists to relocate Jews to Palestine, and this desperation was as real as it gets. As King Lear said to his daughters,

    “O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous. Allow not nature more than nature needs...” (King Lear Act II. Scene IV. Line 264.)

    The British mandate restricts immigration

    One cause of desperation in Palestine was British immigration restrictions and the Mandate’s perceived indifference to the immigrants’ safety. The Israeli’s got their way in the end. From at least one point of view, this was unfortunate. Increased immigration resulted in regrettable changes to the Jewish population in Palestine. However, the events leading to this wave of immigration were unfortunate as well.

    Jews were living in Palestine before the Zionists arrived, but they were religious communities who spent their time studying. They did not participate in farming or trade. They were supported by Jews in the diaspora. Today, both Israelis and supportive politicians play on biblical promises to the Jews as Israel’s reason for being, but Zionism has always been a secular project. I believe this fiction has begun to work against them, mostly because it hides their real reasons for immigrating to Palestine. And mistrust of the outside world prevents them from saying what needs to be said.

    From a religious to a secular society

    The secular movement has been blamed for Israel’s more recent history. According to Wikipedia, Zionism didn’t exist in Palestine before 1882. The term Yishuv refers to the Jews living in Palestine before that time. The Old Yishuv residents were religious Jews, living mainly in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, and Hebron. There were smaller communities in Jaffa, Haifa, Peki’in, Acre, Nablus, Shfaram, and until 1779, in Gaza. In the final centuries before modern Zionism, a large part of the Old Yishuv spent their time studying the Torah. But Israel changed from a religious to a secular society.

    The term ‘New Yishuv’ refers to those who adopted a new approach, based on economic independence and various national ideologies, rather than strictly religious reasons for settling in the ‘Holy Land’.

    Wikipedia – Yishuv

    These were the Zionists. The first New Yishuv immigrants began building homes outside the Old City walls of Jerusalem in the 1860s, followed soon after by the founders of the moshava of Petah Tikva. Growth was in full swing during the First Aliyah of 1882. Neighborhoods and villages were founded from that year until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The Zionist aliyah and the New Yishuv, were more socialist-leaning and secular, emphasizing labor and self-sufficiency.

    The Haganah

    In the British Mandate for Palestine, the Haganah was a paramilitary force founded in 1920 to protect the Yishuv. Although it was an underground organization until 1947, it was the main Zionist military organization. It remained so until the 1948 Israeli Declaration of Independence and then integrated into the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

    The Haganah took many forms over the years, but its activities were moderate until after World War II. The Zionists were prepared to fight anyone and everyone to establish their new homeland. After the War, when the British refused to remove their restrictions on immigration, the Haganah led an insurgency against the British Mandate in Palestine.

    Poland supports Zionism as a way to get rid of the Jews

    Sadly, much of the help they did receive, for example from the Polish government, was motivated by the wish to get rid of them. The Second Polish Republic supported a Jewish state in Palestine to aid in ridding itself of its Jewish population during the interwar period. The Poles provided military training and weapons to Zionist military groups, including Haganah. Eventually, the British pressured the Polish government to stop the deliveries.

    The United States recognized Israel immediately after the Israeli Declaration of Independence. However, for two decades, it was not Israel’s strongest ally and did not offer the diplomatic cover it does today. When Israel invaded Egypt with the British and French during the 1956 Suez crisis, Washington joined Moscow at the United Nations to force Israel and its allies to withdraw. For many years, US aid to Israel was limited to loans to buy food through the economic hardship in the years after independence.

    But Israel did have at least one strong ally. Prior to 1967, Israel’s primary foreign ally was France, which supplied almost all of its major weapons including planes, tanks and ships as well as building the nuclear plant from which it developed atomic weapons.

    The U.S. alliance

    It wasn’t until Israel’s victory and occupation of Gaza that Washington decided Arab nations had moved into the Soviet camp. The U.S. increased weapons sales to the Jewish state, including Phantom jet fighters. President Johnson committed the US to maintaining Israel’s “qualitative military edge” and opened the door to decades of weapons sales. This helped build the Israeli military into the strongest force in the Middle East.

    Can we tell the truth? Can we listen to the truth?

    In the process, the Zionists continued to cite a religious history that was no longer important to them. In fact, it seems they told as many stories as they needed to gain sympathy from a world that had already shown itself to be unsympathetic. Many have recognized that the enforced isolation and abuse of the Jewish people for 2,000 years caused them to share certain physical and personality characteristics, including shrewdness and a sense of mistrust. It shouldn’t be surprising that they took these traits with them when it was time for them to make their way in an unfriendly world.

    However, as sympathetic as we may be to Israel, Palestine is about to disappear in 25 miles of smoke and fire. This focus on Israel is important not only for Israel’s well-being, but for the well-being of her neighbors.

    Israel can’t be expected to disappear. But it can’t continue to live in an unfriendly world either. Our world has structure. Some, if not all, of that structure rests on shared history, shared beliefs, mutual love and sympathy. To corrupt those things is to destroy the society you claim to love. There, I said ‘the society you claim to love’. This is the language of mistrust. Are we prepared to tell the truth? Can we listen to the truth?

    Israel’s challenge

    Israel’s biggest challenge at this time is to learn how to live peacefully in Palestine. At this time, the Israelis have succeeded in earning the world’s hatred, so they will have to take the first step. But if I’m right, their history and experience will forbid it. They will need the help of their allies. There is no way around this requirement. If the United States is pressuring Israeli policies, the U.S. must back off. And Israel must be encouraged and helped to earn the trust of the Palestinians. But this won’t happen until there is a just distribution of land and resources. And a just distribution won’t be possible until the settlers and the present Israeli government get out of the way.

    In addition to a responsible government, we need people with the proper training to help in this process. I’m not only talking about diplomats. I’m talking about people who understand the human soul.