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CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS |
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CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS |
A Christian Zionist is a Christian who looks with favor on the Jewish return to Zion, the city of Jerusalem and the land of Israel, specifically because of the biblical significance of this return.
Traditional Christian thinking said that God's covenant with the Jews had been diluted by the Jews failure to accept Jesus as the Messiah. The Church viewed itself as the continuation of the 'Israel of God', made up of Jews and Gentiles alike who accepted Christ. Under the doctrine of "Replacement Theology" it was the Christians who now were God's chosen people, carrying out God's will on earth. All earlier religions, including the Jews, had to accept Christ or were lost.
But in the 1830s a new school of thought was put forth by John Nelson Darby, an Englishman. Darby's views, known as "dispensationalism", held that God's dealing with mankind in history were divided into three consecutive "dispensations":
In Dispensationalist doctrine, the final stage of history before the advent of the Antichrist and the Second Coming of Christ would see a return of Diaspora Jews from around the world to the Biblical Land of Israel. While this was inconceivable in the first half of the 19th Century, that's exactly what happened. The Zionist began the return of European Jews, to join the communities who never left, in the late 19th Century and the nation of Israel was reborn in 1948.
Today, tens of millions of Protestant Christians in the United States and more around the world support Israel with an uncritical fervor, exceeding even Jewish support. The Israeli government has recognized the significance of this support since the 1970s, and has courted these Christians for a generation.
In 1980, Christian supporters of Israel established the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. The Embassy opened after the international community condemned Israel for declaring united Jerusalem the "eternal and indivisible capital" of the reborn Jewish state. As thirteen nations moved their embassies from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv due to a threatened Arab oil embargo, 1400 Christians from 40 countries decided to open their own Embassy in Jerusalem.
During the al-Aqsa Intifada and continuing through the murderous terrorist attacks on Israel in 2001 and 2002, Christian Zionist groups sent thousands of visitors to Israel on Solidarity Missions. These groups came to Israel from the United States and the rest of the world to meet Israelis, to pray in the Holy Land, to visit Christian shrines, but most of all to show that they believe in and support Israel's right to exist and the justice of Israel's cause vs. the immorality and injustice of Israel's enemies.
Christians in the Middle East have suffered under Islamic rule. A further reason for Christian Zionist support, therefore, is the realization that an Islamic victory over Israel would swiftly mean the end of the Christian Holy Places in the Middle East.
The United States supports Israel for many reasons, rooted in shared values of morality and common ideas of secular, religious and economic freedom. Possibly the most fervent and steady of Israel's American supporters are the Evangelical Christians.
Anti-Israel forces try to spread the idea that the United States is in the grip of a "Jewish lobby" that somehow controls the actions of Congress and the White House. They suggest that Jews -- about 2.2% of Americans -- are making American policy toward Israel different from what most Americans want. One fact quickly disposes of this nonsense: there are 70 million Protestant evangelicals in North America who are as devoted to Israel as any Jew.
Quoting Dennis Prager:
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