Posted on 04/05/2002 8:01:38 AM PST by veronica
It may sound strange, but it's true: Aside from Jews, the strongest American supporters of Israel are Evangelical Christians, many of whom fervently believe God has granted the Jewish people a divine right to rule over historic Palestine. At times like the present, when the Jewish state is largely friendless in a hostile world, the Israelis depends on the backing of this politically potent bloc of American voters to exhort Washington to look favorably upon its interests.
"I think it would be fair to say that Evangelical support for Israel and its legitimate security interests has been paramount to Israel's support in Congress and in many administrations, second only to the Jewish Committee itself," says Republican political consultant Ralph Reed. "The Jewish community has played a strong role in keeping the Democratic party strongly pro-Israel, and Evangelicals have played a similar role among Republicans."
In 1998, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then prime minister of Israel, was not falsely flattering an Evangelical audience in Washington when he said to them: "We have no greater friends and allies than the people sitting in this room." Indeed, as Columbia University religion scholar Randall Balmer puts it: "Evangelicals have been very charitable, to say the least, toward Israel, because they believe the Jews are the Chosen People of God, even though they failed to recognize Jesus as Messiah. They believe that God's promises to Israel are still good, and that any nation that doesn't line up with Israel is against God."
The story of how this idea came to dominate the thinking of millions of Christians is one of the great tales of American popular religion, one that has more to do with the best-seller list than the writings of the ancient Church fathers.
It begins with a novel theory of the End Times developed by an Englishman, John Nelson Darby, who taught in the 1830s and 1840s that Christians would be taken instantaneously out of the world in the "Rapture" before Christ returns. Darby's views became known as dispensationalism," because he divided God's dealing with mankind in history into three consecutive "dispensations." The first dispensation was the Mosaic Law, through which God offered salvation to the Jews through the observance of His commandments. This age closed with the coming of Christ, who instituted the age of Grace, in which God became preoccupied with Christians. The third and final stage will begin with the return of Jesus, who will establish a literal thousand-year reign upon the earth.
"Dispensationalists see a clear distinction between God's program for Israel and God's program for the church," reads a statement issued by the Dallas Theological Seminary, a leading center of dispensationalist learning. "God is not finished with Israel. The church didn't take Israel's place. They have been set aside temporarily, but in the end times will be brought back to the promised land, cleansed, and given a new heart."
This is not what Christians prior to Darby had believed. The traditional Christian reading of Scripture, dating from the early Church fathers, held that the Jews' rejection of the Messiah abrogated, or at least reduced the significance of, God's covenant with them. As the Rev. Gregory Mathewes-Green, an Antiochian Orthodox priest explains, "The Church's classical understanding is that she herself is the 'Israel of God,' the authentic continuation of the People of God, both ethnic Jews who accepted Jesus as Messiah and Gentile converts who, to use St. Paul's language, were 'grafted on.'"
Dispensationalists, who scorn the traditional teaching as "Replacement Theology," go further. As indicated above, they proclaim that the Bible foretells that the final stage of history before the advent of the Antichrist and the Second Coming of Christ would see an ingathering of diaspora Jews from around the world to the Biblical land of Israel — a development that the 19th-century world could scarcely have foreseen. The beginnings of the Zionist movement in the latter part of that century energized American dispensationalists, who had grown in number thanks to the efforts of an extremely successful evangelist named D. L. Moody, who is chiefly responsible for introducing dispensationalism to America.
But it was the publication in 1909 of the Scofield Reference Bible, which has never gone out of print, that institutionalized what had been a radical new teaching. "The Scofield Bible provided a template for reading the Bible through dispensationalist eyes," says Ballmer. "It became enormously popular, and it really brought dispensationalism to the masses."
Theologian Martin Marty tells NRO that the advent of Pentecostalism and the clash of fundamentalism with modernism in the 1920s caused a fusion of Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Fundamentalists, who, despite some doctrinal differences, banded together under the dispensationalist banner. As Baptist church historian Timothy Weber notes in an informative Christianity Today article, "By the Twenties, many fundamentalists considered dispensationalism a nonnegotiable part of Christian orthodoxy. Since then, the system has been nurtured through an elaborate network of schools, publishing houses, mission agencies, radio and television programming, and the like. Channel surfers on cable TV know that dispensationalists are master communicators."
There's no greater example of that than the chart-busting success of Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth, the apocalyptic tome that became the top-selling book of the 1970s. Lindsey claimed that the founding of Israel in 1948 was God's sign that the Last Days — the Rapture, the Antichrist, Armageddon — are upon us. Though Lindsey's crystal ball proved unreliable in ensuing decades, the mega-selling Left Behind novels pick up today where Lindsey left off. Dispensationalists ideas have so informed the popular culture that it isn't odd to find Catholic fans of Left Behind shocked to learn that their Church doesn't believe in the Rapture.
But tens of millions of Protestant Christians (though not all Evangelicals) do, and they tend to back Israel with an uncritical fervor that exceeds that of even some American Jews. The Israeli government tapped this deep, unlikely vein of support in the 1970s, and has assiduously courted these Christians for a generation — especially because many self-described "Christian Zionists" back Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as part of God's prophetic plan. One of the leading Christian Zionist organizations is the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, a nondenominational Protestant group (without diplomatic standing) which established a presence in the Israeli capital in 1980.
"We're trying daily to encourage the Israeli people," says Susan Michael, director of ICEJ's Washington office. "The Israelis are very depressed. We want to let them know that they have friends who understand the battle they're in."
Esther Levens is a Jew and a Kansas Republican who founded an ecumenical group called National Unity Coalition for Israel, a network of over 200 Jewish and Christian congregations who pray for, donate to and lobby on behalf of the Jewish state. She chides American Jews for being "a little short-sighted" in not properly valuing the efforts Christian conservatives make for Israel.
Aside from dissenting from Christian conservatives on many domestic issues, some Jewish leaders look upon organizations like ICEJ warily, fearing these Christians support Israel only as a prelude to evangelizing Jews. (ICEJ explicitly renounces proselytizing Jews, which has earned it criticism from Jews for Jesus and other evangelical groups.)
"If that's the reason they support Israel, that would be of great concern to me," Levens responds. "But I find so many truly dedicated Christians who are involved because of a growing awareness of their Jewish roots, and who feel they owe a real debt of gratitude, historically, to the Jews."
Others in the Jewish community are grateful for Christian political and financial backing, but resent the notion that Israel is worth supporting because it fits into an apocalyptic endgame scenario not shared by Jews — particularly because the dispensationalist script predicts the Jews will convert en masse to Christianity at the end of time.
Palestinian Christians resent it, period. They overwhelmingly belong to either the Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic churches, neither of which accepts dispensationalist theology (a small number belong to mainline Protestant confessions, which also reject that creed). Since the 1948 war, the once-sizable Christian population has dwindled to a mere two percent of the three million Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. Most of them have emigrated to the West.
Suzan Sahori lives in the Christian village of Beit Sahour, east of Bethlehem. NRO reached her yesterday as her town was literally being taken over by Israeli troops. Speaking frantically over her cell phone, Sahori said, "The situation is very bad. We feel abandoned in this moment. I don't care whether you're Protestant, Latin, Orthodox, whatever you are. We're human beings!"
Palestinian Christians felt abandoned by Christians in America long before the recent wave of violence. They are perhaps more estranged than ever these days, with a recent poll revealing that Americans back Israel in this conflict five-to-one. There aren't enough dispensationalists in the United States to explain why so many American Christians feel a strong obligation to support Israel. The Islamic suicide bombers — whom Sahori supports — surely have a lot to do with it, as does America's feeling about Arab terrorism since September 11 (the image of dancing in the streets of Ramallah when the Twin Towers fell is not easily forgotten). "Now you know how we feel," an Israeli said to an American then.
Along these lines, Fr. Mathewes-Green suggests a possible answer, in the form of a question — a moral query thoughtful Christians should ask themselves: "Does the Christian have a responsibility to a small nation, populated in part by survivors or descendants of a genocide, in a hostile environment? I believe this very important question should be separated from the faulty assumptions of the dispensationalists."
Veronica, small mistatement there. I am not sure Jews are more supportive of Israel than Evangelical Christians.
There has always been, as the article suggests, a strong tendency to believe that the church had inherited the promises of God to Israel. Furthermore, there is a messianic streak in Americans in general, and I think many American churches have had the belief, state or unstated, that America was heir to these promises, sort-of an American version of British Israelism.
That is because in part because of our own, rather exceptional history, and also because prior to 1948, no one could imagine that Israel could ever come back to life. Without Israel, the biblical promises made no sense, unless someone else (us, for example) had somehow inherited those promises.
Of course, 1948 changed all that.
But I would say that, below the surface, many Americans still, in their gut, believe they are God's chosen people. Our politics and our daily discourse is soaked with the belief in our blessed uniqueness. The resurrection of Israel didn't change that, they just see Israel as their "fellow" chosen. Thus, the almost unbreakable loyalty toward Israel on the part of American Christians, including secular, unchurched Christians.
They didn't believe that God could pull off bringing Israel back to it's Abrahamic homeland. How shocked they were on May 14th, 1948! Now watch in amazement as God rebuilds His Temple, right on the Temple Mount, against "insurmountable" odds.
I am not a hard core dispensationalist, but I do believe that G-d has not forgotten or forsaken the apple of his eye.
I had hoped to post a link that has been on our church's web site. It is a recorded beautiful testimony of a former Israeli citizen (now a leader in our church) that saw several buddies killed by a Hamas terrorist when he was in the IDF and a former Hamas terrorist. These men have found brotherhood in Christ. Our web site is moving at the moment, so it will posted some other time...
"They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony, and by not loving their lives even unto death."
The Following Statement was adopted by the Standing Conference of Middle Eastern Christian & Muslim Religious Leaders at their meeting in Englewood, New Jersey on Wednesday, November 8, 2000
The recent wave of violence in the Middle East is of grave concern. We condemn the violence, especially the excessive use of force by Israeli forces that has resulted in the killing of over 150 and the injury of 3,000 Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory including Jerusalem.
The demonstrations and protests that have been taking place in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem, represent the collective expression by the Palestinian people against the long years of occupation and the difficulties of their daily lives under Israeli occupation.
The protests have been an expression of deep frustration with the failure of the peace process to bring about better living conditions and a final peace settlement, including the long-awaited establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
They have been an expression of their determination to protect their holy places. They have been an expression in defense of their inalienable rights and their land.
Regrettably, the Palestinian people continue to be denied the ability to restore even their minimum rights as a people, including the right to self-determination. We express our solidarity with the Palestinian people, who have been the victims of a long and unjust military occupation, and we call for the realization of their rights.
We express our deep concern and strong feelings regarding the sacred religious sites in Occupied East Jerusalem. We stress the importance of Jerusalem and the need to ensure respect for all holy sites. Any final solution must ensure the freedom of access and of worship for all believers of the three monotheistic religions. Any solution must also ensure Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem.
We believe that what is required now is an immediate cessation by Israel of the excessive, indiscriminate and unjustified use of force against the Palestinian people. The Israeli siege on the Palestinian people and the Palestinian land must be terminated. To restore calm, the understanding reached at the Sharm EI-Sheikh Summit must be implemented. Only then can there be any true resumption of the peace process between the Palestinian and the Israeli sides. Such a process must require a sincere desire for peace and a full commitment on the part of all parties to its realization.
We believe that in order to resolve this tragic conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, the UN Resolutions 242, 338 and 425 (concerning the farmlands of Shib'aa Lebanon) must be fully implemented because they express the will of the international community. In addition, we strongly believe that Resolution 194 and the Geneva Convention of 1949, namely Article IV, give the Palestinian refugees, whether they are in Lebanon or Syria, etc. the right to return to their homes and land which they have inhabited from time immemorial. The right of refugees to return home is a most sacred right and it should be respected.
As for the role of the United States in the Middle East peace process, we stress our disappointment with the adoption by our American Congress of the very unfair and very biased resolution #426 against the leadership of the Palestinian people. We demand a more balanced American position reflective of American traditions and the wishes of more than five million Arab-Americans in support of human rights, justice and international law. Such a position would enable the United States to play a truly objective and supportive role as a sponsor of the peace process.
In conclusion, our support for the Middle East peace process is unwavering. Our support for the rights of the Palestinian people and their efforts to realize those rights, including their right to an independent state, is unwavering as well. The time has come for justice and peace to prevail in the Holy Land and the realization of the rights of the Palestinian people as well as security for all states in the region.
The Most Reverend Metropolitan PHILIP, Chairman Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America
The Most Reverend Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America
The Right Reverend Bishop Stephen Doueihi Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn Imam Fadhel AI-Sahlani Imam AI-Khoei Islamic Center, Jamaica, NY
The Most Reverend John A. Elya Eparch of Newton, Melkite Diocese of Newton
Very Reverend Chorepiscopus John Meno For The Most Reverend Archbishop Cyril Aphrem Karim Archdiocese of the Syrian Orthodox Church for the Eastern United States
Sheikh Sami T. Merhi, Chairman The Druze Council of North America
Sheikh Hamad Ahmad Chebli Islamic Society of Central New Jersey
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