Christians from Zion: The Jews who Believe in Jesus

There is no force which influences politics in the U.S. involving Israel quite like Zionist-Christians. For them, supporting Israel is a sacred duty, inspired through lectures in the Bible.

The Polish Millennial Bible contains four maps of the ancient Holy Land. In contrast, protestant bibles in America often contain maps of modern Israel titled “The Holy Land Today.” They show a country with borders from before the Six Day War in 1967. Yet, in a different version of the Bible called the New American Standard, modern Israel includes the Golan Heights, the West Bank next to the river Jordan, and the Gaza Strip.

There’s no room for coincidences. For American Protestants, particularly of the evangelical sects, the nation of Israel is just another part of the Holy narrative found in the Bible. For them, modern and biblical-era Israel are practically one and the same.

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When it comes to the people and land from which Jesus was born 2000 years ago, this order of things is a familiar marker for Christian-Zionists. The old covenant between God and the people of Israel didn’t disappear with the coming of Jesus, as God gave the Jews the land of Israel for eternity. Which is why every Christian has an obligation to support the people of Israel—especially in the Holy Land.

A key element of the faith of Evangelical Christians is Zionism, which has for half a century been a dominating movement in American Protestantism. They belong to sects which formed after the reformation, meaning that they are not Lutheran, Anglican or Presbyterian, but primarily Baptist and Pentecostal. They are differentiated primarily by their zeal and the necessity for a rebirth of faith as an adult; a strange of belief in cosmology, which is meant to have a definite beginning and end; and they use the Book of Genesis as a bulwark for their belief in creationism, all the while rejecting Darwinism.

A pronounced tendency towards a literal interpretation of the Bible is very much the case, in which they await the actual return of Jesus. They’re convinced that in the end of days the prophecies will be fulfilled: the anti-Christ will appear, Armageddon will come, and the Kingdom of Jesus will come to pass. Recent polls show that almost 79 percent of Christians in America firmly believe in the second Coming, while 20 percent are convinced that it will happen within their lifetimes.

In all of their beliefs Israel of course plays a leading role. It’s why, long before Jews in Europe even began to think of creating their own country in Palestine, it was Evangelicals who had already taken concrete steps towards this goal. They were convinced that the sooner the Jews returned to the Holy Land the sooner the coming of Jesus would occur.

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In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, five times as many Americans support Israel than they do Palestinians, and the figures haven’t changed for decades. The most ardent supporters of these kinds of politics are evangelical Christians, which would mean every third American out of the entire population. Out of those, counting only eligible voters, that makes as many as 70 million people. To make a comparison, 4 million Jewish voters in the US makes for only 2% of the electorate. By far and away the largest pro-Israel lobby in America is the organisation of Christian-Zionists called “Christians United For Israel” (or CUFI), which boasts more than a million members. However, lobbying itself would make scant progress if it existed in a hostile social environment. It was this fact which neither John Mearsheimer nor Stephen Walt, in their famous book “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, in which they concentrated on the influence of Jews on American foreign policy, but barely touched on Christian Zionism. A few months after it was published, a known political scientist named Walter Russel Mead criticised the authors in the famous journal “Foreign Affairs”, saying, “Supporters of conspiracy theories believe in a Jewish conspiracy—one which is better known under its euphemism of the “jew lobby”, to explain why support for Israel within the US continues to rise, while sympathy for Israel within the circles of the tradition religious and intellectual establishments is fading. In fact, the actual answer is to be found in the dynamics of American religion. Evangelicals are enjoying growing supporting within society and poltics. There’s no need to lay the blame at the feet of Jews.”

Yet even in a supposedly pro-zionist society, the American pro-Israel lobby doesn’t always win. A perfect example is the issue of Iran’s nuclear program. Despite the efforts of CUFI and Jewish organisations, and despite the mass-bombardment of Israeli PR, an American society tired of wars was clamouring for a chance at peace.

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The affinity of Protestants for the Jews goes back to the Reformation, when they uncovered the biblical Israelites—especially when it came to Calvinists. Early American culture was so fully saturated with Hebrewism, that each of the 10 universities founded before the American Revolution had mandatory Hebrew lessons.

Christian Zionism, known in the 19th century as restorationism, became a movement full of energy within American society. Starting from the 1830s, the Mormon prophet Joseph smith called for the return of Jewish ancestral lands. Article 10 of the Church of Mormon states the following: “ We believe that a literal gathering of Israel will occur.” Several years later, a professor of Hebrew Studies at New York University published a book titled, “Visions in the Valley, or, The Dry Bones of Israel Revived”. The author laid out evidence that prophecies from the Old Testament gave “solid foundations to blieve that we are on the cusp of a return of the Jews to Syria, as well as their inclusion within the Church.” The author of theses words was named George Bush, who himself is a relative of George W. Bush’s great-great-great grandfather.

It is however the evangelical activist named William Blackstone, who happened to be behind the most interesting development in Christian Zionism in 19th century America. Blackstone’s Memorial was a petition created in March of 1891 (a whole 6 years before the zionist congress in Basle!), which was directed at then-president Benjamin Harrison. It criticised the targeting of Jews in Russia, and appealed to the president to use his influence on the Tsar and Ottoman Sultan to create an opportunity for the Jews to return to Palestine, and was signed by more than 400 known individuals. Among them were the leader of the House of Representatives, the head of the committee for foreign affairs in the House, the head of the Supreme Court and the future president William McKinley, J.P Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, as well as the editors of the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.

In response to the Memorial, the Harrison administration made something of an attempt—although as it turned out later, to little success. The opinion of the American consul in Jerusalem was one of those sought, who replied with: “The Turks generally don’t give away entire provinces as a present.” Blackstone reminded others of himself again in 1917, when through his encouragement, he was able to get president Woodrow Wilson to support the Balfour Declaration, which had a provision for creating a national house for the Jewish People.

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The Jewish issue returned to the limelight of American politics after the Second World War, when the country began a race against the influences of the Soviet Union. The White House at the beginning dallied with the question ofthe creation of a Jewish state, likely as a result of their relations with Arabs. In the end however, Harry Truman decided to recognise the state of Israel. From his own private words, it’s known that it was in large part due to Biblical influences. He said of himself: “I am Cyrus, I am Cyrus,” evoking the name of the Persian king, who according to the Old Testament, allowed the Jews to return to Israel. Yet, in the first two decades of its existence, the newly-formed state did not have close relations with the US. It’s enough to mention the Suez Crisis, when the US stood with the USSR and Egypt against Israel, Great Britain, and France.

The situation changed fundamentally when the 6-day War broke out in June of 1967, to the surprising victory of Israel. American elites were simply astounded. All of a sudden, Israel wasn’t just a tiny strip of land, but became something resembling Israel from the Bible. It included Jerusalem, the Jordan, the Dead Sea, Bethlehem, Judea and Samaria. The strange beast that was Israel before the war suddenly became the biblical land of Israel. Americans of faith suddenly understood that the prophecies known to them been fulfilled, and like nothing before in the history of Zionism, they saw the hand of God at play.

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It was however Terrorist attacks on the Jewish team at the Olympics in Munich in 1972, and the Yom Kippur war a year later, which saw Israel barely survive, that well and truly convinced American Protestants that they (and not the God of Israel) had to step in and assume the role of a guardian. Israel’s defeat would mean the defeat of their own beliefs.

That is why for more than 35 years, it has been considered that the one safe place for Israel is in the Bible Belt, or where Evangelical America lives.

Prime Minister Begin gave his own approval for this alliance, when in 1980 he gave the Vladimir Zabotynski award to his friend Jerry Falwell, the leader of the evangelical movement Moral Majority. To this day, a group of evangelical leaders hover over Israel and the US. Much is the same with leaders of the Likud. They’re frequent guests at evangelical organisations in the US.

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CUFI played a particular role in the pro-Israel lobby in 2006. The creator of the organisation is the pastor John Hagee from Texas. He believes, that the actions of CUFI aren’t ones finality, but of love for the people of Israel, and getting the boons promised to Abraham in the 12th Chapter of Genesis for America. Many christians regard it as a magic spell, where it is stated that , “I will give boons to those, who give boons to you, and those who do you ill, I will do ill to them. Through you, the people of the world shall receive my blessing.”

CUFI is omnipresent in America, particularly through the mobilisations of pastors and leading country-wide action and events for the benefit of Israel. Often at these meets, Christians dance with the flags of the US and Israel. Aside from mobilising the evangelical christian nation for the uspport of Israel, CUFI donates tens of millions of dollars each year to Israel. The Jewish organisation AIPAC, which has around 100 thousand members, can’t even compare. Likud is very much aware of this, as demonstrated by prime minister Netanyahu’s affinity for CUFI. Besides, just like in the case of resistances against a nuclear agreement with Iran, these two pro-Israeli lobbies work together. At a conference in 2007 by AIPAC, Hagee, who was the opening speaker, said that cooperation between evangelicals and Jews for Israel’s benefit was a “marriage from God.”

Perhaps the most striking result are the blurring lines between Judaism and evangelism in Israel and the US. From one end, there’s a wider and wider adaptation of Jewish practises, symbols and even holidays by Evangelical christians, while from the other, the acceptance of Jesus and christian evangelical theology by Jews.

The author is an American historian and Presbyterian. Amonst others, he wrote a work titled, “Christian Zionism as a pillar of US-Israeli relations”, as as well as the book “The Conversion and Baptism of Mieszko I”.

Jews, followers of Jesus

The History of Messianic Jews, or those who believe in Jesus, began right with His mission. After all, people who first adopted his teachers were Jews, as was every single one of the 12 disciples of Jesus-Jeshua. In today’s America, there are more than 300 groups of Messianic Jews, who number more than a quarter of a million in size. In Israel however, 100 such groups contain just over 15 thousand. The source of the American arm of this movement have their roots in the 1930s, when a mission working for the Presbyterian Church aimed at Jews postulated that those converted to protestantism don’t necessarily have to lose their identity. The movement of Messianic Jews began to develop in earnest in the 70s. At that point in the US, Jews from the organisation Jews for Jesus began to visit groups and spread with great enthusiasm the love for Jesus.

A common thread in the Messianic Jew movement is the fusion of evangelical theology with traditional Judaism. That is not to say that the movement is monolithic. The differences are primarily those of charismatic practices and the degree to which Jewish traiditions are kept. For instance, it can be about wearing a yamakah and a prayer shawl, observing masses on Friday or Sunday, or the presence of an ark with a Torah next to the altar. Protestantism was always receptive to Judaization, so it shouldn’t then be too surprising that it has worked the other way. For instance, how the Passover Seder should be celebrated, andreading the Hagad—edited for those who beleive in Jeshua, of course.