The Jews, Eschatology and Christian Zionism

 

   It’s strange that some Christians can be anti-Semitic, given that they worship a Jew and that Judaism provides the foundation for their beliefs. Add to that the fact that all of Christ’s disciples were Jews.

   The Roman Catholic Church attempted to justify anti-Semitism by claiming that Jews were responsible for crucifying Jesus—when in reality He was sentenced to death by a Roman ruler and nailed to the cross by Roman soldiers. It only has been of late that the Roman Church has admitted the evil of blaming the Jews for the death of the Christian savior. It is amazing that it took the papacy so long to acknowledge this, considering that, according to their teachings, the first pope was Jewish.

   The Protestant tradition has not fared any better when it comes to anti-Semitism. Reading through some of the things that Martin Luther wrote about Jews is enough to turn the stomach of any person who senses that Christ called his followers to live out love and justice. Nevertheless, Christians have no difficulty, in spite of their long history of anti-Semitism, in declaring the Jews to be “God’s Chosen People.” Adding to the ambivalent attitude of many Christians toward Jews is the very special place that the Jewish “land of promise” holds in Christian prophecy. The role that the Holy Land plays is crucial in the eschatology of many Christians and, consequently, has had profound effects as Christians have influenced our nation’s policies in the Middle East.

In the first place:

   Perhaps the greatest influence upon our government’s actions in the Holy Land, and specifically upon the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, comes from that segment of the Fundamentalist Christian community that adheres to a particular theology invented by a nineteenth-century renegade Anglican priest in Plymouth, England, named John Nelson Darby. This particular theology is called Dispensationalism, and if you want to know more, a good brief history is Barbara Rossing’s The Rapture Exposed (2004). Although Darby was a Johnny-come-lately to Protestant theological thinking, (i.e., there’s no hint of Dispensationalism is Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli or John Calvin) his intricate interpretation of Scripture has become so dominant among Fundamentalist Christians that Dispensationalism and Fundamentalism have almost become synonymous within American Christianity.

   Key to understanding the Dispensationalists is recognizing their awareness that all the promises made to Israel by God have not been fulfilled. The Hebrew prophets had predicted that the Jews would one day come to live everlastingly in a land marked by social and economic well-being (Isaiah 65:17-25). Those of the Diaspora would be returned to the land promised to the seed of Abraham (Genesis 15:18), and all nations would look to Israel with hope for a better world. Only then, Dispensationalists believe, would the second coming of Christ occur (see Craig C. Hill, In God’s Time, 2002). 

   Most Dispensationalists argue that prior to Christ’s second coming, all non-Jews would have to vacate the Holy Land, and those who refuse to leave willingly would have to be driven out. A discussion I had with a prominent Dispensationalist preacher during a radio interview highlighted the extremism that exists in the Dispensationalist community. The preacher told me that if the Arab people who presently live in the Holy Land refuse to leave, they will have to be killed.

   When I exclaimed that this would be nothing short of ethnic cleansing, he answered, without hesitation, “Well, wasn’t ethnic cleansing what God ordered when the Jews invaded the Holy Land under Joshua?”

   I tried to remind this radio preacher that the Arabs were also the seed of Abraham via Ishmael and, according to his understanding of Genesis 15:18, they are just as entitled to live in the Holy Land as the Jews. Furthermore, I pointed out, the land promised to the seed of Abraham reaches from the Euphrates River to the Nile—which would mean wiping out Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. But nothing I said in any way swayed him from his horrific declarations.

   Given this kind of thinking, it is easy to understand why Dispensationalists provide the primary impetus for the growth of the Christian Zionist movement, which is much more of a threat to the implementation of President Bush’s peace plan than even the most extremist Jewish Zionists.

   For instance, when Ariel Sharon, a former rime inister of Israel, tried to clear out Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip in anticipation of the creation of a Palestinian state, Dispensationalists were furious because they were convinced that Sharon was giving away land that God had ordained for the Jews. At one point, Pat Robertson, a rabid Dispensationalist, actually suggested that the stroke Sharon suffered was God’s judgment on him for withdrawing the settlements. In the future, Dispensationalists will continue to throw up barriers to any attempt at a two-state solution to the struggles of the peoples living in Palestine.

   The popularity of Dispensationalism among Fundamentalists can be traced to the early 1900s, when Oxford University Press published the Scofield Reference Study Bible. This particular version of the King James translation of the Bible provided footnotes at the bottom of each page that interpreted the Scriptures in accord with Darby’s Dispensationalist theology. Over the years, Scofield Reference Bibles have been sold to millions of Christians and have been used by countless Fundamentalist preachers and Sunday school teachers as they preach and teach. Dispensationalism has been taught in scores of seminaries and Bible colleges, all during the 20th century and up to the present time. As of late, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins have made this same theology very popular among a huge segment of the Christian population via the publication of their immensely popular Left Behind books. To date, as many as 50 million copies of the books in this series—which incorporates Dispensationalist theology into adventure novels—have been bought by Americans.

   At first glance, Christian Zionists with their Dispensationalist theology would appear to be the best friends that Jewish Zionists ever had. One of the most prominent among them, television evangelist John Hagee, has been especially friendly toward Israel. He has declared to his huge following over and over again that, according to the Bible, the Holy Land must belong to the Jews exclusively (John Hagee, From Daniel to Doomsday, 1999). To this end, he, along with another famous televangelist, Pat Robertson, has been a strong supporter of the State of Israel and has raised millions of dollars to finance the Jews of the Diaspora to return to the Holy Land. Some Jewish Zionists, however, are wary of the overtures of such Dispensationalists because they know that these preachers claim that those Jews who do not accept Christ as their Messiah and Savior will ultimately be condemned to Hell. 

   A second perspective on Jews’ right to occupy the Holy Land is an exact opposite of that which is held by Dispensationalists. It is an eschatology that recognizes no special role for the Jews and the State of Israel. This is a view held by a variety of Christians in the Protestant community, along with most Roman Catholic thinkers, who believe that the only hope for the salvation of the Jewish people lies in their being incorporated into the Christian community by accepting Christ as their Messiah. They believe that only by trusting in the saving work of Christ, through His death and resurrection, can Jews inherit eternal life. Picking up on what the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 10 and 11, they declare that the Jews have had their chance to be the special chosen people of God. Because they did not accept Christ as their Messiah, they have, in the Apostle Paul’s words, been “cut off,” and a “new branch”—the Church, (composed of peoples from all ethnic groups,) has been grafted into their place. The Church, they contend, is the new Israel. The Jews, they say, can be “saved,” but only by becoming part of this new Israel.             Those who are of this persuasion say that there is no need any longer to define a specialness about the Jewish people, nor do they see any need for the Jews to occupy the Holy Land as a precondition to Christ’s return. 

In the Third Place:

   There is still another perspective on Jews’ place in the Holy Land espoused by many Christians, and especially many in the Calvinist tradition. These are Christians who affirm what has been called a “covenant theology.” According to these Christians, God can be counted on to keep His word and uphold His covenants. They believe, therefore, that what God promised to the Jews will one day be delivered. Since God promised the Jews salvation in the covenants made with them in ancient days of Israel, these Christians believe that evangelizing the Jews is unnecessary (see Robert McAfee Brown, Saying Yes and Saying No, 1986). What God promised for the salvation of the Jews, they claim, still stands, and insofar as the Jews live out the prescriptions of the Torah and the Prophets according to their own religious tradition, God’s salvation will be theirs. 

   What is generally accepted among most Christians is that there is something very special about the Jews, and they feel indebted to them in that the Hebrew Scriptures are a major part of their Bible, and that it was from the Jews that their Savior came. Furthermore, most Christians believe that the Jews deserve a homeland after having endured the Holocaust and a long history of persecution through the centuries before it. To them it seems that having a land that they can call their own is something that is due to the Jewish peoples. Add to this the antipathy that has grown up toward Muslims in general, and to Arab Muslims in particular, since September 11, (see Lee Griffith, The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God, 2002) and it is easy to understand why Christians have overwhelmingly sided with the struggle of the Israelis to establish for themselves a homeland with secure borders. 

   Among most American Christians there is a commonly held belief that Israel is the main outpost of democracy in the Middle East and is a partner in standing against the religio-political forces of that region that threaten the wellbeing of the western world. The Jews, therefore, can count on support for the State of Israel from most Christians into the foreseeable future. Each and every candidate vying for the presidency of our country had better be declared as being pro-Israel if votes are to be gleaned, not only from the Jewish community, but also from the vastly larger Christian population. This does not mean that anti-Semitism has disappeared among Christians, but it does give evidence that most Christians in America see the survival of the State of Israel in their own self-interest. It remains to be seen as to whether, in the days that lay ahead, these same Christians might trade support of Israel for the huge supply of oil that Arab nations can make available to them. Jews have been betrayed before by those who claimed to be their friends. If I were Jewish, I would be a little nervous about this recent support that Christians provided for the State of Israel.

 

Anthony Campolo, Ph.D., professor emeritus at Eastern University, founded the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education. Among, his most recent books are The God of Intimacy and Action and Red Letter Christians. www.TonyCampolo.org

He is also a member of the board of Christian Ethics Today.