Introduction
On May 14, 2018, the seventieth anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence, the presidential administration of Donald Trump officially opened the new US embassy in Jerusalem. As part of the ceremony, the Trump administration invited two Christian pastors to bookend the event. Opening the ceremony with a prayer was Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the fourteen-thousand-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. Closing the ceremony with a benediction was Pastor John Hagee, a Pentecostal minister who leads the nineteen-thousand-strong congregation of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. Hagee also founded the Christian Zionist lobby group Christians United for Israel (CUFI).
The presence of these two speakers was criticized by some in the media. Many reports highlighted Jeffress’s past statements about Jews going to hell and references to Mormonism as a cult, and the reports expressed concern that Jeffress believes that land-for-peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are opposed by God. Others noted Hagee’s controversial statements about Hurricane Katrina as God’s punishment for American sin as well as a past sermon about God sending Hitler as a “hunter” to get Jews to leave Europe and return to Israel as part of biblical prophecy.1
Criticism notwithstanding, the fact that that these two individuals were the Christians invited (as Christians) to provide their blessings to the embassy in Jerusalem is emblematic of the influence of this strand of Christian Zionism in American politics in the early 21st century. For Christian Zionists, moving the United States’ embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as well as formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, will yield divine favor on America. As Jeffress put it in his opening prayer, “Israel has blessed this world by pointing us to you, the one true God, through the message of her prophets, the Scriptures, and the Messiah.” Jeffress also praised President Donald Trump as one who “stands on the right side of you, O God, when it comes to Israel.”2 In his closing benediction, Hagee drew on similar Christian Zionist themes, thanking God for the state of Israel as “the lone torch of freedom in the Middle East who lives and prospers because of your everlasting love for the Jewish people,”3 and describing Jerusalem as the city of God where the messiah would soon return, a belief that has been central to many branches of Christian theology since before the state of Israel declared its independence.
This article provides an overview of Christian Zionism in the United States over the past ninety years. While it focuses primarily on Christian Zionism following Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, it will necessarily touch on some earlier precursors.
What Is Christian Zionism?
Christians have long had an interest in the restoration of Jews to their ancient homeland. Far from being a recent development, or a post-Jewish Zionist undertaking, the Christian desire for Jews to settle the land of Palestine predates its Jewish counterpart.4 The predecessor of the modern Christian Zionist movement is known as “restorationism”—a pre-20th-century Christian belief that the Jewish people would return (or be restored) to Palestine. Like contemporary Christian Zionism, restorationism was often directly linked with apocalyptic and millennial speculation regarding what a Jewish return to Palestine meant for the return of Jesus.5 Although many early 21st century Christian Zionists often connect themselves directly to this tradition to emphasize the historical basis and continuity of their movement, scholars should take some care in noting the different expressions and shape of Christian support for Jewish “restoration” both before and after the advent of organized Jewish Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel.
In its usage in the early 21st century, “Christian Zionism” refers to Christians who hold theological and political commitments that relate to the modern state of Israel. Stephen Spector defines it as “Christians whose faith, often in concert with other convictions, emotions, and experiences, leads them to support the modern state of Israel as the Jewish homeland.”6 Robert Smith defines Christian Zionism as “political action, informed by specifically Christian commitments, to promote or preserve Jewish control over the geographic area now comprising Israel and Palestine.”7 Scholar of religion Faydra Shapiro provides a more comprehensive definition. For Shapiro,
Christian Zionism is a general label for a specific orientation and emphasis within evangelicalism that ascribes vital theological, and often eschatological, importance to the Jews living in Israel. Christian Zionists are distinguished from evangelicals more broadly by their two intense and intertwined emphases: Israel and the Jews. ... Christian Zionists see their Zionism and focus on the Jews simply as a logical extension of their evangelical commitment to God and His Word. In their reading of the Bible, God has decreed a special role and status for the Jews sealed in an eternal covenant, together with a promise to restore them to their land. Thus, Christian Zionists see their own solidarity with the Jews and the modern nation of Israel to be paying homage to the God of Israel.8
What each of these definitions captures is that Christian Zionism is predicated on (a) practical and political support for the creation (before 1948) and expansion (after 1948) of an Israel, and (b) basing this support in specifically Christian truth claims regarding the significance that the modern state of Israel has in God’s plans.
Theological Precursors of Modern American Christian Zionism: Dispensationalism
It is generally accepted that for American evangelicals in the early 21st century, one of the significant precursors to Christian Zionism is a version of restorationist theology known as premillennial dispensationalism.9 This theology was developed in the early 1800s by the Irish Brethren preacher John Nelson Darby (1800–1882), who drew on restorationist ideas and added his own modifications. Although this theology is not held by all contemporary Christian Zionists, its introduction into American evangelical Christianity has shaped American culture and religion in ways that go beyond a rigid adherence to, or belief in, the tenets of dispensationalism.10
A full overview of dispensationalism is beyond the scope of this article; however, a few important tenets of it are important here for the influence they had and continue to have in segments of American religious life. The first, which is alluded to in Shapiro’s definition of Christian Zionism (see “What Is Christian Zionism?”), is the stark distinction between Israel and the church. For dispensationalists, the Bible reveals two divine plans operating in history: one focused on Israel (as God’s earthly people) and a second focused on the church (God’s heavenly people). As part of this distinction, proponents of dispensationalism assert that God’s covenant with Israel is still valid and therefore biblical passages and prophecies that mention Israel are still applied in a literal capacity to Israel (i.e., to ethnic Jews and the geographical area of Israel-Palestine), rather than applying to the Christian church in more figurative or symbolic ways. This is one reason that the modern state of Israel is so important for Christians influenced by this theology: its existence is a precondition for the fulfillment of all other biblical prophecies that lead to the return of Jesus.11
In its origins, dispensationalism was a strictly “futurist” theology. It was an interpretive approach to scripture that insisted that unfulfilled biblical prophecy would only occur in the future, at the end of the age directly preceding Jesus’ return. This futurist disposition is contrasted with “historicism.” Historicism is an approach to prophecy that interprets biblical prophecy as unfolding progressively throughout the course of human history, and it therefore takes a more symbolic approach to prophetic passages. Therefore, dispensationalists’ prophetic interpretations of the Books of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation described a future time in which Jews, having returned to Palestine, would restart the prophetic clock they argued God had “paused” when they “rejected” Jesus as their messiah. Only once the prophetic clock had been restarted would unfulfilled prophecy be completed.12
This futurism relates to a second important theological innovation that dispensationalism introduced: the concept of the Rapture. The Rapture is the any-moment event that would lift “true believers” off the earth for a period of seven years. This theological innovation was and is significant not necessarily because Christian Zionists rigidly adhere to it but because it helped negotiate certain theological tensions that often plague historicist forms of prophecy predictions that involve specific date setting by pushing specific prophecy fulfillment into an indeterminate future.
The Rapture helps maintain the sharp distinction between Israel and the church as well as a reading of the end times in which Christians avoid the Antichrist’s violent oppression and other prophecies they applied to Israel because by definition it removes “true” Christians off the earth for the duration of the great tribulation that marks the transition period from this age to the next. As Susan Harding notes,
By positing a pretribulational Rapture and by arguing that its date is not known and cannot be known, dispensationalists placed all fulfillment of unfulfilled Bible prophecies in the future and drew an incontrovertible line between Now and Then. As long as (true) Christians are on earth, unfulfilled Bible prophecies, strictly speaking, are not coming true.13
Once the Rapture does occur, dispensationalists claim, the world will descend into chaos, in part because of the absence of Christians providing a moral compass to society, and all unfulfilled prophecy relating to Israel, including the Antichrist’s violent persecution of Jews and the battle of Armageddon, will be completed. At the end of this period, Jesus will return to earth with the raptured church, defeat the Antichrist, and establish the millennial kingdom on earth for a thousand years of uninterrupted peace.14 These ideas were spread by Darby during trips to the United States in the latter half of the 19th century, but they did not gain much of a following until the early 20th century. During this period, “fundamentalism” was constituted as a coherent social movement, of which dispensationalism became a part through prophecy conferences throughout the early 20th century and the publication of a series of pamphlets on doctrinal issues called The Fundamentals.15
Another important figure in the reception of dispensationalism in the United States was Cyrus Ingerson Scofield. Scofield took Darby’s ideas, especially his prophetic timeline, futurist eschatology, and distinction between Israel and the church and codified them in the Scofield Reference Bible, first published in 1909. It was through Scofield’s commentaries that dispensationalist terms that are common in the early 21st century were first introduced to large swaths of the American population.16 In its early iterations, which scholars describe as “classical dispensationalism,” the next prophetic event expected on the prophetic calendar was not the establishment of Israel but rather the rapture of the church.17 Consequently, the establishment of Israel in 1948 and its expansion in 1967 brought some elements of historicism back into premillennialists’ interpretation of prophecy by reversing the order of Jewish restoration and the rapture of the church. This was reflected, for example in a revised Scofield Reference Bible published in 1948.
The degree to which these ideas continue to animate contemporary Christian Zionism are debated by scholars and are contested by contemporary Christian Zionists. In large part, it was Darby’s dualism that had the most enduring influence on evangelical Christian Zionists, especially in the aftermath of World War II.18 This enduring distinction between Israel and the church is also important for understanding how the concept of “blessing Israel” became so central to expressions of American Christian Zionism.
Genesis 12:3: Blessing Israel
Another important theological source of contemporary Christian Zionism that rests on the sharp distinction between Israel and the church embodied in dispensationalism is the biblical verse Genesis 12:3. Genesis 12:3 (New International Version) reads, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” For contemporary Christian Zionists, this is God speaking in perpetuity. That is, in a Christian Zionist reading of this verse, God promises that those who bless (politically, materially, spiritually, verbally, etc.) the state of Israel or individual Jews or both will receive similar blessings in return.19
In the United States, Christian Zionists have connected and continue to connect this verse with their political aspirations and the fate of the country. As will be outlined in later sections (see “The Christian Right and the Israeli Right”, “American Christian Zionism during the Presidency of Donald Trump”, “Charismatic and “Spirit”-Centered Christian Zionism” and “American Christian Zionism during the Obama Administration”), this verse is used to frame the trajectory of the United States and whether it will receive divine favor. Drawing on themes of American exceptionalism and Christian Nationalism, Christian Zionists cite Genesis 12:3 in a way that defines support for Israel as America’s responsibility as a “Christian nation” as well as the source of and key to America’s continued prosperity.20
Thus, as Stephen Spector notes,
One of conservative Christians’ main political accomplishments [since the 1930s] has been to broaden popular American support for almost unrestricted backing of Israel. Even evangelicals who reject dispensational end-times scenarios often continue to believe that God loves the Jewish people and that Israel is central to His plan for salvation.21
Despite this success, the first formal organized political support for Israel from Christian groups in the United States came not from evangelicals or fundamentalists with whom Christian Zionism is now synonymous but from mainline Protestants.
Mainline Protestants and Political Organization for Israel
Prior to Israel’s declaration of independence, and in the years following, political organizing in support of the Israel by Christians in the United States was dominated by more liberal or “mainline” Protestants.22 After the Balfour Declaration in 1917, some small groups of American Protestants began to show interest in establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1930, some mainline Protestants formed the Pro-Palestine Federation and sought to persuade their mainline counterparts to join them in support of the creation of a Jewish state, though they were generally met with resistance. This resistance was because of widespread antisemitism in 1930s America that was exacerbated by the Great Depression, policies of isolationism, and other social ills that engendered strong attitudes of nationalism.23
Despite this resistance, there remained a cohort of mainline Protestants who became involved in politics during Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s. For example the Pro-Palestine Federation worked to lift British Immigration barriers in Palestine to help Jews escaping Nazi Germany.24 In 1941, mainline Protestants founded the American Palestine Committee (APC) in response to the increasing Jewish persecution in Europe. The APC described itself as “Christian America’s vehicle for the expression of sympathy for the Jewish aspirations in Palestine,” and in its first press release it announced its support of the “holy land” as an “Outpost of Freedom and Social Justice,” which deserved the support of the American Christian community.25 In 1942, a year after the APC was established, mainline Protestants established a subcommittee of the APC called the Christian Council on Palestine. In 1946, the two merged into the American Christian Palestine Committee (ACPC).26
For mainline Protestants, support for Jewish self-determination in Palestine, against the backdrop of Nazi persecution was a moral and social justice issue. In the aftermath of World War II, professor of Christian ethics at Union Theological Seminary and founder of Christianity in Crisis Reinhold Niebuhr encouraged Christians to support Zionism on “humanitarian, ethical, and moral grounds” rather than on the Biblicist grounds that have animated much of American Christian Zionism in the early 21st century.27 The historian Caitlin Carenen argues that the reason President Truman recognized Israel’s provisional government so swiftly was largely because of the work of mainline Protestants in the aftermath of World War II. Mainline Protestants not only argued that the Holocaust necessitated support for Zionism but that historic Christian antisemitism also helped create the Holocaust, and therefore Christians had moral responsibility to support Zionism.28 As a practical way to develop this support, the ACPC sponsored a national seminar that featured speakers such as Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, as well as educators, journalists, political analysts, and others. According to the organizers, the purpose of this event was to initiate a series of nationwide events that would all focus on Christian support of Jewish settlement in Palestine.29
In many respects, in the 1930s and 1940s, during and in the aftermath of World War II as well as the creation of the Israel in 1948, it was mainline Protestants who laid much of the groundwork for the shape of the Christian Zionist movement in the early 21st century. Rather than emphasizing the theological or prophetic significance of Jewish settlement in Palestine, mainline Protestants viewed it and represented it as a social-justice and moral issue. As the historian Daniel Hummel argues, “The call to political support for Israel and reconciliation with the Jewish people—so central to many liberal Protestants in the same moment—remained anathema to most dispensationalists.”30
Dispensationalists and the Founding of Israel
Prior to 1948, as a result of the “fundamentalist-modernist split” and the Scopes Trial, the fundamentalists had, for the most part, retreated from public and political life. Those influenced by dispensational theology viewed Israel through a prophetic lens rather than a social-justice one, and they were far less inclined to involve themselves with worldly politics. Fundamentalist periodicals and publications during the 1930s and 1940s reported on Nazi persecution of Jews in a way that both lamented it but also represented it as an unfortunate inevitability that helped fulfill biblical prophecy by encouraging more Jews to settle in Palestine. For example, in his 1940 publication, Palestine: The Coming Storm Center, Harry Rimmer wrote,
All that Hitler has accomplished by his European-wide persecution may be summed up in a sentence: he has accelerated the return of Israel to Palestine, thus apparently hastening his own doom! By driving “A preserved people” back into the preserved land, Hitler, who does not believe the Bible and who sneers at the Word of God, is helping to fulfill its most outstanding prophecy! Thus does the wrath of men sometimes serve the purposes of God. ... All of this adds up to a brightening of the blessed hope [the return of Jesus], and we may indeed trust in the nearness of our Lord’s return. The prophecies state that when Jesus comes to reign, Israel will be dwelling in her own land. The present status is clear. A Jewish state is in process of development in Palestine.31
Two years prior, in the fundamentalist periodical Our Hope, Arno C. Gaebelein wrote that the increase in antisemitism and Jewish persecution in Europe was proof that “their own God-inspired Scriptures are being fulfilled.”32 Furthermore, as an example of how divergent fundamentalists and mainline Protestants were on the issue of political engagement and providing practical support for the Zionist movement, Gaebelein emphasized that this persecution could not be solved with human endeavors, “nor can a united front with Gentile nominal Christians bring about change,” he argued in a reference to the efforts of the ACPC. “The change will come when ‘they shall look upon Him whom they pierced’ and acknowledge Christ as their Saviour-King.”33
When Israel declared its independence on May 17, 1948, dispensationalists welcomed the news thanks largely to what they interpreted as its prophetic significance. The president of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (Biola University), Louis T. Talbot, told listeners of his radio program that “this could be the beginning of that train of events which will not end until the Lord Jesus Christ Himself returns and sets up the everlasting Kingdom which shall never be thrown down.”34 Talbot’s colleague William Orr was also enthusiastic about Israel’s establishment because of his belief that it fulfilled prophecy and proved the veracity of the Bible.
There isn’t the slightest doubt but that the emergence of the Nation of Israel among the family of nations is the greatest piece of prophetic news that we have had in the 20th century. Perhaps its most important significance lies in the fact that is indisputable evidence of God’s hand moving in the affairs of men.35
In the period leading up to and following Israel’s declaration of independence, dispensationalists’ interpretation of these events was firmly shaped by their Biblicist worldview and what they believed the state of Israel represented: verification of the inerrancy of the Bible and the validation of their cultural authority in the face of modernism.
Despite the ambivalence with which Jewish persecution was received by dispensationalists who interpreted it and the subsequent founding of Israel in prophetic terms, the events of 1948 began to transform the way some evangelicals understood and interacted with the new Jewish state; however, this would not reach its full zenith until 1967.36
In the years between 1948 and 1967, mainline Protestants and conservative evangelicals engaged with the new state of Israel in remarkably different ways. However, what they shared was an understanding of Israel that was informed by their own political and religious commitments. For liberal and mainline Protestants, Israel and Zionism represented the zenith of the progressive American values by which they saw themselves as champions. As Amy Kaplan notes, Zionism revived the fight against fascism, and its “experiment in collective agriculture” enabled liberals to imagine “New-Deal style public projects bringing social equality to the Middle East.”37 Thus support for Israel and Zionism by liberal Protestants in the years before and after 1948 can be seen as part of their broader support of progressive politics, social justice, and internationalism in which they saw themselves and Israel as constituent parts.
However, dispensationalists and conservative evangelicals of the time projected their own interests onto Israel. During the early years of Israel’s existence, with some notable exceptions, these interests were predominantly theological, with Israel cited as proof of the veracity of the Bible and the imminent return of Jesus.38 At this juncture in Israel’s history, mainline Protestants worked to support Israel on the basis that it represented their own progressive values, while dispensationalists saw its existence and its Jewish population as sufficient evidence that Israel represented their own rather different interests. The events of 1967 and the years following changed this.
American Christian Zionist Responses to the Six-Day War
One of the consequences of the Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War (1948–1967) was that the base of American Christian political support for Israel shifted from mainline Protestants to conservative evangelicals influenced by premillennial dispensationalism and who viewed Israel through a predominantly theological lens. Echoing the triumphant claims of Talbot about Israel’s fulfillment of prophecy in 1948, L. Nelson Bell penned a similarly enthusiastic piece in the July 1967 issue of Christianity Today. Drawing on dispensational beliefs regarding the distinction between the spiritual Israel (the church) and the physical Israel (Jews), Bell emphasized the prophetic significance of Israel’s victory: “In both the Old Testament and the New there are prophecies that speak definitely of Israel as a nation. Many have been fulfilled and their literal fulfillment strengthens our faith. Other prophecies have yet to be fulfilled.” Bell, like other evangelicals, interpreted Israel’s victory and territorial expansion as further material proof of biblical authority in the face of modernist impulses. Bell noted “that for the first time in 2,000 years Jerusalem is now completely in the hands of the Jews gives a student of the Bible a thrill and a renewed faith in the accuracy and validity of the Bible.”39 As time went on, the events of 1967 and Israel’s continued occupation of the territories it captured during the war were less celebrated by mainline Protestants, however. Because mainline Christians saw Israel as a humanitarian rather than biblical issue, they were also more reticent to offer their unwavering support.40
Although Israel’s swift victory in the Six-Day War was referenced by premillennialists as proof of their truth claims against modernist influences and that the end times were at hand, this did not immediately translate into mass political activity among their ranks. It did not hurt, however. One notable figure in the formation of a politically engaged Christian Zionist movement—a figure undiscussed until the early 21st century—was G. Douglas Young, who had been developing connections with the Israeli Foreign Ministry since the early 1960s. Young was an important figure in the transformation of evangelicals’ passive observance of Israel as a monument to the truth of their biblical truth claims, as a place that they ought to support actively.41
Young was a self-described Christian Zionist who subscribed to premillennial dispensational theology. Much like the views outlined in “Theological Precursors of Modern American Christian Zionism,” Young viewed Jews as important pieces of God’s prophetic puzzle. In contrast to other American dispensationalists who still maintained their distance from many forms of overt political activity, Young was heavily involved in active support for Israel, blending his beliefs about the prophetic significance that Israel and Jews living in it had for Christians with practical support for the Israel, a model that contemporary Christian Zionism follows closely in the early 21st century.
According to Young, premillennial Christians at this time were “interested in prophecy” but lacked interest in helping “the people of prophecy.”42 The historian Daniel Hummel argues that Young’s political activism “was driven by the conviction that liberal Christians were anti-Israel, the media were unbalanced in their coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and most evangelicals in the United States were lackluster in their material support for Israel.”43
In 1957, Young established the American Institute of Holy Land Studies in West Jerusalem. Following Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Young moved the campus to a new location next to the Old City’s southern wall.44 One example of Young’s work in growing the Christian Zionist movement was the 1971 the Jerusalem Conference on Biblical Prophecy, which he organized with the intention of strengthening “the ties between Israel and evangelicals around the world” and of being “an inspiration[al] rallying point for Christians from the west.”45 The conference was attended by nearly fifteen hundred evangelicals from over thirty countries. According to Hummel, the conference “provided an outstanding window into the divisions among evangelicals and the place of Christian Zionism in American Evangelicalism in the early 1970s.”46 These divisions included differing views on Israel’s role in prophecy as well as views on proselytization and missions. Unlike many other evangelicals, Young was not focused on evangelizing Jews in Israel. Instead he blended his prophetic beliefs about Jews and Israel, with themes reminiscent of those of mainline Protestants who supported Zionism in its inception, emphasizing interfaith relations and practical support for both theological and moral reasons—namely, a responsibility in light of the holocaust and Jewish persecution, in conjunction with his beliefs about the prophetic significance of Israel.47 Throughout his career, he built a broad coalition of evangelicals and Jews together, with varying degrees of success, in what he saw as a form of interfaith dialogue.
In 1976, Young established the Christian Zionist organization Bridges for Peace, which continues its work through the early 21st century, publishing literature, lobbying governments and supporting Jewish immigration to Israel.48 In 1977, three years before his death, Young and fourteen other evangelical leaders published a full-page ad in the New York Times expressing “Evangelicals’ Concern for Israel.” The ad criticized the Carter administration for its failure to support Israel, and articulated a distinctly evangelical understanding of the relationship of the Jewish people to “the land.” “The time has come,” it concluded, “for Evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in biblical prophecy and Israel’s Divine Right to the Land by speaking out now.”49
In many respects, Young’s political work, combined with his beliefs on Israel’s role in prophecy, provided a template upon which the modern Christian Zionist movement has developed.
Updating and Popularizing Dispensationalism after 1967
The Six-Day War and events throughout the 1970s changed not only the physical map of Israel but also the “mythic map.”50 For the prophetically minded Christian Zionists, there was much to be enthusiastic about in Israel, and there was a boom in prophecy publishing that anticipated the imminent return of Jesus.51
The most well known of these works was Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth. Lindsey was a graduate of the dispensationalist-steeped Dallas Theological Seminary. Published in 1970, The Late Great Planet Earth became the bestselling nonfiction book of the 1970s. Lindsey’s book updated and further popularized dispensational hermeneutics by inserting Cold War politics and other contemporary issues into the biblical text.52 Israel, however, is the protagonist of Lindsey’s book, and like many dispensationalists before him, he viewed the creation of Israel as the fulfillment of prophecy and an indication of God’s prophetic clock, through which all outstanding biblical prophecy would be completed.
One of the unfulfilled prophecies that became a point of fascination for dispensationalists after 1967 was the construction of the third Temple. Lindsey described this in The Late Great Planet Earth: “There remains but one more event to completely set the stage for Israel’s part in the last great act of her historical drama. This is to rebuild the ancient Temple of worship upon its old site.” Acknowledging the logistical problems posed by the Dome of the Rock, Lindsey also dismisses them: “Obstacle or no obstacle, it is certain the Temple will be rebuilt. Prophecy demands it.”53 Like his dispensationalist predecessors, Lindsey was primarily concerned with what Israel represented for Christian truth claims.
With the Jewish nation reborn in the land of Palestine, ancient Jerusalem once again under total Jewish control for the first time in 2600 years, and talk of rebuilding the great Temple, the most important prophetic sign of Jesus Christs’ coming us before us[,] .... for all those who trust in Jesus Christ it is a time of electrifying excitement.54
Christian Zionists Participating in Prophecy
As a consequence of the seeming closeness of Jesus’ return because of these events, some premillennialists began to take it upon themselves to give God a helping hand in the unfolding of certain prophetic events. For example, in 1969 an Australian named Denis Rohan set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in an effort to clear the ground to rebuild the Third Temple, on account of the belief that it was a prophetic necessity.55
In the 1970s and 1980s, other Christian Zionists discovered that there were some Orthodox Jews, such as the Temple Mount Faithful and the Temple Foundation, who interested in rebuilding the Temple. These groups were also involved in recreating sacrificial instruments and priestly garments based on talmudic and biblical specifications and in working to identify the exact location of the Temple.56 From the perspective of premillennialist Christian Zionists, the existence of such Jewish groups who appeared to be unwittingly paving the way for the further fulfillment of prophecy was further proof that they were living in the last days.
Another curious aspect of some premillennialists’ fascination with participating in prophecy by aiding the creation of a third Temple relates to the breeding of a red heifer. According to Jewish law the ashes of an “unblemished” red heifer are needed to allow Jews to enter the temple. As a result, these Israeli groups have developed ongoing working relationships with Christian Zionists to find such a red heifer. Some Christian Zionists, such as the American Southern Baptist Clyde Lott, began to try to breed a perfect red heifer in preparation, raising concerns about the potential for such an animal to encourage acts of violence, like blowing up the Dome of the Rock.57
American Christian Zionism after the Yom Kippur War
The outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 was another galvanizing event for Christian Zionists with prophetic interests in Israel. Christianity Today reported on the fighting and “widespread speculative discussion on current events and Bible prophecy.” The influential founder of Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith (1927–2013), was in Israel with eighty of his parishioners during the first week that fighting broke out. Many were so convinced that the war was the prelude to Jesus’ return that they did not want to leave the country and instead wanted to remain in Israel to meet Jesus there.58 The president of Dallas Theological Seminary John Walvoord told Christianity Today that the war was part of a pattern that pointed toward the end times.59 Hal Lindsey described the war as “a continuation of the priming of the fuse which will finally ignite the last war,” and emphasized that “this is not the end, but the rapture is very close.”60
This period marked another shift in Christian Zionism in America. Amy Kaplan argues that, in the context of the terrorism and the Cold War, “a new narrative gained currency that united Israel and America as leaders in a global war of civilization against barbarism.”61 Consequently, the momentum that individuals like G. Douglas Young had started in building relationships and networks between Israel and the United States and the role that many believed Israel and the United States had as champions of freedom and representatives of Judeo-Christianity began to take hold in the context of the Cold War. When Christian Zionism emerged as a mass political issue for evangelicals in the 1970s, the Israeli government and American evangelical leaders like Billy Graham all sought Young’s guidance on the subject.62 The story of Young’s efforts as well as the significance of the work he did in constructing the modern Christian Zionist movement has only begun to receive attention in the early 21st century. However, as Hummel has demonstrated, the groundwork that Young accomplished in building relationships between the Israeli government and a broad coalition of postwar American evangelicals has had a lasting effect on American Christian Zionism. In particular, Young’s
efforts to situate Christian Zionism within the Judeo-Christian concept and the Cold War were instrumental to the later history of Christian Zionism and many of his arguments became the “common sense” of later Christian Zionists that made up the American Religious Right and became politically ascendent in the 1970s towards the end of Young’s life.63
The Christian Right and the Israeli Right
The rise of the Christian Right in American politics in the 1970s and 1980s also coincided rightward shift in Israeli politics with the election of Menachem Begin’s Likud government in 1977. In the United States, Jerry Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority, became the cultural icon for the reengagement of fundamentalists in American political life.64 The Christian Right was predominantly focused on domestic issues and returning America to “traditional values.” However, in the Cold War era, Israel became synonymous with the first half of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and in popular culture in the 1970s and 1980s it was seen as a copartner in a “civilizational war against barbarism.”65 These themes, alongside Israel’s theological significance and the belief that God deals with nations as they deal with Israel (Genesis 12:3), meant that support for Israel was easily folded in to the Christian Right’s domestic agenda.66 This understanding of America’s divine purpose in supporting Israel was summed up by the late Falwell.
God has raised up America in these last days for the cause of world evangelization and for the protection of his people, the Jews... . I don’t think America has any other right or reason for existence other than those two purposes.67
The revisionist Zionism of Begin’s Likud government, along with its insistence on calling the West Bank “Judea and Samaria,” was also warmly welcomed by Christian Zionists who viewed Israel entirely in biblical terms. Thus, in contrast to the previous era of Christian Zionism, which was defined by Labor Zionist governments and postwar evangelicals like Young and Billy Graham, there was much greater ideological continuity that defined the relationship between the Christian and Israeli Right. Consequently, the relationship between Begin and Falwell developed quickly, and by 1981 Falwell and Begin changed the face of Christian Zionism dramatically.68
Falwell’s Christian Zionism and the Zionism of the Christian Right more broadly were based on dispensational hermeneutics on the one hand and an admiration for Israel’s militarism on the other. An example of the admiration of Israel’s militarism is the support and praise that Falwell offered Begin after Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility; Falwell claimed that he was proud that America had manufactured the F-16s used to complete the controversial mission.69
One of the important changes in Christian Zionism that occurred during this period was the way Israel made Christian Zionists an integral part of its diplomatic relationship with United States. This was part of Israeli hasbara (public diplomacy), designed to advance a positive image of Israel abroad. Beginning in 1978, Begin made a series of high-profile gestures that ensured Falwell’s place as Israel’s preferred Christian Zionist. In November 1980, Falwell became the first non-Jew to receive the Jabotinsky Award, named after the revisionist Zionist and ideological inspiration for Likud, Ze’ev Jabotinsky.70
Falwell also engaged in hasbara by defending Israel against international criticism, including from the Reagan administration, after it was critical of Israel’s attack on the Osirak reactor. Throughout the 1980s, Falwell and the Moral Majority provided political support for Israel at home in the United States and financial and material support for Israel abroad by regularly sending tour groups to Israel and meeting regularly with Israeli officials.71 Falwell was successful in encouraging the Republican Party’s conservative coalition toward Israel-friendly policies on a range of issues, including the response to the Osirak bombing, the West Bank, and the 1982 Lebanon War, to the extent that members of the Republican Party even countered the Reagan administration’s own positions.72
Christian Zionism after September 11, 2001
In many respects, throughout the 1990s Christian Zionism lacked a coherent organizing principle. The events of September 11, 2001 (hereafter 9/11) changed this, as they had a significant effect on reviving and focusing Christian Zionism in the United States. Evangelicals’ pro-Israel sympathies and the representation of Israel as an outpost of Western and specifically American values in the Middle East contributed to anti-Muslim views prior to 9/11. Scholars such as Thomas Kidd have demonstrated that while the visibility and intensity of evangelical Islamophobia grew after 9/11, American Evangelicals have a long history of these views.73 However, the events of 9/11 heightened Americans’ senses of Islamic terrorism as a direct threat to them, which was then mapped onto the Arab-Israeli conflict more generally. As a result, Islam and Muslims replaced the “evil empire” as the enemy of the West.74 In this environment, Israel was represented as a beacon of freedom and Western values that mirrored those of the United States.75 Gary Bauer, for example, exemplified this shift in a speech to a Christian Zionist crowd in 2010, noting that “the events that took place after 9/11 ... should have instructed us about what we are facing and what Israel is facing, and I would argue what all of Western Civilization, all of Judeo-Christian civilization is facing.”76 The threat Bauer spoke of was part of what some believed was a revived clash civilizations that emerged directly after 9/11 and the ensuing Global War on Terror (GWOT) led by the United States in its aftermath.
As with previous military events, 9/11 and the preemptive invasion of Iraq spurred prophecy speculation among Christian Zionists. Titles such as Keith Intrater’s From Iraq to Armageddon: The Final Showdown, John Hagee’s Attack on America: New York, Jerusalem, and the Role of Terrorism in the Last Days all placed the GWOT into the biblical- and dispensationalist-influenced narratives about the prophesied battle of Armageddon and the role that Israel and especially contests over Jerusalem had in relation to Jesus’ return.77 Overall, the growing awareness of and concerns about Islamic terrorism were couched by Christian Zionists in narratives that represented Islam as being engaged in a cosmic war with Judeo-Christianity, most readily exemplified by Israel and the United States.78
In the years following 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, many Christian Zionists in the United States turned their attention to Iran. Iran, as ancient Persia did, had previously occupied space in prophecy books about the end times and the Middle East. It was and remains associated with the nations that would come against Israel in the lead-up to the battle of Armageddon, described as the Gog and Magog wars in Ezekiel 38–39. However, as with much of the history of Christian Zionism, there is a tension between structure and agency, and Christian Zionists’ attention is often influenced by what is happening in the world at the time. Thus, with George W. Bush’s labeling of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as part of an “Axis of Evil” in his State of the Union address in 2002, as well as Iran’s nuclear program and inflammatory statements about imagining a world without Zionism and the destruction of Israel from Iran’s then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Christian Zionists’ attention became fixed on speculation about Iran’s possible role in the end times.79 For those who are fascinated by end-times theology, the threat of Iran to Israel and the United States once again appeared to prove the truth of their biblical predictions.
In 2006, the American pastor and prominent Christian Zionist John Hagee founded CUFI. In the years since was founded, it has made opposition to Iran’s nuclear program a primary point of its lobbying efforts.80
Hagee—outside of his role as CUFI’s executive director—has espoused a theology that is firmly grounded in dispensationalism, and he publishes regularly on the relationship between events in the Middle East and the End Times. In his 2006 book, Jerusalem Countdown, Hagee made clear that he believed a conflict with Iran would set off the Gog and Magog wars prophesied in Ezekiel 38–39, which are so central to dispensationalist views of the end times and Jesus’ return.81
In interviews with the Jerusalem Post and Fox News in 2006, as well as during a speech at CUFI’s Washington Summit in 2007, Hagee made clear that he supported a preemptive military strike on Iran to destroy its nuclear facilities and to “save Israel and Western civilization for a nuclear attack.”82 Based on this and his writing, many observers and critics expressed concern about CUFI’s ulterior motives and Hagee’s true aims—that he was supporting a preemptive strike to bring about the conflict that would lead to the rapture of the church and begin the chain of events that would culminate in the battle of Armageddon and Jesus’ return. These accusations have been denied by Hagee, who has emphasized that evangelicals do not believe they can “force God’s Hand.”83 Although many people see Hagee and CUFI as merely a continuation of the Christian Zionism characterized by figures such as Falwell and Lindsey, he is in fact emblematic of another shift in the trajectory of American Christian Zionism toward a more charismatic, Pentecostal, and “spirit”-centered Christian Zionism.
Charismatic and “Spirit”-Centered Christian Zionism
After the decline of Christian Right Zionism in the late 1980s, which was characterized by figures such as Falwell, Christian Zionism in the United States became defined by more “spirit” oriented, and Pentecostal preachers such as John Hagee took hold of the movement.84 While Hagee and many other spirit-centered Christian Zionists are dispensationalists, others are not, and many repudiate dispensationalism specifically, especially those who hold a dominionist or postmillennial theology that emphasizes the need for humans to work toward establishing God’s kingdom on earth before Jesus will return.85 Despite this, there is still a strong eschatological component to their understanding of Israel’s role in God’s plans.
As the Historian Daniel Hummel notes,
Spirit-centered Christians transformed Christian Zionism and decisively lead the movement. They advanced a distinctive theological program that gave new shape to contemporary Christian Zionist activism. Since the 1980s, Spirit-centered Zionists have prioritized God’s promise in Genesis 12:3 to “bless those who bless” Israel. Merging Pentecostal theology with the prosperity gospel, Spirit-centered Zionists have linked their own diverse individual and national interests to the state of Israel.86
The prevalence of spirit-centered Zionism as the dominant form of influential and politically active Christian Zionism in the United States is evident in Hagee’s CUFI. The first national, single-issue Christian Zionist organization was not only founded by Hagee, but its leadership is also composed of spirit-centered megachurches across the United States. They include the Word of Faith International Christian Center in Michigan, the Living Word Christian Center in Minnesota, Faith Bible Chapel in Colorado, and Free Life Chapel in Florida, among others. Moreover, in addition to political speeches, seminars, and lobbying, CUFI events incorporate long periods of prayer, singing songs about Zion, and singing in Hebrew, as well as other Jewish symbolism. This pageantry is part of the long history of Pentecostals’ identification with Israel and the use of Jewish and Israel-themed rituals in the formation of a specific Christian identity.87
Although the stark distinction between Israel and the church and, by extension, Jews and gentiles that is a primary component of premillennial dispensationalism is maintained in the political expressions of spirit-centered Christian Zionism exemplified by Hagee and CUFI, which maintains a strict no-proselytization policy, other forms of charismatic and Pentecostal Christian Zionism that follow a more dominionist theological orientation hold a different view.88
As the scholar Joseph Williams notes, from the year 2000 onward there has been considerable prevalence in Judeo-centric themes in the Pentecostal-charismatic movement. This theology, which emphasizes a merging of Jews and gentiles as “one new man,” is found in such representative as Reuben Doron’s One New Man (1993), Don Finto’s Your People Shall Be My People (2001), Sid Roth’s The Incomplete Church: Unifying God’s Children (2007), and theOne New Man Bible (2011).89
Spirit-centered Christian Zionists, including those in organizations such as CUFI, connected the logic of the prosperity gospel with their support for Israel, primarily though not exclusively through their reading of Genesis 12:3. In this respect, they connected the destiny and flourishing of the United States with the nation of Israel. This theological disposition not only provided a rhetoric to smooth over theological differences and disagreements among Christian Zionists.90 It also shaped their political engagement and criticism of the Obama administration from 2008–2016, as well their more positive interactions with and influence over the Trump administration, which embraced Christian Zionists in ways not seen previously seen in a presidential administration.
American Christian Zionism during the Obama Administration
The election of Barack Obama in 2008 also helped unify Christian Zionists, who couched their opposition to him in relation to their support for Israel. Their opposition to Obama came in the form of what he represented to them. Rumors that he was a closeted Muslim were highlighted by his critics as evidence that he was and would be anti-Israel. For example, drawing on these rumors even prior to his election, the Republican Party of Tennessee put out a press release headlined “Anti-Semites for Obama.” The press release was represented as an analysis of the candidate’s Middle East policy views, and it argued that if “Barack Hussein Obama” were elected president, Israel’s security would be endangered.91
Christian Zionists used Obama’s 2009 speech in Cairo in which he sought to establish a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world” based on a relationship of “mutual interests and mutual respect” as further evidence that Obama was anti-Israel.92 During the eight years that Obama was in the White House, American Christian Zionists focused much of their attention on the perception that Obama was anti-Israel and their belief that the Iran nuclear deal was an existential threat to Israel.
Christian Zionists framed their support for Israel and opposition to Obama through the scriptural injunction of Genesis 12:3 that, they argue, requires nations to support Israel lest they fall victim to a divine curse or punishment. From their point of view, the Obama administration’s attempts to “divide Jerusalem” as well as to broker a nuclear deal with Iran were two clear examples of “cursing” Israel (Genesis 12:3) and “dividing God’s land” (Joel 3:2), which they claimed would result in divine punishment on America.93 This framing is one example of the influence that “spirit”-centered Christian Zionists were having on the shape of the movement.
Christian Zionists expressed concern that, from the outset of his presidency, Obama was mistreating Israel and thus inviting divine judgment upon the nation. The eight years that spanned the Obama administration’s two terms provided a virtually limitless supply of occasions for American Christian Zionists to define themselves as true Christians engaged in a spiritual war, protecting Israel from a president who many claimed was working on behalf of Satan to obstruct God’s will for Israel. One of the ways this was achieved was by focusing on the administration’s criticism of ongoing building in East Jerusalem; Obama’s 2011 statement that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps”94 and the administration’s reticence to use language that its critics claimed sufficiently demonized Islam. The administration’s willingness to engage diplomatically with Iran, via the Iran nuclear deal, was also a primary source of demonization, because of American Christian Zionists’ views on Iran as an existential threat to Israel. All of this work was politically successful in the sense that it created the impression that Obama was anti-Israel and pro-Iran. At a theological level, then, this represented Obama as anti-God and therefore in league with Satan.95
Having been founded just two years prior to Obama’s electoral victory, CUFI flourished throughout the Obama administration’s two terms, growing to over two million members by 2015 and working to put political pressure on the administration, especially with regard to Iran. In 2015, at the height of the debate around the Iran nuclear deal, CUFI worked hard to defeat the agreement in Congress. To do this, CUFI created the CUFI Action Fund. When it was established, the Action Fund was headed by Gary Bauer, who held previous roles in CUFI and the Reagan administration. Importantly, the Action Fund was registered as a 501(c)(4) organization, which is the Internal Revenue Service designation for tax-exempt groups dedicated to social welfare, which meant that it could engage in more direct political activities than CUFI could as a 501(c)(3) organization. According to Bauer, the Action Fund delivered daily reports to every congressional office on issues related to the US-Israel relationship.96 Echoing themes of Christian nationalism and the blurring of Israel and the United States, Bauer told reporters that
even though it’s Christians United for Israel, really at the end of the day it is about the United States, too. ... Israel and the United States are the two pillars of Western civilization, and that civilization is under attack.97
American Christian Zionism during the Presidency of Donald Trump
When Donald Trump was elected president with support from 81 percent of White evangelicals, of whom Christian Zionists are a subset, it surprised many outside observers who tried to make sense of how self-identified Christians who made morality a large part of their identity could support someone who seemed to lack it in so many ways. One way of accounting for this is by acknowledging that Trump’s choice of the evangelical Mike Pence as his running mate could explain their initial support. But studies following Trump’s election as well as the evidence and reasoning given by evangelicals tell a different story. One explanation for the strong evangelical support for a decidedly nonevangelical president is explained by his appeals to Christian nationalism and the belief among evangelical voters that Trump “represented a defense of America’s supposed Christian heritage.”98 Another explanation is Trump’s ability to tap into the evangelical movement’s energy and social discontent, especially in light of the way evangelical opposition to Obama was framed in such a way that he was represented as trying to destroy America’s Christian heritage.99 The way Obama was represented as anti-Israel and anti-Christian by his evangelical detractors helped establish the rhetorical conditions through which his opponent was constructed as working on behalf God.
The fact that Trump seemed such an unlikely candidate made the belief that there was divine influence helping him even more plausible, with many comparing him to King Cyrus—an unbeliever anointed by God to do his will. For Christian Zionists, Trump’s support for Israel was part of his divine purposes. He was represented as a divine instrument, chosen by God to lead the country. Much of this was framed in reference to the US-Israel relationship.
Prior to Trump’s electoral victory, pro-Israel Christian news sources published a series of articles urging Christians to vote for Trump on the basis of his support for Israel and other issues framed around divine judgment. Much of this was achieved by the way they had previously framed Obama’s activities as actively inviting a curse on America—a curse that they asserted the Republican candidate was positioned to lift.100
For example, Charisma News published a series of articles that framed the election as a referendum on whether the United States would continue to receive God’s favor. The first in the series, titled “Will Obama’s Betrayal of Israel Bring America Down?,” warned of (further) divine punishment on America because of Obama’s “betrayal of Israel,” his “love affair with Iran,” and his advocacy of “land for peace”—all of which the article claimed would continue if Hillary Clinton were elected.101 The second article in the series suggested a solution in the title: “Could Donald Trump Reverse the Curse over America?”102 The article therefore implied that Trump’s purportedly pro-Israel stance would, to use his own campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” not through specific policies per se but rather through the divine blessings that would follow those policies.103
Thus, when Donald Trump was elected president, American Christian Zionists represented it as God’s will on account of his support for Israel. Appearing on the Trinity Broadcasting Network’s television show The Watchman, CUFI’s John Hagee represented Trump’s success as the result of divine influence, explaining to the host and viewers that he believed Trump took the lead
when he started supporting Israel. He started making very bold statements that he would be the defender of Israel, that he would move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. ... And that’s when he started going up in the polls. I believe that’s when God almighty got involved in this electoral process and appointed him by the very supernatural power of heaven. Because the Bible says the Lord raises up a leader and God puts down a leader. And everyone is saying there’s a supernatural element. I assure you that when Donald Trump started saying good things about Israel, the winds of heaven got behind his political sails and pushed him right to the White House.104
The film The Trump Prophecy and the book upon which it was based also advance this narrative.105 The film purports to show how Mark Taylor, a retired firefighter turned author and Pentecostal “prophet,” received divine revelation of Trump’s victory years before it occurred. At the end of the film, numerous conservative, charismatic Christians, including David Barton, Lance Wallnau, and Michelle Bachmann, speak about various things they claim Trump did to bring America back in line with God and his intentions for the nation. A prominent theme in their explanations relates to Trump’s relationship with Israel.
One speaker, Janet Porter, made this explicit:
If you want to be on the right side of history, you want to be on God’s side. And if God is for Israel—and he is—then I want to be for Israel. ... When I saw that President Trump changed the embassy, and basically said “no, we are going to acknowledge the capital of Israel is Jerusalem and move our embassy where it should have been all along,” I was cheering. ... What we need to do is stand with Israel, because God stands with Israel.106
Chris Mitchell, the Israel correspondent for Christian Broadcasting Network News, also cited Genesis 12:3 and claimed that “because of the blessing that President Trump has bestowed on the Jewish people, that will reap diplomatic, economic, and even spiritual blessings for the United States.”107
The examples above demonstrate some of ways prosperity-gospel themes of wealth and spiritual blessings have been fused by charismatic or spirit-centered Christian Zionists to frame Trump’s electoral victory and their support for him in related terms that reflect their belief that his support for Israel will reap divine rewards for the country.
In addition to their support for Trump and their assertions about the theological significance of his administration’s relationship with Israel, Christian Zionists also regained strong relationships in the halls of political power, and they were welcomed by the subsequent administration. According to Hagee, in 2017 Trump personally invited Hagee and Hagee’s wife, Diana, to the White House to discuss a variety of issues relating to Israel, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.108 In addition to moving the embassy, Trump also repealed the Iran nuclear deal and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, all of which were welcomed by Christian Zionists. In 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Christian Zionist who has publicly expressed belief in the Rapture, announced that the Trump administration would be “reversing the Obama administration’s approach towards Israeli settlements” and asserted that “the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements is not per se inconsistent with international law.”109
In 2020, Mike Pompeo visited the Friends of Zion Museum, which was established in 2015 explicitly to celebrate the role that Christian Zionists have had in Israel’s history.110 On the same day, Pompeo became the first secretary of state to visit an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, while also announcing a new policy allowing settlement products exported to the United States to be labeled “Made in Israel.”111
The relationship between Christian Zionists and the Trump Administration was complicated further, however, by the fact that there was no neat delineation between many senior levels of the administration and Christian Zionist activists. While there is never a clear distinction between religion and politics—as the history of Christian Zionism demonstrates—members of the Trump administration have been perhaps the most explicit in their reception of and identification with the tenets of Christian Zionism.
Conclusion
The history of Christian Zionism in the United States over the past century demonstrates, among other things, how Israel has played an important role in the development of specific and often competing Christian identities. During the years leading up to and immediately following Israel’s declaration of independence, liberal mainline Protestants saw Israel as a humanitarian issue, projected their own progressive values onto Israel, and supported it in practical ways on that basis.
In contrast, during this same period, dispensationalists shunned politics and viewed the plight of European Jews and Israel’s establishment in Biblicist terms through the lens of prophecy. It was not until the Six-Day War and its aftermath that conservative evangelicals, influenced by dispensationalism, began to blend their theological views of Israel with political action. Since then, the base of American Christian Zionism has remained theologically and politically conservative. This is especially so under Jerry Falwell’s and John Hagee’s unofficial leadership of the American Christian Zionist movement. Both Falwell and Hagee successfully made American support for Israel a domestic issue by connecting the prosperity and divine favor that they claimed America received because of its support for Israel. Nowhere was their success more evident politically than in the presidential administration of Donald Trump.
Review of the Literature
A great deal of scholarship on Christian Zionism in the United States emerged in late 1990s and 2000s, and it was largely critical of the movement. This scholarship focuses on dispensationalism specifically, and it argues implicitly or explicitly that Christian Zionists were largely supportive of Israel because they were trying to force God’s hand or make prophecy happen.112 Others sought to critique it from a theological perspective, arguing that the theology was erroneous.113 A major thread in these approaches to Christian Zionism is an interest in the political implications of Christian Zionism and the effects that certain apocalyptic beliefs have had on American politics. Work in the early 21st century argues that the focus on dispensationalism and eschatology in general has been overemphasized.
One study, Timothy Weber’s On The Road to Armageddon: How Evangelical’s Became Israel’s Best Friend, is primarily interested in the history of dispensationalism both before and after Israel’s declaration of independence, up until the 1990s.114 Weber argues that prior to Israel’s establishment, dispensationalists were content being passive observers of the politics and world events that they believed signified the coming end times. According Weber, Israel’s establishment transformed dispensationalists into active participants in the unfolding of their apocalyptic interpretation of history. While Weber’s study is valuable for its detailed history of dispensational beliefs about Israel, it treats dispensationalism as synonymous with Christian Zionism instead of a thread within it, which can limit how the movement as a whole is understood, and the book should therefore be read as history and critique of dispensationalism in the United States rather than as an analysis of Christian Zionism as whole.
Stephen Spector’s Evangelicals and Israel: The Story of American Christian Zionism takes a broader approach than some of the previous literature on the subject does; Spector attempts to understand insiders’ own perspectives and to avoid polemics, though the book is still focused predominantly on understanding how Christian Zionism shapes foreign policy.115 As he puts it, his aim is to “explore Christian Zionists’ convictions with empathy and respect, though not necessarily with agreement.”116 Spector’s work advances the literature on American Christian Zionism by providing a wider picture of what motivates and animates American Christian Zionists to support Israel as fervently as they do. This includes analyzing and understanding the explanations Christian Zionists give for their support, as well as contextualizing Christian Zionism within the broader milieu of the GWOT and an exposition of Christian Zionists’ geopolitical and theological opposition to Arabs and Islam. This book’s emphases and subject matter focus largely on the varying configurations and expressions of American Christian Zionism against the backdrop of 9/11, the GWOT, and the presidential administration of George W. Bush.
Another early-21st-century work dedicated to Christian Zionism in America is Samuel Godman’s God’s Country: Christian Zionism in America.117 Goldman’s book takes a long view, covering American affinity with Israel from the Puritans to 9/11. In some respects, as with Spector’s work, it is framed by earlier critical work on Christian Zionism, in the sense that it acts as something of a corrective to assumptions about undue influence in American politics from religious actors. Goldman argues that American support for Israel is based on three key things: the belief that there is an irrevocable covenant between God and the Jewish people, prophecy and the belief in the prophesied return of Jews to Israel, and a cultural affinity between Israel and the United States.118 Goldman’s discussion of liberal Protestants in relation to Israel is particularly welcome in the literature that often focuses more exclusively on fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals.
Daniel G. Hummel’s Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and US-Israel Relations focuses specifically on American Christian Zionism and the US-Israel relationship.119 Covenant Brothers treats Christian Zionism as an interfaith movement and is perhaps the early 21st century’s most comprehensive exposition and analysis of the modern American Christian Zionist movement, covering differing expressions of Christian Zionism from 1948 to 2018. Hummel is also interested in examining Christian Zionism beyond the apocalyptic emphases of dispensationalism, moving away from evangelicals’ ideas about Jews and Israel, toward the ways that evangelicals drew on a “range of political, historical, and theological arguments in favor of the state of Israel based on mutual and covenantal solidarity.”120 Hummel argues that although “apocalyptic and evangelistic explanations supply rough answers to why evangelicals take an interest in Israel, they fall short of explaining the genesis of join activism or the many interreligious manifestations of the movement since the 1940s.”121 Hummel traces strands of American Christian Zionism across three distinct periods: the founding of the state of Israel until the Six-Day War, the aftermath of the Six-Day War up to the Yom Kippur War and its aftermath (1967–1976), and finally the rise of Christian Right Zionism in the late 1970s up to the Trump administration (2018). Especially useful in Hummel’s work is his analysis of the role that Israeli government officials have in the story of Christian Zionism and strong relationships they developed with Christian Zionists as part of its efforts in public diplomacy.
One of the difficulties with studying this topic is that it is not possible to disambiguate clearly a religious or Christian Zionist motive for support for Israel from a non-Christian Zionist one. The fact that the United States’ relationship with Israel is such a strong one also makes explaining American support for Israel in any definitive capacity difficult. There are religious, cultural, political, and other reasons that American Christians support Israel, and they cannot and should not necessarily be treated in isolation of one another. As the historian Shalom Goldman has argued, “Explaining US support of and fascination with Israel requires a varied tool kit and highly skilled analysis. No one explanation[,] including a biblical one, is sufficient.”122 As a result, researchers interested in Christian Zionism in the United States should also consider work that deals with the America-Israel relationship and American views of the Middle East more broadly.
