Newsletter:
Vol. 4. Iss. 3
15 July 2003
Reconsidering Christian Zionism
Peter J. Miano
On Sunday, 8 June 2003, CBS’ Sixty Minutes broadcast a segment
on Christian Zionism. The segment reflects the new popularity of the topic,
but it also illustrates a significant defect in popular understanding of the
issue. Sixty Minutes focused only on fundamentalist Christian Zionism. As
Christian Zionism becomes more popular, it invites increased critical attention.
Fundamentalist Christian Zionists are vocal and visible and therefore easily
identified. They are not, however, as numerous or politically influential
as mainstream Christian Zionists, a distinct variant of Zionism that is almost
wholly ignored in discussions of Zionism.
Fundamentalist Christian Zionism is a religious ideology that sees the establishment of the State of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy occurring in the end time. Accordingly, God has a special role for the Jewish people in their covenanted land and Christian devotion to God requires support for God’s plan of salvation. The violence associated with the creation of the State of Israel and its continued struggles with episodic violence is understood not as the result of political struggle between colonizer and colonized, but as the predicted and necessary birth pangs of a new eschatological age. The earthly struggle between Israel and the Palestinians is interpreted in apocalyptic terms as part of a broader cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil, the defining battle of which will take place on the plain of Armageddon as the Book of Revelation foretells. Fundamentalist Christian Zionism deserves all the critical attention it gets and more, but mainstream Christian Zionism is far more widespread and far more pernicious. It is also much more difficult to critique.
It is important to note that no variant of Jewish or Christian Zionism requires biblical literalism. If biblical literalism were a necessary condition in the definition of Zionism, most modern Zionist Jews would not qualify as such. Indeed, many contemporary, conscientious Zionist Jews are “secular” and do not subscribe to the idea that the establishment of the State of Israel is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. They certainly do not harbor the idea that the “in gathering” of the Jews in the land of Israel is a necessary precondition for the return of the Christian Messiah. The founding father of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, did not subscribe to the idea that establishing the State of Israel was in any way related to fulfilling biblical prophecy. The same can be said for David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and a host of contemporary Jewish Zionists, including Yitzak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon. If Jewish Zionists can be defined as such without reference to a fundamentalist biblical interpretation, why can’t the same be true of mainstream Christian Zionists as well?
The fact is that biblical literalism is not a precondition for Zionism. Christians no less than Jews can be Zionist without being fundamentalists and even without being particularly “religious,” however that term is defined. What then defines a Zionist and Zionism? In Israel among Jews and Christians, Zionism occurs in a rich variety of forms. There are Zionists, non-Zionists, post-Zionists, anti-Zionists and arch-Zionists. There are also “1948” Zionists and “1967” Zionists. There are “hard” Zionists and “soft” Zionists. I have even heard one person describe herself as a “zionist with a small z.” There are fundamentalist Jewish and Christian Zionists. More importantly, there are mainstream, progressive, liberal Jewish and Christian Zionists. This rich diversity is reflected in the political life of Israel where there are 41 registered political parties and 12 different parties holding seats in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament).
Among all these varieties, the most common components of Zionism are the ideas that Jews constitute a distinct ethnic group, that the identity of this ethnic group is inextricably bound to the territory of the Land of Israel and that like other ethnic groups who are organized into nation states, Jews, too, should have a state of their own. For modern Jewish Zionists, fundamentalist and secular alike, the identification between the people and their land is paramount in their self-understanding. Jewish people have a distinct association with the land of Israel, not necessarily because the Bible says it or foretells it or covenants it, but because, historically, the Jews as a distinct people emerged and flourished in the Land of Israel. Zionists frequently ignore the problem that this same land has been inhabited throughout history by other peoples. Zionist thinking is frequently highly exclusive.
