Newsletter:
Vol. 5. Iss. 1
8 October 2003
Christian Zionism in the Mainstream
Church
Reconsidering Chrisitian Zionism, Part III
Peter J. Miano
Despite recent popular attention focused on Christian Zionism,
the dimensions of the phenomenon are widely misunderstood and over simplified.
Here are just a few of many examples:
A June 8 Sixty Minutes broadcast devoted a segment to the topic; the show focused exclusively on fundamentalist, evangelical Christian support for the State of Israel. Giles Fraser, writing on June 10 in The Observer, identified Christian Zionism exclusively with the “lunatic ravings” of the Christian right and fundamentalist Christians, such as Hal Lindsey. The Feb. 2 issue of The Washington Post devoted an entire page in a Sunday edition to fundamentalist Christian Zionism. Bishara Awad, founder and president of the Bethlehem Bible College, defines Christian Zionism solely in terms of dispensationalist theology (address to the 3rd International Conference of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation, October 2001). And Corinne Whitlatch, the Executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace, asserts that the definitive characteristic of Christian Zionism is “…the belief in the abiding relevance of the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis 12:3…” (“Christian Commitment to Peacemaking is Distorted by Christian Zionists,” June 2003). She identifies Christian Zionism with Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, U.S. House Majority Leader Tom Delay and the Christian Coalition of America, among many others.
Such assessments are not wrong. Indeed, as far as they go, they render an important service in understanding the phenomenon of fundamentalist Christian Zionism. It is a particularly virulent strain of Zionism based on a distorted reading of the Bible. It is politically potent. Its popularity is alarming. But in defining the tree, too many have neglected the forest. Evangelical Christians have demonstrated exemplary vigor in distinguishing between fundamentalist Christian Zionism and evangelical Christianity. Mainstream Christians, however, have not similarly addressed the phenomenon of mainstream Christian Zionism—a much broader and more potent variant of Christian Zionism. It deserves closer inspection.
The problem is this: Equating Christian Zionism so thoroughly with evangelical, fundamentalist Christians or with the Christian right is reductionist, highly misleading and ignores the reality that Christian Zionist support for the State of Israel comes overwhelming from mainstream Christians. To reduce the phenomenon of Christian Zionism to a particular style of biblical interpretation—fundamentalist—or to a particular type of theological orientation—dispensationalist or millenarian—grossly oversimplifies the range of Christian Zionism. It strikes me as conspicuously too convenient for mainstream Christians to identify Christian Zionism with evangelical, fundamentalist Christians whose biblical interpretations—in some cases bizarre—easily distinguish them from the mainstream. It is always easier to identify other people’s defects. Mainstream Christians absolve themselves of complicity in the Zionist enterprise simply because they are not fundamentalists. Ariel Sharon is neither a fundamentalist nor a dispensationalist theologian. But if Zionism is defined solely in those terms, then Ariel Sharon could not be considered Zionist!
Zionism is primarily a Christian phenomenon, not a Jewish one, so it properly comes under the purview of Christian critique. It began among British and American Protestant Christians as an evangelical Christian phenomenon early in the 19th century. It was based on dispensationalist, millenarian theology. When European Jews began to develop Zionism as a political ideology later in the 19th century, it was devoid of the theological underpinnings that defined its elder Christian cousin, even though the first Jewish Zionists recognized the utility of exploiting evangelical Christian support for their nationalist agenda. Even after religious Jews adopted the Zionist enterprise, it remained an overwhelmingly Christian phenomenon. Early in the 20th century, liberal Christian politicians in Britain began to recognize that the Zionist enterprise could help advance Britain’s foreign policy objectives in the Near East. In the 1930’s, Jewish Zionists began to actively exploit mainstream, liberal Christian support and the two have been wedded ever since. Today, Christians Zionists, correctly defined, overwhelmingly outnumber Jewish Zionists.
