Why Conservative Christians Support the State of Israel
Oct 16, 2010 Michael Streich
On March 4, 2002, Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), gave a speech on the floor of the US Senate outlining why he believed Israel had a right to all of the land in Palestine. During the speech, he referred to Genesis 13 in which God directed Abraham to move to Hebron. According to Inhofe, “This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.” These sentiments express the thinking of many evangelical Christians. Others cite the historical right of Israel to occupy the disputed lands while some Christians point to the Holocaust, supporting the Jewish homeland as part of their Christian atonement for silence during the World War II genocide.
Israel’s Role in Evangelical Prophecy Interpretation
Israel’s independence in 1948 fueled evangelical hopes that the new state was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. The Christian church, since the earliest generation of Christians in the first century CE, has been awaiting the return of Christ to purge the world of evil and establish his kingdom on earth.
When Christian prophetic literature began to make significant impacts on American readers with such books as Hal Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth (Zondervan, 1970), evangelicals pointed to Matthew 24: 34 in which Jesus told his disciples that, “this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” Jesus was referring to the signs of the end in Matthew 24.
Many evangelicals at the time equated a “generation” with the established Old Testament generation of forty years. Thus, if Israel became a state in 1948, the end would come in 1988. Furthering the cause of Israel became a priority for evangelicals often branded as “Christian Zionists.”
Christian Atonement for the Silence of the Church over the Holocaust
In 2001, the German-based Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary hosted a repentance service in Jerusalem on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. The Protestant religious community was founded in Darmstadt, Germany after World War II by Mother Basilea after the realities of German complicity in the century’s worst genocide was made public.
The Sisters of Mary opened their community to witnesses testifying at the Nuremberg Trials against the facilitators of the Holocaust, offering hospitality and hope. Today, the community still focuses on atonement for these national sins. The 2001 theme was “Changing the Future by Confronting the Past.” These annual repentance services continue every year.
The Historical Argument and the Doctrine of Propinquity
Jews were scattered from their homeland in the early centuries of the Roman Empire. Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus during the reign of Vespasian in 70 CE. But by the mid to late 19th-Century, Jews were returning to Palestine, largely due to the Zionist movement in Europe.
After World War I, more Jews emigrated and as fascism gained acceptance in Europe, these numbers increased. Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews in Hungary in the final days of the war, had traveled to Jerusalem and after hearing of the stories of persecution from European transplants, was deeply moved.
According to apologists for the state of Israel, the Jews that returned to Palestine took a barren, unproductive land and turned it into the land of “milk and honey.” This is the doctrine of propinquity. It was used by 19th-Century Americans to justify the taking of Native American lands during the period of Manifest Destiny. Senator Inhofe referred to this when he said, "Israel today is a modern marvel of agriculture."
Conservative American Christians Support Israel for Several Reasons
Whether based on biblical reasons, humanitarian concerns, or the fact that Israel has been a strong ally in the Middle East, conservative Christians are more apt to support Israel over its Muslim neighbors. It was through the Jews that Christianity was born. Evangelicals often refer to the Jewish people as the “apple of God’s eye;” the Jews continue to be the “chosen people.”
With the exception of Saudi Arabia, none of the existing Middle East nations existed before World War I. Israel is only the latest. For evangelical Christians, the presence of Israel is a prophetic guarantee that Christ’s return is imminent. The next “sign” they look for is the rebuilding of Solomon’s Temple, but this would mean the destruction of one of the most important mosques in the Islamic world.
Sources:
- “Changing the Future by Confronting the Past,” video, Mother Basilea Films, Phoenix, AZ, 2001
- Senator Jim Inhofe, “Israel’s Right to the Land,” March 4, 2002
- Alan Palmer, The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire (Barnes & Noble, 1994)
- Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Controversy of Zion: Jewish Nationalism, the Jewish State, and the Unresolved Jewish Dilemma (Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1996)
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