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Why Christian Zionism is nothing short of outright heresy

 
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Israel-Palestine: A Christian Response to the Conflict (2011).

We asked Craig Nielsen to tell us about his new book, and the following is an excerpt from the introduction of
Israel-Palestine: A Christian Response to the Conflict (Foundation University Press (2011).

Christian Zionism, the belief that the current Zionist state of Israel is an unambiguous portent of the imminent return of Christ, is said to be the largest growing cult in America. With some 70 million Christian evangelicals in the U.S. (a large proportion subscribing to Christian Zionist beliefs), unconditional support of Israel on religious grounds translates into massive lobbying power in a country where the “religious right” has seen itself as the leaders in a fight against the infidels of secularism, Islam, socialism and any one else in their way.

Yet few, if any, scholarly Christian theologians support this view. It is a belief advanced mostly by powerful TV evangelists and lobby groups. The average “garden variety” Christian has little to arm themselves against the deluge of almost hysterical demands on Christians that they must support the Zionists’ absolute entitlement to their colonialist project in the Holy Land with its dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs.

Israel-Palestine: A Christian Response to the Conflict informs Bible-believing Christians with clear and easily understood reasons why Christian Zionism is nothing short of outright heresy. The book has taken inspiration from the resistance to Zionism from Orthodox Jews as well as arguments from Christian theologians over the centuries showing that both Old and New Testaments of the Christian and Jewish scriptures provide no comfort for Christian Zionist dogma. The book shows that the idea that the Israel-Palestine conflict is a basically religious conflict is false; the conflict finds its roots in European Zionist colonialism and western indifference to real democracy in the Middle East.
 

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100% correct.

Christian theology totally contradicts Zionism. “Israel” is not a place, it is the worship of “God”. Christian Zionism is an oxymoron.

It is of course a cult based on ignorance. I doubt that many of them realize that by supporting the “Jewish State”, they are helping dispossess other Christians, since Palestinians are also Christian.

I know some fundie ladies; they are nice ladies, wouldn’t dream of hurting a fly, are honest and straightforward in their personal lives. They are not opportunists like Michelle Bachmann, or even some mini version of her. They don’t cheat, lie, or steal.
They think they have a personal relationship with God through Jesus, and they pray for the rest of us to share the warmth and solace of this light. They all firmly believe that the bible says we are all instructed by God to support the Jews, the chosen people, and if this means sending their own kids or grandkids to go fight for Israel, they will do all they can to make this a reality. Israel to them is not a metaphor or figure of speech; it is the current state of Israel. They will caution you too that those who do not support the Jews (meaning the good Jews; they are will remind you that there are bad apples in every group of humans) will suffer God’s wrath. Another notion they use to counter any facts you try to give them regarding, e.g., the I-P conflict, is, essentially, let God sort it out since only he can, and/or some version of “God works in wonderous, mysterious ways, ways we are too small to ever comprehend, but God is God, you are not. If you reach an impasse trying to talk to them and supported by logic and facts, they will always bless you, and say they will pray for you. In their practical daily life, they are hard-nosed, and sticklers for facts about anything involving, threatening in the slightest, their economic well being. This does not at all mean they ever look closely at their own government’s special relationship with the state of Israel. They’ve never met a Jewish person they recognized as such, and they have no personal friendships with any Jew. They are legion in rural and small town America–in “fly-over country”.

Craig is a spot on guy on this subject. He did at one stage have a PDF on his site which I’d recommend if you want to gain greater understanding of Christian Zionism. I’ll be ordering this book for sure.

Glad to see your post Craig. The role of Christian Zionism in U.S. politics is little known by the rest of U.S. society outside of this subgroup. The momentum that Newt Gingrich has at the moment is not something that has happened overnight. The dogma of the Religious Right theocratic agenda as been an underground brush fire in American politics for 30 years which is now breaking out into the open. It will finally come under the scrutiny of every thinking person of whatever belief. It is late, however. As Mark Twain said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes”.

Rachel Tabachnick at Talk to Action (http://www.talk2action.org/) has been covering the Religious Right for years. Her column “Eight Reasons Newt Gingrich is Emerging as the Religious Right’s Anybody-but-Mitt Candidate” is important background information for understanding the source of Gingrich’s current momentum. It is at
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2012/1/20/161214/253/Front_Page/Eight_Reasons_Newt_Gingrich_is_Emerging_as_the_Religious_Right_s_Anybody_but_Mitt_Candidate