Zionism and Christian Zionism

 

 

What is Zionism? Britanica (along with many other sources) defines “Zionism” as the:

·       Jewish nationalist movement with the goal of the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews (Hebrew: Eretz Yisraʾel, “the Land of Israel”). Though Zionism originated in eastern and central Europe in the latter part of the 19th century, it is in many ways a continuation of the ancient attachment of the Jews and of the Jewish religion to the historical region of Palestine. According to Judaism, Zion, one of the hills of ancient Jerusalem, is the place where God dwells.

 

Can Christians also be Zionists? Of course, as long as they believe that the Jewish people have a right to exist and to have a refuge from a world of Jew-hatred. However many are attempting to redirect the Evangelical Church—Israel’s only steadfast friend—away from any support for Israel.

 

Is there anything unbiblical about “Christian Zionism” as some allege? Not at all! Instead it can be argued that this devotion to the survival of Israel is at the heart of Jesus Christ and our Triune God. This divine commitment to His Jewish people is imprinted upon the annuls of their history. As such, they are a sign people both of the wrath of their God and His faithfulness, a light to the world of the reality of God and of His promises. Their God had promised:

 

·       Deuteronomy 8:16–20 …to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. And if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

 

Today, Israel’s gods are largely atheism/agnosticism and self-trust and not the God who has blessed and continues protect them amid worldwide Jew-hatred. Nevertheless, their God has also promised to never entirely give up on them. He had promised to bring them back to their Promised Land and has done so three times: from Egypt, Babylon, and most recently when the UN voted in 1948, against all odds, to recognize the State of Israel. These Israelite returns represent an historical anomaly which has never happened to a single nation even once. God has also promised to fully restore Israel to what it had been intended to be.

·       Isaiah 49:14–16 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”

 

·       Isaiah 54:5–8 For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the LORD has called you [Israel] like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD, your Redeemer.

 

the New Testament also promises the salvation of Israel even for those who had rebelled against their God:

 

·       Romans 11:25–29 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way     will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; “and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

 

Should not the Church celebrate the faithfulness of God to Israel ?To be anti-Jewish is also to be anti-Christian. For one thing, the Christian faith is based upon the very Scriptures that the Jews had preserved over the centuries.

For another thing, Jesus and all His apostles—the authors and foundation of the New Testament—had been faithful Jews. Therefore, to discount these men is to reject the foundation that had been created for Christianity.

 

Romans 3:2 …The Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

 

God had entrusted the Hebrew Scriptures to the Jews. Is it surprising that the Church should be grateful for this! Therefore, to hate the Jews and the Jewish writers of these Scriptures is to oppose the plan and purpose of God. It is even to hate Jesus!

 

Even in their rebellion, Israel remains central to God’s purposes. In the end, Israel will become one with the Gentile believers. God’s promises to the Church are even intertwined with those He had made to Israel:

 

·       Romans 15:8–12 For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.” And again it is said, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people [Israel].” And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him.” And again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope.”

 

·       To be on God’s side is to seek Israel’s ultimate welfare:  Psalm 122:6–8 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say, “Peace be within you!”

 

As a Jew and a Christian, I thank God for the Evangelical Church and its love to the Jews and for Israel. May this love continue to blossom!

 

 

Had America Once been a Christian Nation?

 

 

Although America had not formally been designated a “Christian nation,” quotations from the Founding Fathers and others certainly regarded it as such:

John Quincy Adams: The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: that it connected in one indissoluble bond civil government with the principles of Christianity.

 

Noah Webster: The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.

 

James Madison: We have staked the future of government not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions on the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the ten commandments of God. I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: "that God governs in the affairs of man." And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?...We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in the political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little, partial local interests; our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war or conquest.

 

Benjamin Franklin: I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business.

 

George Washington, Inaugural Address No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency . . . We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.

 

George Washington’s “Farewell Address:”  Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. . . . Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

 

John Adams: Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. So great is my veneration of the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it, the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectful members of society.

 

Abraham Lincoln: The Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man . . . But for it we could not know right from wrong.

 

Abraham Lincoln: It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

 

Andrew Jackson: The Bible is the rock on which our Republic rests.

 

Although a number of the above men were not Christian, they all affirmed the need for the Bible and Christianity to underpin the American enterprise. In addition to their testimony is the fact that that most of the State constitutions went a lot further in their affirmations of the Christian faith:

 

Delaware Constitution: Everyone serving in public office must affirm this statement: "I do profess faith in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed forever more, and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.

 

Pennsylvania Constitution: And each member [of the legislature], before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz: "I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration.

 

Massachusetts Constitution: All persons elected to office must make the following declaration: "I do declare that I believe the Christian religion, and have firm persuasion of its truth."

 

Other States had similar requirements. The U.S. Supreme Court also consistently affirmed the centrality of the Christian faith:

 

John Jay, first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty of as well as the privilege and interest of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for its rulers.

 

Supreme Court, 1796: “By our form of government the Christian Religion is the established Religion, and all sects and denominations of Christians are set on the same equal footing.”  

 

U.S. Supreme Court, 1811, “Whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government.”) All quotes above: https://www.epm.org/resources/2009/Dec/30/america-intended-be-secular-state-or-christian-nat/ )

 

If these quotations sound unbelievable, it is because American history has largely been rewritten. It’s called “deconstructionism.”

 

What had been the fruits of America’s Christianity? Alexis de Tocqueville, French statesman, historian, and social philosopher wrote “Democracy in America” (1835). It has been described as "the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship between character and society in America that has ever been written." According to Tocqueville, freedom and morality both found their American incarnation in Christianity:

 

“Religion in America ... must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it.”

 

Tocqueville had been well acquainted with the demands for freedom and equality that had arisen from his own French revolution, albeit grounded in the hatred and murder of the clergy. This revolution had confidently sought to push aside anything that stood in its way.  However, with the advantage of decades of hindsight, this had become something that the French wanted to avoid at all costs. Tocqueville, therefore, wrote:

 

“The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law and the surest pledge of freedom.”

 

He therefore appreciated the moral constraints that he found so ubiquitously associated with democracy in the USA:

 

“I do not question that the great austerity of manners that is observable in the United States arises, in the first instance, from religious faith...its influence over the mind of woman is supreme, and women are the protectors of morals. There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America or where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated...”

 

Continually, he found that the fruitful expression of democracy was inseparable from its underlying Christian roots:

 

“In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people.... Christianity, therefore, reigns without obstacle, by universal consent; the consequence is, as I have before observed, that every principle of the moral world is fixed and determinate.”

 

“I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors...in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

 

As America has ceased to be good, so too has its families, relationships, it’s children, its health, mental and physical, its economic status; it’s education, and its unity, and concern for community, criminality, and a host of other declining measures.

 

What’s the answer? According to Tocqueville, it would most-likely be found in the return to the principles that had once made America great.