In early 20th-century America, the nascent fundamentalist movement embraced this minority view and rejected replacement theology. As this movement grew and spread throughout America, the number of Christians who adhered to this theology grew as well, to the point that it is the ascendant strain of American Christianity today. Thus fundamentalist/evangelical support for Israel is not a trend, fad, or public relations ploy – it is a bedrock religious belief.
It is also important to add that, after the Holocaust, the Roman Catholic Church and most mainline Protestant denominations recognized the danger of replacement theology and formally rejected it. But replacement theology under new names and guises is still out there, and it still does theological combat with the more Judeo-centric interpretation that drives the Christian Zionists.
Beyond politics, what good stuff do Christian Zionists do for Israel?
They do lots of good stuff. For starters, Christians give millions of dollars to Israel and Jewish causes every year. These funds support a variety of missions, including:
• The cost of transporting poor Jews from the former Soviet Union, Argentina and Ethiopia to live in Israel.
• Supporting poor Jews who stay behind in these countries.
• Supporting disadvantaged Jews and terror victims in Israel.
Beyond giving money, Christians also volunteer their time. Christian Zionists can be found throughout the former Soviet Union, teaching Jews about the opportunities and assistance available to them in Israel. Many Christian volunteers also go to Israel, where they contribute to Israeli society by operating food banks, homeless shelters, and providing health and repair services to those in need
How widespread is Jewish suspicion of Christian Zionists?
As widespread as falafel stands in Tel Aviv. Jews tend not to know very much about Christian theology or Christian history. As a result, they tend to lump all Christians together and hold them equally responsible for the anti-Semitic atrocities committed by Christians in the past. If more Jews understood the profound theological differences between evangelical Christians in America today and the Christians of Europe in prior centuries, I think they would be more open to an alliance.
The ADL doesn’t seem to get what is going on vis-à-vis Christian Zionists, does it?
Not lately. There was a period in the late 1990’s when Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s executive director, was saying very positive thing about Christian Zionists. He invited Ralph Reed to address an ADL dinner, and he even paid to reprint one of Reed’s pro-Israel articles in major newspapers.
Yet lately, Foxman has been sounding like his old self on this issue. Late last year he claimed that evangelical Christians are the greatest domestic threat to the Jews. I wish we lived in a world where law-abiding, patriotic, and philo-Semitic Christians were our biggest worry.
Are Christian Zionists mostly conservative? Are Jews mostly liberal? Does that make matters weirder?
Yes, yes and yes. There is no doubt that one of the major stumbling blocks to a warmer evangelical-Jewish embrace is the fact that these communities tend to differ on social issues such as abortio and gay marriage (except for Orthodox Jews, who tend to share the evangelicals’ opposition to both).
Yet these differences need not be a stumbling block. There are hundreds of political coalitions out there, and what characterizes every last one of them is not that the member organizations agree on every issue, but that they agree on at least one issue – the issue that brought them to form a coalition in the first place.
I think certain diehard liberals in the Jewish community need to get over their belief that people who disagree with them on abortion or gay marriage are somehow beyond the pale of civil discourse. Reasonable people can and do differ on these issues.
