Is Christian Zionism evil?

Some evangelical leaders in the Middle East suggested as much in their August 5 “Collective Call to the Global Church from Middle East Evangelical Leaders.”

Here is their key statement:

We unequivocally reject all forms of violence against civilians to achieve justice (Jeremiah 22:3; Romans 3:15-18), and strongly condemn all religious, political, and social ideologies that hinder a lasting peace including antisemitism, islamophobia, and Christian Zionism. [my emphases]

Let me first say that I agree that “violence against civilians” is evil. I presume these evangelical leaders mean violence that targets civilians, for most Christians agree with Christian just war theory that distinguishes between intentional targeting of enemies in a just war and unintentional killing of civilians. Even God did things, like miraculously springing Peter from prison, that resulted (unintentionally?) in violence against innocents (Herod putting Peter’s guards to death) in Acts 12.

I will assume that these evangelicals agree that the vicious attacks on Jewish civilians on October 7 were evil because Hamas terrorists (and those who accompanied the soldiers) targeted civilians — men, women, and children. Even the elderly. They raped women and decapitated babies. It doesn’t get any more evil than that.

Now, my fellow Christian Zionists and I lament the immense suffering that has come upon the people of Gaza because of this October 7 act of war directed by Hamas. It is tragic that in its efforts to defend Jews against those who mean their destruction, the IDF’s war against Hamas has unintentionally killed and wounded Palestinian civilians because Hamas purposely hides among them, intentionally exposing them to injury and death.

We especially mourn the Palestinian Christians who have been caught in the crossfire, and we pray for God’s consolations and protection for and over them.

But why do these Middle East evangelical leaders condemn Christian Zionism?

Old Testament Promises

Let’s first define it. There are different kinds of Christian Zionists, but they all agree that Jews, like every other people, have a right to a homeland — and that the Jews have a right to live in what has been their ancestral home for upwards of four thousand years.

Christian Zionists support Jews being able to have their homeland in what is called Israel because we believe that is biblical.

Since our Middle Eastern brothers in the Lord disagree with our reading of the Bible but agree that it is the Word of God, let’s look at the Bible.

Because the vast majority of Christian anti-Zionists agree that the Old Testament teaches the Jewish land promise, in which God tells the Jewish patriarchs that Israel will be home to them and their descendants forever, let’s focus first on the New Testament — which these Middle Eastern evangelicals say is devoid of the land promise.

Notice what Paul proclaims in a synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia:

Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our fathers [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] and made the people great during their stay in Egypt, and with uplifted arm led them out of it. … And after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance (Acts 13:16b-19, my emphasis).

Here the Apostle Paul affirms what is stated or implied one thousand times in the Old Testament: that the God of Israel gave the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants forever (for the last word, see Genesis 17:7-8).

Affirmed by Jesus

What about Jesus? In his Sermon on the Mount, He tells His disciples,

Do not think that I have come to abolish Torah [nomos] or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota [the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet, probably included for the sake of the early Church whose main Bible was the Septuagint] or a horn [the smallest stroke of the pen in Hebrew] will pass away from Torah [nomou] until all of it is accomplished (Matthew 5:17-18).

So Jesus affirms every stroke of the pen in Torah. And Torah is unambiguous on the land promise:

Genesis 12:7: To your [Abraham’s] offspring I will give this land.

Genesis 13:15: For all the land that you [Abraham] see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. 

Genesis 15:18: On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your offspring I give this land.

Genesis 17:8: And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. [my emphasis]

As I wrote, these examples are four of the one thousand times the Old Testament states or implies the land promise, and Jesus said every bit of the Old Testament would be accomplished — so presumably including the promise that the land of Israel would belong to Abraham’s descendants from that time until now and beyond.

Fulfilled Prophecies

However, possession or inheritance is not the same as control, for God drove the Israelites off the land several times because of their covenantal failures. And He insisted that they were to hold the land in justice, which includes sharing it with others.

Did Jesus reject the land promise when He said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit τὴν γῆν”? (Matthew 5:5)

Not at all. The Greek word γῆ means either “earth” or “land,” and more and more scholars have seen that Jesus here quotes from Psalm 37, where “inherit the land” is used five times — and in each use, the meaning is clearly the “land” of Israel.

Many claim that Jesus saw no future for the land of Israel. But the plain sense of the New Testament shows this is not so.

In Luke 13:35, Jesus tells the city of Jerusalem that one day she will welcome Him with the words, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

And in Luke 21, Jesus predicts a day when the Jewish people will control all of Jerusalem. After predicting its fall (which took place in 70 AD), Jesus prophesies:

There will be wrath against the Jewish people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled upon by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles come to an end (23c-24).

Most Christians don’t realize that “trample upon” was an ancient term for political and military control. Jesus was prophesying that after the year 70, the Jewish people would not control Jerusalem for a long period, but that at some point Gentile control would end, which would also signal the beginning of the end of “the times of the Gentiles.”

It Is Written

It is difficult not to conclude that Jesus’s prophecy has been fulfilled. Gentiles controlled all or part of Jerusalem from Pompey’s conquest in 63 BC until 1967, when Israeli paratroopers liberated East Jerusalem from Jordanian control.

In Acts 1 Jesus issued another remarkable prophecy about the future of Jerusalem (which, in the Bible, stands for all the land of Israel). Just before His ascension, but after spending forty days with the apostles, “speaking with them about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3), the disciples asked Jesus,

Is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? (1:6)

Jesus replied,

It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. (1:7)

Jesus did not ridicule the question as being too earthly minded, as some have claimed. Instead he said the Father has determined when the kingdom will be restored to Israel, and they were not to know that then. His implication was that yes, one day the kingdom would be restored to Israel.

We in the movement called the New Christian Zionism do not believe this has happened yet. We think it will happen only eschatologically. But it is clear that the New Testament repeats the Old Testament land promise.

This does not mean that Jewish Israelis should not share the land — and most Jewish Israelis agree with that sentiment. They live side by side with two million Arab Israeli citizens in Israel proper. And most religious Israeli Jews believe the God of Israel calls them to live by justice, and that includes sharing the land with those who are willing to live in peace among them.

So we agree with our Christian brothers in the Middle East on the need for the global Church to pray for the evangelicals of the Middle East and to have compassion for the suffering of Palestinians caught in the crossfire.

We understand that the political situation for Christians in the Middle East is perilous, and that ideologies can pressure them to look at the Bible in restricted ways. In humility, therefore, we suggest they open themselves to the possibility that what they call “the living history of the Middle East” might be more firmly rooted in the plain sense of God’s written word.

 

Gerald McDermott teaches at Jerusalem Seminary and Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia. He has published two dozen books and hundreds of articles on Jonathan Edwards, world religions, Anglicanism, and the meaning of Israel. His most recent book is A New History of Redemption: The Work of Jesus the Messiah Through the Millennia (Baker Academic, April 2024).