Act 3: Christian Zionism Revisited – John Hubers

(Christian Zionism:  Origins and Impact, Part 2)

It is interesting and instructive to note that the most vocal and politically active American Christian supporters of a Jewish state in Palestine in the period around the implementation of the 1947 UN Partition Plan were not Christian Zionists, but liberal Protestant theologians and church leaders who had no sympathy for dispensationalist eschatology.  The Christian Council on Palestine was established in 1942 by mainstream theological heavy weights Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich, Daniel Polling and William Albright, who used it as a vehicle to promote Jewish immigration to Palestine. Their support was primarily based on humanitarian concerns.  Given what was being revealed to the world about the horrors of the holocaust and a determined campaign on the part of the World Zionist Organization to promote a Jewish state in Palestine as the only legitimate answer to the anti-Semitism which produced it, their response is no surprise.  What is surprising is a statement Niehbuhr made in behalf of this Council to the Anglo American Committee of Inquiry in 1946, betraying a lack of similar humanitarian concern for Palestinian Arabs.  What he said would later become a standard Christian Zionist assertion:

The fact that the Arabs have a vast hinterland in the Middle East, and the fact that the Jews have nowhere else to go [due largely to the fact that western countries including the United States restricted Jewish immigration during and after WW II – author’s note] establishes the relative justice of their claims and of their cause . . . Arab sovereignty over a portion of the debated territory must undoubtedly be sacrificed for the sake of establishing a world Jewish homeland.[1]

The Dispensationalist camp in America was amazingly quiet about Israel during the years building up to the partition, despite the fact that the Balfour Declaration and subsequent British mandate had put in place the means necessary to create a Jewish state.  Sizer attributes this in part to the fact that conservative Christians in America were preoccupied with the great fundamentalist-liberal theological battles of the early 20^th century with heated debates swirling around the nature of biblical inspiration. Whatever the case, this would soon change partly due to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, but even more to what Christian Zionists would call the “miracle” of the Israeli victory over her Arab enemies in the 1967 War, which gave the Jewish people sovereignty over Jerusalem for the first time in over 2,000 years.

It is noteworthy in this respect that a revision of the Scofield Bible was produced in 1967 by a team of American dispensationalists that included a man who would become one of the most prominent voices in “renewed Christian Zionism,”[2] Dallas Seminary’s John F. Walvoord.  The revised Scofield Bible drew peoples’ attention back to the Dispensationalist agenda at a time when dispensationalists believed world events were validating one of the key tenets of their belief system.

Hal Lindsey and a “Renewed” Christian Zionism

In 1969 an otherwise unknown former Dallas Theological Seminary student named Hal Lindsey published The Late Great Planet Earth, which spelled out the dispensationalist agenda in a sensational way.  His timing couldn’t have been better, not only because of the recent Israeli victory, but also because of what was happening at the time in America.

Social and political unrest in 19^th century Britain had created fertile soil for Darby’s teaching.  A similar climate prevailed in America when Lindsey’s book appeared. Daily news, with televised images, provided a disturbingly bloody picture of America being brought to her knees by a ragtag guerilla army at the cost of thousands of young American lives. There were urban riots and a cultural revolution on American campuses.  Young people were questioning traditional morality and religious faith.  All of this produced an unease among Americans that made Lindsey’s end times speculations appear plausible.  In particular, Bible-believing Christians found his reasoning hard to resist, though most knew nothing about the dispensationalist theology that informed his thought.  All of this helped make The Late Great Planet Earth, the best selling non-fiction book of the decade.

Lindsey’s book was a popular presentation of classic dispensationalist themes, beginning with what it said about Israel:

The same prophets who predicted the worldwide exile and persecution of the Jews also predicted their restoration as a nation.  It is surprising that many could not see the obvious: Since the first part of these prophecies came true we should have anticipated that the second part would come true, also.[3]

Now that there was a Jewish state in place, reasoned Lindsey, we should expect to see a whole string of other biblically predicted events falling into place:  The Temple would be rebuilt in Jerusalem.  There would be widespread apostasy in the institutional church.  Earthquakes and famine and social disintegration would accompany the appearance of the Antichrist, who would be cleverly disguised as an apparently benign ruler of a ten-nation coalition that would act as an instrument of Satan.  All this would lead up to the day when born again Christians would be raptured to heaven to pave the way for the Second Coming of Christ.  The Messiah would return as a warrior king who would lead those Jews who would turn to Him in faith to total victory in the mother of all battles: Armageddon.  With victory assured, the millennium would begin. Jesus would rule over a Messianic Jewish kingdom of peace and prosperity like none the world has ever seen before.

What was unique in Lindsey’s presentation of the dispensationalist case was the way he confidently tied biblical references together with current events and political alignments, a tendency which has become a hallmark of today’s Christian Zionism.  One can see this in the numerous “end times” books which fill the shelves of Christian bookstores, not to mention the series of novels which became popular blockbusters in the 90s, the Left Behind series.  And it all hinges on one objective reality that is there for everyone to see:  God’s chosen people, Israel, once again established after years of exile in the land which God gave them as an eternal inheritance.

The Late Great Planet Earth and the “miracle” of the 1967 War would signal the re-entry of Christian Zionists into the political arena, as an inevitable by-product of their confident assertions about Israel’s central purpose in God’s salvation plans.  Jerry Falwell would become politically active around this issue at this time and he was soon joined by many others. Within the next 10 years American based Christian Zionist organizations would become an important source of financial and political support for the Israeli government, a situation that prevails in an even more pronounced way today.

  Recent Developments

The latest permutation of the Christian Zionist movement is a political lobby group started by mega church Pentecostal pastor, John Hagee in 2006.  Claiming more than a million members, Christians United for Israel (CUFI) often gives the impression that it has more clout than it actually does. The Israelis certainly believe so, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has been known to grace CUFI events at least by conference call video. Their annual get-out-the-troops meeting in Washington DC is also an attractive venue for conservative American politicians.  Last year’s meeting included, among others, GOP  congresspersons Michelle Bachman and Lindsey Graham.

One can’t help but recognize the cynicism inherent in the Israeli response given the dispensationalist scenario of a Jewish bloodbath at the Second Coming of Christ, as all but those who convert to Messianic Judaism are slated to perish at the battle of Armageddon.  Yet as much as they hold their noses while blessing CUFI the Israelis see Christian Zionist support as a vital part of maintaining an unquestioned American loyalty to their agenda.  What I will explore in the final installment of this series is whether or not the tide is turning against the Christian Zionist movement, both politically and theologically, particularly among today’s crop of young evangelicals. I believe the evidence points in this direction.  From where I sit that’s a good thing.

The Rev. Dr. John M. Hubers is assistant professor of missiology at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. From 2001-2006 he held the Middle East and South Asia desk for the Reformed Church in America. He earned his BA in History from the institution where he is currently teaching, his MDiv from New Brunswick Theological Seminary (NJ) and his ThM and PhD from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. During his seminary training, Rev. Hubers spent one year in Cairo, Egypt studying Arabic and Christian/Muslim relations. From 1986-96 Dr. Hubers served as pastor of international congregations in the Arabian Gulf States of Oman and Bahrain, where he had also taught English for two years after graduating from university. He has also served churches in New York, Michigan and Texas. Dr. Hubers is the author of a number of articles relating to Christian-Muslim relations in the Church Herald, the former denominational magazine of the Reformed Church in America, along with several articles in The Other Side magazine on topics relating to Islam, the first Gulf War, and Christian/Muslim relations in Egypt. “Zion’s Christian Soldiers” is Rev. Hubers’ critique of Christian Zionism (a study guide for Reformed Church congregations), and “Christian Zionism and the Myth of America” is the text of an address he gave to the Middle East Council of Churches conference in Beirut, Lebanon (2002). Both papers are available at HCEF’s website. Dr. Hubers and his wife Lynne have two grown children.