“This study of Christian Zionism, based on Stephen Sizer’s doctoral thesis, is of seminal significance. It provides a fascinating survey of the history of Christian Zionism and an indepth analysis of the theology of this highly important and influential movement.”
Rabbi Professor Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Professor of Judaism and Director of the Centre for the Study of the World’s Religions, University of Wales, Lampeter. (author of Israel: The History of an Idea, The Politics of Apocalypse, The Crucified Jew, Exodus, On Earth as it is in Heaven, Messianic Judaism & Antisemitism)
“I am glad to commend Stephen Sizer’s ground-breaking critique of Christian Zionism. His comprehensive overview of its roots, its theological basis and its political consequences is very timely. I myself believe that Zionism, both political and Christian, is incompatible with biblical faith. Stephen’s book has helped to reinforce this conviction.”
Revd Dr John Stott, Rector Emeritus, All Soul’s, Langham Place, London, the principal framer of the Lausanne Covenant (1974) and founder of the Langham Partnership International (author of more than 40 books including Basic Christianity, The Cross of Christ, The Contemporary Christian, Evangelical Truth and New Issues Facing Christians Today, and eight New Testament expositions (Acts, Romans etc.) in the ‘Bible Speaks Today’ series published by IVP).
Continues to make the evangelical community aware of what the Bible says about our responsibilities to the poor, and calls Christians to do something about it.
A comprehensive survey describing how Christians have embraced a theological perspective that has encouraged justice for Jews, but has also led to the oppression of Palestinian people and extreme hostility between Christians and Muslims worldwide
A New York Times bestselling book offering an alternative to the polarizing politics promoted by many in the religious culture wars. Wallis helps us find unity with a politics that addresses the needs of the poor and oppressed.
I promised to write one more time and offer to meet, as Jesus instructed us to do in Matthew 18, in response to your decision to use an anonymous blog to criticise me in September.
You also gained access to our church facebook account without revealing your identity and then wrote to many of our church family to warn them about me, including children who were, not surprisingly, disturbed as were their parents. You also wrote anonymously to the hosts of various conferences I was invited to, to urge them not to allow me to speak. You know from the responses you received, some from Messianic leaders, that they share the Apostle Paul’s disdain for your methods.
“Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:2).
In one of your blogs you referred to Jacob Prasch as an “authentic Messianic teacher”. I therefore assume you are a Messianic believer also. On that basis I invite you again to meet with me to resolve the issues that concern you rather than continue to use an anonymous blog to slander me. I realize this may be difficult if you are presently in Israel.
You specifically criticize me for associating with people who have in the past or indeed presently justify the use of violence against Israel or whom you designate as anti-semitic or holocaust deniers. You are wrong to assume that in dialoguing with them, or by participating in conferences with them, that I in any way approve of, or agree with, their views or methods. On the contrary I have made my own views plain through my writings, website and lectures, on the illegitimacy of the use of violence as a means of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
To clarify my position and to anticipate such criticisms, in my book Zion’s Christian Soldiers, I wrote the following:
“It is true that at various times in the past, churches and church leaders have tolerated or incited anti-Semitism and even attacks on Jewish people. Racism is a sin and without excuse. Anti-Semitism must be repudiated unequivocally. However, we must not confuse apples and oranges. Anti-Zionism is not the same thing as anti-Semitism despite attempts to broaden the definition. Criticising a political system as racist is not necessarily racist. Judaism is a religious system. Israel is a sovereign nation. Zionism is a political system. These three are not synonymous. I respect Judaism, repudiate anti-Semitism, encourage interfaith dialogue and defend Israel’s right to exist within borders recognised by the international community and agreed with her neighbours. But like many Jews, I disagree with a political system which gives preference to expatriate Jews born elsewhere in the world, while denying the same rights to the Arab Palestinians born in the country itself.”
In any future edition, I will emphasize, as I have done elsewhere, that I also believe the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict can only be achieved by peaceful means and through the implementation of international law.
Like you, I care passionately for the Jewish people and pray for a secure Israel, as well as the fulfilment of the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians to an independent, sovereign and democratic state. I believe justice for Palestinians will bring peace for Israel, reconciliation with their neighbours and the marginalisation of extremists.
As you know, followers of Jesus Christ are:
1. called to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9)
2. to fulfill a ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:11-21)
3. to disavow the use of violence or intimidation to further the will and purposes of God (Matthew 5:38-48).
4. and when they disagree, seek reconciliation privately and if necessary, with the mediation of others (Matthew 18:15-19)
As a minister of the gospel, my primary motivation is to share the good news of Jesus Christ with all who will listen. “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” (Romans 1:16).
Jesus himself was accused of being “a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.” ’ (Luke 7:34). As one myself, I am grateful to know him as my friend, and desire to share that friendship with those who at present are outside his family, even at the expense of being maligned or misunderstood by others.
As Brother Andrew has said of his own approach, “the best way I can show my love of Israel is to seek to convert her enemies.” You have questioned my integrity, my motives and methods from a position of anonymity.
While you have expended many hours to watch videos of me, to listen to debates with me, or read sermons by me, I suggest you do not yet know me well enough to condemn me. I feel under no obligation to justify my ministry to those who hide behind the cloak of anonymity – “the men in the shadows” as Jackson Browne put it in one of his songs. I invite you instead to meet and find out whether your criticisms are really justified.
The invitation will remain open but I will not respond to you further unless and until we meet.
I have read with sadness your comments about me on your website. In obedience to
our Lord’s instructions in Matthew 18, I am willing to meet with you privately or with a mediator and seek reconciliation as brothers in Christ.
I realise you are disappointed at not being able to debate me on television. I was willing to do so until I read what you had written about me, especially the imprecatory associations with Menelaus. That was also the legal advice I received.
Through an intermediary I merely requested a postponement of the debate. Without knowing my reasons, rather prematurely you wrote, “I have nothing to say to such an utterly contemptible servant of hell, and I am not interested in hearing anything from him. He is of his father the devil.”
In response to my attempt to make contact with you, you wrote, “It is too late for that. That twisted snake should not have agreed to the television debate to begin with if he was going to run scared or back down.”
I suggest this is not especially edifying language and indeed may undermine the credibility of your ministry. I have recently debated both Geoffrey Smith of Christian Friends of Israel and David Pawson both on Premier Radio. Both conversations were constructive and honouring to the Lord.
I readily concede that you will not be happy with my critique of your interpretation of the relationship of Israel and the Church. However, on this occasion, the only one I can think of, I have not slandered you, questioned your motives or denigrated you personally.
Initially you were critical of me for being an Anglican. I am guilty as charged. In my defence I am part of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans committed to reforming the church on biblical grounds.
More recently you have criticised me for visiting Iran and for sharing a platform with an IRA member. You are wrong to assume that in doing so I am in agreement with the policies or actions of the Iranian government or the IRA. On the contrary I have made my own views plain through my writings, website and lectures, on the illegitimacy of the use of violence as a means of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Jesus himself was accused of being “a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.” ’ (Luke 7:34). As one myself, I am grateful to know him as my friend, and desire to share that friendship with those who at present are outside his family, even at the expense of being maligned or misunderstood by others.
As Paul says in Romans 10, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:13-15)
I believe I have been ‘sent’ as I know you do too. We have clearly been sent to different people. We stand or fall before our Sovereign Lord to whom we are accountable not each other.
Like you, I care passionately for the Jewish people and pray for a secure Israel, as well as the fulfilment of the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians to an independent, sovereign and democratic state. I believe justice for Palestinians will bring peace for Israel, reconciliation with their neighbours and the marginalisation of extremists.
So Jacob, thank you for reading thus far. I repeat, I am willing to meet privately or with a mediator as our Lord instructed. While I may disagree with you theologically in the future, I will continue to pray for you and ask God’s blessing on your ministry.
Sooner or later, someone was bound to suggest that the United States of America appears in the Bible. Several authors have tried.
Hal Lindsey appears to have been one of the first. His reading of Revelation 12:14-17, ‘The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert’ takes the passage to refer to ‘some massive airlift’ transporting escaping Jews from the holocaust. ‘Since the eagle is the national symbol of the United States, it’s possible that the airlift will be made available by aircraft from the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.’
Lindsey does not explain why ‘the eagle’ should mean the United States, rather than Germany or the Czech Republic for instance. Nor does he explain why in Revelation it refers to modern aircraft, while in Exodus 19:4, Deuteronomy 32:11-12 and Isaiah 40:31 it does not. This is hardly evidence for a consistent ‘literal interpretation’.
“As a Middle East analyst and minister who has worked closely with leaders in that region for decades, I tended to be sceptical of attempts to come up with schemes to plug America into prophetic interpretations. I have often referred to such teachers as “Pop Prophecy Peddlers.” But, after thousands of hours of research, I am totally convinced that America is found in prophecy, and I believe you will, too, after reading [my] book.”
Even the reviewer for Amazon observes that actual quotes from Scripture are rather sparse.
Controversially, Evans goes on to claim
“September 11 would never have happened if America had fought the same bigotry in the 1990’s rather than trying to appease it. Millions of Jews would be living today if anti-Semitism had not been ignored in the 1920s and 1930s. The Great Depression, as well as other American tragedies, happened because of America’s pride and challenge to God Almighty’s plan.”
The danger with this kind of prophetic speculation is that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is how D.S. Russell summarises the dilemma:
“One rather frightening by-product of this process of interpretation is that it is easy to create the very situation which is being described so that the interpretation given brings about its own fulfilment. Russia, for example, is to be destroyed by nuclear attack – and scripture must be fulfilled! It needs little imagination to understand the consequences of such a belief, especially if held with deep conviction by politicians and the military who have the power to press the button and to execute the judgment thus prophesied and foreordained.”
If you feel you need an antidote, check out Zion’s Christian Soldiers for instant protection and lasting relief.
John Hagee wrote to me again today. He writes most days. Today he wrote to remind me, “As Christians we have a Biblical obligation to defend Israel and the Jewish people in their time of need. Israel’s time of need is now. There is a new Hitler in the Middle East –President Ahmadinejad of Iran — who has threatened to wipe out Israel and America and is rapidly acquiring the nuclear technology to make good on his threat. Tragically, 2008 has been a year of steady progress for President Ahmadinejad and his nuclear ambitions.”
In case I missed it, John’s email contained not one but two requests for money – in between the paragraphs so I would not miss it, like I’m doing here, except you don’t need to send me any money.
Then John went on to warn me, “As Iran gets steadily closer to obtaining nuclear weapons, we get that much closer to the possibility of a second Holocaust. The risk that Israel and her six million Jews might be “wiped off the map” is too great for us to sit silently by as the world does nothing. As 2008 ends and 2009 begins, we must redouble our efforts to stop Iran. In particular, we must combine fervent prayer with urgent action.”
How John, how?
“In addition to prayer, we must also act to make sure that our fellow citizens and our government recognize the urgency of this threat. Christians United for Israel is determined to focus intensely on the issue of Iran in 2009. We plan to educate Christians across America about the threat of a nuclear Iran. We intend to help our members speak out in their communities and churches to raise awareness on this issue. We plan to communicate the urgency of this issue to our leaders in Washington and demand that they act with greater resolve to stop this threat to America and Israel.”
I knew prayer wouldn’t be enough. If that was all John was asking for I certainly wouldn’t have written this piece, and you wouldn’t be bothering to read it either, but you are and that’s because you know by now that John has other ideas of how to ‘stop Iran’ and being the pastor of an 18,000 member church he doesn’t need to beat around the bush.
At the July 19th, 2006 Washington DC inaugural event for Christians United for Israel, after recorded greeting from George W. Bush, and in the presence of four US Senators as well as the Israeli ambassador to the US, John stated :”The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West… a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.”
Well that’s everything isn’t it? The whole caboodle as we say in O’l Blighty. Now I don’t want to see anyone ‘wiped off the face of the earth’ least of all my Jewish friends, but bombing Iran back to the stone age won’t win us any friends in the Middle East, John. Trust me, I’ve asked them.
Your friend Ann Coulter suggested something similar after the tragedy of 9/11. She said, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.”
We tried it a thousand years ago. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now. John, I’m struggling a bit with your theology. I’ve read the Bible a few times over the years but I just can’t find that verse you must have in mind that says this is our ‘biblical obligation.’ I thought our ‘biblical obligation’ was to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:43-48). Paul said our ‘obligation’ is to tell them about the love of God found in Jesus (Romans 1:14; John 3:16-17). Maybe I’m just reading the wrong translation.
Grace Halsell put her finger on it when she wrote: “Convinced that a nuclear Armageddon is an inevitable event within the divine scheme of things, many evangelical dispensationalists have committed themselves to a course for Israel that, by their own admission, will lead directly to a holocaust indescribably more savage and widespread than any vision of carnage that could have generated in Adolf Hitler’s criminal mind.”
She is right isn’t she? Such a fatalistic view of the future, with its prewritten script, is inherently suspicious and pessimistic about anything international, ecumenical, or involving the European Community or United Nations. Efforts to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East are spurned as counterfeit and a satanic ploy to beguile Israel. Such paranoia might be deemed a sick joke were it not so pervasive and influential, it seems, in shaping US foreign policy with its perpetual war against the ‘Axis of Evil’. Its greatest danger is surely that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Maybe to call it ‘weird and wacky’ is a little understated.
AMMAN, JORDAN – In a strategic gathering of Middle Eastern, European and American Christian leaders, westerners were given an inside view of the Middle Eastern Church’s struggle in a war-torn land.
Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding’s (EMEU) Sounds of Hope II conference was held in Amman, Jordan on Oct. 15-18. It was a time for over 70 select individuals from various ministries to hear from 11 speakers with experience in the Middle East Church.
According to Dr. Ray Bakke, EMEU chair, the conference was held out of a concern that ignorance in the West was negatively influencing the worldwide Church. “We had people who are evangelical who thought that every Arab was a terrorist or a fat oil sheik,” he said.
Dr. Paul Haidostian (Beirut) and the Rev. Cully Anderson (California) in discussion
EMEU’s purpose is to break down those stereotypes through direct dialog and help to build relationships and understanding across different cultures. As Bakke put it, “It’s not an organization, it’s a conversation.”
Three aspects stood out for Tom Bower, an attendee from Iowa: exposition of biblical material as it relates the Middle East today, a clearer definition of the area’s political and economic issues, and “wonderful networking” between Church leaders from across the globe and across the denominational spectrum.
Speakers from Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq shared on everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to America’s role in the Middle East, to a loving Christian response to Islam.
Dr. Nabeel Jabbour shared his concern that, after September 11th, some Christians would quit praying for and ministering to Muslims. “If that happens it will be the biggest setback in the history of missions,” he said. “Muslims are about 1.4 billion people in the world. It’s predicted that by the year 2020 they’ll become a quarter of humanity. If we consciously or unconsciously omit them from the Great Commission it will become no more the Great Commission; it will be the Great Omission.”
Jabbour walked attendees through the different belief systems in Islam, explaining that only a small percentage of Muslims are actually radical fundamentalists, but it is the activities of this faction that make the news.
John Sagherian, regional coordinator for Youth for Christ International, said that young Muslims as well as nominal Christians in the Middle East are asking the same question when presented with the biblical truth of salvation: “So what?” He said that they need more than textbook answers.
“I believe the answer lies in our changed lives and our changed values and our love for each other,” Sagherian said. “They need to see Christians living as Christians. And it would help if there were a revival in the West and the Christian West really became Christian.”
But the underlying frustration behind many of the messages given at the conference was over the apathy of westerners toward the Arab Church. Speakers said Christian Zionists have fixated on the renewal of the Israeli state, while ignoring severe abuse of the Palestinian people’s rights.
“Our message to the Jewish people (should be) that it is in the person of Jesus the Messiah that their hopes have been fulfilled, not in their return to the land and in the creation of the state of Israel,” said author and educator Rev. Colin Chapman. “When I see how Jesus has already fulfilled so many of the hopes and dreams of Israel (prophesied of) in the Old Testament, I can see how… the followers of Jesus today can… both hunger and thirst after righteousness, justice and be genuine peacemakers in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
While this conflict is extremely complex, understanding the issues involved touches on a person’s biblical interpretation, theology, politics, interfaith relationships and method of sharing the Gospel. “What is at stake over this issue is nothing less than our understanding of God, our witness to the Gospel and the credibility of the Christian Church,” said Chapman. “The stakes are very high.”
Sounds of Hope II delegates in session
Bakke told attendees about a conversation he had with a Jewish rabbi concerning the current existence of modern Israel. “Every people, to be a whole people, must somewhere in their history be stewards of power. We Jews have always been victims of power. The state of Israel is our first opportunity to be stewards of power,” said the rabbi. Then with a tear rolling down his cheek, he finished, saying, “If God is just, he will have to remove us one more time for what we have done to the Palestinians in this land. We are treating them the way the Nazis treated us.”
Antoine Haddad, vice president of Lebanon’s InterVarsity Fellowship, said that America has had a blind support for Israel, ignoring injustices the Palestinians have faced. He said that this “created seeds for instability in the Middle East region and led to wars and civil wars, dictatorships, poverty, oppressive regimes – all of which have been negatively reflected on the Christian presence in (the Middle East).”
And while the western Church’s response has been poor, Haddad says the Church in the midst of the conflict has also reacted incorrectly: “The response of Christians has been emigration, forsaking the cradle of Christianity and forsaking their roots.”
Archbishop Avak Asadourian (Baghdad) addresses the delegates
In Iraq, Archbishop Mar Avak Asadorian of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Baghdad, is seeing a similar exodus in persecuted Christians.
“If the present state of affairs continue in the region of the Middle East and Iraq, then the Eastern manifestation of the Christian Church – the churches that saw the birth of the Lord and worshiped him in his own tongue, giving millions of martyrs throughout 2,000 years – yes, these churches, are already at peril,” Asadorian said. “(This is) a matter not to be taken lightly, otherwise we are going to lose the Eastern manifestation of the Christian Church.”
Although troubles facing the Middle East Church are plentiful, the stories of faith and perseverance were equally abundant. “I had no idea that every time I’d sit down I’d be sitting down next to a person who had the most incredible story ever, and when I’d think I’d come to the most interesting story I’d meet somebody else that would surpass that,” said Cindi Steele, who works with Orthodox Jews in Arizona through Make A Difference Ministries. “I have enjoyed every moment of it.”
Steele attended the conference with her husband and says she is thinking of eventually bringing a club basketball team back to the Middle East to work among the Palestinian people.
Speakers asked Christians everywhere to work to understand the religions and politics of the Middle East in order to have a positive influence, to look for ways to partner or offer aid to the Middle Eastern church, and most of all, to pray for those who are hurting in the Middle East.
Lynne Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church just outside Chicago said that she knows there must be some action after this dialog. She compared the Sounds of Hope conference to her experience of going to Africa five years ago to learn about AIDS. She left Africa asking the question: “How have I ignored this situation? Why didn’t I ever let what I knew in my head travel down to the level of my heart?”
She continued, “And now I’m going home with that same question that I left Africa with: What’s happened this week is that I’ve seen the pain… I’ve heard the anger. I think Christians in the Church in the West have shown a lack of concern. By supporting global policies that have very much hurt the Middle East as a whole we have betrayed our Christian brothers and sisters here. What am I to do? That’s a prayer that I know God will answer, but not easily; but I go home with that prayer.”
The Jordan conference was the second Sounds of Hope event, the first being held at Wheaton College at the Billy Graham Center in Illinois in 2006.
Why can’t I get this song by Jackson Browne out of my mind? Maybe its the hope rising within me that with the election of Barak Obama, we will see a change in US policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict. Maybe there will be a renewed commitment on the part of the US administration to cooperate with the United Nations and achieve a multilateral solution as envisaged in the Road-Map to Peace. Just maybe.
Or maybe it reminds me of those lovely people who feel they need to hide behind their anonymous blogs to express their warped and cowardly views. Or maybe its because of the words of Jesus who said:
“Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. All those who do evil hate the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But those who live by the truth come into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” (John 3:19-21).
One day everything will be exposed to the light of Christ and I can’t wait for that day. What ever the reason, just check out the videos that follow the lyrics and lets not be intimidated by those men in the shadows.
“I’ve been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that youve seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war
And there’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs
On the radio talk shows and the TV
You hear one thing again and again
How the USA stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends–
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally cant take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire
There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we cant even say the names
They sell us the president the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they’re never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire.”
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“This study of Christian Zionism, based on Stephen Sizer’s doctoral thesis, is of seminal significance. It provides a fascinating survey of the history of Christian Zionism and an indepth analysis of the theology of this highly important and influential movement.”
John Hagee wrote to me again today. He writes most days. Today he wrote to remind me, “As Christians we have a Biblical obligation to defend Israel and the Jewish people in their time of need. Israel’s time of need is now. There is a new Hitler in the Middle East –President Ahmadinejad of Iran — who has threatened to wipe out Israel and America and is rapidly acquiring the nuclear technology to make good on his threat. Tragically, 2008 has been a year of steady progress for President Ahmadinejad and his nuclear ambitions.”
AMMAN, JORDAN – In a strategic gathering of Middle Eastern, European and American Christian leaders, westerners were given an inside view of the Middle Eastern Church’s struggle in a war-torn land.
