The Sick Demented Doctrine of "CHRISTIAN ZIONISM"
A "take yourself out of yourself" viewpoint to show the adherents of Darbianism to themselves.
“Confronting Christian Zionism” Episode I
NOTE: This is the very first time since creating this blog that I’ve delved into matters primarily related to the Christian Faith. If that bothers you, you may want to skip this series. OTOH, perhaps you have friends who are Zionist Christians and you may wish to point them to this article as well as to future posts on the topic.
Imagine how you’d feel in the following Scenarios:
A married woman late 20s-30s with kids is dealing with a Spouse who’s abusive, grossly immoral and who isn’t above using even his own kids for sexual gratification. She seeks help from a pastor of a nearby church on just what she should do to take herself and her children out of this horrible situation. She is met with the Bible verse about “Wives submit to your husbands” and advised that just like when Sarah submitted to Abraham when he sold his wife to Pharoah, things will turn out just fine.
How does this make you feel?
A humanitarian activist living under NAZI Germany wants to hide Jews from persecution and eventually transport them out of the country rather than face the horrors of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” The activist is advised with the following Bible verse, in order to dissuade him:
Rom 13:1-2 Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are ordained by God. (2) Therefore he who resists the authority, withstands the ordinance of God; and those who withstand will receive to themselves judgment.
How does this make you feel?
3. African slaves brought to the Antebellum South have finally had enough oppression, exploitation and abuse. And they are plotting an uprising. There’s a high chance of a death toll on both sides between Blacks and Whites. It may not even work. But an attempt at correcting a gross injustice is seen as better than the alternative, which is to do nothing. But the would-be participants in this planned uprising are hit with the famous Ephesians chapter 6 verse admonishing slaves to obey their masters.
Once again, How does this make you feel?
Of the 3 Scenarios I offered above as food for thought, the first two are [hopefully] hypothetical. The third one many will recognize as based on a particular event in history.
Whether you’re a Christian or not, hopefully you are revulsed and outraged at each one of the scenarios above where Bible verses are employed as a “gotcha” in order to buttress a particular political position - Be that one that supports the Draft [which there really hasn’t been one for awhile,] and by extension US meddling in foreign affairs; Or one that seeks to quell conscientious objection to wrong public policy on multiple levels.
Hopefully if you’re a Bible-loving Christian like I am, you’ll find yourself thinking that those verses cited above are not only being grossly misappropriated, but are put forth in deliberate avoidance of the broader witness of God’s word on the matter. In fact, I’d suspect some Non-Christians would be similarly thinking in their minds “There must be other places in the Bible that sound differently, aren’t there?”
And they’d be right, there are.
But furthermore, there is a whole body of Biblical literature that provides enough fodder for disputing just who is “Israel” in the eyes of Yahweh God, what is the correct way of understanding the nature of things like the Rapture, the Millennium, the AntiChrist, and the future establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth. Or at the very least, opening our minds to other possibilities of interpretation.
So then, if we rightly dispute such sweeping use of Prooftexts in order to justify Oppression, Murder, and evil in general with these verses…
What about using the Bible verses that presumably support the notion that people of Jewish descent are still “God’s chosen people” complete with a guarantee of ownership of the land just as if they were are direct descendants of Moses and the Hebrew sons & daughters of Abraham?
What has this notion that Jews are the rightful owners of the land, and therefore Israel “has a right to defend itself” wrought for us in the current conflict in Gaza, brought on by an uprising of the Palestinians on Oct 7, 2023?
It has many of us believing in falsehoods and one-sided accounts of certain events. Not to mention wild stories and tall tales based on things that never haven been proven to have happened. As well, there has been careful documentation that shows many of the claims of sexual assault visited upon Israeli citizens by Hamas have been thoroughly debunked.
It has wrought imbalances such as media reports glorifying four Israeli teenagers killed by Hezbollah drone strikes on an Israeli military base …But on the other hand, almost completely ignoring a young civilian documented to have perished in a fire in a Gazan hospital as the result of an airstrike by IDF forces.
It has people turning a blind eye to the many reports of Doctors serving amidst the onslaught on Gaza, who have testified to Palestinian children getting shot in the head or chest by Israeli forces. To say nothing of Mass Murder in general.
The media largely ignores how well-documented are Israel’s many war crimes and crimes against humanity in a systematic, deliberate destruction of the Gazan healthcare system as well as mistreatment of detainees and hostages.
And the saddest part of it all might just be the way some Bible texts are ignored in favor of others in route to declaring Israel to be the thing we dare not talk about - It’s every bit as phony, convoluted and morally depraved as if someone were to try and justify the positions taken in the three scenarios I opened this very OP with. And it’s being done by Christians, people who presume themselves qualified to comment on how others carry out their own sexuality or reproductivity. Something about where judgement should start?
But is a gag order on Israel’s moral conduct on the world stage really the conclusion we are driven to when one considers the full weight of scripture? Was that really God’s intention in saying to Abraham “I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you?”
I don’t think so.
Writing for UK magazine Premier Christianity, George Pitcher sums it all up in the title of his piece on the topic: “The biblical prophets criticised Israel for their immorality. We should do the same” As Pitcher elaborates:
Jeremiah was a massive critic of Israel and warned of the destruction of Jerusalem. Isaiah warned of the catastrophes that would greet Israel and Judah if they continued to “work in darkness” (Isaiah 29:15). Amos 4:1-3 predicts violent military action followed by exile for Israelites if they matched the immorality of their neighbours. [Author’s links.]
And so it goes on. The Hebrew bible is packed with warnings that Israel will reap what it sows in violence.
Writing for another website, Michael Hudson concurs even more forcefully in “Were the Biblical Prophets Anti-Semitic?”:
If the prophets of ancient Israel such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Malachi and Amos were alive today, Benjamin Netanyahu would accuse them of anti-Semitism for daring to describe his government as a travesty of what the Mosaic covenant was all about. A common thread running throughout the Jewish Bible – Christianity’s Old Testament – was to criticize kings, the wealthy and corrupt courts for violating the Mosaic commandments to create a fair and equitable society protecting the poor from the economic oppression of debt bondage, and loss of their land. If the prophets were summoned to give judgment today, it is Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party and the steeply unequal economy of Israel that would be condemned as violating the most basic laws of Biblical Judaism. [Emphasis mine]
Finally, Mako A. Nagasawa of the Anastasis Center gives us what for some may be a unique take on the matter when he writes in “The Bible in the Israel-Palestine Conflict: Land”:
Following the events of October 7, many people on social media circulated maps of Israel and Palestine, both modern and historical. These came with timelines. Some were “pro-Israeli” and some “pro-Palestinian.” Some people were obviously Christian, some Jewish, some critical of religion in general; with others, I couldn’t tell. At every opportunity, I posted a short comment in reply. I wrote:
What about this promise? So you shall divide this land among you according to the tribes of Israel. You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who reside among you and have fathered children among you. They shall be to you as native-born of Israel; with you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe aliens reside, there you shall assign them their inheritance, says the Lord God. (Ezekiel 47:21 – 23)
What was the response? Despite posting this comment about a dozen times, I only ever got a few “likes.” No one commented in reply. Now, I do not take social media engagement as an indication of much. But perhaps my argument seemed to be unfamiliar to many people.
Over the coming weeks and months I intend to engage in several postings that will examine the Biblical basis for understanding who Israel actually **is** under the New Covenant, and dismantling the legacy of John Nelson Darby, father of Dispensationalism [known more in the secular field as “Christian Zionism.”]
I will also be admonishing Christians to jettison Christian Zionism and to consider that the correct teaching on the End Times is the Amillenial position. This is because it’s 1) The Doctrine that focuses on the Present-Day reign of Christ 2) Is therefore the more worshipful understanding 3) Reads Rev 20:4 in the most literal fashion 4) Is consistent with other parts of the Bible that explain the identity of Israel and the nature of the coming Kingdom 5) Is not rife with contradictions, fantastical interpretations and failed predictions, the latter of which needs to be a point of discussion because it is something God takes seriously. For some reason, we today don’t seem to be taking it seriously at all.
Among the next steps we’ll be taking is a survey of scriptures to show who Israel is in God’s eyes, as well as an in-depth look at Rev 20:4.