As a Semitic Palestinian Christian, I am deeply troubled by the pernicious influence of Zionist ideology on Western Christian theology. This ideology has ensnared many Western Christians, who cynically leverage the suffering of the Jewish people, especially during the Holocaust,…
Knowing what we see and remembering what we know
Israel’s war against Gaza is now into its second month. Israel has killed more than 13,000 men, women and children with bombs and bullets. We do not know how many others have died from other causes or will die from…
How Trump’s latest comments on Israel align with evangelical Zionism
Donald Trump is in the news again making negative statements about American Jews while flattering his evangelical fanbase. In my piece last week, I wrote about how the dispensationalist obsession with the end times led evangelicals to embrace the Christian Zionist…
Secular revolutions and religious counterrevolutions
In 2015, highly esteemed Princeton political philosopher Michael Walzer published The Paradox of Liberation: Secular Revolutions and Religious Counterrevolutions. The title itself immediately arrested me, as it crystallized a current intuition of mine. I believe the United States and several…
The beginnings of modern Christian Zionism
Jews have been part and parcel of the fabric of the Middle East and North Africa. Within the multireligious and multiethnic 19th-century Ottoman Empire, Jews made up more than 1% of the population. Mainly an urban community, they had a…
Déjà vu: Jewish settlements in Palestine, U.S. policy and support from conservative Christians
Israeli settlers are part of a decades-long, U.S. financed and militarily supported invasion of the occupied West Bank by the Israeli government – an invasion sacralized by conservative evangelical Christians.
Baptist convention denounces ‘oppression and violence’ toward Palestinians
Leaders of the African-American Baptist group denounced use of the Bible to justify oppression in the Holy Land in a statement issued as the United States moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Evangelical Christians staunchest supporters of Israel: LifeWay poll
By Bob Allen Christian Zionism — a theological view that God’s promises to ancient Israel in the Old Testament apply today to modern Israel — holds a strong grip on U.S. evangelicals, according to a recent survey by LifeWay Research. The research…
Speakers say holiness, not heterosexuality, goal of outreach to gays
By Bob Allen The goal of ministry to gays and lesbians isn’t to make them heterosexual, three speakers said Oct. 28 at a Southern Baptist Convention-sponsored conference on the gospel and homosexuality. It’s to make them holy. Rosaria Champagne Butterfield,…