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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
For many fervent Christians, support for Israel has less to do with Ariel Sharon than preparing for Armageddon.
May 24, 2002 | From the Senate floor, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., preached what was essentially a sermon about Israel last December. "The Bible says that Abram [Abraham] removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar before the Lord," he said. "Hebron is in the West Bank. It is at this place where God appeared to Abram and said, 'I am giving you this land' ... This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true."
As Inhofe's speech suggested, for elements of the Christian right, pro-Israel fervor has ascended to the realm of the sacred. Christian leaders Ralph Reed and Gary Bauer both say that their support of Israel -- and Israeli expansionism -- is partly rooted in biblical injunction. Bauer says, "There are a variety of Old Testament scriptures in which God is saying to Abraham that the people of Israel will occupy all the land between the sea and the river," which he says means the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. "There's a belief that this is covenant land," he adds.
Such views have concrete consequences -- as Nicholas Kristof wrote in the New York Times, evangelical internationalism is a "broad new trend that is beginning to reshape American foreign policy." Many Jewish leaders have welcomed evangelical support on Israel. Yet despite feel-good talk of ecumenical alliances, conservative Christians aren't just acting as backup for their Jewish brothers and sisters. They have an agenda of their own. For now, it coincides with mainstream Jewish concerns. It won't always.
Put baldly, millions of evangelical Christians see forewarnings of Armageddon in the crisis in the Middle East. Followers of dispensationalism, a major strain within American evangelical Christianity, they believe that the return of Jews to Israel and the restoration of Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount is a precondition for the rapture, the apocalypse and the return of Christ.
"I believe that Jesus can only return when all of the Jews have returned to their land," writes Norbert Lieth, author of 18 Christian books, in the dispensationalist magazine "Midnight Call." Television preachers like Jack Van Impe and John Hagee and bestselling Christian writers like Hal Lindsey explain the current struggle over Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank as prophesy made manifest. They see their interpretation of Daniel and the Book of Revelations played out every day on the news.
For them, there can be no negotiation over what they call "Judea and Samaria" despite the fact that many Israelis, and Jews worldwide, hope Israel eventually pulls out of the territories. Randall Price, jet-setting founder of World of the Bible Ministries, says, "In the book of Genesis, there are territorial dimensions for the land that is given to Abraham and his descendents. It's from the river of Egypt to the river of the Euphrates." In his view, Israel's right to that land, which extends into modern-day Iraq, is absolute. As for the Palestinians, Price says, "Ishmael has said that his descendants would live to the East of their brother. There's a much larger geographical territory allotted to them."
The Palestinians, he says, have "no historic claims" to the land they're on now and should move to an Arab country outside Israel's dominion.
Seen in this light, Dick Armey's comments to an incredulous Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball" a few weeks ago make more sense. "I am not content to give up any part of Israel for that purpose of that Palestinian state," he said. "I happened to believe that the Palestinians should leave." After all, Armey might have added, the Bible says so.
While Armey has made his evangelical Christianity clear, there is no evidence that he believes in dispensationalism. According to his communications director, Armey's Zionist stance stems from solidarity with Israel in the war against terrorism. Similarly, a spokesman for Inhofe insists that dispensationalism "has not really figured into his support for Israel."
Reed and Bauer also distance themselves from dispensationalism. "My support for Israel has little or nothing to do with theology of the end times," says Reed. "Evangelicals have a fairly expansive view of God's sovereignty. I believe that he'll be able to work out Israel's role in the end times without our help."
Bauer concurs, "I've always been uncomfortable trying to discern prophetic literature. Christ himself says no man knows the hour or the day, so in my own faith life I've stuck pretty much to the basics of my belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God and have left it to others to argue out what at times are fairly esoteric differences."
There is no reason to doubt either man's sincerity. At the same time, it is crucial to note that while both minimize the influence of dispensationalism, neither will explicitly disavow it. Meanwhile, at least one Republican leader seems to believe the rapture is imminent -- a plaque in Tom DeLay's office reads, "This could be the day."
