Christian Zionism

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Christian Zionism is a political and religious ideology that, in a Christian context, espouses the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land.

[12][14] Coupled with this was a general cultural Hebraising among more radical Protestants, as they saw the veneration of saints as idolatry and placed more focus on the biblical patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament, often naming their children Abraham, Cain, Jeremiah, Zachary, Daniel, Sampson, and the like.

[20] Johanna and Ebenezer Cartwright, two Baptists who had spent time in Amsterdam, held the same view and issued the original petition to Thomas Fairfax's Council of War in January 1649 for Jewish readmission:[21] the petition hoped, "That this Nation of England, with the inhabitants of the Netherlands, shall be the first and the readiest to transport Israel's sons and daughters on their ships to the land promised to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for an everlasting inheritance.

A prominent French-born figure Isaac La Peyrère, who was nominally a Huguenot Calvinist, but came from a Portuguese New Christian (converted Sephardic Jewish) family was also a significant 17th century progenitor, with influence on both sides of the English Channel.

[18] La Peyrère closely followed the developments of Oliver Cromwell's Dissenter regime and dreamed of overthrowing Louis XIV of France and replacing him with the Prince of Condé (who he worked for as a secretary) as part of a millennialist proto-Zionist messianic project.

[23] After the publication of La Peyrère's book the Amsterdam-based Menasseh Ben Israel informed his friend, Petrus Serrarius (a close associate of John Dury), about the importance of the theories, showing an early interplay between 17th century Jewish and Protestant proto-Zionism.

"[27] Some important 17th-century philosophers who acted a bridge between the millennialist sectarians of their day and the approaching Age of the Enlightenment with its scientific revolution either held views associated with premillennial restorationists, or moved closely in their circles: this applies particularly to Sir Isaac Newton and Baruch Spinoza.

[29] Spinoza for his part, although Jewish himself, moved in circles in the Netherlands which included Petrus Serrarius, Henry Oldenburg and was even directly influenced by La Peyrère.

[30] With the rise of the Hanoverians to power in Britain and the ascent of the Enlightenment, much of the 18th century mainstream elite adopted Philhellenism, looking back to the culture and philosophies of the classical world for inspiration for the Georgian age, rather than entertaining millennialist fantasies based on the Hebrew Old Testament (though Jews themselves enjoyed significant toleration in the British Empire).

This was precipitated in Germany by Philipp Spener's Pietism, a mystical and often millennialist take on Lutheranism, which prophesied the "conversion of the Jews and the fall of the Papacy as the prelude of the triumph of the Church."

[18] By the end of the 18th century, in the aftermath of the French Revolution and the National Assembly decreeing in December 1789 that non-Catholics were eligible for all civil and military positions, the Revolutionary government in France made a play for the allegiance of Jews, in competition with Britain.

During the Egypt–Syria campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars, Bonaparte invited "all the Jews of Asia and Africa to gather under his flag in order to re-establish the ancient Jerusalem.

[34] In the letter he stated "I recommend you, Napoleon, to call on the Jewish people to join your conquest in the East, to your mission to conquer the land of Israel" saying, "Their riches do not console them for their hardships.

[34] In New England during the 18th century, Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College was a supporter of Jewish restoration and befriended Rabbi Raphael Chaim Yitzchak Karigal of Hebron in 1773 during his visit.

His lectures were immediately published in French (L'Attente Actuelle de l'Eglise), English (1841), German and Dutch (1847) and so his teachings began their global journey.

They are to be restored and they are to be converted, too.The crumbling of the Ottoman Empire threatened the British route to India via the Suez Canal as well as sundry French, German and American economic interests.

In July 1853, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, who was President of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, wrote to Prime Minister Aberdeen urging Jewish restoration as a means of stabilizing the region.

[citation needed] Winston Churchill endorsed Restoration because he recognized that Jews fleeing Russian pogroms required a refuge, and preferred Palestine for sentimental reasons.

On November 24–25, 1890, Blackstone organized the Conference on the Past, Present and Future of Israel at the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Chicago where participants included leaders of many Christian communities.

[citation needed] Not all such attitudes were favorable towards the Jews; they were shaped in part by a variety of Protestant beliefs,[9][60] or by a streak of philo-Semitism among the classically educated British elite.

Such activism, it should be noted, was in many ways distinct from the prophetic speculation about the State of Israel that exploded after the 1967 Six-Day War (even as it had somewhat common theological and hermeneutical antecedents).

In The Late Great Planet Earth, for example, Lindsey anticipated that, per Ezekiel 39:6–8, Jews would fight off a "Russian" invasion before realizing their miraculous deliverance and converting to Christianity.

[citation needed] The Third International Christian Zionist Congress, held in Jerusalem in February 1996, issued a proclamation which said:[81] God the Father, Almighty, chose the ancient nation and people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to reveal His plan of redemption for the world.

For most Christians the City of God (Psalm 46:4 (Septuagint: ΜΕ:5): "ἡ πόλις τοῦ Θεοῦ", romanized: "hē pólis toũ theoũ", lit.

"[88] After Herzl explained that his reasoning behind the project for the creation of a Jewish state was not a religious statement, but interest in secular land for national independence, Pope Pius X replied "Does it have to be Gerusalemme?

Following the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, the Vatican advocated the position that Jerusalem should be treated as a separate "international city", as laid out in the encyclical Redemptoris nostri cruciatus.

[87] In the 20th and 21st centuries, certain Catholic theologians such as André Villeneuve, Gary Anderson and Gavin D'Costa, have written in support of Christian Zionism, holding it to be a sign of God's fidelity.

[...] [T]rue Israel today is neither Jews nor Israelis, but believers in the Messiah, even if they are gentiles.In the United States, the General Assembly of the National Council of Churches in November 2007 approved a resolution for further study which stated that the "theological stance of Christian Zionism adversely affects: The Reformed Church in America at its 2004 General Synod found "the ideology of Christian Zionism and the extreme form of dispensationalism that undergirds it to be a distortion of the biblical message noting the impediment it represents to achieving a just peace in Israel/Palestine.

"[94] The Mennonite Central Committee has criticized Christian Zionism, noting that in some churches under its influence the "congregations 'adopt' illegal Israeli settlements, sending funds to bolster the defense of these armed colonies.

[103] The advocated group was simultaneously criticised for its publication of a call for sit-ins at Israeli Embassies, the hacking of government websites to promote its message, and support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.