Evangelicals and Israel: Theological roots of a political alliance

Christian Century, Nov 4, 1998 by Donald Wagner

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington this past January, his initial meeting was not with President Clinton but with Jerry Falwell and more than 1,000 fundamentalist Christians. The crowd saluted the prime minister as "the Ronald Reagan of Israel," and Falwell pledged to contact more than 200,000 evangelical pastors, asking them to "tell President Clinton to refrain from putting pressure on Israel" to comply with the Oslo accords.

The meeting between Netanyahu and Falwell illustrates a remarkable political and theological convergence. The link between Israel's Likud government and the U.S. Religious Right was established by Natanyahu's mentor, Menachem Begin, during the Carter and Reagan administrations. However, the roots of evangelical support for Israel lie in the long tradition of Christian thinking about the millennium.

In Luke's account of the ascension, the disciples ask Jesus, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the Kingdom to Israel?" The question illustrates the early church's fascination with Israel and its prophetic role at the end of history--a fascination that continues to this day. Reflections on the end times draw on the Book of Daniel, Zechariah 9-14, Ezekiel 38-39 and various apocryphal books, as well as Matthew 24, the early Pauline letters (1 Thess. 4:16-17; 5:1-11) and the Book of Revelation.

An early version of Christian eschatology, called "historic premillennialism," held that Jesus would return and establish his millennial kingdom after the world had been evangelized. However, by the 18th century another model of eschatology emerged in England that emphasized the role of a reconstituted Israel in the end times. This eschatology was rooted in three streams of British Christianity: the piety of English Puritanism; the view that Britain was the "new Israel," a theme that dates back at least to the seventh century and the Venerable Bede; and a hermeneutic that interpreted biblical prophetic texts as having a literal, future fulfillment. Among the forerunners of this movement was Sir Henry Finch, a prominent lawyer and member of Parliament. In 1621, Finch wrote a treatise in which he called upon the British people and its government to support Jewish settlement in Palestine in order to fulfill biblical prophecy.

As the year 1800 approached, several premillennial theologies emerged as a result of the insecurity surrounding the American and French revolutions. Among them were various utopian movements and the Millerites (a group that later became Seventh-day Adventists). During this period John Nelson Darby (1800-82), a renegade Anglican priest from Ireland, popularized and systematized eschatological themes while simultaneously developing a new school of thought which has been called "futurist premillennialism."

During 60 years of unceasing travel and preaching across the European continent and North America, Darby converted a generation of evangelical clergy and laity to his views. Darby held that biblical prophecies and much of scripture must be interpreted according to a literal and predictive hermeneutic. He believed that the true church will be removed from history through an event called the "rapture" (I Thess. 4:16-17; 5:1-11), and the nation Israel will be restored as God's primary instrument in history.

According to Darby, Christians must interpret history in light of seven epochs or "dispensations," each of which reflects a particular manner in which God deals with humanity. For example, we currently live under the dispensation of "Grace," whereby people are judged according to their personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This hermeneutical method is called dispensationalism.

According to the dispensational model, a time of turmoil lies ahead, but believers will be "raptured" away before it begins. This period of tribulation will culminate in the final battle at Armageddon, a valley northwest of Jerusalem. As evangelical historian Timothy Weber points out, for premillennialists "the historical process is a never-ending battle between good and evil, whose course God has already conceded to the Devil .... History's only hope lies in its own destruction."

Through Darby's influence, premillennial dispensationalism became a dominant method of biblical interpretation and influenced a generation of evangelical leaders, including Dwight L. Moody. Perhaps the most influential instrument of dispensational thinking was the Scofield Bible (1909) which included a commentary that interpreted prophetic texts according to a premillennial hermeneutic. Another early Darby disciple, William E. Blackstone, brought dispensationalism to millions of Americans through his best seller Jesus Is Coming (1882). Blackstone organized the first Zionist lobbying effort in the U.S. in 1891 when he enlisted J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Charles B. Scribner and other financiers to underwrite a massive newspaper campaign requesting President Benjamin Harrison to support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.