David Mitchell

There’s a big controversy in Northern Ireland politics because the Education Minister, Paul Givan, went on a trip to Israel, paid for by the Israeli state. Several other unionist politicians went too. Mr Givan is a conservative evangelical Protestant unionist.

I’ve just listened to an interview with him on the Nolan Show. Public debate is usually conducted in secular terms, so journalists don’t probe into theological beliefs. Politicians know not to give religious justifications for their views in public as it will narrow their appeal.

But Christian Zionism is almost certainly the ‘real’ story here.

Many Ulster Protestants are fans of Israel for religious reasons. Christian Zionism is widespread in Ulster Protestant culture. Interestingly, many Christian Zionists may not use or even be aware of this term. I grew up in a cultural world similar to many of these pro-Israel unionists and never heard the term ‘Christian Zionism’ until I read criticisms of it. Identifying with Israel is just in the atmosphere.

Christian Zionists may seem mad or bad. But pro-Israel beliefs have probably been learned as being necessary and integral to a person’s overall faith. This means that truly taking on board news about Israeli state crimes might be seen as threatening a person’s entire religious worldview. So change is hard. But not impossible.

For what it’s worth, here are 500 words explaining Christian Zionism, taken from our recent book on Peace Studies. It’s in the chapter on religion, conflict, and peacebuilding.

Theologies in conflict: Christian Zionism versus Palestinian liberation theology

A stark instance of intra-religious difference on a matter of peace and conflict is the opposing theologies within Christianity which guide approaches to the Palestine-Israel conflict. Zionism is Jewish nationalism which, since the end of the nineteenth century, has sought to install a Jewish state on the whole of historic Palestine. Christian Zionism is a brand of conservative Protestant theology, and a movement within evangelical Protestantism, that supports Zionism. It can be found around the world but is particularly strong in the US, with many millions of adherents there.

Christian Zionism points to Bible verses such as ‘I [God] will bless those who bless you [Abraham’s descendants], and whoever curses you I will curse’ (Genesis 12: 3) as establishing a Christian duty to unconditionally support Israel. God promising the land of Israel to Abraham is interpreted as meaning permanent exclusive ownership of the land. Christian Zionism may also entail a complex ‘eschatology’ – beliefs about the future fate of the world – originally devised by an Anglo-Irish Plymouth Brethren evangelist, John Nelson Darby, in the early nineteenth century. In this eschatology, supporting Israel will hasten as series of events including the Second Coming of Jesus (Aldrovandi, 2014). 

Christian Zionism is popularised through churches, as well as publications, the internet, and television which reaches tens of millions in the US and around the world. Its political influence is exerted through the ‘Christian Right’ which emerged in the 1980s (Kiracofe, 2009), the evangelical lobby which continues to influence the Republican Party. To give one example, Donald Trump said he made the controversial decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem ‘for the evangelicals’ i.e. the Christian Zionists who loyally supported him (Mathers, 2020). For these voters, a peace deal in which Israel gives up land for peace would literally be of the Devil. Christian Zionism dovetails with a broader US sympathy for Israel as purportedly sharing American democratic values and supporting American interests.

However, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians, as well as some evangelicals, reject Christian Zionism. The Palestinian Christian community naturally finds Christian Zionism particularly objectionable, given that their co-religionists’ theology supports the ongoing colonisation and occupation of Palestinian lands, colluding with Israeli Zionist policies. The work of Naim Ateek, a Palestinian Anglican priest, is indicative of the Christian theological rebuttal of Christian Zionism (see Ateek, 1989). Outlining a ‘Palestinian theology of liberation’, he argues that Christian Zionism is a misreading of key verses – the New Testament supersedes any promise of the land to the descendants of Abraham. It also contradicts the justice and universal love of God expressed in Jesus, whose life and teaching for Christians should be the interpretive key to understanding the Bible. Christ’s statements to ‘love your enemies’ and ‘blessed are the peacemakers’, argues Ateek, clearly mean Christians everywhere should seek a just peace in Palestine, not give unconditional support to the state of Israel.

This theological divide is pivotal to the conflict. The US is regarded as essential to any possible peace in Middle East, and Christian Zionism is considerably more influential and resourced within policy making circles than Christian peacemaking theology. During the Israeli bombardment of Gaza from October 2023 which killed tens of thousands of people, the use of biblical language by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, was probably to appeal to US Christian Zionists (Mohammad, 2023).  

References

Aldrovandi, Carlo (2014) Apocalyptic Movements in Contemporary Politics: Christian and Jewish Zionism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ateek, Naim (1989) Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation. Mary Knoll NY: Orbis.

Kiracofe, Clifford A. (2009) Dark Crusade: Christian Zionism and US Foreign Policy. I.B Tauris. 

Mathers, Matt (2020) Trump admits moving US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was ‘for the evangelicals’. Independent website. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/trump-us-embassay-evangelicals-wisconsin-rally-a9675466.html. [accessed 1 February 2024].

Mohammed, Faisal (2023) Q&A: For every 1 Jewish Zionist, there are 30 Christian Zionists, and Netanyahu exploits this. TRT World website. Available at: https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/qanda-for-every-1-jewish-zionist-there-are-30-christian-zionists-and-netanyahu-exploits-this-15656249 [accessed 5 May 2024].