The Kingdom of God vs evangelical Christian Zionism

Jan 27, 2024

Sunday  Observer- Anil Netto

In 1904, a little-known meeting took place. Theodore Herzl, the secular Jewish founder of Zionism, met Pope Pius X in an attempt to seek the latter’s support for the formation of a secular Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Pius X responded: “We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem — but we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church, I cannot tell you anything different.”

Back then, the Church was concerned about access to the sacred sites in the holy land and securing the rights of Christians in Palestine. Under Ottoman rule, the Church appeared comfortable with the arrangements for access and control of the holy sites. They worried that a Jewish state would erode their customary rights.

Not surprisingly, ahead and after the formation of the State of Israel in 1948, the Church advocated the internationalisation of Jerusalem. Even today, the Church calls for a “special status” for the city that has special historical significance for three major faiths.

Also, Jews had suffered genocide in the Holocaust and many viewed their aspiration for a homeland sympathetically.

Unfortunately, when the State of Israel was formed in 1948 on 56 per cent of the land of Palestine (despite the Palestinian Arab population numbering two-thirds of the population), it resulted in the Nakba – The Catastrophe. Zionist forces destroyed 530 villages and expelled 750,000 inhabitants from their homes and captured 78 per cent of historic Palestine.

Fast forward to 2014. When Pope Francis visited Bethlehem in Palestine territory, he angered many in Israel by praying before the separation wall that Israel erected.

But the Bishop of Rome also laid a wreath on the tomb of Herzl in trying to tread a middle path between the two nations. (This was a customary practice among many leaders visiting Israel.)

Today, Francis and the Church maintain their call for a two-state solution — though that will be difficult to achieve given the many illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory.

The problem now is that too many Christians — even those in the mainstream churches — have subscribed to the evangelical Christian Zionist view of Israel.

In fact, many evangelical Christian Zionists spend way too much time obsessing over the “End Times”. This is when they believe Christians will be zapped up to the heavens in the Rapture, leaving behind other mortals to a period of great tribulation.

Zionist Christians see it as their calling to express unconditional support for Israel in the hope of hastening the Second Coming of Christ. This Christ is not the Prince of Peace as we know him. Instead, he has morphed into some kind of violent warrior king who is supposed to lead the armies of the good guys against the bad guys. This would supposedly then usher in a 1,000-year period of peace, centred on Jerusalem.

However, the late Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI maintained that “a theologically-understood acquisition of land (in the sense of new political messianism) was unacceptable…a strictly theologically-understood [Jewish] state — a Jewish faith-state that would view itself as the theological and political fulfilment of the promises — is unthinkable within history according to Christian faith and contrary to the Christian understanding of the promises.”

What this probably means is that Christians should not view the State of Israel through a messianic lens, as somehow heralding the End Times — even if we may regard it as the “legitimate home of the Jewish people”, which may have religious significance for Christians as an instance of “God’s faithfulness to the people of Israel” (Ratzinger).

The Catholic Church has taken a cautious and moderate approach to the state of Israel. The Vatican finally recognised the state of Israel in 1993. This recognition was based more on the political reality on the ground and diplomatic considerations - rather than on theological grounds. It came after years of concern over control of sacred Christian sites and Christian and other minority rights.

The Vatican has also been concerned about Palestinian rights, culminating in its recognition of the State of Palestine in 2013.

A clearer position of the Church’s stand on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories emerged in 2010.

That was when Pope Benedict chaired a special synod of bishops on the Middle East after turmoil in that region, including the US War on Iraq and an uprising by the Palestinians against Israeli occupation (Second Intifada).

The final synod statement called for “the necessary legal steps to put an end to the occupation of the different Arab territories”.

One sentence, couched in diplomatic language, jumped out of the text: “Recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable.”

This is tantamount to saying that Christians should not use the Bible to justify any injustice and atrocity, let alone a genocide - just because it is committed by the State of Israel.

If anything, the Old Testament is replete with exhortations to the people of Israel to treat the strangers in their midst fairly and with justice.

While the Church Catechism teaches that the “Old Covenant [between God and the Jews] has never been revoked”, Benedict believed the covenant is a dynamic reality involving a series of covenants (Abrahamic, Mosaic, etc) leading to a New Covenant that includes Christ as the pivotal point in history.

A covenant is not a one-way deal. God expects His people to act justly, to love mercifully and to walk humbly with Him (Micah 6:8).

Without cracking our heads too much, we really need to live up to the Kingdom values that Jesus outlined in the Beatitudes.

Christian Zionism’s obsession with trying to analyse the formation of the State of Israel in 1948 in relation to the End Times is a serious distraction. It promotes a pessimistic view of the world and leaves Christians disempowered. It diverts our attention away from Jesus' kingdom on Earth and His call to us to be the salt and light of the world – right now, right here wherever we are.

If anything, what the Israeli government is doing today in Gaza — as outlined by South Africa in its charge of genocide at the International Court of Justice — shows just how far Israel has strayed from the call to act justly, to love mercifully and to walk humbly with God.

(Anil Netto is a freelance writer and activist based in Penang. He believes we are all called to build the kingdom of God in this world.)