24 December 2017

The Jerusalem Embassy, Dispensationalism and American Evangelicalism

Moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem provides a convenient distraction for the embattled Trump administration. Embroiled in layers of investigation and cover-ups to hide cover-ups, the shift in media coverage provides them with some welcome respite.


The move was undoubtedly closely coordinated with the Netanyahu administration which faces its own difficulties and scandals. Netanyahu is 'going for it', that is to say his administration more than any previous is pursuing the aggressive expansionist policies of Likud.
For years the peace process has been held up over issues such as the Settlements, the status of Jerusalem, the Right of Return and whether or not a Palestinian state could have true autonomy and geographic continuity.
Netanyahu has scattered these issues to the winds and has effectively rendered them dead. The Settlements have expanded beyond the point of no return. The literal wall of separation has been built. It would be scandal if it had been built elsewhere but the US supports it and in the United States few people even know about its existence. The Right of Return has long been a dead issue. And now Netanyahu has moved to dash Palestinian hopes of a capital at the city they call Al-Quds.
The move also provides a distraction for the Trump administration in terms of foreign policy. The Yemen War, the failures in Syria, the Qatar Crisis... these all fade in light of the Jerusalem reporting. Receiving very limited coverage to begin with, the whole conversation now shifts to Jerusalem and the Trump administration can count on many domestic voices that will rise to its defense.
While some members of the Jewish community certainly support the move the support is limited and mixed. The Jewish community allied with Israel pours money and influence into Washington and yet they are not unanimous in their support of Netanyahu.
The biggest support bloc comes from Evangelicals who fanatically support Zionist Israel and are in particular close to Likud and Netanyahu. They eagerly support the Neo-Fascist policies and agenda of Likud and have done so since the Right-wing party came onto the scene in the 1970's. The Six-Day War of 1967 changed everything. Israel annexed Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the city of Jerusalem. They lost much of the international support they had enjoyed since their founding in 1948. After the near disaster of the Yom Kippur War they began a shift to the Right and some of the radical elements with terroristic pasts from the British Mandate days were allowed to come into power.  
In the United States Dispensational Eschatology which teaches that the Jews are still God's people and that they have a divine right to possessing the land of Israel came onto the scene in the late 19th century. The school which holds to a rather unique version of futuristic Premillennial theology also taught that Israel plays a prominent role in the fulfillment of 'latter days' prophecy. With the publication of the Scofield Bible in 1909 and due to the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, the school of Dispensationalism began to rapidly grow in terms of numbers and influence.
World War II played no small part in this as the faction's sensationalist readings of Revelation were tied by many to current events. Many students of the Bible came to believe this school was on the right track and they turned their backs on older schools of thought as well as denominations and traditions which by the 20th century were rapidly slipping into theological liberalism.
The creation of Israel in 1948 which was backed by both Christians in the United States and Britain marked a watershed. For many this was confirmation that their reading of Matthew 24 was being fulfilled right before everyone's eyes. Along with this rather mistaken reading of Christ's words concerning the fig tree, they believed the creation of Israel marked the countdown to the other seminal event that is at the heart of their hitherto unknown eschatological system... the Rapture.
The Bible of course teaches that believers will be caught up into the air at the Second Coming of Christ. The Pre-Tribulational Rapture (held by the vast majority of Dispensationalists) teaches that Jesus comes for believers in an event separate from the Second Coming proper. It's sort of a pre-Second Coming in which believers are caught up to heaven but then Jesus does not actually return (parousia) for roughly another seven years. This doctrine, easily refuted by Scripture is without theological or historical warrant, a wholly novel creation that appeared in the 19th century.
By the 1950s Evangelicalism was on the rise and Dispensationalism began to go mainstream. There were older beliefs about the Jews being in the so-called Holy Land but they were rooted in 19th century Postmillennialism, a school which withered throughout the 20th century and survives only within certain segments of Calvinistic thought. While the specific form of Postmillennialism all but died, Evangelicalism wedded old Postmillennialist-Dominionist aspirations to the eschatology of Dispensationalism. The world was ending within a generation of 1948... many of their teachers like Hal Lindsey believed the rapture would happen by the 1980's.* And though everything was doomed, they also were spurred on to political action and culture war. In particular there was a great zeal to combat communism, promote capitalism and to stand with and support the Zionist state. It was like the Helen Reddy song "You and Me Against the World", it was America and Israel contra mundum... against the world.
Evangelicals de facto substituted the United States with the Church. The pronoun confusion and conflation when speaking of the Church and America ('we', 'us') continues to this day. Israel and Judaism were quite literally God's 'plan A' and the United States (and later Western Civilisation led by the United States) represented the 'Plan B' of the Church Age. The Church would be raptured out soon and the Great Tribulation (as defined by Dispensationalism's misread of Daniel 9 and Revelation) would descend on the earth and calamity would fall upon Israel.
This belief system all but took over Evangelical circles by the 1950's and afterward. When I was kid growing up I firmly believed it was the only viable system for anyone who believed in the Bible. Any question of it probably meant that you weren't a Christian.
Dispensationalism is a deeply flawed and unbiblical system and has rightly come under withering attack. The system's original form has largely been dismantled and has been subjected to numerous revisions. Figures like Charles Ryrie began this process a generation ago and today figures like Darrel Bock continue to re-work its theology. Additionally at this point in time all but some of the tiny sects of Fundamentalists have moved firmly into the Dominionist camp and have embraced cultural transformation. Though the new generation of Dispensationalist ideology has dismantled most of the foundation of their eschatological system, they retain its key points... God has two people, the Church and the Jews. The Abrahamic promises are made to the Jewish people and this includes a permanent divine right to the land of Israel. Additionally they continue to hold to the Rapture and the whole Seven-Year Tribulational Pre-millennial scheme.
This system which is complicated and fully understood by relatively few people continues to exert great influence on American politics. If you understand Dispensationalism and how Dominion Theology played a part in shaping Evangelicalism... you will understand the Christian Right and many of its impulses. Of course there's more to it than that, there's American Patriotism and the fear of Communism which really gained steam during the Cold War. This drove the Christian Right into a fierce Christianising of Capitalism, something many had already supported but the context of McCarthyism and the social upheaval of the 1960's gave it a new impetus.
All of these forces have worked together and explain why Evangelicals continue to zealously promote the Zionist state of Israel. Few know much about Zionism, the British Mandate, Irgun, the Stern Gang or the real origins of modern Israeli politics. They know even less about the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the machinations of the Great Powers in the Middle East to this day. Many would be rather shocked if they knew Israel's real history and the nature of its alliances with nations like Apartheid South Africa and Saudi Arabia.
But none of this matters. American tourists, fueled by Hal Lindsey, John Hagee and the 'Left Behind' science-fiction series written by Tim LaHaye continue to visit Israel in carefully coordinated tourist packages. Traveling around in air conditioned buses they are propagandised by members of the Settler community and those connected to Likud. Their agents in the United States are legion. They fill the airwaves of Christian and Right-wing media providing their narrative and spin on events in the Middle East. It's masterful and it works as Evangelicals get out their checkbooks and go to the polls.
I remember a local newspaper was interviewing people in 2009 when Obama took office and asked what his main priority should be. Various answers were given but the Baptist pastor immediately chimed in about Israel being the only thing that mattered.
Obama's rocky relationship with Netanyahu infuriated Evangelicals. Those outside the community will have trouble fully understanding this. Obama was like Satan personified in resisting Netanyahu and failing to provide 100% support. When Obama failed to veto a UN condemnation of Israel, American Evangelicals were livid. The UN regularly condemns Israel and the US regularly vetoes any declaration or decree. Other presidents (Reagan, Bush I) have occasionally allowed the UN to condemn Israel but this was forgotten and the media, both FOX and the Christian outlets didn't bother to provide context. Instead they whipped up a firestorm.
All of these things point to what has happened in recent days. The moves were actually made in the 1990's to relocate the embassy to Jerusalem but it's been regularly blocked. It's something on the books but just allowed to sit off to the side. Trump can point to this and shrug his shoulders. He and his Evangelical prevaricating press secretary can pretend honesty and simply say it was an already existing law. In one sense that's true. There was a bureaucratic game being played and yet Trump's decision to allow it come into reality was strategic.
I am confident that many a sermon will be preached over the coming weeks defending this move and asserting that Israel (as per Genesis12) still has a divine right to Israel and the city of Jerusalem. This literally Judaizing theology has led to thousands of deaths over the past decades and it has contributed to many Evangelicals misunderstanding the Scriptures, the Kingdom of God, the Christian relation to the state, their perceptions of America and how the Middle East and Zionist Israel should be viewed. The Israelis largely despise American Evangelicals but they love the political support and the money and thus they pander to them. For Netanyahu, this is a distraction from his own scandals and paves the road to Israel's permanent control of Jerusalem and an end to the peace process, a notion he heartily rejects.
Even many non-Dispensational Evangelicals and Confessionalists support Israel. They don't believe it has a divine right to the land and they don't support the eschatology but they believe the Jewish people needed a homeland, especially in the wake of World War II. They believe Israel represents the West, its culture and its values in the midst of Islamic squalor and barbarity.
Most of these people have ignored the lies, are unfamiliar with the history and know little about the myriad crimes and evils of the Zionist state.
Dispensationalism continues to distort history. Years ago Hal Lindsey led the charge and accused anyone who did not support the Zionist state of being anti-Semitic. He accused non-Dispensational forms of theology as being guilty of the same and evoked the anti-Jewish diatribes of Martin Luther as proof. These writings were famously utilised by German anti-Semitic forces before and during the Nazi period. In other words if you weren't a Dispensationalist you were part of an intellectual current that led to the holocaust.
There's so much that could be said about all of these topics, but what continues to amaze is the fact that Israel, a nation which roots its narrative in the holocaust and the terrors of fascism has itself succumbed to the same forces. It is an apartheid state and flirts with genocidal policies. It is racist, imperialist and quite brutal.
It is fully supported by American Evangelicals and this combination has proven to be toxic. American Evangelicals continue to prove they are ignorant of the Scriptures and history. Great chapters in history such as World War II are not understood and thus they are greatly susceptible to manipulation. This is true of the American public in general but this phenomenon among professing conservative Christians marks a sad chapter in the state of the church and is something we as Christians must mark and seek to understand.
People in Gaza are falling once more under Israeli bombs, the Middle East is ready to explode once more. It was Evangelicals who supported George Bush and fell for the lies that led to the Iraq invasion. They supported the US genocide in the 1990s and the unraveling of the Middle East in 2003. For many of them their support and participation in these events were all but holy deeds and directly connected to their understanding of Israel's place in the Middle East.
They quite literally have blood on their hands.
If they're right, then they feel vindicated, confident they are serving God's purposes and plans.
But if they're wrong, what will be their judgment? They have twisted Scripture, worshipped idols, embraced lies and multitudes have died as a result of their Judaizing heresy. If they're wrong, and indeed they are, they stand condemned. Theirs is a heresy of blood equal to the egregious crimes of the Inquisition and the bloodbaths which took place during the ages of the Papal supremacy.
Liberal Protestants have condemned them but not on a Biblical basis. Their condemnation is rooted in the values of Classical Liberalism and the human rights. Their foundation is built on sand and their Christ is not the Christ of Scripture.
Confessionalist and Traditionalist Protestants have rejected Dispensationalism but they have been for the most part unwilling to fully condemn them. Because of their commitment to Dominionism and Culture War they are viewed as allies. The Dominionists who reject Dispensationalism do not wish to alienate them.
And so they too have blood on their hands.
It has been a very long time since anyone has come out forcefully against Dispensationalism. Philip Mauro and Arthur Pink waged war against it in the 1930's. Pink referred to it as 'demonic' and yet his criticisms were at times wanting. And yet by the time of his death in 1952 the school was ascendant even dominant.
In the long term the school faces decline. Its system is flawed and easily refuted and it continues to be dismantled. The problem is many don't know where to turn. Postmillennialism and its narrative of world Christianisation is so contrary to the ethos of the New Testament few give it serious credence. Amillennialism is terribly misunderstood and has been subjected to a host of lies and historical myths. Many mistakenly equate it with some form of gnosticism. Some have returned to Historic Premillennialism, which is certainly preferable to Dispensationalism. Others have begun to revive the older Protestant eschatology of Historicism.
But what I continue to find is that most people are a muddled mess and many of the pastors I talk to aren't much better. It will take at least another generation for the muddied waters to be cleared.
In the meantime Dominionism continues to wax bold and this impulse turns people's hearts away from the eschatological mindset and ethos of the New Testament. It turns them away from looking up and waiting for the coming of Christ. It turns them to the here and now. In defining the Kingdom in terms of this world it focuses on politics and culture.
There's reason to believe the up and coming generation is going to be less devoted to the Zionist cause. Of course terrorism can change that.
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* Of course they would later revive this and set the 'generation' start point from the 1967 acquisition of Jerusalem. As the forty years/generation timeframe passed they have revised it again and now some undoubtedly believe the relocation of Israel's capital to Jerusalem will mark the starting point of the prophetic clock. This will buy the school's claims more time as indeed so far apart from 1948, every claim they've made has fallen flat. Many of their teachers have been proven to be false prophets and yet they wiggle out of these charges and continue on.
It's all foolishness as Jesus' words in Matthew 24 have nothing to do with the revival of Israel. For a school that claims to be literal in its reading of Scripture they resort to some fairly astounding speculative and unwarranted reliance on metaphor and symbol when it comes to prophecy and Matthew 24 in particular. The hang assumption upon assumption on a very shaky understanding of Christ's doctrine in the Olivet Discourse. And yet what ramifications! The world has literally been affected by this error that hangs by a thread.
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