From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Jan 08 2002 - 12:44:12 MST
Let me introduce this restatement with an illuminating quotation:
"It was the impact of Christian Zionism on Western statesmen that helped
modern Jewish Zionism achieve the rebirth of Israel ... So those who are
puzzled by what they consider the new-found friendship between Israel and
its Christian supporters reveal an ignorance of both. But we know better. We
know the spiritual ties that link us so profoundly and so enduringly. We
know the historical partnership that worked so well to fulfill the Zionist
dream." [ex-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking as Israel's
Ambassador to the UN]
The whole saga of modern Israel probably began when Joseph Priestly,
Presbyterian founder of the Unitarian Society and discoverer of oxygen
preached a sermon in 1794, shortly after the French Revolution, where he
described this as "the earthquake" described in Revelations 11:3. In a
published pamphlet, he went on to predict the restoration of the Jews to
Palestine, insisting that it was Britain's destiny to facilitate
Christianity's "elder brother" in returning home to Judea. Certainly this
was the seed of the "Zionist" movement and the primary reason for its
popularity in the Presbytarian community (from whence most US
fundamentalists are drawn).
Two movements, one political and one radical sprang from this sermon, and
culminated in the publication of Herzl's "The Jewish State" in 1896. This
acted to focus attention on the movement and drew widespread support from
British politicians. Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Palmerston (who, as Prime
Minister was ideally placed to advance this cause publicly supported the
Jewish diaspora to return home. In Britain, this partly pragmatic, partly
ideological stream ran its course with Lord Balfour, the British foreign
secretary's declaration that the UK would promote a Jewish homeland
(although as I have mentioned before, he did not mean that there should be a
"Jewish state").
[Above partially based upon and following quoted from
http://ship-of-fools.com/Columns/Walker/Walker1100.html accessed 2001-01-08]
<quote>
The secondary course was an apocalyptic underground stream, which has mainly
been associated with the prophetic school of thought known as
premillennialism (the idea that Christ will return before a literal reign of
the saints on earth for 1,000 years). Premillennialism is on the whole
pessimistic about the future of the world, seeing calamity and disaster as
the destiny for the majority of humankind. It looks for a way out in the
"rapturing" of the Christian saints from earth in a secret meeting "in the
air" with Christ. Meanwhile, a great tribulation is visited on those
unfortunate enough to be left behind.
The calamitous tenor of the premillennial schema was an echo of schoolmaster
James Bicheno's The Sign of the Times, written in 1793, but 19th-century
prophetic interpreters went beyond Bicheno, insisting that they were in the
"end time". A sign of this terminus of history was that Jews would be
restored to Israel, because God was going to rescue the people of the first
covenant by appearing to them as the risen Messiah. This would lead to a
wholesale repentance and the reconciliation of the Jewish people with God.
The restoration of the Jews to Palestine was championed by a barrister and
Anglican clergyman Lewis Way, who in 1815 took over an obscure missionary
society, The Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. His cause
was taken up by Edward Irving and a group of scholars devoted to the
prophetic scriptures called the Albury Circle. In their journal, The Morning
Watch, they devoted thousands of pages to establishing a premillennial
system in which the restoration of the Jews to Israel was a cardinal
doctrine.
In the 1830s, another prophetic circle regularly met in Powerscourt in
Ireland and from there the movement known as the Brethren developed and
honed a premillennial system. The work of John Nelson Darby was seminal in
this endeavour, and it was his interpretations that crossed the Atlantic
later in the century and formed the basis of The Schofield Bible (first
published in 1909), which made dispensational theology, with its
premillennial culmination of human history, accessible to American
evangelicalism.
The prediction of Jewish return became a cornerstone of holiness evangelical
traditions, the Pentecostal movement after the Azusa Street revival of 1906,
and the evangelical mainstream of Protestant denominations, especially the
Southern Baptists.
</quote>
Certainly, according to his memoirs, it was this concept that "God wills
it," which featured in Jan Smuts mind when he cast the deciding vote which
lead to the formation of the State of Israel. He also states that this was
the primary reason for the support for the founding of a Jewish State.
According to their own statements, the same sentiment played a major role in
Ronald Reagan and George Bush's approach to the "problem of the
Palestinians". The fact that Dubya, "a friend to Israel," is not only
following in, but seemingly exceeding his father's religious agenda should
be of grave concern as it seems probably that like David Ben-Gurion, he
imagines that the Bible provides the Jews with the "sacrosanct title-deed to
Palestine" and imagines that they can do no wrong even when they engage in
state sponsored terrorism on a massive scale.
Those interested in learning more about the Israel - Christian
fundamentalist linkage may find this site instructive:
http://www.iraqwar.org/fundamentalists.htm [accessed 2002-01-08]
<quote>
Few Americans understood the real reasons for the alliance between Christian
fundamentalism and the most extreme segments of Israel political life. In an
important new book, "Prophecy and Politics" by Grace Halsell (Lawrence Hill
and Co.). She worked as a White House speechwriter during the
administration of Lyndon Johnson and explores this growing relationship.
During two of Jerry Falwell’s Holy Land tours, the author interviewed
fundamentalist members of the Moral Majority, all of whom believed that the
biblical prophecy of fighting World War III must be fulfilled preparatory of
the Second Coming of Christ.
The strain of fundamentalism known as "dispensationalism," Halsell writes,
argues that the world will soon be destroyed: "God knows it will happen. He
knew it from the beginning. But, God kept His plan secret from all the
billions of people who lived before us. But now … He has revealed the plan …
we must move through seven time periods, or dispensations – one of which
includes the terrible battle of Armageddon, where new and totally
destructive nuclear weapons will be unleashed and blood will flow like
mighty rivers … ."
...
Dr. John Walvoord, who teaches at Southwestern School of Bible in Dallas,
explained the dispensationalist beliefs to Halsell: "God does not look on
all of His children the same way. He sees us divided into categories, the
Jews and the Gentiles. God has one plan, an earthly plan, for the Jews. And
He has a second plan, a heavenly plan, for the born-again Christians. The
other peoples of the world – Muslims, Buddhists, and those of other faiths
as well as those Christians not born again – do not concern Him. As for
destroying planet earth, we can do nothing. Peace, for us, is not in God’s
book … ."
At a meeting of Christian Zionists in Basel, Switzerland, the group adopted
resolutions calling for all Jews living outside of Israel to leave the
countries where they are now residing and move to the Jewish State. The
Christians also urged Israel to annex the West Bank. When an Israeli in the
audience urged more moderate language, pointing out that an Israeli poll
showed that one-third of Israelis would be willing to trade territory seized
in 1967 for peace with the Palestinians, one of the Christian leaders, van
der Hoeven of Holland, replied, "We don’t care what the Israelis vote! We
care what God says! And God gave that land to the Jews!"
</quote>
and from:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:Fd6Cb-Nnw3YC:www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/2367/root.html+Christian+Fundamentalism+%2B+Zionism&hl=en
accessed 2002-01-08
<quote>
The Bible teaches that at Christ's return, a surviving remnant of Jews will
be regathered to Israel and saved. God's covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob will be literally fulfilled (Matt. 24:31; Rom. 11:25-26).32
...
dispensationalists hold that the promises made to Abraham and Israel must
await future fulfilment since they were never completely fulfilled in the
past. So, for example, it is an article of normative dispensational belief
that all Israel will be literally saved; that the boundaries of the land
promised to Abraham and his descendants will be literally instituted; that
Jesus Christ will return to a literal and theocratic kingdom centred on
Jerusalem in the State of Israel.
...
Following Scofield's literalistic hermeneutic, most contemporary
premillennial dispensationalists of what ever type, equate the State of
Israel with biblical Israel; the Jews are still regarded as God's 'chosen
people'; and consequently people of Jewish descent have a divine right to
the land in perpetuity.
Crucial to the premillennial dispensationalist reading of biblical prophecy,
drawn principally from Daniel and Revelation, is the assertion that the
Jewish Temple will be rebuilt on the Temple Mount as a precursor to the Lord
returning to restore the Kingdom of Israel centred on Jerusalem. This
pivotal event is also seen as the trigger for the start of the war of
Armageddon.77
...
Even most of those neo-evangelicals who abandoned the details of
dispensationalism still retained a firm belief in Israel's God-ordained
role. This belief is immensely popular in America, though rarely mentioned
in proportion to its influence.87
</quote>
Regards
Hermit
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