CHRISTIAN Zionism has been condemned as a “damaging ideology” by the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in the Holy Land.
The statement, issued on Saturday, warns: “Recent activities undertaken by local individuals who advance damaging ideologies, such as Christian Zionism, mislead the public, sow confusion, and harm the unity of our flock. These undertakings have found favor among certain political actors in Israel and beyond who seek to push a political agenda which may harm the Christian presence in the Holy Land and the wider Middle East.”
The leaders go on to say that “these individuals have been welcomed at official levels both locally and internationally. Such actions constitute interference in the internal life of the churches and disregard the pastoral responsibility vested in the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem.”
The statement asserts the authority of the signatories: “They alone represent the Churches and their flock in matters pertaining to Christian religious, communal, and pastoral life in the Holy Land.”
It is not the first time that the Patriarchs have condemned Christian Zionism. Twenty years ago, “The Jerusalem declaration on Christian Zionism” was issued by the Latin Patriarch, alongside the leaders of the Syrian Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran Churches (News, 25 August 2006).
This defined Christian Zionism as “a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel. The Christian Zionist programme provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it places an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ’s love and justice today. We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.”
The definition of Christian Zionism, which supports the return of the Jewish diaspora to the Holy Land, has been subject to dispute. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, which warns that the term is “under attack and often misrepresented in the media”, defines a Christian Zionist as “a Christian who supports the Jewish people’s right to return to their homeland”. There are scriptural grounds for this, it says. “God chose Abraham to birth a nation through which He could redeem the world. To accomplish this He bequeathed them a land in which they could exist as this chosen nation.”
Christian Zionism is “not based on prophecy or end-time events”, it says. “Most Christian Zionists would agree, however, that Israel’s reemergence on the world’s scene, in fulfillment of God’s promises to her, indicates that other events prophesied in the Bible will follow.”
Christian Zionism has been traced to the “philo-Semitism” of the Reformation, partly through a focus on scripture (“Protestants rediscovered the Bible, read the Hebrew scriptures, and recognised that Jesus was a Jew” — Books, 29 June 2007), and partly through the resurgence of Millennialism. Many Christian Zionists believe that the Jews’ return to the Holy Land is a precursor to the Second Coming of Jesus. The movement grew in the early 19th century, alongside Dispensationalism, and gained strength in the United States in the 20th century, among Evangelical supporters including Billy Graham. Proponents emphasise that it represents a departure from “replacement theology”, whereby Christianity is understood as having replaced Judaism, with Christians the new Chosen People.
Although the Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People (CMJ) and other organisations have emphasised that they do not adopt a position on any particular millennial view, Christian Zionism is widely understood in its dispensationalist form: seeking to bring about the restoration of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland in expectation of the Second Coming.
Rabbi Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Professor of Judaism at the University of Wales, Lampeter, has drawn attention to a “paradox” in the alliance of Jewish leaders and Christian Zionists, given that “Christian Zionist theology envisages the ultimate disappearance of Judaism as a living religion” (Comment, 19 May 2006).
The study — and criticism — of Christian Zionism has often focused on the United States. In a letter sent to Tony Blair in 2004, highlighting the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees, the Archbishops criticised the US government’s support for Israel as “uncritical and one-sided”, and, in an allusion to Christian Zionism, connected this to “interpretations of Scriptures from outside the mainstream of the tradition” (News, 2 July 2004).
The 2006 Patriarchs’ statement condemned “the contemporary alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine”.
In 2024, a resolution condemning Christian Zionism was passed by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (News, 28 June 2024). Having initially rejected the resolution, the Bishops brought it back for reconsideration, after the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, Dr Hosam Naoum, expressed his disappointment.
Resolution D006 condemns “the practical and political effects of that collection of theologies popularly known as ‘Christian Zionism’, which, distinct from historic Jewish Zionism, in its many manifestations, promotes an eschatology in which the Second Coming of Christ is contingent upon the existence of the modern State of Israel, wrongly conflates that State with biblical Israel, and denies both the legitimacy of Palestinian existence and right to statehood in the Holy Land”.
God’s Unfailing Word, the first publication on Jewish-Christian relations from the Church of England’s Faith and Order Commission (News, 21 November 2019), says: “It is inaccurate and unhelpful if Christian theological support for the continuing existence of the State of Israel, whether or not it would describe itself as Christian Zionism, is simply treated as a form of fundamentalism. . .
“So far as forms of Christian Zionism are concerned that are bound up with apocalyptic speculation, the Church must be clear that there can be no justification in Christian doctrine for setting aside the ordinary requirements of justice for the sake of supposed prophetic fulfilment, when justice is at the heart of God’s promises for us.”
