The Compass Podcast looks into a topic that has been making headlines and stirring heated debates: the Israel and Gaza conflict. Specifically, we will address a perplexing phenomenon: the religiously driven blind support of Israeli militarism by some Christians. What theological perspectives drive such a fascination with this conflict and where did those ideas come from? Let's take a quick look at the historical roots of the conflict, unraveling the layers of religious beliefs, and examining the concept of eschatology and its influence on these perspectives.
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Episode notes
Sources used in this podcast episode:
- Understanding the Evangelical obsession with Israel by Jonathan Merritt https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2017/12/11/understanding-evangelical-obsession-israel
- Israeli Palestinian Conflict by Global Conflict Tracker https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/israeli-palestinian-conflict
- What is Hamas? By Kali Robinson https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-hamas
In this episode:
[00:00] Could this be sign of the End Times?
[01:12] Christians support and how violence hampers peace.
[03:49] Holocaust fuels Zionism, UN plans partition.
[10:41] Hamas attacks Israel, Israel responds forcefully.
[13:06] Eschatology, Israel war, end times, dispensationalism, premillennialism
[16:13] Israel, church, prophecy, temple, second coming.
[18:52] Faithful taken away, tribulations, Armageddon, millennial kingdom.
[23:53] Witness of mercy, peace shows God's movement.
[25:28] More about Compass
Compass is a production of United Methodist Communications.
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This episode posted on November 1, 2023
Episode Transcript:
Ryan Dunn:
This is the Compass Podcast: Finding the Divine in the Everyday.
And that includes looking for the spiritual and theological connections to things happening in the news.
My name is Ryan Dunn… and maybe you’re like me, in that you’ve been following the developments that really heated up in October of 2023 regarding the Israel and Gaza conflict.
This is a long-running conflict.
Representing a lot of pain and human suffering… for so many reasons.
And the witness of the whole thing is a reminder, I think, that violence is a symptom of our human brokenness and prolongs our suffering rather than resolving it…
Because so much of this conflict has seen attempts to prevail through violent coercion.
And it’s because of that violent promulgation that I found it so surprising that so many people claiming the name of Christian have been so enthusiastically supportive of military action in the conflict.
I began to do some research,
And the more I surfed around, the stranger things got.
Really, I was taken aback by the number of people who have jumped to the conclusion that this latest conflict is a sign of the End Times.
And, even beyond that, I was taken aback by the number of people of faith who declare that Israel must be supported at all costs.
So, in this episode, I want to share what I’ve found.
The question for me was, why do so many Christians seem to be so blindly invested in supporting the state of Israel?
And I want to unpack that question a bit.
Because I want to separate the Israeli state from the Jewish people.
Because I’m not convinced that the same blind support is there for the larger context of Judaism. The support is specific to the nation state of Israel
I also want to be clear that I’m not interested in proclaiming a right side and a wrong side in the conflict.
The use of aggressive violence perpetuates harm and widens the gap between the adversaries.
Violence does not lead to the establishment of peace.
So that’s my soapbox on that matter.
What I’m really interested in is getting to the bottom of religiously-driven blind support of Israeli militancy.
We’re going to dive into some theological history.
We’re going to talk about Eschatology and Christian End Times beliefs.
All that stuff is wrapped up into why some American Christians declare Israel must be supported no matter what.
In order to get into all that, though, we probably need to start with the actual roots of the current Israeli-Palestine conflict that has now flared into the conflict between the state of Israel and the Hamas group operating out of Gaza.
Let’s go back to 1940’s… there’s certainly a lot more history prior to that… but for our purposes we can start here.
By the end of World War II in 1945, the Zionist movement, advocating for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, had gained momentum, and Jewish immigration to the region had increased, partly fueled by the horrors of the Holocaust. Meanwhile, the Arab majority opposed the establishment of a Jewish state and sought independence.
The British government, which held the mandate over Palestine, was struggling to maintain order and address the conflicting demands of the Jewish and Arab populations.
In 1947, exhausted by the tensions and violence, the British government referred the matter to the United Nations, asking for a solution to the ongoing conflict.
The UN came up with a plan to partition the area known as Palestine into two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab, with Jerusalem placed under international administration. The Jewish state would receive about 56% of the territory, despite Jews making up about one-third of the population and owning less than 10% of the land.
The Jewish leaders accepted the partition plan, seeing it as an opportunity to establish a Jewish state. However, the Arab leaders, both in Palestine and in the surrounding countries, rejected the plan, opposing any partition and the establishment of a Jewish state.
It’s a fictional account, but in “The Source” by James Michener, there’s this account of the days leading up to British leaving the area and the UN partition plan being put into place.
And the two sides… those of Israel and those of the Arabs… are like lining up to go at each other like it’s a football play.
And the British leaving will be the snap of the ball and then these two sides will commence tearing each other to shreds.
In reality, that’s kind of what happened.
On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was created, sparking the first Arab-Israeli War.
The war ended in 1949 with Israel’s victory, but 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, and the territory was divided into 3 parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip.
As part of the UN’s plan, Jerusalem was supposed to be under international administration.
But that never happened.
Following the 1948 war, Jerusalem itself was partitioned into a portion controlled by Israel and another controlled by Jordan.
Tensions, of course, remained high for the next 18-19 years.
In June 1967, Israel preemptively attacked Egyptian and Syrian air forces, responding to what they deemed were provocative manuevers by Egypt. This started the Six-Day War.
After the war, Israel gained territorial control over the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt;
the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan;
and the Golan Heights from Syria.
Now controlling all of Jerusalem, Israel declared the city its “eternal and indivisible” capital.
This move has not been recognized internationally.
Most other countries recognize Tel Aviv as the Israeli capital.
Except that, in a move to appease American evangelicals… and we’ll talk in a bit on why this is important to them… the Trump administration of the US moved the US embassy to Jerusalem in 2017.
In 1973, there was another war between Israel and neighbors.
This one was initiated by Egypt and Syria.
The October, or Yom Kippur War lasted for just a couple weeks.
It resulted in Eqypt being able to negotiate the return of some of the land occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War.
In 1979, representatives from Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords, a peace treaty that ended the thirty-year conflict between Egypt and Israel.
And that resulted in peace for Israel internationally.
But there were still a lot of troubles within.
Promises of self-governance for Palestinian Arabs had never been fulfilled
People were still being displaced to make room for Israeli settlements.
In 1987, thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip rose up against the Israeli government in what is known as the first intifada.
The 1993 Oslo I Accords mediated the conflict, setting up a framework for the Palestinians to govern themselves in the West Bank and Gaza, and enabled mutual recognition between the newly established Palestinian Authority and Israel’s government.
In 1995, the Oslo II Accords expanded on the first agreement, adding provisions that mandated the complete withdrawal of Israel from 6 cities and 450 towns in the West Bank.
A second intifada began in 2000, this time sparked by Israel’s continued control of the West Bank.
This resulted in harsher measures being taken by Israeli authorities.
And, of course, more resentment ensued.
Meanwhile, a militant group called Hamas won control of the Palestinian Authority’s parliament.
Hamas was internationally considered a terrorist organization.
As part of its charter, Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic society in historic Palestine.
Hamas’ ascendency caused a riff amidst the Palestinian Authority.
And the group was overthrown in some parts of the Palestinian Authority.
But it retains control in Gaza.
Hamas has fired rockets and mortars into Israel since the group took over the Gaza Strip in the mid 2000s.
Early in the morning on October 7, 2023, Hamas launched several thousand rockets into southern and central Israel, hitting cities as far north as Tel Aviv.
Hamas militants also breached the heavily fortified Gaza border and infiltrated many southern Israeli towns and villages, killing hundreds of Israeli troops and civilians, and wounding and kidnapping scores more.
Hamas’s military leader, Mohammed Deif, said the group undertook its assault because of Israel’s long-running blockade of Gaza, its occupation of Palestinian lands, and its alleged crimes against Muslims.
The Israeli government responded by declaring war against Hamas, and prepared to carry out a “complete siege” of Gaza.
Since then, the two sides have traded daily rocket fire,
and Israel ordered more than one million Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate ahead of a possible ground assault.
Meanwhile, Gaza is running out of water, fuel, and supplies amid an Israeli aid blockade, and the conflict risks spreading as cross-border strikes escalate in Lebanon and Syria
OK… so that’s the picture in the area painted with some very, very broad brush strokes.
It’s awful.
It’s also a long way away from the US
It involves actors who are of different religions.
So way are so many American or Western Christians so passionate about the security of Israel?
And why do they care where the Israeli capital is?
And why do they see these recent events in 2023 that I’ve just detailed as a possible sign that the End Times are upon us and that Christ is returning?
Let’s get into it…
Some Christians interpret certain passages in the Bible, particularly in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation, as prophesying events that they believe will occur in the end times, a period they associate with the return of Jesus Christ and the final judgment. These interpretations are often grouped under the term "eschatology," which is the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind.
The idea that a war between Israel and its neighbors–or between Israel and internal combatants– that this war is a sign of the end times is rooted in these eschatological beliefs, and it is particularly associated with dispensationalist and premillennialist interpretations of the Bible.
Many dispensationalist and premillennialist Christians believe that the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy and a key sign that the end times are near. They often point to passages in books like Ezekiel and Daniel that describe conflicts involving Israel and surrounding nations in the end times.
Let’s talk about those theological groupings: dispensationalism and pre-millenialism
If you’re familiar with the popular Left Behind series from the late 90’s/early 00’s (and the subsequent movies), then you’ve gotten a peek into dispensationalism.
The basic ideas go like this:
The history of the creation can be broken into several distinct epochs, or dispensations.Each of them represents a different way in which God relates to humanity.
Different schools of thought exist around how many dispensations there have been and will be… and how to characterize these dispensations… but here’s a summation of one popular line of thinking:
The first dispensation was the age of Innocence (before the fall of Adam and Eve), Conscience (from Adam to Noah), Human Government (from Noah to Abraham), Promise (from Abraham to Moses), Law (from Moses to Jesus), Grace (from Jesus to the future rapture), and the Millennium (a future 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth).
The nation-state of Israel has become wrapped up in the idea of this final dispensation: the Millennium.
Dispensationalists hold to a very literal interpretation of the Bible–especially prophetic passages concerning the end times and the nation of Israel.
And here we need to note that a core idealogy behind dispensationalism is that there are two peoples of God.
Israel is one of these and consists of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The church is the other, and it consists of all those and only those (whether Jew or gentile) who are saved between the Day of Pentecost and the beginning of the End Times.
Crucial to the dispensationalist reading of biblical prophecy, drawn principally from Daniel and Revelation, but also, to some degree, from Ezekiel, is the assertion that the Jewish Temple will be rebuilt on the Temple Mount as a precursor to the Lord returning to restore the earthly Kingdom of Israel centered on Jerusalem.
Therefore, the dispensationalist movement was stoked up by the re-establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. It has grown in popularity particularly since 1967, coinciding with the Arab-Israeli Six Day War, and a few years later in 1970 with the publication of Hal Lindsey's blockbuster book The Late Great Planet Earth.
Dispensationalism teaches that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will be a physical event, by which a world-wide kingdom will be established in human history, geographically centered in Jerusalem.
The second coming happens as two key steps are completed.
In the first step, Christ returns to resurrect the chosen, saved or blessed dead and also to rapture the living believers from the Earth.
Let’s talk about the rapture for a moment.
Now, again, definitions depend upon whom you ask.
Generally speaking, the rapture is predicted to be an instant when the faithful are sucked into the air and away from the earth.
In a sense, they raised to heaven and taken from the earth.
The idea finds its genesis in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17:
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. (1 Thess. 4:16–17)
In essence, the faithful are taken away from Earth so they can escape the tribulations to come.
After this rapture, a seven year period of hardship and tribulation occurs…
There will be famine and wars.
And the rise of the Anti-Christ.
All this climaxes in the Battle of Armageddon.
During which Christ intervenes
and establishes a literal 1000-year millennial kingdom on earth. As such, some Dispensationalists are often associated with the circulation of end times prophecy, which professes to read omens of the Second Coming in current events
As you can decipher from the blurb about the rapture, dispensationalists hold a very literal view of the Bible… since it says people will be raised into the air in 1 Thessalonians, dispensationalists believe people will actually go meet Jesus in the air.
Dispensationalists take this literal view to prophecies within the Bible.
They believe that the numerous prophecies in the Old Testament regarding the restoration of Israel and the Jewish people to their land are to be fulfilled literally… and many are still yet to happen.
Again, we need to note that dispensationalists hold to a view that Israel is a people group separate from the faithful.
So, to them, the protection of Israel is necessary in order to usher in the Millennium.
When the prophesies to restored Israel are fulfilled, Jesus returns. Got that?
I want to note that dispensationalism is not a theological vein that has always been a part of our Christian tradition.
Despite it’s popularity, it’s a relatively new idea… first appearing in the 1800s.
John Nelson Darby introduced the idea that history is divided into distinct dispensations during which God deals with humanity in different ways. Darby lived from 1800-1882.
Cyrus Scofield picked up on the diea and in 1909 included it in the Scofield Reference Bible… which became widely used among evangelical Christians.
The Dallas Theological Seminary leaned into dispensationalist theology and, as its influence spread, so did dispensationalism.
I mentioned another theological concept being central to an End Times fascination with Israel… that being premillenialism.
This is simply the aforementioned idea that the Second coming will occur before a literal thousand-year reign of Christ from Jerusalem upon the earth.
Dispensationalists are premillennialists… but not all premillennialists are dispensationalists.
In the end, this theological stream places a heavy emphasis on the state of Israel because its supporters see Israel’s existence as the fulfillment of prophecy… and therefore, support of Israel is support of the will of God.
It’s probably obvious that, personally, I’m skeptical of dispensationalism. I’ll go on to admit that I’m skeptical of pre-millennialism.
I bring this up to note that there’s a wide-range of belief across Chrsitianity about the End Times and even stances on Israel.
I don’t really foresee a rapture happening.
What I will say I have in common with the Millennialists, however, is an expectation that at some point God’s full, wonderful vision for Creation will be enacted… though, again, there may some disagreements about what that will look like.
I cannot affirm that God’s aims will be accomplished through violence and war.
So maybe I’ll agree with the pre-millennialists on another idea:
We need an intervention of peace.
Remember, the pre-millennialists say that Jesus will intervene in the final battle of Armageddon and usher in the new millennium.
I’ll agree that we need this intervention.
I totally believe that the presence of Christ is one of peace and mercy.
And I think that represents a calling for the faithful…
It isn’t really a calling to support a nation state at all costs.
Instead it’s to entertain ideas of how we each represent a presence of reconciliation, mercy, healing and peace into a situation marred by harm and misunderstanding.
And when we see that witness, that’s where we’re seeing the movement of God… even in the midst of a nasty situation.
OK… that’s a wrap on a bit of an off-shoot episode of Compass…
A lot less heavy on the personal story and a lot more heavy on the information and history.
But I needed to understand what was happening here, and thought you might benefit from hearing some perspective on the situation, as well.
Let’s keep co-host Michelle Maldonado in mind, as she is traveling for work, then comes home to have some medical treatment done.
On behalf of Michelle I want to share some good news that our episode about the Moral Monday Movement in Nashville won an award from the United Methodist Association of Communicators.
You can join in the lovetrain by posting a rating or review on your podcast listening platform–Apple Podcasts is a great one.
That helps our podcast exposure a bit.
Thank you to United Methodist Communications for the support.
Episode notes and links are up on umc.org/compass
As part of the episode notes for this episode I’ll include links to pages where I pulled a lot of research information from.
Again, that’s on UMC.org/compass
Be back with a fresh episode in two weeks. In the meantime, peace to you, friend.
