If you stopped the average American at any point in the last half-century and asked, “What is an evangelical?” answers might have pointed to Jerry Falwell or Billy Graham, or mentioned something about hating abortion or homosexuality, or loving Israel. Today, that answer will likely also include something about supporting Donald Trump and/or wielding outsize political influence to “immanentize the eschaton”—bring about the end times. (This is usually connected to the “loving Israel” part.)
But those are stereotypes, not a definition.
Casual observers of the American religious landscape may be surprised to know that “evangelical” lacks a set definition. Sometimes it’s a matter of self-identification, while other times it’s an external categorization imposed by pollsters and social scientists. The people who answered Tablet’s call for an evangelical roundtable on Israel and antisemitism self-identified as evangelicals, but there was ambivalence about the term even among themselves.
The 11 participants in our Zoom discussion reflected demographic trends among U.S. evangelicals. Eastern Illinois University political scientist Ryan Burge’s recent book The American Religious Landscape showed evangelicals concentrated in the South, with the average age for adults around 49 (and getting older). Our participants fit a similar profile. Additionally, the number of Americans self-identifying as nondenominational Christians—over 21 million—has more than quadrupled since 1972, when fewer than 3% of Americans identified as such. Our participants, also overwhelmingly nondenominational, displayed a similar independent spirit in their church affiliations. Recent studies have found a “vibe shift” among younger evangelicals—away from automatic support of Israel, and away from a focus on end-times theology—that also became evident in our candid discussion.
Although nearly all were Trump voters, our participants expressed dissatisfaction with the idea that people would make political assumptions about them as evangelicals. Contrary to a popular perception dating back to at least the Reagan administration, they were mostly uninterested in end times prophecies involving Jews and the Holy Land. There was a lot of agreement on the need to support Israel and stand alongside their Jewish friends and neighbors in solidarity—not because of theology about the end times, but simply because they believe it is the right thing to do.
THE PARTICIPANTS
Their names, ages, locations, and religious/church affiliations
Ron: “almost 77,” Southern California, nondenominational Bible church
Esther: 39, Dallas/Ft. Worth area, nondenominational church
Anna: 31, Atlanta, Anglican church
Susan: 83, Wilmington, Delaware. “I am in between church experiences, but my background is nondenominational and also, prior to that, Baptist.”
Jody: 53, greater Pacific Northwest, nondenominational evangelical church
Stephanie: 40, Portland, Oregon. “I was raised in a MexicanAmerican Oneness Pentecostal church and currently go to a nondenominational congregation.”
Jenn: 48, Ft. Worth, Texas, nondenominational evangelical church
Phil: 65, Spokane, Washington, nondenominational Bible church
Jim: 62, Dallas/Ft. Worth area. “I go to a nondenominational church with a Jewish presence.”
Philip: 41, Greenville, Tennessee. “I grew up in what’s now called Sovereign Grace evangelical movement, but now I’m looking for something … nondenominational evangelical, which is really code for charismatic Protestant.”
Brittany: 28, outside Dallas. “I was raised nondenominational, but for the last several months I’ve been going to an Anglican church”
Do you have any feelings around the classification “evangelical”?
Ron: I have a little difficulty with it because I really don’t know what that is. The term is broad to me, and I think sometimes for me, when that is used, it hinders my communication with people that might view me from a certain political perspective. And I may not have that political perspective at all, and sometimes I agree with what they’re saying, and I have their political perspective. I’m more interested in not being categorized, but in having conversations. They’ll say, “Well, what are you?” I say, “Well, I’m kind of a believer in Jesus. So let’s start there.”
Anna: I would definitely second what Ron said. I feel like the word evangelical originally had a pretty narrow meaning: generally speaking, a Christian who believes in the authority of Scripture, holds orthodox Christian beliefs. But I think it has taken on a huge amount of extra cultural baggage over the last 20 years, especially the last 10, that I don’t necessarily love for myself. I love the “following Jesus” part, the core of what it should mean. But I think it’s one of those words, like in The Princess Bride: “I don’t think this word means what you think it means.”
Susan: I have a different way of looking at it. I always think of “evangelical” as being sort of on the road to “conversionary.” In other words, we look at somebody who’s not a believer and we think we need to convert them to Christianity. And I don’t see that at all. I have never been, for example, conversionary toward the Jewish people, which has been a focus for a lot of Christianity, which is that we need to bring the Jews into the Christian fold. I don’t see it that way. So I prefer “Bible-believing.”
Jody: I agree that it has become a loaded term, and words have meaning. I can’t think of a better one. I think the baggage that Anna might’ve been referring to is the proselytizing aspect of going into all the earth and preaching the good news, and Jesus calling us to evangelize. But as long as those clarifications are made, the way those folks have already made them, “Bible believing followers of Jesus,” I think that’s pretty solid. I can’t think of a better word than evangelical.
Stephanie: I wonder if we can all agree that we’re all Christians. That seems the most general term for me, but I agree with what everyone says. When I usually hear that term out there, it’s usually from non-Christians and it is usually somewhat derogatory. So I agree with everybody.
How do you feel about the term Christian Zionist? What does it mean to you?
Esther: I definitely am in full support of Israel and the Jewish people being in their homeland, but for me, “Christian Zionist” does sometimes carry a negative connotation. It sort of has maybe a charged connotation to it. I don’t think I’ve ever referred to myself as a Christian Zionist, although I do believe in Zion and Israel as the eternal state of the Jewish people.
Phil: I don’t have any problem with the term. In the current environment it is loaded, when you call someone a Zionist, it carries with it a lot of political baggage. But I think, at least my understanding of Scripture is, God is a Zionist. I don’t have any problem that someone wants to refer to me as a Christian Zionist, because as we just heard, I believe the same thing, in the eternal nation of Israel, in God’s plan. I’ve never been called one. I mean, it doesn’t bother me, because I believe all those things. I think it’s probably done with some antagonism when it’s used, but it doesn’t bother me.
Susan: That’s my entree to introduce myself as a Christian Zionist to everyone. Particularly in the classes that I teach at Lifelong Learning here in Delaware, I introduce myself as a Christian Zionist because I’m constantly teaching topics that are related to Christians and Judaism, Christians and antisemitism, Christians and the Middle East. The way I introduce myself so that people don’t get surprised later on is as a Christian Zionist. And then, I explain Christian Zionism from a biblical point of view. So, I think that the biblical point of view is my major focus, but that’s the way I introduce myself.
Anna: I would not introduce myself as a Christian Zionist, although I am a Christian and I am a Zionist in the sense that Zionism, we all understand that to mean what it means, which is we believe the Jewish people deserve the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland. Unfortunately, the majority of the world doesn’t think that’s what Zionism means. It’s kind of the same thing with the evangelical word. It’s like, I would use that term with people who know what I’m talking about, but for the majority of people who don’t, if I say I’m a Christian Zionist, it’s almost like saying I’m a Christian nationalist, which sounds real bad to a lot of people. And I think they also hear that in a lot of circles. People I talk to, they think, “Oh, you’re a Christian Zionist? So, you hate Arabs.” So, it’s like that tends to be the knee-jerk. So, I prefer not to use the word, but I would, again, just like Ron said earlier, I’d much prefer to have a conversation with someone about what that means.
Stephanie: In the appropriate context, I would absolutely consider myself a Christian Zionist. I think it’s a responsibility as a moral human being to be a Zionist, not just as a Christian.
Jim: It almost sounds like, I would say, colonialism, much like the United States and other countries, world colonialism across the centuries. This almost sounds like the same thing, even though it’s not. I think that some people interpret that word Zionist as you’re just a colonialist, taking something that’s not yours, which, I disagree that it’s not theirs, because God gave it to them. But I think that that term comes across that way, even though it’s not said, if that makes sense.
Why does Israel matter to you as an evangelical Christian?
Jenn: Growing up, I was raised in a Christian home. I just thought Jesus was Christian because we called him “Jesus Christ.” And so, in my 20s is when I had the realization that he is Jewish. So, for me, the most simple and basic reason where it all stems from is: I love God, I love Jesus, and I want to love the things that he loves. And he loves Israel, and he loves the Jewish people, because they’re the apple of his eye. So it’s my heart to also love them.
Philip: Growing up I was in an even smaller niche of the evangelical movement because I was not only just growing up in an evangelical church, I was also homeschooled. My family was one of the earliest. If you’ve ever studied the history of American homeschooling movement, there was a couple different waves. I was part of the second wave. It would be when my family got into homeschooling in the early to middle ’80s. So, within that, we did a lot of studies of history, very in-depth studies of Scripture, both the Old and New Testament. So, I grew up, unlike Jenn, with “Oh, of course Jesus was Jewish! His entire claim and everything about what Christ led to is foundationally in Jewish Scripture and prophecy, tied into prophecies in Isaiah. He’s of the line of David.” These are all tied to Jewish history, the Jewish state. He was fundamentally a Jewish figure in many respects. And you can’t understand a lot of the Christian teachings without also understanding the Jewish teachings of the law and the fulfillment of the law. So, to me, it was always, Judaism and Christianity are fundamentally intertwined at the very roots. In some respects, I would say that Christianity is God’s extension of Judaism to those who are not Jewish. I mean, when you look at it from the idea of the covenant relationship, it’s God’s covenant extended to non-Jews via the Jews themselves, via Christ. And because of that, when it comes to supporting Israel and all of that, it is the Jewish homeland. But my foundational understanding for supporting the Jewish homeland is less religiously based, because God wills what God wills in his time. If the Jews were meant to have a state in this time or not, because let’s be honest, for a few thousand years, they didn’t have a state, from the fall of the Second Temple in first century A.D., to the [1940s], that’s a pretty long period of statelessness, right? Having a state now is, in many respects, pragmatic because of the aftermaths of WWII and what happened in Europe in that period, it became very clear that outside of the United States, most of the world didn’t care for the Jews, didn’t accept the Jews, and would do everything they could to see them persecuted with, again, the United States being a kind of odd exception, which I think goes back to the United States at its founding, seeing itself as a new Israel.
Stephanie: I was raised in a Mexican American church organization that was founded in 1925, so it was very young in 1948 at the foundation of Israel. That was a huge event for the church. I was always raised to pray for peace in Israel, and with the perspective that we wouldn’t have any knowledge of God at all without the Jewish people. It’s almost like the wall in Game of Thrones, right, the Jewish people, the Jewish civilization, are sort of the wall of goodness in this world. If anything happens to them or if anyone starts to come for them, it’s a huge red flag. It’s a canary in the coal mine. And it’s our responsibility to pray for Israel, to pray for the Jewish people and to protect and cherish them.
Jody: I grew up not making the distinctions that Stephanie made, mostly out of ignorance. We just grew up accepting that Jesus was who he said he was, and therefore we were just in the club. So, I feel super grateful that most of what I experienced in my era or generation is unlike what I have seen, at least in culture, I mean movies where the stereotypes were that the Jews killed Jesus and so they were out of the club, so to speak. And then, so I feel like that was a super awesome vibe shift that I was evidently just naive to and grateful for it. And then, the vibe shift lately I think has been more political just because people go so fast now, if you don’t have time to sit and say, “Well, what do you mean by that?” And so, that to me is unfortunate and doesn’t serve any of us well.
Anna: I grew up with a complete vacuum, knew nothing about the Jewish community and knew nothing about Israel. I lived in more of a rural area, didn’t know any Jewish people. And so, because of that, I appreciate what you said about the vibe shift, Jody. I went into university, and I actually ended up making lots and lots of Palestinian friends and lots of Arab friends. And so, I ended up, because I had no real personal, thoughtful connection with a Jewish person, and no faith concept about the importance of Israel and the Jewish people, I actually went a super, super anti-Israel route for several years. I think that probably would’ve been mitigated if I’d personally known Jewish people.
Jim: I love Israel. If you were to have asked me that question eight years ago, I was a replacement theology person. And it’s not that I was antisemitic, I was just indifferent to Israel, to the Jewish people. It wasn’t until the current church that I’m in, where part of their foundation is to the Jew first, that I started to see it and understand that I was grafted in, I didn’t replace anyone. And that really started to open up the picture, if you will, of God having a family, and there’s Jews and gentiles. And Israel is important to me now because it’s important to God. It’s the apple of his eye, he expects me to pray for Israel, pray for the Jewish people, wherever they are. That has opened up the depth of the entire Bible, having that understanding that, again, he didn’t replace anybody.It’s made a huge difference.
Could you briefly summarize replacement theology?
Jim: I don’t believe this, but this is the way I was taught: Because the Jews rejected Jesus, that ended them, so to speak. Now it was the church, and the church is the church. The dispensation, or the time, of the Jew is gone. That couldn’t be further from the truth in this particular case. One didn’t replace the other. One was brought into the family because of the stumbling that the other part of the family experienced.
Raise your hand if you knew any Jews and had Jewish friends growing up. [Six hands go up.]
Ron: And now a Jewish wife for 47 years. As I’m listening, I fundamentally agree with things that are being said. It’s always interesting to get the Jewish perspective of what a Zionist is, who’s a nonbeliever in Christianity, who run the gamut from being Reform to being Orthodox. It’s interesting to get that perspective because I don’t think that we have the total perspective of what it is to be a Zionist. And I think my Jewish friends and family would tell you that, too.
Raise your hand if you ever joined any of your Jewish friends or Jewish acquaintances for a religious holiday. [Five hands go up.]
Brittany: I was introduced to my first Jewish friends through my grandparents, who are ardent supporters of the Jewish people and Israel. They sort of brought me along into that world. That was when I was a teenager. But then when I was in college, I went to a Bible school. It wasn’t until actually going to Israel that I started making Jewish friends for myself and Jewish friends that were more close to my age than my grandparents’ age. Through going to Israel, and also engaging the Jewish community that I’m close to here in Dallas, I’ve been able to make friends my own age, and it’s really changed my life and helped me understand who I was created to be. My most recent experience going to a holiday with Jewish friends was last year for Sukkot, a local Dallas synagogue, their young-adults director is a friend of mine, and he invited me and a couple other people to join. And it was like an interfaith Sukkot that was really, really special. And by interfaith, I mean there were only two Christians there, but it was really, really special. And I think, if it weren’t for the opportunities I’ve had to go to Israel and understand Jewish people from their side of things and then also learn about the American Jewish community, I wouldn’t have been participating in those things. It’s been really special and enriching to my own life and my faith.
Susan: I want to come at this from a different point of view altogether, because for 12 years, I ran a ministry at our church, a nondenominational Christian charismatic church, in which my interest in Israel took on the form of a ministry. We used to do Passover Seders for Christians and Sukkot events and so on, to bring Christians into that experience. We would bring in various Jewish speakers and things like that as part of that ministry. So, I was coming at it from the other point of view of having known lots of Jewish people and getting to know them through the ministry and having a commitment to Israel and the Jewish people, of doing holidays for Christians who didn’t have any experiences.
How many of you currently have Jewish friends now? [Nine hands go up.] How often you talk about religion, either yours or theirs, with your Jewish friends? What about antisemitism or Israel—and which of you usually brings it up first?
Jenn: Some of my Jewish friends are Messianic, so we have that commonality of believing in Jesus. But the Jewish friends that are not Messianic, I think one of them in particular, she loves teaching me and just helping me understand more about Judaism. I was actually helping her at an event Sunday. It was a kosher chili cook-off, and so she was explaining things about being kosher to me. But for us, I think there’s a lot of mutual respect, and we’ve just been building relationships, and it’s just, “Well, what do you believe about this?” “Oh, OK, well, this is how I believe it,” or whatever. It’s just those conversations, building relationships and just appreciating and respecting each other. It’s been wonderful to learn from them.
Jim: A lot of my Jewish friends are Messianic Jews as well. So, definitely a different flavor. I have a lot of coworkers who are Jewish, and they are surprised that I care. I’ll say, “Shabbat shalom,” or on the holidays, I’ll send them a text or something, and they’re not used to that. I don’t know why you wouldn’t understand a gentile appreciating it or recognizing it. So, it’s interesting to see their reactions. And it warms them up because I do care and they can see that I care. But they put their pants on the same way I do. They’re people like I am. And so, we are just able to have good conversations around the family. It’s pretty much a daily conversation in one way, shape, or form with the different folks I’m surrounded by.
Phil: Right now, my Jewish friends are Messianic, so I don’t have any other perspective other than tapping into their knowledge of Jewish history, the Old Testament, the practices as they connect to the prophecies of the Old Testament connected to the New Testament.
Esther: There’s a wonderful older woman who’s a great friend of my family. She’s an Orthodox Jew. She used to live near my family in Chicago, and now she’s moved to Florida, so still just keep in touch with her on Facebook. But she has made her life’s work to take people to Israel on tours. She has a tourism business. She’s actually an Israeli as well, but she lives in the States. And I think the conversation just naturally comes up. Because of her perspective of going to Israel often, with both Jewish people that she feels passionate about, they must visit their homeland even if they’re not going to live there, but she also takes Christian tours. She always remarks how Christians are so very supportive. Christians love Israel. They have been such a boost to tourism over the years in Israel. She really appreciates how Christians are so supportive of Israel. This conversation naturally comes up between her and our family often. We’ve been to different holidays at her home and things like that, we’re very close, Shabbat dinners. But I think anytime that the conversation would come up because we’re a safe place where she can express herself, she doesn’t have to feel afraid to speak to a Christian about how there is rising antisemitism in the world, it is a very real thing. And to know that there’s a safe place from a Christian who’s so supportive of not only her, living outside of Israel, but of Israelis and the right to the eternal homeland of the Jewish people, it just naturally comes up. I mean, I also will say “Shabbat shalom” to her. And like I said, we spent holidays together.
Ron: I have Jewish friends and obviously family that’s Jewish. And most of the family we have are non-Christians. They’re not Messianic Jews. There’s very interesting conversations around antisemitism. The majority of non-Messianic Jews, I think they’re surprised that there’s such a support from evangelicals in general. A lot of non-[Messianic] Jewish friends that I have were raised with the idea about antisemitism, that most people don’t like them anyway. Though they’ve been in the secular world, it’s just hard for them to acknowledge and to believe that, let’s say, for instance, that evangelicals support them. I think it’s easy for a Messianic Jew to see that. But then it gets difficult for non-[Messianic] Jews to totally understand that. Though they love the support. I mean, the non-Christian Jew or the non-Messianic Jew. That’s been my experience. It makes for great conversation.
Show of hands: Did the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, change how you feel about Israel, or how much you think about Israel? [Nine hands go up.]
Jody: It has better informed and shaped and excited me to engage, hopefully more intentionally.
Jenn: For me, it just intensified what was already in my heart. Last October, I went on a European Jewish history tour with focusing on the Holocaust, to just help people understand antisemitism and the history of it. And so, Oct. 7, it was a little reminiscent of 9/11, where I just felt like I wanted to go to New York and just hug everybody and help them. Oct. 7, I think, also just made me feel like, OK, maybe I haven’t been as strong in my support, but I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m going to really go forward and do what I can to just give a smile. Just say, “I’m here. I’m a friend,” and do what I need to do to help show that support and care for Israel and Jews everywhere.
Esther: I would say it also intensified my support and love for Israel and the Jewish people according to Scripture. And I recognize that Israel’s enemies are still ever-prevalent and the onslaught of the Jewish people is ever-increasing. That’s what I mean when I say it changed for me. I became more aware that Israel’s enemies do exist. And it’s more important than ever, I think, for Christians to stand with Israel and be vocal about it.
Anna: As part of my work, I get to take trips to Israel and lead tours, and I was flying to Israel on Oct. 7. And so, it was an incredibly dramatic thing. But I have so, so many dear Jewish friends here in the States and in Israel. Oct. 7 increased, I felt like, my identification with the Jewish people. It was like, you come after them, you come after me. It increased that passion. But also my realization in my process of coming around, to going from anti-Israel to pro-Israel, actually really happened through visiting Israel, specifically going to Yad Vashem and seeing the history of antisemitism played out even before the Holocaust. After Oct. 7, it shocked me into thinking, wait a second, this has never gone away. It’s just been undercover almost. It felt like the lid blew off after Oct. 7. So, it increased my desire to identify with Jewish people and express my love and care for them, but also to speak out to other people who don’t even notice that this is happening or care. After Oct. 7, I started wearing a Magen David, like a Star of David necklace, because my Jewish friends were afraid to. And so, I wore it for them. And two of them started crying when they saw it, but I was like, “This is why we’re here.”
Jim: I’ll give you a different perspective. I was pretty pissed off. I was in Beirut in 1983. I was 19 years old, and that was my first experience with what, in that region, people were doing to the Jews. And I was still a replacement theology person at that time, but I’m like, what the hell is going on? And Hezbollah was there. All the folks that are still in play now, were in play then. I saw Israel was strong and did the things that they did to protect Israel, but then I saw what Hezbollah did to their own people. I was there when the barracks blew up, that kind of stuff. So, I know what those people are capable of. And so, on Oct. 7, my attitude was: Wipe them off the map. Two-state solution to me never works. It never has. You don’t divide up God’s land. And these people don’t want just a slice. They want it all. So, my thing was, bomb the shit out of them—if I’m being too vulgar, then that was just my attitude. I loved it when the Israelis were able to go into Syria and take back the lands up there. I’m like, “Keep them, don’t give them back because you’re not going to be reciprocated. Again, they just want you gone.” For me, it was a continuation of what I had seen so many years before. And these people don’t want peace. They don’t want to change. They want to blame it on the Jewish people. But for me, I was like, wow, I wish I was still in the Navy and could go over there and do something.
Is that why you were in Beirut when you were 19, because you were in the military?
Jim: Yeah.
Brittany: I work for an organization that is Israel-related. I thought about Israel every day because of my job. After Oct. 7, it wasn’t just every day, it was every moment of every day where I was thinking about Israel, thinking about my Jewish friends, thinking about my Israeli friends, checking in, making sure that they’re OK. And after how many months of it, I’m exhausted, as I think a lot of us are. And I think I’ve had to wrestle with caring about someone and some things so deeply, with also being able to take steps back because it’s the most horrible thing, I think, going on in the world right now. Something that has changed for me is having to look at what’s going on in Israel and being comfortable with saying I don’t agree with everything that’s happening in Israel, with all the choices, with all of the things that are happening. And that was not necessarily something that I ... I mean, I know Israel’s not a perfect place. It’s a good place. That’s what we like to say. But I think I’ve done a lot of wrestling, even with agreeing that Israel’s enemies want her destroyed, they have it out for the Jewish people, there’s been a lot of introspection, a lot of, I think, deconstructing some things I thought. And reconstructing, it’s been quite a process since Oct. 7. But at the same time, my resolve to stand with the Jewish people has never been stronger.
Is there a role for evangelical Christians in mediating the conflict between Israel and Hamas, or Israel and the Palestinians?
Phil: Clearly, the Trump administration has selected an evangelical Christian as the ambassador to Israel. I don’t know if it’s necessary for evangelicals to have a direct role in mediation, only because I think there’s a traditional view in this country of aligning with Israel. I think what’s really missing—and I’m kind of encouraged by this call, because I think what’s missing in the church, particularly in the U.S. today, but in the West, as a Christian church—is a good understanding of the study of the eschaton, the eschatology of Scripture that includes the future Israel. I think the more that American Christians get reattached to good theology concerning Israel, the influence will be exerted up on our political leaders. But I don’t think it requires, I’m not sure that it works to say, hey, we’ve got a Christian in the White House, he’s going to mediate the two-state solution. We’ve tried that for 50 years and to me, it’s just from a lack of understanding of good theology. Eschaton, the Greek word for end times or study of the end is eschatology, like any -ology. It is really a study of the entirety of Scripture from beginning to end that includes the prophecies that we pull out of the Old Testament and apply to the New. Eschatology is a study of how the end is going to happen and God’s plan for history, which we’ve all discussed, includes the Jewish people and the Jewish nation.
Philip: I wanted to note on the previous question about the effect of the [Oct. 7] attack, I didn’t raise my hand because I didn’t feel that impacted by it. But that’s not because I don’t care or didn’t care, it’s because I grew up and lived in the Washington, D.C., metro area and I have been politically aware and watching and paying attention to all sorts of politics since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. And further—it hasn’t come up, and it’s probably the best time I can explain this—there is a personal connection to the Jews within my own family in that my great-grandmother was Jewish and she married an Irish Catholic. She was a Russian Jew, married an Irish Catholic. So, we’re talking about in the early 20th century. And they didn’t raise their kids Jewish, they raised them Catholic. But this meant my grandfather, who served in WWII, was Jewish enough that the Nazis would’ve called him a Jew, right? That means my father, who is one-quarter Jewish, that makes me an eighth Jewish by blood. Now again, this is through the paternal line, which isn’t how Jewishness is spread according to Jews. That takes a maternal line, from my understanding. So, my family has Jewish blood, my family has Jewish ties, and I’ve been politically aware, I’ve been watching the conflict unfold in the Middle East around Israel since the 1990s. I watched all the different things going on. To me, the [Oct. 7] attack was a continuation. It was an escalation, but a continuation of a conflict that had been going on for as long as I’ve been politically aware. I didn’t care more in the sense that, oh, this is awful. I was like, well, finally something new happened. I hate to sound jaded, but my opinion on that has long been that the Palestinians were bad actors and not ever negotiating in good faith. So that’s why I didn’t react strongly to that. But as to the role evangelicals to play, I get concerned when I hear talking about that eschatology because yes, you have to study the entire Bible and study the end times, but you also got to remember Christ’s own words, that no one knows the day or hour, not even the Son, only the Father, about the end times. So we should still live our normal lives without the expectation that we are in the end. I think I pissed some people off by saying that. I’m not saying there aren’t signs, but at the same time, we shouldn’t become caught up in those signs. And as to the roles evangelicals play, I don’t think we can play a role, because when you’re talking about the conflicts in Israel, when you’re talking about the conflicts in that region, the Christians aren’t an uninvolved party. There is history there with both sides. We can’t be a third party for negotiations because neither the Jews or the Muslims—because that’s what really this is, it’s a religious conflict—see the Christians of any stripe, not just evangelicals, as a neutral party. We are considered a third player historically and culturally. And because of that, I don’t know that if we want to have an actual resolution, that we can necessarily play the role of bringing peace, unless we decide just to have the United States annex the entire place. And that’s a ball of wax I don’t think anybody wants to get into or something along those lines.
Anna: Philip, you didn’t make me mad at all. I don’t disagree about eschatology. I think sometimes there can actually be too much focus on it in the church. And then of course sometimes there’s a vacuum and there’s not enough. But I think as far as the issue of Christians being able to be a mediating force in this, I think in some of the answers there’s been a conflation of Christians and a governing entity. I don’t think that Christianity was ever supposed to be a governing power. It’s supposed to be a grassroots movement of people who love God and who are sharing good news, faith, and world transformation coming from beneath, not from top down. I actually have been privileged to be a part of interactions between Arabs and Israelis, Jews and Muslims, and Christians can play a helpful role there. Jesus said we were to be peacemakers. I just don’t see it happening on a massive like, “OK, Trump claims to be a Christian, so therefore he’s going to bring peace.” That’s not what I see. I see individuals who are in relationships facilitating those conversations with other individuals, peace coming through hearts and not necessarily policy change. That may sound idealistic, but I think we tried enough policy change. Maybe we could try relationships. But one other comment I did want to make about eschatology, and that is I do think it’s so important with our hermeneutic, the way we read Scripture, to believe in a future for Israel 100%, and to study those prophecies and live into them and look forward to them with hope. That’s the whole point of the eschaton is that we have a future hope and there is a hope for Israel. But I have actually seen in a lot of people that I know personally and just had conversations with, there can be an overdone emphasis on eschatology looking at Israel. And a lot of Christians and my Jewish friends have expressed to me, and this grieves me, that they see a lot of evangelical Christians as only supporting Israel because they think that Jesus is going to come back, and so we have to support Israel, and that we’re going to see some horrible chaos happen before then. And I’ve even actually had a Muslim friend tell me that. I just really want to move away from that. We don’t just support Israel because we want to get the end times going. We support Israel because we love and honor them as people.
Philip, I’m seeing hearty head nodding from you that seems like you guys are, broadly speaking, simpatico here.
Esther: Philip, you did not upset me at all, but I will echo some of Anna’s thoughts as well. When I take people to Israel on tours, I tell them, if God hasn’t changed his mind about Israel, he hasn’t changed his mind about you. So that’s why from the beginning of this conversation, it was very evident to me that we cannot have a conversation about Christians supporting Israel and the Jewish people without also talking about theology and the eschaton, which has come up naturally. I think some of the skewed views on even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict comes from improper theology, poor theology … It sounds like the consensus here is a proper reading of Scripture and God’s part for Israel, that he has not changed his mind about Israel. I think that Christians don’t necessarily have a role in mediating peace in the Middle East, but I think our role is to continue to support Israel, continue to support the Jewish people, and from a perspective of supporting how they go about the talks, whatever actions are taken, it’s not our job to be the heroes of the story as Christians, but we do need to very vocally support Israel’s right to exist and that the Jewish people have an eternal homeland there.
I want to note that I saw hearts coming up from Brittany’s screen, a heart reaction from Brittany’s screen. I saw head nods from various members here. For our final go-around: In a single sentence, what would you want American Jews to understand about evangelical Christians?
Susan: The important thing is for Israel to continue to see that Christians love them for all the right reasons and they’ve been mentioned here over the last hour or so. That’s it. I think that Christians enjoy loving them.
Esther: The Scripture that Israel is the apple of God’s eye is still true. That encapsulates how God views Israel, that he favors Israel, he favors his Jewish people, he chose them to be an example to the nations. And that Scripture is still true today, and that’s why Christians should love Israel and love the Jewish people, because that’s what the Bible says.
Jody: We’re on your side.
Jim: I would just say, “I see you.”
Brittany: I would say that you’re not alone and that you can always lean on us for anything that you ever need. We’re here for you.
Jenn: I want to walk with you.
Ron: I take a little bit different turn here. I agree what’s being said about Israel, and God’s plan for Israel has not ended, but God’s plan also for the salvation of the world has not ended. And though my support is really strong for Israel, there’s a sensitivity to those who are suffering, period. The question becomes to me: How do we reconcile that, too? I will never stop supporting Israel, but my clear mandate as a believer is to go into all the world and live the Gospel. There’s a part of this on the other side that pains me, too.
Philip: We do see the rising antisemitism on both the left and in the right in America. We’re not unaware of it. And even though there is a rise in it, there are those of us who are pushing back, who are trying to keep fighting so that people know that supporting the Jews and supporting Israel isn’t some conspiracy theory, isn’t something bad. They’re not alone in that fight, even though often these days it can seem that way, because you have voices on both sides attacking.
Anna: I would want them to know how incredibly grateful we are. I think the church throughout history, even unfortunately from its earliest days, has had the poison of antisemitism in it. At least we who are here, who are supporting, we are so incredibly grateful and recognize the gift that the Jewish people have given the world and have given us in our faith and everything that gives our lives meaning. We want to honor the Jewish people for that. And we’re in your corner.
Stephanie: Historically, Christianity is [not] a huge monolith. I would never say “the church,” there’s so many different churches and so many, it’s very diverse. But historically, the support for Jews and for Israel among Christianity has been very questionable at times. I would say we know that, and we recognize that, I think in a lot of the churches, and I mean not to speak for everyone, but I think we’re answering the call this time and we do see what’s happening. We’re going to do whatever we can to support the Jewish people and Israel, and we’re never going to allow the hatred to happen from us. It’s not going to come from Christians.
Phil: My message would be to the church writ large, the Christian church, that if you get Israel right, you get your eschatology right, and that should be reassuring to the Jews. And I know there’s probably different perspectives on eschatology. It’s not a scary thing. It’s not just focusing on bringing in the return of Christ. An accurate eschatology, Genesis to Revelation, would be reassuring to anyone on this call and should be reassuring to the Jewish nation for our support.
propaganda
