Inside the Mindset of a Christian Zionist

 

I was inspired to write this post by a friend of mine and our discussions. He asked me what caused me to change my mind and move away from Dispensationalism, which is more commonly known as Christian Zionism.[1] So I shared with him briefly my journey out of the school of theology I was raised in:

“I was raised in mostly Pentecostal and Baptist churches (went to a Presbyterian church for a bit too, and visited the occasional other church). I walked away from the faith when I was about 12 or so, and came back to God when I was 22. I was raised in the kind of church environment where many people studied Revelation in light of events in the Middle East, and saw it all as needing to happen in relation to the modern nation of Israel.

I held some things as givens in my thinking when I came back to the Lord in 2006: the power of confession (you might call it name it and claim it). That Israel were God's chosen people, and we must bless them. That there would be a 7 year tribulation, and before that a rapture. And I even was taught to see the KJV as either the only Bible or at least the most trustworthy one. So, you can see the flavour of Christianity I was raised in was very much dispensational.

I held all these things to all just be givens. No brainers. I even remember seeing the war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006 and saying to one of my non-Christian friends that the end was obviously very near. I had been trained to think that way.

Later in 2006 I came to faith. I plugged into a conservative evangelical church, and immediately built a relationship with one of the pastors who was not that much older than me. He was a former brethren. It was a non-denominational church.  

I also decided I had to read the Bible, fully. I had never done it before. I had only ever read segments of the Bible, but never the full thing. I remember going to pick up one of my favourite novels to read it and then looking at my Bible and thinking, “No, I am going to prioritize this from now on.” I still read novels, but from that moment I have read the Bible nearly every day of my life. My pastor recommended I read 4 chapters a day to do it in under a year. I did just that. For years I did that.

I read through the Bible just expecting to see all those things and saw none of them were explicitly taught, and while I still think a 7 year tribulation is possible, I don't think it is a given. It's a possibility, one that I now know could arguably be seen to be fulfilled in the AD 66 to 73 war between Judea and Rome, but I did not learn this till a little later. I realised the rest were nonsense as well. The rapture was nowhere to be seen, only the second coming was found, the power of confession was greatly exaggerated, I was shocked to discover this. I saw that there was only one people of God, only those who had faith in Jesus, called at times Israel, the church, the flock, the vine, the bride, etc, etc. I saw that all those things I had taken as givens were nonsense. I had at the time a KJV bible and a TNIV Bible. I read both of them in depth and saw that they told the same narrative, recorded the same events, and that the differences were minimal. I eventually got an ESV, which I still have, a couple of years after coming to faith (about 2008 I think). The Bible inoculated me against those ideas I had once seen as givens.

I read two Old Testament chapters and two new Testament chapters a day, for several years reading through the Bible multiple times. This helped the story or narrative structure of the Bible lock into place for me. Especially seeing the Old Testament next to the New. When you read two chapters of the Old and New next to each other every day for years, you start to see how the Old is fulfilled in the New really clearly. I recommend every believer should do this at least twice all the way through. It will open the Bible up to you.

I had some influence from my former brethren pastor, and I was at Bible College, so this reinforced for me how the Bible fits together as a progressive revelation. My lecturers had a broad range of views on end times and other things.  

I also read Goldsworthy[2] and that really clicked the Bible’s story line even more into place for me. I also read Walter T Kaiser on the promise plan of God, he helped cement it.

The Bible is a progressive narrative of how God calls his people out of the world and gathers them into his family. All the Dispensational stuff faded away. The Bible is not a series of dispensations, but a continuous story with a beginning, middle, climax and end. It has a clear hero, Jesus the son of God, clear villains and a clear narrative structure. Once you see how it all works together to tell one story of redemption the Bible becomes alive to you in a way that it isn’t when you just see it as a collection of books that are out of order.   

I toyed with Amillennialism for a bit, but realised that historic premill was the oldest, best supported in scripture view, and I just could not get around the idea, biblically, that it says Jesus returns to set up the Millennium. Historic premill overlaps heaps with Amill anyway. Because both views recognize the vast array of symbolism that is used in Revelation and other texts and tend to hold a more open hand with the when and the how for how these prophecies are fulfilled.

I was at Bible College for three or four years and developed a simple Revelation Bible study. I have taught it 3 or 4 times and am now recording it on YouTube. I have never had any dispy ever able to successfully counter my points on those core things, though many have tried. The historical Christian positions on their being one people of God, that we look forward to the second coming not the rapture, and many other similar issues are just much more able to be supported from scripture.  

And I have learnt along the way that many Christians, even those with very dogmatic views about the tribulation, and rapture, etc, have never read the Bible through all the way. Sure, some have. But I was surprised to learn that many had not. 

In the first year, or two, of being a Christian I saw all those things were not biblical that I once took for granted. I learnt about the various systems of eschatology at Bible College as well. I had a mix of theological influences at college.

I remember one night, I think in 2008, going to a Chuck Missler event with my girlfriend (now wife), two of my pastors, and another friend. It was my idea. I realised that night how much of his teaching was just speculative nonsense. How many of the predictions of these kinds of teachers have not come true? The identity of the beasts system in my lifetime has shifted from Communism to Islam, back to Communism and then again to Islam a couple of times. It once used to be the system of Napoleon. A historical perspective breaks the spell on these kinds of speculations. But the fact that my two pastors also saw it that way helped as well.

These were all milestones on my journey out of Dispensationalism.”

This is effectively what I sent to my friend, but I have expanded the detail in this rewriting.

But what I want to do now is give a bit of insight into the mindset of the Christian Zionist. I once was one, and am now not, so I have seen the camp from both sides of the fence. Now, there are roughly speaking two types of Christian Zionists: The first type is the theologically Dispensationalist version. This version has a deep theological system behind their worldview. I will mainly focus on this side. The second type is simply those who see Islam as the greatest threat to the West, and who to varying degrees align with Israel in its fight for this reason. There is great overlap in these two groups, of course, but they are not exactly the same.

How do Dispensationalists see the Bible? Well, it needs to be taken literally of course. I once heard a prominent preacher say about the word ‘city’ in Revelation 21 that, “Well of course this a city, because when we see the word city we know that means city!” He said this even though the passage just a few verses earlier also calls this city the bride. However, this exact same preacher when he was teaching on Revelation 13 (I listened to his whole Revelation series) immediately defaulted to noting that beast was a man of some type empowered by the devil. But the word beast literally means beast or wild animal. The Dispensationalist though does not see the contradiction here, because in their mind when something is meant to be taken as symbolic or literally is much more clear, than it is for many other interpreters. So, the Dispensationalist heavily leans to what they call a literalist reading, and looks down on typology, or symbolism being demonstrated too much.

There is a strength in this reading of the Bible, because much of it is meant to be literally taken. But as one of my lecturers once said, to take the Bible literally is to treat each type of literature it produces at face value, so when it is poetic treat it like poetry, when it is symbolic treat it as such, etc, etc. Dispensationalists think that theological thinkers of other schools just make stuff up basically. Which means they really struggle with how the Apostles quoted the Old Testament, but will usually argue for a dual spiritual and physical meaning for many of these phrases. For instance some will concede the Church is spiritual Israel and is included in the promises, but that the promises also need to be fulfilled for physical Israel. However, most see Israel and the Church as simply different entities. Joshua is not a type of Christ, he is just Joshua, for example. Canaan is not a type of heaven, it is the Jews homeland. Don’t confuse the two, they’d say. 

Christian Zionists see the physical nation of Israel as central to God’s plan. Some see the Church as a back up plan. Some see the Church as just as important but a different thing. Some believe that Israel is God’s bride and the Church is Jesus’ bride, which creates all sorts of theological weirdness, because God is one God in three persons, so this still makes God a polygamist. But this Israel focused centrality is the key thing under pinning the idea of the rapture and their perspective on end times. To the Christian Zionist the tribulation is Jacob’s trouble. Jacob is literally the nation of Israel - which you may note is not taking that name literally, because Jacob was a man – and the tribulation exists to refine Israel and bring about the end time revival.

To this end Christian Zionists believe it is their God-given duty to preserve the Jewish people until they are raptured and it is out of their hands. This is why nothing can shake their devotion to the godless nation of Israel. They simply see it as God’s call on their lives to bless these people by supporting them. They see all of your criticisms of Israel as at best unfair, as maybe, in fact probably, suspicious and motivated by antisemitism, and ultimately as an extension of the devil’s hatred for God’s special chosen nation. Some even believe that the Church should subject itself to Israel’s wishes, so as not to risk breaking the 11^th commandment, “Thou shalt bless Israel.”

Now, we know the New Testament does not teach any of this. In fact it explicitly says not to show partiality amongst the church (James 2:1-12), and it says the Church is God’s chosen people (1 Peter 2:9-10). But the Christian Zionist believes that these ideas were snuck into the Church by the Church fathers who basically sidelined the Jews after the Gentiles became a majority. There is absolutely nothing in the historical text to substantiate this, in fact that the early Church Fathers anathematised Marcion for having basically this idea, but many Dispensationalists and Christians Zionists believe that almost all of Church leaders in Church history were led astray on this issue, and the creators of Dispensationalism brought back the proper focus on Israel’s uniqueness. Any reference to the Church fathers to rebuke this is simply seen as more evidence of their position being the correct one.

Dispensationalists also kind of see the uniqueness of Israel as helping unlock the “code” of how to understand the Bible and history. Everything bad that has ever happened to the Jewish people in history is simply viewed through the lens of the devil having a unique desire to destroy them, and their survival is seen as the most powerful proof of God’s existence and preservation of them as his special people. Never mind the fact that terrifying and bad things have happened to many peoples and that many other peoples have survived throughout history as well, this is how the Dispensationalist sees the issue. The continued existence of many other people’s in dispersed lands (Roma, Rohingya, Kurds, etc, etc) is simply a coincidence, or not even acknowledged or known. History is one long conflict between the devil and God for the soul of the Jewish people. And in their worldview it will culminate in the redemption of Israelis on a national scale. A revival of the whole country.

This is why Dispensationalists or Christian Zionists like to say very often, “God is not finished with Israel…” The entire of plan of world history is leading to their reconstitution as a nation and as a saved people. Never mind the fact that the Bible teaches that God is not finished with virtually most other people groups either, but is slow in brining judgement to give all a chance to be saved, the Dispensationalist still sees Israel in this category as unique. Many of them actually see the rest of the world as the antagonists of this goal. While noting the nations are a mission field, they ultimately see the fate on pretty much every nation, especially the Muslim nations, is to gather together at the battle of Armageddon to do battle against God’s Holy people, Israel, and to be destroyed all in one go.

This is why these Christian Zionists are so keyed into every hint of war in and around Israel. Any conflict could be the start of the final battle. In fact, they believe preachers should be teaching this, so that people are prepared. Some Christian Zionists even believe that you will miss the rapture if you do not believe in the rapture itself. Though, to be fair, this view is rare. For most the rapture is for the faithful followers of Jesus.

The Dispensationalist believes they have in these Biblical prophecies the road map of future history to come. They believe other Christians who see it differently are simply misguided, though some would see us as deceivers. In their worldview, you should be regularly warning people about these signs so that they may be ready for the end. We can all agree that we should be ready for the return of Christ at any time. But the Dispensationalist really believes it is literally imminent, any day now. Not that it could come on any day, but that it is going to happen very soon, so you better start blessing Israel and being otherwise faithful or you might find yourself in that battle of Armageddon on the wrong side.

Some Dispensationalists even see the New Testament as not being all for Christians. Some believe books like 1 Peter, James and Hebrews are written for Jews alone, or for Jews in the tribulation. Forget the fact that 1 Peter refers to his readers as Christians, he also refers to those in dispersion, as does James, hence these books are removed from your repertoire for showing the Church and Israel are one. All the Hebrew imagery and references about God’s people being applied to the Church in such books is meant for these Jewish Christians. Though, to be fair, not all Dispensationalists go this far.

The centrality of Israel is fixed in their worldview. It is not simply an add on. It is central. Some might say they hold it with an open hand, but when you press down, or when society presses down on this issue, you will see that have placed the nation of Israel in a position in evangelicalism similar to how Catholics view Mary. For some if you don’t affirm this you are to be avoided as one who has been over taken by the philosophies of the world. 

The type of Christian Zionist who is less theologically driven sees himself and the West in a struggle for life and death against Islam, and thinks the Christian who does not get behind Israel is simply blind to this danger. For them it is all about a clash of civilisations and those who are not as keen on intervention in the Middle East are just not awake. Once the Islamists take back Palestine, they are coming for Australia, or at least Europe. They really believe Israel is protecting the West from Islamists. They even have the memes to prove it: 

Some Christian Zionists will quibble about aspects of my rendition of their perspective here, as they have a broad range of views on some of these points. But in general this is how they think on the issue of Israel. 

But the good news is this view is diminishing. Most Christians see the Jewish people as any other people, a lost nation that needs evangelizing. But for some the unique place of an unsaved nation in the plan of God for this world will remain a core tenet of their faith, and they will not cease to assert that Romans 11 teaches this very thing. It does not but we will come back to that in another post.

---

[1] To be accurate these are not necessarily the exact same thing. Many Christian Zionists don’t even know the world Dispensationalism. There is great overlap though.

[2] Gospel and Kingdom, read it.