Ever wonder why Donald Trump, who wants to “get to heaven” through Ukraine, shows little concern for ending the bloodshed in Gaza? Or that Julia Sebutinde, the Ugandan judge at the International Court of Justice who voted against the genocide ruling, told her church congregation in Kampala last month: “The Lord is counting on me to stand on the side of Israel”?
Such statements are not scarce among prominent Christians. Senator Lindsey Graham, for instance, has argued that “if America pulls the plug on Israel, God will pull the plug on us.” Of course, Graham’s ties to AIPAC, the powerful Israeli lobby, make his position unsurprising. But what is more troubling is the number of American and African preachers openly defending Israel’s actions in Gaza, despite their ethical guide, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13).
All these reflect the much often talked about doctrine of Christian Zionism. Yet Christians have not always been this way toward Jews and Israel.
From Opposition to Embrace
When the Zionist movement began in the late 19th century, Christian leaders opposed it. In The Rise of Israel: A History of a Revolutionary State (2008), Jonathan R. Adelman recounts how, in 1899, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Oscar Straus told Theodor Herzl that he considered the Zionist dream “impossible to attain” because “the Greek and Roman Catholic Churches would not let the Jews have it.” Pope Pius X likewise rejected supporting a people who denied the divinity of Christ in their quest for control of Christian holy sites.
But a lot of things changed.
One of the most significant theological shifts in 20th-century Christianity was the Vatican’s Nostra Aetate declaration, which absolved Jews of collective guilt for the death of Christ. Before and after this, a combination of many factors relating to new interpretations of biblical texts opened the door for Christian support of the Zionist project.
Central to this shift was Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, whose Scofield Reference Bible popularised Dispensationalism—the idea that God’s plan for history unfolds in distinct eras, with different promises for Israel and for the Church. Unlike traditional covenant theology, which taught that God has one people throughout history (Israel in the Old Testament, the Church in the New), Scofield promoted a separation. Any promises made to “Israel” were reinterpreted to apply not to the faithful in general but to the modern state of Israel, founded after his annotated Bible appeared.
Through American missionaries and preachers, Scofield’s interpretations spread widely across the United States and Africa, paving the way for strange and politically charged readings of Scripture. And below are some of the manipulative interpretations that have theologically fuelled the Christian Zionist movements.
Genesis 12:3
In April last year, during a U.S. congressional hearing on the pro-Palestinian protests on campus, Republican Congressman Rick Allen (R-GA) asked then-Columbia University president Nemat Shafik whether she wanted Columbia to be “cursed by God.” He cited Genesis 12:3, misquoting it as “I will bless those who bless Israel, and whoever curses Israel I will curse.”
In fact, the actual verse reads: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” The “you” here is Abraham—not his grandson Israel (Jacob), who was not yet born. Even Scofield did not translate the verse differently; he merely added a footnote inserting Israel into the meaning and warning that “to commit the sin of anti-Semitism brings inevitable judgment.”
For Muslims, who believe that the Christian scripture is a distortion of God’s word, this verse, when not misinterpreted, still holds credibility. After all, it is said in the Qur’an, “Who would reject the faith of Abraham except a fool? We certainly chose him in this life, and in the Hereafter he will surely be among the righteous” (al-Baqara 2:130).
Genesis 15:18–21
This passage, often cited as proof of Israel’s biblical borders, speaks of God’s promise to Abraham’s descendants—stretching from the Euphrates to the “River of Egypt.” Scofield’s Bible labelled this section “Boundaries of the land,” interpreting the “River of Egypt” not as the Nile but as a small stream south of Gaza.
The result? A theological justification for displacing and killing entire populations in the region, in the name of a promise that never mentioned “Israel”, not to talk of the modern state of Israel. As a matter of fact, the inheritors of Abraham’s faith form a large part of the people that occupied the lands in question before İsrael came.
Ezekiel 38:1–6
More recently, evangelical preacher John Hagee, leader of Christians United for Israel (the US’s largest Zionist lobby), has invoked Ezekiel 38 in support of Israel’s wars. Hagee is known to have always called Israel “God’s foreign policy” and mobilised American Christians to support the country’s military aid to Israel.
The passage speaks of a so-called fight of the “Gog and Magog.” However, Hagee interprets this in the context of present U.S. foreign policies. He identifies the Magog as present-day Israel and “Gog, the prince of Rosh” as Russia, and drags in Iran, Turkey, Syria, and even Germany into his modern geopolitical spin. Other preachers have linked Gaddafi’s fall to supposed fulfillments, since verse 6 mentions Libya and Ethiopia as being “part of them.” However, it seems no one tends to drag in present-day Ethiopia into this hermeneutics as it has always had a pro-İsrael stance.
Ironically, Scofield himself understood the passage differently, referring it to European and Russian persecution of Jews.
The Tragedy of Christian Zionism
What we are left with is a theology that trades compassion for conquest, turning what ought to be sacred texts into instruments of terror. Instead of asking how God could sanction the killing of innocents, many influential leaders—backed by wealthy lobbies and misread Bibles—choose to believe that war itself is divine will.
This, definitely, is not from the God of mercy, but the “idol of Zionism.” And I say, “O Christians and Jews, let us come to a common term; to submit to the only True God, and not allow others to lord over us!”
*The views expressed in this content are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of İdrakpost.
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