Christian Zionism

Is it an oxymoron?

A fellow Substacker raises a frequent question in his column in the following terms: “How can anyone be a Christian and also a Zionist?” His question stems from the Jewish denial of the veracity of Jesus Christ our Lord as being the son of God, and hence their dismissal of Him as a fraud. Since Zionists deny Jesus Christ, how, he asks, can the Christian support Zionism?

I think that’s a fair question. There is a cynical answer that anyone can be in favour of someone who is ideologically opposed to them if encouragement of the practice of the opposing ideology impinges in no way on the practice of one’s own, rather on the practice by a third party of theirs.

I often wonder what the term “Christian” actually means these days. I used to know, but I think it’s been deformed in some quarters. However, if there is doubt as to what a Christian is, then there is surely much doubt as to what is a Zionist. Some academics have even stopped using the term: it simply means everything and nothing.

Instead they have turned to the term “Jewish supremacist”, and that is a posit that sounds more amenable: one can indeed be a Christian and simultaneously a Jewish supremacist, the logical reading of that being that the Christian acquiesces in their own humility, and the supremacist revels in imposing it. That should, by any account, render them utterly compatible.

Image: By DColt - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33961272

Image: The Flag of Israel, flying alongside the Union Flag and the Ulster Banner in Northern Ireland.