Christian Zionism

Wednesday, March 7 2012

            Woke up late and came back to the hotel early – that’s one way to summarize today.  I was supposed to go to the Israeli check point early this morning so I had set my alarm for 5:00 PM.  It never went off because it was set for 6:00 PM.  There’s actually an old Seinfeld episode about alarm clock mishaps in hotels so this has to happen to other people, right?  I was disappointed because I really wanted to go.  I came back to the hotel after dinner today and didn’t stay for the evening speaker.  By my fifth or sixth speaker today everything started to sound like “blah blah blah blah.”  Better for me to get some space so that I can refocus for a new day!

            Today’s conference topic had mostly to do with something called Christian Zionism.  Truth be told, this isn’t something that a lot of folks from my tradition (Reformed Christian) have heard a lot about.  If you haven’t either then you should know that there is a large swath of what’s called Christian evangelicalism in America that promotes Christian Zionism.  Believe me, I am no expert but basically it works by taking mostly Old Testament prophecies and the book of Revelation and constructing a theology that says that Jesus will return once the Jews have “taken back” the Holy Land.  Christian Zionists want Israel to flourish and completely take over Palestine so that the stage is finally set for the second coming.  This is sort of simplistic to say but if you want to know a key reason the United States is such a huge supporter of Israel, it has to do with what are called Zionists – both Christian and Jewish.  As you can imagine, this theology ends up being quite a problem for those who live in Palestine and are not Jews – i.e. Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, and Israeli Christians (yes, the last two actually exist in Palestine).  Arabs have lived in Palestine for thousands of years and essentially the goal of Zionism is the displacement of all the Arabs from Palestine.  I’m at a Christian conference in the Palestinian town of Bethlehem so you can imagine how Christian Zionism ends up being an extremely hot button topic.  Again, my own Christian tradition has never held to a theology of this sort but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been swayed to some extent by the mainstream American tenor that advocates it.  It is a serious issue that should be paid attention to but for the purposes of this space it’s a case of “enough said”.  If you want to talk about it later, just let me know and I’ll try to help fill in some of the blanks I’ve left here.

            I’m still loving the food here and there is no shortage of it.  Today, I went to lunch with sort of a networking group and then dinner with a different networking group.  I know it’s easy to get tired of restaurant food easily but I think it’s more just not being hungry when I eat!  Another plate is put in front of me and I just look at it for about two minutes: “Can I really eat this?  I’m still full from my last meal.”  And then I eat it all.  Yikes!

            Tomorrow holds a field trip to Hebron so that’s going to break things up for me.  I’m looking forward to the experience and to sharing some of it with you.  Thanks for tracking with me on this little trip and thanks especially for your prayers.  Peace, or since I’m in Palestine: Salaam!