A Journey of Unlearning: Reflections on Christian Zionism
For every one Jewish Zionist, there are 30 Christian Zionists. We need to talk about this. And we need to talk about Christian Zionism's genocidal, colonizing God.
I am a Black-Palestinian Christian woman who grew up in Hawai’i, the land of the Kanaka Maoli people, to an interfaith household. I am the granddaughter of a Nakba survivor and also the granddaughter of a World War Two U.S. army air-ranger.
And this is my journey with Christian Zionism . . .
I was in my mid-twenties when I first visited Palestine and saw the apartheid wall in Bethlehem, separating Palestinians from each other. It was a tour led by Grassroots Jerusalem that exposed every lie I’d been fed about the ‘Holy Land’ by what bell hooks would refer to as the white supremacist, imperialist, capitalist, patriarchy.
The reality of systemic racism and discrimination against Palestinians was undeniable, and yet, I vividly remember still asking Fayrouz, our Palestinian tour guide, a question I’d heard all too often in sermons growing up, “Didn’t God give this land to the Jewish people?”
I knew I was missing something and that oppression benefits from our miseducation. As a Christian who was baptized at a nondenominational church in Hawai’i, I learned about a God who encouraged us all to come as we are (Act 2:7-12). And yet, I did not learn about Palestine and Israel.
As I grew in my faith walk, I saw Christian Zionist norms on my college campus, in media, radio and congregations throughout the U.S. They proliferated falsehoods about Palestinians in the name of Religion, and the look on Fayrouz’s face told me everything I needed to know.
She paused and said, “We don’t tend to answer questions like that, because they aim to justify the human rights violations happening today on the ground.”
My journey of unlearning Christian Zionism began there.
So, what is Christian Zionism you ask?
Christian Zionism is the belief in a genocidal, colonizing God. An exclusionary God. A God who favors certain people’s security at the expense of another’s freedom and dignity.
Christian Zionism is the belief in a God who refutes nuance. A God who reinforces Western absolutisms and justifies bombing mother earth to oblivion.
Christian Zionism endangers us all.
Contrary to popular belief, the largest number of Zionists in the world today are not Jewish, they are Christian, and their roots can be traced to the mid-19th century in Europe.
Christian Zionism is the belief in a xenophobic God. A God who places profit over people. A God who exploits the poor and exacerbates militarism/war.
Today, Christian Zionists promote ‘Holy Land’ tours that bring swaths of American Christians to Palestine/Israel while deeming Palestinians “terrorists” and never making mention of the presence of Christians from Palestine for centuries.
The ‘God’ of Christian Zionism acts like a racist real estate agent that has the authority to assign and acquire land based on ethnicity. A God who erases Palestinian existence altogether. A God of domination and control.
Christian Zionists believe that the modern nation state of Israel is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Many Christian Zionists say that Palestine was, “A land without a people for a people without a land” and this could not be farther from the truth. Not only is this inaccurate, but it was designed to condition Western Christians to believe Palestine never existed.
In other words, this lie, grounded in all of its colonizing logic, is the quintessential myth upheld by Christian Zionism in order to justify the ongoing illegal occupation, settlements, home demolitions and genocide in Palestine.
Palestinian Christians have been making clear their call to Western Church leaders to repent for their transgressions of remaining complicit in the face of Genocide. And yet, even with over 40,000 innocent people murdered in Gaza, bankrolled by the U.S. government, Christian Zionists often quote a version of Genesis 12:3 that states “God blesses those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel” to rationalize Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.
This unfettered interpretation of scripture drives American Christian Zionists to send nearly 20 million dollars in funding to Israel every year for illegal settlements. Christian Zionism mandates support for far-right Israeli expansionism and vilifies anyone who speaks out against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Christian Zionism is the dangerous belief that any criticism of the State of Israel is synonymous with hatred for Jewish people. It collapses Jewishness into an ideological monolith by overlooking the countless Jewish voices — Mizrahi, Sephardic, Ethiopian and Ashkenazi — who’ve been speaking out against the occupation of Palestine for decades.
Christian Zionism is so hellbent on protecting the state of Israel that it does not actually care whether it endangers Jews — the conflation of any nation state with a specific group of people increases the likelihood of those people being blamed for the actions of that nation state.
The tragic irony is that there are pro-Israel Christian Zionist leaders who have made inhumane remarks like “God sent Hitler to help Jews reach the Promised Land” in widely televised sermons. This antisemitic statement is grounded in a theology of replacement which asserts that in order for the second coming of Christ to happen, all Jews must return to modern Israel. The belief assumes that upon Judgment day, Jews and Muslims must either convert to Christianity or die in order to fulfill God’s promise.
Needless to say, these views hold very little regard for Jewish or Palestinian people or traditions.
In fact, one manifestation of how dangerous and antisemitic replacement theology is at its core, happened in 2017 when we saw white Christian nationalists chanting “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, North Carolina for the deadly ‘Unite the Right’ rally, which killed Heather Heyer.
Many Christian Zionist organizations, such as Christians United For Israel, are anti-Palestinian in their interpretation of the bible. It’s alarming to think they have 10 million active members, while upholding these views.
Christian Zionism is anything but Christ-like. It is the belief in an ahistorical, a-contextual reading of the life of Jesus. It completely excludes Jesus’ identity as a Jew from historic Palestine, indeed a Mizrahi Palestinian Jew.
Rather than centering the teachings of Jesus incarnate by healing the sick, setting captives free, advocating on behalf of the poor, and having a heart for those pushed furthest to the margins as seen in the gospels (see Matthew 11:4-6), Christian Zionism buries the identities Jesus held as a refugee and immigrant born into poverty, who lived without citizenship under Roman Occupation, as Howard Thurman reminds us.
Christian Zionist renderings of God are anti-everything I’ve come to know to be life-giving and soul affirming for myself and the communities I love.
I’ve come a long way in learning where my question to Fayrouz came from and what was so harmful about it. The implication of my question was, “If God promised this land to the Jews, doesn’t that justify the slaughter and subjugation of Palestinians? Does God love Jews more than Palestinians? And in effect, does God love anyone more than others?”
The answer is absolutely not. Full stop.
The God I serve does not justify genocide or superiority. And certainly does not promote Christian supremacy, Jewish supremacy, or any other form of supremacy for that matter (Romans 2:25-29).
More importantly, did I believe in a God who would ever be okay with the degradation of human life, mistreatment, racism and systemic oppression? The better question that emerged for me years later was, “Who do I believe God to be?”
I don’t believe God wants perfect people.
I do believe God wants honest hearts and earnest intentions to unlearn the hypocrisy we’ve been socialized to believe, and then take action.
And I’m grateful for organizations like Christ at the Checkpoint, Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Black Christians for Palestine, Red Letter Christians, Kairos Center’s Freedom Church of the Poor, Apartheid-Free Churches, Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference, Christians for a Free Palestine and countless others who are engaged in this work.
I hope others will continue to join in the work of decolonizing who we understand God to be until Palestine, and all people, are free.
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“The ‘God’ of Christian Zionism acts like a racist real estate agent that has the authority to assign and acquire land based on ethnicity. A God who erases Palestinian existence altogether. A God of domination and control.” Incredible piece.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have been shouting this from the rooftops. In the U.S., Christian Zionism and Christian nationalism go hand in hand. They are ideologies of power and individual prosperity, and have little to do with the actual teachings of Christ. I'm a Christian too, and I am angry that Christ has been so misused.