Christian Zionists do not see the images of skeletal corpses of Palestinian children who have starved to death as a curse but as fulfillment of prophecy. They do not see the slain families gunned down at food hubs as a war crime but as the work of God. They do not look at the savage bombing and shelling that kill or wound dozens of Palestinian civilians, where an average of 28 children die daily, as anything extraordinary but as a step closer to Christ’s return. They do not see the wasteland of Gaza, pulverized by bombs and methodically being torn down by bulldozers and excavators, leaving virtually the entire population of Gaza homeless, as barbaric but necessary. They do not see the destruction of water purification plants, decimation of hospitals and clinics, where doctors and medical staff are often unable to work because they are weak from malnutrition, as savage but as a step closer to the kingdom. They do not blink at the assassinations of doctors as well as journalists, 232 of whom have been murdered for trying to document the horror. Christian Zionists, like the Jewish Zionists they support, have blinded themselves morally and intellectually. They view the genocide through the lens of a bankrupt media, a bankrupt theology and a political class that tells them only what they want to hear and shows them only what they want to see.[1]
There was a time when dispensationalism in the lineage of Cyrus Scofield (and the Scofield Reference Bible), and popularized by Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye seemed dismissively silly. Lindsey’s inventiveness, finding in Revelation “supersonic jet aircraft with missiles … advanced attack helicopters … intercontinental ballistic missiles with Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles tipped with thermonuclear warheads … biological and chemical weapons, aircraft carriers, missile cruisers, nuclear submarines, laser weapons, space stations and satellites” is as creative as any fiction, accounting for book sales in the tens of millions.[2] But Christian Zionism has become the majority voice in American politics and is the enabling force behind Israel’s genocidal slaughter of Palestinians, so what one believes about the millennium is deadly serious.[3] Ironically, Christian Zionism preceded and nurtured development of Jewish Zionism,[4] and from its inception has been more Israel centered than Christ centered as Israel takes precedent and is the means of understanding Christ.[5] The innovators of this method have, from the beginning, taken liberties in interpreting Scripture with no precedent in the New Testament or the early history of the church.
For example, where the New Testament and the early church saw Christ alone as the unifying hermeneutic, Scofield argued his dispensational hermeneutic recovers a harmony, otherwise lacking in Scripture. He “recovers the harmony,” by “distinguishing the ages” creating divisions never before detected in Scripture. Thus, the Jews in the fourth dispensation only needed to “abide in their own land to inherit every blessing” and turn down the law. According to Scofield, “The Dispensation of Promise ended when Israel rashly accepted the law (Ex. 19:8). Grace had prepared a deliverer (Moses), provided a sacrifice for the guilty and by divine power brought them out of bondage (Ex.19:4); but at Sinai they exchanged grace for law.”[6] “The Dispensation of Promise” ended when Israel rashly accepted the law (Ex. 19:8). To make a divide before and after the cross he concludes, “The mission of Jesus was, primarily, to the Jews … The Sermon on the Mount is law, not grace … the doctrines of grace are to be sought in the Epistles not in the Gospels.”[7] Christ and the beginning of the Gospels, clearly set forth Christ as a new beginning (Mark 1:1; John 1:1), yet Scofield ignores this division, placing Jesus’ life and ministry within the dispensation of the Law. In his opinion, the Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount are not for Christians and are not applicable to the church.[8] Dispensationalists insist that those who do not divide Scripture according to their divisions are not “rightly dividing the word.” According to Dwight Pentecost, “scripture is unintelligible until one can distinguish clearly between God’s program for his earthly people Israel and that for the Church”[9] and the only way to follow God’s program is to follow dispensationalist divisions. The ethics of Christ, the teaching of Christ, the life of Christ, must be set aside as part of the law. In other words, Scofield’s divisions (as arbitrary as they are), not Christ, make sense of Scripture.
The premillennial dispensationalist hermeneutic presumes Christ failed to establish his kingdom, failed to bind Satan and defeat evil at his first coming, so he must return to complete this unfinished work, but before he can come back, according to variations in the theory, Israel must return to its homeland, may or may not convert to Christianity, and may or may not be aligned with either God or the devil. Either way, the New Testament hope of the immanent return of Christ must await the unfolding of current events surrounding Israel. Ethics, theology, salvation, and world history, are centered on historical events surrounding Israel, while Christ plays a secondary role (permanently or for now, depending on the theory), so that “blessing Israel” is determinant of salvation (in a mangled reading of Genesis 12:3). “A Christian Zionist,” according to Louis Hamada, “is a person who is more interested in helping God fulfill His prophetic plan through the physical and political Israel, rather than helping Him fulfill His evangelistic plan through the Body of Christ.”[10] The work of Christ is made subordinate to the manipulation of political Israel, supposedly fulfilling prophecy enabling the return of Christ. The details of how this may work, have endless variations, and may change week by week, indicating the primary focus is on what God is doing now through Israel, and not on what he has done through Christ.
At an ethical and humanitarian level killing Palestinians for Christ is blasphemous but Christian Zionist theology puts Israel over Christ, not only in its subversion of Christian ethics, but in its twisting of Christian salvation. In the explanation of Dale Crowley, “They have one goal: to facilitate God’s hand to waft them up to heaven free from all the trouble, from where they will watch Armageddon and the destruction of planet earth.”[11] The literal and futurist interpretation, despite Paul’s identification of Christians with the true children of Abraham (e.g., Gal. 3:7), requires a separation between the Church and the Jews (the “chosen people”) and two means of salvation.
The saving focus is not in Christ’s first coming but in his second coming, in which he will rapture believers into heaven, but this cannot happen until Israel is gathered into its homeland and the Temple is rebuilt. In Covenant Premillennialism, there is at least a relation between the church and Israel but in the various versions of Dispensationalism God has an eternal plan for Israel and an eternal plan for the church, and the twain need not meet.[12] This blatant misteaching revolves around a single chapter in Revelation (chapter 20) and devolves to the meaning of a single word: millennium.
Millennium or a thousand years appears only three times outside of Revelation 20,[13] but it is only in Revelation 20 that there is mention of a thousand-year reign: “they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years” (20:6). The premillennial and dispensationalist reading is a “literal” future reading, taken from this most figurative and allegorical of books. However, this “literal” reading is highly selective, with few believing horses will be the main transportation in heaven, and Jesus will return on a horse with a sword clenched between his teeth, and he will be accompanied by a posse of horse mounted angels, and they will carry a massive chain so as to lock up Satan in a deep hole. That is “literal” is a misnomer, except in regard to the length of the thousand years. But what all premillennialists agree upon is that this thousand year period, in which Satan is bound and Christ’s kingdom is inaugurated, has not yet happened. They argue Satan is not bound and the death of Christ has not impacted his reign, in spite of the fact that the New Testament directly connects the death and resurrection of Christ with the defeat of Satan and the kingship and kingdom of Christ. That is the millennium is a reference to the age ushered in by Christ and the church in which the work of evil is delimited, and it is a “thousand years” as this is symbolic of completeness.[14]
Paul describes sin as a fearful slavery from which Christ defeats and frees us (Ro. 8:15). As Hebrews puts it, he freed “those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Heb 2:15). The manner that this was accomplished was through Christ’s death: “that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14). It was on the cross that “he gave himself” (Gal. 1:4, 1 Tim. 2:6; Tt. 2:14), that he might rescue, ransom, and redeem from the power to which men have been given up. The power that killed Christ is exposed, and the death-dealing of the world and the ruler of this world are defeated in Christ: “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself” (John 12:31-32). John puts it succinctly, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (I John 3:8). At the opening of Revelation Jesus holds “the keys of death and Hades” (Rev. 1:18). Presumably the one who holds the keys to death has taken control of what was formerly under Satan’s power. As Paul says in Ephesians, “He put all things in subjection under His feet” (Eph. 1:22). Christian Zionists would nullify this reality.
Jesus, in his healing ministry, says he has bound Satan. He casts out demons, and this is the sign that Satan is bound: “Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house” (Matt. 12:29). It is in this context, failing to recognize Christ’s defeat of Satan, that Jesus introduces blasphemy of the Holy Spirit: “Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven” (Matt. 12:31). They suppose he does these things by the power of the Beelzebub, but Jesus asks, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished!” (Mark 3:23-26). Here in Mark, he also equates missing this with blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: “Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” (Mark 3:28–29). Jesus declares he has bound Satan. He has “put the finger of God upon him,” and this means the kingdom of God has come upon you (Luke 11:20). With the sending out of the seventy Jesus declares, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning” (Luke 10:18). Jesus came to “proclaim release to the captives” as he reads from the scroll of Isaiah, and says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Jesus clearly teaches Satan has been bound by his ministry. Revelation speaks of a loosing of Satan (or a lengthening of the chain that binds him); could it be that this occurs where Christians blasphemy the Holy Spirit and void the work of Christ, by dividing the kingdom (between the church and Israel) focusing on events surrounding Israel?
Revelation portrays the slain Lamb (Jesus Christ raised from the dead), as having defeated evil and reigning over the world: “And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth” (Rev. 5:6). Through Jesus’ death and resurrection the reign of God on the earth is established (in Rev. 4:1–8:1). The point of Revelation is how to endure devastation without being defeated by Satan: “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death” (Rev. 12:11). By means of His death and resurrection and then in their witness, Christians are made a kingdom of priests who reign upon the earth (Rev. 5:10). “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night” (Rev. 12:10). The dragon, that serpent of old has already been cast down in defeat, due to the testimony and blood of the martyrs and the “blood of the Lamb” but where the power of the cross is obscured the chain binding Satan is loosed. The implication is that where the message of Christ is perverted Satan continues to reign.
The genocide in Gaza is the clearest of signals that Christian Zionism is not only a bankrupt form of the faith, but spawned by the worst form of evil. This is not the Christianity of Christ or the New Testament, but is anti-Christ in its opposition to the ethics of Christ and the salvation Christ offers in His defeat and reign over evil. To answer the question of the title: Christian Zionism is not worthy of the name of Christ, but identifies the enemy Christ came to defeat.
[1] Referencing Chris Hedges report on Israel and Gaza, but substituting “Israelis” with “Christian Zionists,” brings home the evil being perpetrated in the name of Christ by premillennial, dispensationalist, and Zionist Christians. Chris Hedges, “The Gaza Riviera,” The Chris Hedges Report, July 26th, 2025. Thank you Jonathan for opening this to me.
[2] Hal Lindsey, The Apocalypse Code, (Palos Verdes, California, Western Front, 1997) 36. Cited in Stephen R. Sizer, The Promised Land: A Critical Investigation of Evangelical Christian Zionism in Britain and the United States of America since 1800 (PhD Dissertation at Middlesex University, 2002) 128.
[3] The list of prominent Christian Zionists is now beyond enumerating, but include most every prominent Republican politician and such prominent Christians as Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, John Hagee (the founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI)), and Mike Huckabee.
[4] See Donald M. Lewis, A Short History of Christian Nationalism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2021). Robert O. Smith, More Desired than Our Owne Salvation: The Roots of Christian Zionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
[5] As made clear by Robert Smith (even in the title of his book).
[6] The New Scofield Study Bible, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1984), fn. 1, p. 20. Cited in Sizer, 120.
[7] Scofield Bible, 989. Cited in Sizer, 120.
[8] Sizer, 120-121.
[9]Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come, (Findlay, Ohio, Dunham, 1958), 529. Cited in Sizer, 126.
[10] Louis Bahjat Hamada, Understanding the Arab World, (Nashville, Nelson, 1990), 189. Cited in Sizer, 15.
[11] Dale Crowley, ‘Errors and Deceptions of Dispensational Teachings.’ Capital Hill Voice, (1996-1997), Cited in Sizer, 18.
[12] Apocalyptic Dispensationalism, Messianic Dispensationalism, and Political Dispensationalism offer variant interpretations but are agreed on the key facts surrounding Israel.
[13] In Psalm 90:4 and twice in II Peter 3:8. See Russell Boatman, What the Bible Says About the End Times (Joplin: College Press, 1980) 74-84. I am utilizing Boatman throughout this section.
[14] “As seven mystically implies universality, so a thousand implies perfection, whether in good or evil [AQUINAS on ch. 11]. Thousand symbolizes that the world is perfectly leavened and pervaded by the divine; since thousand is ten, the number of the world, raised to the third power, three being the number of God [AUBERLEN].” Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 2, p. 598). Logos Research Systems, Inc.