Zionism and Eschatology
wilkyjr printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Sat Jan 16, 2016 at 05:23:17 PM EST
The church I attend just had a member place a display at the back of a Sunday morning Bible class.  The display called for all Christians to support Israel and there is a sheet for members to sign a document to be sent to Secretary of State, John Kerry.  The promotional material came from Dr. Mike Evans.  Mike is a frequent contributor to Fox News and a self proclaimed expert on Israel.  Evans believes we should shelve the Kerry-led treaty with Iran and instead declare war on the nation.  Evans says God revealed to him in a vision who the leader of Israel would be before the world knew this. Mike believes the move by Kerry to negotiate a treaty with Iran is a satanic plot.  Evans thinks Jimmy Carter is an evil diplomat because of Carter's leadership in supporting the Oslo agreement.  Many Christian Zionists, like Evans, want people who are not Jews driven from the Holy Land which they claim God gave to Israel in the past and it still belongs to them.  Christian Zionist Jon Hagee told an audience I was in that if you place Israel in your church budget God's prosperity will fall upon your congregation.  This promise is not promoting spiritual prosperity, as much as financial prosperity.   More than one writer has uncovered Houston area Zionists who were active Christians and making plans to bomb the Dome of the Mosque.  The sacred Muslim site within the walls of the ancient Jewish Temple.  This move was to hasten the Second Coming of Christ.  (The fact that it might start World War III did not seem to be on the radar in this crowd.)
     Before Southern Seminary in Louisville became a bastion for the Religious Right, there were well known scholars like Timothy Weber.  Dr. Weber wrote a fascinating book named, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming.  He traced the foundations of the modern Millennial movement in Christian circles.  Folks like the Millerites, who during the 1800s cashed in their savings and refused to plant crops because they saw the Second Coming happening in the very near future, are noted.  The group helped give birth to the Seventh Day Adventists to whom Ben Carson has helped shed a spot light upon. Weber says, like Mike Evan's vision, there was a young woman in her teens who had a vision to start this concept.  The girl was a Pentecostal who helped found the modern movement.  This is a great irony since most Pre Millennialists do not believe in women preachers or speaking in tongues.
     Weber helped refine the story of anti-Semitism that has roots in the conspiracy mongering movement.  The leading advocate of this Millennial version of history was Moody Bible Institute, in Chicago.  Moody Institute had a president and leading supporters who were fond of Hitler and the book, Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.  The Protocols was the fabricated story of a secret Jewish society that ran the world.  Many of the Pre Millennialist advocates like Moody College, Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, Jack Van Impe, Pat Robertson, Texe Marrs and others have promoted conspiracy theories about secret societies that run the world.  These societies cause all the wars and manipulate the economies of nations.  The early versions last century of these theories were rooted in anti-Semitism. This all switched with the idea that support for Israel meant blessings from God.  The 1946 rebirth of Israel gave incentive to this theology.
     Moody Institute leaders thought before World War II that Jews in Germany were deserving of persecution because they were supposedly linked to the spread of Communism in Europe.  Hitler was thus justified in his attitudes toward them.  There is a huge jump from blaming Jews for problems in pre-war Germany to encouraging the attack of any nation that dares not give Israel the ancient lands King David acquired.
     Jewish scholars are aware of this and embrace Pat Robertson and his crowd with the view that the "overall summation of his writings do not make them anti-Semitic."  Never the less, these strange bedfellows makes for intriguing alliances.  Take for instance the popular radio evangelist David Smith.  Smith believes Joseph McCarthy was right on.  M.L. King was a Communist as well as the U.N.  Smith teaches his faithful followers we need to consider pulling Texas out of the Union because the U.N. is setting up a One World Order.  Smith contends that because Hillary Clinton was on the board at Wal Mart, the agency is stockpiling weapons for mass distribution to set up a One World Order.
     Helping to stop Hillary and the other conspirators is once defrocked TV evangelist, Jim Bakker.  Jim did some hard time in prison, and like many former inmates got out and did the same con on release.  Jim's latest scam is selling end of times survival items for the coming apocalypse.  These items, like his former hotel reservations, come at a highly over priced rate.  He has become famous recently stating he is wearing black underwear to help stop the satanic plot being launched against the nation. Jim's under garments might not seem that frightening.  The idea that segments of our population are advising the nation to launch an attack on Iran in the name of Jesus does.
     To those who sluff off these items as harmless fun.  We might need reminded about the largest domestic terrorist attack in America.  It took place at the Murray Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  Timothy McVeigh orchestrated the event.  It came from the Branch Davidian standoff.  Which was founded by the former Seventh Day Adventist, David Koresh.  Koresh was the classic crystal ball gazing Christian.  His former paranoia about our government is reborn, recycling itself in all types of conspiracies.  
     Michael Ignatieff wrote in the Guardian, "What we are up against is apocalyptic nihilism. The nihilism of their means-the indifference to human costs-takes their actions no only out of the real of politics, but even out of the realm of war itself."



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I have heard the truth many times: "If you don't know where you've come from, you can't tell where you're going".  The historicity of the different movements is a very important aspect of the things we struggle against.  I really appreciate this piece and learned from it - more and more connections made between different and seemingly completely separate groups/entities/ideologies are coming into focus.  The more we examine these sorts of connections (which go back almost two thousand years if not more), the clearer the picture is and the more we can resist theocracy.

Thanks for publishing this on T2A!


by ArchaeoBob on Mon Jan 18, 2016 at 05:00:31 PM EST


Glad you enjoyed the article.  Issue with Iran that faces our nation has some interesting twists.
Word had it that George W. Bush was pressured to make the man who headed up the Religious Roundtable in the eighties as ambassador to Israel.  He was a zealot who wanted Israel to be given all the ancient lands David conquered. To get out of hot water, Bush allowed Richard Land to be head of the religious liberty commission or whatever it was called.
     Moody Bible Institute replaced Baylor U. during the seventies as the major contributor to eschatological thought among Baptist ministers in the South.  This shift, as well as the Bill Gothard, left its impact in the SBC.  Interesting that non-Baptists had more influence than traditional leaders like Hershall Hobbs, E.Y. Mullins, and etc. Part of the movement to re-invent the church in the South was to seek models and leaders outside of traditional ones.  David Barton arrived, he was not a Baptist but had more books in Baptist churches than Baptist historians.  Story continues.

by wilkyjr on Mon Jan 18, 2016 at 09:39:36 PM EST

It's worth reading the whole article in fact seldom during the research I have ever come across as great as this information about eschatology. As content researcher from NursingEssays.CO.UK this doctrine referring to Jewish, Christian and Muslim convictions about the end times or the end of history the revivification from dead, the last hour (judgment day) messianic phase etc. Although all three religions differ with each other to a broad extent though eastern orthodox church have much similarity with Muslim version of eschatology in some circle.

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by Simon SHarma on Thu Nov 12, 2020 at 06:21:56 AM EST

It's essential to note that interpretations and beliefs vary among individuals and within different religious and political movements.  gout medication Not all Zionists, whether religious or secular, share the same eschatological views, and there are diverse perspectives within the broader context of Jewish thought and Zionism.

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