The critique of the movement

In Defense of Christian Zionism

Pushing through the “doors” opened by the so-called divestment campaign and other such efforts, proponents of Replacement Theology are working feverishly to discredit their fellow believers in Christ who view Israel’s modern-day restoration as evidence of God’s faithfulness to the covenant He made with Abraham 4,000 years ago.

The Presbyterian Church-USA, for example, at the same General Assembly two years ago in which it voted to consider divesting from Israel, was also induced to pass a resolution committing the church to “actively oppose Christian Zionism,” citing works that branded such beliefs as “heretical.”

These are Christians who, without any biblical grounds, consider the Abrahamic Covenant abolished or reconstructed. They also generally tend to ignore the Islamic roots of the terrorism that has plagued Israel for nearly 60 years. Even when the late Yasser Arafat scoffed at the Oslo Accords in a Johannesburg mosque in 1994—affirming that he was merely using Oslo as a means to destroy the Jewish state—these Christians had little to say.

Recent history has brought the real Palestinian agenda into the open, in that a terrorist government led by Hamas is the expression of the will of the people. This, after all, is the meaning of democracy: that the people are responsible for whom they put in office.

Sadly, these Christian adherents to Replacement Theology have few qualms about aligning with a radical Islamist agenda that espouses terrorism, and are calling upon the wider Christian Church to reject, ignore, and even expel those Christians who hold a solid biblical view on Israel. Indeed, they want these Christians branded cultic and excommunicated!

To support their position they are making outlandish assertions about their brethren, claiming that we:

  • are constantly calling for conflict in the region as the means to achieve “Greater Israel”;
  • are dual-covenant, and therefore deny the essentials of our faith;
  • hate Arabs and desire the liquidation of the local Palestinian church;
  • are guilty of idolatry by worshiping state power in Israel and benefiting from its praise;
  • deceive Israel because our real agenda is an eschatological thirst for Armageddon;
  • constitute the greatest threat to world peace;
  • and that we are a new phenomenon without any tradition in the historical expression of Christianity.

EVERY ONE of the above charges is wrong! Christian Zionists are mainstream Evangelicals upholding all the vital and accepted tenets of biblical faith. We can easily trace our belief system to the early church and throughout church history. Our views are not strange, deviant, or new. No, they were held by prominent Christians through the centuries, including the great Wesley brothers, the Anglican Evangelicals of the 19th century, and many prominent Christian leaders of the 20th and 21st centuries.

As to the early church, even a casual reading of surviving documents from that period reveals that believers fully expected a restored Jewish state before the close of time. Nevertheless, the “new” proponents of Replacement Theology have decided to hatch a sinister plan that, as noted, would see the excommunication of their brethren. While determined to press on with the effort, one Replacement colleague said he suspects what holds back many denominations from using the word “heresy” and “unchurching” us is the simple fact that there are so many of us.

Of note is the fact that they never sit down with us and engage with us personally, as Scripture requires. Instead, because they have become so totally politicized, they exaggerate, misrepresent, and flatly lie about Christian Zionist positions.

Their efforts have not gone un-noticed in the Palestinian camp. The Supreme [Islamic] Judicial Council, an official organ of the Palestinian Authority, recently published an article by council member Hamed al-Tamimi insisting that Christian Zionists have “adopted Satan as God” and that “this destructive movement, together with her Zionist Jewish ally, comprises the greatest danger to world truth, justice, and peace.” Tamimi’s statement cited an Arab priest who maintained that Christian Zionists should be “expelled by the World Church.”

It really is a grim day when Christians end up supporting the agenda of militant Islam and people who, by public plebiscite, have voted for the destruction of Israel.

This all goes to remind us that nothing is new under the sun, and indeed it harks back to the same sinister plan “democratically” hatched in Germany in the 1930s. It was unpopular then to stand alongside the Jews, as it is now. The silence of the Church in the 1930s was largely driven by theological notions that God was totally finished with the Jews as a nation and indeed that they, by virtue of being Christ-killers, were beyond redemption. Sixty years later the same misguided theological system has again taken root. Left unchecked, it may well bear the same evil fruit!


Rev. Malcolm Hedding is the former Executive Director of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.

©2010 International Christian Embassy Jerusalem