Jerusalem: Trump and the Evangelicals
In the news: Israeli Minister Wants to Name a Jerusalem Train Station for Trump. I guess this is in gratitude for Trump deciding to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. I do consider Jerusalem to be Israel's capital, but there's no question that Trump's decision has stirred up controversy.
It's thought he did it to assuage his Evangelical Christian base. The thing is, I'm not sure the Israelis understand that support for Israel from Evangelicals isn't necessarily or only about them being Israel's friend. Many Evangelicals believe that at the end times after the rapture, those who are now Jewish will become Christians, Jesus will return, and he will reign over all for 1000 years from Jerusalem. The belief is called Dispensationalism
Here's a bit from an article by religious history scholar Diana Butler Bass that will help explain ...
For many evangelicals, Jerusalem is about prophecy, not politics
[...] This theology -- a literal belief that all these things must happen before Jesus will return to reign on Earth -- is called "dispensational pre-millennialism" and it is not the quirky opinion of some isolated church. Although the majority of Christians do not share these views, versions of dispensational pre-millennialism dominate American evangelicalism.
It originated as a small movement in the 1840s, but by the 1970s, millions of evangelical and fundamentalist churchgoers had embraced some form of it. Dispensationalism was popularized in a best-selling book called "The Late, Great Planet Earth" by Hal Lindsey; and later, in the 1990s, it reached an even larger audience through the "Left Behind" novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. The theology spread via Bible camps and colleges, through theological seminaries and revival meetings, in films and videos, by Sunday school materials, and in daily devotional guides -- all teaching that the end of the world was near, and that Jerusalem was the physical place where this apocalyptic drama would unfold ...
When the President issued his order, I was not the only person hearing echoes of dispensationalism. Robert Jeffress, one of Trump's evangelical advisers, declared: "Jerusalem has been the object of the affection of both Jews and Christians down through history and the touchstone of prophecy." Other evangelical pastors and teachers also praised the action as "biblical" and likened it to a "fulfilled prophecy."
While that may sound benign (or perhaps nutty) to the theologically uninitiated, they are referring to the "prophecy" of the conversion of the Jews, the second coming of Jesus, the final judgment, and the end of the world -- the events referred to as the biblical apocalypse ...
Israel may be glad to have a US president who seems more friendly than those in the past, but I'd just warn caution. Trump doesn't have friends, he has stepping stones on the path of his own agenda.
If you want a fictional insight to this Evangelical belief system, try the Left Behind books (which are pretty bad) or instead the trilogy written by former CIA and DIA employee and Christian, James BeauSeigneur, the Christ Clone Trilogy - it was pretty good, I thought.
It's thought he did it to assuage his Evangelical Christian base. The thing is, I'm not sure the Israelis understand that support for Israel from Evangelicals isn't necessarily or only about them being Israel's friend. Many Evangelicals believe that at the end times after the rapture, those who are now Jewish will become Christians, Jesus will return, and he will reign over all for 1000 years from Jerusalem. The belief is called Dispensationalism
Here's a bit from an article by religious history scholar Diana Butler Bass that will help explain ...
For many evangelicals, Jerusalem is about prophecy, not politics
[...] This theology -- a literal belief that all these things must happen before Jesus will return to reign on Earth -- is called "dispensational pre-millennialism" and it is not the quirky opinion of some isolated church. Although the majority of Christians do not share these views, versions of dispensational pre-millennialism dominate American evangelicalism.
It originated as a small movement in the 1840s, but by the 1970s, millions of evangelical and fundamentalist churchgoers had embraced some form of it. Dispensationalism was popularized in a best-selling book called "The Late, Great Planet Earth" by Hal Lindsey; and later, in the 1990s, it reached an even larger audience through the "Left Behind" novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. The theology spread via Bible camps and colleges, through theological seminaries and revival meetings, in films and videos, by Sunday school materials, and in daily devotional guides -- all teaching that the end of the world was near, and that Jerusalem was the physical place where this apocalyptic drama would unfold ...
When the President issued his order, I was not the only person hearing echoes of dispensationalism. Robert Jeffress, one of Trump's evangelical advisers, declared: "Jerusalem has been the object of the affection of both Jews and Christians down through history and the touchstone of prophecy." Other evangelical pastors and teachers also praised the action as "biblical" and likened it to a "fulfilled prophecy."
While that may sound benign (or perhaps nutty) to the theologically uninitiated, they are referring to the "prophecy" of the conversion of the Jews, the second coming of Jesus, the final judgment, and the end of the world -- the events referred to as the biblical apocalypse ...
Israel may be glad to have a US president who seems more friendly than those in the past, but I'd just warn caution. Trump doesn't have friends, he has stepping stones on the path of his own agenda.
If you want a fictional insight to this Evangelical belief system, try the Left Behind books (which are pretty bad) or instead the trilogy written by former CIA and DIA employee and Christian, James BeauSeigneur, the Christ Clone Trilogy - it was pretty good, I thought.
posted by crystal | 4:04 PM
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