I've noticed most historical Christian churches (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, most mainline Protestant, etc) either have a negative view or no particular opinion on Jews and Israel.
But, for some reason, a lot of evangelicals, Pentecostals, and fundamentalist (particularly in the US) are obsessed with Israel and the Jews. This is obviously a relatively recent phenomenon in Christianity. When did it originate and by whom? Why is Zionism so popular among those sects?
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They dislike who they see as a threat. It used to be those weird guys that your neighbor said kill babies. Now it's the islamic world. Israel is a thorn in the side of the Islamic world. Also, the US is allied with Israel, and these groups also happen to be very patriotic.
Americans misunderstanding the Bible for the most part.
>But, for some reason, a lot of evangelicals, Pentecostals, and fundamentalist (particularly in the US) are obsessed with Israel and the Jews.
>Why is Zionism so popular among those sects?
They equate the nation of Israel with Israel in the End Times, because if they are the same, that means that we must be near the End Times and Jesus' return.
As for why its largely limited to evangelical sects, I think its largely due to Biblical literalism (and the lack of any tradition that would counter Biblical literalism)
It started around the 17th century with the Puritans. North America was settled by a ton of Puritans so the Christian Zionism persists to today in the US.
This
My bet is that the role the US played in WW2 has something to do with it. The US has framed itself as the crusader of the world and if you've ever met an immature person with a savior complex you'll understand that there is a certain arrogance of morality that these types create for themselves.
Couple this with the fact that these sects are heavily individualistic, emphasizing personal experience with God, and I think we have a solid answer.
Basically, the US has savior complex, these sects essentially promote a man-against-the-world crusader mindset, the media always frames Israel as being beat up by the international community (which coincides with the the WW2 narrative of Jewish persecution), and these type justify their emotions because they claim to have a personal relationship with Christ.
"Personal Relationship with Christ" is the "Assault weapon" meme of religion. What exactly do you mean and how exactly is this different from other things that are similar but not as discussed.
They're convinced that the re-establishment of the state of Israel, along with the rebuilding of a specific temple, will trigger the Rapture and then they will chill up in heaven while the rest of the world goes to shit.
Also, despite Israel being a Jewish state comprised of Jews from around the world, including the Middle East, many evangelicals view it as a "white, western" nation (indeed, Zionism is a way for white conservatives to vicariously live out their dreams of building an ethnostate). This is why Israel is viewed as part of our shared "Judeo-Christian" heritage, while, say, Lebanon is not.
>The Rapture
Can an American explain this meme? I thought that suffering for one's faith was part and parcel of the Christian End Times - it seems like a bit of a copout for the TRUE Christians to get Raptured up to Heaven while everyone else suffers through the Tribulation
Because Evangelical Christianity, Southern Baptist denominations, et. al. are just politics in religious drag.* John Hagee and his ilk support Israel because it is a mirror image of the United States -- a settler-colony made up Europeans stealing land from the people indigenous to the area.
Scare tactics, the idea being that if you're afraid that all your Christian friends and family will suddenly disappear while you're left with hell on earth (and then just hell), you'll accept Jesus into your heart that much faster.
I had a pastor go into detail on how he thought the first hours of the Rapture would go down, with cars and airplanes crashing, riots, martial law, etc. Spooky stuff if you're an easily impressionable 13-year-old.
As a Christian, lemme say this: there is no scriptural proof for it. It was made up by the dispensationalist heretics because American Evangelicals hate pain and suffering and refuse to acknowledge that when the world is cleansed for the second coming that Christians will suffer with the unsaved.
>Israel
>Europeans
The Holocaust is the simple answer. Before that, it was a common view to see Judaism as a heresy. The collective guilt post-WW2 led to the whole "Judeo-Christian" thing and support for Israel
America was the ground zero for ZOG. Christian Zionism was invented by Puritans, look it up. Now fast forward 400 years:
>every American has a cut cock, even non-religious people, the only Christian/Western country where this is the norm
>Jews who LARP as Christians such as Joel Osteen preaching that the best way to get saved is to get saved
>media, film industry, music industry, finance, all in Jewish hands
>evangelical churches disregarding the New Testament and basic supercession theology, preaching about the Jews being a chosen race the dumb goyim need to prostrate themselves before
>criticizing Israel in the biggest media is completely unthinkable
>congressmen and senators who care more about how AIPAC is going to grade them than about their constituents
>lawmakers who want to buy pop stars because they had the gall to boycott Israel (Lorde in Florida right now)
>the US government banrkolling 90% of Israel's military budget and never explaining why other than giving vague answers like "It's the only democracy in the Middle East" and whatever
>both candidates in the previous presidential elections being openly pro-Israel, Hillary Clinton's emails revealing Assad needs to be removed just because Israel wants him removed
Jesus Christ (no pun intended)
The more I learn about American evangelicalism the more braindead I feel. Seriously, I just fail to see how anyone - brainwashed or not - can believe such utter indefensible, retarded, baseless, pointless nonsense. I feel like smashing my head against a ceramic sink now.
God I fucking hate evangelicals now.
The examined life is not worth living, not to the average American Evangelical. They just take what their pastor and their parents told them and believe it to be infallible. It's sad really, how they believe they must shut themselves off from the non-believers, from debate, even among themselves, how they think that they are right about everything, and how they refuse to acknowledge the fact that they might be wrong. They are the reason Christians are hated.
There was a popular book/movie series in the late 90s and 2000s called the Left Behind series. If you're interested, this book basically gives an overview of what evangelical Christians think will happen in the end times - basically, Christians go to heaven immediately. Everyone else gets left on earth, to suffer through seven years of punishments, during which they have the opportunity to embrace Christ (and suffer for it) or deny him. Then after seven years, Christ comes back, defeats Satan and the false prophet, and begins a 1000 year rule.
Also this user is spot on about the dispensationalist aspects of it.
Yeah, I've heard of the Left Behind series but this Rapture shit is as old as the Millerites
Some say a Jesuit LARPing as a Jewish rabbi wrote a book to convince protestants that the antichrist was not the pope, but some other guy who would appear in the future. An Irish minister named John Nelson Darby swallowed the claims in that book and further developed the doctrine of the rapture, picking some verses in the Bible that he thought would fit with that prophecy.
Yeah, you're right about the theology being old. I just bring up the left behind series because it was super popular and I know from formerly being in that culture a lot of people think that's basically how shit will go down.
>I had a pastor go into detail on how he thought the first hours of the Rapture would go down, with cars and airplanes crashing, riots, martial law, etc. Spooky stuff if you're an easily impressionable 13-year-old.
This dude isn't joking. Check out the rapture scene (starts a little after 2:00)
>I've noticed most historical Christian churches (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, most mainline Protestant, etc) either have a negative view or no particular opinion on Jews and Israel
>tfw both Catholic and staunch Zionist
Isn't christian zionism rooted in the return of a jewish kingdom to the levant being one of the events supposedly leading up to the second coming
Then how come no Christians cared about the Jews until a few centuries ago?
You can't be both
Because they believed kingdom of Israel to refer to a Christian kingdom? I mean it was obviously the Christians who were the chosen people then.
Replacement theology has become a dirty word in modern Christianity.
So why would God allow Israel to be conquered by the Romans then disappear until the mid 20th century?
What the hell are you talking about? Replacement theology is part and parcel of every mainstream branch of Christainity: None of them expect you to keep the Mosiatic Law.
Is Judaism the only religion that theologically HATES Christ?
the non-abrahamic religions don't really care much for him, Islam doesn't view him as God, but honors and venerates him as a holy man. Christians of course see him as God.
Jews view him as a false messiah, and IIRC say that he is boiling forever in feces in the afterlife.
How the FUCK did Christians begin to favor Israel, especially in conflicts with say, 40%+ Christian Lebanon?
Tell that to Messianic Jews.
She’s not specifically of the denomination “messianic Jew” but my wife is of Jewish descent and converted to Christianity when we got married. About the only holdover from that is her interpretation of Passover celebration (which I don’t mind, we drink and watch Prince of Egypt). She doesn’t even really want to do Hanukkah stuff despite me being open to that.
She doesn’t like talking “badly” about her co-ethnics but apparently when she was exploring the differences more closely during her conversion it was rabbinical Judaism’s opinion of Jesus that turned her so off of remaining “Jewish” religiously.
...
Most of this is good except the bit comparing the churches that praise is conducted in.
Protestantism rejects materialism in pursuit of the humble reverence of God that all men should strive for.
A church is a church whether it is a gothic cathedral or a wooden shack in the scottish hebrides.
>american brainlets being tools of israel
nothing new here
D*spensationalism
That is true. However (in my opinion, I did not post the image) the point speaks to sincerity. Cafeteria churchs show a potential lack of sincerity on the part of adherents because of how interchangeable they are.
Anecdote: I went to a private school in Arizona funded by a “church” where the minister was a self-appointed bishop with a grand vision of revival. Occupied trailers and cafeterias. For his midlife crisis the bishop got a dog, a corvette and the secretary.
The church and school did not survive the semester.
Mainline churches are all pozzed
Also
>adheres to Scots Confession, Helvetic Confession and Westminster Confession
>believes in the real presence and is strongly against symbolic worship
Pick one
American Christians tend to be more apocalyptic than in some other places, because we need explosions and holocausts in order to get interested in anything.
The return of the Jews to Israel is a component of prophecy which hastens the End Times, Rapture, Tribulation etc.
As such I view Christian Zionism as a threat, an expression of a wish for harm toward me and mine. Christian Zionists literally wish to see the world burn in their lifetimes and fuck everybody else. I don't agree with Jewish Zionists either, but their position has absolutely nothing to do with me, unlike that of Armageddon fetishists.
Of course a lot of it also political, historical, motivated by anxiety about Arabs. But the most bothersome part of it to me is the notion that these people are so eager to get into heaven that they will blow up the world, not unlike jihadi scum.
Jesus:
>My kingdom is not of this world
Paul:
>neither Greek nor Jew
Dispensationalists:
>fuck that, worship Israel
And what if Israel gets nuked out of existence or something before any of that happens? Have rapture retards thought about that?
Threats to Israel are explained away by either engaging in that time-honored dispensationalist tradition of, “my math was wrong,” and assuring us all the apocalypse is around the *next* corner and not this one or believing that prophecy means any attack on Israel is just destined to fail as a fait accompli.
Hit the nail on the head!
Israeli here;
As many people have said ITT, the tl;dr is that they believe the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel is tied up with the Second Coming of Christ. Every different nutty evangelical preacher has his own angle on how exactly it's tied up, but basically, the State of Israel, or building the Third Temple, or etc. is what's going to trigger the end times and bring about the Second Coming.
We all secretly hate them, but outwardly pretend to love them, because they donate absolutely massive buttfuckloads of money to literally anything you tell them about. We sure as shit aren't going to cough up $350,000,000 from the Ministry of Health's budget to build that new Hospital wing, when we can just sob to some mega-Church in Texas about the poor kids who need more ECMO machines and get it crowdfunded by them overnight. So what if we have to put a plaque next to the entrance thanking the New Zion Evangelical Congregation for the thing.
Call it Jewish all you want, but it's literally a bunch of nutcases showering you with free money in exchange for absolutely nothing, simply because they're nutcases. Don't pretend you wouldn't do it.
How does it feel to know that most evangelical's version of the second coming involves enough Jews dying to make the Holocaust look like amateur hour?
Its just the nature of protestantism - pure emotion and faith
its the perfect religion for the United States in this day and age
That won't happen within our livetimes. Free hospital wings, however, will. Checking accounts are unrelated to biblical prophecies for the future.
Well according to dispensationalism it could happen 5 minutes from now.
Well according to my asshole it's not going too.
I trust my asshole more than I trust some old fart evangelical nuthole.
Oh of course. I’m a Christian myself and dispensationalsism is heretical bullshit by my reckoning as well.
>hating on Christians for being poor and low-class and finding joy in the love of god
Few people actually believe in the rapture, even among evangelicals. There are a solid number of crazies, but its not like some people portray it where huge sections of the country are cultists.
America uses Israel as a fellow aggressor to pressure Iran and the middle class whites follow along
You're either a disgrace or a liar. pick one
They're just a bunch of hippie LARPers who founded a religious movement based on ignorance and misinterpretation of what they wanted to accomplish. There's no reason to seriously consider them at all. They're also definitely not mainstream, which is what the original user conditioned his statement with.
>Protestantism rejects materialism
Wrong. Protestantism accepts materialism as a sign of God's favor. See Calvin and Puritans. Or Dutch in general. What protestants reject is funds going towards beautiful churches which are public spaces utilized by the entire community.