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As Hagee noted in his speech, some of the basis for this support is theological. Darrell Bock, a Bible scholar and professor at the Dallas Theological Seminary, believes evangelical support for Israel is largely rooted in the belief that God makes good on his promises.
“It looks back to the idea that God has made certain commitments to his people — to the people through whom the gospel originally came — and he’s not abandoning them, ultimately. And so there’s a hope that drives this belief that Israel deserves to be supported,” he said.
These beliefs are both deeply held, and widespread. Depending on how you define it, about one in four Americans are evangelicals. Richard Land is president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary near Charlotte, North Carolina. Like many of his faith, he was raised in a tradition that believed that the Jews are God’s chosen people, and that “God gave the land of Israel to the Jews, forever. And that God blesses those who bless the Jews, and God curses those who curse the Jews. And if we want God to bless us and God wants us to bless America, we’ve got to bless the Jews.”
There are other Biblical and more future-oriented reasons that some evangelicals support Israel — specifically the “prophecy that Israel has a major role to play at the end of days. This idea was popularized in the Left Behind book series, which sold tens of millions of copies and was adapted into a film series starring Kirk Cameron in 2001, and rebooted in 2014 with Nicolas Cage.
In one decisive moment in the apocalyptic series, The Battle of Armageddon, the “antichrist” gathers all the world’s armies to attack the last remaining Christians and Jews in Israel, before Christ himself intervenes to destroy the invading army.
The movie wasn’t well received by critics, and many evangelical leaders objected to it on theological grounds.
“To take this popularized Apocalyptic end times view as the norm is a huge mistake. It's absolutely not, and most evangelicals don't share it,” says Robert Nicholson, executive director of Philos Project, a nonprofit working to promote positive Christian engagement in the Middle East. ”There are evangelicals who think some of those things, but they're an absolute minority.”
While support for Israel is strong, there are some signs of growing sympathy of Palestinians as well. Bock, of the Dallas Theological Seminary, notes that this seems particularly true among younger evangelicals.
“What drives a millennial are justice questions — and there are real questions related to justice and how Israel handles the Palestinians. Of course, the flipside of this is that there are real problems of security that Israel has to cope with so Israel is a very tangled web,” he said.
Another factor, according to Richard Land, the head of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, is that since the intifadas in the 1990s, more Palestinian Christians have come to the US, “so a lot more evangelical Christians know Palestinians than was the case 20 years ago because they're their neighbors, they're their fellow church members,” he says.
Why American evangelicals are a huge base of support for Israel
...}
As Hagee noted in his speech, some of the basis for this support is theological. Darrell Bock, a Bible scholar and professor at the Dallas Theological Seminary, believes evangelical support for Israel is largely rooted in the belief that God makes good on his promises.
“It looks back to the idea that God has made certain commitments to his people — to the people through whom the gospel originally came — and he’s not abandoning them, ultimately. And so there’s a hope that drives this belief that Israel deserves to be supported,” he said.
These beliefs are both deeply held, and widespread. Depending on how you define it, about one in four Americans are evangelicals. Richard Land is president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary near Charlotte, North Carolina. Like many of his faith, he was raised in a tradition that believed that the Jews are God’s chosen people, and that “God gave the land of Israel to the Jews, forever. And that God blesses those who bless the Jews, and God curses those who curse the Jews. And if we want God to bless us and God wants us to bless America, we’ve got to bless the Jews.”
There are other Biblical and more future-oriented reasons that some evangelicals support Israel — specifically the “prophecy that Israel has a major role to play at the end of days. This idea was popularized in the Left Behind book series, which sold tens of millions of copies and was adapted into a film series starring Kirk Cameron in 2001, and rebooted in 2014 with Nicolas Cage.
In one decisive moment in the apocalyptic series, The Battle of Armageddon, the “antichrist” gathers all the world’s armies to attack the last remaining Christians and Jews in Israel, before Christ himself intervenes to destroy the invading army.
The movie wasn’t well received by critics, and many evangelical leaders objected to it on theological grounds.
“To take this popularized Apocalyptic end times view as the norm is a huge mistake. It's absolutely not, and most evangelicals don't share it,” says Robert Nicholson, executive director of Philos Project, a nonprofit working to promote positive Christian engagement in the Middle East. ”There are evangelicals who think some of those things, but they're an absolute minority.”
While support for Israel is strong, there are some signs of growing sympathy of Palestinians as well. Bock, of the Dallas Theological Seminary, notes that this seems particularly true among younger evangelicals.
“What drives a millennial are justice questions — and there are real questions related to justice and how Israel handles the Palestinians. Of course, the flipside of this is that there are real problems of security that Israel has to cope with so Israel is a very tangled web,” he said.
Another factor, according to Richard Land, the head of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, is that since the intifadas in the 1990s, more Palestinian Christians have come to the US, “so a lot more evangelical Christians know Palestinians than was the case 20 years ago because they're their neighbors, they're their fellow church members,” he says.
Why American evangelicals are a huge base of support for Israel
...}