Christian Zionism in America

September 26, 2019September 26, 2019 Janice Kortkamp Christian Zionism, Israel, Palestine, Zionism

by: Janice Kortkamp

date: September 26, 2019

Christian Zionism in America

INTRODUCTION

“There is not a word in the New Testament that urges any follower of Jesus to murder one child in Iraq or condemn Palestine to death. Race hatred is a Zionist, not a Christian, strategy. Christian Zionism may be the most bloodthirsty apostasy in the entire history of Christianity or any other religion. Shame on its leaders: they have already brought the blood of untold numbers of innocent people down upon the spires and prayer benches of America’s churches.” C.E. Carlson of the Christian Evangelical Anti-Zionist organization, We Hold These Truths [i]

“In and around Bethlehem, Christians have gone from around 80 percent of the population just after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1950, to around 12 percent today … In Israel itself, Christians have gone from some 21 percent of the Arab population to around 8 percent today. Overall, they now number just 2 percent of the Israeli population.” [ii]

“These so-called Christians [American Christian Zionists] are causing us more damage than help — they understand the Middle East as I understand Micronesia.” Wadie Abunassar, a lay official with the Roman Catholic Church in Israel [iii]

Jesus warned his followers against “the yeast of the Pharisees” referring to the religious hypocrisy and hyper-legalism of the arrogant Jewish religious leaders; and the Bible admonishes that the love of money as the “root of all kinds of evil.” But arrogance, legalism and wealth are at the core of the approximately 170 year old Christian Zionist movement among American evangelicals.

It’s complicated as most things are and I’m not going to try to explain all of the history or complexities as numerous books and articles have been written on the topic. My hope is to help those trying to understand the phenomenon and offer some suggestions on how to work effectively in reaching Christian Zionists with the truth about the devastating consequences of the Zionist ideology and its geopolitical entity of Israel.

I would appreciate it if people who comment here will refrain from attacking anyone’s personal faith (as opposed to ideologies that use faith for negative purposes) as all religions and non-religious based ideologies like ultra-nationalism can – and most have – been used to coerce followers into supporting and even engaging in horrific violence.

On a personal note, my own Christian faith is simple: Love God, love other people. Treat others as you want them to treat you. Help the oppressed, the poor, and the hungry. So what I’ve written here is not about my own beliefs but those of a large segment of the American population, the oxymoronic “Christian Zionists” who consistently support both the apartheid Zionist geopolitical state of Israel and the mass murder that’s been done on its behalf including wars that have killed several million innocent people.

Thank you.

ARE ALL EVANGELICALS CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS?

Gallup finds that the percentage of American Protestant Evangelical Christians as making up 41% of Americans and therefore the largest single religious group in the US.[iv] The National Association of Evangelicals define themselves as “Taking the Bible seriously and believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior.” Their complete definition can be found on their website.[v] The definition of that term however can be confusing in itself even among Christians which leads to differing statistics regarding the number. According to a Pew Survey of 2014 for example, only 25.4% self-identified as evangelical.[vi] As with many terms in these times, the definition is subjective and this one can include all Protestants, anyone who describes themselves as born again including Catholics and Orthodox, anyone who evangelizes the Christian faith, or only a subset of Protestants that doesn’t include Pentecostal or Charismatic denominations, etc.

The definition of Christian Zionist also depends on whom you ask. Honestly, few Americans, Christian or not, have any familiarity with the term Zionism. For example, if you use the term “Zionist entity” to refer to Israel you’ll usually get a blank stare. (Same is true for the ideologies and concepts within Islam of Sunni, Shia, Sufism, Wahhabism, Salafism, sharia law etc.) For devoted Christian Zionists like those of the Christians United for Israel lobby (CUFI) started by John Hagee, the definition in the Jewish Virtual Library is probably closest to their generally accepted version: “Christian Zionism can be defined as Christian support for the Zionist cause — the return of the Jewish people to its biblical homeland in Israel. It is a belief among some Christians that the return of Jews to Israel is in line with a biblical prophecy, and is necessary for Jesus to return to Earth as its king.”[vii]

I’ve regularly attended a few churches over the past 20 years: in two within a denomination that traditionally supports Palestine, and in one that leaders at the top level like bishops and archbishops support Israel though individual clergymen and members of the congregation often hold more neutral or pro-Palestinian views. I’ve also visited over three dozen churches spanning the spectrum from Orthodox to Catholic to Pentecostal to Baptist to churches of immigrants to non-denominational home churches. In addition, since traveling to Syria and wanting to share information about that conflict, I’ve spoken with several small groups of Christians (or large groups that included Christians) and individuals. When I’ve polled attendees casually, maybe half have been able to instantly pick out Israel instantly on an unmarked map, yet all those who are concerned for the Palestinians could do so without hesitation. While the great majority of the Christians I’ve spoken with do say they support Israel, when I’ve asked them why, they usually respond with something like, “We’re supposed to aren’t we?”

Interestingly, among people who have traveled to Israel on pilgrimage to the sites where Jesus walked and taught, the ones who’ve been many times tend to be much more pragmatic and less enamored with Israel than those who have gone only once. (For the record, I have never gone and don’t intend to.) In fact, most of the ones I’ve talked with who go regularly seem to have deeper sympathy for the Palestinians than the Jews and often their deepest friendships are among Palestinians.

So even though there is still strong support of Israel by evangelicals and other Christians, I would say it is driven typically by a general sense usually based on a few isolated scripture verses, or some pastor or teacher they follow and not founded on careful study that includes looking at the situation from multiple perspectives.

LifeWay Research together with Chosen People Ministries and Joel C. Rosenberg – all zealous Christian Zionists – did a survey in 2017 among evangelicals to measure “Evangelical Attitudes toward Israel”. The study with its subtle, pro-Israel leaning questions showed that people with positive perceptions of Israel differ by age group with 76% of those aged 65+ having positive perceptions down to 58% of those aged 18-34. What I found interesting and confirming of my own experience was the large percentage of “not sure” responses to various questions with “not sure” answers accounting for between 15 to 35%.[viii]

This diminishing regard for Israel among evangelicals has Christian and Jewish Zionists concerned. Victor Styrsky, Eastern Regional Coordinator for Christians United for Israel (CUFI) said in 2012: “If something isn’t done soon, in 10 years, pro-Israel support among American Evangelicals will all be over. The way things are going support will completely flip from Israel to the Palestinians in the next generation. The so-called ‘Christian Palestinianists’ are currently way ahead of Christian Zionists in the propaganda wars.” [ix]

CHRISTIAN ZIONISM IN THE CHURCHES AND POLITICS: “When you’re taking over the world, it gets a little hectic at times.” [x]

How did the evangelical movement get so intertwined with Zionism and modern Israel to the point where John Hagee at his Christians United for Israel event of May 18, 2010 proclaimed that not supporting the modern Zionist state would lead to eternal damnation?

It is important to be right on the Israel question when you consider that being wrong brings you under the curse of God and headed for eternal, everlasting fire with the devil and his angels. Israel is not a “take it or leave it” subject. It is a life and death matter-eternal life! [xi] John Hagee

The following is a very brief summary of the Christian Zionist movement in the US. Since, as I mentioned earlier, many books have been written on the topic I’ll will just mention some of the primary influences here:

The Scofield Reference Bible

Although there is some history of this Zionist teaching that goes back to the age of the European religious wars between Christian groups that killed an estimated 5 million to 15 million people, the modern Christian Zionist movement in America can be traced to Cyrus Scofield. Scofield added notes and commentary to the King James translation of the Bible which was printed and promoted by Oxford University Press at the prompting of wealthy Jewish Zionist and Wall Street lawyer Samuel Untermeyer. In “Unjust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to Jerusalem,” Prof. David W. Lutz writes, “Untermeyer used Scofield, a Kansas City lawyer with no formal training in theology, to inject Zionist ideas into American Protestantism. Untermeyer and other wealthy and influential Zionists whom he introduced to Scofield promoted and funded the latter’s career, including travel in Europe.”[xii] The Oxford University Press publisher, Henry Frowde was a follower of John Nelson Darby, “the Anglo-Irish missionary generally considered to have been the most influential figure in the development of Christian Zionism, and a major influence on Scofield.”[xiii] The Scofield Reference Bible became widely popular among American Protestants after its publication in 1909 and the Zionist rhetoric has been made even stronger in subsequent editions.

Billy Graham

In the late 1960’s and early 70’s Billy Graham became a devoted supporter of Israel. This was the equivalent of a ‘golden seal approval’ because of Graham’s massive, cross-denominational popularity. American Christians began going to Israel on pilgrimages in greater numbers because of a film the Graham organization produced called, “His Land”. Both religious-conservative and liberal-secular Jewish leaders in America and Israel described him as “one of the century’s greatest Christian friends of Jews.” Graham was apparently not so enthusiastic in private conversations as was revealed from a taped conversation he had with Richard Nixon in 1972 when he said, “The Jewish stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain.” [xiv]

Nevertheless, Graham’s support of Israel influenced many including three up and coming well-known and highly paid Christian Zionists: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and John Hagee.

Jerry Falwell

Christian Zionism became welded to the Christian Conservative political movement of Jerry Falwell called the Moral Majority started in the late ‘70s and was at least partially fueled by Falwell’s friendship with the Israeli Prime Minister at the time, Menachem Begin.[xv] Menachem Begin had been part of the Irgun Jewish terrorist gang that among their many crimes blew up the King David Hotel on July 22, 1946 killing 91 people and injuring 46 others. The casualties included Arabs, Brits, Americans, and some Jews. The hotel was serving as the Central Offices of the British authorities at the time. The “moral” Falwell (under investigation a few times for fraud and deceit) received the handsome gift of use of a personal Lear Jet from Begin in 1979.[xvi] Begin used Falwell as an ambassador to America’s evangelicals. For example, after Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981 – a reactor purchased from the French and designed reportedly for peaceful scientific research – Begin enlisted Falwell to act as spin doctor to American Christians. As usual, Israel insisted it was concerned the reactor would be modified for weapons use and that it was acting purely in “self-defense”. The attack killed ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian.[xvii] This was 16 years after Israel stole weapons grade uranium from the US with help from people inside the US government to help create its illegal nuclear weapons program.[xviii] Falwell arranged a meeting with Begin of mostly evangelical Christian ministers but which also included the Governor of Virginia and the state’s two Senators in office at the time. As Falwells’ aides were in a frenzy, working up to the last minute gathering guests and publicizing the meeting, Moral Majority’s vice president of communications Calvin Thomas stated, “When you’re taking over the world, it gets a little hectic at times.”

Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson is a former Southern Baptist Minister turned multimillionaire mogul. Robertson’s career covers founding several major organizations and corporations as well as a university: The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), the International Family Entertainment Inc. (ABC Family Channel), Regent University, the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ), the Founders Inn and Conference Center, the Christian Coalition, the L-1011 Flying Hospital, Operation Blessing International Relief and Development Corporation, and CBN Asia. He is a best-selling author and the host of The 700 Club, a Christian News and TV program broadcast live weekdays on Freeform (formerly ABC Family) via satellite from CBN studios, as well as on channels throughout the United States, and on CBN network affiliates worldwide. He’s worth a cool $100 million dollars. And he uses every method he has to promote Israel’s interests and Christian Zionism.

Robertson’s messages often reflect the opposite of Christian teaching. He thought assassinating Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez would be a good idea. He was close friends with George HW Bush and claimed God had given him a message to deliver to Bush urging him to launch the first Gulf War. In 2005 in a video message regarding George W Bush’s Iraq War, Robertson claimed “the US had won the war already.” He went on to say that criticizing the war by Democrats at the time amounted to treason.[xix] Regarding Saudi Arabia’s murder of Khashoggi, Robertson said, “For those who are screaming blood for the Saudis — look, these people are key allies,” Robertson said. While he called the faith of the Wahhabis — the hardline Islamist sect to which the Saudi Royal Family belongs — ‘obnoxious,’ he urged viewers to remember that “we’ve got an arms deal that everybody wanted a piece of…it’ll be a lot of jobs, a lot of money come to our coffers. It’s not something you want to blow up willy-nilly.”[xx] All of these statements, while not mirroring New Testament doctrines, do perfectly reflect Israel’s.

John Hagee

While John Hagee pontificates in support of modern Israel, the reality is that since Israel’s creation, the Christian populations in the Holy Land have gone from an area wide 10% (although some estimates are as high as 20%) down to 2% in Israel and the occupied West Bank and below 1% in Gaza according to the Pew Research Center. [xxi]

The ongoing persecution, dispersion, and even killing of Christians in Palestine doesn’t bother Pastor Hagee however; his devotion to Israel is absolute. He created the Christians United for Israel lobby group, and according to its website it is “the only Christian organization devoted to transforming millions of pro-Israel Christians into an educated, empowered, and effective force for Israel.” [xxii] In 2006 Hagee’s zeal for Zionists led him to state at a CUFI event in Washington that, ““The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West.” This pronouncement came in spite of the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of Christians and tens of thousands of Jews in addition to the other 80 million human beings living in Iran. Nor does Hagee ever reference Israel’s 70 to 300 illegal nuclear warheads in their arsenal that they can launch from land, sea and air. Israel’s “Samson Option” is this: if any country attacks Israel, Israel will vaporize the attacking country’s capital city. Hagee’s teachings are in fact 180 degrees from the teachings of Jesus and the entirety of the New Testament; nevertheless millions of Americans have joined the organization since it was started in 2006 and rakes in about $15 million annually.[xxiii] The precise amount of money being made by the various arms of John Hagee’s empire is more difficult to trace. John Hagee Ministries is reported to earn between $50 to $100 million annually. His book sales add to that figure. As for fundraising, never mind the millions of Christians and all innocents devastated by wars in the Middle East, CUFI is far too busy raising funds for Israel. Just one annual event called “Night to Honor Israel” hosted by Hagee since 1981, has raised more than $100 million over the years for Jewish charities and the Jewish state (it is unclear what percentages went to either).[xxiv] One dinner alone raised over $2 million in 2017.

Now, if you Google the richest pastors in America, there is an almost absolute correlation between the wealthiest preachers and their support for the Zionist-created and led state of Israel. Rick Warren is the one exception I’ve found. From Kenneth Copeland – worth a cool $760 million, who recently described his ‘need’ for a second private jet because he shouldn’t have to sit with ‘demons’ on commercial airliners[xxv]; all the way through Pat Robertson ($100 million); Jesse Duplantis ($50 million) – who is fleecing his flock for a fourth private jet[xxvi]; Israeli televangelist Benny Hind ($42 million); Joel Osteen ($40 million); Creflo Dollar ($27 million); the late Billy Graham ($25 million); T.D. Jakes ($18 million); Joyce Meyer ($8 million); and John Hagee (a mere $5 million). The sole pastor on the list who is pro-Palestine, Rick Warren ($25 million) – says he and his wife are working towards giving 90% of their income to the poor though that is hard to verify.

CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS: CONSEQUENCES ON US POLITICS

Between the US pro-Israel lobby and the enabling Christian Zionists, Israeli interests dominate decisions on US foreign policy in the Middle East. As Grant Smith of the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy discovered through analyzing pro-Israel campaign contributions, in practical terms the pro-Israel Jewish lobby – particularly a small subset of billionaires within the lobby – is responsible for the overwhelming lion’s share of money paid to elected representatives to further Israel’s ambitions in the region.[xxvii] However, through organized, continual, mass activism both to government officials and the American public CUFI has managed to accrue considerable influence in the 13 years it’s been around. Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at a CUFI Summit in Washington DC in 2017 said, “And you, the supporters of Israel, the many thousands who are in that hall, and the millions, the many millions in the United States and elsewhere, Christian friends of Israel, you are always there for us,” Netanyahu said. “We have no better friends on earth than you.” [xxviii]

British journalist Jonathan Cook who is based in Nazareth sees this as a strategy to counterbalance a rift opening between liberal US Jews and the far right leaders in Tel Aviv. Cook wrote:

According to a report in the Israeli far-right newspaper Makor Rishon, which is owned by Sheldon Adelson, a US casino billionaire and Netanyahu’s patron, the Israeli prime minister set out his rationale for sacrificing the support of liberal Jews overseas at a recent closed-door meeting with officials.

He reportedly told them that non-Orthodox Jews would disappear in “one or two generations” through low birth rates, intermarriage and more general assimilation. Liberal Jews were a “lost cause” in his view, and wedded to a worldview that was incompatible with Israel’s future.

Both on demographic and ideological grounds, he added, Israel should invest in cultivating stronger ties to Orthodox Jews and Christian evangelicals. [xxix]

Political candidates require both voter support and financing and in the realm of campaign finance directed towards pro-Israel candidates, money from Jewish sources provides the lion’s share; but what the Christian Zionists lack in financial assistance they make up for in mass actions for political support.

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson contributed over $100 million to elect Republican, pro-Israel candidates. AIPAC-affiliated organizations alone gave over $22 million in lobby money to both Republican and Democratic pro-Israel members of Congress. The more liberal pro-Israel lobby, JStreetPac, distributed almost $5 million.[xxx] According to MJ Rosenberg who worked for AIPAC for six years and as a lobbyist on the Hill for another 15, “US foreign policy is determined by the highest bidder, and the highest bidder is AIPAC.” [xxxi] AIPAC is the “American Israel Public Affairs Committee” and doesn’t give direct donations but acts as an organizer/promoter to get other organizations and individuals to do so. There is no pro-Palestinian lobby. What is referred to as the “Arab lobby” consists almost entirely of Saudi and other Gulf billionaires buying favors from individuals for oil and arms deals.

Christian evangelicals however show up to vote and comprised 25% of the total in the 2018 midterm elections, and polls show 75% of those voted for Republican candidates; 79% of Jews voted for Democrats.[xxxii] Since both Christian evangelicals and Jews tend to vote for candidates who support pro-Israel policies and legislation, this produces a Congress that bilaterally favors Israel’s objectives.

CUFI now claims 6,000,000 members and is the largest activist/lobby Christian pro-Israel organization.[xxxiii] Just in 2017, CUFI advanced several key Zionist objectives – this list is from the CUFI website:

Help secure the confirmation of David Friedman as our Ambassador to Israel
Through in-person meetings and the hundreds of thousands of e-mails we sent to the White House, we encouraged President Trump to make history by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Build a strong relationship with the President, Vice President and the Administration as we worked together to strengthen the US-Israel relationship
Advance the Taylor Force Act towards becoming law by generating over one million emails to Congress
Expand our network of pro-Israel churches by bringing hundreds of pastors on trips to Israel.
Push back against efforts to turn millennial Christians against Israel by bringing hundreds of millennial leaders and influencers to see the truth for themselves in Israel.
Produce dozens of powerful short films telling Israel’s most compelling stories through the Mizrahi Project, the Israel Collective, and our new Micro History series
Launch a cutting-edge new website packed with engaging resources positioning CUFI to be the one-stop destination for Israel news and education.

HOW TO ENGAGE WITH CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS EFFECTIVELY REGARDING ZIONISM AND ISRAEL

Non-Christians trying to share or anyone using non-Christian sources will have very little success at the start in educating Christian Zionists as they’ve been programmed to consider the conflict only in religious terms. While they might even recognize your good intentions, the overwhelming response will be something like, “You just don’t understand.” Whether you’re a Christian or not though, there are some strategies and resources that can be effective for those of us wanting to help this huge segment of American society wake up. Almost all Christian Zionists in the US are right leaning conservatives so it’s best to have a ready list of articles and sources available that will resonate with Christian conservatives. Because of the combination of religious false teaching and American patriotism that’s also falsely been turned to militarism, educating this group is very slow going. What seems to work best is to not offer “the whole enchilada” as the saying goes but to make a single opening that gets them to start questioning what they’ve been led to believe instead of trying to bludgeon them with dozens of articles or videos. Ask them if they will read or watch just one to start.

Here are some resources from conservative evangelical Christian leaders who have woken up about Zionism/Israel, and also Palestinian Christians giving overviews that may help to start the discussion:

1. Hank Hanegraaff: A Gospel Response to Christian Zionism. Hannegraaff has sold millions of books and is known to evangelicals as The Bible Answer Man from his radio talk show. He gave this speech at the Bethlehem Bible College in 2016.[xxxiv]

2. Palestinian Christian Challenges is a video of several Palestinians including pastors from Bethlehem in Palestine sharing their stories. The Christian population of Bethlehem has gone from almost 90% to about 10% since the Zionists took control in 1948 and the ongoing military occupation. [xxxv]

3. Christ at The Checkpoint YouTube channel has many talks and descriptive videos like this one using the Good Samaritan bible story to illustrate the planned demolition of a Bedouin village by Israel.[xxxvi]

4. We Hold These Truths is an evangelical organization dedicated to peace and breaking the stranglehold of Zionism on the Christian churches in the US. Their film called “Christian Zionism: The Tragedy and the Turning” won the Special Award for International Films at the Ammar Popular Film Festival in Tehran, Iran in 2014. [xxxvii]

5. Pastor Chuck Baldwin was a Zionist until about 2015 when he became an outspoken critic of Israel and the Zionist movement. Baldwin often describes the horrific stranglehold of the pro-Israel lobby and Israel over US foreign policy and the consequences of that stranglehold in terms of wars, covert operations, economic siege sanctions etc. In this post, he interviews a survivor of Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty, “My Interview with a USS LIBERTY Survivor” [xxxviii]

6. TruNews with Rick Wiles is also a group of evangelical conservative Christians speaking very openly and bluntly about the Zionist movement, the devastating consequences of that ideology and of Israel not only to the Palestinians and Middle East region but to the US and the world. This endnote is for their “One Nation Under Zionism: Is America Israel’s Puppet for War?” video.[xxxix]

7. Meet the Christians of Palestine video of personal testimonies of life under the Zionist occupation. [xl]

If they’re willing to look at any of the above, they might then be willing to view non-Christian sources for information:

1. The brilliant Palestinian scholar Edward Said’s documentary, The Shadow of the West from 1986. This helps to remove the Hamas factor – as Hamas wasn’t a factor in 1986. [xli]

2. Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a central, secular leader in Middle Eastern/Palestinian politics and womens’ issues. Conversations with History: Palestinian Voice Hanan Ashrawi. [xlii]

3. A good introduction to the realities of the Israeli occupation is Jewish American Anna Baltzer’s 2008 documentary called Life in Occupied Palestine made after she lived there for many months. [xliii]

4. Another excellent presentation on the reality of the occupation is “An Israeli soldier’s story” by former IDF soldier Eran Efrati. [xliv]

5. For articles and current news, Mondoweiss [xlv] and If Americans Knew [xlvi] are both excellent resources.

What isn’t very effective is insulting, berating, or accusing Christian Zionists. I know – I’ve tried that! And as I mentioned before, hammering people with endless resources – because there are endless resources to refute Zionism whether from Muslims, Christians, Jews or secularists/atheists – causes people to entrench. It’s also not effective to condemn the Christian faith or religion in general. No matter what your personal beliefs may be, attacking the faith of someone you want to educate only makes them more defensive and the discussion spirals out of control in various tangents.

CONCLUSION

The momentum is clearly on the side of truth regarding the Zionists’ deceptions, crimes and ambitions. Engaging in respectful discussions and taking time to provide proofs that will resonate with those who’ve been misled into supporting Israel and Zionism is crucial to increase that momentum. For the Christian Zionists who can seem to present an impenetrable wall, bringing them back to the simple, well known Bible story of the Good Samaritan (from Luke chapter 10 verses 25-37) may be a good way to start … after sharing that the Samaritan was from what is now known as the West Bank in Palestine and asking them, who is your neighbor?:

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

[i] https://fathersmanifesto.net/scofield.htm

[ii] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/holy-land-christians-feel-abandoned-u-s-evangelicals-n867371

[iii] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/holy-land-christians-feel-abandoned-u-s-evangelicals-n867371

[iv] https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/235208/things-know-evangelicals-america.aspx

[v] https://www.nae.net/statement-of-faith/

[vi] https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

[vii] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/christian-zionism

[viii] http://lifewayresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Evangelical-Attitudes-Toward-Israel-Research-Study-Report.pdf

[ix] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14023