Origins of Christian Zionism, How It Corrupted American Christianity and Why It’s Finally Collapsing

JD Hall, thank you for joining us.

I think you're one of the clearest writers on the internet. So it's an honor to have you here.

Um, I've been trying to figure out for several years — you write on theology on Substack and other places. And very clearly, I just want to say clarity being the goal of expository writing, you achieve that, right?

Few do.

I've been trying for the last several years to figure out what Christian Zionism is. Not because I have an inherent interest, but because it's affected the shape of the world and a lot of people have died because of it, and it has real world consequences that we can — we're living through right now.

What is Christian Zionism? Where does it come from? Is it Christian? What's your assessment?

Well, if you listen to people online, every Christian is a Zionist just naturally, right?

Yes.

So the proponents of it will tell you that it is the de facto position on Israel and it always has been for Christians — to believe in the establishment and support and protection of a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine.

Um, Christian Zionism — what, doesn't it say in the Bible that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who don't will be cursed?

Yeah. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you've probably had about a thousand different people tell you that. That's something that we hear every single day as Christians.

I couldn't find it. I got my concordance out. I couldn't find it.

Well, I remember an interview with Huckabee and he couldn't find it either, which is weird when you cite it all the time. Or actually, that was Ted Cruz that couldn't remember where it was. I don't think Ted even knew if it was in the front of the Bible or in the back of the Bible.

I have no idea.

Um, but yeah, so Genesis 12:3 says, "I will bless those that bless thee and curse those that curse thee." And from that — and I'm simplifying it — but from that comes this more philosophical notion than theological: that we as Christians have a duty-bound obligation to protect and to defend and also to help establish a nation for the Jewish people in Palestine.

And it hasn't always been Palestine, you know. So when political Zionism first developed, they had posited Morocco and Galveston, Texas, Ohio, Siberia — different places.

Galveston, Texas.

Yeah. There was a substantial number of Jews there. And they thought this could be sort of the safe space for Judaism worldwide, which made sense because, you know, the United States has always been a pretty hospitable place for Jews.

But anyways, um, so far as it concerns Christian Zionism, that is tied to a theology called dispensationalism.

Dispensationalism is a theology invented by John Nelson Darby.

What does the word "dispensationalism" mean?

Well, the term refers to different dispensations of time by which God operates differently and deals or interacts with man differently depending upon what dispensation of time it's in.

Huh.

So dispensationalism is juxtaposed against covenant theology. And those are your two basic viewpoints of Christians throughout the history of Christianity. And for the most part, there's only those two perspectives.

Um, and you can get lost in the weeds really easily.

Yes.

So John Nelson Darby — he belonged to a bizarre Irish sect. It was sectarian. Uh, they had basically schismed their way outside of the established church. They had several different theological hang-ups. One is that they rejected all forms of church authority. They were what I would call sectarian minimalists. So they reject the organized church. They rejected the established church. And part of the reason is because their beliefs were so eccentric and weird. They would have been excommunicated had they remained in the established church.

So, um, after moving from Ireland to Plymouth, England, the notion of dispensationalism grew. And essentially the difference between dispensationalism and covenant theology is that God in covenant theology is interacting with man in accordance to the old or the new covenant.

And so the bulk of the church from the first days of the apostles through the church fathers through the Protestant Reformation — whether we're talking Catholics or Eastern Orthodox or Protestant reformers — all of them are what you'd call covenantal in their theology.

So you said — um, and I'm sorry to be pedantic. I was trying to understand this because I really think it matters and you understand it better than anyone I've ever talked to.

The premise is that God's promises change according to the time, according to the dispensation, the era, the epoch.

So dispensationalism can be complicated. Um, classical dispensationalism separates the epochs of time into seven different eras. It can definitely be complicated. There's something that's called leaky dispensationalism, which is a little bit less structured. But essentially the big difference is this:

Covenant theologians have always believed that God saves people via covenant. And there was an old covenant. That's what testament means, by the way — not testimony. It's the old covenant. And then there is the new covenant that has been established. And Jesus came and inaugurated a new covenant.

Yes.

And he did that at Passover right before he was crucified. The Last Supper, which was the last Passover supper — the last authentic Passover supper — was also the first Lord's Supper. It's the first communion or Eucharist.

Yes.

And Jesus says, "This is my new covenant. Or this is the new covenant in my blood that's poured out for many." And so in the new covenant, Jesus Christ is the means by which God's people are saved.

Yes.

Okay. Um, in the old covenant, the covenant people of God were Israel.

Yes.

And God, being very gracious, gave Israel rights and rituals for them to see as an explanation — a word picture of who their Messiah would be. So that when their Messiah came, they would say obviously, that's what this is about. The Passover is a good example.

They recognize the Messiah.

They would recognize the Messiah. In fact, it would be hard for them not to recognize that Jesus was the Messiah. He's crucified at Passover.

Um, he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. I mean, all the imagery is right there for the Jewish people to see.

Yes.

That this is the moment that we've been waiting for. Jesus installs the new covenant in his blood. And by that — by God's grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone — we are redeemed by faith in that, and then we become God's chosen people.

And so a covenant theologian is going to tell someone that quotes Genesis 12:3, "I will bless those that bless thee and curse those that curse thee."

A Christian, a covenant theologian is going to quote to you Galatians chapter 3, which is a book of the New Testament in which the apostle Paul is writing to the church in Galatia. And he tells them that if you have faith in Jesus, you are God's children. You're actually, he says, you are the children of Abraham—it says it twice—so by faith we're adopted into God's covenant people.

And then at the very end of Galatians chapter 3, not only does it tell us that we are the children of Abraham—those who believe—but also we are the heirs of the promises.

And so in fact, in Galatians 3:7, the Apostle Paul very clearly explains that that promise is not for the Jews. It never was for the Jews. The picture was, or rather, the mission of God was much bigger.

>> And that's clear in the Old Testament, isn't it?

>> Right. It's the Old Testament. Um, and God is preaching through the rights and rituals of the Old Testament the gospel before Jesus came.

Yes.

>> All right. So that they could understand concepts like grace and judgment and forgiveness and repentance—because it was never about the sacrifice of bulls and goats. It's not as though that bloodshed ever took away sin. It gave them a picture of the bloodshed that Jesus Christ would one day give for us so that they could believe in what we call types and shadows—putting their faith in the rituals that would one day be lived out in reality through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

And the greatest mystery of the gospel, Paul calls it, is that Jesus was not just a Jewish Messiah. He was a global Messiah. He was everyone's Messiah. And that by faith, we become the children of Abraham. And by faith we receive Abraham's promises.

Um, I was going to say a second ago that in the very first part of Galatians chapter 3, he says, "You know, when the promise is given to Abraham and to Abraham's seed," Paul says it doesn't say "seeds" plural. It says "seed" singular. The promise is not given to the Jews. The promise is a reference to Abraham's seed—that's Jesus Christ—because Jesus was of the lineage of Abraham.

>> So the promise is not "bless the Jews and God will bless you." The promise is "bless Christ and God will bless you."

Furthermore, not only is that promise just for Christ, but by the end of the chapter in Galatians 3, the Apostle Paul says, "You are the heirs of the promise." Meaning that promise is extended to us.

And so the irony is you have these so-called Christian Zionists who believe that we have to bless Jews in order for God to bless us. And they're actually giving away their own inheritance. That's our promise. I'm a child of Abraham. If you're a Christian, you're a child of Abraham. We receive the heirs—or rather, we receive the promises of Abraham—because we inherit them by the virtue of adoption in Jesus Christ. That's what Christians have historically believed.

Um, and there are other supporting texts. You know, you got Romans chapter 9, where the Apostle Paul says that Jews who do not believe in Jesus are not children of Abraham. Um, you've got Romans chapter 11 that paints the picture of the tree of faith in which unbelieving Jews are branches on this tree that have been cut off and severed from both Abraham and God, and in their place are grafted in believing Gentiles. And so we, you know, are brought into the family of Abraham and in covenant with God by virtue of faith.

So when someone like Mike Huckabee or Ted Cruz or any other politician or preacher preaches a message that, you know, "If you want God to bless you, you need to do X, Y, or Z for the Jews"—they're handing away or handing out Christian promises. Those are for us. We have those in Jesus. We are the children of Abraham.

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It doesn't make inherent sense, the theology that you're describing—dispensationalism—and also, before I ask you about how it spread, is it true or a product of my bad memory that there are glimpses in the Old Testament that God plans to redeem the entire world? That it's not that God's mission on earth is just to protect this one group of people, but everybody?

>> Right. So what dispensationalists will do is they will look at verses in the Bible about the end times. We call that eschatology. They'll look at these eschatological texts about what God will do with ethnic Jews—the children of Abraham physically—and they'll say, "See, you know, the Jews are special to God in a way that other ethnicities are not." And it's unfortunate because three different times in the New Testament, the scripture says God is not a respector of persons. And each and every time it's a reference to the Jewish people. But they have in their head, "Jews are special." They look at a verse about what God is going to do one day in the eschaton, or in the end days, for Jews, and walk away from that saying, "Therefore, we need to support the nation state of Israel. This must be a part of that grand plan that God has designed for the Jewish people."

But Isaiah chapter 19, just to give you an example, tells us that the Egyptians and the Assyrians will be redeemed by God in the end days and be brought to Zion, to Jerusalem, or to the promised land. It calls Egypt God's special people and says of Assyria that they are the work of his hands. These are two nations that are adversarial to the ancient Israelites.

>> Well, enslaved them in one case.

>> Right? And the Assyrians, you know, are constantly warfaring with them. These are bitter enemies. And yet the prophet Isaiah says that they will become special to God.

He will call them his own and draw them to Zion.

>> That's in the Torah.

Yeah, that's in the Torah. Um, it's in Isaiah, uh, chapter 19.

But that's not the only place. There are literally dozens of different scriptures throughout the text that tells us that every nation group in the end is going to be drawn to God through Jesus Christ.

As a matter of fact, it's in the Abrahamic promise in Genesis 12, verse 4 of that promise, right after it says, "I'll bless those that bless thee and curse those that curse thee." Um, it says every family of the earth will be blessed through Abraham.

And so the Jews will tell you that it's because, you know, Israel is such a grand wonderful place that all the different nations of the world are being blessed, you know, by Israel. Unfortunately, the dispensationalists will tell you that too. I say unfortunately because that's clearly a reference to Christ. Through Jesus Christ, God's saving love to sinners all around the world.

Every people group, every nation, every ethnos um is going to be drawn to God in the end. That's our hope as Christians, that God wins, that salvation is secure ultimately for every nation under the sun. That God will bring unto himself one chosen nation, one holy people for God's possession.

And so, yes, we can see places in the Bible where God has future plans for Israel. But we can also look to those very same prophets in those very same books and see that God has great things in store for Persia, for Iran. God has great things in store, um, you know, for Greece and for every nation, including by the way the ancient Philistines who are modern-day Palestinians. God has plans in store for everyone.

That is the good news of the gospel: that Jesus shed his blood for sinners, and that by faith we can all become the children of God, and by virtue of that, children of Abraham.

When I was a kid in church, there was a song that we sang: "Father Abraham." And it says, "Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had father Abraham. I am one of them, and so are you. So let's just praise the Lord."

>> Probably raised Episcopalian, that one skipped.

>> Yeah.

>> Church.

>> Not, not, not in our.

>> In low church evangelicalism, that song is probably sung in every, you know, Baptist and evangelical church. It's a song of covenant theology. By faith, Christians become the children of Abraham. And if a Jewish person does not believe in their own Messiah, they're not the children of Abraham. That's what Romans chapter nine teaches: that not all who are of Abraham are really of Abraham.

I mean, bigger picture, it feels like the story of Christianity is a universal story. It's a universal promise to all people.

>> Sure.

>> And dispensationalism seems like it reduces Christianity back to its pre-Jesus state, where this is a promise just to one group, one genetic line.

>> Yeah, I would say at its heart dispensationalism is a Jewish interpretive model. Uh, as a matter of fact, they will actually take that as a point of bragging: that we interpret the scripture the way the Jews interpret the scripture. Well, the Jews miss Jesus. Like, he came in the flesh. He was there. They saw him. As a matter of fact, they saw him dead, buried, and resurrected, and still didn't believe. So maybe that's not who we should be taking pointers from in terms of understanding biblical prophecy.

>> What's Jesus's role in dispensationalist theology?

>> Well, Jesus's role in dispensational theology, uh, so it depends to whom. So John Nelson Darby, the inventor of dispensationalism, referred to the church, the Christian church, as a parenthesis. That God's main plan is Israel. But because they've been naughty and disobedient, the church comes in, and we're a parenthesis. So instead of being like the bride of Christ, the church is more like a summer fling. That's where the rapture comes in: that eventually God will rapture us, take us out, we're gone completely, and then Israel can resume its role as the big picture. It's a very Jewish way of looking at the scripture where Jews and Judaism and Jewish people are always at the center of the scripture, as opposed to Jesus being at the center of the scripture.

So eschatologically, in terms of the end times, there are different ways that Christians have looked at it throughout history. There's amillennialism, and I'm not going to bother explaining these, but postmillennialism, premillennialism, um, historic premillennialism. That is, they all agree though that God only has one chosen people, and that's those who believe in Jesus, whether they're Jewish, whether they're Gentile, it doesn't matter. We're all the children of God if we believe.

Dispensationalism is different from all of those different ways that Christians can view the end times because dispensationalism is saying, well, really God's main love is the Jewish people. And for a time in a so-called church age, in this dispensation of time, um, yeah, the church is here, but one day we're going to be sucked out of here. We're going to beam up to heaven, and then Israel will come back and form the center of the show.

And so from my perspective and the perspective of historic Christianity, it's not only an insult to the church to act like we're some kind of summer fling for Jesus, and that, you know, it's really about Israel. I think it's also disrespectful to Christ because he didn't come to be like a tribal deity of some desert war cult in the Middle East. He came to be the Messiah and the savior of the world.

They emphasize Jesus's Jewish messiahship all the time. Matter of fact, you'll hear Jews who deny that Jesus is the son of God. I don't even mean Messianic Jews, just Jews that, you know, believe the typical teaching in the Talmud about Jesus being punished in hell, all of that stuff. But they will, when speaking to Christians, point out, well, you know, that your Messiah is Jewish. Jesus obviously was a physical descendant of Abraham. There's no argument there.

But the term that Jesus used for himself more than 70 times was "son of man." Jesus did not emphasize his own Jewishness. Jesus came as a savior of mankind, and so he called himself "son of man," which was a term from the prophet Isaiah.

And so it not only reduces the big picture of Christianity to something that is much, much smaller. It reduces Jesus from a global Messiah to, well, he's a Jewish Messiah that they loan us for a while.

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Jesus also goes out of his way in the gospels to praise the faith of pagans.

I mean, a Roman officer was the first person to recognize that Jesus was the son of God at his death.

The Roman officer whose slave he heals—he said, "I've not seen any faith like this in all of Israel."

But he goes out of his way to minister to the Samaritan woman, et cetera, et cetera.

Like he's always picking people from outside the tribe.

You know, it's interesting that people ask the question sometimes like who killed Jesus, and it's a big debate online.

Every couple weeks a new fight breaks out on X where dispensationalists and covenant theologians are fighting about who killed Jesus.

And of course, there's an obvious answer, right?

Like the Jews killed Jesus.

We know that because at least eight times in scripture, the scripture explicitly says that the first sermon ever preached was by the apostle Peter, which started by saying, "Men of Israel," and a few lines later he says, "This Jesus Christ whom ye crucified."

So the Pharisees plotted to kill Jesus.

If you remember in John chapter 4, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.

They see it.

They recognize that he's the Messiah.

The Sanhedrin, which is the ruling council, comes together and they immediately plot to kill Jesus.

Like they knew they—and Lazarus later.

Well, it was an ancient cover-up operation.

Basically, they're going to kill the guy again, right?

So Jesus looks to the Pharisees and he says, "You're plotting to kill me. This is what you're trying to do."

So the question would be: Why does the Bible seem to blame Jews for the death of Jesus?

Obviously they're involved, but it was technically the Romans that nailed him to the cross.

It was the Romans who killed him.

And the answer is—well, Jesus himself, by the way, I should say, while he's on the cross says, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." And he's speaking of the Romans, not the Jews.

He's talking about those who were actually doing the crucifixion.

If you think about what transpired after the crucifixion was done, the centurion recognizes that Jesus is the son of God.

Pilate very clearly was remorseful by the time he was done handing Jesus over to be crucified.

But within a few decades, you had mass conversions of the Roman people throughout the Roman Empire to Christianity.

And by the 3rd century, you had the full Christianization of Rome.

That doesn't mean that every Roman on earth was therefore a Christian by virtue of being born in a Christian empire.

We all have to have faith—personal faith in Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.

That's how we're justified before God.

But you have the Roman people recognizing who Jesus is very quickly.

The Jews who saw Jesus dead, buried, and resurrected, many of them followed after him, but many of them persisted in persecuting him.

And then within a very short time, they're stoning Stephen to death.

Stephen, as he's being crucified, points out to the Jews, "You've always killed God's prophets and you've killed Christ."

And so the reason why I think the scripture isn't throwing the Romans under the bus, so to speak, even though they obviously had a hand in Jesus's crucifixion, is because they saw ultimately who it was that they crucified and then they repented and they believed.

And the Jewish people, those who did not convert and follow Christ, ended up having to make a new religion in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed the temple because all of those rites and rituals that we discussed—that God had given the Jewish people for them to see and understand who Jesus was, the festival of booths, Passover, all of those various rituals and the different kinds of sacrifices—all required a temple.

Yes.

And it required an altar.

It required blood.

It required a priesthood to make that sacrifice.

Those no longer existed after 70 AD.

And so over the course of hundreds of years, the sect of the Pharisees that grew into modern Judaism had to essentially invent a Judaism that is not what you see in the pages of the Old Testament.

They renamed some feasts, right?

Like they still call it Passover, but it's not.

It doesn't resemble the Passover of the Old Testament.

It's a completely new, disparate religion.

And that's why you have a desire among Christians throughout the last 2,000 years praying for the salvation of the Jewish people.

To be very clear, the Christian or covenantal theologian message is not that Jews are totally cut off from God and that they cannot be saved and that God hates them or anything like that.

But it's this: Congratulations, you're ethnically Jewish. That's great.

God doesn't care.

Like every other group of people on the face of the planet, you need to repent of your sins and believe the gospel.

That's the Christian message.

John Nelson Darby comes along and the message towards the Jewish people begins to change and begins to evolve, and suddenly instead of "you need to repent of your sins and believe the gospel," it's "you're special. You're special to God. God's going to bless you regardless of whether or not you have faith in Jesus just because you're Jewish."

And you know, that's partiality.

The scripture actually forbids that type of partiality.

It's unfortunate that Christians believe that's historic Christianity because it isn't.

Christians ought to be safe in the Holy Land of all places, but they are not.

Keep in mind, these are the descendants of the first converts—the first people who followed Jesus.

People whose families have worshiped in the land Jesus walked for centuries, for thousands of years.

And these same people are now facing enormous pressure to leave, fleeing their homes amid war and anti-Christian terrorism.

Untold numbers of innocents are lost and without hope, fellow Christians.

But how do you support them?

There are groups out there who claim to support them whose real agenda is to move them out of their actual homeland.

We think that's wrong. We think that's evil, in fact.

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It's one of the very few groups consistently helping vulnerable Christians throughout the Holy Land. They deliver food and water to Christian communities trapped in Gaza, for example. They help rescue civilians. They provide emergency aid to families who have nowhere else to turn.