Evangelicals to the rescue

 

By James M. Dorsey

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Evangelicals to the rescue. That may seem an oxymoron in the case of Gaza and Palestine.

Yet, the ground is shifting under a core, traditionally pro-Israel pillar of US President Donald Trump’s support base.

The shift is occurring against the backdrop of legitimate concern that mounting criticism of Israel in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) crowd is, at times, laced with anti-Semitism and the rise of New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a proponent of an Israel or a state that grants equal rights to all its citizens, Jewish and non-Jewish.

Mr. Mamdani’s candidacy and electoral victory have provoked a wave of Islamophobia, rather than the frank and healthy debate needed amid growing doubts whether a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains feasible.

Ironically, mounting Evangelical empathy with the plight of the Palestinians constitutes, among Western Evangelicals, a break with their politicised anti-Semitic End Times theology that long formed the basis for the Christians’ uncritical alliance with Israel.

For many Evangelicals, the End Times involve the regathering of the Jews in the Promised Land at a time of persecution during the Tribulations. The Evangelicals believe that Jews who survive the persecution and recognise Jesus as their Messiah will be saved.

A survey carried out by Barna Group, a Christian research organisation, found that support for Israel among Evangelical youth aged 18 to 29 dropped dramatically even before the Gaza war. The survey showed that support had plunged from 75 per cent in 2018 to 34 per cent in 2021.

The shift in Evangelical attitudes towards Israel was on public display when US Vice President JD Vance, a proponent of greater US decisiveness in relations with Israel, was hosted several days ago by Turning Point, the conservative youth movement on American high school, college, and university campuses, founded by assassinated activist Charlie Kirk.

A confessed “confused” Christian student asked Mr. Vance to the applause of the audience why the United States “owed “Israel to support it with a “multi-hundred-billion-dollar foreign aid package, to quote Charlie Kirk, (to) cover this ethnic cleansing in Gaza…considering the fact that their religion does not agree with ours but also so openly supports the prosecution of ours.”

In response, Mr. Vance acknowledged theological differences between Jews and Christians, called for dialogue, and advocated cooperation between Israel and the United States when the two countries’ interests coincide, but did not take issue with the anti-Jewish sentiment in the student’s question.

The shift in attitudes among Western, particularly American Evangelicals, is compounded by the rise to prominence of non-Western Evangelicals, including Palestinians and Middle Eastern communities, who account for 70 per cent of the global Evangelical community, and may share the belief in End Times, but have not politicised it.

“Theological emphasis is shifting. We younger Evangelicals interpret the teachings of Jesus as emphasising compassion, peace, and justice for all, rather than a political alignment with a specific nation,” said an activist.

Newly elected WEA Chair Godfrey Yogarah

The shift was also on display when the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), which represents 600 million Evangelicals from 161 countries, last month elected Sri Lankan activist Godfrey Yogarajah as chairman to replace Thomas Schirrmacher, a religious scholar with close ties to the German political establishment, at its general assembly in Seoul.

In August, the Alliance appointed Botros Mansour, a Nazareth-born Israeli Palestinian lawyer with a history of mediating between Israeli Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews, as the Alliance’s secretary general and CEO.

For several years, Mr. Mansour operated a popular website that highlighted Israeli discrimination against Israeli Palestinians, who account for 20 per cent of the country’s population. The website invited Evangelicals to visit Israel to establish facts for themselves rather than uncritically accept predominantly American pro-Israel Evangelical assertions.

The website “aimed at Western Christians, many of whom confuse biblical references to Israel with the modern state by that name, and often think of the Palestinians as a modern extension of the Philistines that Joshua fought in Old Testament times,” said Israeli Palestinian lawyer and human rights activist Jonathan Kuttab.

In a similar vein, the European Baptist Federation (EBF) elected Lebanese Rev. Charles Costa as its new president in September. The EBF groups associations in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

At the same time, the Baptist World Alliance, of which the EBF is a member, appointed Jordanian Rev. Nabeeh Abbassi as its first ambassador to the Middle East and North Africa.

Israel bombs Gaza’s Al Ahli Baptist Hospital. Credit: AFSC

Following an Israeli attack on the Baptist Hospital in Gaza early in the Gaza war, Mr. Abbassi emphasised Jordanian King Abdullah’s consistent call “for the right of the Palestinian people to establish their independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital, along the entire borders of June 4, 1967,” a reference to the war in which Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

Evangelicals long constituted a main pillar of US support for Israel. They still are, but the pillar may become shaky. It’s a trend, coupled with splits in the Make America Great Again crowd, that Mr. Trump and Christian Zionists among Evangelicals will not be able to ignore.

“It is very clear that the WEA is witnessing change because…the European and North American leadership is gradually being replaced by Eastern, African and Asian leaders,” said Rev. Jack Sara, president of Bethlehem Bible College and general secretary of the alliance’s Middle East and North Africa region.

“It means something profound that, in this moment, a Palestinian Christian from Israel has been asked to serve as (the WEA’s) Secretary General”, added Mr. Mansour.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.