Introduction

The return of Jews to Palestine presented Christianity with a complicated challenge. It raised theological issues that had appeared settled and dormant for centuries. Diverse and conflicting responses are unsurprising from a stream of monotheism long characterized by schisms related to authority, structures, beliefs, and practices that resulted in a variety of established churches and a multitude of “denominations.” Thus this chapter delineates several broad categories of response to the Zionist project. Some draw on positions formulated about seventeen centuries ago; others originate in beliefs articulated only in the last two centuries; still others are a product of twentieth century reckonings over the relationships between Christians and Jews, especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust. In addition to perspectives espoused by Christians living primarily in Europe and North America, I examine the more recent responses of Christians living in Palestine/Israel. It is they who directly encounter Jews who returned to establish a presence in the Holy Land and now have sovereignty over it.

The fundamental question that impacts the relationship between Christianity and Judaism and bears directly on the Jewish state is whether God still “speaks” to the Jews. In other words, how are Christians to understand the Covenants between God and the Jewish people, beginning with Abraham and throughout the “Old” Testament? Did the coming of Jesus abrogate those Covenants, or do they remain in force? Do the Jews still have a role in history, and if so, what is it? Do they still have a connection to the Promised Land and what may it be? The answers either confirm or deny the validity of the prophetic vision of the “ingathering of the exiles” to the Promised Land and to the establishment of a Jewish state.

The longest-held view is that the prophetic message to the Jews has lapsed. There is a “New” Testament as well as a New Israel and a Church that has replaced the Jews as an entity with a special relationship to the Lord. The theological significance is that with the coming of Jesus, Christianity “replaced” Judaism. Replacement theology, or supersessionism, are the terms that designate this belief. Modifying and even challenging this dominant perspective is a relatively recent and far from complete development.

Some Christians have accepted the continuing validity of the Jewish people and their ongoing Covenant with the God of Abraham. In this view, there can be multiple Covenants, initially with Jews and later with Christians. In other words, Jews still have a role in history as foreordained in Biblical texts, and a Jewish state is a possibility that can even be supported. However, for much of two millennia Christianity overwhelmingly embraced supersessionism. The negative impact of this theological position on the relations between Christians and Jews in Christian lands cannot be overstated.

In the early centuries, before Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity in 312 A.D and established it as the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 C.E., Judaism enjoyed preferential treatment while there was widespread prejudice against Christianity. The Church fathers differed on how to regard Judaism that continued to prosper alongside the growth of Christianity. Substantial Jewish communities flourished in Palestine even after the emperor Hadrian crushed the Bar Kochba rebellion in 132–136 C.E. It was Hadrian who changed the name of Judea to Syria Palaestina, signaling his intention to erase both the actuality and memory of a Jewish presence in Jerusalem and in the country. Nevertheless, even after the Byzantine Empire instituted its new policy, Jews continued to reside and thrive in Palestine, primarily in the Galilee. Constantine’s decision to become a Christian, however, inaugurated a far more significant shift that was accompanied by the dissemination of an authorized theology.

A photo of Pope Francis in side view standing with folded hands, a bowed head, in front of a tomb with a wreath on top. A flame burns to the left and 3 men in suits stand at a distance in the background watching the Pope.

“Pope Francis in Jerusalem, 2014”. Pope Francis laying a wreath in Yad Vashem’s Hall of Remembrance at site of eternal flame memorial in May, 2014. Onlooking, left to right, are Chief Rabbi of Israel Meir Lau, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate Avner Shalev. Courtesy of the Government Press Office

The emerging position is usually associated with St. Augustine (354–430 A.D.), a theologian and ecclesiastical official from North Africa who announced that the Jews’ role in history had ended. St. Augustine asserted that the Lord’s Covenant with Abraham and his descendants had been fulfilled. Jews were henceforth passive and condemned to suffer for their role in the crucifixion of Jesus and for rejecting Him as Savior. Augustine’s teachings led to the imposition of varying degrees of legal, economic, and social disabilities on Jews. The dissemination of this negative and hostile view also had more dire consequences. Programmatic massacres inspired by the zeal of the Crusades, such as the infamous massacre of the Jews of York in 1190, and forced conversions, as during the Inquisition, were interspersed with pogroms and other sporadic violence against Jewish communities. Systematic and institutionalized bias of the Church towards Jews persisted for centuries. Contemporary Christians have charged that Church-inspired anti-Semitism contributed to the Holocaust. As we shall see, the latter perception resulted in soul-searching and a reconsideration of supersessionism including support for the Jewish state.Footnote 1

Substantial change only began during the Enlightenment with a decline in ecclesiastical influence and the emergence of a new politics. Initially, Jews might be permitted to join the host society provided they converted. The possibility that Jews could be citizens without converting only gradually took hold through the nineteenth century. It was Napoleon who publicly entertained new relationships between French society and the Jews. His 1798 campaign to conquer Egypt and Syria began to challenge and erode the power and authority of the Ottoman/Muslim rulers through the capitulations (see Chap. 2). Their defeat during World War I led to the dismemberment of their empire. Thus, it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that pressure brought by France and other Western powers, including the United States, enabled Jews not only to imagine but to actually inaugurate resettlement in Palestine. In effect, the civil status and political possibilities for Jews slowly but steadily improved in a Europe that was still largely Christian, but in which Christianity played a less formal and powerful role than it had previously.

Catholicism

An oft-cited account of the January 1904 meeting of Theodor Herzl, head of the World Zionist Organization, with Pope Pius X, illustrates the power and prevalence of supersessionism into the twentieth century. An unequivocal response to Herzl’s importuning to support the Zionist movement, Pope Pius X explainedFootnote 2:

We cannot give approval to this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem—but we could never sanction it. The earth of Jerusalem, if it was not always holy, has been made holy by the life of Jesus Christ. I as head of the Church cannot possibly say otherwise. The Jews have not recognized our Lord; we therefore cannot recognize the Jewish people.

The Pope went on to declare that if somehow the Jews did settle in Palestine en masse, the Church would make sure there would be churches and priests there to baptize them. His imperviousness to the ongoing Jewish connection to the Holy Land was revealed when he asked Herzl why “it must be Jerusalem.” It should be noted that Catholicism had long coveted an enhanced presence in Palestine, particularly Jerusalem, given the preeminence of Eastern Christian Churches since the Byzantine period. By the beginning of the twentieth century, both Catholics and Eastern Churches as well as some Protestant denominations had made significant inroads in Ottoman territory through a growing infrastructure of churches, monasteries, convents, schools, hospitals, hospices, and other facilities for pilgrims.

The uncompromising attitude of the Vatican was maintained, and it refused to recognize the Jewish state’s legitimacy until well after the establishment of Israel. Resistance to the very notion of a Jewish state was poignantly illustrated when Pope Paul VI made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1964. When the Pope crossed the Jordan River to Israel for an 11-hour visit, Israel’s President Zalman Shazar greeted him. The Pope never uttered the name “Israel” in his remarks thanking the President. Rather, he thanked “the authorities” and studiously avoided mentioning the word “Jews.” On the other hand, he used the occasion to praise his mentor, Pope Pius XII, and defended his silence over the fate of Jews during the Holocaust. By contrast, in 2000 Pope John Paul II came to Israel for a five-day pilgrimage that took him to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and sacred venues in the Galilee associated with the birth of Christianity. In the interim between these papal pilgrimages, a transformation took place in Catholicism in its relation to Jews. The Vatican had moved from viewing Israel as a kind of non-state, and its Jewish citizens as a non-people.Footnote 3

Diplomatic relations were formalized in 1994 and the Vatican formally recognized the State of Israel as an entity in the world community of nations, although it still not recognize Israel as a “Jewish” state. Achieving this change was both revolutionary and complicated, and it did not comprehend all elements of a large and diverse church. Not all cardinals exhibited understanding and friendship; different orders within the Church voiced different attitudes towards Israel. Since the 1960s, for example, the Brothers and Sisters of Zion have been committed to improving Christian-Jewish relations; the Dominican Marcel Dubois, motivated by a desire to come close to Jews in their land, founded Bet Isaiah in West Jerusalem and served as a faculty member at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. These initiatives contrast with the École Biblique, a Dominican scholarly institution in East Jerusalem, that was far less interested in and sympathetic to Israeli society. Lay Catholics, too, have publicly expressed and acted on the new attitude acknowledging the ongoing role of Jews in history. Moreover, Israel could not have come into being in 1948 without the favorable votes of numerous Catholic states in Europe and Latin America. It is important to note, however, that support was actually for a tripartite division of the Holy Land composed of Jewish and Arab states in addition to an internationalized Jerusalem under UN control that contains key Christian holy sites and over which they anticipated substantial influence.Footnote 4

The official break from supersessionism did not take place until the first half of the 1960s with the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council, a church commission established by Pope John XXIII and continued by Paul VI, to adjust Catholic theology and politics to the contemporary world. In particular, the Nostra Aetate [In our time] Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions represented the theological turning point and the advent of a new era of recognition and reconciliation. The Declaration was attacked by ultraconservative Catholic sectors and by Arab delegates, resulting in a minimization of its centrality and a less auspicious final version than the original draft. Nevertheless, Nostra Aetate was a landmark statement and remains the most important document regarding Catholic relations with the Jewish people since St. Augustine. Subsequent formulations, the Guides (1974) and the Notes (1985), have supplemented its positive teachings.Footnote 5

Nostra Aetate disputed the teaching that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. It stated that some Jews called for His death but the Jewish people of that time and in all subsequent generations cannot be held guilty then or through the present, and should not be viewed as rejected or accursed by God. The Declaration thereby repudiated the basis for Christian anti-Semitism from its beginnings and embraced the revolutionary idea that the Old Testament Covenants between God and the Jewish people could be considered to remain in effect and relevant. Finally, it urged Christians to recognize the Jewish sources of Christianity.Footnote 6

A key element in change was how Christian society, including Catholics, confronted the Holocaust and its horrors. Such introspection began in the 1930s among some Catholic and Protestant theologians who, alarmed by Nazi Germany’s threatening policies, openly linked anti-Semitism to supersessionism. This insight proliferated as knowledge of the Holocaust spread during and after World War II along with dawning recognition that anti-Semitism and its consequences were not solely the product of secular racist and nationalistic ideologies but rooted in traditional Christian denigration of Jews.

The career and writings of John T. Pawlikowski (1940–), a priest who matured after World War II, illustrate this development. Pawlikowski is one of a number of leading Catholic scholars devoted to fostering Christian-Jewish dialogue and examining the role of supersessionist theology in enabling the Holocaust. Engaged in this effort for 40 years, Pawlikowski summarized a long list of incomplete and unsatisfying attempts to advance reconciliation. He expressed concern about “systematic theologians in particular who … have not addressed the profound implication of Nostra Aetate.” He concludes that “the church… bears considerable responsibility for the suffering and death that this theology imposed on the Jewish community in Christian-dominated societies.”Footnote 7 In searching for a path through the supersessionist impasse, Pawlikowski explores how to adapt the long regnant position of a “new covenant” that inaugurated the “new” Christian Church and suggests the idea of two valid covenants, one Christian and the other Jewish. This idea had already gained traction among contemporary Protestant theologians. He expresses sympathy for why Jews seek recognition as authentic actors in history. The door had been opened by Nostra Aetate, and many in the laity walked through it, although full acceptance by the Vatican and many theologians remains to be realized.

The landmark symbol of a new approach was the Vatican’s recognition of the State of Israel in 1993 under the leadership of John Paul I. This diplomatic event was revolutionary and getting there was not easy. When Israel proclaimed its independence on May 14,1948, the Vatican responded in an article in L’Osservatore Romano. “Modern Zionism is not the true heir of Biblical Israel,” declared the Vatican organ, “Christianity [is] the true Israel.” The Vatican characterized the Jewish state as a purely secular political phenomenon, devoid of any religious significance. This allowed diplomatic recognition without the associated theological challenge, but it summarily dismissed the spiritual basis of the Zionist movement and the continuity of Jewish peoplehood.Footnote 8

The Vatican’s cautious and hesitant approach has been manifested in a series of pronouncements by significant theologians. Ecumenical statements often express increasingly explicit recognition for the reemergence of Jews into history. For example, in 2002, leading Protestant and Catholic theologians published A Sacred Obligation, a document formulated by moderates who sought accommodation with Jews and, at the same time, appreciated the Arab position. Among its salient clauses is a direct denial of supersessionism in the declaration that God’s Covenant with the Jewish people endures forever. Other significant statements includeFootnote 9:

  • Judaism is considered to be a living modern faith enriched by centuries of development;

  • Ancient rivalries must not define Christian-Jewish relations today, particularly Christian worship that teaches contempt for Judaism and thereby dishonors God;

  • The Land of Israel is significant for the life of the Jewish people.

These statements are in the rubric of what Pawlikowski terms a theology of “belonging.” It affirms that the Holy Land is sacred to Christians, Jews, and Muslims and recognizes Palestinian Arabs—Muslim and Christian— and Israeli Jews belong as legitimate inhabitants of the Land.

Its balanced posture on the Arab/Israeli conflict notwithstanding, A Sacred Obligation is consistent with the reluctance of the Roman Catholic Church to acknowledge the legitimacy of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. It merely affirms the presence of Jews. It does not interject the Church on any side in the Arab-Jewish conflict. The caution of this balanced posture may be necessary in order to protect the diminishing Christian minority, not only in Israel, but throughout the Muslim Middle East. In other words, theological reform is, not surprisingly, constrained by pragmatic political concerns. This is a reminder that evolving historical circumstances may bring about changes in theology as well as revisions in doctrine.Footnote 10

Protestant Alternatives

While Catholics have allegiance to one central Church, Protestants belong to hundreds of distinctive “denominations” with diverse theologies. Nevertheless, there are several large Protestant groupings that have addressed Israel’s legitimacy and role in history. Conservative Evangelicals have become the most adamant and powerful supporters of the Jewish state despite a long tradition of supersessionist hostility. Liberal Protestants provided important support even before the establishment of Israel, although there are adherents who hold a more tentative and critical view. Finally, since these discussions are focused on Christianity outside Israel, this chapter concludes with the voices of Middle East Christians, within or proximate to Israel. They have recently come to influence the relationship between Western Christianity and the Jewish state. In expressing the views of those most directly impacted by Israel, their largely critical views have complicated a relationship that was undergoing a positive transformation.

Evangelicalism

At one end of the Christian spectrum are Evangelicals, particularly those who believe in dispensationalism. Dispensationalism defines discrete periods of historical progression, as revealed in the Bible, that constitute stages in God’s self-revelation and His plan for salvation. According to dispensationalism, mankind is approaching the seventh and last period in the progression of history when the Millennial Kingdom of Christ will be established for a thousand years (Revelation 20:1–10). In the current troubled and tumultuous pre-millennial period, Jews are expected to return in large numbers to their Promised Land and successfully engage with enemies before a battle which precedes the End-Time. Adherents of this belief are termed pre-millennialists.Footnote 11 In addition, Evangelicals are part of a worldwide trans-Protestant movement with a central belief in the conversion experience—“born again”—that leads to salvation. It also privileges the literal meaning of the Bible—both the Old and the New Testament—as an authentic source for the word of God. Evangelicals initially enjoyed a strong presence in the English-speaking world, but the movement has taken hold elsewhere, especially in Latin America, parts of the Far East, and Africa. It is estimated that one-fourth of the U.S. population is affiliated with Evangelical denominations and that there are perhaps half a billion believers worldwide.

The impact of Evangelicals on Zionism cannot be overstated. Most of the members of the British Cabinet at the time of the Balfour Declaration were Evangelicals. More recently, significant members of the leadership of the Trump administration were Evangelicals. This is surely part of the explanation for the extraordinary support for the U.S. policy regarding Israel including blocking anti-Israel resolutions in the UN, the long-delayed move of the U.S. embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, and providing for Israel’s defense needs.Footnote 12

In holding to the validity of the Abrahamic Covenant, Evangelicals support the ingathering of Jews into the Holy Land and welcome Zionism. Whereas supersessionism, maintains Jews are passive, destined to suffer in exile, and denied any further role in history, Evangelicalism assigns Jews an active and central role in world affairs: to (re)establish a Jewish polity in the Land of Israel and to confront the forces of the Anti-Christ at Armageddon [Megiddo in Northern Israel]. In the language of nineteenth century English and American evangelicals, the “restoration” of the Jews to the Promised Land will mark progress towards the conclusion of the historical drama when Jews surrender their faith and accept Jesus. Those who do not will endure a terrible fate. This denouement is inevitable since only those who believe in Jesus as Savior will enjoy salvation and eternal life. In other words, the ingathering of the exiles into the Promised Land is a historical necessity, but Evangelicalism, like supersessionism, envisions that the Jewish people will ultimately come to an end however much Israel may at present merit support. In this sense, supersessionism is not abolished, but only temporarily suspended. Many Evangelicals also support missions to convert Jews, even as they endorse the Zionist program.

As Evangelicalism emerged among British, American, and German Protestants in the nineteenth century, so did a growing sympathy for encouraging beleaguered Jews to return to Palestine. Herzl encountered individuals who professed to “pre-millennialism” and was helped by German Evangelicals to arrange meetings with the Protestant rulers of Germany. As already noted, English Evangelicals comprised the majority of the British Cabinet that adopted the Balfour Declaration. Moreover, American Evangelicals were active in persuading President Wilson to endorse it. During the Mandate, they supported the Zionist position in the Arab-Jewish conflict in the interest of advancing the Divine plan. While End-Time prophecy seemed to uphold the legitimacy of the Zionist cause, there was not yet a vigorous, public, mass movement on behalf of Zionism. That changed modestly after 1948 but developed into massive and enthusiastic support after the 1967 War as Evangelical Christianity grew dynamically around the world.

Some political scientists attribute the U.S. pro-Israeli policy to a powerful Jewish lobby, but this analysis neglects the significant support of leading Protestant clergy and large numbers of laity.Footnote 13 In the early years after independence, such commanding figures as Billy Graham, perhaps the most popular Protestant figure of that time, rallied Americans to support the Israeli cause. The breadth and depth of support among Protestants increased dramatically after the June 1967 War when Israel seemed about to be destroyed but unexpectedly—or miraculously — came to control all the historic Land of Israel. Like Religious Zionists, Evangelicals saw this as a transcendent event and fulfillment of prophecy.Footnote 14

The recent ceremony celebrating the transfer of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, bracketed with benedictions from a pair of Christian Evangelical leaders, illustrates this phenomenon. It opened with a prayer from Robert Jeffress, Senior Pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas. It concluded with one from Pastor John Hagee, the founder of the 22,000-member Cornerstone Church of San Antonio and a televangelist who also founded CUFI (Christians United for Israel), the largest pro-Israel charitable organization in the United States, with over 10 million members. Its mission statement clearly states the agenda:

As the largest pro-Israel grassroots organization in the United States, Christians United for Israel is also the only Christian organization devoted to transforming millions of pro-Israel Christians into an educated, empowered, and effective force for Israel. As we grow in size and influence, CUFI strives to act as a defensive shield against anti-Israel lies, boycotts, bad theology, and political threats that seek to delegitimize Israel’s existence and weaken the close relationship between Israel and the United States.Footnote 15

CUFI and pro-Israel Evangelicals base their support on biblical passages like the oft-cited Genesis 12:3: “He who blesses Israel will be blessed and he who curses Israel will be cursed.”

Mainline Liberal Protestantism

Not all support for Zionism within Protestantism referenced the imminent arrival of the messiah or millennial events as foretold in Scripture. Rather, Christian beliefs and practices challenged contemporary immorality and injustice through personal and political action. A positive attitude toward Jews is also marked by a resistance to missionary work. Proponents of these views, as in Evangelicalism, benefited from interactions between British and American religious leaders. They may be classified as “liberal” Protestants with affiliations to “mainline” churches. This position is epitomized in the work of James Parkes (1896–1981), an Anglican clergyman, theologian, and activist, and Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971), an American activist and Reformed theologian who taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York.Footnote 16

James Parkes: An Anglican Theologian

Parkes may be the most significant British theologian who, at mid-twentieth century, opened a path to reconsidering the Jews and their place in history. During a decade beginning in the early 1920s after serving in World War I, studying theology at Oxford, and taking orders in the Anglican Church, Parkes wrote twenty-three books and hundreds of articles. He also spent much time in Europe and was alarmed by rising antisemitism. His first significant publication on the subject was an outgrowth of work in graduate school: The Jew and His Neighbour (1929). The rise of Naziism and outrages towards Jews further crystallized his thought. He sympathized with the Zionist project and blamed supersessionism for contributing to antisemitism and, ultimately, for the Holocaust. He came to hold the notion of a “double covenant,” one for Jews and another for Christians. A mature formulation of his ideas is found in The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue (1934).Footnote 17

Parkes fought antisemitism from within Christianity in the 1930s and mobilized fellow Christians during World War II to create the Council of Christians and Jews to foster religious tolerance. Among his works are a well-regarded history of the Jews from the ancient world to the modern period. A key point in Parkes’ theology is succinctly expressed in an anti-supersessionist declaration: “I see Judaism and Christianity as equals.” This exceptional and novel view led him to reject Christian missionary work among Jews and to conclude that both Christianity and Judaism could learn from each other. That view earned him the title of a “Christian Zionist” but without the messianic connotations found in contemporary usage.Footnote 18

Parkes’s views also earned him considerable criticism, including among fellow Anglicans who were unwilling to dispense with supersessionism or to forego traditional missionary work among Jews. After the 1948 War, they faulted him for insensitivity to Palestine’s Arab refugees. However, the files of his correspondence are also replete with letters of appreciation from fellow Protestants and Jews as well as public figures who applaud his theological positions, his open approval of Zionism, and his condemnation of the outrage perpetrated against Jews.Footnote 19

His pro-Zionism did not preclude concern for Palestinian Arabs. From the end of the 1930s and especially in the aftermath of the 1948 war when a large population of Palestine’s Arabs became refugees, he advocated the possibility of return for at least some, recognition of their rights and the dignity of equal citizenship. This position is often overlooked since many of his writings challenge those who adamantly reject the legitimacy of a Jewish homeland. The absolute priority for Parkes was a state for the Jews given the mass assault on their very existence, and his stand was well-known and appreciated on both sides of the Atlantic.

Niebuhr: An American Theologian

Reinhold Niebuhr did not address the issue of Jews in Palestine in terms of covenant and divine promise or as the trajectory of a religious saga. His language and terms of reference are largely secular, but within a Christian frame devoted to the pursuit of justice and an acceptance of human imperfection and susceptibility to immorality. Referring to himself as a “Christian realist,” he draws on the language of democracy, idealism, realism, and other philosophical and political discourses to express religious urgency. His writings recall the social gospel message of end of nineteenth and early twentieth century America when Protestant clergy addressed social and political issues through the lens of Christian morality and justice. In a similar fashion, his views on the legitimacy of establishing a Jewish state were rooted in his ethical views rather than in a theological position fixed on covenant..Footnote 20

Niebuhr initially wrote for religious journals such as the mainline Protestant Christianity and Crisis and the Christian Century, where along with other religious leaders he joined in the analysis of contemporary events. Like Parkes, he was not a practicing clergyman, except at the beginning of his career. He was a scholar with a professorship at Union Theological Seminary, a bastion of liberal Protestantism associated with Columbia University. His pro-Zionism did not stem from the expectation that a Jewish state was part of God’s plan in the pre-millennial age.Footnote 21

As a Christian, Niebuhr accepted the idea of original sin as a fundamental truth. Yet in his view, it described the human condition, not the romantic Enlightenment concept of innocence and the possibility of perfection. Appreciation for Niebuhr’s theology was widely held. Niebuhr was arguably the most influential Christian theologian of his day in America, and his view resonated among wide swaths of the American public. In March 1948, a few months after the November 1947 United Nations vote on partition and prior to the declaration of the Jewish state in May, he was on the cover of the twenty-fifth anniversary issue of Time. The inside essay by Whitaker Chambers, a former communist sympathizer who became a crusader against communism, was entitled “Mankind is living in a Lenten age”—a phrase drawn from Niebuhr’s writings. The reference is to the period when Jesus went into the wilderness, before returning to undertake His public ministry. That is, society harbors many corruptions and requires reform. For Niebuhr and those like him, that meant confronting contemporary scourges like Naziism, and doing justice, including to the Jews.Footnote 22

Niebuhr’s advocacy was in stark contrast to the disparagement of Arnold Toynbee, the anti-Zionist, Christian supersessionist historian, who famously characterized Jews as mere fossils, condemned to remain passive and suffering observers of history. The historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., a close friend and colleague in political action through the Americans for Democratic Action, highlighted Niebuhr’s critique of supersessionism in an obituary, also observing that “Niebuhr brilliantly applied the tragic insights of Augustine and Calvin to moral and political issues.” Schlesinger continued by describing what he labeled a “Niebuhr doctrine” that he characterized as follows: “In its essence it accepted God and contended that man knows Him chiefly through Christ, or what Mr. Niebuhr called ‘the Christ event’. The doctrine, in its evolved form, suggested that man’s condition was inherently sinful, and that his original, and largely ineradicable sin is his pride, or egotism … The tragedy of man is that he can conceive self-perfection but cannot achieve it.” Footnote 23

With this understanding, Niebuhr acknowledged partition would not provide absolute justice. Imperfection was part of the human condition. But he prioritized enabling the Jews to continue their long history in their homeland, a modern state recognized by the nations of the world, and free to express themselves without fear of prejudice. His theology led him to recognize and appreciate the validity of the relationship between Jews and Palestine. Jews were an ancient people with a vital presence in the modern world whom Niebuhr viewed as victims of prejudice and patent wrongdoing by Christians throughout history and particularly in the present. With this conviction, Niebuhr became an advocate for their return to the homeland designated in Scripture as the best practical solution to their current distress. This view came to resonate among large portions of the American public. It signaled a change from regnant attitudes In the years following World War I when anti-Semitism was rampant both in Europe and in the United States. Quotas on admittance to college, residential and professional exclusion, and negative characterizations of Jews were commonplace among fellow Christians. His rejection of such negative and hostile views brought him to appreciate Zionism even before the Holocaust and apparently mirrored what was taking place in the public at large.

Like Parkes, Niebuhr did not give the Jews a carte blanche. In the unfolding of communal violence in Palestine up to and during the 1948 war, he voiced criticism of Zionism and upheld some claims of Palestine’s Arabs. Here, too, his position differed from most Evangelical Christians. But while he acknowledged injuries done the Palestinian Arabs in an imperfect world, Niebuhr privileged the claims of Jews who, in his view, had far fewer options and urgent need. In 1943, he even advanced the idea that one way to solve the Jewish-Arab impasse in Palestine was to transfer the country’s Arabs to Iraq.Footnote 24 In presenting his pro-Zionist position in testimony before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he argued that Jews had no land to call their own but had a natural and historical affinity for and a right to return to Palestine. Moreover, he contended that compromise in the direction of a bi-national solution would inhibit the Jews’ ability to absorb immigrants and develop their own unique culture. Finally, he observed that only in a state where they were an assured majority, would Jews not be called on to explain their virtues and vices. This was the only just solution in a dangerous and imperfect world.Footnote 25

This argument was not rooted in Evangelical Christianity nor did it make explicit reference to multiple covenants. Rather, it drew from a very broad range of ideas encompassed in a Christian perspective, and it was appreciated as such by leading academics and opinion-makers from the post-World War II period through the present. From Truman’s Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, through presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, Niebuhr’s ideas have been recognized and celebrated. Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and he received honorary doctorates from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and other institutions. Support for Israel as a Middle Eastern democracy was part of a large global view that became widespread in the West. His warnings of the dangers of Naziism and fascism were followed by criticism of the Soviet Union and communism during the Cold War. His positions on Israel and the Cold War aroused criticism from the political left that faulted the American-led West, including Israel, for aggression, political and economic imperialism, and colonialism.Footnote 26

In 2014, the Presbyterian Church issued a dramatic repudiation of Niebuhr in secular terms in Zionism Unsettled: A Congregational Study Guide, a text proposed for religious instruction. Representing a paradigm shift, the guide to understanding Zionism culminates in a scathing critique of Niebuhr. Much of this document argues that Israel is a classic colonial-settler society and as such, illegitimate. But the text leads up to a major section that uses the arguments and language of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism developed and disseminated by the Left at least since the anti-war movement of the Vietnam War period. This part of the study guide indicts Niebuhr for his role in shaping American foreign policy and, in particular, the Israel-U.S. alliance maligned along with American Cold War policy. This highly controversial curriculum was introduced and then officially withdrawn. Nevertheless, the changes inherent in its language and teachings have been proliferated and absorbed, and they continue to resonate throughout mainline Protestantism.

What accounts for the fact that this former hero is now cast as a villain? When the Jewish-Arab conflict occasioned controversy within mainline Protestantism in mid-twentieth century, Niebuhr was applauded for championing the Zionist cause. Niebuhr’s reputation and position are now challenged and seriously eroded by Palestinian Christian voices that speak from within the area of conflict. Tensions and conflict are now regularly manifest within Liberal Protestantism when Church Assemblies debate whether to side with boycotts and divestment (BDS) in protest of Israel. Typically meshed with secular arguments, this critique of current Israeli policies entails a rejection of the right of Jews to a sovereign state.

Interim Observation

At the time of this writing, we are at the diamond jubilee—or seventy-five years—after the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 that paved the way for the partition of Palestine. It is commonly assumed that the UN voted for “two states for two peoples.” That is incorrect. As noted above, 181 divided Palestine into three parts, the third consisting of the internationalization of Jerusalem, a proposal that was intended to appease Christians, particularly Catholics. Vatican opposition to Zionism was adamantly expressed, as we have seen, in the 1904 interview between Pope Pius X and Herzl. When it appeared that control over Palestine by Christian Britain would no longer hold, the Vatican came to prefer an Arab state, where it believed its influence would still be considerable. When this option no longer proved feasible, given American and Soviet support for a Jewish state, it came to favor internationalization of Jerusalem with its many sacred sites. This default position was readily shared by Christians of all denominations who testified before UNSCOP (United Nations Special Commission on Palestine) that any plan for Palestine must take into account an obligation to protect their interests. Thus, Catholics, Evangelicals, Liberal Protestants, and a host of churches came to support the UNSCOP recommendation on a tripartite partitioning Palestine. Without Christian unanimity for 181, support for a Jewish state would not have achieved the two-thirds majority required for implementation: every Arab and all states with a large Muslim population voted unanimously against, and were one vote short of blocking the resolution. When Jerusalem was divided during the 1948 war between only Jews and Arabs, several states with large Catholic populations expressed regret over their vote. Nevertheless, the partition plan that authorized the establishment of a Jewish state had become a fact. This exceptional moment of Christian unanimity, based on diverse reasons for momentary support by some churches and denominations, would not last.Footnote 27

A map of the U N partition plan for Palestine, 1947. The Jewish State includes Beer Sheva, Tel Aviv, Jaffa, and Haifa. The Arab State includes Egypt, TransJordan. Syria, and Lebanon. A small area in the center of Jerusalem is marked as International Zone.

1947 Partition Plan for Palestine. Map of UN Partition Plan for Palestine, November 29, 1947, based on United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (created by author)

A map of the Armistice Lines post the War of Independence 1949. WestBank and Gaza to the east and west of Jerusalem are under Jordinian rule while Lebanon, Syria, TransJordan, and Egypt are under Egyptian rule.

Post 1948 War Armistice Lines

Palestine’s Christians

Palestinian Liberation Theology

The historical narrative on which Zionism Unsettled is based depicts Jewish settlement in Palestine as a disruptive force in the Middle East as a whole. It claims Palestinian Arabs are the country’s authentic natives. With an uninterrupted connection going back millennia, at least to the time of Jesus and even beyond, they are passive, innocent, indigenous population confronted by brutal Zionist intruders. Such a view is an outgrowth and development of the ideas of Naim Ateek (b. 1937), a Palestinian Anglican theologian and former Canon of St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem, who applied Liberation Theology to the Arab/Israeli conflict in his widely read Justice, and Only Justice; A Palestinian Theology of Liberation (1989). We have briefly encountered Ateek in our discussion of indigeneity (Chap. 5). Here we expand on the religious and political significance of his arguments in connection with Palestinian Liberation Theology.

Ateek’s claims are supported by other Palestinian and regional Christians who collaborated to produce the Kairos Palestine Document in 2009, a document that has been described as an echo of Ateek’s Justice, and Only Justice. This theological-political statement announces itself as “A moment of truth, a word of faith, hope and love from the heart of Palestinian suffering.” It decries Israel’s post-1967 “occupation” as a “sin against God” and exhorts “the international community to stand by the Palestinian people who have faced oppression, displacement, suffering and clear apartheid for more than six decades.” The reference to “six decades” implies that Israel’s sins predate the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel’s expansion into the West Bank. Zionism Unsettled not only references Israel’s establishment in 1948 but objects to all Jewish settlement in Palestine, going back to the end of the nineteenth century. For Ateek, Israel is the illegitimate product of an oppressive colonial political movement. There is no place for the Jews in this narrative, whether by divine promise, cultural continuity, historical exigency, or the right to self-determination.Footnote 28

The Presbyterian study guide, Zionism Unsettled, cites academic authorities who are established anti-Zionist scholars, among them Jews whose contributions are apparently meant to endow this narrative with authenticity. However, the whole is inspired by Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, the Jerusalem-based institution established by Ateek in 1989.Footnote 29 The narrative evokes the religiously rooted maxim of “speaking truth to power” as if there were an obvious binary where the powerless command the entire truth and the powerful have none. Moreover, in examining this kaleidoscope of Christian theological responses to Israel, it is noteworthy that both the Presbyterian Study Guide and Ateek’s Justice, and Only Justice explicitly espouse supersessionism. They deny the Abrahamic covenant’s validity, the continuing relationship between God and the Jewish people, and the Jews’ connection to the Holy Land. Thus, the radical and relatively sudden shift from Niebuhr’s Christian realism to Ateek’s liberation theology suggests that post-war support for Israel in some mainline Protestant churches and their rejection of supersessionism may not be enduring.Footnote 30

It is significant that Liberation Theology was initially developed in the 1960s by Latin American theologians and that it entails Marxism’s struggle against colonialism, conflating theology with history and politics. In Ateek’s work, supersessionism justifies Palestinian demands for Christian support. Footnote 31 Jesus’s message supersedes the Abrahamic covenant. He speaks in universal language with no special promises to the Jews. In a purportedly universal argument that mixes a theological with a secular supersessionist analysis, Ateek affirms the historical judgement of the deeply Christian historian, Arnold Toynbee, that the Jewish people have exited history as actors.Footnote 32

Ateek completes the erasure of the Jews through their “replacement” by Palestinians. Thus, in his hands, Exodus is a Palestinian narrative. It tells the story of Palestinians who are seeking historical justice and wish to return to their Promised Land from the venues of their dispersion and dispossession. Like Antonius, who opposed the 1937 Peel partition plan, and Edward Said, who opposed Arafat’s recognition of Israel through the Oslo Accords, Ateek equates full justice with the dissolution of the Jewish state. However, in deferring to pragmatism, he proposes a temporary federation between a Jewish and a Palestinian Arab state—a federation he anticipates will dissolve when the Jews leave the country.

Ateek’s Zionism Unsettled weaves together secular anti-Zionist polemics and theological tropes that can be traced back to adversus Judaeos [against the Jews or Judeans] that has been used extensively since the Fourth Century A.D. One scholar likens these tropes to “old wine in new bottles,” depicting Jews as invaders who inevitably disrupt a peaceful region, create inequalities, and establish a society based on apartheid.Footnote 33 The same argument is at the core of the optimistic declaration of Kairos Document that if “there were no occupation, there would be no resistance, no fear, and no insecurity … Therefore, we call on the Israelis to end the occupation. Then they will see a new world in which there is no fear, no threat, but rather security, justice, and peace.” As in Zionism Unsettled, the charge is that the trouble started with the first Jewish settlements.Footnote 34

In 2010, a year after the publication of the Kairos Document, Palestinian Christian clerics from the Bethlehem Bible College, an Evangelical institution, produced Christ at the Checkpoint. They also create public events that dramatize the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and are designed to mobilize protest on their behalf. In all these instances, the same bill of complaints is presented through a Christian theological prism. The compatibility of these charges with traditional theological positions has recently been made explicit by a leading Palestinian clergyman, Mitri Raheb, a Lutheran from Bethlehem. In an essay entitled “Palestine: Time for a Paradigm Shift,” Raheb advocates that Christian theology incorporate the widespread secular critique of colonial-settlerism. He therefore includes Zionism in a section entitled: “The Theopolitics of Settler Colonialism: The Case of Israel” [my emphasis]. Raheb’s explicit association of Zionism and Israel with colonial-settlerism had already been widely disseminated across Western Christian churches in the writings and advocacy of his colleague, Naim Ateek. Raheb’s invented term “theopolitics” patently indicates how closely theological and secular political discourses may be intertwined.Footnote 35

There is yet another Christian approach to the Jewish state from within Palestine/Israel and associated with Palestinian Liberation Theology. Elias Chacour, a Melkite Catholic Archbishop, is intimately familiar with the pain and suffering experienced by Christian Arabs caught in the turmoil of Israel/Palestine. A member of a family long rooted in a Christian village in the Galilee, Chacour speaks with eloquent authority. His expression of the plight of those who view themselves as indigenous and uprooted due to Israel’s creation is personal, poignant, and deep. The sense of injustice must be taken at face value even when, at times, the logic of Chacour’s historic/theological formulations is difficult to fathom. His identity as an Arab is fundamental and he claims with absolute certainty that his personal roots long precede the Covenants between Abraham and the Lord, not merely the first Christians. He declares Abraham was an outsider who came from a foreign land into Canaan where Chacour’s forefathers had lived since time immemorial. On this basis he unequivocally identifies himself as a direct descendant of the first adherents of Christianity from the time Jesus lived in the Galilee. Indeed, it is the messages of Jesus of the Beatitudes that were spoken in the Galilee where he serves as a priest that motivate and inform him. Chacour’s voice of resolute faith, suffering, and endurance as a “living stone” is all the more compelling because he simultaneously expresses deep sympathy for modern Jews who have endured their own suffering and who have established their state in his homeland, thereby displacing him and his people.Footnote 36

Chacour’s writings and personal efforts draw sympathetic attention since he urges reconciliation with those who have caused great injury and continue to inflict injustice. The titles of his books reflect this call: Blood Brothers; the dramatic story of a Palestinian Christian working for peace in Israel and We Belong to the Land; The story of a Palestinian Israeli who lives for peace and reconciliation. Unlike fellow Palestinian Liberation theologians, he accepts the reality of the Jewish state and seeks an accommodation based on empathy for the suffering of Jews. Thus, even though he also holds to supersessionism, the issue of the legitimacy of a Jewish state is defused. The Christian Arab experience in Palestine/Israel can and does result in substantial differentiation.Footnote 37

Critics of Liberation Theology can be found among pro-Israel Christians abroad, notably Christian Zionists, who offer yet another perspective and political program.Footnote 38 This movement within Evangelicalism identifies the critique of Israel as a form of supersessionism. Charges like that of colonial-settlerism are merely a veil: denying Jews are authentic descendants of the people to whom God promised the land simultaneously denies the legitimacy of the Jewish state. Alongside considerable sympathy for the plight of Palestinians, there is also an insistence on Jewish priority based on Scriptures.

A Christian Zionist rejoinder also points to the violence visited by Arabs on Jews, the corruption of Palestinian politics, and Arab unwillingness to appreciate and acknowledge the Jews’ investment in labor and purchase to reestablish themselves in the Promised Land. Criticism includes charging the Qur’an with antisemitism. Thus, Christian Zionists from abroad question the motives and legitimacy of Israel’s Palestinian Christian critics. In addition, they are concerned that castigating Israel and Jewish behavior might alienate potential converts to Christianity and subvert efforts at peace and reconciliation.

Moreover, critics of Liberation Theology fault their co-religionists in Israel/Palestine for reducing their analysis of “the situation” to a single word: “occupation.” Instead, they emphasize a complex historical narrative: Arab armies were poised to overrun and hoped to destroy the country; the Arab League’s Khartoum declaration of 1967 responded to Israeli peace overtures with the three “NOs”: “No negotiations. No recognition. No Peace”; multiple Israeli peace proposals that included withdrawal from nearly all the West Bank were rejected by Palestinian leadership; acts of terror that caused thousands of Israeli casualties were encouraged and celebrated; thousands of missiles were fired at civilian targets inside Israel following Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza; and Palestinian religious, civic, and political leaders have repeatedly declared they reject peaceful coexistence with Israel on any terms.

This critique notwithstanding, Palestinian Liberation Theology has been widely appreciated and its impact may be explained as part of a larger phenomenon—the “indigenization” of Middle Eastern Christianity and the demand that a Christian position must necessarily include Palestinian voices. It is also part of a larger protest by local Arabic-speaking Christians, long resident in the Middle East, who object to control and authority of non-Arab ecclesiastical institutions based in Athens, Moscow, Western Europe and America. One indication is their demand that the liturgy in the churches be conducted in Arabic rather than Greek or Latin. Another is their insistence on appointing local clerics to positions of leadership and an expressed unwillingness to submit to clerics imported from abroad to head local churches. This movement for local control among Middle Eastern Christians was also reflected in reservations about Nostra Aetate and its call to reevaluate traditional Catholic doctrine and for reconciliation with Jews.

Concluding Reflection

Despite the significant impact of some exponents of Palestinian Liberation Theology, other Middle Eastern Christians have sought a measure of accommodation with the Jewish state. Eastern Churches, with roots from the early centuries of Christianity, have extensive holdings in land, church buildings, convents, hospices, and the like that have served the local population and pilgrims for centuries. This amounts to sizeable and valuable properties in the cities or holy sites in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Nazareth, and around the Sea of Galilee. The Greek-Orthodox church is the largest property owner in Jerusalem and among its valuable holdings in many of the city’s neighborhoods is the site of Israel’s Knesset and other national government buildings. By and large these properties are held for income but there has also been significant revenue from sales, sometimes accomplished by clandestine methods. Maintaining good relations requires circumspection and sensitivity on the part of both the churches and the Israeli government.Footnote 39

As a result, explicit challenges to Israel’s legitimacy may be necessarily muted or moderated. Outside of Israel, this cultivated cooperation does not always hold. Where Arab governments are hostile to Israel, local churches may follow suit. The case of Archbishop George Hakim, head of the Greek-Catholic church in Israel between 1948 and 1967, is classic. Hakim advocated integration into Israeli society and institutions. He urged members of his community to join the Histadrut, the Israeli workers union, and the Histadrut responded by establishing clinics in Arab towns and villages. Hakim also came to embody the possibility of Christian Arab/Israeli Jewish cooperation, appearing in public and official settings in traditional ceremonial robes. Nevertheless, after he was elected Metropolitan, or head of Melkite Catholic Church for Middle East, Hakim moved to Damascus and his public message changed. Once in Syria, his statements reflected the government’s hostility to Israel. Indeed, when Bishop Hilarion Capucci, head of the Greek-Catholic Church in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, was caught smuggling arms from Lebanon to Israel, Hakim came to his defense. Such behavior may also reflect reasonable caution in response to vulnerability in a region where Christians have been on the defensive, particularly with the rise of radical Islamic nationalism, and have endured massive population losses.

There is but one state in the Middle East where the Christian population has actually increased. That is Israel. While Christian Arabs have left this embattled area in large numbers for safety and opportunities elsewhere, other Christians are replacing them. These include literally tens of thousands of Provoslav Russian Orthodox who, since the 1980s, have accompanied Jewish family members through the Law of Return and whose children even serve in the Israeli army. Numerous foreign workers from Romania, the Philippines, and East Africa are resident for short or long periods. Thus, many churches and communities are not directly party to the Arab-Jewish conflict. There are now churches that conduct their services in Hebrew since Greek and Arabic are far more distant to them than Hebrew, which is the language of everyday experience. Thus, for the first time in nearly two millennia, portions of the church liturgy in the Holy Land are recited in the original Hebrew. The relation of this growing non-Arab Christian population to Israel and Jewish/Christian relations has yet to be measured.

There is another complicating factor for Israel’s Christians. From the end of the nineteenth century, Christian intellectuals played an important role in developing the concept of Arab nationalism and a shared Arab identity comprising both Christians and Muslims. However, the recent rise of radical Islamic movements that have targeted Christians throughout the Middle East has raised reservations about the possibility of creating a lasting, shared community of identity and interests.Footnote 40 Yet even when tensions and outright conflict developed between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, the Christian Maronite community remained identified with the Arab world, and as such, did not undertake a public and enduring alliance with the Jewish state. Although some may disagree on the significance and relative contribution of Christian and Muslim intellectuals to Arab nationalism, there is no doubt that Christian input was substantial and created a precedent for the alliance that developed over ensuing decades. Christians supported Arab nationalism, criticized Zionism, as exemplified by Antonius, or like George Habash, founder of the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, advocated and carried out terrorist acts, and Edward Said who advanced critical theses in the academy.

Finally, there is a recent example of a contrary development when a local Christian community distanced itself from pan-Arab nationalism in favor of an alliance with Israel. After a formal request and considerable lobbying, Israeli authorities granted the Israeli Christian Aramaic Association official recognition in 2014 as the “Christian Aramaic Nationality.” This modest-sized group of descendants of early Christians who lived in the Middle East prior to the Muslim conquest and who have maintained Aramaic, the lingua franca of much of the region at the time of Jesus, pushed back at the pressure to remain separate from Israel within an Arab identity. They openly urge their youth to undertake national service or enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. This dramatic change from the 1950s, when Christians refused to join the IDF,Footnote 41 may be a consequence of witnessing the radical reduction of historic Christian communities, most of which predate Islam, and the rise of radical Islamic movements that target both dissident Muslims and Christians, defined as infidels, despite the protections that dhimmi status should have offered. The increasing violence against Christian communities throughout the Middle East has alarmed Christians and resulted in a massive exodus of families seeking safety in other parts of the world—from Europe to the Americas and Australia. For those who decide to remain, there are stark choices. Accommodating to a Jewish state that appears to offer security is one option, at odds with the tenets of received theology and politics regnant in the public square.

These selected sketches of the relationship of Christianity to the establishment of a Jewish state reveal, as in the twisting of a kaleidoscope, new and evolving perspectives. Return of the Jews to the Holy Land has been viewed differently by those in direct contact with this new and unanticipated circumstance and among those who have observed it from afar. The result is multiple perspectives and unparalleled complexity in a faith tradition historically beset by schisms.

All can convey their views both in the public square and in internal church or denominational institutions, so that Christians have multiple theological approaches and a variety of secular discourses to choose from in regard to the Jewish state. As the survey in this chapter demonstrates, there is no one Christian perspective. The combination of theology and secular approaches enables multiple and conflicting possibilities.

The diversity observed in Judaism and Christianity is not similarly characteristic of Islam. The range of difference among Muslims is narrower and recent, although perhaps of growing significance. It is to the third stream of monotheistic faiths that we now turn.