BY YOGINDER SIKAND
Represented by literally hundreds of small denominations and
churches today, particularly in America, Christian Zionism is today a formidable
force and a major actor in global politics. Christian Zionism comes in various
shades but the core of its message is total unflinching support to the state of
Israel and the Zionist imperialist project. Christian Zionists today exercise an
enormous clout in the Bush administration. Bush, too, may himself be
characterised in some sense as a Christian Zionist, for his policies in the
Middle East and elsewhere clearly reflect or tally with the Christian Zionist
agenda.
War, conquest and imperialist domination based on a fanatic
insistence on the absolute truth of Christianity and the racial superiority of
the Jews lie at the very heart of Christian Zionism. Christian Zionists believe
that the Jews are god’s ‘Chosen People’ and that god has given the Jews the
absolute right to complete control over not just Palestine but indeed a vast
stretch of territory extending from present-day Egypt to Iraq, the so-called
‘Greater Israel’. God, they claim, has selected the Jews above all other people.
Hence, they insist, those who oppose the imperialist project of the advocates of
‘Greater Israel’ or the Zionist occupation of Palestine are ‘God’s enemies’,
deserving to be crushed by every available means, including outright war and
decimation.
Advocating Israel does not mean, however, that Christian
Zionists accept Judaism as a legitimate means of salvation after Jesus. Nor does
it translate into genuine love for the Jews, a departure from the traditional
teachings of the church that for centuries viewed Jews as ‘Christ-killers’.
Since Christian Zionists believe that Christianity is the only religion
acceptable to god and that, as the Bible claims, salvation is possible only
through Jesus, they insist that Jews cannot be ‘saved’ unless they convert to
Christianity. Yet because Christian Zionists are dogged defenders of the state
of Israel and are fiercely anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, they have been able to
establish a close nexus with right wing Jewish groups and with the Israeli state
and are today an integral part of the American-Israeli axis.
Christian Zionism is a call for global war. The belief that
Christianity is the sole truth, that all other faiths are ‘Satanic’ or ‘false’,
that the Jews must all gather in Palestine to fulfil so-called Biblical
prophecies and that a grand global war will soon erupt leading to the massacre
of hundreds of millions and heralding the ‘second coming’ of Jesus, who will
establish his Christian kingdom extending till the four corners of the world,
clearly indicate the hate-driven global expansionist project of Christian
Zionism.
John Hagee is a prime example of a Christian Zionist zealot. He
is the founder and pastor of the Cornerstone Church in Texas, USA, which claims
some 16,000 members. As with numerous other similar American Christian
fundamentalist preachers, his church is richly endowed and media savvy. Hagee is
the president of the Global Evangelism media company that broadcasts his daily
programmes on television and radio throughout the USA and around the world. He
is the author of numerous books on Christian Zionism, some of which have been
reprinted by Christian fundamentalist publishers abroad as well.
Final Dawn over Jerusalem is one of Hagee’s major writings
on Christian Zionism that well exemplifies the imperialist agenda that lies at
its very core. The aim of the book is to defend the Israeli occupation of
Palestine, to denounce those who seek to protest Israeli atrocities and to
advocate the cause of ‘Greater Israel’, all this in the name of Christianity and
premised on the notion of the Jews as being allegedly god’s ‘Chosen People’.
Racism is integral to the Christian Zionist message, as Hagee
makes amply clear. The Bible, Hagee, says, describes the Jews as ‘the apple of
God’s eye’ (Zech. 2:8). He quotes the Bible as addressing the Jews and
declaring, ‘For you are a holy people to the LORD your God’ and ‘the LORD has
chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples
who are on the face of the earth’ (Deut.14:2). This means, so Hagee argues, that
those who harm the Jews or the state of Israel or stand in the way of the design
of ‘Greater Israel’ will ‘experience the instant wrath of God’. To those who
dare to challenge the oppressive Zionist state, Hagee announces, ‘The man or
nation that lifts a voice or hand against Israel invites the wrath of God’. Such
people will, Hagee insists, be ‘cursed’ by god.
Hagee’s notion of god thus appears to be that of a tribal Jewish
deity who functions as a willing tool in the pursuit of Jewish expansionism. The
Bible was written by Jewish hands and given that, as many liberal Christians
would themselves concede, much of it is a human product, numerous Biblical
verses were written in order to legitimise the interests of the community from
which its writers were drawn. This would seem obvious to any discerning layman
but Biblical literalists like Hagee vehemently disagree. For them every word of
the Bible is sacrosanct and divine. Biblical literalism is pressed into the
service of the Christian Zionist imperialist and racist agenda. Drawing upon
numerous verses of the Bible, Hagee argues, ‘God watches over Israel as a
protective parent hovers over an only child’. ‘The nation of Israel’, he makes
so bold as to declare, ‘was created by a sovereign act of God. All other nations
were created by an act of war or a declaration of men, but Israel was
intentionally created by God so that He would have a physical place of
inheritance on the earth’. Accordingly, Hagee would have us believe that for
this god, who is seen as in need of a ‘physical place’ for himself, non-Jews or
Gentiles are second-rate human beings or less and so can easily be dispensed
with if they are seen as coming in the way of Jewish imperialism.
The tribal Jewish version of god that Hagee presents appears
entirely unjust and arbitrary, far from being impartial in the way he deals with
his creation. Given the fact that the god of the Biblical literalist imagination
is a Jewish deity and not the universal god who looks upon his entire creation
impartially, he is seen as blessing Jewish conquests of territories of their
enemies. Thus, quoting the Bible, Hagee writes that god gave the land of
‘Greater Israel’, a vast swathe of land stretching from Egypt all the way till
Iraq, to the Jews, descendants of Isaac, forever. That being the case, Hagee
suggests that people living in those territories, millions of Arabs, both
Muslims and Christians, have no right to live there or else must accept to live
under Jewish rule. Although Hagee does not say this explicitly, what this means
is that those who refuse to accept Jewish rule must therefore be either killed
or expelled.
The god of Hagee’s imagination appears as an entirely whimsical
real estate agent. ‘God established Israel’s national geographic boundaries’,
Hagee writes. ‘The exact borders of Israel are detailed in Scripture just as our
heavenly Father dictated them’, he goes on, adding, ‘The divine Surveyor drove
the original stakes into Judaean soil and decreed that no one should ever change
these property lines. The real estate contract and lands covenants were signed
in blood and stand to this very hour’. Hence, he argues, ‘Jews have the absolute
right as mandated by God to the land of Israel and, more specifically, to the
city of Jerusalem’. Hence, he suggests, Palestinians have no claim to their own
historical land and must make way for Jewish occupiers.
Hagee’s defence of Zionist imperialism goes to ridiculous
lengths. Laughable as this may sound, he argues, ‘Israel has a Spy in the sky’ –
god himself. God, he claims, provides Israel, the Jewish people and the state of
Israel with special protection. ‘No nation in the world can match the defensive
force guarding the State of Israel. The archangel Michael has a special
assignment to guard Israel’. And those who for any reason oppose Israel, and
this includes Palestinians fighting Israeli occupation and oppression, are said
to incur god’s wrath. ‘The Lord stands watch in the darkest night with an eye
trained on the nation of Israel and, more specifically, Jerusalem. Those who
fight with Israel fight with Him’, Hagee asserts.
So central is Israel to Hagee’s tribalistic version of god that
he goes to the extent of arguing that the fate of each and every person on the
face of the planet depends essentially on his or her attitude to the Jews.
‘Prosperity or punishment depends on how we treat Israel’, he alleges, because,
he claims, the Jews, as descendants of Abraham, ‘enjoy heavenly favour’. To back
his claim he quotes the Bible as saying that when god entered into a covenant
with Abraham he gave him an ‘awesome promise’ saying, ‘I will bless those who
bless you, And I will curse him who curses you. And in you all the families of
the earth shall be blessed’ (Gen. 12:3). Hence, Hagee insists, the United States
and indeed anyone else who wishes to please god must consistently engage in
‘compassionate support of the State of Israel’, adding that ‘The quickest and
most effective way to be on God’s side is to stand with the State of Israel and
the Jewish people in their hour of need’. By doing this, he claims, one can win
god’s favour because ‘God blesses the man or nation that blesses Israel or the
Jewish people’.
At no time before, Hagee firmly believes, has support for Israel
and Zionist imperialism been more crucial than today. This is because, he
claims, Jesus is returning to the world soon and Israel must be protected in
order to welcome the messiah. Hagee’s image of Jesus in his ‘second coming’
bears no resemblance to the familiar notion of the suffering, loving Jesus.
Rather, in his description Jesus appears as a fierce warrior, rallying
Christians to arms and heralding the final global war, ironically in the name of
the ‘Prince of Peace’. In the doomsday scenario that Hagee outlines, what he
calls ‘fanatical attacks’ by Arabs on Israel, particularly Jerusalem, would
mount. In response, Christians the world over, he says, must rally behind
Israel. At this hour, he insists, ‘we must let the world know that if a line has
to be drawn, it will be drawn around Christians as well as Jews. We are united
and indivisible’.
The city of Jerusalem, Hagee believes, is the crux of the final
battle before Jesus’ ‘second coming’. This city, considered sacred by Jews,
Muslims and Christians alike, has been ordained, so Hagee argues, by god to be
‘under the exclusive control of the Jewish people’ until Jesus arrives again.
The final battle of Armageddon will, he writes, be centred on this city with
Arabs or Muslims seeking to wrest control of it from the Jews. In this regard,
Hagee says, Christians, for their part, must staunchly defend Israel and must
refuse any peace offers such as allowing for a shared Jerusalem or joint control
of the town by Jews and Arabs. In particular, he appeals to the United States to
do everything in its power to back Israel and to crush its opponents, claiming
this is the only way to win god’s favour. If America fails to do this, he warns,
it would be crushed by god himself!
Quoting various verses of the Bible, Hagee describes what he
sees as the unfolding of events of cosmic proportions, ushering in a global war
the like of which has never been witnessed hitherto and heralding the ‘second
coming of Jesus’. In this global war, he says, Muslims, whom he regards as
followers of a ‘false’ religion, would ally with the Russians to fight against
Israel. This would lead to a global nuclear war with hundreds of millions being
killed. At this point, the ‘Anti-Christ’ will appear, attack Jerusalem and will
take over the reigns of the world, falsely claiming to usher in peace. But this
grand deception will not last long and instead will only lead to even more
devastating wars. At this time, Hagee says, Christians must defend, by every
means possible, the Jews and Israel, and wage war against the armies of those
opposed to god’s ‘Chosen Race’, the Jews. Only then can they be saved, he
insists.
After years of global war and terrible destruction, Hagee
writes, Jesus will be sent by god to deliver the world. Mounted on a white
horse, he will arrive at the battlefield in Armageddon. Defeating the
‘Anti-Christ’ and his army, he will establish his global kingdom with his
capital in Jerusalem, there to ‘rule and reign forever’. Hagee’s description of
Jesus’ future global kingdom offers little cause to cheer for non-Christians,
including, ironically, even the Jews whom he so ardently defends. It would, as
he himself makes clear, be nothing short of a global Christian empire, and an
antiquated one at that, with kings and queens and presidents still in place! How
they would continue to be around when Jesus rules the whole world is a mystery
that Hagee leaves unsolved.
Ruled by Jesus, Hagee writes, ‘Jerusalem, the apple of God’s
eye, will become the joy of the world. The city will become the international
worship centre and people from all over the world will make pilgrimages to
worship in the holy temple. Kings, queens, princes and presidents shall come to
the ‘Holy City’ to adore Jesus. Presumably, these will all be Christians
themselves, for Hagee quotes the Bible as predicting that ‘at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow… and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father’.
As Hagee’s book clearly indicates, Christian Zionism, rooted in
the tradition of the Crusades and a long history of church triumphalism, is a
recipe for global war and Christian imperialism. Moreover, it reflects a total
lack of genuine spirituality, seeking to reduce the notion of god into a petty
whimsical and racist dictator who willingly urges the slaughter of innocents in
order to protect the expansionist designs of his supposedly ‘Chosen People’. Of
course, Christian Zionism is hardly unique in its use of religion for such
blatantly political ends, but given the immense clout enjoyed by its advocates
today, especially in America, it is a much more menacing threat to world peace
than is sometimes imagined and cannot be simply dismissed as the ravings of
lunatics on the fringe. n