Challenging Christian Zionism and Apocalyptic Rapture Teachings on Israel and Palestine

Pro-Peace Christian Group Urged to Stand Up to Christian Zionist Fundamentalism.

During the Bush administration, the harmonic convergence between the Christian Zionist theology and the neoconservative political agenda ground U.S. peace efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a halt. But Christians who support a two-state solution, as evidenced at this week's annual conference of Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), are hopeful that Obama's call for a settlement freeze will open the door for more robust advocacy for Palestinian statehood.

What struck me about CMEP, a coalition of 22 denominations' policy arms, is how different it is in tone and strategy from Christian Zionist movements I've covered. The CMEP attendees, church members from all over the country, are liberal mainline Protestants and Catholics. They reject biblical literalism of the Christian Zionist apocalyptism and its blind fixation on Israel as God's land transfer to the Jews. In contrast to people I've met at Christians United for Israel (CUFI) events, who get a one-sided view of the conflict by traveling to Israel with televangelists like Hagee, many CMEP attendees I met had traveled to the occupied territories to document human-rights abuses.

While CUFI hardly represents a majority of Christians, it has a formidable political operation, fundraising capacity, and organizing strategy compared to CMEP. And its ability to capitalize on fear, of course, is not to be underestimated. This week, Hagee warns in a video e-mail to supporters, "these are dangerous days for Israel." He asks, "Will our leaders in Washington stand with Israel, or will they focus their energy on forcing Israel into making concessions?"

Daniel Levy, director of the Middle East Initiative at the New America Foundation, gave the CMEP audience a big heads-up about the Christian Zionists' organizing power, of which many in the audience seemed well aware. CMEP supporters need to organize and mobilize, and they need to advocate their case with members of Congress. "If there's not a counterbalance [with the Christian Zionists]," he said, "I don't see how even this president with his determination and good intentions succeeds."

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