Like Birds in a Cage

When Christians collude in crimes against humanity, they betray their citizenship in the kingdom of God, demonstrating that Christ's Lordship does not rule over every area of their lives. The popular ideology known as Christian Zionism is a prime enabler of such widespread discipleship--failure in western Christianity. As the state of Israel continues to violate international law with colonial settlement in lands captured by warfare, legalized racial discrimination, and the creation of what many have called "the world's largest open-air prison" in Gaza, Christian Zionists continue their unqualified support for Zionist Israel. Though Israel advertises itself as "the only democracy in the Middle East," it is actually a rigid ethnocracy--its entire society built on the foundations of Jewish supremacy over a Palestinian underclass. History will eventually judge Christian Zionist support for Israel's crimes against the Palestinians in the same way people of conscience now condemn the Christian church in the American South for its defense of slavery and hostility towards the civil rights movement. Just as the Southern Baptist church finally repudiated its pro-slavery past, so everyone genuinely devoted to Jesus Christ must repudiate both the ideology and the legacy of Christian Zionism.

David M. Crump is a former pastor and retired professor of New Testament at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is the author of a number of books, including Knocking on Heaven's Door: A New Testament Theology of Petitionary Prayer (2006), Encountering Jesus, Encountering Scripture (2013), and I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer's Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America (2018). He blogs regularly at HumanityRenewed.com.