Evangelical Left Follows Mainline Footsteps with New Anti-Israel Film “With God on Our Side” Aims to Sow Anti-Israel Sentiment on Christian College Campuses

on November 2, 2010

A new film critical of Israel was recently screened in Washington, D.C., drawing strong reactions from an audience of primarily mainline Christians and religious left activists.

But the documentary screened at Capitol Hill’s Lutheran Church of the Reformation was not created by typical anti-Israel activists; it was produced by American evangelicals.

“With God on Our Side” follows Christopher Harrell, a young American evangelical whose visit to the West Bank ostensibly causes him to re-examine his religious beliefs about Israel and the relationship between Jews and Christians. The film seeks to undercut evangelical support for Israel and specifically discredit “Christian Zionists” who see a special place for Israel in God’s plans for history.

“I’m furious,” said one viewer following scenes depicted during the screening, including Orthodox Jewish settlers taunting and throwing bottles at Palestinians. Others used words like “ashamed” and “injustice” to describe feelings toward Israel elicited by the documentary.

“In America, even pre 9-11, especially post 9-11, we like an us-versus-them world, so we have good guys and bad guys, we like our Tim LaHaye books and things like that,” said Porter Speakman, Jr., director and executive producer of the film, referring to a series of Christian fiction books that portray a dispensationalist interpretation of the apocalypse.

Speakman, who was raised in a Pentecostal family and once worked with the evangelical group Youth with a Mission, said his visits to the West Bank and interactions with Palestinians forced him to reconstruct much of what he was taught.

“One of the reasons I went to make this film was that I saw that same transformation again and again with people like myself who had only heard one side of the story,” Speakman said. “We wanted to make this film so we could bring it to America because most people will not go visit Israel, and the majority of those who do go to Israel won’t visit the Palestinians.”

Christian Zionism

During production of the film, Speakman interviewed San Antonio megachurch Pastor John Hagee, head of the pro-Israel advocacy group Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Hagee closely associates the modern state of Israel with the ancient Hebrews, basing his support for the modern democracy upon scriptures such as Genesis 12, where Abraham is told that those who bless his descendants will themselves be blessed. This biblical interpretation draws a sharp critique from the filmmakers.

“I was deeply troubled when I visited the Holy Land and began to appreciate the people, particularly the Christian community who was suffering as a consequence of the theological framework I have been raised on,” said Stephen Sizer, a British Anglican priest featured prominently in the documentary who tours with Speakman in support of the film’s release.

Sizer’s entry into Middle East controversy began with a master’s thesis examining Israeli tourism, which he felt was being manipulated “to perpetuate that myth – that ‘land of milk and honey’.” The British clergyman subsequently researched Christian Zionism, asking what caused the church in the west “to have such one-sided support for Israel.”

Speakman credited SIzer’s books for having influenced his change of perspective on Israel. “I kind of grew up in a home; it wasn’t a John Hagee-style home,” the filmmaker explained. “It was very subtle, this is just how you read the Bible, and I think when you have a certain way you read the Bible, you interpret Scripture and prophecy, that leads you to view Israel and the end times in certain ways.”

Sizer asserted that the majority of evangelicals hold a Christian Zionist viewpoint, although those evangelicals do not necessarily know why. American evangelicals believe God is blessing America because America looks after Israel, Sizer said, adding that they also believe the Jews are God’s chosen people, and that modern Israel’s 1948 founding is the fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

“They believe all of these things are in the Bible because their pastors tell them they’re in the Bible,” Sizer said. “What we try to say is that they’re not in the Bible, go back and read it for yourself, and don’t believe what your leaders have told you. “

Sizer did not acknowledge that evangelicals might support Israel for reasons unrelated to dispensationalist theology, such as Israel’s standing as a U.S.-aligned democracy or its experience of being attacked by the same kinds of Islamist terrorists that attack America. John C. Green, Senior Fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and best known for his work on religion and politics, estimates that only between 10 and 17 percent of American evangelicals identify themselves as dispensationalists.

“Hagee is probably the most influential Christian leader in America tonight,” Sizer claimed, adding that the megachurch pastor and his movement have access to 99 million homes and over 14 million active members. “It is the reason why, I believe, you won’t find a single serving senator or congressman openly critical of Israel, because it is political suicide. If nothing else, that should show the influence of this movement.”

Some Reservations

Many viewers at the screening were from sponsoring, largely liberal mainline groups such as the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, the Middle East Concerns Committee of the National Capital Presbytery, and Friends of Sabeel. Several participants shared literature urging people to boycott and divest from companies that do business with Israel.

“When you step on somebody’s neck for so long, there’s going to be a reaction,” one participant said, excusing Palestinian violence.

While the audience reaction to the film was overwhelmingly positive, some viewers qualified their praise with concerns that Speakman’s work might portray an “us-versus them world” with the “good guys and bad guys” simply reversed.

“I’m afraid that there might be a danger of taking people from one anti-Semitic theology to another anti-Semitic place,” cautioned one Jewish viewer. “The only Jews you showed [in a religious sense] were extremist Jews, the ones knocking on the doors saying, ‘Kill the Arabs,’ and I hope and believe that is a minority. There are many, many Israelis who don’t feel that way.”

The audience member noted that, conversely, all Palestinians interviewed in the film were moderate and easy to identify with, none expressing any hatred of Jews.

“It [the film] really ignored a very large group of people among Palestinians who are anti-Semitic, and you didn’t talk about Hamas or al-Aqsa,” the Jewish viewer said of the Islamist movement that governs Gaza and the militant mosque that sits on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. “There’s a hatred there that you really walked around.”

Another participant who identified herself as from the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace echoed the other Jewish woman’s views.

“There was a point in the film where I cringed a bit,” the activist said. “It’s being a little fearful that this could foment some anti-Semitism against Jews. I would have liked to have seen just a tiny bit about all the Jews who are working so hard to see things change.”

Both Speakman and Sizer were unwilling to cede ground on the matter, saying the situation was complex and that they were trying to represent a certain perspective, as they could not in 82 minutes cover all aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“What I’m trying to do is bring up subjects and conversations that we’re not hearing here,” Speakman said. “We hear the Jewish perspective a lot in the United States, we hear about Hamas, Islamic Jihad, we have a sense here that it’s good guys and bad guys.”

Sizer added that the film was primarily about Christians understanding “where we as a faith community have gone wrong theologically and politically” and “not necessarily make a film that is designed for all perspectives and to reach all perspectives.”

“If nothing else, it helps Jews and Muslims understand where we’ve gone wrong as Christians,” Sizer said.

Inroads with Evangelicals

Despite the film’s Washington screening in a mainline Lutheran church (it was originally scheduled to show in the new Capitol visitors’ center), Speakman noted other screening venues have been evangelical colleges, seminaries, and churches. Evangelical leaders have also taken notice of the film, including Steve Haas, Vice President of the Christian relief and development organization World Vision, who has endorsed the film.

“We are working closely with World Vision and the Willow Creek Association to promote tours for church leaders to Israel-Palestine to, in a sense, do what we do in the film – to visit those people and visit projects, to help younger church leaders in America understand that our theology has feet – what we believe affects how we behave,” Sizer said.

Speakman said that he will bring the film wherever invited, mentioning conservative colleges such as Pepperdine University, Point Loma Nazarene, and California Baptist, as well as a thousand-member Assemblies of God church in Seattle. A recent screening at Wheaton College in Illinois drew 220 people. Afterwards, three young people from the dispensational Moody Bible Institute approached Speakman and expressed interest in showing the film on their campus, although they doubted their professors would permit it.

“There are students at even the most conservative universities and seminaries that they know something is wrong, and it’s going to take time so we need to go where we are invited and where doors are open,” Speakman said. “I’m not allowed to publicly say, but there are some big name churches and pastors in the evangelical world who have seen the film, who are supportive of it. That’s going to have influence in their communities.”

“Until this tour virtually every church or faith community I’ve spoken to have been either liberal, progressive or radical,” said Sizer, who has been teaching about Christian Zionism in the United States for over 10 years. “This tour and the invitations we’ve had from faculty, from conservative Christian communities, universities, and churches have been really exciting, because that’s the faith community that has got to address this issue, which until now it ignored.”
Both Speakman and Sizer were enthusiastic about the response they had received with the film, but acknowledged that success would mean stiff opposition.

“Those people who are hard-core adamant Christian Zionists, they’re wanting to suppress this message, they don’t want it to get out,” Speakman said. “Most of us have received multiple [hostile] e-mails and blogs and things like that, but that’s okay because that means it is being effective.”

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