Is Christian Zionism a “heresy?” Some think so, including a publicized young staffer at the Heritage Foundation, who said:
Gen Z has an increasingly unfavorable view of Israel, and it’s not because millions of Americans are antisemitic. It’s because we are Catholic and Orthodox and believe that Christian Zionism is a modern heresy.”
Christian Zionism and pro-Israel views are less popular among young Christians of all stripes than among the old.
One reason is the declining popularity of Dispensationalism, the 19th century theological system best known today for stressing The Rapture and End Times, and which also stresses the Jews’ return to Israel as preamble to Christ’s return. Dispensationalism became ascendant among evangelicals, especially Baptists and Pentecostals, in the 20th century. Christians United for Israel, founded by Dispensationalist pastor Jack Hagee, became America’s largest Christian Zionist group in the late 20th century.
Younger Evangelicals are less inclined to systematic Dispensationalism, and seminaries that once stressed it no longer do. Personally, I rarely if ever meet Dispensationalists under age 50. Many Evangelicals who are not strictly Dispensationalist still adhere to some aspects of it, believing, for example, that God’s blessing of Abraham and his descendants is a permanent promise. But even that teaching is rarer among younger evangelicals, some of whom are indifferent if not hostile to Israel. Many Americans, perhaps even most, conflate Christian Zionism with Dispensationalism, and with it, Boomer-era evangelicalism.
The young staffer at Heritage Foundation, who was presumably Catholic, presumably made this conflation and decided Christian Zionism is heresy since Dispensationalism does not conform to Catholic teaching. Christian Zionism of course precedes and is much wider than Dispensationalism. Across 2,000 years many Christians have believed that there is an intrinsic ongoing tie between Jews and Israel.
Dispensationalism gained ascendance thanks partly to the 20th century’s dramatic events making Zionism attainable. The Ottoman Empire fell, Britain seized Palestine after adopting the Balfour Declaration supporting a Jewish homeland. The Holocaust added urgency to Zionism. And Britain’s departure from Palestine facilitated modern Israel’s founding. What had seemed impossible was then enacted, a prophecy fulfilled, validating Dispensationalism, and, according to its eschatology, beginning the clock for Christ’s return.
Much of Dispensationalism taught that the generation that saw Israel restored would live to see Christ’s return. It’s now nearly 80 years, and few evangelicals are discussing this calendar. In the 1970s and 1980s it was far different, with books like The Late Great Planet Earth. And Pat Robertson on his popular 700 Club routinely connected unfolding world events, especially in the Middle East, to Dispensationalism’s End Times calendar. The Left Behind genre popularized Dispensationalism’s Rapture motif but perhaps also undermined its seriousness, making it more like science fiction entertainment than sober spirituality.
Largely forgotten are the 20th century liberal Mainline Protestant and black Protestants who were Christian Zionists, such as Reinhold Niebuhr and Martin Luther King, Jr. They were nowhere near Dispensationalism, nor were they interested in fulfilled prophecies. Instead, they saw a suffering people, nearly exterminated, who deserved a homeland. For them it was a matter of biblical justice. And for Niebuhr at least, it was a a question of “Christian Realism,” in that the Jews, as the target of centuries of irrational prejudice, could not be safe without a homeland.
Niebuhrian Christian Realism is higher brow and not as high octane as Dispensationalism, and few Christians know much about it. Instead, with the conflation of Christian Zionism with Dispensationalism, pro-Israel Christians are left with a declining demographic as Dispensationalism recedes. And what’s left of Dispensationalism, in its conflation with all Christian Zionism, is derided by some as “heresy.” Strong support for Israel, with this logic, becomes heretical and perhaps even anti-Christian. This insinuation fuels other insinuations that supporters of Israel are putting another country before America. And it can fuel antisemitism, by implying that Jews, in their support for Israel, are not loyal to America.
So Christian supporters of Israel must improve their main talking points, and their underlying theology, if they’re to be effective in a new era. Christians in a free society should not be shy about citing their faith in their advocacy. But neither should they rely on esoteric theological perspectives that are culture-bound and open to charges of “heresy.”
Also important to remember is Christianity’s long history of antisemitism, which bears some responsibility for the imperative of a Jewish homeland. Christians disagree and always will about eschatology and the forensics of salvation. But Christians must agree about the Gospel command to love all people, Christian or not, to advocate for justice for all people, and to prioritize the vulnerable. Antisemitism is the world’s oldest hatred that Christians should be on special guard against.
Opponents of Israel like to argue that critique of Israeli policies does not equal antisemitism, which obviously is true. But chronic obsession with critiquing Israel almost always signals antisemitism. Some American Christians, in the post Dispensationalist age, are now tempted by or falling actively into a dark well of obsession with Israel and by extension Jews.
This dark obsession, even in milder forms, is irrational and contravenes all that Christianity teaches. Christian Zionism, broadly, is no heresy, but a search for justice and security for a besieged people. And in all its forms it understands that the God of Christians loves and cares about Jewish people.
More from IRD:
Christian Zionism, Antisemitism & Christian Realism
Comment by Johnathan on November 7, 2025 at 9:22 pm
To most Christians on earth in apostolic churches, Christian zionism is indeed a doctrinal heresy. This isn’t debatable- whatever you think the lines are in evangelical Protestantism it’s quite clear for everyone else. Christ is king, the Church is Israel. There is no Jew or gentile in Christ.
American Christians are not under any obligation to fund the jewish state- especially not as it continues to fail to protect Palestinian Christians and Christian pilgrims.
Outside of issues of faith, Israel is a bad ally. They do nothing but drag us into conflicts, I don’t even know how they got the moniker ‘greatest ally’ – greatest at what exactly? Selling technology to the Chinese? Stealing American technology? Using the Zionist lobby to influence American politics to the point most of the senate and congress is AIPAC funded? Getting money while the federal government is shut down, cause we’re still funding them.
This boomer obsession with conflating everything that’s not hero worship of Israel with antisemitism has completely defanged the word. More importantly, it’s given legitimate cover to actual antisemites. The toothpaste isn’t going back into the tube, we don’t want to fund Israel while Americans are wanting.
America first doesn’t include Israel
Comment by Salvatore Anthony Luiso on November 7, 2025 at 9:55 pm
I would like to know how the author defines “Christian Zionism”.
Is a Christian who is pro-Israel always a Christian Zionist? I don’t think so.
The Wikipedia article “Christian Zionism” begins with this sentence, which I think is a good definition: “Christian Zionism is a political and religious ideology that, in a Christian context, espouses the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land”.
Just as one can be a Jew without being a Zionist, one can be a Christian without being a Zionist, and a person who loves the Jewish people without being a Zionist.
I see two reasons for a decline in Christian Zionism which the author doesn’t mention:
1. Not just a decline in the popularity of Dispensationalism, but an increase in the opinion that Dispensationalism is false and foolish.
2. Many Christian Zionists have given Christian Zionism a bad name. How? By essentially giving the state of Israel a blank check with respect to whatever it says and does–with the possible exception of policies which they think are contrary to Zionism, such as the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.
Christian Zionists must not only “improve their main talking points, and their underlying theology”: they must stop giving the state of Israel a blank check, be honest about it, and criticize it when it is just and loving to do so.
As Proverbs 27:5–6 says:
Better is open rebuke than hidden love.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.
(ESV)
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on November 7, 2025 at 10:21 pm
Although the “Christian” Zionists always equate any criticism of the secular state of Israel as antisemitism (which is really the only weapon they have), one could make the case that “Christian” Zionists are the true antisemites because, if they were honest with themselves, they would have to admit that they take their position not because they truly like a certain ethnic group but only because they have been deceived into believing that the existence of the secular state of Israel is a precondition for the culmination of their eschatological beliefs. In other words, they are merely using an ethnic group for their own purposes.
How very christlike of them!
But their words are falling on deaf ears because people are no longer fooled by this stuff. Israel itself has shown the world what it is, and things will never again be as they once were.
Comment by Gary Bebop on November 7, 2025 at 11:11 pm
Mark Tooley has taken a courageous stand here, and demarcated the issues well. The visceral reaction of the anti-Israel and antizionist elements is also vividly revealed. The biblical record is replete with reiterations and accents on God’s everlasting covenant with Israel. It’s dangerous ground to deny this.
Comment by Gary Bebop on November 7, 2025 at 11:21 pm
If the church betrays Israel, there will be consequences that the Apostle Paul warned about. The church is already on trial for many divagations from the Word of God. Let’s not add to the errors we’ve sown.
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on November 8, 2025 at 12:01 am
Gary,
Which televangelist convinced you of that?
Comment by Mark on November 8, 2025 at 10:44 am
Dispensationalism gave many evangelicals an out to avoid truly repenting of the legacy of Christian antisemitism and its source, supersessionism. Now that belief in dispensationalism is starting to fade, many of them will likely revert back to antisemitism.
Comment by Qohelet on November 8, 2025 at 12:10 pm
This is now the second consecutive Mark Tooley article that has ignored that since October 7th 2023 Israel has suffered 2000 deaths and it’s response has been to kill 70,000.
You don’t need to examine people’s theology or ask what traditions are being forgotten… Millennials and Gen Z are turning away from Israel because Israel under Netanyahu behaves with callous cruelty.
An Israel that respected the human rights of Palestinians and didn’t call everyone who questioned its actions an antisemite would have a far different favorability rating with all generations.
And before anyone calls me an antisemite… just stop. This war wasnt caused by Jews or even all Israelis. I will stand shoulder to shoulder with any Jew being persecuted. But I’ll also stand with Palestinians. Jesus told us to stand up for those who need help.
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on November 9, 2025 at 12:24 am
Amen, Qohelet!
Comment by Gary Bebop on November 9, 2025 at 2:06 pm
Making war on Israel from the High Chair of the internet is what these babblers do best. They pompously make pronouncements from their couches. (Of course, it’s all vanity.) They form instant-coffee allies with those who share their heartstrings. It’s a laughable alliance of blended mists.
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on November 9, 2025 at 9:58 pm
Gary,
Because of its own actions, which have been on display for all the world to see, not only in Gaza but in many other places, supporters of Israel are getting few and far between. But don’t give up hope, though, for word is that, in an effort to rehabilitate their image, the Israelis are paying up to $7000 to “influencers” and internet sites for friendly posts. They may burn through a tremendous amount of money, but they will not be able to erase people’s memories of their actions during the past couple of years. They lost, in other words. The tide has turned.
Comment by Wilson R. on November 10, 2025 at 2:09 pm
Yes, Glenn, I agree with you about dispensationalism. I am old enough to remember when the president of the Southern Baptist Convention said back in the late 1970s, “God does not hear the prayer of the Jew.” In my experience, these people haven’t really changed their view on the eternal destination of Jews who don’t convert to Christianity; they just believe that Jews are necessary for Jesus to return. So I make a point of asking them: You’re telling me that the same God who spoke the universe into being is powerless to bring Jesus back unless Jews rebuild the Jerusalem Temple?
That’s usually the end of the conversation.
They’re just nuts.
Comment by Wilson R. on November 10, 2025 at 3:16 pm
To add to Oohelet’s point:
Even after Israel built the security wall between its pre-1967 boundaries and the West Bank, and even after attacks on the West Bank into Israel dropped to next to nothing as a result of the wall, the Israeli government has pursued a policy of removing Palestinians from their lands to make way for Jewish settlements. The policy is strikingly similar to the Nazi idea of lebensraum for Germans. For years, almost on a weekly basis, hard-core Israeli settlers were committing small-scale acts of terror against West Bank Palestinians, often under the approving eye of the IDF.
So I make no apology for criticizing the Netanyahu government routinely. They have done more than any other actor since the death of Arafat to destroy the possibility of a two-state solution.
After neo-Nazis began distributing rabidly anti-semitic leaflets in our neighborhood, where many people have chosen to live within walking distance of a synagogue, my wife and I organized a successful campaign to create and distribute yard signs that say, “We stand with our Jewish neighbors.” Many of the signs are still in place two-and-a-half years later. The campaign even got favorable coverage in a newspaper in Israel.
I dare anyone to tell me to my face that I am an anti-semite.
Comment by Donald R Bryant on November 11, 2025 at 6:22 pm
Very good summary. I wholeheartedly endorse the view you outline.
Comment by John Reuter, Esq. (Ret.) on December 31, 2025 at 2:26 pm
With this one essay Tooley has outed himself as a true Christian Zionist and a heretic. He is not alone. I predict that when today’s ethno-state Israel, born an apartheid now a bono fide genocidal monstrosity has reached its final destination as it must, it will, along with Christianity be dead, the Yahweh and the Triune God but myths, like the dust from which they arose, buried then forever beneath the poisonous political and spiritual false god of Zionism.
Together, Jew and Gentile corrupted by a century of addiction to radical liberal progressivism injected into their bloodstream decade after decade until JUDEO-Christianity reached the end of their intertwining. The Old Testament’s Hebrew Roots Arian law victorious over the New Testament’s blood of the New Covenant Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Into the growing spiritual vacuum, Islam can reconstitute the Great Monotheistic Myth. Perhaps its Allah might withstand some new strain of innate fatal heresy metastasizing within it and another iteration of Humankind’s longing for perfect harmony and the absence of death might sprout from whatever goodness that likest God lies within our soul.
Judaeus gentilem destruit; Allah comedit utrosque in pace quiescant.