Feature

Israel's Christian Soldiers

Though Hagee may be a little more flamboyant in his presentation than the average pastor, the emotional strength of his feeling about Israel is not unique. He is representative of Christian Evangelicals as a group, whose view of the world, and their place in it, is totally based on theology.

The bedrock of their beliefs is what they call the “inerrancy of the Bible”—their unflinching certainty that everything in the Bible, as the word of God, is literally true. Their fervent support for Israel and their unexpectedly solicitous feelings for Jews flow from several key passages in the Bible. Foremost among them is God’s covenant with Abraham, made in Chapter 12 of the Book of Genesis, which promises the land of Israel to the Jews forever. God, the Evangelicals will tell you, does not break his promises.

And in one simple passage in Genesis 12:3, the Evangelicals’ unshakable bond with Jews is sealed: God says to Abraham as he is forming this new nation to be called the Jewish people: “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you.”

“It is God’s foreign-policy statement,” says Hagee.

Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention is more explicit. “If we want God to continue to bless America, then we need to bless the Jews,” Land says. He offers the twentieth-century fates of Germany, Poland, and Russia as evidence that the divine promise made in Genesis is being kept. “And look at what’s happened in the Arab countries,” Land says. “Who in America would rather live in any Arab country?”

The most controversial, and the most often talked-about, piece of the Evangelicals’ Jewish puzzle is the end-of-days scenario. For skeptical Jews, this is the eschatological equivalent of a gotcha, a piece of evidence that lifts the curtain and reveals what’s really going on.

Though specifics are a little sketchy, there is a generally accepted version of events leading up to Judgment Day. First, and this is key, Jews will return to Israel. A wicked world leader—the Antichrist—will assume power by deceiving everyone into believing he will bring peace. Soon after, the final battle, the Apocalypse, Armageddon, will be fought.

At its conclusion, Jesus will descend from Heaven. He will come down the Mount of Olives on the east side of Jerusalem, through the Golden Gate, and into the city. (Just in case, Muslims bricked over the Golden Gate when they controlled the Old City.) There will then be a thousand-year reign of peace on Earth.

Jews who are aware of the end-of-days story line note that when these events are set in motion, they will theoretically result in the eradication of the Jewish people. Aside from untold numbers of Jews who will die in the final battle, those who do not convert when Christ returns will die anyway—as will all nonbelievers.

“Jews are at best divided on accepting the short-term benefits of being players— or victims—in someone else’s script.”

Evangelicals believe in the end of days as much as they believe in everything else in the Bible. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins have written a collection of novels called the “Left Behind” series that use the Bible’s apocalyptic events as their core. They have sold more than 40 million books.

The American Jewish Committee’s James Rudin has led many Christian tour groups in Israel, and one of the places they always want to see is Har Megiddo in the Galilee. Har Megiddo is where the word Armageddon comes from.

“It usually takes about two hours,” he says. “They don’t just walk the area; they pace it, marking it off and measuring it. This is where Gog and Magog will fight in the final cataclysm. They take this very seriously. It is central to their beliefs and the Second Coming of Christ.”

Jews are at best divided on accepting the short-term benefits of being players—or victims—in someone else’s script. Rabbi David Saperstein in Washington, D.C., sees potentially grave consequences: If Evangelicals resist strategies designed to achieve Middle East peace and instead, backed by Jews, promote extreme policies (like expelling all Palestinians from the West Bank) in order to bring about some huge conflagration, the results could be disastrous.

Every Evangelical I spoke to, however, was emphatic that their position on the End Days has been misrepresented. John Hagee, for example, told me he does believe we are coming to a point in time the Bible calls the last days. But he argues that there is a big difference between believing something is going to happen and believing you can somehow make it happen.

“My grandfather was a pastor,” he says, “and some of his congregants became so convinced the End Days were approaching, they didn’t plant their crops and they starved to death. God has an exact timetable, and he is going to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it.”

Evangelicals are no less candid on the other major problem most Jews have in accepting their outreach at face value: conversion. Richard Land says he knows how Jews feel about this issue but there is little he can do about it: “We have a mandate from Jesus Christ to share the Gospel with all who will listen. And unlike some mainline Protestants, we’re not embarrassed about it. What Jews need to understand is, we don’t believe in coercion, and we’re not treating them any differently than we treat our grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends. We believe the Gospel is for everyone.”

The very concept, however, is anathema to many Jews. It resonates with anti-Semitism and echoes many of the worst crimes committed against Jews throughout history.

No one is more familiar with the sensitivity of the conversion issue than Yechiel Eckstein. He will not work with any group that specifically targets Jews for conversion. His organization, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, has 300,000 Christian donors. He gets 2,000 letters and checks a day, and last year he gave $20 million to Jewish charities.

He also donated 45,000 winter coats to Israeli grade-school kids who live below the poverty line. Five Orthodox towns refused the clothing, however, because the money came from Christians. Several Orthodox Israeli rabbis attacked Eckstein, who is also Orthodox, as a Christian missionary.

“Is it possible that all this love and all this money is simply a way to get in the front door and then bring Jesus in through the back door?” Eckstein says. “I suppose. But after twenty years of close relations with the Evangelicals, I strongly doubt it.”

Eckstein offers what he believes is proof of the purity of Christian motives. There is a woman in Del City, Oklahoma, who donates 10 percent of her monthly Social Security checks to help an elderly Jew who lives in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, buy clothes and heating oil.

“That woman in Uzbekistan is not going anywhere,” Eckstein says, “either literally or figuratively. She’s not emigrating to Israel, and she’s not converting to Christianity. The donation is a genuine act of love, comfort, and solidarity.”

After years of refusing to recognize the validity of Eckstein’s work, American Jewish leaders are now betting he is right. They acknowledge it’s a risk, but one they believe, given the political power of the Evangelicals, is clearly worth taking.

And so, while the sight of Israelis welcoming Tom DeLay like an old friend, or Gary Bauer addressing a major American Jewish organization’s annual dinner, might look like strange, desperate acts to some, it is actually calculated, practical politics.

“American Jews may still feel more comfortable with their liberal Protestant and Catholic friends,” says Eckstein. “But there’s a growing recognition that push has come to shove, and we’re now finding out who our real friends are.”