The Unacceptable Cost of Christian-Zionism
The legacy of pain it is leaving for your grandchildren
By Charles E. Carlson
Hear Charles On The Radio
Far and near, high and clear,
Hark to the call of War.
Over the gorse and the golden dells,
Ringing and swinging the clamorous bells,
Praying and saying of wild farewells:
War! War! War! (Robert W. Service)
No religious persuasion has ever been more clearly responsible for so much bloodshed and destruction as has “Christian Zionism.” This 100-year old offshoot of fundamental Christianity has almost single-handedly legitimized wars in Arab states since January 1991. Its power at the polls is only now being understood.
We Hold These Truths’ objective for nine years has been to explain why members of this loosely knit group we call Judeo-Christianity thinks and acts as though political Israel was a god. We have documented how they have been misled, especially at the seminary level, by deliberately corrupted scripture and commentaries about scripture, which has then been taught from thousands of pulpits and media outlets. We have amply covered the changes made in the Bible(s) used by Christian Zionists in prior referenced works. (1)
We note again that the grassroots individuals within this movement are almost always motivated by altruistic religious belief (this author was once one of these), while the driving force behind their leaders is almost always tainted by money and the power of fame.
This paper explores how Christian Zionism is co-opted by a foreign lobby, AIPAC, and used to carry out Israeli objectives. AIPAC and its powers were well documented in 1994, in One Nation under Israel by Andrew J Hurly, and published by We Hold These Truths. (2)
Southern Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell (died in 2007) may have been the first leader to recognize the potential for linking dispensational Christianity with Zionism and harness its combined power into a political movement with loyalty to the state of Israel as its primary and passionate mission. In the early 1980s, Falwell called his fledgling army “The Moral Majority.” It was later referred to as the “Christian Right.” Today the millions of people who have made the present state of Israel the centerpiece of their Christian religion have been given the name “Christian Zionists.” (3)
We Hold These Truths prefers to describe both the Christian Zionist leaders and their misled followers as “Judeo-Christians,” a broadly accepted term, to reflect the fact that the religion they are following is no longer traditional Christianity, but one into which Judaism was injected, producing a radically altered hybrid.
We Hold These Truths’ Pharisee Watch was created as a think-tank to expose Judeo-Christianity’s apostasy. Project Strait Gate was created in 2003 to help correct Judeo-Christian leaders by confronting them in their members’ presence, usually by holding vigils outside churches to protest their use of the bible to support war.
Essential facts about Christian Zionism
First: It must be understood what Judeo-Christianity (also called “evangelicalism,” dispensationalism, or Christians Zionism) is: by any name, a 20th Century phenomena, an apostate-cult, meaning it practices, in part, a deviant path of following Christ, and it relies upon many varied human sources other than the traditional bible(s) for its theology. (4) (5)
Second: Judeo-Christianity ascribes holiness to a foreign political state, Israel, as though it was itself a god. It placed political Israel on the throne along side of Jesus Christ, and, in so doing, its teachers ignore, if not annul, much of Jesus’ teachings. (1)(2)(3)
Third: Rank and file churchgoers and many lesser known Judeo-Christian pastors think of themselves as moral, even when they are actively contributing to immoral acts, such as supporting mass military assassinations in Gaza and the West Bank. They do not consider these acts immoral because they believe events are ordained, or even demanded, by God. Anger against them is misplaced, because they, too, are victims of their own acts. They probably bring as much suffering upon themselves and their families as on any other middle class group. Because opposing any war that Israel favors is considered a-religious, it is quite likely that there are proportionately as many, Judeo-Christian boys and girls serving, and therefore killed in military combat, than for instance the sons of agnostics or other religious groups. We have yet to find any data to support or discredit this argument so it is offered strictly as this author’s observation and opinion.
Finally, Judeo-Christianity is much larger than generally believed and is active in every state and community in the USA. The new CNN.com is featuring from an upcoming, six-hour television event, “God’s Warriors,” hosted by CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour stated in the introductory segment: “A recent poll found that 59 percent of American evangelicals believe Israel is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. She also asserted: “The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates 85 million evangelicals believes God tells them to support Israel — more than six times the world’s Jewish population.” This author has confirmed that several Pew Foundation polls have been supporting this statement for more than four years, and if act suggest higher percentages than used by CNN. (6)
For these several reasons Judeo-Christianity can easily be used by its leader, and by the leaders of Israel, to carry out a political agenda that favors that foreign political state over and ahead of the interests of America, and ahead of the interest of any humans in the USA or any other country except Israel. For the most part followers of the cult do not know they are being used. Without this understanding many are confused between Judeo-Christian religion and its political agenda. Pro-Israel activists, including John Hagee, should rightly be registered as agents for a foreign government, so open are their objectives.
Some of our allies against serial wars attribute them to Israel itself, working through its agents and lobbies for the purpose of gaining US dollar support and creating chaos in the Middle East for its own benefit. Much more is finally being exposed about the powerful Israeli lobby led by The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) AIPAC has an agenda that calls for the USA to finance and bless its occupation of its neighbors and eventually control the oil of the Middle East and uses tactics that are contrary to American interests.
Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have written a powerful paper, The Israel Lobby, which tells us Israel has too much influence in US Foreign Policy. Their paper has led to a soon to be released and much anticipated book that is making giant waves across the world even before it is printed, as Israel seeks to prevent its promotion. *(8. Rapture ready video)
AIPAC and several sister organizations, including Unity Coalition for Israel, have enormous finances, lobbying and press power, but until now it has lacked a broad based voter network in the US. Christian Zionism gives the Israeli lobby people power making it virtually unstoppable on any issue. It becomes America’s “Shock and Awe.”
We Hold These Truths sees hope. Educating the laymen within our own churches, especially mainline churches, can break Israel’s power-hold over our politicians, and it can restore others to follow Christ instead of Israel. More important, we see no other way to do it!
Without the voting support of church going Americans, Israel’s well-established desire to see Iraq destroyed and its oil divided up resulted in the first gulf war in 1991 and the present contemplated devastation of Iran is only a precursor of things to come.
According to the Pew Foundations polls, as many as 40 million churchgoing voters are exposed to John Hagee and hundreds like him on Sunday. Many more, maybe 100 million, are influenced by Judeo-Christian network TV and big name national and international home Bible studies. Without the influence of Judeo-Christians, there would be no support for bombing Iran today; without it, 3700 Americans would not have been killed in Iraq, and the 200 Iraqis who died in just one day of its civil war. Without the Judeo-Christians, our Congress would not have allowed George W. Bush to breach the Bill of Rights with Homeland Security or with his aggressive executive orders; without the Judeo-Christian power bloc we wonder if there would have been an Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo.
AIPAC and many American businessmen have profit interests in war and campaigned for new wars as a matter of business, but it is the Judeo-Christians who have provided the grassroots clout to keep the War On Islam churning.*
The Dollar Cost of killing
The occupation of Iraq has paralyzed the oil production from the 2nd largest oil resource in the world. Before the occupation it did not cost $50 to fill the family car. Before the occupation Christian Zionist children and grandchildren could afford milk at a cost per gallon less than diesel fuel, and truck drivers could afford both milk and fuel. Before “wars” on Iraq, American industry was healthy and had not yet been shipped to China.
Our economic catastrophe is real, lead by the real estate and mortgage bubble. Why? Because the cost of the war is over $500 thousand million dollars, and most of the money has been printed, so it will have to be repaid in higher prices later on. This judgment is like a foul smelling vapor that cannot be put back in the bottle. I use the word “catastrophe” where others talk of “crisis” because crisis can sometimes be avoided and often leads to practical solutions. Not so with our “catastrophe.” We have passed the crisis stage years ago when we began serial wars for economic purposes, printing the money to pay for them.
This would be a great time for a Judeo-Christian financial “rapture;” instead we have a bailout by our benevolent Central Bank to save us. It tells us openly they have, in only one week, printed $63 billion to pay for bad loans made by mortgage lenders. Decades ago FED bail out gifts to big friends were kept as tight secrets to keep the public’s collective mind off “inflation,” but no more. Now we are told about it openly to convince us the Bankers who finance war are in control, and we can trust our retirement plan to Washington and Wall Street. There is no end to the amount of price inflation we can expect, food prices will surely be the next to skyrocket on our shopping list for reasons to be explained in our next issue.
Judeo-Christians as a group are most responsible because it is they that supported the wars for which all these dollars were wasted on killing people.
Christian Zionist leaders like Gary Bauer, John Hagee and Pat Robertson are not the only ones who believe the Christian Zionist vote controls the USA. Politician Tom Delay who was an ardent supporter of every war against Islam, recently was quoted as saying at John Hagee’s Night to Honor Israel in Washington DC, that he not only “believes in the Rapture, I live for it” Too bad Delay left the world in such a mess just before his anticipated departure.(8)
Israel lobby harness Judeo-Christianity
Every politician in Congress and those competing for the presidency know George W. Bush became president because he and Carl Rove found a way to identify Bush with the Christian Right, but to get this blessing one must also be Israel blessed. Even today 70% of Republicans support Bush and his war in Iraq because what is left of the Republican Party is predominantly Judeo-Christian.
Presidential candidates and congressmen alike know they need the Christian Right to be elected. Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton know this, and candidates who want Christian Zionist leaders to endorse them must go to Israel first and receive its stamp of approval from Israel’s reigning power, the Likud government. Hillary Clinton was in Israel to curtsey to the Likud leaders, as did Republican Rudi Giuliani. The Israeli press reported Rudi assured their Likud leaders that if he is the US President there will be no problem with Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s spokesman quoted him as promising there will be no Palestine state in his White House. Giuliani promises four more years of military aid for Israel, and four more years of occupation and starvation for the Philistines. Israel has ample reason to trust Giuliani so he will get its support.
Now, having earned Israel’s endorsement, Giuliani is all set to seek the smiling handshake and endorsement of American Christian Zionist leaders, which then give him access and a forum before 100 million Judeo-Christian US citizens and perhaps as many as 40 million voters. AIPAC is an enforcer to make sure the congressman follows through on his promises, but the votes come from the people who have been suckered into believing Judeo-Christianity is the same as following Christ.
Giuliani is openly in favor of abortion on demand and is tolerant of life practices that are traditionally mortal sins for Judeo-Christians, but that did not stop Pat Robertson from blessing him, “Giuliani will make a fine President,” stated Robertson. It remains to be seen how Hillary (she is pro-abortion on the record) will posture herself to be moderated and open minded about a Pro-life, Judeo-Christian image in order to capture enough Christian Right votes so she can win, as did her husband Bill in 1996.
The relationship between the Christian-Zionists leaders and AIPAC is simple and straightforward. AIPAC pressures Congressmen in Washington to give Israel what it wants; the Christian-Zionist celebrities brainwash the laymen in hometowns to pressure the Congressmen at the polls, and the Congressman takes a junket to Israel and complies. Congress is in the vice between the strongest lobby in Washington and the biggest lobbying voting block in the country. Why would they listen to you or me?
Christians are deceived by Zionism
Misguided Christians have been used to fight and support war from the 11th Century Crusades to Iraq. The names have changed but the message has not. A Pope who called himself Gregory VII is said to have told the bishop and earls who were to lead the First Crusaders it was up to them to rid the Holy Land of infidels so “Jesus could return there.” They passed this message on to the peasants who suffered and died for this false cause for the better part of 200 years. The result was the feudal system in Europe.
Judeo-Christianity, like Pope Gregory, teaches we all must honor Israel ahead of America, and even rebuild a temple there before Jesus will come. The story has hardly changed in a thousand years. Never mind the fact that Jesus did not seem to say anything like this. Gregory VII did not share his private economic dreams with the peasants, but he did tell the leaders of the Crusade that the purpose of holy wars was for the loot, and the Crusaders proved to be expert looters.
The leaders of the Christian Zionists, Hagee, Robertson, and a hundred more are the knights and barons at the head of the Crusades’ columns. Their loot comes in the mail and from credit card contributions from the peasant’s foot soldiers.
Human cost to the Judeo-Christian families
Church-going Americans are not only going in debt for war, they supply their sons and daughters to be killed and maimed in the contest. Celebrity Zionists beat the drums for war that Israel wants, but I have not heard of Hagee’s or Farwell’s son enlisting, or any of the congressmen’s children. The scorched foot soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan include a disproportionately large number of Judeo-Christians, who we believe, often enlist because mom and dad raised him in the Judeo-Christian church where volunteering is considered noble, even today after Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Their youths are taught that if we honor Israel we earn blessings for America from God. It is these young men who pay with shattered bodies and broken minds for the free junkets to Israel taken by a reported 80 Congressmen in August 2007.
“Where are you going, Young Fellow My Lad,
On this glittering morn of May?”
“I’m going to join the Colors, Dad,
They’re looking for men, they say.”
“But you’re only a boy, Young Fellow My Lad,
You aren’t obliged to go.”
“Well, I’m seventeen and a quarter, Dad,
And ever so strong, you know.”–Robert Service about 1918
Recently I was introduced to a sandy-haired, smiling 26-year old with a crushing handshake. But he walked haltingly on two steel legs and his hip joints are also man-made so terrible were his wounds in a rocket attack in Iraq. He talked of friends who have died. He was 17 when he enlisted and the army is all he knows, he would go back to his unit. It did not surprise me when this clean cut young American told me he is a Southern Baptist…every bit a gentleman, he looked and acted the part. He confided that his mother has recently become adamantly against the War (though he could not bring himself to engage in “political talk”). I know that this mother must be thinking… if only she had been pro-peace before her young son enlisted seven years ago.
We Hold These Truths has heard other stories from boys with a Judeo-Christian upbringing whose parents did not know they needed to guard their children from recruiters. We owe it to every Judeo-Christian to tell them about the cost of our serial wars against Islamic non-enemies. The giant Israeli Lobby does what it wants in its own interest…in Israel’s interest and they will not stop no matter what we do.
We must blame those who have influence, the Christ follower who mistakenly listens to the celebrity Christian leaders, and who are themselves victims. What has the Judeo-Christian movement given back to America? Is has sacrificed the value of loving your brother as yourself, as Jesus demanded…even loving your enemy. It has left in its place a legacy of hatred, war, violence, and diluted money, all in the name of Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament. This can and must be changed from inside these apostate churches and media sources.
We need to appeal to the sense of morality of Judeo-Christians. Its members are directly responsible for the three current crises in American culture, these being the War, inflation and the break down of morality that always accompanies war. They do it for only one reason; they are led into following an apostate Christianity that started only about 100 years ago, first legitimized by Cyrus I Scofield. (1)(5)
We concluder there could have been no Shock and Awe or war of occupation in Iraq were it not for the Christian Zionists’ zealous campaign to destroy Muslim nations. The now publicly acknowledged War on Islam is in fact already 17 years old. Project Strait Gate was started to challenge it in its very lair. Jesus and his disciples took their arguments to the temple and the synagogues. We are doing the same.
What is the matter, Young Fellow My Lad?
No letter again to-day.
Why did the postman look so sad,
And sigh as he turned away?
Well, I hear them tell that we’ve gained new ground,
But a terrible price we’ve paid:
God grant, my boy, that you’re safe and sound;
But oh I’m afraid, afraid.
War! War! War! By Robert W. Service, poet of the Alaskan gold rush, who served as an ambulance driver, but refused to enter combat in World War 1.
Reference Links:
(1) Scofield Reference Bible Audio Visual, Charles Carlson (http://www.whtt.org/show)
(2) One Nation Under Israel, Andrew J. Hurley, AIPAC power and Israel’s history (http://eshop.whtt.org/eshop.php?id=28)
(3) Forcing God’s Hand, Grace Halsell, describing authors Junket with Falwell to Israel (http://eshop.whtt.org/eshop.php?id=28)
(4) God’s Wrath On The Left Behind, Lisa Ruby, an evolution of the Left Behind Series (http://eshop.whtt.org/eshop.php?id=28)
(5) The Final Apostasy, by Gordon Ginn, Ph.D., a deeper look at the abuse of Scripture (http://eshop.whtt.org/eshop.php?id=28)
(6) Pew Foundation asks what White Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants and Catholics believe about Israel (Pew http://eshop.whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=1389)
(7) The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, http://eshop.whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=885
(8) Rapture Ready, Mike Blumenthal at CUFI DC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjMRgT5o-Ig
Read more Charles E Carlson at: We Hold These Truths
