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The Waxing and Waning of Christian Zionism
First Things ^ | Aug 2025 | Dale M. Coulter

Posted on 10/08/2025 12:33:51 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege

From the publication of Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth (1970) to the end of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’s Left Behind series (2007), premillennial dispensationalism promoted Christian Zionism steadily until it peaked under the presidency of George W. Bush. As the final volumes of the Left Behind series appeared, the Pentecostal pastor John Hagee formed Christians United for Israel (CUFI). With over 10 million members, CUFI is currently the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States. Even with Christian Zionist organizations like CUFI, the movement has waned as increasing numbers of evangelical younger Millennials and Gen Zers withdraw support for Israel.

Just last year, Motti Inbari and Kirill Bumin analyzed the results of three surveys conducted from 2018 to 2021 in their book Christian Zionism in the Twenty-First Century. They recorded a clear downward trend in support for Israel among eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds and a widening gap with older evangelicals. Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution noted a similar trend among evangelicals below thirty-five in two surveys conducted between 2015 and 2018 through the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll.

An important factor contributing to less support among young evangelicals was a shift away from premillennialism toward amillennialism and postmillennialism.

Premillennialism holds that Jesus will return to earth to initiate his thousand-year reign and that God has not abrogated the covenant with Abraham, meaning Israel continues to have a role in God’s redemptive plan. Amillennialism holds that we are already in the messianic age. Jesus will return at its end, and the church is the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Israel. Postmillennialism asserts that the church will establish a reign of peace through the gradual progress of the gospel, at the end of which Jesus will return…

(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...


TOPICS: History; Theology
KEYWORDS: dispensationalism; endtimes; eschatology; israel; zion; zionism
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1 posted on 10/08/2025 12:33:51 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: CondoleezzaProtege
I seriously doubt that those who cannot see God’s plan in the regathering of the Jewish Nation are even saved. They don’t believe God’s Word. There’s always hope that the truth will set them free…

John 4:22 …for salvation is of the Jews. (Jesus Christ)

Romans 11: 24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? 25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. 26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

2 posted on 10/08/2025 12:42:19 PM PDT by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

To me, this appears as the influence billions of dollars of muslim oil money has had on American universities.


3 posted on 10/08/2025 12:43:38 PM PDT by marktwain
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

well thanks. at least i have a more exact idea of what these terms mean, assuming the people who use them agree that that is what they mean. in terms of these people, i’ve never heard of them.

the basic wrong assumptions (reading the Bible as an engineer), i think i see from people here and elsewhere are:

1. merging the plans God has for Israel and the Church before the second coming, which is a hard fact in the Bible.

2. putting Abram/Abraham as the ethnic/genetic father of only Jews. he, according to Paul, is also the spiritual father of all the faith believer gentiles as well.


4 posted on 10/08/2025 12:56:46 PM PDT by dadfly
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

There are people looking for an excuse to support Hamas.


5 posted on 10/08/2025 1:01:35 PM PDT by marron
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To: Jan_Sobieski

“I seriously doubt that those who cannot see God’s plan in the regathering of the Jewish Nation are even saved.” They don’t believe God’s Word.”

The regathering of the Jewish nation in the Old Testament prophecies occurs at the time when God’s government rules and there is peace, and when the two sticks symbolizing the Israel and Judah are once again united.

“not even saved”???

Did you know that the Jewish nation by law rejects the divinity of Jesus? They even go so far that when the news of the day is given, the date of the Jewish calendar is given first, and all legal documents use the Jewish calendar.

So I am not saved unless I embrace without any qualifications a nation and a people who reject Jesus?

In truth, they are just like us. They need the saving grace of Jesus. There are no exceptions based on DNA. The Jews in Israel are just as rock-ribbed anti-Christian as ever. There are no unbelievers in the Kingdom of God.


6 posted on 10/08/2025 1:06:48 PM PDT by odawg
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To: marron

Most Christians I know have no interest in foreign entanglements. They see the Middle East as a wretched place dominated by one group that calls us “infidels” and another group that calls us “goyim.” To be frank, they stopped giving a flying leap about these conflicts.


7 posted on 10/08/2025 1:06:56 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Nobody sits a horse like Monte Walsh.")
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To: odawg
Of course, God regathered Israel in these last days so they receive their Jewish King, Christ Jesus, like us. If you cannot see that, i doubt you are a true bible believing Christian…

ZECHARIAH 12:10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son

There are lots of fake Christians btw… (e.g. LGBT Christians, Televangelist Christians, Red Words only Christians, no Old Testament Christians, Chrislam Christians, etc.)
8 posted on 10/08/2025 1:14:38 PM PDT by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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To: Jan_Sobieski

Israel is a secular nation, not remotely close to the Israel of the bible. In fact, many Arabs are descended from the Israel of the bible. The Romans scattered them to the wind.


9 posted on 10/08/2025 1:31:28 PM PDT by Codeflier (Don't worry....be happy)
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To: Codeflier

Wrong. That is not a fact

“In fact, many Arabs are descended from the Israel of the bible. The Romans scattered them to the wind.”


10 posted on 10/08/2025 1:38:38 PM PDT by Dartoid
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To: Codeflier

Yes…just like Jesus predicted, and Paul confirmed. The rest of the story is that all throughout the Old Testament God said that he would bring the Jews back to their land from the four corners of the Earth and set up his millennial kingdom. Gentiles who believe get to share in this. Gentiles who do not believe do not get to participate in this.


11 posted on 10/08/2025 1:45:04 PM PDT by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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To: Codeflier

The Romans scattered them to the wind.

/

And God brought them back.

Amos 9:14 - And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.

Amos 9:15 - And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.

/

Are those verses in YOUR Bible ?

😎


12 posted on 10/08/2025 2:21:33 PM PDT by cuz1961
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To: cuz1961

Amos prophesied before the destruction of Israel and the captivity of Judah. He was referring to the restoration after those events. Israel was not restored after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem.

The Babylonian captivity only lasted 70 years. The modern secular state of Israel is not faithful to the law in any sense of the word, nor will it ever be.


13 posted on 10/08/2025 2:49:16 PM PDT by hopespringseternal
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To: hopespringseternal

You defeated your own argument

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

they were restored in 1948 and have never since been uprooted

Amos 9 14-15 isnt in YOUR Bible I guess.


14 posted on 10/08/2025 3:13:46 PM PDT by cuz1961
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To: hopespringseternal

Go ahead, call God a liar.

See what that gets you .


15 posted on 10/08/2025 3:15:13 PM PDT by cuz1961
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To: hopespringseternal

” Israel was not restored after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem.”

Amos 9:14,15

Makes either you or God a liar

( Hint , God doesn’t lie /-)

Sorry, that leaves just you.

😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣😂


16 posted on 10/08/2025 3:18:17 PM PDT by cuz1961
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To: cuz1961

Show me how that passage is referring to 1948 rather than the restoration following the Babylonian captivity.

Its absurd to ignore its obvious fulfillment 250 years later for an extremely sketchy fulfillment 2500 years later that serves no theological purpose.


17 posted on 10/08/2025 3:22:18 PM PDT by hopespringseternal
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To: hopespringseternal

Show me how

” Will never be uprooted again”

means uprooted again.

😀😃😄😁😆😅😂🤣🤣🤣

Dude, quit digging, mmmkay ?

( It’s embarrassing )

I ALMOST feel sorry for you .

,,,,almost .

😁


18 posted on 10/08/2025 3:26:26 PM PDT by cuz1961
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Trailing, trailing, tril8n. You screenam3 is a war criminal also.


19 posted on 10/08/2025 3:54:51 PM PDT by cowboyusa ( YESHUA IS KING OF AMEbRICA AND HE WILL HAV mE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE HIM!)
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To: dadfly

See post 2.


20 posted on 10/08/2025 3:56:01 PM PDT by cowboyusa ( YESHUA IS KING OF AMEbRICA AND HE WILL HAV mE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE HIM!)
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