Why Israel Still Shapes the Evangelical Soul

Times of Israel ^ | Dec 4, 2025 | Tim Orr

[CondoleezzaProtege]

The more I look at evangelical support for Israel today, the more I’m convinced it’s no longer driven mainly by doctrine…

A lot of evangelicals I spend time with talk about feeling unmoored in American life. Institutions they once trusted don’t feel as reliable. Moral assumptions they took for granted now feel contested every time they turn on the news. In that kind of atmosphere, people reach for something that seems steady. For many evangelicals, Israel has taken on that role.

It’s not just another nation-state; it’s proof—tangible, visible—that the biblical story they’ve staked their lives on still has real-world consequences.

A generation or two ago, many evangelicals would have cast America in that role: “God’s hand on the nation,” and all that. But as that narrative has weakened, Israel has stepped into the symbolic space America once filled.

Israel has become a kind of touchstone—something that reassures evangelicals that God is still acting, still faithful, still connected to history in ways they can see.

Historical memory deepens that instinct. Many older evangelicals grew up hearing stories about the Holocaust, the near-miraculous birth of the Israeli state in 1948, and its survival against overwhelming odds… And that story resonates with how many evangelicals feel now—culturally pressed, often misunderstood. Standing with Israel feels like standing with a fellow survivor. It’s as much about memory and identity as theology.

When the Trump administration moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, the excitement among evangelicals wasn’t really about foreign policy. It felt more like a public affirmation: Your convictions still matter. Your reading of the Bible still carries weight. In that sense, the embassy move functioned like a kind of civic liturgy.

But underneath that, generational cracks are widening… Younger evangelicals don’t automatically absorb the old narrative…

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Not America first.

Not Israel first.

JESUS first.

🩵

[ealgeone]

The promise to Abraham is still in place.

Israel matters in OT prophecy...not all of which has been fulfilled yet.

[Uncle Miltie]

Israel has no better allies than Conservative Christian Americans.

It makes the minority of leftist Israelis politically uncomfortable but appreciative. It makes the conservative and orthodox Israelis religiously uncomfortable, but appreciative.

I have never heard anything but unadulterated appreciation by Israelis for whatever support they get from us.

They do all also recognize it is a fragile and potentially contingent gift, so they tend to be seeking independence. It sucked when Biden was basically calling in lists of sites that could not be struck, giving hamass inviolable redoubts. Financial and military supply independence is a definite goal, so they can do what needs doing without a second guesser in Washington.

[Svartalfiar]

The promise to Abraham is still in place.
Israel matters in OT prophecy...not all of which has been fulfilled yet.

And why would that promise still be attached to Israel?

[ealgeone]

It’s tied to the land.

[sauropod]

.

[af_vet_1981]

And why would that promise still be attached to Israel?

Because the LORD God of Israel promised in His eternal love for Israel.

Jeremiah 31:

[31] Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
[32] Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
[33] But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
[34] And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
[35] Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:
[36] If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
[37] Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.

Matthew 5:18
[18] For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Matthew 24:
[34] Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
[35] Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
[36] But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
[37] But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

[af_vet_1981]

It’s tied to the land.

Yes, the people and the land are bound up together according to the Word of the LORD.

Genesis 35:
[9] And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padan-aram, and blessed him.
[10] And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel.
[11] And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;
[12] And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.


Acts 2:
[36] Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
[37] Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
[38] Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
[39] For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.