Origins of Christian Zionism, How It Corrupted American Christianity and Why It’s Finally Collapsing

0:04 JD Hall, thank you for joining us. I think you're one of the clearest writers on the internet. So, it's an honor to have you here. Um, I've been trying to figure out for several years, you write on theology on Substack >> and other places. And very clearly, I just want to say clarity being the goal of expository writing, you you achieve that, >> right? >> Few do. I've been trying for the last several years to figure out what Christian Zionism is. Not because I have an inherent interest, but because it's affected the shape of the world and a lot of people have died because of it and it has real world consequences that we can we're living through right now. >> What is Christian Zionism? Where does it come from? Is it Christian? What's your assessment? >> Well, if you listen to people online, every Christian is a Zionist just

0:50 naturally, right? Yes. So the proponents of it will tell you that it is the de facto position on Israel and it always has been for Christians uh to believe in the establishment and support and protection of a Jewish ethnostate. >> Yes. >> Uh in Palestine um Christian Zionism >> what said doesn't it say in the Bible that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who don't will be cursed? >> Yeah. And I'm I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you've had probably about a thousand different people tell you that that's something that we hear every single day as Christians. >> I couldn't find it. I got my concordance out. I couldn't find it. >> Well, I remember the interview with Huckabe and he couldn't find it either, which is weird when you cite it all the

1:36 time. Or actually, that was Ted Cruz that couldn't remember where it was. I don't I'm not sure that Ted even knew like if it was in the front of the Bible or in in the back of the Bible. >> I have no idea. Um but yeah, so Genesis 12:3 says, "I will bless those that bless thee and curse those that curse thee." And from that, and I'm simplifying it, but from that comes this more philosophical notion than theological, that we as Christians have a dutybound obligation to protect and to defend and also to help establish a nation for the Jewish people in Palestine. And it hasn't always been Palestine, you know. So when um

2:21 political Zionism first developed, they had posited Morocco and Galveastston, Texas, Ohio, Siberia, different places. >> Galveistston, Texas. >> Yeah. There was a substantial number of Jews there. And they thought this could be sort of the safe space for, you know, Judaism worldwide, which made sense because, you know, the United States has always been a pretty hospitable place for Jews. But anyways, um, so far as it it concerns Christian Zionism, that is tied to a theology called dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is a theology invented by John Nelson Derby. >> What does the word mean dispensationalism? Well, the term refers

3:07 to different dispensations of time by which God operates differently and deals or interacts with man differently depending upon what dispensation of time it's in. Huh. >> So, dispensationalism is juxtaposed against covenant theology. And those are your two basic viewpoints uh of Christians throughout the history of Christianity. And for the most part, there's only those two perspectives. Um, and you can get lost into the weeds really easily. >> Yes. >> So, John Nelson Derby, he belonged to a bizarre Irish sect. It was sectarian. Uh, they had basically uh schismed their

3:52 way outside of the established church. They had several different theological hang-ups. One is that they rejected all forms of church authority. They were what I would call sectarian minimalists. So they reject the organized church. They rejected uh the established church. And part of the reason is because their beliefs were so eccentric and weird. They would have been excommunicated had they remained in the established church. So um after moving from Ireland to Plymouth, England, the the notion of dispensationalism grew. And essentially the the difference between dispensationalism and covenant

4:38 theology is that God in covenant theology is interacting with man in accordance to the old or the new covenant. And so the bulk of the church from uh the first days of the apostles through the church fathers through the protestant reformation whether we're talking Catholics or Eastern Orthodox or Protestant reformers. All of them are what you'd call covenantal in their theology. So you said um and I'm sorry to be pedantic. I was trying to understand this cuz I really think it matters and you understand it better than anyone I've ever talked to. >> The premise is that God's promises change according to the time,

5:26 according to the dispensation, the era, the epoch. >> So, dispensationalism can be complicated. Um, classical dispensationalism separates the epochs of time into seven different eras. It can definitely be complicated. There's something that's called leaky dispensationalism, which is a little bit less structured, >> but essentially the big difference is this. Covenant theologians have always believed that God saves people via covenant. And there was an old covenant. That's what testament means, by the way, not testimony. It's it's the old covenant. And then there is the new covenant that has been established. and that Jesus came and inaugurated a new

6:13 covenant. Yes. And he did that at Passover right before he was crucified. The last supper, which was the last Passover supper, the last authentic Passover supper was also the first Lord's supper. It's the first communion or Eucharist. >> Yes. And Jesus says, "This is my new covenant or this is the new covenant in my blood that's poured out for many." And so in the new covenant, Jesus Christ is the means by which um God's people are saved. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um in the old covenant, the covenant people of God were Israel. >> Yes. And God being very gracious gave

6:58 Israel rights and rituals for them to see as an explanation, a word picture of who their Messiah would be. So that when their Messiah came, they would say obviously that's what this is about. The Passover is a good example. >> They recognize the Messiah. >> They would recognize the Messiah. In fact, it would be hard for them not to recognize that Jesus was the Messiah. He's crucified at Passover. >> Um, he is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. I mean, all the imagery is right there for the Jewish people to see. >> Yes. >> That this is the moment that we've been waiting for. Jesus installs the new

7:44 covenant in his blood. And by that by uh God's grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone we are redeemed by faith in that and then we become God's chosen people. And so a covenant theologian is going to tell someone that quotes Genesis 12:3, I will bless those that bless thee and curse those that curse thee. uh a Christian a covenant theologian is going to quote to you Galatians chapter 3 which is a book of the the New Testament in which the apostle Paul is writing to the church in Galatia and he tells them that if you have faith in Jesus you are God's

8:31 children you're actually he says you are the children of Abraham it says it twice so by faith we're adopted into God's covenant people. And then at the very end of Galatians chapter chapter 3, not only does it tell us that we are um the children of Abraham, those who believe, but also we are the heirs of the promises. And so in fact in in Galatians 3:7, the Apostle Paul very clearly explains that that promise is not for the Jews. It never was for the Jews. the picture was or rather the the the mission of God was much bigger. >> And that's clear in the Old Testament,

9:16 isn't it? >> Right. It's it's Old Testament. Um and God is preaching through the rights and rituals of the Old Testament, the gospel before Jesus came. Yes. >> All right. so that they could understand concepts like grace and judgment and forgiveness and repentance because it was never about the sacrifice of bulls and goats. It's not as though that bloodshed ever took away sin. It gave them a picture of the bloodshed that Jesus Christ would one day give for us so that they could believe in what we call types and shadows. putting their faith in the the rituals that would one

10:05 day be lived out in reality through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. And the the greatest, you know, the great mystery of the gospel, Paul calls it, is that Jesus was not just a Jewish Messiah. He was a global Messiah. He was everyone's Messiah. And that by faith, we become the children of Abraham. And by faith we receive Abraham's promises. Um I was going to say a second ago the very first part of Galatians chapter 3 he says you know when the promise is given to Abraham and to Abraham's seed Paul says it doesn't say seeds plural. It says seed singular. The promise is not given to the Jews. The promise is a

10:53 reference to Abraham's seed. That's Jesus Christ because Jesus was of the lineage of Abraham. >> So the promise is not bless the Jews and God will bless you. The promise is bless Christ and God will bless you. Furthermore, not only is that promise just for Christ, but by the end of the chapter in Galatians 3, the Apostle Paul says, "You are the heirs of the promise." Meaning that promise is extended to us. And so the irony is you have these so-called Christian Zionists who believe that we have to bless Jews in order for God to bless us. And they're actually giving away their own inheritance. That's our promise. I'm a

11:38 child of Abraham. If you're a Christian, you're a child of Abraham. We receive the heir or rather we we receive the promises of Abraham because we inherit them by the virtue of of adoption in Jesus Christ. That's what Christians have historically believed. Um and there are other supporting texts. You know, you got Romans chapter 9 where the Apostle Paul says that Jews who do not believe in Jesus are not children of Abraham. Um, you you've got Romans chap 11 that paints the picture of uh the tree of faith in which unbelieving Jews are branches on this tree that have been cut off and severed from both Abraham

12:27 and God and in their place are grafted in believing Gentiles. And so we, you know, are brought into the family of Abraham and in covenant with God by virtue of faith. So when someone like Mike Huckabe or Ted Cruz or any other politician or preacher preaches a message that, you know, if you want God to bless you, you need to do X, Y, or Z for the Jews. They're handing away or handing out Christian promises. Those are for us. We have those in Jesus. We are the children of Abraham. Cost of living is already making it hard to live here and it's not getting any better. Unfortunately, it's

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13:59 So, debt is tough, but there's a smart way to do it and a reckless, self-destructive way to do it, credit cards. And so, we recommend American Financing. They're salary based, not commissionbased, which means they actually work for you, not the banks. They're called America's Home for Home Loans for a reason. Call 800685-5696. 800685-5696 or visit americanfinancing.net/ducker. it doesn't make inherent sense the theology that you're describing dispensationalism um and also before I ask you about how it spread and why is it true or product of my bad memory that there are glimpses in the Old Testament that God plans to

14:46 redeem the entire world that it's not that God's mission on earth is not just to protect this one group of people but everybody >> right so uh what dispensationalists will do is they will look at verses in the Bible about the end times. We call that esquetology. They'll look at these esqueological texts about what God will do with ethnic Jews, the children of Abraham physically, and they'll say, "See, you know, the the Jews are special to God in a way that other ethnicities are, you know, are not." And it's unfortunate because three different times in the New Testament, the scripture says God is not a respector of persons. And each and every time it's a reference to the Jewish people, but they have in their head, Jews are special.

15:33 They look at a verse about what God is going to do one day in the escaton or in the end days for Jews and walk away from that saying, therefore, we need to support the nation state of Israel. This must be a part of that grand plan that God has designed for the Jewish people. But Isaiah chapter 19, just to give you an example, tells us that uh the Egyptians and the Assyrians will be redeemed by God in the end days and be brought to Zion to Jerusalem or to to the promised land. It calls Egypt God's special people and says of Assyria that they are the work of his hands. These are two nations that are adversarial to

16:18 the ancient Israelites. >> Well, enslave them in one case, >> right? And the Assyrians, you know, are constantly warfaring with them. These are bitter enemies. And yet, the prophet Isaiah says that they will become special to God. He will call them his own and draw them to Zion. >> That's in the Torah. Yeah, that's in the Torah. Um, it's in Isaiah uh chapter 19. But that's not the only place. There are literally dozens of different scriptures throughout the text that tells us that every nation group in the end is going to be drawn to God through Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, it's in the Abrahamic promise in Genesis 12, verse 4 of that promise, right after it says,

17:04 "I'll bless those that bless thee and curse those that curse thee." Um it says every family of the earth will be blessed through Abraham. And so the Jews will tell you that it's because you know Israel is such a grand wonderful place that all the different nations of the world are being blessed you know by by Israel. Unfortunately the dispensationalists will tell you that too. I say unfortunately because that's clearly a reference of Christ. Through Jesus Christ, God's saving love to sinners all around the world. Every people group, every nation, every ethnos um is going to be drawn to God in the

17:50 end. That's our hope as Christians, that God wins, that salvation is secure ultimately for every nation under the sun. that God will bring unto himself one chosen nation, one holy people for God's possession. And so, yes, we can see places in the Bible where God has future plans for Israel. But we can also look to those very same prophets in those very same books and see that God has great things in store for Persia, for Iran. God has great things in store um you know for Greece and and for every every nation including by the way the ancient Philistines who are modern-day Palestinians. God has plans

18:36 in store for everyone. That is the good news of the gospel that Jesus shed his blood for sinners and that by faith we can all become the children of God and by virtue of that children of Abraham. When I was a kid in church there was a song that we sang father Abraham and it says father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you. So let's just praise the Lord. probably raised Episcopalian that one skipped. Yeah. Church >> not not not in our >> in low church evangelicalism. That song is probably sung in every, you know, Baptist and and evangelical church. It's a song of covenant theology. By faith,

19:24 Christians become the children of Abraham. And if a if a Jewish person does not believe in their own Messiah, they're not the children of Abraham. That's what Romans chapter nine teaches that not all who are of Abraham are really of Abraham. I mean bigger picture it feels like the story of Christianity is a universe. It's a universal promise to to all people. >> Sure. >> And it's dispensationalism seems like it reduces Christianity back to its preJesus state state where no this is a promise just to one group. one genetic line. >> Yeah, I would say at its heart dispensationalism

20:10 is a Jewish interpretive model. Uh as a matter of fact, they will actually take that as a point of bragging that we interpret the scripture the way the Jews interpret the scripture. Well, the Jews miss Jesus like he came in the flesh. He he was there. They saw him. As a matter of fact, they saw him dead, buried, and resurrected and still didn't believe. So maybe that's not who we should be taking pointers from in terms of understanding biblical prophecy. >> What's Jesus's role in dispensationalist theology? >> Well, Jesus's role in dispensational uh theology is uh so it depends to whom. So

20:56 John Nelson Darby, the inventor of dispensationalism, referred to the church, the Christian church as a parenthesis. That God's main plan is Israel. But because they've been naughty and disobedient, the church comes in and we're a parenthesis. So instead of being like the bride of Christ, the church is more like a summer fling that this is where the rapture comes in that eventually God will rapture us, take us out, we're gone completely, and then Israel can resume its role as the big picture. It's a very Jewish way of looking at the scripture where Jews and Judaism and Jewish people

21:42 is always at the center of the scripture as opposed to Jesus being at the the center of the scripture. So esqueologically in terms of the end times there are different ways that Christians have looked at it throughout history. There's amillennialism, and I'm not going to bother explaining these, but postmillennialism, premillennialism, um, historic premillennialism, that is, they all agree though that God only has one chosen people, and that's those who believe in Jesus, whether they're Jewish, whether they're Gentile, it doesn't matter. We're all the children of God if we believe. dispensationalism is different from all of those different ways that Christians can view the end

22:29 times because dispensationalism is saying, well, really God's main love is the Jewish people. And for a time in a so-called church age, in this dispensation of time, um, yeah, the church is here, but one day we're going to be sucked out of here. we're going to beam up to heaven and then Israel will come back and form the center of the show. And so from my perspective and the perspective of historic Christianity, it's not only an insult to the church to act like we're some kind of summer fleeing for Jesus and that, you know, it's really about

23:14 Israel. I think it's also disrespectful to Christ because he didn't come to be like a a tribal deity of some desert war cult in the Middle East. He came to be the Messiah and the savior of the world. They emphasize Jesus's Jewish messiahship all the time. Matter of fact, you'll hear Jews who deny that Jesus is the son of God. I don't even mean Messianic Jews, just Jews that, you know, believe the typical teaching in the Talmud about Jesus being punished in hell, all of that stuff. But they will, when speaking to Christians, point out, well, you know, that your Messiah is Jewish. Jesus obviously was a physical descendant of Abraham. There's no

24:01 argument there. But the term that Jesus used for himself more than 70 times was son of man. Jesus did not emphasize his own Jewishness. Jesus came as a savior of mankind and so he called himself son of man which was a term from the prophet Isaiah. And so it not only reduces the big picture of Christianity to um something that is much much smaller. It reduces Jesus from a global Messiah to well, he's a Jewish Messiah that they loan us for a while. >> You know what's really rare these days? A company that makes things in America. Not just designed in America, conceived in America, assembled in America, but

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26:20 the Samaritan woman, etc., etc. Like he's always picking non people from outside the tribe, >> right? You know, it's interesting that people ask the question sometimes like who killed Jesus and it's a big debate online. Every couple weeks a new fight breaks out on X um where dispensationalists and covenant theologians are fighting about who killed Jesus. And of course, it's there's an obvious answer, right? Like the Jews killed Jesus. We know that because at least eight times in scripture, I mean that the scripture explicitly says that the first sermon ever preached was the apostle Peter that started by saying men of Israel and a few lines later he says this Jesus Christ whom ye crucified. So the

27:06 Pharisees plotted to kill Jesus. If you remember in John chapter 4, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. They see it. They recognize that he's the Messiah. The Sanhedrin, which is the ruling council, comes together and they immediately plot to kill Jesus. Like they knew they >> and Lazarus later. >> Well, it it was Yeah, it was an ancient cover up operation. Basically, >> they're going to kill the guy again, >> right? So, and Jesus looks to the Pharisees and he says, "You're plotting to kill me. This is what you're trying to do." So the question would be why does the Bible seem to blame Jews for the death of Jesus? Obviously they're involved, but it was technically the Romans that,

27:53 you know, nailed him to the cross. It was the Romans who who killed him. And the answer is, and well, Jesus himself, by the way, I should say while he's on the cross says, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." And he's speaking of the Romans, not the Jews. He's talking about those who were actually doing that the crucifixion. If you think about what transpired after before the the crucifixion was done, the centurion recognizes that Jesus is the son of God. Um Pilate very clearly was remorseful by the time he was done handing Jesus over to be crucified. But within a few decades, you had mass

28:40 conversions of the Roman people and all throughout the Roman Empire to Christianity. And by the 3 century, you had the full Christianization of Rome. That doesn't mean that every Roman on earth was therefore a Christian by the virtue of being born in a Christian empire. We all have to have faith, personal faith in Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. That's how we're justified before God. But you have the Roman people recognizing who Jesus is very quickly. The Jews who saw Jesus dead, buried, and resurrected, many of them followed after him, but many of them persisted to

29:27 persecute him. And then within a very short time, they're stoning Stephen to death. Stephen, as he's being crucified, points out to the Jews, you've always killed God's prophets and you've killed Christ. And so the reason why I think the the scripture isn't throwing the Romans under the bus, so to speak, even though they obviously had a hand in Jesus's crucifixion, is because they saw ultimately who it was that they crucified and then they repented and they believed. And the Jewish people, those who did not convert and follow Christ, ended up having to make a new religion in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed the

30:16 temple because all of those rights and rituals that we discussed, you know, that God had given the Jewish people for them to see and understand who Jesus was, the festival of booths, Passover, um all of those various rituals and the different kinds of sacrifices. All required a temple. >> Yes. >> And it required an altar. It required blood. It required a priesthood to make that sacrifice. Those no longer existed after 70 AD. And so over the course of hundreds of years, you know, the the sect of the Pharisees that grew into modern Judaism had to essentially invent a Judaism

31:02 that is not what you see in the pages of the Old Testament. They renamed some feasts, right? Like they still call it Passover, but it's not. It doesn't resemble the Passover of the Old Testament. It's a completely new disparit religion. And that's why you have uh a a desire among Christians throughout the last 2,000 years praying for the salvation of the Jewish people. To be very clear, the Christian or covenantal theologian uh message is not that Jews are totally cut off from God and that they cannot be saved and that God hates them or anything like that, but it's that congratulations, you're ethnically Jewish. That's great. God doesn't care. Like every other group of

31:49 people on the face of the planet, you need to repent of your sins and believe the gospel. That's the Christian message. John Nelson Derby comes along and the message towards the Jewish people begins to change and begins to evolve and suddenly it's instead of you need to repent of your sins and believe the gospel, it's you're you're special. You're special to God. God's going to bless you regardless of whether or not you have faith in Jesus just because you're Jewish. And you know that's partiality. The scripture act the scripture actually forbids that type of partiality. Um it's unfortunate that Christians believe that's historic Christianity because it isn't. Christians ought to be safe in the Holy Land of all places, but they are not.

32:36 Keep in mind, these are the descendants of the first converts, the first people who followed Jesus. People whose families have worshiped in the land Jesus walked for centuries, for thousands of years. And these same people are now facing enormous pressure to leave, fleeing their homes amid war and anti-Christian terrorism. Untold numbers of innocents are lost and without hope, fellow Christians. But how do you support them? There are groups out there who claim to support them whose real agenda is to move them out of their actual homeland. We think that's wrong. We think that's evil, in fact. And so, we've looked far and wide to find a group that is actually supporting Christians in the Middle East. And we found one. It's called the Vulnerable People Project, VPP. It's one of the

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34:07 helps sustain that protection throughout the month. So, visit save westbankchristians.com and stand with Christians in the land where Christianity began. That's save westbankchristians.com. We are proud to partner with them. Thank you. What was Darby's motive? Was it sincere? >> I do think that Darby was sincere. I've studied Darby a lot. I think he was sincerely wrong. Yes. >> But I believe that he was sincere. Who wasn't sincere? Were the advocates of dispensationalism that saw its political value in the century that followed. because Darby remained ostracized for a hundred

34:52 years um or about 90 or so. So you you've got Charles Spurgeon for example at the London Metropolitan Tabernacle in London couldn't stand Derby and he called you know called the theology new um called it novel and the typical theological belief and it's a good one is that that which is new is not true that which is true is not new. So if it's new and novel, like God isn't coming up with new theology, right? There aren't if someone invents a new doctrine, it's automatically wrong. Yes. >> Because God's already established his church. It's like Jesus and the disciples would have told us about this. Yes. So it was rejected by almost

35:38 everyone because it was so novel and so new. Um, then we have Scofield that hits the scene in 1907 and he's a bit of a scoundrel. Like I don't want to bash a dead person, but he was not what you would call um a shining example of what a Christian should be. You know, he abandoned his family, for example. He's basically uh >> we know that he abandoned his family. >> Yeah. His wife and kids. Gee. >> Yeah. So, um, he shows up in New York. From New York, he goes to the UK. He winds up at Oxford, which is the hotbed of political Zionism.

36:25 They print and publish a Bible. It, we call it Scofield's Bible. It's not Scofield's Bible. It never was Scofield's Bible. He never owned the Bible. Uh, it's Oxford's Bible. He was the theologian allegedly uh whose notes in the margins of the Bible um propagated the theology of John Nelson Darby. And that took off like, you know, wildfire in the United States. And it's because in low church evangelicalism, uh most clergy at the time and even to this day are not classically trained in seminary. Um, back then, you know, especially before the age of the

37:10 internet and with the cost of publishing, the typical pastor in a Baptist or congregationalist congregation would own a Bible and that would be about it. They didn't go home to prepare their sermon with a collection of uh commentaries or uh a Bible concordance or a lexicon. All they had was a Bible, but if they could get their hands on the Scofields edition, they would have all of the study notes that they could read and learn and educate themsel. And you know, they were smart enough to know that the margins is not the same as inspired writ. that became the de facto home education

37:58 for a lot of clergy within a single generation among lowurch evangelical Protestantism. Dispensationalism became the majority view because it's a nice handy resource that you read right there in the in the pages of the Bible. And a lot a lot of uneducated Christians during the era were actually not smart enough or educated enough I should say to discern the difference between the inspired rit that was given by God the Holy Spirit written through the hands of men inspired by God the Holy Ghost and the marginal notes in which this effectively schismatic cult in Ireland and then

38:43 England um has their theology on the side of the pages. And so they would look at that, not see the difference, and all of a sudden, well, if you fast forward to today, people believe that that's the view that the church has always held. So Darby comes up with this, as you said, novel theology, cultish theology, non non non-traditional Christian theology, but it's disseminated effectively by this guy Scoffield, the family abandoner. Scoffield's names on it. >> Name's on it. >> Yeah. >> What was his motive? >> Do we know? >> I don't think that Scofield's motive is sinister either. Uh I don't mean to throw him under the bus like he's a bad guy or a villain. I do think it was

39:30 weird that he didn't think to himself, okay, so I'm a relative nobody. Why am I Why are strangers paying to sail me across the ocean to meet with people I don't know at Oxford? >> Oh, strangers did pay his way across to do that. >> There's nothing in Scofield's life that would suggest that he would have had the funds to pay for that himself. There's a couple things there that don't make a lot of sense, including the the club that he was a part of in New York, uh, with a, you know, dues that it would not be reasonable to presume someone of Scoffield's lack of employment would be able to afford. So, yeah, he goes across the ocean and he meets with high

40:16 society. It's Oxford, right? and they discussed putting this Bible into print and it was the first Bible of its kind in which in which the marginal notes are going to have um you know theological content. So a built-in study >> of that kind. Yeah. It's a it's a built-in study Bible which was totally new. So if you couldn't go to seminary, hey, it's okay. Just buy Scofield's Bible and believe what's within his pages. So it sounds like you're suggesting that he was himself knowingly or not kind of an op. >> I think he was a pathy. Yeah. I think that the Zionists in the UK, the political scientists Zionists got wind of what the Plymouth Brethren were

41:03 teaching. That's Darby's bunch. and they thought, well, at the same time you've got Theodore Herzel who is trying to get Europe to buy into the Zionist project and this esquetology is growing over here which could be helpful to their cause and yeah they disseminated the Bible that Scofield's Bible I think for clearly political reasons. So this came from the UK. Zionism as an idea really kind of gathered steam first in the UK in England. Why? Any idea?

41:50 >> I don't know why specifically Zionism uh religious Zionism took off in England organically. I mean, that's where the Plymouth Brethren moved to, so that would make sense. But I would point out that the same institution that printed the Scoffield Bible is the same institution um that published the Balffor Declaration within within a year. Yeah. >> So, it's practically the same people. So within a year of the Balffor Balffor declaration, you have this, hey, coincidentally, really great new theology that helps to support back up the political ambition

42:38 of the Zionists. I had no idea. That's amaz That's amazing. So then it comes United States where it really takes root. Um, and that's about when this is pre- First World War that this hits the US. >> Yeah. So it would have been uh what was it 1907 I think Scoffield was published and so yeah it came to the United States very quickly and it it just grew like wildfire because you've got Baptists Methodists congregationalists um you have the Isuza street revival which is just starting to kick off um charismaticism. So anybody in that >> in in those circles they're probably not going to a seminary. They're not mainstream Protestant that would have had the brickandmortar seminaries, you

43:24 know, your your Presbyterians, your Episcopalians and so forth. And so, you know, good for them. They got to avoid most of the dispensationalism problem uh for quite a long time. But now today, there's they they're ate up with u dispensationalism. But it's it's really not theological for the mainstream uh Protestants. It's just it's soaked in through culture through various channels, but it didn't come through the sim their seminaries and Bible colleges. As a matter of fact, um Presbyterians, for example, they are the arch covenant theologians. Um their doctrine should be hostile to

44:09 dispensationalism. But you'll still find a lot of protest, excuse me, Presbyterians who will tell you that Jews are God's chosen people just because they at this point we're receiving this through osmosis. As Christians, yes, it's just it's everywhere. As Christians, you're supposed to support Israel. with uh Carrie Pine Bowler, if I'm pronouncing her name right. >> Um I think that she shocked a lot of people when at the religious liberty uh council meeting she had said as a Catholic, we don't support Israel or we're not Zionists. And that shocked a lot of people as though she's making that up. and they don't realize that

44:55 the vast majority of Christendom has a confession of faith for their specific church that does not allow for the belief that the Jews are the chosen people of God. And so, um, it's most people these days aren't that aware of what their own doctrine is. That's right. You know, so there's a sort of a doctrinal downgrade, so to speak. That's what Spurgeon would have called it. uh a theological dumbing down where Christians don't know what their own beliefs are supposed to be. Interesting. So there does even if you accept the precepts of dispensationalism as as just described by you, it's still a jump to

45:41 go from that to unlimited military aid to the modern secular state of Israel, >> right? >> No, >> no, it's a it's a huge jump. So it's on one hand we can acknowledge let's say I am a premillennialist and I believe that Jesus is going to literally come reign from Jerusalem one day. It's it's one thing to believe that that one day a bunch of Jews are going to get saved and become Christians. That would be wonderful if that happens. That's great. What does that have to do with me supporting the state of Israel today? God may one day save the Jews. Great. Hope he does. The promises are in the Bible that he will. So, I believe that

46:27 that will happen one day. But that does not imply that I therefore have to become part of a protectorate to protect a kingdom of Jews whose king is not welcome. And for me, that's the offensive part as a Christian being told that I have to support the Israeli state. Like I support Jesus. Jesus is not welcome in the Israeli state. Like the the right of return, for example, gives Jews the permission to come back no matter like their blood quantum. They don't have to be a certain portion Jewish, right? They have to be if you have one grandparent out of four Jewish, you can come from anywhere in the world to Israel. They'll let you immigrate and

47:14 become a citizen because the thought process is Jews need a safe place in the world, right? That's the that's the philosophy. Unless you're a Christian, if you are a Jew who believes in Jesus, you're not welcome back. >> Is that true? >> Oh, that's absolutely true. Yeah. So the way that that >> you can be 100% Jewish by blood. >> Yes. >> But if you profess Jesus, you do not have the right to return. >> You can be 100% Jewish by blood. Eth, you know, in terms of your ethnicity, but if you believe in Jesus, you cannot return even if you're under persecution in your home country, hypothetically, if that were to happen. So let's say they're persecuting Jews based on their ethnicity in some country somewhere. um

48:00 they don't care if they're a Christian, they're ethnically Jewish, they're going to put them to death. Now, the right of return would not allow them to return. The right of return specifically uh are for uh is for Jews who either remain Jewish or have not at the least joined another religion. So, if you are an atheist Jew, they don't classify that as a religion. So, you can come back. If you are an agnostic Jew, you can come back to Israel. If you're a Christian Jew, you cannot. >> So, you can affirmatively out loud reject the Torah and the Talmud and all religious expression of Judaism. I don't believe in Judaism. I think it's absurd. >> You can be a non-practicing Jew with the right of return. >> You can be anti-practicing Jew, like

48:45 atheist, literally atheist. >> Well, you can be a Satanist as long as that is not organized Satanism. Unless you are a member with your name on the role of an official church of Satan somewhere, let's just say you practice the occult, you can come in to Israel as long as you have not joined another religion like Christianity. Uh what do Christian Zionists say about that? >> Well, first of all, a lot of them don't believe it. You know, >> they don't believe that's true. >> Yeah. They're like, "Well, that can't that can't be true." Because uh you know, they they've been told uh you know, that Jews and that Israelis love Christians and that we have this shared

49:31 religious heritage, which of course is not true at all. Um and that they are, you know, they're friends of Christians. So, it's it's like it it boggles their mind. Well, that can't be true. Well, that is true. You know, Israel's not a friend of Christianity. Not at all. You know, there are laws on the books in the state of Israel that forbid evangelism uh over the airwaves that forbid evangelism to minors. Um, as a matter of fact, Ron Canour, I don't know if you know that name or not. Ron Canour is a a Christian celebrity in Israel and he was on X one day talking about how loving

50:18 and kind Israel is to him as a Jew who believes in Jesus. And they will phrase it that way on purpose uh so as to not imply that they're a Christian because if they say they're a Christian, they might have to leave. So they'll say Jew who believes in Jesus, they're trying to work the system. So I look him up, Ron Canour, and he has a television station, a Christian television station in Israel. And in 2020, they took his broadcast license because they said that he was telling Jews that they needed Jesus. And so he had to promise that he would not give the gospel to Jewish people, that he

51:05 would not try to spread the name and the fame of Jesus over the radio waves so that they would give him his quote unquote Christian station back. And there he is bragging about how great Israel treats Christians. they took away his his broadcast license for sharing Christ. So there are these so-called Christian Jews in Israel uh that again they probably don't call themselves Christian Jews. It's Jews who believe in Jesus. Um there are some that are there like him whose purpose it is is to tell Christians how great it is in Israel. listen to listen to this person tell you about how great Christians are treated in Israel. Um, but you and I

51:52 both know that Christians are not treated well in Israel at all. >> No. No, they're not. In fact, they're they're the subject of a lot of hostility and and in a lot of cases violence. And it's interesting how many Christians were expelled from their lands and their homes in 1948 with the foundation of the formation of the state of Israel. Well, the church there is still having their property confiscated to this day for settlement. You know, with the Orthodox church, they Israel closed their bank or froze their their bank account because they didn't pay their tax. It was a tax that they just suddenly threw on them. All this time they've not had to pay that that tax. Israel throws it on them. They couldn't afford it

52:37 because it was years worth. and they confiscated their bank account and threatened to take their property. The Ottomans didn't charge churches tax. And so when the Ottomans were in control of the promised land for 400 years in the millet system, they didn't charge churches tax. Israel started just a few years ago. And uh you know, so that Christians have pressure applied to them. I mean native believers, the ones who whose churches have been there longer than Israel has been a state. They're the ones that are facing the pressure that it's very hard to get Christians in America to care about at all. >> And their Muslim rulers didn't do that during the Ottoman period.

53:22 >> Okay? So the answer is no. The Muslim rulers didn't tax churches during the Ottoman period. They were very kind to Christians. As a matter of fact, they took care of our holy sites. They had rebuilt Islamic authorities rebuilt the church of the suppler three different times over the centuries. Um they had a a law protecting Christian pilgrims on their journey. Like nobody messed with the >> the Ottoman Turks, the Muslim rulers of the Holy Land rebuilt the Church of the Holy Supplr three times. >> Three times. Yeah. either uh completely rebuilt it or a major renovation. One time it caught on fire and they redid the the roof. But if you've seen the Church of the Holy Supplr, you can

54:08 imagine what it took to redo that. >> It's an enormous roof. It's enormous and decaying. I will sadly it's an amazing place. >> Well, a lot of those sites have started to decay since 1948. >> That one definitely is decaying and just physically the physical building the plant uh is kind of falling apart. Some of the opposition to the Zionist project in Great Britain in the 1940s uh was on account of the Muslim authorities having taken such good care of our Christian sites that it was a bit of a gamble to let Jewish authorities do that. You know, I've heard people say if it wasn't for Israel, we wouldn't be

54:54 able to go visit our holy sites. there wouldn't even be holy sites anymore. And it's like, who do you think has been taking care of them this whole time? It's it's been the Islamic authorities who've had, you know, control in that region that because of the Islamic view of Jesus, uh they've actually been quite kind to the holy sites in in the region. >> What is the Islamic view of Jesus? Well, uh, I don't want to say that Muslims have a high view of Jesus. Um, I want the reason is is because Jesus is not fictional. Jesus is real. Um, Jesus of Nazareth is a real biological person to this day. He still exists. He's in

55:40 heaven. He's not here. Uh, I would say that Muslims have a false view of Jesus. It's not the real view of Jesus, but they're actually quite fond of him. And so, uh, they believe that Jesus was sent by God, uh, that he was of God, that he said true things, uh, that he performed real miracles, and that he's actually coming again. That doesn't make them Christians. It doesn't mean >> Muslims believe Jesus is coming again. >> They do as a prophet, not as the Messiah, but they believe in his return. So, there's been an effort to to propagandize American Christians on this

56:27 question in churches as well. >> Yeah. I don't know how official it is, but it's when you when you listen to Christians uh talk about Islam, they'll say things like, "Well, we've got to maintain good relationships with Israel because Islam and Christianity are natural enemies." Well, I'm not saying that we're not. And I'm not saying that Islam and Christianity have ever had any kind of partnership, but honestly, it's rabbitic Judaism and Christianity that historically has been at odds. Um, it's the idea that Christians and Jews have gotten along this whole time and that we have to band together to protect oursel

57:14 against the Muslims is very recent notion. This wasn't something that was ever posited like before the 20th century. That part is brand new and it comes from, you know, the Jewish talking points that you see on the television and the news constantly. >> So, it's a political construct that's been accepted as a theological reality by American Christians. >> I would say that's the case. There's so much crossover between what is political and what is the theological when it comes to Israel that sometimes it's really hard to determine what is theological propaganda and what is political propaganda >> because when it's being done to us the people doing it for them it's all political propaganda

58:00 they're not trying to change our religion when they tell us this stuff as Christians they just want us to have a different political perspective They have to come at it from the angle of theology. >> Yes. >> Right. And so that's the sad thing about dispensationalism is it at at the heart of it. There are people who really believe this >> for sure. >> Darby believed it. I think Scofield believed it. Christians today, they believe it. They're very committed to it. But it's being promoted and propagated by people who don't believe it at all >> and who don't care one way or the other. No. But they find it very helpful, you know, for their purposes. >> So, uh, one of those interested parties is the is the actual government of Israel. >> Yeah.

58:46 >> What is, um, the government of Israel doing to convince American Christians that supporting the secular state of Israel is their religious duty? Like, what what does that propaganda campaign look like? So, I believe it's $729 million um is what the Knesset set aside to fund the uh project through the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. $729 million through their public diplomacy unit is what they call it. 729 million that was budgeted for the year 2026. They have a part of that $729 million uh

59:32 for public diplomacy called project 545, which is $145 million budget set aside to affect or manipulate AI and search engine results primarily for Americans. Just to give you an idea of how much that is, at the height of the Soviet Union, their budget was $3.5 million for what they called their active measures. Active measures was Soviet propaganda. $3.5 million. But that had to cover essentially five continents because the Soviet Union was everywhere, right? It was a bipolar world. Had to cover most of the world. And that

1:00:19 it it was through that program that they uh you know did their common turn exercises and infiltrating communist propaganda into education and religion and all these different avenues where it could affect Americans and also people from all over the world. So $3.5 million is what the Soviets spent at the height of it for their active measures. The public diplomacy unit under the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a quarter that, right? It's it's about a quarter that. But that's all spent on the United States. They're not spending that from, you know, on other other nations on different continents and and different um

1:01:05 countries that can't benefit them um politically. Israel just has to have the United States as an ally. It doesn't have to work hard to gain Brazil as an ally, right? Or any anyone else. We are the ones with the veto power at the UN and the Security Council. >> Of course, >> all they need is us. So, we're the ones that are the the nice recipients of that $145 million affecting even what our AI says and our search engine results, all that is affecting us, how we uh, you know, view Israel. But on top of that, you see the religious infiltration,

1:01:51 which I know you've had other guests on to talk about that recently, but through the um the different uh paythroughs, what is I mean, just give us a broad outline of what the propaganda effort against American churches from Israel looks like. >> Geo fencing, for example, what is that? >> Yeah. So there were four different organizations that had basically signed up registered with Farah Foreign Agents Registration Act. >> Yes. >> And I think it was Clock Tower X and then also um Show Faith by Works and then a couple more. And the geo fencing thing I know that you've discussed. Basically, they're

1:02:38 outline outlining uh churches uh on a map invisibly so that when you go there and you leave, it'll ping your phone with different types of propaganda. Yes. All right. >> Assuming that you went to church there, so maybe you would be more susceptible to some, you know, dispensational advertisement about why it's your duty as a Christian to support Israel. But there's a lot that hasn't been discussed that that really has the geo fencing campaign. And I think that once it got exposed, they had maybe said at some point um Brad Parcell had >> yes taken a step back and said maybe we won't do the geo fencing thing. That was just a suggestion or we wanted to do that. It was a $4 million. It was the

1:03:25 same group, $4 million sending a bus with basically uh an Israeli, it's an Israeli propaganda bus with VR headsets and um things for it was targeting young men ages 16 to 24. So, it would roll into church parking lots and it would have a multimedia uh display for the young men to watch the IDF in action and it would show what happened on October 7th and then how heroic the IDF is in church parking lots so that they would leave not learning anything more about Jesus, right, or God or scripture or the Torah. It wasn't

1:04:12 theological. It was purely political. >> Well, not just, >> but it's being done in church parking lots >> with the knowledge of the of the pastor of the church, >> I would assume. So, so when they did their fair filing, they didn't say, "We're going to these specific churches." They did say, "We're going to churches in these states." But yeah, you can bet your bottom dollar that if they have permission to roll into a megaurch parking lot and set up shop with their bus for young men to come out and see the videos about how great and heroic the IDF is that it I'm sure that the pastor would have give them permission to do that. I mean, Christians oppose abortion probably for a bunch of reasons, but fundamentally because it's the murder of innocents. The baby didn't do anything

1:04:58 wrong. You can't kill the innocent. And Christians know that and they stand on that this is the most the IDF has the most brutal military in the world which is globally renowned for murdering innocents >> right >> at scale >> right >> how could any Christian pastor allow pro IDF propaganda on his property >> you know I wonder how many of those pastors understand that it is propaganda keep in mind they're not they're not going out of their way to consume media that is outside of the ecosystem, the news ecosystem of that which is controlled by pro-Israel or if not pro-Israel, pro- neocon, pro-war

1:05:44 programming. I mean, they're getting pro-war ideology from places like Fox News. I mean, if I I'm sure that if you took a sample of a hundred megaurch pastors and asked, "Where are you getting your source, your news source, probably all of them are going to put Fox News as number one." So, that's what they're getting. You know, when you talk to these pastors about Israeli war crimes, um, you're like, you know, did you know that they got caught, the IDF on camera sodomizing a prisoner so badly his large intestine fell out, he went into critical condition and they almost, you know, he almost died in the hospital. And then they just uh let him

1:06:30 go back to Gaza and said he couldn't return. And that way they couldn't, you know, charge they they couldn't have the trial of the IDF soldiers who did that because the victim can't come back to testify. And the pastors, Christians, whoever you talk to about this will say, "That doesn't that doesn't sound right. That must be Hamas, you know, propaganda." It's like when you talk to them about the death stats in Gaza and you say, "Do you realize that almost eight people out of 10 that are being killed in Gaza at at least that are civilian non-combatants?" It's really easy to look at you and just say that's propaganda. That's clearly

1:07:18 from the Gaza, you know, Ministry of Health. And when Israel admitted those figures in February, then that doesn't make the news and they don't see it. And it's it's really hard to convince someone who believes that Israel is chosen by God and special in a way that you're not special. It's really hard to get that person to then evaluate what's happening in light of biblical ethics because who am I? I'm not special. Who am I to question God's special chosen people over here? And so that notion of God playing favorites, God having a special people based on

1:08:05 ethnicity, that clouds their judgment from start to finish. It almost beats down mentally the person who holds that view. It it it dismantles their ability to look objectively at what's happening in the Middle East. >> It's almost that way. >> Yeah. It's a self-loathing because you're just a gentile. These people, these are the chosen people. And God Yeah. God's loving. He's kind. He let you into their religion, but you're never going to be Jewish. They're special. And it's so infuriating because the scripture teaches the exact opposite message. I'm God's chosen. I'm

1:08:54 the child of Abraham. According to the scripture very explicitly in Galatians 3 in 1 Peter chapter 2, the apostle Peter says that we are God's chosen nation and royal priesthood and people for God's own possession. He's talking about the Christian church which is with which is shocked full of Gentiles. He's not talking about Jews. We're the chosen nation. They're a desert war cult who's murdering a lot of innocent people. It's okay to judge them. God's not going to, you know, be hostile with you because you've looked at what's happening over there and said, you know what? It's not okay to bomb an apartment building because there might be a terrorist in

1:09:39 apartment 3G. And there's so many different things about the IDF that Christians need to know, but they they don't have a frame of reference because there's there's not an effective news source breaking through to evangelicals who are all pigeonholed in like this neocon influenced news environment. And so it's like, you know, their targeting program, their AI targeting program that is designed to, I think, maximize civilian damage is called the gospel. That's what the IDF named it. There's two of them. Well, there's there's three. There's um Daddy's Home. You've heard of this one?

1:10:25 >> No. >> Oh, Daddy's Home. Okay. This is uh astoundingly inhumane. So their AI targeting program that um lets them know when a target comes within a specific location essentially geo fencing but instead of church it's their home. It will notify essentially Skynet when to send the missile, when to drop the bomb, and it's called Daddy's Home because it it waits for the terrorist, alleged terrorist. Keep in mind, these aren't people who've been tried or anything. There's no trial for them. The alleged terrorist gets home and then it

1:11:11 pings Daddy's home. Daddy's home then sends the missile to kill them, the family. They would say that that is a target and the target used some human shields and if human shields die in the process that's on the terrorists but it's called daddy's home because it's waiting for them to get home. That's not something that the American military does. We don't wait for targets to get home before we bomb them, but the IDF does. So it is about 90% 85 to 90% of the people dead in Gaza are civilian non-combatants. That's not from trying to miss civilian non-combatants, right?

1:11:58 That's like you targeting them. It's like doctors testifying that more than 400 kids uh that they've seen in theos the last remaining hospital in Gaza that's still open. 400 kids dead with a sniper wound, a sniper round caliber in the head. It It's not from shrapnel. And so, yeah, they're waiting for people to get home before they blow them up. And anyways, that was Daddy's Home. There's another one that that's called the Gospel. And so, I I think that it's uh >> Why do they call it the Gospel? I think because it's deadly and kills a

1:12:45 lot of people and that's their way to mock Christianity that that is their good news. So let me explain that the bloodshed of the old covenant religion of Moses is what symbolized the forgiveness of sins. It allowed them to see and understand the Messiah and what Jesus would do on the cross and by his blood were actually forgiven. But after the temple fell in 70 AD with no altar, no temple, with no priesthood to make those sacrifices with no blood being shed.

1:13:32 Where does the blood come from in rebbitic Judaism? And I think it comes from their fixation on war. I think that they view it as almost an actual real atonement that they are accomplishing something of spiritual value when they uh when they go to war and and kill Gentiles. That seems controversial, I'm sure. But their version of Passover, which is not the Passover that God gave Moses, it's the one the rabbis made up. Did you know that? >> How is it? I ask you to pause. How is it different from the Passover described in the Torah?

1:14:17 >> Well, because there's no actual sacrifice. There's no actual bloodshed. So all the different rights and rituals of the cedar that they observe, none of that is in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, there was unleavened bread and there was wine and bitter herbs and then the sacrifice itself. So where an animal would be killed. >> Yes. Yes. Uh for the purposes of atonement in the Passover, their Passover version between the third and the fourth cup, they drink to the damnation of the nations and in particular to Rome who they associate with Christianity. Pre presently >> presently so whenever Mike Huckabe says

1:15:05 happy Passover it's a very common thing for dispensationalists to wish happy Passover for you know their Jewish friends they don't realize what they're saying they're not observing the ritual that God gave Moses they're observing the ritual that the rabbis made up in the centuries following Jesus us the um third and fourth cup. They take a drink and they pray a prayer specifically for the destruction of the nations. The the and in particular Rome and in Jewish and rabbitical writings they associate Rome with Christianity because Rome became

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