Beware of Christian Zionists
Jan Markell, Olive Tree Ministries
What does
Armageddon have to do with Christian Zionists? Steven Sizer has written a book
titled, “Christian Zionism: Road Map to Armageddon.” I’ve been a Christian
Zionist who believes in a literal Armageddon for decades and I’ve never seen the
so-called “road map” but somehow it mysteriously leads to Armageddon.
The testimonials for Sizer’s book read like a “Who’s Who of the religious Left.”
One says, “After reading Sizer’s book, I believe that Zionism, both political
and Christian, is incompatible with Christian faith.”
Then we have “The Bible Answerman,” Hank Hannegraff, who gave Sizer two hours of
prime-time Christian radio recently to spew this nonsense. Their conclusion:
Christian Zionists are cultists. For two hours they chuckled together about the
wretched state of Israel, the plight of the Palestinians, and had 95% of their
facts wrong.
What is so wrong about Christians standing by Israel? Why can’t she have even
one little group of people sold out to her survival, protection, and welfare?
The nation is the size of New Jersey and yet the whole world rages against her
including the likes of Sizer and Hannegraff. How about calling a cultist one who
is a strong supporter of Iran, or Libya, or North Korea, or China, or Russia? Or
one who believes it’s fine to bring in Wahabbi literature into American mosques.
How about blasting the real cultists who think the Hale-Bopp comet is a UFO to
take the cult members to paradise?
Who stands against Israel? The United Nations, the European Union, the World and
National Council of Churches, the Vatican, the Communist world, America’s State
Department on many days, and the entire Islamic world. Why don’t the
denominations that want to “divest” all stock invested in companies doing
business with Israel push for divestment from Russia?
But it’s the Christian Zionist who is the cultist, and it’s suggested we are
misled, unstable, biblically illiterate, and about to hand out the Kool-Aid to
our cult followers.
Here’s what a real cult does: (1) Spreads dangerous theology or teaching that
are blatantly harmful; (2) Twists facts and promotes falsehoods; (3) Has leaders
who can be physically and emotionally abusive; (4) Swears loyalty to a leader in
a blind and naďve way, (5) May abandon family to stick with fellow sickos.
Strange, since I belong to the “cult of Christian Zionism,” why don’t I know
anybody in my cult that does any of these things or believes this way? Yet Sizer
and “The Bible Answerman” savored two hours of heaping accusations on us.
I, like all Christian Zionists, take the Bible literally. Jerusalem is Jerusalem
and Israel is Israel. But to the critics, Cairo is just as important as
Jerusalem. All Dispensational truth is discarded as foolishness from the
importance of the Temple Mount, to a coming Tribulation, literal Antichrist, and
literal thousand year reign of Christ out of Jerusalem. This, to the Sizers and
Hannegraff’s, is believed only by those “Dispensational kooks.” But the
“Dispensational kooks” are the ones who remind everybody that God is a covenant
keeper, not just a covenant maker. He keeps His covenants with the Jew and the
Christian.
There is even an “Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism” (ISCZ). If we’re
so off the wall, why is there an organization founded to study us? They say, “We
believe that the ideology of Christian Zionism threatens both American politics
and biblically grounded faith, turning the good news of Jesus Christ into a
militant, Crusader ideology that justifies violence in the name of God . . . “
My fellow “Christian Zionists,” we may have to flee to the mountain tops. These
Christian Zionist bashers scare me about as much as the Antichrist does though I
don’t plan on being around when he comes on the scene. The “great falling away”
predicted in the Bible has begun and apostasy is on the march. Sadly, some of
the leaders of the false doctrines are household names with millions of
followers and even more millions of dollars.
I’ll still pass on taking the Kool-Aid.
(Reprinted with permission of the author.)