University of Florida professor Samuel Goldman has an important piece at Compact Magazine this week. Christian Zionism, Goldman rightly notes, is not a creation of Dispensationalism or the 20^th century. It has long roots in the Christian, the Protestant, and particularly the Reformed tradition. The compilers of the 1560 Geneva Bible, long a standard interpretation for Calvinists in Europe, included annotations that point to an eschatological inclusion of literal Jews in Palestine in the eschatological economy. Gerald McDermott notes in his Israel Matters that British Protestants, particularly Puritan Congregationalists and conforming Anglican Puritans, disseminated proto-Zionistic polemics in Great Britain and Ireland. Jonathan Edwards’ theology infused embryonic forms of Christian Zionism in to Congregationalist and Presbyterian churches in British North America and eventually in the new United States.

            For Christians in the United States, its tempting to associate Christian Zionism with Dispensationalism, but the ideas are not synonyms. Dispensationalism was very much a creation of Cyrus Scofield and the Fundamentalist movement, and that movement’s massive influence on conservative Evangelical Protestants in the 20^th century overshadowed older ways of understanding the relationship of Israel to the Christian church, especially with regards to Eschatology. Some millennial and Gen Z Christians, many of whom came of age in Dispensationalism and now see its historical error, are reacting and taking up aggressive antisemitic talking points and are trying to mainstream Groyper figures like Nick Fuentes. In fact, Groyper antisemitism and many forms of Dispensationalism are two sides of the same coin: an unhealthy and dehumanizing obsession with Jewish people.

            John Nelson Darby’s dispensationalism pre-millennialism was not as developed as late 19^th century dispensational polemics. By the 1880s, Scofield’s theory was such that it more or less perpetuated the antisemitic idea of the Magic Jew, wherein Jewish people had special spiritual powers. This is evident in Evangelicals’ End Times captivation with Jewish ceremonies, particularly regarding the Temple Mount. As a Presbyterian boy who attended an Evangelical Christian grade school and high school, I cannot count how many times Baptist friends referenced the red heifers that would be used in sacrifices at a potentially rebuilt Third Temple in Jerusalem. There was downright excitement in the idea it seemed among Evangelicals, which struck me then—as it does now—as odd. Why would Christians care about Jewish ceremonies. The answer from Dispensationalism, of course, was that the rebuilt temple was a sign of the imminence of the rapture and then the second coming of Jesus. So for many late 20^th and early 21^st century Christians, a near-obsession with Israel and religious Jews oddly formed a huge part of Christian piety. Dispensationalism, if anything, subtly centered on a form of antisemitism and dehumanization wherein Jews had special spiritual powers, which meant that they had to be [eschatologically] not humans sinners who needed the Christian Gospel for its own sake and their own sake, but something more like angels: beings outside of normal human relationships who had a special relationship with God.

            Modern antisemites similarly obsess over Jews. Soured on what they perceive to be a pampered and privileged place Jews have been given in Christian discourse since the Dispensationalist rage of the 1970s, Millennials and Gen Zers have—interesting enough—not removed Jews from a privileged place in Christian discourse. Instead they have raised to prominence the ancient proposition that Jews are particularly iniquitous, and the single cause of all the world’s problems.  What are angelic Jews for Boomer Evangelicals are demonic Jews for their grandchildren. Robert Nicholson at Providence Magazine makes the prescient observation that moderns “arrive at one of two conclusions: the Jews are unique either because they’re very good or very bad—there is no middle position.” The modern Christian expressions of this are extoled by both dispensational champions of Israel and modern antisemites.

            Given the place of Israel in foreign policy discussions, it is tempting for Christian Zionists and dispensationalists to see any criticism of Israel, and particularly the Netanyahu coalition, as antisemitism. This is not the case. The Anglican prelates in Jerusalem, former US Representative Justin Amash, and the late Pope Francis all raised questions over the war in Gaza, without engaging in antisemitic rhetoric. Conversely young Christians—often coming out of Baptist or Dispensationalism—see any pro-Israel foreign policy as politicized dispensationalism or Christian Zionism. LeTourneau University professor Edward Hamilton helpfully noted on X that “it can be true that both 1. Historical forms of Christian Zionism were often motivated by a variety of different theological commitments, and also 2. The most aggressive, uncompromising forms of CZ in politics today are concentrated in communities with dispensational roots.” There are, of course, important criticisms of the Netanyahu government to be made, and there are important reasons for the United States to assist one of the few liberal democracies in the region. Evangelical Protestant obsession with Jews, however, helps neither case.