Final Christian Zionism webinar centers on Christian nationalism and its political ramifications

Registration open for Sept. 19 panel discussion

by Scott O’Neill | Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE — The PC(USA)’s Christian Zionism working group is presenting its third and final webinar focused on Confronting Christian Zionism at noon Eastern Time on Thursday, Sept. 19. Participants can register here to attend the Zoom-based event. Registration will be capped at 500 participants.

During “Discipleship, Christian Nationalism, and Settler Colonialism: Faithful Preparation for the U.S. Election,” the three presenters will focus on how Christian Zionism theology manifests in today’s often highly politicized faith practices. The webinar description notes that “Christian nationalism, whether in the U.S. or in other global contexts, brings together two seemingly unrelated identities — one’s faith in Jesus and one’s citizenship in a nation state — and grants this equal importance in a person’s life. In the U.S., Christian nationalism powerfully motivates some Christians, including some Presbyterians, to see the modern state of Israel as the homeland of God’s chosen people, which can move people to exclude any consideration of compassion for the indigenous Palestinians who, according to Christian nationalists and Christian Zionists, are living on land that is not theirs.”

In terms of the upcoming presidential election, the webinar description notes that voters must reckon with the reality that the person elected U.S. president in November will have an impact on issues, communities, and millions of people around the world who have no voice or vote in the U.S.

Presenters include the Rev. Jermaine Ross-Allam, director of the PC(USA)’s Center for the Repair of Historic Harms; the Rev. Dr. Laurie Lyter Bright, executive director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, founder and president of the Dar Al-Kalima University in Bethlehem and a Lutheran pastor. Moderating the discussion, as in the previous two webinars, will be the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Holder Rich. Rich, a pastor at Corinth Presbyterian Church in Dayton, Ohio and part-time faculty member at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, is also the editor of the book “Christian Zionism in Africa,” published in 2021.

Bright will discuss the intersection of Christian Zionism and white Christian nationalism in the current U.S. context, and the ways a cultural understanding of power and possession of the other are intertwined. She will also offer pastors and congregations ways to educate themselves to move from education to action to work toward peace.

“The misapplication of theology toward a sense of scarcity and interpretive acts with Scripture that welcome apocalyptic mindsets are used far too readily to absolve U.S. Christians of working for peace, repair, and justice in the here and now. We are too quick to believe in our own powerlessness,” said Bright. “There is a necessary disentangling of ideologies that must happen, particularly in white Christian spaces, and we first have to understand our complicity in the attitudes that enable rampant Christian Zionism, white Christian nationalism in the U.S., and imperialistic presence writ large.”

Ross-Allam will discuss Christian Zionism as a demonic political theological superstition of the Protestant peoples of the United States by exploring how the heresy of Christian Zionism seeks, among other objectives, to secure the imperial interests of the United States through two modes of operation.

“The first is a weaponization of a combination of theological errors that Puritans imported to this hemisphere — errors currently uncorrected in many evangelical and fundamentalist contexts. The second is the cultural and political deployment of various ethnocentric and racist misuses of collective and selective responses to only one of the 20th century’s multiple genocides in liberal and progressive contexts,” said Ross-Allam.

According to Raheb, participants can expect to hear about a new approach that is relevant to the U.S. context of Christian nationalism.

“I will be presenting a new definition of Christian Zionism as a Christian lobby in support of settler colonization of Palestinian land while weaponizing the Bible,” said Raheb.

The recent 226^th General Assembly of the PC(USA) approved overtures dealing with Christian Zionism, including INT-06, which recommended two resources for seeking ways to end Israeli apartheid, and INT-05, “On Confessing Our Complicity in Christian Zionism.”

Participants who register will receive a confirmation email upon completion and a recording of the webinar once it becomes available.

A landing page listing numerous multi-media resources, including recordings of the Christian Zionism-focused webinars, can be found here. The “Confronting Christian Zionism” series is co-sponsored by World Mission’s Middle East and Europe office, the Office of Public Witness, the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, and members of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network.

For more information about Christian Zionism, including FAQs on its biblical, theological, and political implications, click here.