Thread by @KeithWoodsYT

One in four American Christians say they believe it is their biblical responsibility to support the nation of Israel.

But why are there so many Christian Zionists in America?

A thread 🧵

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2/13 What is Christian Zionism?

Christian Zionists believe that the Jewish people have a biblically-mandated right to a homeland in Palestine, and that Christians should be active in advancing this.

This belief is rooted in a traditional heresy known as "dispensationalism".

3/13 Dispensationalists believe that the nation of Israel is distinct from the Christian Church, and that God has yet to fulfil his promises to the national Israel.

Adherents believe the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 was a necessary fulfilment of prophecy.

4/13 These beliefs are very foreign to traditional Christianity - the church fathers viewed the church itself as the New Israel.

Dispensationalists disregard tradition and take a literalist reading of scripture, viewing the church as a temporary insert into the flow of history.

5/13 How did this literalist reading of the bible become so prevalent in the US?

This is mostly thanks to C.I. Scofield, author of the Scofield Reference Bible of 1909.

His notes induced generations of American evangelicals to believe God demanded their support for Zionism.

6/13 Intro'ing his Bible, Scofield claimed the degree of Doctor of Divinity, though no seminary in America that claimed him as a student

Central to Christian Zionist belief is Scofield’s commentary on Genesis, which is said to have a command by God to serve the nation of Israel.

7/13 One scholar called the Scofield Bible "Perhaps the most influential single work thrust into the religious life of America during the twentieth century."

But how did one born-again Christian with little qualification have such a huge impact?

8/13 In the biography The Incredible Scofield and His Book, the author writes “The admission of Scofield to the Lotus Club, which could not have been sought by Scofield, strengthens the suspicion that has cropped up before, that someone was directing the career of C.I. Scofield.”

9/13 That someone, it is suggested, was the Wall Street lawyer Samuel Untermeyer.

Scofield’s theology was “most helpful in getting Fundamentalist Christians to back the international interest in one of Untermeyer’s pet projects—the Zionist Movement.”

10/13 Samuel Untermeyer was a wealthy Jewish lawyer and Zionist.

Untermeyer funded the creation of the Jewish Theological Seminary, was president of Keren Hayesod - the leading Zionist organisation in America at the time, and was Vice-President of the American Jewish Congress.

11/13 In 'Unjust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to Jerusalem' Prof. David W. Lutz writes:

“Untermeyer used Scofield, a Kansas City lawyer with no formal training in theology, to inject Zionist ideas into American Protestantism."

12/13 "Untermeyer and other wealthy and influential Zionists whom he introduced to Scofield promoted and funded the latter’s career, including travel in Europe.”

While in England, Scofield met the head of Oxford University Press, who became enthusiastic about the project.

13/13 If not for the Scofield Bible, US Presidents influenced by Christian Zionism might have been more willing to put their country's interests above Israel, and more American Christians would take a critical look at a state where Christians currently face intense persecution.