Washington Report on Middle East Affairs - April, 2007
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/April_2007/0704058.html

"Elmer Gantry with a foreign policy"

The Dangerous Potent Elixir of Christian Zionism

By Pat Morrison

WHAT MAY BE potentially the greatest U.S.-born political threat to
peace is not terrorist sleeper cells or even the deployment of more
U.S. troops to the Middle East. Instead, it's the prolific spread of a
brand of fundamentalist Christian "End Times" pseudotheology linked to
massive support-military and financial-for the state of Israel. The
threat goes by the name Christian Zionism.

According to expert observers and critics, the movement is harnessing
incredible religious, political and financial power, thanks largely to
highly visible and well-funded preachers, their churches and
congregations' financial commitment. And the implications of Christian
Zionism's -belief system-*****-political agenda are frightening.

One of those experts watching the rise of Christian Zionism-and alerting
mainline Christians, as well as Muslims, Jews and the public in general
to its danger-is the Rev. Donald Wagner. An ordained Presbyterian
minister, Wagner is associate professor of religion and Middle Eastern
studies at North Park University in Chicago and executive director of
its Center for Middle Eastern Studies. His most recent book is Anxious
for Armageddon, a critique of Christian Zionism (and available from the
AET Book Club).

In a packed presentation last fall at the Kansas City Sabeel Conference,
Wagner outlined the movement's growth, major proponents and political
agenda.

Christian Zionism as a fringe biblical theory has been around in some
shape or form since the 1600s, Wagner said-long before the
establishment of modern Israel. But most recently it has morphed into a
new entity that links its literal and fundamentalist interpretation of
the Christian Bible with a convergence of political and sociological
trends on the American landscape.

According to Wagner, these include: 1) growth of a "fear factor" in the
United States since 9/11, fueled by 2) the millennium and "End Times"
prophecy, as well as intensely marketed Christian fiction like the Left
Behind series; and 3) the rise of right-wing political conservatism in
the United States.

The Bush administration's talk about "the axis of evil" and its
"Crusader" mindset, coupled with the neocons' constant language of
empire, captured the imagination of many Christians who already were
reading and identifying with End Times biblical interpretation.

Blend all these ingredients together and you have the perfect recipe for
Christian Zionism, Wagner noted, and an audience primed to accept and
push it.

Although popular TV fundamentalist preachers like Pat Robertson and
Jerry Falwell are enthusiastic supporters of Israel, Christian
Zionism's newest and most ardent promoter is Dr. John C. Hagee. Hagee,
who is founder and pastor of the 18,000-member non-denominational
evangelical Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, has a worldwide
following through his John Hagee Ministries.

Some commentators have described the charismatic and avuncular Hagee as
a "kinder, gentler" Rush Limbaugh look-alike, of similar political
persuasion. As one critic colorfully summed it up: "If there is one
thing worse than Elmer Gantry, it's Elmer Gantry with a foreign policy."

Today Hagee is perhaps best known as founder of an ultra-right wing
Christian Zionist political lobby in Washington, Christians United for
Israel, or CUFI.

According to Wagner, CUFI is completely aligned to AIPAC, the pro-Israel
U.S. lobby, and "defends a hard-right maximalist Israeli agenda: They
support Israel having control of all of the West Bank and Gaza because
'God gave it to the Jews exclusively.'"

CUFI also fully supports the Israeli settler movement, Wagner said, and
financially underwrites the relocation of European Jews to illegal
settlements because Israel is "their land" promised them by God.

At the February 2006 launch of CUFI, Hagee stated that Christians
United for Israel "will [soon] have organized offices in every state in
the union, mobilizing every Christian and whoever will work with us on
a pro-Israeli agenda."

By mid-July of last year, Wagner said, Hagee had 3,500 CUFI supporters
"deployed to every congressional office in Washington, pressing for more
arms to be sent to Israel [during the Israeli-Hezbollah war] but also
calling for the U.S. to attack Iran [because Hagee sees war with Iran
as a prelude to Armageddon]."

In San Antonio last October, more than 10,000 CUFI supporters gathered
to work on their political platform and strategies. Among the key
conference presenters was former CIA director James Woolsey, a close
supporter of AIPAC and outspoken opponent of the peace movement and of
churches active in it.

Hagee coined the term "Islamofascist" at CUFI's founding conference,
Wagner noted, "and within a week [President] Bush was using it, then
[former Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld."

Wagner said his two greatest concerns about Christian Zionism-which
claims to count up to 100,0000 evangelical believers around the
world-is that it is extremely Islamophobic and anti-islamic, and that
it projects a militant image of Christianity throughout the world.

"What [Christian Zionists] are projecting is a Western white, militant
Zionist image of Christianity into the region," Wagner said. "And what
this does is give global Muslims, and global Christians, the
impression that Christianity is really a militant, Crusader type of
religion. In the end, even Jesus comes back in warrior fashion!"

In fact, he said, Christian leaders in the Holy Land are so worried
about Christian Zionism's harmful effects in the region that Catholic,
Lutheran and Orthodox church leaders invited Wagner and a group of
other experts to speak to them and help them inform their people about
the movement's dangers and its impact on the Muslim world.

Christian Zionism seriously damages Christian-Muslim and
Christian-Jewish relations, especially in the Middle East. But what is
even more worrisome, Wagner warned, is that because the resources of
movement leaders like Falwell, Robertson and Hagee include worldwide
missionaries and media outlets, they "have the reach to inflame the
entire region."

[Pat Morrison writes from Dayton, Ohio. She has covered the Middle East,
especially Israel/Palestine, extensively.]