(L to R, Back Row) Joel Willits, Darrell Bock, Mark S. Kinzer, Gerald R. McDermott, David Rudolph; (L to R, Front) Craig Blaising, Robert Benne, Robert W. Nicholson, Mark Tooley, Shadi Khalloul, “People of the Land: A Twenty-First Century Case for Christian Zionism” conference, Washington, D.C., April 17, 2015.
A group of Christian scholars representing a “new Christian Zionism” seek to distance their views from the “wild, crazy, popular apocalypticism” with which Christian Zionists have often been associated.
Eleven speakers, mostly theologians, presented at the April 17 conference, “People of the Land: A Twenty-First Century Case for Christian Zionism,” hosted by the Institute on Religion and Democracy at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Most of the talks were based upon a chapter for a book expected to be published sometime in the next two years.
While the group does not agree on everything, they are united in the belief that God’s covenants with Israel were not displaced by Jesus Christ and the Church. In other words, while Jesus is central to salvation, God will remain faithful to the promises He made to the Jewish people. How, exactly, that works itself out will continue to be a matter of study and debate.
One of the difficulties Christian Zionists have had is that dispensationalism, a theological view held by a large subset of Christian Zionists, has been misrepresented in the media and associated with “the wildest excesses of a popular apocalypticism,” Craig Blasing, executive vice president, provost, and professor of theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, explained during the Q&A.
While dispensational theology has changed a lot over the last 30 years, dispensationalists are still associated with the older version of dispensationalism, Blasing continued.
“We do need to recognize that there is a dispensational element that is not wild, crazy popular apocalypticism,” he said.
Many popular Christian books about the end times were based upon some dispensational-type teachings. In the 1970’s, for instance, Hal Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth was a best selling book, which led to a cottage industry of end times books. There were also popular fictional works, such as Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ Left Behind series, which have been made into films. A recent example is Pastor John Hagee’s Four Blood Moons. Christianbook.com currently has a “Prophecy & End Times” section with 1,458 works.
This pop-apocalypticism was also on display recently when former congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said on a radio show that the end times were near and associated that prediction with President Barack Obama’s foreign policy.
One difference, Blasing said, was that the older dispensationalism treated Israel and the Church as two different people groups. A Jew who became a Christian was considered no longer Jewish, under this view. The newer “progressive dispensationalism” or “wholeism,” however, disagrees.
“There is a wholistic theology that is multi-national, multi-ethnic, all united in Christ. That is what fulfills the reality of the Church,” he said. “So consequently, a Jewish believer today is part of God’s plan and purpose in the consummation for the Jewish people. A gentile believer today is part of a plan of God’s purpose for gentile peoples. Both peoples, all peoples, if redeemed, are united with Christ in a kingdom that is coming.”
Click here for more.
SOURCE: The Christian Post
Napp Nazworth
BCNN1 WP 