The New Christian Zionism

Now in its thirty-sixth year, the annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration, sponsored by the International Christian Embassy (ICEJ—the J stands for its headquarters in Jerusalem), attracts thousands of Pentecostal Christians from around the world to Israel. Timed to coincide with the Jewish . . . . Continue Reading »

Walzer's Paradox

The Paradox of Liberation: Secular Revolutions and Religious Counterrevolutions by michael walzer yale, 192 pages, $26 Michael Walzer’s name is associated with the summons to undertake social criticism that is engaged: that is, rooted in actual circumstances; cognizant of real people’s wants, . . . . Continue Reading »

A New Christian Zionism

Critics of Christian Zionism usually dismiss it for one or more of three reasons: 1. They say it makes mincemeat of the New Testament, where (it is alleged) the Old Testament focus on a particular land is replaced by the vision of a whole world; 2. They think it is the exclusive concern of premillennial dispensationalists, whose theology supposedly uses Jews to advance its own role in presumptuous schedules of End Time events; 3. It is said to be more political than theological, attached to right-wing American and Israeli political parties that wrongly identify the current Israeli state with the eschaton.Scholars at a recent conference at Georgetown made the case for a “new” Christian Zionism that takes a fresh approach to all three of these problems. Continue Reading »

Israel Among the Nationalisms

With the apparent demise of Communism, if not of socialism, the other political pathology of modernity, nationalism, is returning to center stage. If scientific socialism carries the “progressive” idea of human universality to its extreme, nationalism carries the “reactionary” idea of . . . . Continue Reading »