Last month, I attended an international conference in Jordan, next to the site where Jesús was supposedly baptized by Juan el Baptista. The title of my presentation was “Confessions of a Former Christian Zionist.” I argued Christian Zionism is a manifestation of European white supremacy, a modernization of Manifest Destiny, and an implementation of neo-Gun Diplomacy.
Christian Zionism, an outgrowth of white Christian nationalism, is a quasi-religious methodology that provides the justification for Gentiles (Christians and non-Christians) to support the political rights of a secular state in their implementation of settler colonialism, land theft and genocide.
A significant plank of what President Trump calls the “American Golden Age” is based on the expansion of white Christian nationalism and its stepchild, Christian Zionism. We find ourselves amid a political and religious realignment, as white Christian nationalism reshapes the nation into its image.
Just as the Republican Party has been transformed into the party of Trump, the United States may be transformed into the nation of Trump over the next four years. This political transformation is not a new phenomenon. It didn’t begin with Donald Trump.
He is simply the sneeze of the cold, the pus of a boil, the symptom of a white supremacy disease. Even if he would have lost last year’s election, Zionism would still have won. The only difference would have been that the bombs dropped at Gaza would have been financed by a liberal Democrat.
The United States, founded on settler colonialism and white supremacist ideals and charged with protecting the power, privilege and profit of white men, was being challenged to its core by multiple liberationist movements that arose during the turmoil of the 1960s. The last straw that ushered in the current white-lash of Trump was the election of a Black man in 2008.
The white Christian nationalism we are witnessing today has its roots in the 1980s. That decade saw the rise of the Moral Majority, a reactionary response to the Civil Rights Movement’s attempt to dismantle segregation, the Feminist Movement’s attempt to dismantle patriarchy, the Gay Liberation Movement’s attempt to dismantle homophobia, and the Chicano Movement’s attempt to dismantle ethnic discrimination.
I was a young adult who never read the Bible during the early years of the Moral Majority. In 1980, on the first Sunday of Advent, I walked down the church aisle and publicly gave my life to Jesus.
I thought I was becoming a born-again Christian. In reality, this minoritized Latino was becoming an ally to those who politically wanted me segregated, those who today comprise the backbone of white Christian nationalism. I was becoming complicit with the colonialization of my own mind.
The church I joined seemed loving. People embraced me as family. These loving, gentle people taught me about God, the Bible and what it meant to be a Christian.
Why doubt the people I admired and wanted to emulate? Why would they purposely lead me astray? After all, they pointed to chapter and verse in the Bible to prove their points.
Among the biblical truths they shared was the imminent return of my Lord and Savior, probably within our lifetime. According to their dispensationalist Bible, before Jesus’ Second Coming, the nation of Israel must recapture all the land it initially held during King Solomon’s reign. They must also rebuild the Temple on Mt. Zion so the anti-Christ could enter and proclaim themselves God, according to the prophecy in the eleventh chapter of Revelation.
In the world I was raised in, to oppose Zionism was akin to opposing the very will of God. It went against prophecy and placed you on the wrong side of Jesús’ coming judgment.
So, when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, totally ignorant of the reason and even more ignorant of the geopolitical circumstances for the invasion, I rejoiced. I believed we were a step closer to the Second Coming.
Although I did not know it then, I had become a Christian Zionist. Nothing is more dangerous to peace and justice than a believer holding a Bible, convinced they are ordained to do God’s will.
Because Christian Zionism is a major tenet of white Christian nationalism, it becomes almost impossible to debunk with reason, logic, truth or even shame. For the white Christian nationalist, to reject Christian Zionism is to reject God. But more importantly, it is a rejection of white supremacy and the current manifestation of Manifest Destiny, both of which are presented as inalienable rights.
As I have written elsewhere, I am hopeless. The U.S. Republican Party, as of last month, controls all the levers of the U.S. government – the presidency, both chambers of Congress, and the Supreme Court.
According to a PRRI poll, 55% of Republicans hold Christian nationalist views (which includes Christian Zionism), along with 25% of Independents and 16% of Democrats. Thus, I stand hopeless before Christian Zionism’s unholy trinity of white supremacy, settler colonialism and neoliberalism.
But the pragmatic hopelessness I embrace is never an excuse to do nothing. As tempting as that may be, I choose instead to struggle for justice, not because I expect to get an extra ruby in my heavenly crown of glory, nor because I believe my praxis will vanquish this global Christian nationalist beast.
Despite this losing battle, I continue to fight for justice against the Christian Zionism supported by Trump, Biden before him, and all other modern U.S. presidents. I stand in solidarity with the oppressed because if I wish to be committed to the faith I claim to possess and, more importantly, claim my humanity, I have no other choice.
So, to my dear Palestinian siblings, I end by proclaiming my new mantra: Mi casa es su casa, su causa es mi causa.
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Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
