Evangelicalism’s Twin Engines of Destruction: The Theological Innovation Sanctifying Trump’s War in Iran

In the chaotic fog of the first week of the Trump Administration’s war in Iran, unconfirmed reports widely circulated on social media of military personnel being told to prepare for Armageddon. The nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation claims 200 complaints have rolled in since Saturday’s initial military action, with complainants saying military leaders framed the war as a divinely sanctioned action in line with scriptural prophecies about Armageddon and the second coming of Jesus Christ.

For American Christians of a certain age, this language is familiar. 

The End

Dispensationalism, a theological tradition whose prophecy-obsessed outlook on eschatology, was a major player in popular American Evangelical culture throughout the late 20th and early 21st century. Generations of Evangelicals can be distinguished by identifying whether their trauma was inflicted by “A Thief in the Night” or “Left Behind”.

The latter may represent the zenith of Dispensationalism’s hold on the Evangelical imagination. The popular series of books and movies brought the rapture and tribulation, two key Dispensational concepts, to millions.

Conservative Christian movie star Kirk Cameron starred in the first movie adaptation in 2000. By the time Chad Michael Murray reprised the role in a 2014 theatrical version starring Nicholas Cage, there was a sense that the theology had passed its heyday. Two more sequels, the last released in 2023 and starring Kevin Sorbo, would seem to confirm this impression.

Through the mid-2000s, Dispensationalism receded into the background of American Evangelicalism as Christian Nationalism ascended. Of course, Christian Nationalism is not new, and a genealogist of Evangelical culture could easily trace its origins back decades. But while Dispensationalism and Christian Nationalism coexisted in the Evangelical imagination for decades, there had never been an easy marriage between the two theological regimes.

Dispensationalism, always with its eye on the end times, often encouraged an other-worldly or next-worldly perspective. “Don’t polish the brass of a sinking ship,” hazily attributed to preachers D.L. Moody or J. Vernon McGee but widely shared regardless of provenance, is illustrative of the attitude: this world is ending, and soon. Prioritize appropriately.

For Dispensationalists, this often meant prioritizing evangelism while neglecting issues considered to be this-worldly. Poverty, racism, and environmental problems would be fixed in the next world. A popular pastor in my hometown was fond of saying he drove an SUV because the world was going to be burned up anyway.

To its critics, Dispensationalism encouraged social and political apathy through its fatalistic outlook on the future and nihilism toward the present world.

The Now

Apathy is decidedly not the outlook of the modern Christian Nationalist. This world matters to them, and they believe the fundamental mission of the (conservative) Christian church is to seize political and social power, forging their vision of a “Christian” nation at the expense of those who don’t fit it—immigrants, queer folk, and religious minorities.

Dispensationalists expected society to turn away from traditional Christian values. They decried the trend, of course, but also saw it as a sign that Jesus’s return was drawing near. Christian Nationalists flip that script and urge “true” Christians to seek power to forcibly reverse social trends that stand in opposition to conservative Christian values.

America as Babylon or America as New Jerusalem. Both stories existed in the Evangelical imagination, waxing and waning in their prominence, available to use but too contradictory to deploy simultaneously.

Now and Then

Theology is nothing if not pliable, though, and Evangelicals syncretize religious impulses as well as anyone. Contradictions can be smoothed out, plastered over, or simply ignored, given sufficient motivation.

For motivation, any new war will suffice. Holy war, in fact, provides the backdrop against which Evangelicalism’s twin engines of destruction can burn fully, together, perhaps for the first time. American Evangelicals have long been this country’s most potent religious innovators.

I fear that a marriage between Dispensationalism and Christian Nationalism will unleash innovative violence. The social nihilism of Dispensational eschatology, coupled with the militaristic triumphalism of Christian Nationalism, has the potential for moral catastrophe.

If America’s actions abroad can be justified because we’re God’s chosen nation, and our actions contribute to the fulfillment of prophecy that hastens Christ’s return, then morality is a feeble tether restraining our leaders. The degree to which this union is a reality remains to be seen, at least as it exists among the people running the war in Iran.

But this Evangelical syncretism can already be heard from the pulpit and around social media. As a scholar of religion, I find this synthesis of two major, but heretofore largely separate, streams of Evangelical theology fascinating to witness. As a citizen and as an Evangelical Christian committed to the well-being of my neighbor, I watch in worry.

Individually, Dispensationalism and Christian Nationalism have been socially destructive to American civic life. Their fusion may prove to be an internationally destructive force, even more devastating in character and scale.