Israel and the Church - When The Church Picks Sides

A war can expose what we really believe, and right now it is drawing a sharp line through the church. Some Christians feel morally and spiritually compelled to support modern Israel at all costs. Others look at the mounting civilian deaths, the destruction of Christian communities, and Jesus’ commands to love enemies and forgive, and they cannot reconcile that with cheering a war. We start a new series called Israel and the Church to sort through the arguments with open Bibles and clear eyes, not political slogans.

We walk through why evangelical support for Israel is often described as a spiritual obligation. That includes the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12, the language of “blessing” and “cursing,” and how those ideas shape voting, giving, and public advocacy. We also define Christian Zionism and explain how dispensationalism separates God’s plan for ethnic Israel from God’s plan for the Church, often tying modern events to end times prophecy in Revelation, Armageddon expectations, Jerusalem, and even a future Third Temple. We also name the non-theological drivers, like seeing Israel as a key US ally in the Middle East.

Then we slow down and ask the questions many believers are now raising: Who is the promise for, and does ethnic descent guarantee covenant blessings? Does loving Jewish people require endorsing any nation-state’s tactics? Does the Bible actually command unconditional political, financial, and military support? Finally, we turn to the Pauline lens, reading Romans 3 and the claim that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile when it comes to sin, grace, and salvation through Jesus Christ, and we close with an invitation to pray.

Subscribe for the rest of the series, share this with someone who is wrestling with these questions, and leave a review with your take: what should guide a Christian conscience when theology, war, and compassion collide?

Transcript

Welcome And Series Launch

Lynne 0:00

You are listening to Higher Realm with Lynne Little. Our program highlights biblical strategies for moving through life's difficulties and finding your path to healing. We tackle issues particular to those who have experienced painful loss in any form. Lynne is the founder and president of Lynne Little Ministries and the author of Missing Lisa, A Parent Grieves, and Finding God in Death and Life, A Passage Through Grief. Now, here's Lynne.

Why The War Divides Christians

Lynne 0:31

Hello and welcome. Today we begin a new series entitled Israel and the Church. The war has created a dividing line in the church. The conflict is increasing, and believers are choosing sides. Prominent evangelical leaders have clearly stated their support for the conflict, citing as justification, God's plan for the Jewish nation. Others of the Christian community find the loss of life appalling, and the hostilities in direct conflict with the teachings of Jesus. Christians supporting a war, they protest. Where does turning the other cheek, loving our enemies, and forgiving them figure in? How have we arrived at such a pass? Belief systems play an important role, particularly in the behavior of the believer, what they promote, who they honor, how they live, and how they vote. So both sides of this issue are very well worth exploring in depth. Today we will begin by briefly outlining the pretext for the war and the consequent human toll, examine evangelical support for it, and their justification for advocating for the cause of the nation of Israel. As we discuss their rationale, we'll also look at the scriptural response as viewed primarily through the lens of the Pauline Revelation. Keep in mind, this discussion is not intended to be a political one, but rather an effort to sort through the various arguments and seek the truth based on the Word of God. Two

Labels, Anti-Semitism Fears, And Context

Lynne 2:48

important points need clarifying at the outset. This series is by no means intended to be an excoriation of the warring nations. We concern ourselves solely with the relevance of the topic to the Church of Jesus Christ. And in broaching the subject of Israel's involvement at all, we run the risk of being unfairly labeled as anti-Semitic, in the same manner in which slurs such as homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and the ubiquitous catch-all, racist, are employed to silence earnest inquiry and debate. We might point out that ironically absent from the list is a term to indicate the intense and altogether indefensible hatred directed at adherence to the Christian faith. Perhaps a word such as "Christophia" would serve. Christians in general tolerate these outrageous terms as we similarly excuse the sacrilegious use of the name of Jesus as a curse, as opposed to swearing in the name of, for example, Mohammed or Siddhartha, Vishnu, or any one of the innumerable gods worshiped throughout the world. All that to say, labels don't work here. Neither does name calling, as we have long since stopped attending to nonsense. The second point is to clarify my personal track record. I alone, among our teaching staff, presented a unit study on the Holocaust every year as part of my curriculum. Although I chose this particular genocide among others to teach, due to the wealth of resources extant and the important lessons to be gleaned, and with a fervent hope that history would not repeat itself, I also referenced the appalling genocides of Christians under communism, of which there were far fewer mentions district-wide or throughout the Christian community. Then as now, it was simply not a common thing to editorialize the persecution of Christians. On that point, one might well ask why the almost ineradicable passivity exists regarding the millions of Christians murdered throughout the ages, by the Romans to the Bolsheviks, to the ongoing slaughter of Christians by Muslims worldwide. This collective amnesia is incredibly as prolific in the church as in the world at large. Perhaps we need to periodically remind ourselves of the ongoing genocide of Christians. We ignore it to our peril. But I digress.

Civilian Toll And Church Blind Spots

Lynne 6:35

The exact totals of the Gaza fatalities are bitterly disputed. Some estimates put it at 70,000, including women and children. Other sources claim that totals are likely undercounted by 40%. Now these are purely civilian casualties, not combatants. There is an online dataset that has inputted 60,000 civilian deaths with full names and dates of birth. Of these, 2,927 were elderly, 10,271 were women, 28,543 were men, 7,801 were girls, and 10,656 were boys. Fatalities in Israel since the outbreak of hostilities stand at approximately 2,000 plus, including both civilian and military. The latest 2026 escalations include over 3,500 deaths in Iran and nearly 1,500 in Lebanon. During the entirety of this campaign, evangelicals have continued to extend wholesale support to Israel, who are aided and embedded by our government. But even as it is currently committing what are considered war crimes against innocent civilians in Christian communities. Entire Christian neighborhoods and churches have been leveled, and both clergy and congregants killed, with no apologies offered. Yet with horrific genocidal numbers climbing daily, evangelicals remain fixated on the Jewish cause as represented by the country and leadership of Israel. In supporting this war, the church has failed to recognize that Jewish populations everywhere are now being negatively, and unfairly, conflated with the State of Israel, as its leadership continues a campaign against civilians of several populations in Gaza, Iran, and now Lebanon. Supporting the State of Israel in these unfortunate endeavors has the unintended consequence of damaging the Jewish community worldwide, creating the exactly opposite effect desired by their supporters. It is also troubling that while Israel continues to receive funding in the billions from our government and Christian donors, the body of Christ worldwide continues to suffer. Israel dominates headlines, and ongoing Christian genocides go unnoticed by those who should be the most concerned because they portend the persecution that will ultimately head in their direction. Now, seekers of truth are justifiably puzzled by this curious myopia of Christendom. One wonders why the murders of believers no longer matters, why the murders of innocent civilians don't count. Thus, this favoritism is extended to one country almost to the exclusion of the church worldwide.

Why Evangelicals Feel A Moral Duty

Lynne 10:45

There are multiple reasons for this. Many evangelicals consider support of Israel a moral imperative that eclipses all others. We will now look at why. A foundational belief for many evangelicals is that God made an eternal covenant with the Jewish people in the Old Testament that continues to the present day. They base this on a scripture found in Genesis 12: 2 and 3. Let's read this together. "I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." It appears here that a lineage is blessed by God and raises this question: Who are the descendants to whom the blessings come? Many believe that the descendants of the ancient Israelites are in perpetual covenant with God and are therefore set apart for a particular and unique purpose. This has given rise to the identification of Jews as God's chosen people. Some have taken this to mean that God will bless the world through the Jewish representation of the modern state of Israel. In frequently citing the Abrahamic covenant, evangelicals view supporting the state of Israel as a spiritual obligation to fulfill this divine command. In the inverse, one wonders then who would be the recipients of the curses that would purportedly come from God, but this factor has yet to be addressed.

Christian Zionism And Dispensationalism Explained

Lynne 13:02

The premise just described has given rise to a belief system known as Christian Zionism, which holds that the land of Israel, historically referred to as Zion, is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, and that they have a right to reclaim in any way, in this case by conquest, the original territories they possessed in ancient times. Zionists believe that the Jewish people have a historic and God-given right to this land. A massive driver of Zionism is the theological system of dispensationalism. This school of thought, held by many evangelicals, views human history as a series of distinct eras or dispensations in which God administers his plan for humanity in different ways. The reason dispensational thought is material to this issue is the distinction it draws between Israel and the church. Dispensationalists believe God's plan for ethnic Israel, both nationally and territorially, is completely separate from his plan for the church. They believe God's promises to Israel will be literally fulfilled, but in the future. Finally, many evangelicals believe that the continued existence of Israel is key to the unfolding of end times, as prophesied in the book of Revelation. In their view, several events are the specific prerequisites to the second coming of Jesus. Among them are the gathering of Jewish people in the Holy Land, the reestablishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Jewish people regaining control of Jerusalem, and the building of the Third Temple, and that the sequencing of these events will somehow hasten the return of the Messiah. They believe that events occurring in Israel are part of a divine timeline culminating in the Battle of Armageddon, and that said events will serve as actual triggers for the fulfillment of end-time prophecies. Beyond theology, many evangelicals view Israel as the only democratic and reliable ally of the United States in the Middle East. They see the defense of Israel as the defense of Western civilization against hostile actors in the region. Their voting bloc is prodigious, numbering an impressive forty-four million. This belief system's intense focus on Middle Eastern geopolitics and biblical prophecy has inspired strong, often unconditional, political and financial support for modern Israel. With this explanation of the mindset of certain evangelicals, it makes their action of support a little clearer and more understandable. As they assume God is soundly on the side of Israel, then to think otherwise is to land on the wrong side of the God they love.

Questions About Covenant And Modern Israel

Lynne 17:19

And they're raising some troubling questions among them. Who is God referring to in the Genesis 3:2 scripture? Does ethnic descent guarantee covenant blessings? Some are referring to genetics to question the authenticity of the claims of the current inhabitants of Israel. Some are questioning whether God is currently blessing the world through modern Israel, pointing to widespread censure of their tactics in war and the effect of the war on the world's economies. They wonder whether loving the Jewish people entails endorsing a state's actions. Some ask if the Jewish people are commanded by God to take territory according to the original boundaries. And if so, does the Bible explicitly command Christians to provide unconditional political, financial, and military support for the State of Israel in this conquest of territory? Within the current aggression, where do the so-called Judeo-Christian values figure in? Is the restoration of the nation-state of Israel essential to God's plan? In other words, will the earthly kingdom of God be brought about by Israel? If God is working separately with Israel, is there a special dual covenant that exempts Jews from salvation? What do they actually believe? And how does it differ from Christianity? And finally, is Zionism the truth? What about dispensationalism? We could spend hours, days wrestling with these questions and more. The

Salvation For Jew And Gentile

Lynne 19:34

Bible tells us that right standing with God is only given one way. Romans 3: 23 through 24 tells us "this righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The word tells us that God made Jesus to be sin, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Right standing with God comes by accepting Jesus as our Savior. Will you pray with me right now and mean it in your heart? Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross and to pay the penalty for my sin. I believe he rose again on the third day. Jesus, I invite you into my heart. Come into my life, forgive me of my sins, and make me brand new. I accept you as my Lord and Savior. Amen.

Prayer, Contact, And Closing

Lynne 21:16

If you prayed with us, write to us. Lynnelittle Ministries @ gmail.com. Have a wonderful and most blessed week. Thank you so much for listening. Lynne Little Ministries is a 501c3 whose mission is to assist those who have suffered loss and to help them discover hope, peace, and restoration. For books, resources, or to make a tax deductible donation, go to lynnelittle.org.