Christian Zionism
Belief among some Protestant Christians that Jews should return to the Holy Land / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Christian Zionism is a political and religious ideology that, in a Christian context, espouses the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land.[1] Likewise, it holds that the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 was in accordance with biblical prophecies transmitted through the Old Testament: that the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Levant—the eschatological "Gathering of Israel"—is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.[1][2][3] The term began to be used in the mid-20th century, in place of Christian restorationism, as proponents of the ideology rallied behind Zionists in support of a Jewish national homeland.[1][4][5]
Advocacy on the part of Christians for a Jewish restoration grew after the Protestant Reformation, and is rooted in 17th-century English Puritanism.[2] Contemporary Israeli historian Anita Shapira suggests that England's Zionist Evangelical Protestants "passed this notion on to Jewish circles" around the 1840s,[6] while Jewish nationalism in the early 19th century was largely met with hostility from British Jews.[7]
Christian pro-Zionist ideals have generally been common among Protestant Christians since the Reformation. While supporting a mass Jewish return to the Land of Israel, Christian Zionism asserts a parallel idea that the returnees ought to be encouraged to reject Judaism and adopt Christianity as a means of fulfilling biblical prophecies.[1][8][9][10][11] Polling and academic research have suggested a trend of widespread distrust among Jews towards the motives of Evangelical Protestants, which have been promoting support for the State of Israel and evangelizing the Jews at the same time.[1][12]