The Eudaimonia Blog

I know I said yesterday’s post would be my last for a while on Israel, nonetheless, I felt the need to add one more post before leaving for Germany. As I have been thinking a lot about Israel as of late trying to establish a proper Biblical framework and perspective in my writings, I have also thought to press deeper into my understanding of the historical developments of the understanding that the Jewish people would one day return to the land of Israel as a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. This understanding is known as “Christian Zionism.” In some earlier posts, I placed the blame squarely at the feet of the development of theological framework known by the name dispensationalism. Certainly within my lifetime, dispensationalism has had a stranglehold on the Christian imagination here in North America and has contributed greatly to false notions about Christian Zionism for the last 150 years ago or so.

Yet, in some of my digging to learn more, I was recently blessed to come across a lecture as well as a book from the late Dr. Donald Lewis called A Short History on Christian Zionism. Dr. Lewis was a longtime professor here locally at Regent College, beloved by many Regent students who have come through Grace Van through the years. I’m listening to this free lecture on audio currently and have his book on order through Amazon. In the bits and pieces I’ve listened to and read from Dr. Lewis, Lewis makes the case that Christian Zionism traces its roots far past the influence of dispensationalism, through the English Puritans and to the Reformation, in particular to John Calvin’s successor, Theodore Beza, who after Calvin led the Protestant Reformation in Geneva. This was new information to me as I was unaware of this history. So first of all, mea culpa. If Dr. Lewis is right and if there are the roots of blame to be placed regarding the damages of Christian Zionism on the Christian imagination, my own theological tradition as a Reformed person would be the proper starting point, rather than dispensationalism (which is outside my theological tradition). I suppose, this also squares with the principle I have been seeking to espouse all along that we as Jesus’ Church are needing to get our house in order. To quote from one of my favourite lines in cinema, when in the movie Glory, Private Silas Trip played by a young Denzel Washington, responds to Colonel Shaw played by Matthew Broderick regarding the horrors of the American Civil War they have been a part of, “Yeah, It stinks bad. And we all covered up in it too. Ain’t nobody clean. Be nice to get clean, though.”