Christian Zionism: When American Evangelicals Became Israel's Useful Idiots by Jeff Callaway

Christian Zionism: When American Evangelicals Became Israel's Useful Idiots

By Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

I. PROLOGUE: THE GOLDEN CALF WITH A FLAG

There is a new idol in the American church, and it wears desert camouflage.

Millions of Christians who would never bow before a golden calf now bow before a blue and white flag. They have traded the Lamb of God for a secular nation-state. They have confused prophecy charts drawn by 19th-century heretics with the eternal Word of God. They have made a foreign government's military strategy into a test of Christian orthodoxy.

The early Christians died in arenas rather than burn incense to Caesar. Today's evangelicals cheer bombings from air-conditioned mega-church auditoriums, waving Israeli flags while invoking the name of Christ. They have been catechized not by Scripture, not by the Church Fathers, not by two thousand years of Christian teaching, but by footnotes in a corrupted Bible and novels about the end times.

This is Christian Zionism: a theological mutant born in 19th-century Britain, exported to America like a virus, and now commanding billions of dollars, shaping foreign policy, and leading millions of souls away from the Cross and toward the worship of a nation-state that does not even acknowledge Christ as Lord.

When did Christians stop following Jesus and start following a foreign military's battle plans? When did the Gospel get reduced to geopolitics? When did disciples of the Prince of Peace become cheerleaders for endless war?

The answer is more recent than you think, and more damning than most want to admit.

II. DEFINING THE BEAST: WHAT CHRISTIAN ZIONISM ACTUALLY IS

Before we dismantle this false gospel, we must define it clearly, because many who preach it daily would deny holding its core tenets if you named them plainly.

Christian Zionism teaches that the modern State of Israel, founded in 1948, is the direct continuation and fulfillment of biblical Israel. It claims that God's covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob remains in force for ethnic Jews regardless of their faith in Christ. It insists that Christians must support the Israeli government unconditionally or face divine wrath.

This is not a mere political opinion about Middle Eastern policy. This is a theological system that fundamentally rewrites the Gospel. It separates what Christ united. It divides what God joined. It places a nation-state where Christ alone should stand.

According to this false teaching, Israel and the Church are two separate peoples with two separate destinies, operating under two separate covenants. The Church, they say, is merely a parenthesis in God's real plan, which centers on ethnic Israel. When the rapture occurs, they claim, true Christians will vanish to heaven while God returns His attention to the Jews, reinstates the Old Covenant, and establishes a thousand-year earthly kingdom with Jerusalem as its capital.

Compare this theological innovation with what the Church has always taught. Compare it with what the Apostles preached. Compare it with the unified voice of Augustine, Jerome, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin. Compare it with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

You will find no match. You will find only contradiction. Christian Zionism is not ancient orthodoxy but modern heresy, not apostolic tradition but 19th-century invention, not the faith once delivered to the saints but a doctrine delivered by men with questionable pasts and political agendas.

III. THE INVENTED TRADITION: DISPENSATIONALISM IS NOT ANCIENT

Every heresy claims to be recovering ancient truth. Every false teacher insists he is merely returning to what the Apostles really meant. Christian Zionism is no different. Its adherents speak as though their theology dropped straight from heaven, unchanged since Pentecost.

The historical record tells a different story.

John Nelson Darby: The Architect of a New Gospel

Christian Zionism as we know it today was invented by an Irishman named John Nelson Darby in the 1830s. Darby was a disillusioned Anglican priest who left his church, joined a separatist group called the Plymouth Brethren, and proceeded to develop a theological system so radical that it would have been unrecognizable to every Christian who came before him.

Darby claimed divine revelation showed him what eighteen centuries of believers had somehow missed: that God has two distinct peoples, Israel and the Church, operating under separate plans with separate destinies. He taught that the Church age was an unforeseen interruption in God's dealings with Israel, a parenthesis in the divine timeline. He invented the concept of a secret rapture in which Christians would be snatched away before a seven-year tribulation, after which God would return His focus to the Jewish people.

None of this was taught by the Apostles. None of it appeared in the creeds. None of it was affirmed by any ecumenical council. It was pure innovation, drawn not from Scripture rightly divided but from Scripture tortured into a predetermined system.

Darby toured America repeatedly in the late 1800s, spreading his new doctrine among Bible conferences and prophecy gatherings. He found eager audiences in a young nation prone to religious enthusiasm and unburdened by centuries of Christian tradition. American evangelicalism, with its thin theological roots and its appetite for novelty, proved to be fertile soil for Darby's seeds of error.

Cyrus Scofield: Footnotes as False Gospel

If Darby planted the seeds, Cyrus Scofield watered them into a poisonous harvest.

Scofield was a man whose biography reads like a warning label. A lawyer forced to resign as U.S. District Attorney amid scandals involving bribery and forgery. A man who abandoned his wife and children. A heavy drinker who claimed conversion but whose lifestyle afterward remained suspect. Not exactly the resume of a trustworthy biblical scholar.

Yet in 1909, Oxford University Press published the Scofield Reference Bible, and American Christianity has never been the same.

The genius and danger of Scofield's work was its format. Previous study Bibles had kept commentary separate from Scripture. Scofield placed his interpretive notes directly on the same pages as God's Word, creating a subtle but powerful impression that his dispensational theology carried scriptural authority.

Millions of Christians who would never read a theology book absorbed Scofield's system through his footnotes. His notes treated dispensationalism not as one interpretive framework among many but as the obvious, plain meaning of Scripture. Entire generations learned to read the Bible through Scofield's lens, never knowing they were being indoctrinated into a system invented just seventy years earlier.

By the time of the revised edition in 1917, and especially after the 1967 revision following Israel's statehood, the Scofield Bible had become the standard reference for American fundamentalists and evangelicals. Oxford University Press reported it as their best-selling book ever, with over ten million copies sold. Its influence spread through Bible institutes, prophecy conferences, and eventually through popular culture via the Left Behind series and countless end-times teachers.

The tragedy is that Scofield's footnotes became more authoritative than Scripture itself for countless believers. Ask the average dispensationalist why they believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, and they will cite verses filtered through Scofield's interpretive framework, never realizing that Christians for nineteen centuries read those same verses and came to different conclusions.

No Church Father Believed This

Here is the simplest proof that Christian Zionism is a novel invention: no one taught it for eighteen centuries.

Not Augustine, the greatest theologian of the Western Church, who explicitly taught that the Church is the New Israel and that God's promises to Abraham are fulfilled in Christ and His body.

Not Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin and understood both Hebrew and Greek better than any dispensationalist teacher today.

Not Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor whose synthesis of Christian theology shaped both Catholic and Protestant thought.

Not Martin Luther, who broke from Rome over justification by faith but never invented a separate plan for ethnic Israel.

Not John Calvin, whose systematic theology influenced millions but contained no hint of dispensationalism.

Not John Wesley, not Jonathan Edwards, not Charles Spurgeon. Not a single major Christian figure before the 19th century taught that Israel and the Church are separate peoples with separate destinies.

The doctrine of the Church as the New Israel, the fulfillment and continuation of God's covenant people, is the consistent testimony of Christian orthodoxy from the Apostles onward. Dispensationalism's claim to restore ancient truth is a lie. It invents tradition where none existed and calls innovation orthodoxy.

IV. WHAT THE CHURCH HAS ALWAYS TAUGHT ABOUT ISRAEL

While dispensationalists were busy inventing new theology in the 1800s, the Catholic Church was busy preserving what had always been believed. The contrast could not be more stark.

Christ Fulfills Israel—He Does Not Pause It

Jesus Christ did not come to hit the pause button on Israel's story so that Gentiles could have their turn. He came to fulfill it. He came to complete it. He came to bring it to its intended destination.

Our Lord's own words leave no ambiguity: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17). He did not come to sideline Israel but to be Israel, to accomplish what Israel could not, to succeed where Israel failed.

After His resurrection, Jesus opened the minds of His disciples to understand the Scriptures, showing them that everything written about Him in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled (Luke 24:44-45). The entire Old Testament points to Christ. He is the true Temple, the true sacrifice, the true High Priest, the true Israel.

Saint Paul makes this crystal clear in his letter to the Galatians: "Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, 'And to offsprings,' referring to many, but referring to one, 'And to your offspring,' who is Christ" (Galatians 3:16). The singular seed of Abraham is Jesus. The promises find their fulfillment in Him. And all who are in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, become Abraham's offspring and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:29).

This is not replacement theology in the crude sense that dispensationalists imagine. The Church has not replaced Israel. The Church is Israel, reconstituted around Christ, opened to all nations, no longer bound by ethnic descent or the ceremonial law but united by faith in the Jewish Messiah.

The Church as the New Israel

The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms what Christians have always believed: the Church is the People of God, the continuation and fulfillment of Israel. God chose Abraham and his descendants, instructed them, and made them holy. But as the Catechism states, all of this was "by way of preparation and as a figure of that new and perfect covenant" established by Christ.

The promises made to Israel are not discarded but fulfilled. The covenants are not broken but completed. The People of God are not replaced but expanded to include all who have faith in Christ.

Saint Paul uses the image of an olive tree to explain this mystery (Romans 11). Israel is the cultivated olive tree. Some natural branches were broken off because of unbelief. Wild olive shoots—that's us Gentiles—have been grafted in. But it's one tree, not two. One people, not two. One covenant, not multiple parallel plans.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). In Christ, the dividing wall of hostility has been torn down (Ephesians 2:14). Jew and Gentile become one new man. The distinction remains in terms of historical heritage and God's ongoing providential care for the Jewish people, but soteriologically—in terms of salvation—there is one way, one Lord, one baptism, one body.

Vatican II's Lumen Gentium declares, "The Church is the new people of God." This is not supersessionism in the sense of divine rejection, but fulfillment in the sense of God's plan reaching its intended goal. The Catholic Church rejects the idea that God has cast away His ancient people—Romans 9-11 makes clear He has not. But it equally rejects the notion that salvation comes apart from Christ or that ethnic descent grants anyone a privileged path to God.

V. SAINT PAUL VS. PROPHECY GRIFTERS

Nowhere is Christian Zionism's distortion of Scripture more evident than in its abuse of Romans 9-11. Paul's extended meditation on Israel's role in salvation history has been twisted to support doctrines Paul himself would condemn.

Paul begins these chapters with profound anguish: "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh" (Romans 9:2-3). His love for his fellow Jews is real and deep. He lists their privileges: the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the law, the worship, the promises, the patriarchs, and from them comes the Christ (Romans 9:4-5).

But Paul's anguish exists precisely because most Jews have rejected their own Messiah. If they were fine as they were, if the Old Covenant still saved them, why would Paul wish himself accursed for their sake? His grief makes sense only if their unbelief places them in peril.

Paul asks explicitly: "Has God rejected his people?" His answer: "By no means!" God has preserved a remnant chosen by grace (Romans 11:1-5). But note carefully: this remnant consists of Jews who believe in Jesus. They are saved the same way Gentiles are saved—by faith in Christ. There is no parallel covenant, no alternative path to salvation for ethnic Jews who reject the Gospel.

Dispensationalists love to quote Romans 11:26, "And in this way all Israel will be saved," as proof of their system. They claim this refers to a future mass conversion of ethnic Jews who will be saved under a restored Old Covenant during the Millennium. But Paul has already defined who "Israel" is in this passage: the remnant according to grace, those who have faith. He is describing the fullness of both Jew and Gentile coming into the one body of Christ.

Paul warns Gentile believers not to boast over the natural branches that were broken off (Romans 11:17-24). We have been grafted in by grace, and we can be cut off by unbelief just as they were. But the way back for unbelieving Jews is the same way Gentiles entered: faith in Christ. "If they do not continue in their unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again" (Romans 11:23). The condition is clear: they must not continue in unbelief.

There is no promise here of salvation apart from Christ. There is no hint of a restored Old Covenant that bypasses the New. There is no suggestion that ethnic Jews will be saved while continuing to reject Jesus. Paul's entire argument in Romans 9-11 assumes that Jesus is the climax of Israel's story, and those who reject Him have stumbled over the stone that God laid in Zion (Romans 9:32-33).

Christian Zionist teachers who use Romans 9-11 to support their system are not just misreading Paul—they are inverting his meaning. They take a passage about the necessity of faith in Christ and twist it into a proof-text for salvation without Christ. They take Paul's warning against Gentile arrogance and use it to justify uncritical support for a secular state. They read Scripture through their preconceived system rather than letting Scripture shape their theology.

VI. THE IDOLATRY OF A MODERN SECULAR STATE

At the rotten core of Christian Zionism lies an identification so blasphemous that few who hold it grasp its full implications: the equation of biblical, covenantal Israel with the modern, secular state of Israel founded in 1948.

These are not the same entity. Not theologically. Not religiously. Not in any way that matters to God.

Biblical Israel was a theocracy, a nation explicitly under God's direct rule, governed by His law revealed through Moses and the prophets. It was a nation whose identity was inseparable from worship of the One True God, whose land itself was holy because God dwelt there in the Temple, whose kings were anointed by prophets and judged by divine standards.

Modern Israel is a parliamentary democracy, a secular state where religious law has no official standing, where atheists and believers have equal citizenship, where the majority of the population is secular and many deny God entirely. It is a nation like any other, founded through political processes and sustained by military might and diplomatic maneuvering.

Modern Israel does not follow Mosaic Law. It does not offer sacrifices. It does not observe the Sabbath as commanded in Torah—businesses operate, armies deploy, work continues. It does not recognize Jesus as Lord, Messiah, or even prophet. Many of its religious leaders view Christianity with hostility, and traditional Talmudic teaching contains passages deeply offensive to Christian faith.

To equate these two entities is not just bad theology. It is functional idolatry. It takes a secular nation-state and invests it with divine authority. It treats the decisions of politicians and generals as expressions of God's will. It places a government where only God should be.

No nation today is God's chosen instrument. No modern state operates under direct divine mandate. The Kingdom of God is not advanced by F-16 fighter jets and tank battalions. The promises to Abraham are not fulfilled through parliamentary votes in the Knesset.

Yet Christian Zionists routinely speak of the modern state as though criticizing its policies is tantamount to opposing God Himself. They treat its military actions as holy war. They interpret its territorial ambitions as divine mandate. They give to a secular government the reverence that belongs to God alone.

This is idolatry. Plain and simple. It is the golden calf dressed in modern garb, the worship of power and nation disguised as faithfulness to Scripture.

VII. SCRIPTURE AS A POLITICAL WEAPON

Christian Zionism does not arise from careful, prayerful reading of Scripture. It arises from using Scripture as a weapon to justify predetermined political positions.

The method is consistent across dispensationalist teaching: cherry-pick verses, rip them from context, ignore the New Testament's own interpretation of Old Testament prophecy, and construct elaborate end-times scenarios that read more like political fan fiction than biblical theology.

Consider Genesis 12:3, perhaps the most abused verse in Christian Zionist discourse: "I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse." Scofield's footnote declares this a permanent, unconditional promise that applies to the modern state of Israel. Therefore, Christians must support Israeli policy or face divine judgment.

But who is the "you" in this verse? Abraham. And who is Abraham's singular seed? Christ (Galatians 3:16). And who are Abraham's children? Those who have faith in Christ (Galatians 3:7). The promise is fulfilled in Jesus and extends to all who are in Him. It is not a blank check for a secular government's foreign policy.

Christian Zionists treat prophecy like astrology, scanning current events for signs and wonders, convinced that every newspaper headline fulfills some obscure verse. They subordinate Scripture to political ideology, making the Bible a handbook for geopolitical analysis rather than the Word of God that calls all nations, including Israel, to repentance and faith in Christ.

They ignore Jesus's own warning: "From Jerusalem you will be led away captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" (Luke 21:24). They ignore that this trampling occurred in AD 70 when Rome destroyed Jerusalem, just as Jesus predicted. They ignore that Jesus taught His Kingdom is not of this world and does not come with observable signs that can be calculated and predicted (Luke 17:20-21).

Most of all, they ignore that the entire Old Testament must be read through Christ. He is the key that unlocks Scripture. Every prophecy, every promise, every covenant finds its meaning in Him. To read the Old Testament as though Christ has not come, as though the Cross and Resurrection have not altered everything, is to read it as though we are still in spiritual darkness.

VIII. BLOOD AND MONEY: THE REAL-WORLD CONSEQUENCES

Theology is never mere theory. False teaching always bears fruit, and Christian Zionism's fruit is blood and wasted treasure.

Billions of American Tax Dollars

The United States has provided over 300 billion dollars in aid to Israel since 1948, making it by far the largest recipient of American foreign assistance since World War II. Current agreements commit 3.8 billion dollars annually, with an additional 17.9 billion dollars sent in the first year after October 7, 2023 alone.

Let that number sink in. Billions. Every year. To a wealthy, nuclear-armed nation with universal healthcare and a higher standard of living than many American states.

Meanwhile, American veterans sleep on sidewalks. American towns decay, their factories closed and populations addicted. American infrastructure crumbles, bridges collapsing and water systems failing. American children attend schools that can barely afford textbooks.

But every year, like clockwork, billions flow to Israel. No accountability required. Unlike every other aid recipient, Israel receives its money in one lump sum at the start of the fiscal year and faces no requirement to report how it's spent. The money can be used in ways that directly contradict stated American policy, including settlement construction in occupied territories, and nothing happens.

Why? Because Christian Zionists have convinced themselves and politicians that this is what God demands. Because prophecy teachers have created a theology that makes support for Israel a test of Christian faithfulness. Because millions of evangelicals will vote based on this single issue, and politicians have learned to manipulate this leverage.

American Soldiers Die

American troops have fought and died in Middle Eastern wars shaped by Christian Zionist ideology for decades. The Iraq War. Afghanistan. Endless smaller conflicts and drone campaigns. All justified, at least in part, by the need to protect Israel and maintain American dominance in the region.

Young men and women from towns across America are sent to die in deserts halfway around the world, while Israeli soldiers, armed with American weapons bought with American dollars, stay home. The architects of Christian Zionism's political power rarely send their own children to these wars. It's always someone else's son, someone else's daughter, who comes home in a flag-draped coffin so that their prophetic timeline can be maintained.

The bitter irony is that these wars, often supported enthusiastically by Christian Zionists, have destroyed ancient Christian communities across the Middle East. Iraqi Christians, Syrian Christians, communities that trace their heritage to the Apostles themselves, have been decimated by wars that American evangelicals cheered as necessary to protect Israel and fight terrorism.

Church Money Flows Away

Beyond tax dollars, Christian Zionist organizations funnel hundreds of millions of dollars from American church members to Israel. Ministries like Christians United for Israel and International Fellowship of Christians and Jews solicit donations ostensibly for charitable purposes but often support projects that deepen the Israeli occupation and make peace less likely.

Churches hold special offerings for Israel. Prophecy conferences sell tickets and books promoting travel to the Holy Land, usually with a hefty markup. Pastors lead tours that often function more as political pilgrimages than spiritual journeys, where participants are carefully guided to see only what reinforces their theological preconceptions.

This money could be building churches, feeding the poor, supporting struggling parishes, spreading the Gospel. Instead, it goes to subsidize a nuclear-armed state that doesn't need it and doesn't want the Gospel that supposedly motivates the giving.

Meanwhile, Catholic parishes close for lack of funds. Church schools struggle to stay open. Homeless shelters beg for donations. But there's always money for Israel, because the prophecy teachers have convinced millions that giving to Israel is giving to God.

IX. IF ANY OTHER COUNTRY DID THIS

Here is the test that exposes Christian Zionism's moral bankruptcy: apply the same standards to any other nation that you apply to Israel.

If any other country killed thousands of civilians, most Christian Zionists would call it a war crime. When Israel does it, they call it self-defense and invoke Bible verses.

If any other country maintained a decades-long military occupation, controlled another people's water, power, and movement, demolished their homes, and built settlements on their land, most Christians would call it injustice. When Israel does it, they call it fulfillment of prophecy.

If any other country possessed nuclear weapons while refusing to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, refused international inspections, and operated on an policy of nuclear ambiguity, Americans would call it a threat. When Israel does it, silence.

If any other country's lobbying groups exercised the kind of power over American politics that pro-Israel groups do, Americans would call it foreign interference. When Israel does it, it's called protecting our greatest ally.

The suspension of normal moral reasoning is complete. Actions that would be condemned if committed by any other nation are defended, justified, or ignored when Israel commits them. International law applies to everyone except Israel. Human rights matter everywhere except when Israeli policy is at stake.

Christian Zionists have traded the Just War tradition, developed over centuries of Christian moral reasoning, for uncritical support of whatever the Israeli government does. They have abandoned the biblical command to seek justice and love mercy, replacing it with a blank check for violence in the name of prophecy.

This is what happens when nationalism becomes theology. This is what happens when a nation-state becomes an idol. The moral compass breaks, the conscience is seared, and Christians find themselves defending the indefensible because they have invested a secular government with spiritual authority it does not possess.

X. WHO IS THE TRUE ISRAEL OF GOD?

Let Scripture answer the question Christian Zionism desperately wants to confuse.

Paul addresses the Galatians with precision: "And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God" (Galatians 6:16). Who is this Israel of God? Those who walk by the rule Paul has just defined—those who boast only in the Cross of Christ, who have been made a new creation.

He tells the Romans that not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring (Romans 9:6-8). Physical descent means nothing. What matters is the promise, and the promise comes through faith in Christ.

Jesus Himself draws the line clearly: "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did" (John 8:39-40). Ethnic descent from Abraham means nothing if you reject the Messiah Abraham longed to see.

The book of Revelation's images, so tortured by dispensationalists into elaborate timelines, actually point clearly to the Church as the fulfillment of Israel's hopes. The New Jerusalem comes down from heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband (Revelation 21:2). The gates bear the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, but the foundations bear the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb (Revelation 21:12-14). Old and New Covenant united, Israel fulfilled in the Church, the People of God completed.

True Israel is not defined by bloodline but by faith. Not by genetics but by grace. Not by passport but by baptism. The Israel of God consists of all who have been crucified with Christ, who have died and risen with Him, who have been incorporated into His body, whether they are Jew or Gentile by birth.

This is the Gospel. This is the teaching of the Apostles. This is what the Church has proclaimed for two millennia. Salvation is in Christ alone, for both Jew and Gentile. There is no Plan B. There is no separate track. There is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ, for "there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

XI. THE AMERICAN CHURCH UNDER A STRONG DELUSION

Saint Paul warned that in the last days, God would send a strong delusion so that people would believe lies (2 Thessalonians 2:11). Could anything fit this description better than the mass delusion that has gripped American evangelicalism regarding Israel?

Millions of Christians in America today confuse end-times hysteria with faith. They follow prophecy charlatans instead of Christ. They study newspaper headlines more closely than the Gospels. They seek signs and wonders instead of taking up their crosses daily. They reduce the rich, complex, beautiful faith delivered by the Apostles to a crude roadmap of coming conflicts and catastrophes.

They obsess over the timing of the Rapture while neglecting justice. They memorize Daniel's seventy weeks while ignoring the Sermon on the Mount. They debate the identity of the Antichrist while failing to see the idolatry in their own hearts.

They have replaced the worship of the Triune God with the worship of a nation-state. They have substituted political tribalism for Christian charity. They have traded the pearl of great price for a prophecy chart.

And they are certain—absolutely certain—that they are right. They cannot be reasoned with, because their system is self-sealing. Any contradiction is dismissed as liberalism or antisemitism. Any alternative interpretation is rejected as compromising God's Word. Any attempt to bring them back to historic Christian teaching is seen as apostasy.

This is what delusion looks like. This is what happens when theological novelty is baptized as ancient truth, when political ideology masquerades as biblical fidelity, when a false gospel is embraced with the fervor that should be reserved for the true one.

The saddest part is how many sincere, well-meaning Christians have been led astray by teachers who should have known better. They love God. They want to be faithful. They study their Bibles. But they have been given a corrupted framework that makes them misread everything they encounter.

They need to be rescued. Not mocked, not condemned, but brought back to the Gospel that Paul preached and the Church has preserved. They need to hear that there is nothing new in the true faith, that novelty is almost always error, that the best theology is old theology, tested and refined by centuries of faithful witness.

XII. CALL TO REPENTANCE: COME OUT OF HER

If you have been captured by Christian Zionism's false gospel, hear this call to repentance clearly.

Renounce the false dichotomy that says you must choose between loving Jesus and supporting a particular nation's policies. You can love the Jewish people without giving blank-check approval to every action of the Israeli government. You can pray for peace in the Holy Land without believing that conflict there serves God's purposes.

Renounce the novelty of dispensationalism and return to the ancient faith. You do not need John Nelson Darby or Cyrus Scofield to understand Scripture. You have the Church, two thousand years of faithful witnesses, the communion of saints. You have the Magisterium, which has preserved and protected apostolic teaching through every age. You have the Catechism, which faithfully explains what Christians have always believed.

Renounce the idolatry of nation-worship. Neither modern Israel nor America nor any earthly power deserves your ultimate allegiance. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, but render unto God what is God's, and do not confuse the two.

Return to the Cross. Return to the Eucharist. Return to the Church that Christ founded, the pillar and foundation of truth, built on the rock of Peter, sustained by the Holy Spirit, guided by the successors of the Apostles.

Choose Christ over country. Choose truth over comfortable lies. Choose the Kingdom of God over earthly kingdoms and their political machinations.

This will cost you something. It may cost you friendships with those who cannot see past their delusion. It may cost you your place in churches that have made Christian Zionism a test of fellowship. It may cost you the approval of family members who have been taught that questioning Israel is questioning God.

But it will gain you everything that matters: freedom from a false gospel, return to authentic Christianity, communion with the saints of all ages who confessed the same faith.

Come out of Babylon. Come home to the Church. Come back to Jesus.

XIII. EPILOGUE: CHRIST IS KING

When Jesus stood before Pilate, the Roman governor asked Him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:33-36). This is the answer that exposes all Christian Zionism's errors.

Christ's kingdom is not Israel. It is not America. It is not any earthly nation or government. His kingdom is not established by tanks and fighter jets, not maintained by political lobbying, not advanced by billion-dollar aid packages.

His kingdom comes through the Cross and the empty tomb. It advances through the preaching of the Gospel and the celebration of the sacraments. It grows as souls are saved and sanctified, as sinners repent and believe, as the Church carries out her mission until He returns.

When Christ returns—and He will return, though no prophecy chart can tell you when—He will not come to endorse a nation-state. He will not come to give Jerusalem to ethnic Jews regardless of their faith. He will not come to validate the theology of 19th-century heretics or the politics of 21st-century lobbying groups.

He will come to judge the living and the dead. He will come to separate sheep from goats, wheat from chaff, those who truly followed Him from those who called Him Lord but never knew Him. He will come to gather His elect from every nation, tribe, and tongue—including Jews who believed in Him and Gentiles grafted into His body—and He will banish forever all who rejected Him, regardless of their ethnicity or national allegiance.

The question is not whether you have supported the right political positions. The question is whether you have trusted in Christ alone for salvation, whether you have been baptized into His death, whether you have eaten His flesh and drunk His blood, whether you have obeyed His commandments and loved as He loved.

Blessed are those who remain faithful to Him, not to nations or flags or political movements or prophecy charts. Blessed are those who seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, knowing that everything else is secondary. Blessed are those who confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, over every earthly power, the King of Kings before whom every knee will bow.

There is no king but Christ. There is no hope but the Cross. There is no people of God but those who believe in Him. There is no Israel that matters eternally except the Israel defined by faith in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah who is Lord of all.

Christian Zionism has led millions astray, turning them from the Gospel to a false political theology. It has wasted billions that could have spread the true faith. It has baptized violence and occupation as holy. It has made an idol of a nation-state.

It is time to tear the idol down.

Not to argue with it endlessly. Not to negotiate with it. Not to baptize it with softer language. Idols are not reformed; they are smashed. The golden calf did not need better PR—it needed to be ground to powder.

Christian Zionism must be named for what it is: a counterfeit gospel that redirects Christian hope away from Christ and toward a nation-state, that replaces the scandal of the Cross with the spectacle of military power, that trains believers to look for salvation in borders, bloodlines, and bombs rather than in repentance, baptism, and the Eucharist.

The Church does not need prophecy charts. She needs saints.
She does not need end-times speculation. She needs martyrs.
She does not need to bless war machines. She needs to preach Christ crucified.

For two thousand years, the Church has survived without Christian Zionism. She flourished under persecution, not political influence. She converted the Roman Empire without a single tank, without foreign aid, without lobbying Caesar’s court. She conquered the world armed with nothing but the truth of the Gospel and the blood of the martyrs.

And she will survive the collapse of this modern heresy as well.

The future of Christianity does not run through Washington, Tel Aviv, or any capital on earth. It runs through Calvary. It runs through the confessional and the altar. It runs through faithful men and women who refuse to bow to the idols of their age, even when those idols wave flags and quote Scripture.

The choice before American Christians is stark.

You can continue down the path of Christian Zionism—of conflating God with geopolitics, of excusing injustice for the sake of prophecy, of confusing loyalty to Christ with loyalty to a foreign government. Or you can return to the faith once delivered to the saints, the faith that proclaims one Lord, one covenant, one people of God, one salvation in Jesus Christ alone.

You cannot serve two masters.
You cannot worship Christ and a nation-state.
You cannot proclaim the Prince of Peace while cheering endless war.

In the end, every idol collapses. Every empire falls. Every flag is folded.

Only Christ remains.

No king but Christ.
No covenant but the New.
No Israel but the people born again in Him.

Everything else is dust.

~by Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

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