To the Apple of God's Eye: Christian Zionist Travel to Israel

Abstract

This article examines a case of travel to Israel which might further complicate the already blurry line between tourism and pilgrimage: evangelical, Christian Zionist visits to Israel. The Israeli Ministry of Tourism estimates that evangelical Christians account for one third of American visitors to Israel. My research investigates how Christian Zionist travel to Israel is both ‘touristic’ and ‘pilgrimage-like’ and how this case can serve to question some thinking about pilgrimage. Finally, I offer yet another definition of what constitutes pilgrimage, which avoids at least some of the particular hazards. A primary goal of the research is to provide more empirical data and deeper analysis for our understanding of Christian Zionist travel to Israel and thus to contribute additional nuance to discussions of pilgrimage and tourism more generally.

Notes

NOTES

1. No term has as yet been coined to express this idea. Perhaps ‘pilgrimoid’ or ‘pilgrimagic’ could serve.

2. Participant observation was conducted on two separate tours from North America, under two different Christian Zionist organizational auspices, in addition to fieldwork at the 2006 Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, the 2007 Knesset Christian Allies Caucus Women's Summit, and the 2007 Christian Friends of Israel ‘Shavuot’ Conference, together with interviews with individuals involved in Christian Zionist tours to Israel in various capacities. The author gratefully acknowledges financial support for this research received from a grant partly provided by Wilfrid Laurier University operating funds and partly provided by the SSHRC Institutional Grant awarded to Wilfrid Laurier University.

3. This event takes place during the biblical Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot in Hebrew). There are many reasons why this biblical Jewish feast is considered to be of special importance to ‘the Nations’ (Gentiles). The most significant for Christian Zionists is in Zachariah 14 : 16: God commands those of the nations who will survive divine punishment at the end of days to observe the Feast of Tabernacles. The ICEJ is not the only Christian Zionist group to highlight this holiday for a major gathering. The smaller International Christian Zionist Center, although different in emphasis and tone compared to the ICEJ, also holds its major annual program at this time. In the Christian Zionist conference year, the biblical Feast of Weeks (Shavuot in Hebrew) is also highlighted, as it is related to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. Christian Friends of Israel refers to its annual spring conference as its ‘Shavuot/Pentecost’ conference, even when the event dates correspond with neither Shavuot nor Pentecost. In 2007, the event was scheduled to correspond with the fortieth anniversary of the ‘reunification’ of Jerusalem. This political, historic event was significantly highlighted at the conference, whereas the ostensible themes of ‘Shavuot/Pentecost’ were not.

4. It is important to emphasize that not only are not all evangelicals Christian Zionists, there also exists explicit outright opposition to Christian Zionism in some evangelical circles, especially focused on arguments based in appeals to justice, evangelism or theology. See, for example www.christianzionism.org, a group that challenges Christian Zionism and calls for ‘biblical justice’—a most unfortunate phrase in my estimation—for the Palestinians. Some evangelicals argue that the disavowal of Jewish evangelism by some major Christian Zionist organizations abrogates a fundamental requirement of the Christian faith. Other evangelicals who espouse a theology of ‘covenantalism’ come to quite different conclusions about biblical prophecy, the role of the Jews, and basic eschatology—to name but some issues—compared to Christian Zionists. (See Sizer)

5. In the light of my research, I suspect that the role of dispensationalism has been over-stated as a basis for contemporary Christian Zionist understandings of the Holy Land. For example, appeals to biblical literalism, prophetic fulfillment, and covenant faithfulness are invoked far more often than complex theological/eschatological schemas. Without doubt, post-9/11 emphasis on a putatively shared Judeo-Christian heritage over and against Islam, together with the perceived threat of radical Islam, also play a role in strengthening recent Christian Zionist support for Israel.

6. One may ask why Christian Zionist visitors are taken there at all. I believe this to be the result of two elements. Firstly, Christian Zionists possess the historical and cultural curiosity that inspires ‘religious tourism’. Aside from their role as religious ‘anti-sites’, these places are of significant artistic, architectural, and historical interest. Secondly, as discussed below, the Israeli tourism industry has not entirely figured out how best to fill the time Christian Zionists spend in Israel and tends to repeat particular touring patterns.

7. See Coleman for a discussion of this dynamic in the context of evangelical understandings of space and movement.

8. The land of Israel does hold a distinctive position in the evangelical cosmos, but the land without a restored nation of Jews and political sovereignty is little more than a promised object. As a land, its value derives solely from the fact of being promised by God to the Israelites/Jews.

9. Not all evangelical Christians embrace ‘futurism’ with regard to biblical prophecy, believing rather that some or all (‘partial’ or ‘full’ preterism) prophecy has already been fulfilled. Futurism is, however, a critical element in Christian Zionism.

10. For a segment of Jewish Israeli society that adheres to what is referred to as ‘religious Zionism’, the re-birth of the political state of Israeli is similarly sacred, pointing to ‘the dawning of our redemption’. This way of thinking is associated with Rav A. I. Kook and his son Rav Z. Y. Kook. Interestingly, the sacralization of the state has become more marked over time, with the saying of Hallel, a special liturgy for religious holidays, on Israel's independence day, for example, than the sacralization of sites of Zionist history. The religious Zionist concern with space is largely taken up with the attempt to establish control over disputed territories of Judea and Samaria/Palestinian West Bank. There are many commonalities between Jewish ‘religious Zionism’ and Christian Zionism, the most obvious being a view of the Tanach (Old Testament) as revealed scripture. Also, the shared belief in the prophetic importance of the contemporary state of Israel helps to create additional areas of similarity, including support for its settlement, cultivation, and security. Further, the conservative social values of evangelical Christians have much in common with those of Orthodox Jews. Both groups are explicitly ‘messianic’, even if Orthodox Jews are awaiting the coming of the Messiah and evangelical Christians anticipate the return of Jesus Christ. Both groups are deeply connected to the idea of the Temple in Jerusalem and actively anticipate its rebuilding. Finally, the relative openness of ‘religious Zionist’ Israelis to both secular Israeli Jews and many aspects of modern culture is a position shared with Christian Zionists.

11. There is a fascinating conflation on the part of some Christian Zionist rhetoric between the word ‘Israel’ as it is used in the Bible to refer to what is now called ‘the Jewish people’ and ‘Israel’ of contemporary usage, the name of the modern nation state. This can be seen in the title of this article, which is based on the words of a Christian Zionist visitor to Israel. The mixing of terms, and its implications, will be the subject of a forthcoming paper.

12. This has become a common part of both ICEJ Feast of Tabernacles and several smaller tours. It is a meaningful way for people to donate something ‘of themselves’ to the country. Leaving marks and objects at travel sites to signify one's presence is quite common.

13. One evangelical pastor who was leading a group of visitors to Israel told me that he knows of Christian Zionist tour groups whose goal to ‘bless Israel’ is achieved by paying more than the asking price for all products and services, in contrast with the common practice in Israel of haggling for cheaper prices. He encouraged his own tour group participants to do the same.

14. Stoddard also criticizes the reliance on the notion of sacrality, but for him this is because sacrality is resistant to measurement, not because the concept is less helpful or accurate than it might appear.

15. Not just visitor and site, of course, but also text, memory, legend, religious officials, etc.

16. Badone and Roseman also note the first and second of these problems: inaccessibility and the fact that motives are often mixed. Yet they suggest that something like ‘pious’ motives do exist. Stoddard also recognizes the problems about motives, but he maintains that a “true religious pilgrim” (46) does exist, although s/he is difficult to identify. In neither case does the difficulty of delimiting ‘religious’ or ‘pious’ motivation arise.

17. Graburn lays responsibility for the separation between religion and other realms squarely at the feet of Christianity. I would instead consider it a legacy of both modernity and the scientific study of religion. At the very least, the present case study should remind us that the “tendency to separate religion from (the rest of) life” that Graburn questions (136) does not necessarily arise from Christianity.

18. Surprising for a phenomenon this large, there has been relatively little scholarly attention paid to contemporary Christian Zionist visitors to Israel. Prior's highly politicized history of pilgrimage to the Holy Land makes no mention of this phenomenon. Bowman offers some basic discussion of Christian Zionist pilgrimage, but solely as an example of Protestant pilgrimage. A notable addition is Feldman who offers a sophisticated investigation of the cooperation between Protestant pastor and Israeli tour guide in creating Protestant pilgrimage to the ‘Bible Land’. Coleman presents a pro-Israel evangelical organization in Sweden as a means of thinking through charismatic ideas of movement and agency. Belhassen and Santos use the relationship between an evangelical pilgrimage and politics to articulate the point that both guests (evangelical pilgrims) and hosts (Israeli government officials) use tourism to promote their own ideologies (439).

19. There is a rich tradition of debate about defining ‘religion’ in the human sciences, largely breaking down into two options: substantive (sharing a particular essence) and functionalist (share a common function). There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to choosing wider or narrower definitions, which leads to the classic problems of how to categorize practices that are ‘obviously’ religious (some forms of Zen Buddhism), but do not fit into narrower definitions and how to exclude cultural practices that are not ‘obviously’ religious (hockey).