A majority of American Jews say Jewish groups should not partner with vocal Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee or other Christian Zionists that support Israel based on end-times beliefs, a new survey revealed.
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(Photo: AP Images / Sebastian Scheiner, File)In this April 6, 2008, file photo influential Texas evangelist John Hagee of Christians United for Israel addresses a crowd of his followers and Israeli supporters at a rally at the Jerusalem convention center.
More than three-quarters (78 percent) of the 800 American Jews questioned in a new J Street survey do not support Jewish groups working with Christian organizations that believe Jews must control the Holy Land before Jesus can return.
J Street is a non-profit, pro-Israel organization that promotes a diplomatic resolution to the Middle East conflict.
In particular, critics complain about Hagee’s controversial views on the Holocaust – that it was God’s way to force Jews to settle in Israel – and his fierce opposition to the Mideast peace proposal that calls for Israel to cede land to form a Palestinian state.
“The survey results are very eye opening. When presented with both sides of the debate over U.S policy in the Middle East, American Jews strongly favor the United States using its leverage to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Jim Gerstein, who conducted the survey, in a statement.
The survey was released ahead of Hagee’s annual Christians United for Israel summit in Washington, D.C., this week, July 21-24. The summit is the nation’s largest Christian Zionist conference and is scheduled to feature speeches by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), who is an orthodox Jew, and Brad Gordon of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami says he hopes the poll will send a message to Lieberman and other Jewish organizations on how American Jews really feel about U.S. policies towards Israel and the Middle East.
“America's political leaders need to look beyond the loudest voices from the community to the opinions actually held by the broad majority of American Jews," Ben-Ami said.
“This is a strong message to the leadership of the American Jewish community that the members of the American Jewish community are not marching in lockstep behind them as they lead us off this cliff,” Ben-Ami said, according to Religion News Service. “The alliance that they have struck with [Hagee] over the past few years is one we would like to see brought to an end.”
The survey found that 75 percent of respondents view a two-state solution (Israel and Palestinian state) as necessary for Israeli security.
In addition to Jews voicing differences with Hagee, dozens of prominent evangelicals last summer also did likewise and supported a two-state solution. The evangelical leaders wrote a letter to President Bush emphasizing their support of a two-state solution in order to combat the “serious misconception” that all American evangelicals are against the creation of a new Palestinian state.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” they stated in the letter. “We, who sign this letter, represent large numbers of evangelicals throughout the U.S. who support justice for both Israelis and Palestinians.”
Hagee had responded to the evangelical letter by saying, “The Palestinian people have never owned the land of Israel, never exited as an autonomous society,” he said. “There is no Palestinian language. There is no Palestinian currency. And to say that Palestinians have a right to that land historically is an historical fraud.”
Signers of the letter included Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary; David Neff, editor of Christianity Today; Richard Stearns, president of World Vision; and Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Longwood, Fla., and member of the executive committee of the National Association of Evangelicals.
There are an estimated 20 to 40 million Christian Zionists in the United States.
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Psalms 122:6 "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they prosper who love you." Genesis 12: 1-3 applies just as much to nations and individuals today as it ever did. God will not be thwarted in His purposes. Israel remains the "apple of His eye."
The survey found that 75 percent of respondents view a two-state solution (Israel and Palestinian state) as necessary for Israeli security.
That is not biblical. God never gave the land as a join solution. Israel is one name not two. God is Israel's security; He does not need help.
I recently had the blessing to spend 10 days among Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem while on a missions trip. These people, our brothers and sisters in the Lord, need us. They need for us to pray for them and help them in any way we can.
"For God so loved the WORLD" kept ringing in my mind while I was there. Jesus died for Jews and Gentiles and both Jews and Gentiles need salvation.
Salvation is received by grace, not by race!
Hagee needs a more Biblical Eschatology-
Eschatology
http://www.polemos.net/Eschatology.html
Hagee is demented, of course. The troubling part is that he has such a large following. People who do not know real history will believe anything from a maverick like Hagee. He sounds so authoritative.
Hagee is very inaccurate on those points. On the land ownership issue:
“The Palestinian people have never owned the land of Israel" The Christian Palestinians have maintained a continuous presence in the Holy Land since the first century. Their church is *Israel's indigenous church*, it is the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem- the largest land-owner in Israel. How did they get the land? Palestinian Christians donating their land to the Church over the centuries through wills. It is the accumulate land of past Palestinian Christians. If Palestinians never owned a substantial portion of the land, then the GOC of Jerusalem would never be in that position.
believer, wasn't the Jewish population of Palestine about 2% in 1948? And I think they owned about 7% of the land. I'm willing to be corrected, since I don't remember where or when I got these figures in my head.
Quote;
Would Hagee lay down his life for a Palestinian Christian? Would he wash the feet of a Palestinian brother?
end quote...
talmida, you make a very valid point: would he?
By his actions and words since starting up CUFI i would have to say no. John Hagee acts like they do not exist..
Neither did he give any consideration to fellow brothers and sisters in Christ living inside Iran when he called upon the US government to nuke them off the face of the earth.
But that, sadly, is the mindset of those within the Christian Zionist movement today.
Would Hagee lay down his life for a Palestinian Christian? Would he wash the feet of a Palestinian brother? I hope that any Christian who has trouble answering this can begin to see how low the Prophecy Industrial Complex has brought us, and how far modern evangelicalism has departed from the original message of the Gospel.
At the Last Day, God isn't going to look at us and say "What's your opinion on the Israeli capture of the Golan Heights?" No, instead, He is more likely to ask the prophecy experts and Christian Zionists why they stabbed the Palestinian Christians in the back. American Christians want a place of honor at Israel's table but they will not extend the same respect to their own brothers.
This is a good take on it:
http://justinmartyr.blogspot.com/2006/08/christians-united-for-israel-fake.html
hlerwin, you act as if the Jews were a new people in the Holy Land, in case you didn't know they never left. But many more came back and are still coming.
The term Christian Zionist is an oxymoron. And Hagee's CUFI is not a Christ-based origination but a political lobbying group.
As a Christian who knows, from the word, God wants all men to be saved, Hagee and his group's warped theology which sees anyone Arab as an enemy shows me he or they do not understand this at all.
The lost need the Gospel; and that means ALL the lost. That includes lost Jews [in Israel] and lost Arabs in the middle-east as well. Hagee and his org. of Christian Zionists, are not promoting this but instead hate one ethnicity [group] while claiming to love the other.
Did anybody ever hear of a Palestinian terrorist BEFORE the Jews occupied their country? No. Terrorism is the resort of desperate people who have no hope. That's exactly the plight of the Palestinians: no hope. The Israelis treat the Palestinians the way we Anglos treated the Native Americans, like sub-humans!
Christian Zionists have made this unholy alliance with the Zionists to feel they are helping to bring about the fulfillment of some prophesies they're preaching. If you really love Jesus Christ and want to obey Him, you better off preaching the good news to the ends of the earth and support justice and peace especially to the oppressed. Yes, that includes the people in Israel and Palestine.
We are now faced with a gang of self-made prophets
"Jeremiah-Isiah-Amos" etc. After a long journey from
my homeland to a new culture and climate, the first week
of revival at the seminary was preached by a current
T.V. preacher. His sermon was "coming war with Russia"
and he proved everything from the Bible and predicted
that the war may take place in 1971 itself. I was
wondering, whether I can return to my homeland to see
my parents before the war starts. The preacher sold
thousands of LPs (no CDs and DVDs at that time) and
tapes, made a lot of money. We must not ignore
prophecy, but when we go back to the prophetic writings
of some people forty years back, their writings and
calculations were absolutely wrong. It is sad to say
that many mega preachers are not guided by the Holy
Spirit but driven by their own passions and feelings
and make a shipwreck out of their life and many people
who blindly follow them will be totally disappointed
in their spirtual life. Look to Jesus Christ, the
author and finisher of our faith, then we will not
be ashamed.
Of course most US Jews don't support Christian Zionists! They also don't support Zion itself. It is mostly Americans and Christians from America and around the world who support Israel. If you want to know what is really going on between Israeli Jews and American Jews, read the book, "With Friends Like You...". It is written by an Israeli Jew to the American Jewry. Most Jews have never been really committed to God - just like most Christians are not really committed to God. They don't want to sacrifice all to bring about the new Zion. This should be no surprise, however. Have you read the books of Ezra and Nehemiah? Do you know how few Jews went back with them to rebuild Zion? Hardly any! Most preferred their pagan life in Babylon - again, just like most Christians. Do you know how few Christians stood up to the Nazis during WW2? Very few! How few Americans stand up to our government - well, the answer is obvious. Hardly any. If they did, America wouldn't be so bad. Being carnal is always easier than being dedicated to God.
Hagee is off his rocker.
(But the rocker must be relieved: that preacher was quite a load!)
dvopilgrim - I'd be careful as not all dispensationalists are even close to that characterization.
I also would like to know about the final quote in the story: "20-40 million Christian Zionists" Where did they come up with that figure? Who are they counting?
Read all the dispensationalists' (like Hagee's) nuttiness here:
http://www.twoagespilgrims.com/doctrine/?p=5
paul, I too would like to see the questions as well as consider the spiritual condition of those questioned. I'm not a big Hagee fan, but if you ask Jews who are only Jews in either name or nationality only, then the results should not surprise anyone, plus even with religious Jews they know that he believes that Jesus Christ is the Promised Messiah, so many of them may be opposed to his efforts as well.
When the preachers are going to preach the plain gospel
of Jesus Christ to a spiritually starving world? No,
they have other serious prophetic subjects to write
books and get rich quick, also to acquire instant fame.
I'd like to see the wording of the survey before I draw any conclusions.