How should Christians think about Zionism, antisemitism, and Israel?
Christians can’t think clearly about antisemitism, Zionism, Israel, or the Jewish people unless Scripture governs our assumptions. The Bible doesn’t permit hatred of Jews, contempt for Israel, careless political slogans, or silence when anti-Jewish hostility returns in respectable language. Christians must speak with truth, humility, courage, and biblical conviction.
- Antisemitism has appeared not only in pagan history but also in shameful chapters of Christian history.
- Zionism should be defined honestly before Christians debate it, affirm it, critique it, or reject it.
- Genesis 12 and Genesis 15 remind Christians that God’s covenant purposes with Abraham are not ours to dismiss.
by Jerry Harris
Antisemitism isn’t new. It doesn’t need a fresh excuse to appear. It only needs a generation willing to forget.
In every age, hostility toward the Jewish people has found new clothing. In one period it wears the robe of religious superiority. In another it borrows the language of race. In another it claims the authority of revolution, nationalism, academic theory, or moral outrage. Sometimes it comes from the political right. Sometimes it comes from the political left. Sometimes it’s crude and violent. Sometimes it’s polished, footnoted, and respectable.
Christians shouldn’t be surprised by this persistence. Scripture tells us that hatred is never merely an intellectual error but a spiritual disorder. It bends truth, dehumanizes neighbors, and convinces sinners they are righteous while they are despising people made in the image of God.
That’s why Christians must think biblically about antisemitism, Zionism, and Israel. We can’t afford lazy slogans or treat Jewish history as if it began with the latest news cycle. We can’t confuse criticism of a government policy with hatred of a people. Nor can we pretend that hostility to the Jewish people is only a problem for someone else’s tradition, party, university, or denomination.
The church has its own history to confess.
Antisemitism Is Older Than the Modern State of Israel
One of the great errors in current debate is the assumption that hostility toward Jews is merely a reaction to the modern state of Israel but that view can’t survive a basic reading of history.
Long before 1948, modern Zionism, or the current conflict in Gaza, Jews were slandered, exiled, restricted, forcibly converted, scapegoated, ghettoized, and killed. The hatred is ancient. It’s the justifications that change.
Christians should begin with a clear definition of what antisemitism actually is…it’s hostility toward, prejudice against, or hatred of Jews as Jews. It may appear as religious contempt, racial hatred, conspiracy theory, vandalism, exclusion, violence, or the demonization of Jews collectively. It can also target Jews through obsessive and unequal hatred of the Jewish state when Israel is treated not as a government to be evaluated, but as a demonic symbol for Jewish existence itself.
That distinction matters. Christians may evaluate the actions of any government, including Israel’s. The prophets of Israel themselves rebuked Israel’s kings, priests, and people when they sinned. Biblical support for the Jewish people does not require pretending every Israeli leader is righteous or every Israeli policy is wise.
But criticism becomes something darker when it denies the Jewish people the right to live safely in their ancestral homeland, excuses violence against Jews, repeats old conspiracy theories, or treats Jewish suffering as deserved.
Christian History Contains Warnings We Must Not Ignore
The early church was born Jewish. Jesus was Jewish. Mary was Jewish. The apostles were Jewish. The Scriptures Jesus read were the Scriptures of Israel. The first Christians didn’t think they were rejecting Israel’s God but receiving Israel’s Messiah.
Yet as the church became increasingly Gentile, Christian teaching about Jews often became distorted. The New Testament’s severe warnings against unbelief were frequently misused as a license for contempt. Passages about conflict between Jesus and certain Jewish leaders were too often twisted into accusations against all Jews in all times.
St. Augustine is a complicated figure in this history. He opposed the killing of Jews and argued from Psalm 59, “Slay them not,” that Jews should be preserved rather than destroyed. That restraint mattered in a violent world. Yet his “witness” doctrine also carried a deeply troubling logic: Jews were preserved in a scattered and diminished condition so their Scriptures could testify to Christian claims.
In The City of God, Augustine wrote that the Jews, by their own Scriptures, served as “a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ.” That sentence has often been discussed in connection with Christian anti-Judaism because it shows how easily Christians could assign Jews a theological role while denying them full honor as neighbors.
Augustine didn’t call for extermination. He was not Martin Luther. He was not a Nazi. But the theological habit of treating Jews mainly as rejected witnesses rather than beloved human beings helped create a Christian imagination in which Jewish suffering could be explained rather than mourned.
That should make us tremble.
The Reformation Did Not Escape Anti-Jewish Sin
The Protestant Reformation recovered essential biblical truths. It called the church back to Scripture, grace, faith, and the authority of the Word of God. Christians rightly give thanks for much that came through the Reformers.
But gratitude musn’t become blindness.
Martin Luther’s later writings about the Jews are vile. His 1543 treatise On the Jews and Their Lies called for the burning of synagogues and schools, the destruction of Jewish homes, the confiscation of prayer books and writings, restrictions on rabbis, and forced labor. These weren’t minor blemishes but wicked words from a powerful Christian leader, and later antisemites found them useful.
Luther’s earlier hope that Jews might convert turned into rage when they did not. That itself is a warning. Evangelistic desire, when severed from love and humility, can mutate into resentment. A Christian who only loves Jews as potential converts has not yet learned to love them as neighbors.
Other Reformation-era leaders were not uniformly innocent. Some were less inflammatory than Luther; others shared forms of replacement theology or civil restrictions on Jews that were common in their time. The point is not to flatten all Reformers into one category, but to admit that biblical movements can carry unbiblical prejudices when they do not submit every inherited assumption to Scripture.
Restoration Movement Christians should understand this. We have long pleaded for a return to the authority of the New Testament over human tradition. That plea must include the courage to reject inherited Christian contempt for Jews wherever it appears.
What Is Zionism?
Zionism is often used today as a curse word, but Christians shouldn’t use words without defining them. In its basic historical sense, Zionism is the movement for Jewish national self-determination in the land historically connected to Israel. Britannica defines Zionism as a Jewish nationalist movement that arose in nineteenth-century Europe with the goal of creating and supporting a Jewish national state in what was then known as Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews.
There are different kinds of Zionism. Some forms are secular and political. Some are religious. Some are cultural. Some Christians use the word in theological ways that Jews themselves may not use. Some critics use the word as shorthand for every action of the Israeli government, which is careless. Others use “Zionist” as a substitute for “Jew,” which is antisemitic.
A Christian does not have to adopt every claim made by every Zionist thinker to recognize a basic moral truth: after centuries of exile, pogroms, legal exclusion, and genocide, the Jewish people have a legitimate interest in safety, national existence, and connection to their ancestral land.
For Christians, that discussion cannot be separated from Scripture.
Genesis 12 Still Matters
God’s call to Abram begins with grace and promise. “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you,” the Lord said. Then came the promise: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you.” God also said, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:1-3).
Christians must handle this text carefully. The blessing of Abraham ultimately comes to the nations through Jesus Christ. Paul says in Galatians that the promise to Abraham finds its fulfillment in Christ, and that those who belong to Christ are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.
But fulfillment in Christ doesn’t give Christians permission to despise the Jewish people. It doesn’t erase the historical people through whom God gave the patriarchs, the covenants, the law, the temple worship, the promises, and the Messiah according to the flesh (Romans 9:4-5).
Genesis 12 teaches that the nations are blessed through Abraham, not by cursing Abraham’s descendants. Christians can’t claim Abraham’s blessing while nurturing contempt for Abraham’s family.
That doesn’t mean Christians must offer uncritical support for every decision of the modern state of Israel. It does mean we should approach Israel, the Jewish people, and Jewish suffering with reverence, humility, and fear of God.
Genesis 15 Shows the Seriousness of God’s Covenant
Genesis 15 deepens the promise. Abram asks how he can know he will possess the land. God commands him to bring animals for sacrifice. Abram cuts them in two, arranging the pieces opposite each other.
In the ancient world, this kind of covenant ceremony carried a fearful meaning. The parties passing between the pieces were, in effect, saying, “May this happen to me if I break this covenant.”
But in Genesis 15, Abram does not walk between the pieces. A deep sleep falls on him. Darkness comes. Then a smoking firepot and blazing torch pass between the pieces. God alone passes through.
This is one of the most breathtaking covenant scenes in Scripture. God binds himself to his promise while Abram watches. The covenant rests not on Abram’s strength but on God’s faithfulness.
Then the Lord defines the land promise in striking terms: “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates,” followed by a list of peoples inhabiting the land (Genesis 15:18-21).
Christians debate how the land promise should be understood in light of Christ, the new covenant, and the final inheritance of the renewed creation. Those debates aren’t small. But Christians should at least admit what the text says before explaining how they believe it is fulfilled. God made a covenant with Abram. God attached land to that covenant. God identified real descendants and real geography.
Any Christian theology that treats Jewish connection to the land as imaginary has stopped listening too soon.
Where Did the Name Palestine Come From?
The name “Palestine” has a long and complicated history. Related terms appear in ancient sources, and the Hebrew Bible uses Peleshet for the Philistines, an Aegean people who settled on the southern coast. But the name became an official administrative designation under Rome in the second century.
After the Jewish revolts against Rome, especially the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Romans used the name Syria Palaestina for the region. Many historians understand this renaming as part of Rome’s effort to suppress Jewish national identity and detach the land from the name Judea.
Through Byzantine, Islamic, Ottoman, and British periods, variations of the name Palestine continued to be used geographically and administratively. That is why the land was commonly called Palestine before 1948. It was not “renamed Israel” because a continuous state changed its sign. Rather, when the modern Jewish state declared independence in 1948, it took the name Israel, drawing from the biblical name of Jacob and the people descended from him.
That history matters because words carry memory. “Palestine” is not a neutral word in every context, nor is “Israel.” Christians should be accurate because accuracy is part of truthfulness.
Britain’s Promise and Britain’s Failure
Modern Jewish return to the land did not happen in a vacuum. Jews had maintained a continuous presence in the land for centuries, but modern Zionism grew especially in response to European antisemitism, pogroms, and the failure of assimilation to protect Jews.
In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, expressing support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” while also saying that nothing should prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.
That was a significant promise but British policy later became deeply restrictive. The 1939 White Paper limited Jewish immigration to 75,000 over five years and said further immigration would require Arab consent. It also restricted Jewish land purchases.
The timing was catastrophic. As European Jews faced Nazi persecution and then extermination, the doors to refuge in the land of Israel were narrowed. After the Holocaust, Britain continued to restrict and intercept many Jewish refugees trying to reach Palestine.
To say Britain failed to protect returning Jews is not to deny the complexity of Arab-Jewish conflict under the Mandate. It is to state the moral reality that a people facing annihilation needed refuge, and British policy often blocked the very refuge it had earlier seemed to promise.
Why Is Antisemitism Resurging Now?
The current resurgence of antisemitism among young people, universities, politicians, and media voices has more than one cause. Christians should resist simplistic explanations.
Part of the resurgence comes from historical ignorance. Many young people know little about Jewish history before 1948, little about the Holocaust beyond vague moral slogans, and little about the ancient Jewish connection to the land. Without memory, they are easily discipled by slogans.
Part comes from social media. Platforms reward moral certainty, outrage, visual shock, and rapid tribal alignment. A complex history becomes a thirty-second video. A war becomes a meme. A people becomes a symbol. The algorithm does not reward wisdom.
Part comes from ideological framing. Many universities and cultural institutions teach students to divide the world into oppressor and oppressed categories. That framework can notice real suffering, but it often flattens moral reality. If Jews are coded as powerful and Israel as colonial, then Jewish vulnerability becomes invisible. The Holocaust becomes ancient history. Hamas can be romanticized. Jewish students can be harassed while aggressors claim to be pursuing justice.
Part comes from legitimate grief over Palestinian suffering being redirected into illegitimate hatred of Jews. Christians should be able to mourn the suffering of Palestinians without denying Jewish suffering or October 7th. We should be able to oppose the killing of civilians without excusing terrorism. We should be able to pray for peace without calling evil good.
Part comes from politicians and media figures who exploit the conflict for their own purposes. Some minimize antisemitism because it is inconvenient to their coalition. Others weaponize antisemitism accusations cynically while ignoring other forms of hatred. Christians must not be manipulated by either move.
Most deeply, antisemitism resurges because sin resurges. The human heart still wants scapegoats. It still loves conspiracy. It still finds unity by hating a common enemy. It still resents God’s election, God’s covenants, and God’s purposes.
How Christians Should Feel, Act, and Engage
The question is not merely what Christians should think. It is how Scripture should teach us to feel, act, and engage.
First, Christians should feel grief. Antisemitism isn’t an abstract issue. It threatens real people: Jewish neighbors, students, families, synagogues, businesses, and children. “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15).
Second, Christians should feel humility. Much of Christian history gives us no room for boasting. We should confess where the church has sinned in teaching, preaching, silence, and violence toward Jews.
Third, Christians should feel gratitude. Through Israel came the Scriptures, the covenants, the prophets, the apostles, and the Messiah. Paul warns Gentile believers not to become arrogant toward the natural branches even though we have been grafted in (Romans 11:17-21). That warning has been ignored too often.
Fourth, Christians should act with courage. When Jewish students are threatened, Christians shouldn’t look away. When synagogues need protection, Christians should care. When antisemitic speech becomes fashionable, Christians should refuse to laugh, share, excuse, or remain silent.
Fifth, Christians should engage with truth. We should define Zionism accurately. We should distinguish between Jews, Judaism, Zionism, the state of Israel, Israeli citizens, Israeli leaders, and specific Israeli policies. We should not bear false witness against anyone.
Sixth, Christians should pray and work for peace without surrendering truth. We can pray for Jewish safety and Palestinian dignity. We can condemn Hamas and still grieve civilian suffering in Gaza. We can support Israel’s right to exist and defend itself while still insisting that all human beings are made in God’s image.
Finally, Christians should proclaim Christ without contempt. The gospel is still “first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (Romans 1:16). That order should not produce arrogance in Gentile Christians. It should produce gratitude, reverence, and love.
The Bible Must Govern the Christian Response
The church doesn’t need its emotions discipled by cable news, social media, campus chants, partisan loyalty, or inherited prejudice. The church needs the Word of God.
Genesis 12 tells us God chose Abraham to bless the nations. Genesis 15 tells us God bound himself by covenant. Romans 9 reminds us of Israel’s gifts. Romans 11 warns Gentiles against arrogance. Ephesians 2 tells us Christ has broken down the dividing wall and created one new humanity through the cross. Revelation 7 shows us the final worshiping multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language.
That biblical story leaves no room for antisemitism.
It also leaves no room for careless triumphalism, ethnic hatred, or political idolatry. Christians don’t worship Israel. We worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who has revealed himself fully in Jesus Christ. But because we worship that God, we dare not despise the people through whom he chose to bring blessing to the world.
When antisemitism rises again, Christians shouldn’t be confused, but clear. We should be truthful, brave, and humble. But most of all, we should be biblical.
And we should remember that the Savior of the world was born King of the Jews.
Author: Jerry Harris
Jerry Harris is publisher of Christian Standard and former teaching pastor at The Crossing, a large, multisite church located in three states across the Midwest.
