Debating anti-Zionists

This past week I participated in a “Christ at the Checkpoint” conference in Oklahoma City.  About ten Palestinian and Anglo-American speakers (Stephen Sizer and Gary Burge are in the picture on the left and middle) decried the theology of Christian Zionism and the politics of Israel.  Joel Willitts and I were invited to offer counter-voices.

My thesis was as follows: There is no reason why Christians cannot support legitimate Palestinian aspirations for justice and statehood and at the same time see the establishment of the Jewish polity as a partial fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

I told the audience (mostly American UMC Methodists) that I was once a supersessionist, one who believes that the gentile church has superseded the people and land of Israel, so that God has transferred his covenant with Jewish Israel to the gentile church.   Therefore the land of Israel is no more important to him that the land of Thailand.

For my talk, click here.