Good for Israel, bad for the Jews?

John Hagee and the dangers of Christian dispensationalism

Pastor and televangelist John Hagee speaks during the March for Israel at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on November 14, 2023. (Noam Galai, Getty Images)

Last month, in the wake of the October 7th massacre near Gaza, hundreds of thousands of people converged on Washington, DC, to March for Israel. Although I live just outside D.C., I didn’t attend the demonstration, and I’ve struggled to understand why.

But first, let me state the obvious: Yes, I support Israel. And yes, I’m appalled by what’s now happening to the Palestinians in Gaza. The entire situation is an unmitigated disaster.

That said, something about the March for Israel was out of whack: No rabbis were invited to address the crowd, but pastor and televangelist John Hagee was a featured speaker. Why?

What is the arc of The Covenant?

John Hagee is the founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), an organization devoted to “educating and empowering millions of Americans to speak and act with one voice in defense of Israel and the Jewish people.” With more than 10 million members, CUFI draws its inspiration from what’s called dispensationalism — a “theological framework of interpreting the Bible which maintains that history is divided into multiple ages or ‘dispensations’ in which God acts with his chosen people in different ways.”

One of the key dispensations — or what you might call “chapters” of The Story — is the national restoration of the Jewish people to their Biblical homeland. This return, which kicked into high gear with the establishment of the nation-state of Israel in 1948, is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Christ. It’s a necessary plot point upon which all subsequent events depend. Or so Hagee believes.

It’s this belief that prompts the question that keeps me up at night: Do Hagee and his followers believe that all the Jews must return? most Jews? some of us? Or has a biblically mandated minimum quota of Jews in Israel already been met so that the Story can continue to its next chapter / dispensation?

The answer is no small thing.

Here’s Hagee:

Prophecy tells us not only what will happen in the future but also the process by which it will happen….

In Jeremiah 16, the prophet proclaims what has come to be known in our generation as Exodus II. Jeremiah declares that Exodus II will completely overshadow the original exodus of Israel from Egypt under Moses’ leadership at the original Passover.

“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “that it shall no more be said, ‘The LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ but, ‘The LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had driven them.’ For I will bring them back into their land which I gave to their fathers… “But now I will send for many fishermen” declares the LORD, “and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks.” 
—Jeremiah 16:14-16, NIV

… A fisherman is one who draws his target toward him with bait. Herzl and his fellow Zionists were God’s fishermen, calling the sons and daughters of Abraham home. Herzl was deeply disappointed that the Jews of the world did not respond in greater numbers.

God then sent the hunters. The hunter is one who pursues his target with force and fear. No one could see the horror of the Holocaust coming, but the force and fear of Hitler’s Nazis drove the Jewish people back to the only home God ever intended for the Jews to have—Israel….

“The only home God ever intended for the Jews to have — Israel.”

Hagee is not alone in his belief that American Jews are essentially foreign nationals:

And all this time I thought the United States was my country.

In search of a more inclusive narrative

When I launched Out of Babel last year, I highlighted one central question:

Do Jews and their Story have a future in the Diaspora? (It depends on the Stories that drive everyone else.)

The Story that drives John Hagee is one where Israel “is the only home God ever intended for the Jews.” (If you follow Hagee’s narrative to its dispensationalist endpoint, things go very badly for the Jews, who are simply a means to The [Christian] End.)

Is it a crazy leap, then, to wonder what Pastor Hagee and his millions of disciples think when they see me and my family still living in the United States along with all those Jews gathered at the March for Israel? Are we in the wrong place? By staying put, are we a stumbling block to the Second Coming? Would Hagee and his flock prefer that my family and I pack up our stuff, sell our house, and move to Israel?

(As I pointed out in an earlier post, there are many Christian organizations that “love the Jews” — and would love them even more if they lived somewhere else.)

Summing up

I have the sinking suspicion that the Story John Hagee is telling his ten million+ followers is: G*d wants American Jews to move to Israel.

I think Pastor Hagee is wrong. I believe the Story — of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael and their entire extended family — is pointing all of us somewhere different… and much better.

But let’s be honest: This isn’t a debate.

John Hagee has a huge media pulpit, more than ten million disciples, and a prominent spot at events like the March for Israel.

And me? I’m just out here in the D.C. suburbs, walking my dog and writing this Substack. 😊

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Postscript

Accurate? Or an unfair characterization of Pastor Hagee and CUFI?