It is fascinating the relationships that Evangelical Christians feel that they have with the Jewish people. In fundamentalist thought, the Jews play a huge role in their spirituality for several reasons. First off, the center of Christianity, Jesus Christ, was himself a Jewish man. He participated in Jewish rituals and traditions, and obeyed Jewish law. Because of this connection, I think that most Christians, including myself, feel a very strong connection to the Jewish people. The second main part Jews have in the imagination of Evangelicals is the Jews role in the "End Times." Since the institution of Israel as a geographical location on the face of the earth, there has been a huge focus on the End Times and its manifestation. In the book of Revelation, the second coming of Christ is said to be characterized by the Jewish people returning to the same place. It is this very book that Evangelicals base a substantial amount of apocalyptic theology upon. It seems as though many Evangelicals place importance on helping the Jews through supporting Israel (as well as supporting a number of other Jewish causes) because they feel that mobilizing the Jews is helping to accelerate the Second Coming of Christ. There is also a bible passage that basically states that God will bless those who bless Israel.
As we discussed this topic in class today, I was wondering how it was that Evangelicals might see the Jewish people. I think that it may be that Evangelicals see the Jews as, well, not necessarily one dimensional, but rather as a united and universal group of people that basically believe the same things. The whole concept of Identity plays an enormous role in this whole topic. What Evangelicals see Jews as and what Jews think a Christian is is an intersection that makes the whole topic of Jewish-Christian relationship an extremely complex and foggy issue.
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My sister works for AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) and they are a pro-Israel Lobbying organization and from talking to here I found out that a large segment of people who they target to support Israel are Evangelical Christians. Recently, they have been receiving a lot of support from them which I found to be really interesting because when you think of a pro-Israel organization you would think that they would be looking to focus in more on Jewish people then others. It is interesting to me that although the Jewish Community and the Evangelical Community might be different, they still are interested in a lot of the same things.
This is definitely a foggy issue for me as well. One of the hard things for me is that while Evangelicals want Jews to return to Jerusalem which would result in the second coming of Jesus, I have to ask...where does that then leave the Jews? Sure we are returning to our homeland, but at what cost and who's true benefit? What do we get in return?
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