Zionism and Contemporary Christianity in the Public Square

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay brings together observations regarding the struggle over the Holy Land in the context of Saul Friedländer’s interests in Zionism, the role of memory in history, and the Holocaust. History and collective memory remain fundamental to the way claims have been made to the Holy Land. Jewish control over Mandatory Palestine has often been challenged in established monotheistic theology, particularly Christian supersessionism. Like other nationalisms, Zionism is supported by historical narratives framed in secular terms. Thus, arguments that support a Jewish state and those that deny its legitimacy have recourse to historical narratives. With the disposition of the Ottoman Empire largely determined by the Christian West, European antisemitism and the Holocaust proved of singular importance in the ongoing theological and ideological arguments for establishing a secure refuge for Jews. Moreover, the essay demonstrates that these discourses are not necessarily separate, but rather often overlap and complement one another. In the course of this examination, the essay references selected strands of contemporary Christianity: Catholicism, Evangelicalism, Mainline Protestantism, and Palestinian Liberation Theology. While accounting for antisemitism and the Holocaust once seemed to promise change in some established dogmas, it remains to be seen how significantly and permanently it has occasioned the hoped-for reevaluation of the Jews’ role in history given the extent and depth of supersessionist thought when also supported by ostensibly secular political categories.