I’ve been a Zionist all my life. It’s a little more than a humorous providence that my hometown is New Palestine, and my homestate is filled with places named Zionsville, Eden, and Carmel. I grew up singing, “Father Abraham had many sons. I am one of them, and so are you.” These things are not opposed to each other. I’m a son of Abraham living in a new Promised Land who also believes the Holy Land belongs to the Jews. What’s going on here?

In the Marines, I remember having a conversation with another Marine about Israel. While holding my Bible I told him I believed God gave the Holy Land to Israel. He ripped the Bible from my hand and incredulously repeated the claim. “You believe the Land belongs to Israel because of this?!” as he held up the Bible. Yes. I’ve always been interested in politics, and have always known how offensive Zionism is to the unbelieving world, or to the liberal world at the very least. This has changed in recent years.

Since the Hamas massacre of Israelis in October of 2023 and the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September of 2025, the entire world, including a portion of the conservative Christian right, have accelerated their hostility toward Zionists, Dispensational and Israel friendly Evangelicals, Israel, and Jews. I made a video in 2018 warning that this was coming, as I saw it growing in the alt right movement of 2016 and following. These dissident movements have only grown and have now essentially been mainstreamed.

Just as homosexuality is a form of judgment God sends on a sinful people, I believe scapegoating Jews and anti-Zionism in general is a form of judgment God sends on a sinful people. This is tragic. And I want to do a small part in pushing against this, so that we may recover the blessings of God. There are other more foundational sins that the Church is unwilling to repent of, and I have written about these elsewhere. But the purpose of this series is to affirm the truths that Supersessionists and Zionists believe, and discard the errors of each. In many ways, this debate is not unlike the Trinitarian debates of the early church. Too far one way crossed into heresy. Too far another way crossed into a different heresy. Holding firm to the revealed truths, providing boundaries, allowing breathing space for mystery, are all difficult, and took several hundred years for the Church to establish the parameters of Nicene Orthodoxy. Zionism is similar. Although, in some sense, Christian Zionists have grown increasingly heterodox, at the very least, while older forms of Christian Zionism (Restorationism) were quite orthodox.

What has emerged is a sharp polarization of Zionists and Supersessionists. Some of the loudest defenders of Zionism have gaps and errors. Fr. Gerald McDermott’s book The New Christian Zionism, for example, is filled with great resources and good chapters, but he launches an attack on “Replacement Theology” that is a fly in the ointment. He over corrects. Ted Cruz was caught flat footed trying to defend Israel to Tucker Carlson. And Mike Huckabee didn’t do much better. I genuinely appreciate both of these public servants defending Israel against someone I consider a bad faith actor. But there is a long history, and deep, and sound arguments that I’d like to put forward to supplement the efforts being made.

For now, let me define what I mean by Zionism. I mean that God has a plan of redemption for the Jews, to restore them to the land promised to their forefather Abraham, and to them as a people, and that in concert with this land restoration will also be their spiritual restoration to Jesus Christ. This used to be called Restorationism, and Restorationism is probably a more accurate term, but Christian Zionism or Zionism eventually replaced it, and even with all of its baggage and many meanings, has become a catch all for any and all support of Israel and philo-semitism.

What do I mean by supersessionism? It’s not a desirable name, but it’s what we have for this topic. Like most, I prefer fullfillment theology to replacement theology. By supercessionism, I mean that the new covenant Church is the fullfillment of the old covenant Church. That the new covenant Church is Israel. Or more precisely, the new covenant Church is Israel according to the Spirit, which is the truest sense of who Israel is. The new covenant Church is Israel crucified and resurrected in Christ. But Israel according to the flesh is also a distinct nation with the promises of God still attached to them that have still yet to be fulfiilled in their fullest sense. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. In this sense, I am defending soft supersessionism. The new covenant Church is the fullfillment of Israel according to the flesh, but this does not displace the special election and eventual restoration of Israel according to the flesh.

By supersessionism I do not mean that unbelieving Jews have salvation, or that religious Jews who practice Rabinnic Judaism are saved. Only faith in Jesus Christ saves. And one can be covenantally elect into the new covenant through faith, baptism, and the Lord’s supper, and yet still fall away. And yet, they are still covenantally elect, they are just apostate, and if they persist in their unbelief, they will prove themselves to be decretally non-elect. Israel according to the flesh is in a similar position. Having rejected the Messiah, they have been removed from the root of Jesse, but they will be grafted back in one day. And that grafting back in will accompany full land restoration.

Saint Paul says this is a mystery. It’s a mystery that’s been revealed, but there are still mysterious aspects to us that perhaps we can’t fully know or even grasp until they happen. But there is enough supernatural and natural revelation to reveal the contours of this plan of redemption for Israel according to the flesh. This series will seek to illuminate this mystery.