I’ve been a Zionist all my life. It’s a little more than a humorous providence that my hometown is named New Palestine. Although natives say, “New Palesteen”. My homestate, Indiana, is filled with places named Zionsville, Eden, and Carmel. I, an American Gentile, grew up singing, “Father Abraham had many sons…I am one of them…” These things are not opposed to each other. I am a son of Abraham living in the new Promised Land who also believes the old Promised 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 do. I’ve always known how offensive Zionism is, and the offensiveness of Zionism to my friend seventeen years ago has only grown, especially in the past few years.

Since the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians 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 and Charismatics, Israel itself, and Jews generally. Previously both Democrats and Republicans were Zionist friendly parties. The Democratic party is now majority anti-Zionist. Openly anti-Israel Democrats are actually winning seats of power like Zohran Mamdani, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Analilia Mejia, and Chris Rabb. Mamdani’s wife has publicly sided with Hamas attacks on October 7th by liking various social media posts celebrating and defending those attacks.The anti-Zionist Democrats are gaining real political power. The dissident right is intensely anti-semitic, and anti-Zionist, but they are much smaller and politically incompetent and have not had any real political victories. Marjorie Taylor Greene resigned from congress. Joe Kent resigned his position as the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Thomas Massie lost his reelection. Lindsay Graham was easily reelected over Tucker endorsed challenger Paul Dans, who dropped out of the Republican primary, and then America First isolationist Mark Lynch. The energy and intensity lives on in what the internet is now calling Podcastistan with Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, Nick Fuentes, and the Groypers. Grifters likes James Fishback, who only a few years ago wrote for the Free Press, is running a gubernatorial campaign in Florida with the backing of Groypers and Nick Fuentes. A Republican gubernatorial candidate in California, Alicia Lapp, a Papist, has said that Zionists should be imprisoned or deported. 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. I honestly did not think it would get this cartoonishly unhinged, but here we are.

Just as homosexuality is a form of judgment God sends on a sinful people, I believe scapegoating Jews, grievance politics, and the current mileu of anti-Zionism in general is a form of judgment God sends on a sinful people. It multiplies our judgment. It’s God way of being an accelerationist. This is tragic. And I want to do a small part in pushing against this, and encourage repentance, so that we may, by God’s grace, recover the blessings of heaven. There are other more foundational sins that the Church is unwilling to repent of, and I have written about these elsewhere, and believe those foundational sins are connected to these. But the purpose of this series is to focus on and affirm the truths that Supersessionists and Zionists believe, and discard the errors of each. It’s important to note that I do not think criticizing Israel or being anti-Zionist is in itself evil, but the way it’s manifesting currently, I do. There can be reasonable theological and political disagreements here from non or anti-Zionists, and I think those reasonable disagreements are mistaken and in error, but not necessarily malicious or evil.

In many ways, this debate is not unlike the Trinitarian debates of the early church. Too far one way crosses into heresy. Too far another way crosses 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 articulate the parameters of Nicene Orthodoxy. Zionism is similar. Although, in some ways, many Christian Zionists have grown increasingly heterodox, at the very least, while older forms of Christian Zionism such as Restorationism were quite orthodox. I’m hoping to contribute to the work of recovering and developing an orthodox Zionism.

What has emerged recently 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 his criticisms of Supersessionism are a fly in the ointment. He over corrects. Or at the very least he is too dismissive of historic Christianity. 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 I think much better arguments can be made, have been made, and I hope will be made going forward.

Defining Terms

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. So, I’m happy to keep the term for now.

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, inclusion theology, or expansion theology, to replacement theology. By supersessionism, I mean that all the promises of God to the patriarchs are kept and fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The new covenant Church is the fullfillment and continuation of the old covenant Church. 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 yet to be realized in their fullest sense. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. In this sense, I am defending soft supersessionism or perhaps a form of post-supersessionism. The new covenant Church is the fullfillment of Israel according to the flesh, but this does not displace the election and eventual restoration of Israel according to the flesh. In this sense, I absolutely reject hard supersessionism.

By rejecting hard 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. A Christian can be covenantally elect into the new covenant through faith, baptism, and the Lord’s supper, and 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, and forfeit their salvation. 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. All the promises of God, including these, will be fulfilled only through Jesus Christ.

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. I’ve wrestled with this issue with more focus for over a decade, and I’m still working out the kinks and trying to be as faithful to Scripture as possible. But I believe 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.

Overview

For now, I want to give a brief summary overview of the arguments. And then in subsequent essays, go into deeper detail of each argument. There are four categories of argumentation: Scriptural, historical, political, and cultural. The biblical arguments will tackle the question of who Israel is, the promises to Israel, and the typological arguments for Zionism and Supersessionism. The historical arguments will survey the early church fathers, the medieval fathers, and our Protestant fathers. Then the political arguments will survey the history of Zionism from Theodore Hertzl to the present, and give positive arguments for the benefits of an Israeli-American alliance. The cultural argument will look at the cultural fruits of philo-semitic vs. anti-semitic cultures.

The Biblical Argument

Israel is truly the new covenant Church. The Christian Church is new covenant Israel. But also Israel according to the flesh is still elect. Not in the sense that they currently have salvation, but in the sense that they will have salvation only in and through Christ. So Israel according to the flesh is also Israel, but in a different sense. They have been cast out, and they will return, like the Prodigal Son. This return will accompany literal land restoration promised to Abraham and predicted by the prophets along with spiritual renewal in Christ through faith in Him.

The old covenant Church centered around one nation, although people from other nations were also grafted into this elect nation. In the new covenant, entire nations have joined the house of Israel, and a majority of the host nation have been exiled. The old covenant was a nation. The new covenant is an empire. This empire has Jesus as Emperor, the king of kings. Many kings are brought under His rule. Many nations are brought under His rule. But the nation of Israel has yet to be totally brought under His rule, but they will be, and are currently being converted.

All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. This means that all the promises of God, including those given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, find their fullest expression in the new covenant Israel, the new covenant Church. These are fullfilled in spiritual and temporal ways with Gentile nations, but they will also be fulfilled in spiritual and temporal ways with the Jewish nation.

The typology of Scripture stoutly gives us a younger brother/older brother paradigm. This paradigm expresses itself in polyvalent types. The archetypes are the First Adam and the Second Adam. But under these are Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, David and Saul, and many others. In its highest or most universal sense, these all represent unregenerate and regenerate man. Those in Adam and those in Christ. Those in Saul and those in David. Seed of the woman, seed of the serpent.

But in a more particular sense, these represent Jews and Gentiles. Israel is God’s first born. But the inheritance always goes to the second born, or younger brother. Isaac and Ishmael are types of Christians and Jews. Cain, like the Jews, is exiled. But the older brother’s exile doesn’t last forever. The older exiled brother returns and is reconciled with his younger brother in Esau’s restoration to Jacob and Judah’s reconcilation to Joseph. In Reuben’s reconciliation to Joseph. In all of his brothers being reconciled to him. The reconciliation of Joseph’s brothers to himself restored their broken relationship to Jacob, their father. It restored their broken relationship to Israel. This typology teaches the final reconciliation of the Jews to their brother King Jesus, and to our Heavenly Father, and ultimately to the true Israel of God, The Holy Catholic Church.

The Historical Argument

Prior to the Reformation, the Church understood rightly that she was the continuation of True Israel, the new Israel, the resurrected Israel. But at times she was not able to see the full reconciliation of the Jews to God. They understood that the Jews were Cain exiled, and at times understood that Cain was not be touched, like David was not to touch Saul. And of course at other times they did not understand this. There were several fathers, however, who did see, at least partially, that Jews would be reconciled, and even that they would return to the land. St. Tertullian, St. Augustine, St. Bede the Venerable, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux and others say things that the anti-Zionist crowd would sneer at as Dispensational Zionism if they didn’t know who had said it.

Consideration of these issues became more illumined after the Reformation largely through the Reformed tradition, especially among the Puritans, and with some Anglicans, and Evangelicals, and now with Charismatics. For hundreds of years Reformed Protestants began to prophesy through the Spirit and study of Scripture that Jews would return to the Holy Land, repent, and become Christians, though often not in that order. Most Jews have not repented yet, but half the population of all Jews have already returned to the Holy Land, and there is a small, but growing conversion of Jews to Christianity in the Holy Land itself. Protestant predictions of return have actually happened, at least partially, with the return to the Land.

It’s worth noting that some Christians in the past predicted the Jews would never return. That they would be perpetual wanderers throughout the earth. These hard supersessionists have been proven definitively wrong. This is significant. Protestants, having the spirit of prophecy, foretold for centuries what we have literally witnessed and will continue to witness. Hard supersessionists, often of the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox variety, have been proven absolutely wrong, and have to in some way skirt the sovereignty of God to maintain their anti-Zionism. Effectively reducing God to a helpless bystander while the Jews take the Land that God doesn’t really want them to have. This is an absurdity which goes against the grain of God’s sovereign interaction in the history of Israel.

The Political Argument

Because God works in the real world and not simply in the abstract, he works with Persian kings, American presidents, British armies, scummy politicians, and atheistic socialists. Because Israel continues to be beloved of God and are elect for the sake of the patriarchs, I believe the blessing of Israel still applies to Israel according to the flesh. And so this factors in to why I believe we should support them politically. Not blindly, but reasonably. Support for a friend or a family member does not mean condoning everything they do. This is such an obvious fact of life, but it gets lost in the emotionally irrational discourse of this issue.

However, even apart from theological justification, I believe a purely political argument for Zionism sufficiently answers the Jewish Question. The reality of the situation in the 19th and 20th century was that most nations did not want Jews within their borders to varying degrees of hostility, and so giving them their own homeland was the answer to this political reality.

Most standard conservative arguments for why Israel is a beneficial ally to the United States are very strong, in my judgment. I believe American unipolarity, hegemony, and empire is good. Israel is and has been, unironically, one of, or perhaps our best ally in maintaining this global political arrangement. Our alliance is mutally beneficial, and not without complications at times, as any alliance is. Our shared military, technological, economic, and civilizational outlook is a net positive for America, Israel, the Middle East, and the world.

The Cultural Argument

Lastly, the cultural fruits of anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic cultures are undesirable, in my view. Culturally, anti-Zionism and anti-semitism are third worldist. Pro-Zionism and philosemitism have corresponded largely with first world nations. The rise and fall of Britain and America as world powers approximate the level of philo and anti-Semitism/Zionism present in those cultures. Cultures which are anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist tend to be places of cultural decay. This is not absolute correlation. Obviously, there are innumerable variables, and correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, etc. But I believe it is a significant factor. The Muslim and Arab nations, which contain some of the most overtly anti-semitic and anti-zionist countries in the world, are places that I would consider to be generally cursed and very undesirable places to live. In the developed world, Russian social health indicators are in the tank. Spain is spiritually dead. The blessings of God to generally philo-semitic Protestant nations have been realized in extraordinary ways that we often take for granted or are just simply ungrateful for. And the most Zionist place on earth, Israel, significantly outperforms all of its Middle Eastern neighbors on basically every social health indicator, economic indicators, and holds a qualitative edge militarily despite numerical disadvantages in manpower. In key health and human development metrics, Israel ranks among the highest in the world.

In our current situation, America is a declining society, and as we are declining, we are increasing in our anti-semitism and anti-Zionism. Consider the trends one witnesses online. What kind of person is an anti-Zionist? I’m speaking in generalities, but generally anti-Zionism has an arrogant, vicious, vulgarity to it. It is often irrational or operates in bad faith. I find the fruits disgusting. Contrast this with Christians on CBN or Charismatics, or even non-Christians like Ben Shapiro, who receive all kinds of hate, but maintain relatively civil discourse and rational thinking. Is the internet being swarmed by Christian Zionists who are posting reviling expletives regularly, who speak with vulgarity regularly? Or is it anti-Zionists doing this? Look at any conservative metric on social issues. Evangelicals, who are largely Zionists, are clearly the front runners, or as some have called them The Lone Bulwark against leftist degeneracy. Anti-Zionism seems to attract unsavory figures and people who I do not believe are being led by the Holy Spirit much at all, but are operating in the flesh. Of course, there are exceptions to all of these. Pat Buchanan, a Roman Catholic who generally opposes our alliance with Israel, is a great man, a sincere Christian, who I respect in many ways, but also disagree in many ways. Dr. Stephen Wolfe, a Presbyterian, has carried himself very well and with a lot of Christian humility in the face of a lot of unfair criticism. I have quite a bit of respect for him, and believe I could have reasonable disagreement with him and those like him. If the anti-Zionist right was like these men I would likely be inclined to give less pushback. I’m looking at the broader spirit and fruits of the movement, and I judge the fruits to be rotten. And if the fruits are rotten, the tree is bad, too.

This is the argument in summary form. I look forward to doing deep dives into each of these areas as the series progresses. I welcome charitable pushback and dialogue as I continue to refine my own thinking on this issue. And I hope it’s helpful for those who see the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. God bless.