Christian Zionism in the News

An Evangelical to Evangelicals

July 1, 2024

In John 4:23-24, Jesus told the woman at the well that the worship of God was not tied to any one location. The prophet Jeremiah had previously warned his contemporaries against the deceptive idea that reliance on the temple in Jerusalem made up for their moral and spiritual bankruptcy (Jer. 7:3-4).

“As an evangelical writing to evangelicals,” writes Alex Awad, “I beg my siblings in the faith to focus on the words of Jesus and stop endorsing territorial violence.” Awad wonders why evangelical Christians donate millions of dollars to build a “Third Temple” in Jerusalem. “How I wish my evangelical brothers and sisters would stop and imagine the pain, injury, and death that their eschatological temple theology has heaped on millions of Arabs including Arab Christians.”

Alex Awad was born in Jerusalem in 1946. During the Arab-Israel War in 1948, his father was killed and his family became refugees. He served as the pastor of an international church in East Jerusalem and taught courses at Bethlehem Bible College, where he served as a faculty member, dean of students, and board member.

Awad’s essay, “A time is coming and has now come” was posted on Come and See: The Christian Website from Nazareth on May 17, 2024.