Why I Am Not a Christian Zionist

November 15, 2021

By Carole Monica Burnett

The Christian variant of Zionist ideology was unknown to me in my formative years, although pro-Israel sentiment pervaded public opinion. As a child of merely nominal Protestant parents who took a dim view of church involvement, I had no exposure to the Biblical texts generally cited by Christian supporters of Israel. When I was twelve, however, the popular movie Exodus (1960) awakened me to the conflict that had embroiled the Holy Land and to the use of the Old Testament in supporting the Zionist cause. Within a year I had devoured the novel by Leon Uris on which the movie was based.

Exodus, a captivating expression of Zionist sentiment, enchanted American audiences. Its theme song was heard frequently on the radio, and the novel of the same title shot to the top of bestseller lists. Almost all the movie’s protagonists were portrayed by blue-eyed, slim, and attractive Hollywood stars, and the Israeli kibbutz (collective farm) depicted in it had the aura of a wholesome Scout camp. The most powerful aspect of both the movie and the novel, however, was that each traced a continuous line from the atrocities of the Holocaust to the obstacles created by the British Mandate limiting Jewish migration to Palestine and, finally, to the violent resistance of Arab groups opposing the partition of Palestine. The connecting thread was the courageous Jewish will to endure, resist, and persevere despite suffering and terror.

At the tender age of thirteen, I was shaken to my core when I read in the novel Exodus about the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, and my sympathy was aroused for the Israeli state as a safe haven for brave, resilient Jews. These emotions faded, however, as I progressed through my high school years. I had no contact with Jewish people, and the state of Israel was not a topic covered in my studies.

I had just completed my sophomore year of college at the time of the Six-Day War of June 1967. A Jewish medical student whom I had begun to date was elated by Israel’s victory, and I was happy for him. Soon, however, my father, an intensely patriotic Naval officer, enlightened me about the savage Israeli attack on the communications vessel U.S.S. Liberty, in which thirty-four Americans were slaughtered and many more injured. Doubts arose in my mind—especially since a Biblical History course in college had taught me that I should never lose sight of the historical context in which Scripture texts were written; for example, verses in Isaiah referring to the Jewish return from the Babylonian Exile in the sixth century B.C. should not be detached from ancient history and applied to modern times. Did this mean that I should question the presumed right of Zionist settlers to help themselves to the land of Palestine?

In the following decades I finished college and then met and married my husband, with whom I raised our three sons. I had been married about ten years when I first encountered Christ and entrusted my life to Him. Absorbed in family, church activities, and theological studies at a nearby seminary, I gave scant attention to the politics of the Middle East—until our oldest son, now grown, spent two years in Israel.

Our son’s closest Israeli friend, a woman strongly committed to Jewish values honoring human rights, was engaged in political activism opposing the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. It was she who educated me on her own government’s human rights violations. She had been tear-gassed while participating in protests, and her brother had spent time in an Israeli prison because, as an Israeli soldier, he had refused to serve in the occupied territories, that is, to take part in the daily cruelty and humiliation inflicted on Palestinians.

During my seven trips to the Holy Land (2005-2018), I have observed firsthand that the policies of the Israeli government are in stark contradiction to the teachings of the Old Testament prophets. So how can modern Israel be called a Jewish state? Moreover, as a Christian I cannot support Israel’s actions and at the same time claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ. I cannot avert my eyes from human suffering. Our Lord said, “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). The poison fruits of unconditional support for Israel have revealed that Zionism, whether Jewish or Christian, is a lethal tree.

Carole Monica Burnett earned the M.T.S. (Master of Theological Studies) degree at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, and the Ph.D. in Early Christian Studies (Greek and Latin Patristics) at the Catholic University of America, also in Washington, DC. In 2014, when she became a grandmother, she retired from teaching Church History at the Ecumenical Institute of Theology in Baltimore. But she still works part-time as the editor of an ever-expanding collection of early Christian writings translated into English from Latin, Syriac, and ancient Greek. She and her husband reside in Maryland.