Meet Bibi’s New Tribulation-Courting, Jew-Converting, Demon-Exorcising American Allies

Rachel Tabachnick

Netanyahu and Christian Zionists have long enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship. But with a new, more radical sect ascending within the movement, the marriage may be in trouble.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been one of the most beloved Israeli politicians in the history of Christian Zionism. It has been a religio-political match made in heaven, with Christian Right leaders providing Netanyahu with money in Israel and political clout in the U.S., and the Israeli leader putting up with an Evangelical end-times theology.

But while Netanyahu is still in office, his Christian Zionist dance partners have changed. They no longer adhere to the fantastical, but generally passive end-times theology from which Christian Zionism emerged. Today’s Christian Zionists hail from apostolic and prophetic movements such as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), a demon-haunted new generation of American religio-politics, which may change the terms of the American-Israeli right-wing partnership in the bargain.

It was Jerry Falwell who brokered the unlikely political partnership between American fundamentalists and Israeli politicians during the administration of Menachem Begin, founder of the Likud Party. The evangelical end-time prophecy narrative—well captured in books like Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth and The Left Behind series co-authored by Tim LaHaye, one of the founders of the Moral Majority—was central to this alliance. In this interpretation of biblical prophecy, believers are raptured, or suddenly snatched to heaven, prior to the seven years before Jesus’ return, a time when the anti-Christ will rule over the earth in the Great Tribulation.

Today, the most prominent organization in Christian Zionism is Christians United for Israel (CUFI), led by controversial pastor John Hagee. CUFI has moved tens of millions of dollars from the U.S. to Israel, but is not required to disclose its activities because it is technically a church, registered in Texas as “CUFI Church Association” with a mission to “proclaim Christ to the world.” Hagee’s theology is somewhat consistent with Lindsey’s and LaHaye’s: In his fiery dispensationalist sermons, he teaches that the Rapture could take place at any minute.

While the futuristic end times prophecy narrative predicts a grim outcome for Jews, this is essentially a “passive” tale that requires supernatural intervention and that many Jewish leaders don’t take seriously. Often, they would literally laugh it off. One common joke is “When the Messiah comes, we’ll just ask if he’s been here before or not.”

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/22/meet-bibi-s-new-tribulation-courting-jew-converting-demon-exorcising-american-allies.html