Title: IS God A Zionist?

Book Summary: The Church has an Israel problem, or more bluntly, a "what do we do about Israel" dilemma. In a world obsessed with Israel, amid endless wars, boycotts, and Jewish conspiracy, this dilemma is not vanishing anytime soon. As Christians, do we share some responsibility in answering these questions for the world? In "Is God a Zionist?", Christopher Kuehl delivers a provocative Christian apologetic that affirms God's unbreakable covenant with the Jewish people, land, descendants, and all. Written for anyone grappling with today's cultural chaos, this book is your raw invitation to find your stand in this spiritual war. Kuehl weaves Church history's giants—from Augustine, to Spurgeon, to Vatican II—right into pop culture firestorms involving Kanye, Candace Owens, and Tucker Carlson. Divided into three parts, it dissects the Jewish-Christian divorce, builds a biblical case for Israel's eternal promises, and lastly enters into the conflict raging across the internet. This book is part memoir, part theology, but 100% common sense that integrates Biblical truth into cultural moment. Come wrestle with a restorationist God who resurrects nations, defies all human reason, and promises "life from the dead" when Israel sees their Messiah.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction

• A Note To the Reader

• Section I: A Brief History

• Chapter 1: The Parting of the Ways: The Jewish Response

• Chapter 2: The Parting of the Ways: The Christian Response

• Section II: A Biblical Case For Israel

• Chapter 3: Fulfillment Theology & The Worst Rebrand Ever

• Chapter 4: God’s Oath of Blood

• Chapter 5: Beloved Enemies & Irrevocable Promises

• Chapter 6: Land Belongs To The Living

• Chapter 7: Will The Real Israel Please Stand Up?

• Chapter 8: The Tyranny of Ignorance

• Chapter 9: The Hidden Face of God & The Everlasting Jew

• Section III: Modern Implications

• Chapter 10: When Tucker Carlson, Dispensationalism, and Christian Zionism Collide

• Chapter 11: Colonizer! Apartheid! Genocide! Oh,My!

• Chapter 12: Become The Christian Zionist Candace Owen’s Warned You About

• Chapter 13: The Jewish Question & The Ultimate Reversal of Fortune

• Chapter 14: The Heart of a People

Book Introduction:

I never set out to defend Israel or the Jewish people. This was never part of my master plan. My connection to Israel's reality was almost accidental. In 2000, I experienced a radical heart shift that wonderfully sealed my focus on the kingdom of God. The hound of heaven found a way into my broken heart, and this redirected the trajectory of my life. A few years later, I graduated from University with an accounting and finance degree. 

My goal was to work on Wall Street. 

During this time, I felt the Lord prompting me to let go of this direction, at least for the time being. In my spirit, I felt like the Lord was telling me to look elsewhere. Depending on your type of Christian background, the use of "hearing God" might make you feel uneasy, and that's okay. Another way of thinking about this is that I was in a state of total submission and was doing my best to follow where I believed the Lord was leading. This kick-started a 9-month journey of me actively seeking the Lord in sometimes hilariously zealous and ridiculous ways. I am thankful that the Lord knows what to do with our searching, and he is faithful to those who earnestly seek him, even when it feels crazy to us and even crazier to those around us. There is a purity in total submission to God, even when it feels absurd to the world.  

I will save you the details, but at the end of this 9-month journey of letting go of my dreams of Wall Street and financial pursuit, a journey that had me currently working nights at the post office - while I was in a constant state of prayer and fasting about what to do with my life, I felt the Lord release me. This release prompted me to apply to five different Christian organizations in mission-related work. Four out of these five organizations did not respond to my application, which did wonders for my already bruised ego. At that time, 23-year-old me would have gone anywhere, anywhere, that wasn't working nights at the post office.

For all I cared, I was spinning a globe and plucking my finger down on the first spot the Lord would send me. I was randomly throwing darts at a map, hoping for something to stick.

You can trust me when I say that I had zero ideas about what to do with my life once I handed over my own dreams to the Lord. Ultimately, the only organization that accepted my application was based in Jerusalem, Israel. This felt perfectly acceptable to me, not because I was a Zionist, not because I had any stance on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and not because I had some brilliant theological position that I was going to crush my enemies with. All I had was a deep desire to follow the Lord, and at this point in my personal story, this led me to a 14-month move to Jerusalem, Israel. 

I will share aspects of my time in Israel throughout this book, but I would like to highlight one specific event now. During this time, I was able to observe a worship event that included believing Jews and believing Palestinians. I was amazed at how the reality of Jesus could bring both groups together into one accord. This should not have surprised me, as the issues in Israel have deep theological undertones that require profound spiritual realities to solve, but observing it was eye-opening for me. That evening, sitting in my apartment that overlooked the Old City in Jerusalem, I reflected on the power of the gospel and its ability to bring the Jews and Palestinians together. As I was processing the beauty of God and the power that was able to create a bridge between these two groups of people, a clear voice struck my spirit that said, "The bridge I am creating between the Jews and the Palestinians is nothing compared to the bridge I am building between the Christians and the Jews." This is obviously a deeply personal and experiential story. At the time, I couldn't have told you the first thing about the Church's long history with the Jews; I had no reference point for theological positions on the nature of Israel and the Church. At this time, there wasn't all the media attention and accusations against Israel and the Jews circling around. I was simply a hungry heart seeking the Lord. 

I had no idea what these words meant that the Lord spoke to me that night; all I can say is that these words have never left my heart. 

I have been back to Israel around fifteen times since 2007. I have had the privilege to see all of Israel, the West Bank, and many of the surrounding countries. I have both Jewish and Palestinian friends. I have lived with the Bedouins, a nomadic group of Arabs that live in tents throughout Israel. I have played Shesh Besh (Backgammon) with the Arabs. I have drank coffee with the Druze, and I have celebrated with the Jews. Israel is anything but monolithic. It is dynamic, complex, and deeply human amidst all the chaos. 

Israel is anything but simple. 

Israel is designed entirely for the opposite of the internet era. An era that wants to feed us sound bites and oversimplifications of complex and nuanced issues. Israel stands in stark opposition to this tendency to over-simplify, with a deep history that spans back thousands of years. If you want to grapple with Israel you must be willing to wrestle with God. Israel is the main stage, the pressure cooker that is always about to blow, the heavy stone that anyone who tries to carry cuts themselves by.  

At times in this book, I will weave personal moments from my story into it. I will start every chapter with a personal story that might but probably not have anything to do with that chapter's content. This will hopefully bring life to complex and cerebral topics. Hopefully, it will humanize intellectual and theoretical concepts, but more importantly, humanize a deeply divided and complex place like Israel. Hopefully, in it, you can find the heart of God, as I have. 

As I have matured out of the zealousness of my 23-year-old self, I have been forced at times to deeply grapple with my understanding of Israel and the Jewish people. This book addresses numerous theological topics. Sometimes, that means I will have to oversimplify issues. I am currently finishing up my Master's Degree in Theology because I want to explore the depths of these issues. I have a deep love for theology, but I recognize that it is often used in a way that crushes people rather than heals them. It can be a form of personal pride as opposed to a way of getting to know God or truth better. On the opposite side, at its best, it helps us understand the truth more fully. 

We will journey through church history in an attempt to find footholds in all of these topics. I am well aware of the ongoing dialogue on the internet related to these issues and the way the media communicates about them, and I hope to synthesize all this information into an accessible way of understanding these complex topics. I have been challenged in my heart about what to think regarding many of these issues, seeking rootedness in our modern era. This has taken me through many dark nights of the soul, many self-doubting and confusing moments, and many questions for which I didn't have answers. 

Even my time living in Israel was far from easy. I have felt discouraged, exhausted, disrespected, and befuddled at what God could possibly be doing amid this chaos during my excursions into Israel. 

At the same time this time of searching and seeking has led me to a profound love for the Jewish people and God's ongoing plan for all humanity. This difficulty has, over time, led me to a deeper understanding of God and a deeper understanding of the permanence of His words. This book is more of an invitation to come to wrestle in the mud with God than it is to declare lofty theological opinions from an ivory tower. And on this journey, I invite you. 

Why Should You Care About This Topic? 

I've just talked about myself, but let's talk about you. 

Why should you care about this topic?

I am constantly surprised by the attention that Israel and the Jewish people get. I should stop being surprised as this is a God-designed plan, and God has a way of drawing attention to the things the world needs to observe. Whether it's Joe Rogan, Kanye, Candace Owens, Jordan Peterson, Tucker Carlson, screaming Stew Peters as he is about to have an aneurysm or the hundreds of other names I could mention, everyone is always discussing the Jews and Israel. I can hardly go a day without reading something related to these topics in the news. Oftentimes, it is related to the Palestinians; sometimes, it is associated with a conspiracy theory or some level of control the Jews supposedly exert over the world. Oftentimes, it is intertwined with decontextualized scripture.

In today's world, very rarely is what you read about Israel or the Jews positive.

I make an effort to read the top comments related to these issues. It's incredible how most of the top comments on these posts are related to positive support of the "Austrian Painter," a reference to Hitler or some other genocidal psychopath who hated the Jews. I believe we are at an inflection point, revisiting the all too familiar historical zeitgeist of scapegoating the Jews for the problems of the world. You might think this is a new phenomenon, but it is a tale as old as time.  

Maybe you hold some of these thoughts. Perhaps you feel there is nothing good that comes out of the Jewish people or the nation of Israel. Maybe you are exhausted by the bombing in Gaza or the influence you think AIPAC has on America, both fair feelings by the way. Perhaps you are simply tired of hearing about the Jews and the Palestinians, and if it isn't America first, then you don't care. Perhaps you come from a Pentecostal, Non-Denominational, or dispensational Church and are seeking a more grounded way to explain your position. Perhaps you are Catholic and working through what Vatican II means for you, or you come from a more traditional covenantal theological position (replacement theology) and feel that this issue is no longer relevant.

Maybe you are undecided in all of this.

If you call yourself a friend to Israel or the Jewish people, you certainly have your work cut out explaining this position. Perhaps you are undecided or unsure about the meaning of these terms, and that's okay. Just hang in there; I will explain everything in this book. 

The reality is that the Church has been talking about the Jews for 1,900 years. We will discuss this further throughout the book. As Christians, we are never going to be able to escape this topic. Christianity is uniquely cornered by the Jewish question, and more importantly the Jewish people. Christianity did not spring out of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or any other religion. Christianity's birth point is squarely set in the Jewish world. We believe in a book entirely authored by Jews (outside of possibly Luke and Acts). We serve a Jewish Messiah. There is no escaping this so our questions of identity must lie in examining this reality. With the return of the Jews to Israel in 1948, these topics became even more critical and relevant to the Church's thinking. The Church also has a role to play in this story, which is appropriate for anyone who identifies as a Christian.

The most important thing is that this story also reveals something fundamental about God and our world, something that, no matter how hard you or I try, we will not escape. So when we talk about the Jews, we are really talking about God, and here lies the crux of the whole issue.

A Word To My Non-Zionist or Questioning Readers 

I know how difficult it can be to listen to the other side of a position that you might not hold. A hallmark of maturity and willpower is to listen honestly and sincerely to a position with which you don't align. Doing this in a way where you are not reactively defensive and truly find the capacity to listen is no easy task, and it is something we all fail at all. Very rarely do decent people disagree over something obvious. In good faith, we frequently see things differently and must wrestle through this tension. Arthur Cohen said, "The test of tolerance is where men combat for truth but honor persons." I invite you to embark on this journey as we ask some hard questions and reason together.   

Another mention I must make is that this book is not written by a dispensationalist. In a subsequent chapter, I will delve deeper into this issue, so if you are unfamiliar with this term, don't worry. On the reverse side, if you have spent any time on the internet, then you might be aware of the ongoing accusation that to have any support of Israel or the Jewish people, one must hold to a dispensational position. I hope to dispel this straw man argument and many other equally obvious inaccurate claims. I will draw from various sources and schools of Christian thought in this book. While I am not Roman Catholic, I find much to appreciate about Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox tradition. The goal of this book is not to throw the weight behind one denomination but to look at the "voice of many waters" in the history of our glorious Church. 

A church that is made of humans and has all of the difficulties, complexities, and, at times, faults that we as humans have, yet through the grace of our Lord, marches forward with the power to transform the world. I will pull from all of these different Christian faith traditions in this book. One of the main drivers of this book is to offer an apologetic that any denomination could pull from.

I have written this book to offer a conversational Christian apologetic of positions related to Israel and the Jewish people, topics that are under fierce debate. To do this, it is helpful to look through the history of the Church rather than just examining our current moment. The tone of this book is not intended to be highly academic or tediously theological. Although we will engage with major theological concepts, we will do so in a conversational manner. We will also look at a lot of primary sources which can at times be daunting, but I believe in you. I will hopefully translate these sources in contextually faithful ways to ease this sometimes tedious task. This book will also address cultural moments and areas of societal and national debate. This book is being written to offer a synthesis of biblical truth and cultural moment. 

It is intended for anyone who is attempting to find their own way through these questions. 

In this book, you will hear about a perspective that sees God’s hand orchestrating many of the things happening in the world right now. Not in some primarily end times focused kind of way but in a fidelity to God’s word kind of way. God is telling a story. It’s both a love story and a story of God’s faithfulness. Like every story it has highs and lows, it is messy and complicated. Above all it is deeply human but also profoundly spiritual. 

The Spiritual Nature of Our Cultural Moment 

If you exist on the internet in any form then you can’t avoid the accusations that are being leveled at the Jews. It is happening everywhere. This energy directed against the Jews is like an omnipresent magnet that is pulling all of the world's focus towards itself. If you are feeling a general sense of disgust or hatred against the Jews right now it might be worth asking yourself if you have been caught up in the rip tide of this spiritual movement. It is also helpful to understand that everything in our world has a spiritual reality behind it. 

The brilliant orthodox Christian and cultural commentator Jonathan Pageau has another way of describing this moment. In an interview where Pageau is talking about Kanye West’s Heil Hitler song that Kanye released over the summer Pageau describes the meta story that is spinning in the world right now. It’s a story that centers around the Jews. It’s a story that all of the Arab nations, the alt-right conspiracy people, the Christians, the social justice people on the left and cultural commentators are all giving energy to right now. Everyone is now part of compounding this focus and energy towards a story that centers around the Jews and Israel. The irony is that even people who openly hate the Jews are playing their part and giving massive air time to focusing this energy on the Jewish people. 

Most of this energy is a net negative to God’s story because most of this energy is not spiritually informed. People unknowingly are attempting to look at spiritual realities with worldly eyes. It’s like trying to see into the Matrix without an understanding of what you are looking at. These people have taken the blue pill but are still attempting to understand the Matrix. Or it’s like when Edmund finds himself in Narnia after falling through the wardrobe and he becomes confused about what reality is. Pageau’s point in this interview is that there is a story that is running the world right now, and this story is not being properly integrated into all of our personal stories and this has the potential to have horrifying consequences. 

I agree completely with what Pageau is saying here in terms of a story that is ruling the world's focus right now but I actually wonder if this story that is running the world is all part of God’s design. I wonder if all the anti-semitism, the anti-zionism, the conspiracy, the accusations, all of the world's energy and attention is all part of God’s story. Now, I don’t mean that this hatred and spiritual confusion is part of God’s story, but God has a way of using all things to redirect into His plans. God is thrifty, nothing ever goes to waste. God is using this story, which is really a story that started with Abraham, to draw the world's attention to a specific focal point right now. It’s like a top that is spinning on the table and all of this energy is being poured into this top causing it to spin faster and faster because ultimately it’s all part of God’s design that people focus on this spinning top. 

At the same, as believers in Jesus we have an obligation to see and highlight the spiritual substructure of our world, which is really the fundamental aspect of all reality. Our battle as salt and light is to first understand that our battle is not with flesh and blood, but with darkness and against the spiritual nature in the high places. There is an ancient spiritual hatred against the Jews that is wrapping the world in a diabolical embrace. It is like a mist covering the whole earth that is enchanting people towards its own ends. As Christians we have to find the story that God is telling and not be caught up in this other story.

That doesn’t mean we have to love everything Israel does. This doesn’t mean we have to love Netanyahu. This doesn’t mean we have to love AIPAC. This doesn’t mean we should hate the Palestinians and not be heart broken by death and war. As Christians we can and should love both the Palestinians and the Jews. All this means is that there is a very dark story at work in our world right now, and as Christians we have to be aware of this and even ask ourselves if we have been caught up in this. A heavy delusion that people mistake for being “awake” is steadily growing in our world. Our call as Christians is to break spiritual darkness by integrating God’s light and total truth. We are the ones that have to see into darkness when others can’t and act as God’s conduits for light. 

There are two stories at work right now. God’s story and any perspective that stands against God’s story. We are at a moment when everyone, even the haters are all contributing energy and focus into a focal point of God’s story. They might even be being leveraged by God to sow energy into this focal point. The nations rage but God laughs. 

This book is an invitation to grab onto God’s story. 

Endnotes:

You can download the Endnotes here to see the sources used in each chapter. Note, this has not been formatted or gone through the final edit yet.