Exploring the roots of Christian Zionism

by Nicole Findlay

Travis DeCook, an assistant professor of English, is researching the impact of the Protestant Reformation on contemporary Christian theologies and their role in political relations.

DeCook’s research explores early forms of “Christian Zionism”. During the seventeenth-century, the English Reformation created a social upheaval that transformed politics, culture and religious beliefs. It also led to new interpretations of Judaism, the effects of which are still felt today. 

As the English relationship with the Roman Catholic Church began to deteriorate, early reformers returned to the Old Testament for an historical reading of the scripture to offset what they saw as a Catholic manipulation of the text for political purposes.

The Book of Revelation provided fodder to the 17th radicals, including the millenarians.  To create the conditions for the Second Coming of Christ, millenarians believed they had a role to play in recreating the Kingdom of Israel and facilitating the return of the Jews to Palestine.  

“Biblical Israel is a community in which human and political action is sanctioned by God,” said DeCook. “The embrace of this idea is a reaction to what is going on in England.” Israel, he explains, provides “a fantasy and an escape from the chaos and confusion generated by the uncertainty of the period.”

The early ideology resonates with modern Evangelical Christians and helps illuminate the increasingly complex relationship between modern Israel and western nations still imbued with the Christian legacy.

“This project sheds light on Israel’s centrality to present-day forms of Christian political theology, as well as on current Christian-Jewish relations and their geopolitical import.” 

DeCook was awarded a 2010 FASS Research Award for his work.