Image: Martin Luther nails his protest to the church door, sparking the Reformation’s bold defiance of ecclesiastical tradition in favor of biblical authority. While antisemitic, Luther once quipped that if the Jews were ever restored to Israel, then the Jews were right, and he would join them.
John Enarson: Why We Are “Protestant” Zionists
On January 17, the Roman Catholic Church and its allied denominations in Jerusalem released a statement condemning Christian support for Israel as a “damaging ideology” that misleads the public and harms church unity. This might look like a unified Christian front turning against the Jewish State. But for hundreds of millions of Evangelical supporters of Israel, this statement clarifies exactly why we are not just Zionists—we are “Protestant” Zionists.
The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem claim to be bothered by some “Christian” ideology, but the real issue is that these Christians are helping the Jewish people retain national sovereignty in their ancestral homeland. Under traditional Catholic or Eastern Orthodox theology, Jews might be tolerated as stateless minorities in Christian lands. However, the idea that the Jewish nation has a biblical right to sovereignty violates centuries of supersessionist theology—the belief that the Church has replaced Israel.
As Evangelical supporters of Israel, we are “Protestant” for a reason. We “protest” against the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox traditions that preceded it. While modern apologists suggest the Protestant Reformation is over, the protest remains vital, whether against the worship of Mary, or images, or unbiblical soteriology. Chief among our objections is the betrayal of the Bible in favor of church tradition. The foremost meaning of “Evangelical” is to believe in the primacy of Scripture (the euangelion in old parlance).
The Jerusalem churches’ statement does not even attempt a Scriptural argument. They rely on the old accusation that defying their theology is the “sin of disunity.” They ignore that we have compelling biblical grounds for our stance. As offensive as it may sound to the secular West or the old ecclesiastical hierarchies, we maintain that God’s Word is firmly on the side of Jewish restoration. And as Romans 3:4 reminds us, God will be found true, though every man a liar.
This leads to the second fundamental reason for our divergence: the definition of a Christian.
For Evangelicals, one is not a Christian by being born into a church as if it were an ethnicity. The Protestant Reformation revived the biblical truth that Christianity springs from personal faith, being “born again” (John 3:3–7) to follow Jesus and submit to Scripture. As Evangelical singer Keith Green famously quipped, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald’s makes you a hamburger.”
This stands in stark contrast to the Middle East, where for centuries—surrounded by dominant Islam—to be “Christian” is effectively an ethnic minority status. Under Islamic dominance, these communities survived by behaving as subservient dhimmis. In this context, the faith often becomes a cultural collective rather than a personal conviction.
Evangelicals understand that there are many individual true believers in the nominal churches, irrespective of cultural tradition. Moreover, we recognize that there is real persecution of nominal Christians in the Middle East. Jihadists who burn churches and behead Christians do not care if they have been born again or not. To them, even secular, hedonistic Europe is “Christian.” The jihadists exemplify sheer hatred against the cross and the Bible, and care not for any nuance. This garners Evangelical sympathy around the world. We mourn and protest this persecution.
However, the Catholic and Orthodox hierarchies in the Holy Land attempt to weaponize this sympathy to marshal the church, including Evangelicals, against the Jewish State. They tell the world, “Israel is oppressing us.” But the reality is far more complex. The “Christians of the Holy Land” are a complex collective primarily under Jihadist—not Jewish—threat.
Consider the anecdotal observations of Eastern Orthodox Christian Ridvan Aydemir, an online phenomenon and expressly not a Christian Zionist. He recently came to the Holy Land to investigate the conflict for social commentary and found problems on all sides, including among traditional Christians. Ridvan was then attacked for betraying the Christians of the Holy Land. He responded bluntly:
“What Christians are you talking about? You mean those who are embroiled in gang violence over there? Who are actually active in gang violence? Who is running shady businesses in the Holy Land? Or those who are submissive to the Muslims, accepting their role as dhimmis and doing whatever the Muslims tell them because their lives are too precious to them and they just want to live in peace? … Or do you mean those who actively work for the Islamic Iranian regime and with Hamas and other terrorist organizations? Which Christians are you talking about? Or do you mean those who, for the sake of keeping the peace, do whatever Hamas tells them to do, or say whatever Hamas tells them to say, while behind the scenes telling Israel, ‘Hey, we know you’re right, we’re on your side, but we can’t just publicly [say so]?’ Do you mean those cowards? Or do you mean the good ones who actually stand up for themselves over there? Which Christians are you talking about? You have to be more specific” (Apostate Prophet, YouTube, Nov 6, 2025).
This is the blunt mechanism of the conflict: Jihadists fight the “blasphemy” of Jewish independence in the Middle East. The international community pressures Israel to give these Jihadists self-governing control in places like Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Gaza. Here, the Jihadists mercilessly begin to persecute Christians and any moderate Muslims under their control. Meanwhile, Christian communities that remain under Israeli control go on to flourish. Using cities like Bethlehem as their base, the Jihadists continue their attacks on Jews (the Second Intifada). Israel responds by installing security measures, which cut down the suicide bombings dramatically. However, it means everyone (including Christians) from Bethlehem must go through long security checkpoints. Muslims then use Christian dhimmis under their oppression as pawns. These churches largely do not believe what the Bible says about the Jews and Israel anyway. Thus, the historic churches of the Holy Land tell the world: Israel is oppressing us. How can Christian Zionists support the Israeli aggression against fellow Christians in the Holy Land? And if Israel does not surrender to the Jihadists, it will enrage Muslims against other Christian dhimmis throughout the Middle East. Stop the Zionists!
History is ironic. The Church once claimed to replace the Jews, reinforcing their stateless misery. Then, Islam arose with its own supersessionist claim, forcing Middle Eastern Christians into second-class dhimmi status, denying them any sovereignty over Muslims. Now, after 2,000 years, God has kept His biblical promise and restored Jewish sovereignty, putting the lie to both theologies.
The last major allies Israel has are the several hundred million Protestant Zionists. The Islamist world, with the help of compliant local churches, is desperate to break this alliance. Thus, Muslim and Christian statements issue forth, labeling “Zionism” a “damaging ideology,” blaming it for everything from racism and colonialism to world wars and the common cold. But actual Zionism is simply “the belief that, like other nations, the Jewish people have the legitimate right to national self-determination in their ancestral homeland.” Christian Zionism ties this belief to solid, Biblical support. Some are dispensationalists, while others are not. Thus, Christian Zionists (like many Jews), not only hold this view to be the just, legal, and historically correct position, but also a modern miracle of biblical significance.
We can only speculate, but the nervous tone of the ecclesiastical statement, which protests that the “Patriarchs and Heads of Churches” themselves are the only legitimate authority on these matters, suggests that there could be a movement of traditional Christians—even ecclesiastical leaders meeting with officials—who are tired of playing the dhimmi to Islamist oppression in the Holy Land. These voices may see an alliance with Israel, even a deeper theological reevaluation of their relationship with Israel, as the way of the future, and rightly so.
Interestingly, by expressly blaming Christian Zionism as a “damaging ideology,” the statement is also attacking Jews and Judaism, which holds the same biblical conviction. Even non-Zionist Orthodox Jews recognize that the Bible clearly gives the Land to the Jewish people eternally. To call this biblical view theologically unsound is not only to mock biblical logic, but to de facto attack pious Jews as well—a position the Catholic Church has attempted to be more careful about after its failures in the Holocaust. After Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church officially recognized the biblical significance of Jews and Judaism. But it stopped short of acknowledging their right to the Land. This promise—which is the most oft-repeated promise in the entire Bible—is thus far denied to the Jews in Catholic theology.
Only on the rarest occasions have Catholic leaders been willing to express any openness to the biblical position on the Land. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn came close in a 2005 address at the Hebrew University, where he emphasized that Christians should recognize the Jewish connection to the Holy Land and rejoice in the return of Jews to it as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. He also referenced Pope John Paul II’s view that the biblical commandment for Jews to live in Israel represents an everlasting covenant that remains valid today. A local Christian priest immediately protested, but to his credit, Cardinal Schönborn did not yield (Catholics for Israel, Mar 31, 2005; citing Jerusalem Post and Washington Post). However, this has never been acknowledged as any official position of the Roman Catholic Church.
By and large, while often expressing solidarity with the Jewish diaspora, the Vatican has been one of the strongest anti-Zionist actors in the West, ever since Jewish independence. This is evident in everything from papal audiences helping rebrand arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat as a statesman, to Pope Francis holding Mass in Bethlehem in front of a massive mural of Jesus and Joseph sporting keffiyehs, helping launder the lie that “Jesus was a Palestinian.” It remains a lie. Jesus is a Jew.
In sum, we are Protestants. We are Biblical Zionists. And we stand for justice in the Holy Land. We protest the unbiblical interpretations of the Roman Catholic Church and its allies. We hold their biblical theology of Israel and the Jews to be thoroughly lacking. We also protest the suffering of historic Christian communities under Islamist oppression. But we see through ecclesiastical statements trying to blame such hardships on the Jewish State and mislead the Evangelical world.
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John Enarson is an author and a Christian theology student from Sweden. He has lived in the Middle East for over 25 years and currently serves as the Christian Relations Director at Cry For Zion (cryforzion.com). He is happy to receive input or questions about his articles. j.enarson@gmail.com.
