“Jesus never promised to bless warmongers. Jesus said ‘blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.'” – Rick Wiles @ 28:00

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Christian Zionism’s Sin of Displacement Theology

by TruNews host Rick Wiles

Our TruNews television news team recently returned from Palestine. (Yes, there is a Palestine. The prophet Joel spoke of it in Joel 3:4 in the Authorized King James Version. The Greek historian Herodotus also wrote in the 5th century about a “district of Syria, called Palaistinê.”)

TruNews covered the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference in Bethlehem, Palestine. The event was sponsored by the Bethlehem Bible College, an evangelical Bible school that does not teach Christian Zionism. Imagine that! An evangelical bible college in the city where Jesus was born that doesn’t adhere to the bizarre eschatology concocted by Britain’s delusional John Nelson Darby and peddled in America by the Dispensational flim-flam man “Doctor” Cyrus Scofield. (Try to locate the seminary or bible college that awarded a PhD to Mr. Scofield. His seminary degree is as phony as his notes in the Scofield Reference Bible.) The Bethlehem Bible College actually believes that Jesus Christ is the center of God’s plan for humanity, not Israel.

I learned a lot during my time in Bethlehem. I also made many friends among local Christians and Muslims. By the way, I lost my fear of Muslims. Nobody tried to decapitate me on the streets of Bethlehem. There were some Muslim guys, however, who successfully caffeinated me with awesome espresso.

Personally, I will never again allow propaganda to indoctrinate me to hate and fear Muslims. Muslims are people too. They have souls. They need Jesus. My duty is to introduce them to Jesus Christ as their Savior, not as a historical religious figure whom they respect. Somebody, however, wants Americans to hate and fear Muslims. Somebody wants America to go to war with Muslim nations and destroy them. We Christians are called by Jesus to taste salty, shine brightly, and love everybody. Let’s reject secret agendas that seek to use the Church to make war against others.

It was my first visit to Israel and Palestine. I prefer Palestine. I was welcomed by both fellow Christians and Muslims. The Palestinian people are friendly, gracious, and hospitable. Even the Muslims respect and honor Jesus and His disciples.

A number of my American Evangelical Christian friends, however, are very upset with me because I said I learned to like Muslims, and they treated me kindly. These Evangelicals want me to hate and kill them in Jesus’ name. Why? The Great Commission says we are to make disciples of them and baptize them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. How can I love them into the Kingdom if I’m hating them into the grave?

The real eye-opener for me, however, was not the gracious welcome I received from Palestinian Muslims. My epiphany was the shocking plight of our persecuted Palestinian Christian brethren who are suffering because of Christian Zionism’s Displacement Theology.

What is Displacement Theology? It is radical religious belief derived from a twisted eschatology produced by the weaponization of the Holy Bible that justifies forcibly stealing at gunpoint land from men and women who believe in Jesus Christ to give it to men and women who reject Jesus Christ as the Messiah. Displacement theology sees Palestinian victims as collateral damage in the quest to validate Dispensational, Premillennial, Pre-Tribulation Zionism.

It is the aberrant interpretation of the Holy Bible by American Evangelical Christian Zionists who sincerely believe spiritually rebellious European Jews with no ties to Israel and/or Palestine in the last 2,000 years have a divine right and mandate to invade, seize, and occupy land, homes, villages, and farms that have been in possession of Palestinian Christians and Muslims for at least 1,000 years. In other words, Zionists have an ethnic privilege and right to displace Palestinian Christians from their properties in the name of Israel.

Evangelical Displacement Theology is at the heart of much suffering in Palestine, yet American Christian Zionists don’t know it. Even worse, they don’t care about it. When you press Christian Zionists about their Displacement Theology, you shockingly discover the coldness of their hearts to the plight of Palestinian Christian families seriously harmed and disadvantaged by U.S. Evangelicals’ blind support of the State of Israel. For most American Christian Zionists, nothing can stand in the way of Zionist Jews seizing control of more land – even if the land rightfully belongs to men and women who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and have served Him faithfully for decades.

Where is the justice in Christian Zionism’s Displacement Theology?

Few Christian Zionists know it, but most Jews presently living in Israel and occupied Palestine have no physical connection to the land in the past 2,000 years! Their ancient ancestors fled the Holy Land after God sent Emperor Titus and Tiberius Julius Alexander to seize Jerusalem and destroy the Temple in 70AD as the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy (Matthew 24:1-2).

The Palestinian Christians and Muslims, however, can prove their ownership and occupation of ancestral lands for many centuries. I personally spoke with numerous Palestinian Christians who claim to have physical proof that their families owned Palestinian land for 800 years or longer. Yet, these wonderful Palestinian Christians no longer have possession of their family farms and houses. The properties were seized by Zionist Jews. Thus, the Palestinians were displaced. Palestinian Christians who love Jesus Christ were physically removed from their ancestral lands to make room for Zionists who despise our Lord and Savior.

This is the ugly human tragedy of Christian Zionism’s Displacement Theology. Why do John Hagee, Perry Stone, Jack Van Impe, Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Paula White, Benny Hinn, Jay Sekulow, Mike Evans, Sid Roth, Hal Lindsey, Kenneth Copeland, Steve Green and other prominent Christian Zionists support allowing Jews to forcibly steal at gunpoint land and homes owned by Palestinian Christians? Whose side are they on?

Thousands of giddy Christian Zionists celebrated in Jerusalem on May 13-14, 2018. Prominent U.S. leaders of the Religious Right enjoyed banquets, galas, and festivities in Jerusalem to celebrate the relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Trump Administration pushed hard to get the embassy open in time for Israel’s 70th anniversary on May 15.

For Palestinian Christians, May 15, 1948 was a day of agony and horror. It was not the glorious fulfillment of Bible prophecy as touted by Christian Zionists. It’s no wonder Palestinians call May 15 “Nakba Day.” It means “the day of catastrophe.”

In the aftermath of World War II, Western nations sought to find a solution for the “Jewish problem.” The horrors of the Holocaust were enough to tip public opinion in favor of giving European Jews a nation of their own in the Middle East.

There was only one problem: If a million European Jews migrated to Palestine, a million Palestinians had to be displaced.

This is the crux of Displacement Theology’s moral dilemma. How can God-fearing, Bible-believing American Evangelical Christians justify forcibly removing God-fearing, Bible-believing Palestinian Christians from their homes, farms, shops, and villages so that Christ-rejecting Jews steeped in Kabbalah mysticism are empowered to steal and occupy their homes, farms, and shops?

How is that fair and just? Why would God approve and bless it?

Few Christian Zionists know that the Jewish Zionist movement was propelled by violence carried out by militant Jewish terrorist groups such as Haganah and Irgun in the 1930s and 1940s. After successfully overthrowing the Czar of Russia in 1917 and installing communism in Russia (and murdering thousands of Holy Orthodox Church priests), the Zionists turned their attention to Palestine in the early 1920s. Radical Zionist cells began infiltrating the Holy Land in a quest to overthrow the Arabs and establish a Zionist state.

Menachem Begin, the future Prime Minister of the State of Israel, was the commander of the Irgun paramilitary group. Yes, Israel’s hero Menachem Begin was a Jewish Osama bin Laden in the 1930s and 1940s. He should have been arrested and imprisoned for the mayhem his Zionist thugs carried out on behalf of Zionism. Instead, he was adored as a hero and crowned as Prime Minister of Israel.

Zionist terrorist militias such as Menachem Begin’s Irgun committed numerous acts of terrorism against innocent Arabs prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. Zionist terrorists shot Arabs in their neighborhoods, shot passengers on trains and buses, tossed grenades into Arab coffee shops, tossed bombs into Arab buses, tied bombs to donkeys and sent them into Arab marketplaces, opened gunfire at people entering Arab hospitals, and detonated explosives inside police headquarters.

One of the worst terrorist attacks by Zionists was the explosion inside Britain’s luxurious King David Hotel on July 22, 1946. Great Britain’s Mandatory Palestine headquarters was located in the southern wing of the famous British hotel. Menachem Begin’s Irgun terrorists placed multiple bombs in the hotel’s cafe. Ninety-one innocent people were killed by the Israeli Zionists, including British officials such as Assistant Secretary Downing C. Thompson. Some of my American Christian Zionist friends have justified the bombing of the King David Hotel as necessary for the victory of Zionism over Britain’s rule of Palestine in the 1940s. Such twisted rationalization of terrorism is indicative of the way cult members justify their illegal actions.

There were other violent Jewish terrorist organizations in Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s. Haganah and Lehi terrorists carried out numerous bloody attacks against Arab and British people who were standing in the way of the formation of the State of Israel.

The modern State of Israel was birthed in blood. How can American Evangelicals defend Zionists as “God’s chosen people” when they committed horrible acts of violence against innocent people, including children, in quest of their Zionist dream? Sorry folks, but I refuse to drink Rabbi John Hagee’s crazy Kool-Aid.

There was an estimated 1.4 million non-Jewish Palestinians living in Palestine in the mid-1940s. Half of them – 750,000 – fled their homes, farms, villages, and shops to escape the bloody ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the violent Jews who infiltrated Palestine after World War !. Peaceful Palestinian villages were attacked by Jewish paramilitary gangs armed with heavy machine guns and artillery. Over 15,000 Palestinians were murdered by the Jews. Immediately after May 15, 1948, Zionist military teams attacked and destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages. Peaceful Palestinians were displaced by violent Zionists with guns and bombs. This is what American Christian Zionists celebrate as God’s miracle of 1948! Shame on them.

The 750,000 Palestinians displaced from their homes by Jews were housed in refugee camps. There are Palestinian refugees still living in those camps today who went there in 1948!

Think about it. An infant carried by his or her mother in 1948 into a refugee camp is now 70 years old and has never been allowed to leave the camp and return to his or her family home.

Shockingly, over 1.5 million Palestinian refugees are still living today in United Nations camps. There are 58 U.N. camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. When will these people be treated as humans, not animals in cages?

Once again, this is the ugly face of Christian Zionism’s Displacement Theology. When will Christian Zionists face the truth and repent? Their Displacement Theology is perpetuating endless suffering of persecuted Palestinian Christians in the name of Dispensational, Premillennial, Pre-Tribulation Zionism eschatology. People are suffering so that Christians Zionists can prove that John Nelson Darby and Cyrus Scofield were right!

I suspect that most Christian Zionists think that Moses appeared in 1948 and led the Zionists into Palestine. The thought has never entered the minds of American Christian Zionists that the Jews murdered thousands of Palestinians and stole their land through brutal and bloody military force. There was nothing Biblical about the birth of the State of Israel in 1948. When you study the true founding of the modern State of Israel, you arrive at the realization that Zionism’s foundation is built on bloody violence, deceptive propaganda, Kabbalah mysticism, and racial superiority. God isn’t in it.

Today’s Zionists are guilty of the same sins as ancient Jews. They built Zion on blood. The prophet Micah lamented that he was sent by God to the Jews to declare their transgressions and sins:

But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. (Micah 3:8-10)

Micah warned the ancient Jews that shedding innocent blood in the quest of building Jerusalem would provoke God’s judgment upon them. He said the Jews boasted that no evil can come upon them, but God will allow Jerusalem to be plowed as a field and become heaps of rubble.

As a born again, Spirit-filled Christian who has served God for 40 years, I cannot remain silent when I now know the Big Lie of Christian Zionism. Christian Zionism’s Displacement Theology is partly responsible for the suffering of millions of Palestinians who are living under the cruel military bondage of the State of Israel.

Instead of covering up Israel’s sins, American Christians should shame Israel into treating the Palestinians justly as human beings. As disciples of Christ, we must demand social justice for the oppressed.

Let the worldwide Body of Christ say loudly to Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, and the rest of the Israeli Cabinet: Stop mistreating Palestinians! Give back the houses, farms, and villages that you stole in the name of Zionism. Obey the prophet Ezekiel who told Jewish princes: Thus saith the Lord God; Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice, take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord God. (Ezekiel 45:9)

The Jews have been down this same road in ancient times. This is not the first time Israel’s Jews claimed land that was not rightfully theirs to possess. God admonished them not to move boundary stones that marked property lines.

“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.” (Proverbs 22:28)

“Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless….” (Proverbs 23:10)

There are 10 things American Christians should do on behalf of our persecuted Palestinian brethren:

  1. Stop weaponizing the Bible. Tell the truth about 1948, not Zionist propaganda.
  2. Send humanitarian assistance to persecuted Palestinian Christians. (Best wishes getting it pass Israel’s military embargo of humanitarian aid to Palestinians. You may be shot or arrested.)
  3. Publicize the plight of Palestinian Christians and churches. Stand up and defend your Christian brethren.
  4. Oppose the stranglehold of the Israeli lobby in Washington, D.C.
  5. Demand that the Trump Administration and U.S. Congress support the establishment of a Palestinian state and a fair settlement between the Palestinians and Israelis.
  6. Demand that Israel withdraw to its pre-1967 borders as established by the United Nations in 1948.
  7. Demand the removal of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and the repatriation of land to Palestinians.
  8. Demand the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
  9. Oppose U.S. Deep State-Israeli plots for perpetual wars in the Middle East and the acquisition of more Arab land by Israel in order to regain the ancient boundaries of “greater Israel.” Be a peacemaker, not a warmonger.
  10. Stop giving money to American religious ministries promoting Zionism. Give money to ministries that are truly evangelizing Jews in Israel for Jesus Christ.

For the record, I am not proposing the delegitimization of the State of Israel, nor am I endorsing any boycotts of Israel. Furthermore, I reject all expressions of violence to protest Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

I reject Christian Zionism’s twisted narrative about Israel’s formation in 1948. I study the Holy Bible, church history, and world history. I believe Jesus Christ’s birth, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension fulfilled all of God’s promises to Israel. The Jews rejected their Messiah and His kingdom. The kingdom was taken from them and given to another people. I find nothing in the New Testament Bible prophesying that the Jews shall return to Israel, build a third temple, and restart animal sacrifices.

I also reject the legitimacy of the United Nations to function as an entity empowered to administer global governance. Therefore, I reject the notion that the U.N. had the authority in 1948 to authorize Zionist terrorists to seize land from Arabs to establish a Zionist state. Christian Zionists must affirm the role of the U.N. in the formation of the State of Israel. Do Christian Zionists believe the U.N. has the authority to give Texas to Mexico? Do Christian Zionists believe the U.N. has the power to give Tennessee, Kentucky, and parts of other U.S. southern states to the Cherokee Nation? Isn’t it odd that conservative, rightwing American Christian Zionists enthusiastically affirm the authority of the United Nations to take private property from Arabs to give it to Jews who have no connection to the land in the past 2,000 years?

Although I reject Christian Zionism and the U.N. authority to take anybody’s land, I do not support the abolition of the State of Israel. It is a nuclear-armed nation. It isn’t going away anytime soon. Only God can remove the State of Israel. Present day Israelis, however, should humbly remind themselves that God has removed Jews from the land in previous ages for sinful behavior, including the oppression of strangers and sojourners.

What I am endorsing, however, is this: The Israelis must treat Palestinians as human beings. The Palestinians must recognize that the Jews are not going to leave the land granted to them in 1948 by the United Nations. The animosity and fighting has lasted 70 years. It is time to end the warfare. The Palestinians and the Israelis must agree to live together peacefully. The Palestinian leadership must make painful concessions to the Israelis. Likewise, the Israelis must make painful concessions to the Palestinians.

American Christian Zionists must cease weaponizing the Holy Bible to justify oppression of the weak. The worldwide Church of God must pray and work to bring about reconciliation and peace among Jews and Arabs. We must teach both sides Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)

Jesus never promised to bless warmongers. He said, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.”

Originally Posted in June 2018

Rick Wiles is the founder and host of TruNews. The weekday television newscast is seen nationally on DirecTV and DISH, and globally online. Mr. Wiles is also the pastor of Flowing Streams Church in Vero Beach, Florida.