I have for a long time been intrigued by the huge, profound support of American Fundamentalist Christians for the Jews, Israel and Zionism in general.

Considering how Fundamentalist Christians usually treat people who reject Jesus as Christ - why are they so powerfully behind the Zionist cause? Can anyone enlighten me?

Well, considering the terms, words and sentence contruct it appears you're just after a fight.

But it has to do with the Jews being the 'chosen people'...biblicly speaking. It's not just the fundi Christians who support the Jews and Israel. Most Christians do. Not sure about the Catholics though...but them being Christian is a debate on its own.

I've always thought that Christian support for Zionism was because they'd rather Jews went and lived in their own country, instead of where they do now.

Actually I thought it was more to do with helping fulfil the prophecy of Revelations - in that the Jews must be living in Israel for Revelations to work. I'm not hugely read up on this, so no doubt am off the mark slightly. But if this is the case I think its very concerning that fundi christians are so actively supportive of anything the Jews do to retain their occupation of Israel. Are they TRYING to bring about the second coming of Jesus and the end of the world? Why try to hurry this - if its going to happen, then it will in its own good time. We dont need a group of fanatics actively trying to fulfil biblical prophecies.

Country Gal,

"Actually I thought it was more to do with helping fulfil the prophecy of Revelations - in that the Jews must be living in Israel for Revelations to work."

I'm sure I've heard something like that. I note that the Christian religion started as a Jewish sect in the Middle East that quickly expanded to people who were not Jewish. Thus it theoretically considers itself to be in accordance with the pre-existing Jewish faith and the correct way to worship the God of the pre-existing Jewish faith (ie. Yahweh). Also, according to the Christian faith Christ is God. The modern Jewish faith by contrast also considers itself to be a continuation of that pre-existing faith but they don't consider Christ to be legit. In other words, obviously, people calling themselves Jewish today such as the ones grouped in Israel follow a different religion to the version of the Jewish faith that Christians consider the correct one.

This points to another reason bunching together a group of Jews to fulfil Christian scripture is foolish. In the Christian religion, for a Jew to be on track (ie. following a continuation of the pre-existing Jewish faith) for the purpose of such prophecy would logically be someone of Jewish descent who follows Christ. Someone of Jewish descent who meets the bill these days would call themselves Christian not Jewish. They might even call themselves a Christian Jew but they definitely aren't the people gathered together. Those people don't subscribe to the Christ the saviour thing. They are people of Jewish descent who reject the Christian religion. Thus apart from the issues you raise it seems pretty foolish to bunch them together in the hope of fulfilling prophecy. Lets hope the real motive is more altruistic and less foolish.

Jews have a long history of persecution including extremely serious stuff in recent history. An alternative explanation may be just stopping them from being persecuted in other countries.

Rob,

So how do you say fundies treat people who reject Christ? Any examples?

So why then ignore the Romanies, who suffer much the same fate.

My understanding of the ideaology is that at the coming of armegedon that the scriptures require 144 Jews (12 from each of the 12 tribes) to convert to christianity or something of the kind. And that they are required to be in Israel. I had a bit of a read up on it a few years ago, but I dont put much faith in the bible anyway, as its been written and rewritten over the centuries by people keen to put their own spin on things, so its a creation of humanity rather than God. Better to develop your own faith if that's what you want.

Where's Boazy? Thought he'd have bitten by now?