(Sorry for the lack of posts. I am traveling for work. By all means, start following Chris Jackson at http://bigmodernism.substack.com/)
How a Protestant misreading of Scripture may lead America into a catastrophic holy war
Senator Ted Cruz believes the United States must support modern Israel, unconditionally, militarily, even preemptively against Iran, because of a single verse from Genesis: “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” In his eyes, this is a geopolitical strategy, authored by God.
Cruz stated it bluntly in his interview with Tucker Carlson. When asked why America should support Israel in striking Iran, even if it meant regional or global escalation, Cruz appealed not to prudence, nor to U.S. self-interest, but to Genesis 12. “Those who bless Israel will be blessed,” he said. End of story.
This is not a marginal view. It’s a core conviction of American evangelicalism, particularly among its political class. Members of Congress, presidential advisors, and even Pentagon insiders carry this belief into their policy calculations. But the tragedy is this: they are wrong.
Genesis 12: Not a Foreign Policy Manual
The passage Cruz invokes was spoken to Abram, personally, as part of God’s covenant with him and his descendants. It was not a blanket policy for Gentile nations in 2024. It certainly wasn’t a divine endorsement of whatever geopolitical entity calls itself “Israel” at any given point in history. The modern state of Israel, founded in 1948 by secular Zionists, many of them agnostic or atheist, is not a theocracy, not the Old Covenant nation, and not a valid fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
The Church Fathers knew this. Saint Paul, writing in Romans 9, makes it clear: “Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” The promises of the Old Covenant were fulfilled in Christ and extended to the New Israel: the Church. “If you are Christ’s,” says Galatians 3:29, “then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” The Church, not a Middle Eastern nation-state, is the inheritor of the covenant blessings.
Yet Cruz and his fellow Christian Zionists turn this upside down. They read Genesis as though the U.S. must serve modern Israel, or else suffer divine wrath. That’s dispensationalism, a 19th-century heresy barely older than Mormonism.
From Bad Theology to Real Bombs
Cruz insists that supporting Israel means preemptively destroying Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure…
Read the rest: https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/when-bad-theology-starts-a-war-ted