How to Bless Israel

I had finished my speech about the impact of Sept. 11 and its aftermath on theological education, and now I was responding to questions from my evangelical audience. This particular questioner was obviously upset with me. "You have managed to talk a lot about world events," he said, "without expressing any support for the nation of Israel! Don't you know that this is the main thing that God is concerned about right now?"

I had a strong hunch about what was behind his question, but I decided to draw him out before answering. "Well," I replied, "I have no doubt that the Lord is deeply grieved by the terrible things that are happening right now in the Middle East. But there is much tragedy in other parts of the world as well. Why do you think that this the main thing on God's list of priorities?" He wasted no time getting to his basic theological point: "God has said that he will bless those who bless Israel, and curse those who curse them. If you don't want to be cursed, then you had better support Israel against her enemies!"

The biblical reference that my challenger had in mind here is the opening verses of Genesis 12, where the Lord is promising Abram-soon to become Abraham-that his descendents will be special beneficiaries of divine favor: "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12: 3). This verse is a favorite among those evangelical Christians who are inclined to see contemporary developments in the Middle East as the unfolding of a "Bible prophecy" scenario. They are convinced that God's ancient promise that Abraham's Jewish descendants will, as the Chosen People, return to the Promised Land and prosper there- that this promise began to be fulfilled with the establishment of the modern state of Israel, and that the rest is yet to come. To take the side of Israel's enemies, then, is to go against God's announced plan for the Middle East.

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