Christian Zionism Research Articles

Herbert Hoover and the Jews by Sonja Schoepf Wentling and Rafael Medoff (review)

Reviewed by: Herbert Hoover and the Jews by Sonja Schoepf Wentling and Rafael Medoff Stephen H. Norwood (bio) Herbert Hoover and the Jews. By Sonja Schoepf Wentling and Rafael Medoff. Washington DC: David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, 2012. xii + 225 pp. This illuminating book provides many new insights into Herbert Hoover’s political career. It examines his responses to the horrific pogroms in Poland immediately after World War I and to the Arab slaughter of Jews across Palestine in 1929. Most importantly, the book documents how Revisionist Zionists persuaded prominent Republicans, including former president Hoover, to join them in pressing for U.S. government action to rescue European Jews during the Holocaust. Hoover’s role administering European food relief sensitized him to Jews’ intense suffering after World War I, the result of savage anti-Semitic persecution and severe economic distress. He enabled the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC) to evade Polish government restrictions on Jewish organizations sending aid to Polish Jewry by having his own relief organization funnel AJJDC funds into Poland. Hoover’s Jewish aide Lewis Strauss praised him as “the only U.S. government official to effectively press Poland and its prime minister to act against the pogromists” (14). The authors also show that Hoover’s empathy for Polish Jews was limited by his fear that they were not sufficiently enthusiastic about Polish nationalism. Hoover maintained an isolationist stance during the 1929 Palestine pogroms, the first serious foreign policy crisis of his presidency. He neither [End Page 456] intervened to protect Palestinian Jewry nor pressured the British to do so. The authors note, however, that he at least “remained steadfast in his support for the upbuilding of Jewish Palestine” (58). In 1928, Hoover extolled the work of Zionist settlers in transforming Palestine, which, in his words, had remained “desolate and neglected for centuries” (48). As president, he sent statements of support to the Zionist Organization of America and to the American Palestine Committee, a Christian Zionist organization, when it was established. Notably, days before leaving the White House, Hoover instructed U.S. ambassador to Germany Frederick Sackett “to exert every influence on the Hitler regime” to stop the persecution of German Jewry (64). Although hundreds of thousands of Americans had already staged massive street demonstrations and rallies to protest Nazi anti-Semitism, President Roosevelt told his ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, appointed in June 1933, that Nazi persecution of Jews was not a matter with which the U.S. government should be officially concerned. After Kristallnacht, ex-president Hoover moved away from his earlier support for immigration restriction and endorsed the Wagner-Rogers bill to admit 20,000 refugee children from Germany into the United States, above the annual quota for Germany. He lobbied members of the House Immigration Committee to support the bill, which President Roosevelt did not endorse. Hoover’s most important contribution during his post-presidential career was the backing he gave the Revisionist Zionists in their campaign to persuade the U.S. government to initiate immediate measures to rescue as many European Jews as possible from annihilation and to mobilize the public in that effort. Leading this effort was Hillel Kook (Peter Bergson), head of the Bergson Group, and Eliahu Ben-Horin and Benzion Netanyahu, directing the New Zionist Organization of America. President Roosevelt’s lack of interest in rescuing Jews led the Revisionists to turn to prominent Republicans for assistance. Roosevelt’s indifference was dramatized at the Bermuda Conference in April 1943, ostensibly called to address refugee issues. The Roosevelt administration made no effort to relax immigration quotas for countries whose Jews were being annihilated. It would not even use troop ships returning empty from Europe to transport Jewish refugees to the United States. Hoover was willing to challenge the Roosevelt administration publicly on the refugee issue. As the nation’s only living ex-president during World War II, his views drew attention. Hoover’s contribution to the rescue campaign included signing an appeal that the Bergson Group placed in newspapers denouncing the Bermuda Conference as a “cruel mockery” and calling for immediate action to rescue as many European Jews as [End Page 457] possible from the “Nazi Death-Trap...

‘I am an Israeli’: Christian Zionism as American redemption

This article argues that discourse used to define and understand Israel by prominent American Christian Zionists is a discourse of national idealisation. Drawing on Durkheim's (2008) notion of symbols as sources of social solidarity, I argue that this imagined Israel reflects conservative social and military values that are shared among Christian Zionists and their supporters – values which many in this broad category see the United States failing to uphold. Following this, I show how one of America's most prominent pastors – John Hagee – and his organisation – Christians United for Israel – have taken on the role of a contemporary Jeremiah, criticising the American government for not adequately supporting Israel. This article concludes by considering how Christian Zionists are calling America to renew and align itself with God by ‘blessing’ Israel, and acting like Israel.

“A Bible People”: Post-Conciliar U.S. Catholics, Scripture, and Holy Land Pilgrimage

“A Bible People”: Post-Conciliar U.S. Catholics, Scripture, and Holy Land Pilgrimage Hillary Kaell Each year, approximately 250,000 U.S. Christians, including 60,000 Catholics, journey to Israel and the Palestinian Territories to “walk where Jesus walked.”1 U.S. Catholics have a long and essentially unstudied history of such pilgrimages dating back to the late nineteenth century.2 Once connected to devotions like the Stations of the Cross and the rosary, Holy Land pilgrimage has prospered in recent decades even as other devotions have showed precipitous decline.3 As U.S. Catholics advanced socio-economically and trans-Atlantic commercial flights made international travel more efficient and affordable, pilgrims have flocked to the Holy Land in unprecedented numbers. The lack of scholarship on these contemporary Catholic pilgrimages is surprising. Sociological and anthropological studies of Christian pilgrimage developed around, and still largely focus on, Catholic sites. By contrast, work on the Holy Land has centered almost entirely on U.S. evangelical Protestants and, more specifically, the impact of Christian Zionism.4 In these studies, Catholic [End Page 85] pilgrims rarely appear “in person.” Instead, they provide a ready counterpoint in that they are imagined by Protestants to exemplify devotionalism (Catholic “ritualism”) in contrast with evangelical Biblicism.5 In fact, few U.S. Catholics who set out to “walk where Jesus walked” are part of the devotional revival associated with conservative Catholicism.6 Moreover, far from being Biblically illiterate or uninterested in Scripture, they often describe themselves as “Bible people.” The typical pilgrim is a devoted, weekly communicant and scripturally-focused. More than others, he or she is likely to participate in Bible studies and articulate the desire for a “personal relationship” with Jesus. For these U.S. Catholics, the significance of Holy Land pilgrimage lies in how it is located at the nexus of traditional devotionalism and Bible-focused knowledge and experience. The pilgrimage opens up opportunities to negotiate flexible relationships with the institutional Church, to reaffirm links to Christian tradition, and to ground faith more firmly in Biblical study, interpretation, and meditation.7 Studying the Holy Land In 2009, I travelled to the Holy Land on a twelve-day pilgrimage. The first day I shared a meal with Janine and Frank, a couple in their mid-60s [End Page 86] from Boston, Massachusetts. We were making small talk—the weather, the falafel, our favorite Christmas carols—when Janine turned to topics more profound. “We’re the middle generation,” she said, leaning towards me for emphasis, “and we’re becoming a Bible people.” Janine and Frank have hosted a Bible study in their home for more than a decade. No priests attend these gatherings—just the People of God and scripture. “It’s something our parents never would have done,” Janine noted, referring to the changes she has experienced since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). Anthropological studies of Christian pilgrimage typically focus on the journey and the shrine itself (the “center out there” in Victor Turner’s well-known phrase).8 My interest lies in drawing a fuller portrait of how pilgrims like Janine and Frank incorporate the trip into their everyday religious lives, including the Bible studies that so often precede it. To this end, I rely on an interdisciplinary methodology that includes archival research, in-depth interviews, and “multi-sited” ethnography. Between 2008 and 2012, I participated in two Holy Land pilgrimages and conducted pre- and post-trip interviews with 131 pilgrims from seven different groups.9 Our conversations lasted between two and four hours, conducted in person when possible. I focused on Catholic groups from Massachusetts, Maryland, and North Carolina, which collectively consisted of participants from seventeen states. I highlight the stories of three of these pilgrims below: Janine, Frank, and Paula. Janine and Frank travelled in 2009 with a Boston-based group and Paula in 2008 with her Maryland parish. They are typical of American Catholic pilgrims in background (Euro-American, U.S.-born, “cradle” Catholics), gender (more women than men), age (about fifty to seventy), and socio-economic status (varied). Frank, now retired, has a master’s degree and worked as an industrial chemist, while Janine stayed home with their children. Paula, a...

The Rise of Christian Zionism

For historians of American foreign relations, one of the most difficult relationships to analyze and discuss has been that between the United States and Israel. It is not surprising that historiography in this field has at times lurched between strongly opposing interpretations or failed to delve into complexities in order to avoid uncomfortable controversies. Caitlin Carenen wades into these turbulent waters and emerges with a refreshingly multilayered study which grapples with the intersections of government relations, domestic political evolution, and religious philosophies. Carenen’s book can be read on a number of different levels. First, it explains the increasingly sympathetic relationship between the United States and Zionism. This chronological story takes us from the 1930s to the end of the George W. Bush administration, and answers political questions about when the two countries had a more distant or a closer relationship. Second, the book maps out how the strengthening political relationship between the two governments paralleled and intersected with the growing support for Zionism among organized Protestant groups, beginning with liberal, mainline organizations, and then among evangelical groups. Third, Fervent Embrace is about the shift of political power in American society from one dominant Protestant group to another: Liberal, mainline to evangelical. Fourth, in tracing this power shift among Protestants, Carenen also shows the philosophical shift within Christian Zionism. She explains how the justifications for Zionism were different at different points in the century and among different Protestants. And, finally, Carenen addresses the most controversial lightening rod in the discussion of the American-Israeli relationship: The connection between antisemitism and support for or opposition to Israel.

Christian zionism as a factor of US politics

One of the most important phenomena in US politics is Christian Zionism. The term Christian Zionism is related to unity of a large part of Protestant beliefs and the Zionists movement. The religious motives of US Protestants have coincided with the Jewish intention to go back to Palestine. In this way, Protestant religious motives could only be achieved by using political pressure on the US government. The goal of this pressure is to turn the foreign policy of Washington into a struggle for reconstruction and maintenance of the state of Israel. That is why many people wrongly believe that the US policy in Middle East is a product of the Jewish lobby. However, the US foreign policy in Middle East is a product of religious beliefs of Christian Zionists and the Jewish lobby is just using this fact for its own purposes.

War and Peace Theology in German and Swedish Christian Zionism

This is a comparative study of how Swedish and German Christian Zionist literature from 1967–2012 portrays the chances for peace and the risk for war, globally and in the Middle East. Christian Zionism is a theology supporting the establishment and the preservation of the modern state of Israel as a Jewish homeland. Christian Zionist literature, in Germany and Sweden, demonstrates very little hope for peace, since this world is assumed fallen, heading for the apocalypse, in the hands of the Devil, and inhabited by a sinful humanity beyond improvement. The image of Arabs is clearly that of an enemy image; so portraying them as inferior: permanently lying, violent, dangerous, and incapable. Thus, peace with Arabs is futile. Jews are given appreciative attributes: intelligent, democratic, progressive and capable. However, Jews are instrumentalized, being regarded as a tool in a fatalistic end-time schema. They are expected to “return” to Israel, a requirement for the return of the Messiah. In Israel, Jews will face Armageddon, leaving many to perish. The readership of this literature is required to pray for Israel and for the “return” of Jews. However, it is explicitly dissuaded from supporting peace initiatives, and never required to save Jews from Armageddon. German and Swedish literatures generally share the same beliefs, and the discourse has been largely consistent over the years.

‘Thank you Israel, for supporting America’: the transnational flow of Christian Zionist resources

This article seeks to understand what it means when, in 2006, a noted British pastor and Bible teacher stood up in front of 8000 evangelical Zionists from all over the world at the convention centre in Jerusalem and addressed the audience with the following counter-intuitive words: ‘Thank you Israel, for supporting America!’ Evangelical Christianity has complex relations and ambivalent relations to the nation state and globalisation. Supernaturally speaking, Israel is the only nation state in the world that matters. Contemporary Israel becomes a kind of litmus test, both for manifesting the truth of the word of God and for manifesting the individual's or the nation's commitment to realising God's will in this world. For Christian Zionism, this transnational flow of resources into and out of Israel ultimately redeem locality, offering ‘the nations’ a place in the story, and the opportunity to serve as vehicles for God's will.

Book Review: International Relations: Dark Crusade: Christian Zionism and US Foreign Policy

Book Review: International Relations: Dark Crusade: Christian Zionism and US Foreign Policy

Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews and the Idea of the Promised Land (review)

Reviewed by: Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews and the Idea of the Promised Land Dan Cohn-Sherbok Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews and the Idea of the Promised Land, by Shalom Goldman. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. 367 pp. $35.00. Zionism is normally viewed as a Jewish political cause. This is the picture presented by such works as Arthur Hertzberg’s 1959 anthology, The Zionist Idea, which makes no mention of Christian precursors of the Zionist idea. Recently, however, a number of works have focused on Christian Zionism, such as Stephen Sizer’s Christian Zionism: Road Map to Armageddon. Goldman’s informative and lucidly written volume supplements such studies by providing an illuminating account of Christian engagement with Zionism through six narratives set in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first three chapters, dealing with the period before the creation of the Jewish state, relate the stories of three personal and political relationships: the poet Naphtali Herz Imber and the British diplomat and journalist Laurence Oliphant; the Zionist leader Theodor Herzl and the Anglican cleric William Hechler; and the Hebrew University professor Joseph Klausner and the Hebraist Herbert Danby. The next three chapters, set in the twentieth century, focus on organizational issues. Chapter Four tells the story of the Vatican’s engagement with the State of Israel. Chapter Five deals with three modern literary figures: Jorge Luis Borges, Robert Graves, and Vladimir Nabokov and their support for the State of Israel. The final chapter focuses on modern Christian Zionism. These six chapters are preceded by an extensive discussion of Zionism as a political movement which treats such themes as the notion of the promised land, the Anglican communion, and the Protestant churches’ view of the return to Zion, the United States and the restoration of the Jews, early scholarship on Christians and Zionism, Zionism and the Jewish-Christian relationship, and evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Israel. This material serves as a helpful background to the studies which follow. Yet it would have been better to have a sweeping survey of the history of Jewish and Christian Zionism from its early origins to the establishment of the Jewish state. This would have enabled the reader to place the figures mentioned in subsequent chapters into a coherent chronological context. [End Page 164] Yet despite the diffuse nature of Goldman’s narrative, the detailed accounts of diplomats, thinkers, poets, and scholars are illuminating. The discussion of Laurence and Alice Oliphant’s encounter with Naphtali Herz Imber, for example, gives a fascinating insight into the thought-world of early supporters of a Jewish homeland. Similarly, the chapter dealing with Theodor Herzl and his Christian associates fills in the gaps of most historical accounts of Herzl’s involvement with William Hechler and others. Again, the final chapter which deals with Jewish settlers and Christian Zionists from 1967 to 2007 affords an insightful overview of the growing Christian Zionist movement and its involvement with Israeli politics. Although Goldman does not seek to provide an historical overview of the Christian involvement with Zionism, his book nonetheless adds an important dimension to the understanding of Christian-Jewish encounter in the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Dan Cohn-Sherbok University of Wales Copyright © 2012 Purdue University

Anglo‐American Christian Zionism

The Ecumenical ReviewVolume 64, Issue 1 p. 27-35 Original Article Anglo-American Christian Zionism Implications for Palestinian Christians Robert O. Smith, Robert O. SmithSearch for more papers by this author Robert O. Smith, Robert O. SmithSearch for more papers by this author First published: 12 March 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6623.2012.00142.xCitations: 3Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume64, Issue1March 2012Pages 27-35 RelatedInformation

"For Such a Time as This":Reading (and Becoming) Esther with Christians United for Israel

A great deal of work on contemporary Christian Zionism focuses on the apocalyptic eschatology of premillennial dispensationalism, critiquing it from an idealistic perspective that posits a direct line of causality from belief to action. Such critiques frequently assert that since Christian Zionists are biblical they read apocalyptic texts such as Revelation and Ezekiel with the goal of making the events they find predicted in these books come about in the world. This article takes a different approach. Although many Christian Zionists can be considered literalists, they read themselves into the text typologically. Special attention is paid to the book of Esther which is shown not to function primarily in a prophetic or apocalyptic role, but as a tool to help Christian Zionists understand political action, construct identity, and strengthen faith.

Imminent Immanence of Judeo-Evangelical Nationalism: American Christian Zionists and Israel as the Future Redeemer Nation and State

For tens of millions of American evangelical Christians, the eschatology of God's plan for a Chosen People and a Chosen land-scape is essential to explaining the contemporary relationship. Time and space here merge as prophetic time manifests itself in prophetic space. Judeo-Christian nationalism lies not in America as the redeemer state, but rather in Israel as future prophetic time becomes immanent as signs of an imminent apocalypse are imagined to take place. The hyphenation of Judeo-Christian is key to developing a future, dualist memory territorially dividing what is ours and theirs in simplistic geopolitical divisions drawn up between Jews and Christians on the one hand, and everybody else (especially Muslims) on the other.

The Messiah and Rabbi Jesus: Policing the Jewish–Christian border in Christian Zionism

For all their ostensible difference and separateness, Judaism and Christianity have a long history of mutual engagement and profound entanglement. I take Daniel Boyarin's assertion that ‘…the borders between Christianity and Judaism are as constructed and imposed, as artificial and political as any of the borders of the earth’ (2004, 1) as my starting point. But what Boyarin sees as an ongoing process of differentiation between Judaism and Christianity and distinct identity-building in late antiquity, I look for still today in Christian Zionism. The busy border crossing continues to separate people and ideas at the same time as it serves as the meeting place between them, the uncomfortable place where Judaism and Christianity rub up against each other. This paper examines some constructions of the Jewish–Christian border by way of two case studies of prominent religious leaders, each firmly at home in their respective communities, Jewish and Christian, who ventured out to the borderland of Christian Zionism. This is the story of what happened when they returned home to find themselves examined by those who monitor the Jewish–Christian border, and deemed to be over the limit with intoxicants brought over from the ‘other side’.

The American Right and Israel

In recent years there has been considerable controversy over the relationship between the United States and Israel. Neoconservatives and Christian Zionists have been vociferous in support of the relationship, while John Mearsheimer and other critics have questioned what America gains from such an alliance. While the G. W. Bush administration has often been portrayed as uncritically favouring Israel, it was the subject of criticism on the issue from within the American Right. Now it is the Obama administration which is drawing fire for its stance on Israel.

Dark Crusade: Christian Zionism and US Foreign Policy – By Clifford A. Kiracofe, Jr.

Dark Crusade: Christian Zionism and US Foreign Policy – By Clifford A. Kiracofe, Jr.

Donald M. Lewis. The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftsbury and the Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland

No abstract is available.

A Sociologist Appeals to Theological Hope in Postmodern Apocalypses

A Sociologist Appeals to Theological Hope in Postmodern Apocalypses Sarah MacMillen When one reads the newspapers, apocalyptic narratives are overwhelming. From overpopulation and global warming, humans are threatened with natural collapse. In the Middle East, reactionaries, supported by the tenets of an apocalyptic Christian Zionism, dollars support the ushering in of a religious end time. Hugh Gusterson’s research even observed how some Christian fundamentalists find their way into conscious hopes for the end time while working on nuclear technologies in the deserts of the southwest corner of the United States. Politically, we have moved from Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” to Samuel Huntington’s doomed “clash of civilizations.” In the average American’s “tube scan,” one can find references to Nostradamus’ predictions or the Aztec cosmology’s end time in year 2012 in a weeknight’s television programming. The gap between “liberal” and “conservative” seems to widen, as predicted in James Davison Hunter’s book Culture Wars as the Tea Party threatens an apocalyptic, revolutionary terminus to the status quo. American and world politics present themselves with a fascination with apocalyptic narratives. It seems that the secular optimism of the 1990s has eclipsed into a post‐secular grasp of the certainty of reactionary political and religious belief. In this context, it is so easy to forget the voice of tradition. In postmodernity, the claims of science and tradition have been debunked, lost to a groundless state of being‐in‐the‐world where nothing can be counted on. In this context, reactionary religious belief gives a ground to many in the face of political and natural fallout. After the political–religious disaster of September 11th, researchers at the University of Chicago found that America’s reaction was to cling more strongly to religious communities and beliefs.1 But what kinds of beliefs and supports are the contemporary sphere offering? Certainty is offered. As a sociologist, I have recognized the limitation of modern and secular solutions to the various anxieties produced as a result of modernity. Religious demographics show a large shift to more conservative faiths among young people, largely in the turn to Orthodoxy and fundamentalism.2 As Jay Tolson has explored, young people are looking for “structure” in response to the perceived broken promises of modernity. This is prominent not only in the American religious landscape but also in various Muslim countries throughout the world. As Peter Berger and his colleagues have illustrated, there is throughout the world a resurgence of conservative religious frames of meaning for hundreds of millions of religious adherents throughout the globe. Secularization, as Rodney Stark has claimed, is dead (Stark, 1999). Berger retracted his secularization thesis, so famous from his book The Sacred Canopy. What this “new world order” of reactionary religion offers is certainty. In the traditional description of the rise of fundamentalism, an old trope has been used. Modernity is characterized as a time of upheaval and uncertainty (most famously addressed by Wuthnow). This comes from a long history of scholarship outlining how the alienated temporal perspective of modernity, with its displacement from the bosom of Gemeinschaft to the emptiness of Gesellschaft as outlined by Tönnies (1961) and its concomitant bleak Durkheimian anomie, motivates a person to retreat from the overabiding ambiance of uncertainty (Durkheim, 1973). From our theoretical and historical perspective that engages a long legacy of writing, certainty then presents itself as a particularly non‐modern accent to reality. We argue that certainty introduces itself as actually a value coming from the enlightenment, from modernity. Sociological discourse then finds its limitation on countering these reactionary movements because sociology cannot argue or define what “faith” is. Sociology is then hampered to correct or critique reactionary religion. An appeal to theology must be made. What the sociologist Adam Seligman has suggested sociologically (see Modernity’s Wager), although nuanced with the claims of tradition in his back pocket, is that contemporary religion’s stress on certainty is not a traditional appeal to the quest for truth from an orthodox religious point of view. Certainty is a modern construct. When religious reactionaries speak and argue for the certainty of end times or of the certainty of reactionary principles, they are borrowing from...

The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury and Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland, by Donald M. Lewis

The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury and Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland, by Donald M. Lewis

Theo‐Politics in the Holy Land: Christian Zionism and Jewish Religious Zionism

AbstractThis article focuses on the ‘theo‐political’ core of US Christian Zionism and Jewish Religious Zionism. The political militancy characterizing two Millenarian/Messianic movements such as Christian Zionism and Jewish Religious Zionism constitutes a still under‐researched and under‐theorized aspect that, at present, is paramount to address for its immediate and long terms implications in the highly sensitive and volatile Israeli‐Palestinian issue, in the US and Israeli domestic domain, and in the wider international community. Although processes of the ‘sacralisation of politics’ and ‘politicisation of religions’ have already manifested themselves in countless forms over past centuries, Christian Zionism and Jewish Religious Zionism are unprecedented phenomena given their unique hybridized nature, political prominence and outreach, mobilizing appeal amongst believers, organizational‐communicational skills and degree of institutionalization.

Korean Christian Zionism: A Sociological Study of Mission

AbstractFrom the perspective of the sociology of missions, this study explores the Korean Christian Zionists' mission work after 9/11. The current Pentecostal success in South Korea has spurred the nation to send more missionaries abroad than any other country except the United States. As America has been losing the trust of the world since 9/11, some evangelical fundamentalists argue that Korea should take over the initiative of world mission from the United States. The Jerusalem Jesus March in 2004 and the South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan in 2007 have served to admonish Korean churches to hastily reconsider coercing their missionaries to proselytize in dangerous areas such as Islamic lands. This study unfolds issues such as “spiritual subjectivism” and “Korea‐centrism”, illustrated by the Jesus March incident and the Afghan controversy, and suggests that the expansionism of Korean Pentecostal/evangelical missionaries taken up with the idea of “global spiritual conquest” is a manifestation of “Korean Christian Zionism”.