I once asked a Christian friend, a member of a church that actively supported Israel, how she thought the people of Israel obtained their land from the Palestinians. She replied that the Jews had purchased the land. The Jews did purchase some of the land in Palestine, but I found myself wondering why hundreds of thousands of people would sell or abandon their ancestral lands in order to live stateless in squalid refugee camps.

I once heard a preacher begin a sermon by referencing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the young man who with his brother bombed the Boston Marathon runners. The preacher mentioned that he had scrawled some words on the side of a boat just prior to his capture, and noted that the young man had not learned the meaning of forgiveness. The preacher did not go on to note that the young man had written such things as "the U.S. government is killing our innocent civilians," "I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished," "we Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all," and "stop killing our innocent people and we will stop." Had this information been forthcoming, the congregation might have wondered if there was any hint of truth in his remarks, and from there, to wonder how the Christian West had treated Muslims for the past 100 years. Considerations such as these, however, rarely come to expression in Christian forums.

A few days ago, it was reported that Hamas had captured an Israel soldier. According to the nightly news, this capture was a “game-changer” for both Washington and Israel, meaning that the moral momentum in the Gaza-Israeli conflict had now shifted in Israel’s favor. One could ask, however, how many Palestinian militants are in Israeli jails, a fact that few would wish to know, and why their incarceration is not considered a “game-changer” in regard to U.S. foreign policy.

Recently some Palestinians entered Israel through a tunnel and killed two or three Israelis. This act was denounced by an Israeli spokesman as a terrorist act, and further, the building of tunnels into sovereign Israeli territory was itself a terrorist activity. When reported on the news, no one seemed to challenge the idea that this was terrorist activity. One could wonder, however, why a tunnel, built to deliver death at a distance, is considered a weapon of terror while long-range artillery, or missiles, or drones, or warplanes, raining down destruction on population centers, are not weapons of terror.

Again, recently, John Kerry had the temerity to suggest that Israel was practicing a form of apartheid in Gaza and the West Bank, a suggestion that was quickly derided by the American political establishment. One could then ask what is meant by the term “apartheid,” and then compare the meaning of the term to life in the West Bank and in Gaza. To discover this might require some research, and from what I have seen, Christians, by and large, would prefer to get their truth from conservative talk shows or their pastors, as if truth were as cheap as air. For my part, in addition to my reading, I personally know people who have lived in the Middle East for years, who have lived in or visited Israel many times, and who have been friends with Palestinians driven from their homes by Israelis. They tell me that Israel dominates the people of Gaza and the West Bank. It is a form of apartheid. You do not, however, need to take my word for it. Some study and investigation may well be in order.

From time to time, my father-in-law who was a missionary in the Middle East for nearly thirty years, would return to the States and give talks on missions in various churches. Among other things, he would discuss the Middle East conflict by giving a bit of history. Inevitably he was met with hostility. People simply did not want to know how Israel came into existence and how they drove people from their homes and destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages. He would ask them what they would do if Mexico annexed Texas, asking if they would fight to get it back. A few recognized that they would indeed fight to get it back, and that they would keep on fighting, but the majority felt that the Jews were God’s chosen people, that they had suffered horribly in the Holocaust, and therefore, had the right to expropriate the lands of others.

At this point my readers might be thinking that I am pro-Palestinian,” or “anti-Israel,” or even “anti-Semitic.” I am nothing of the sort. If the Palestinians were armed to the teeth and pounding hapless Israeli populations, and if members of the Christian church were always harping on the sins of Israel and never noticing the evils of the Palestinians, I would be saying the opposite of what I have said here. I suspect a good many Palestinians would wipe Israel off the map if they had the guns, but then, I am convinced that there are many in Israel whose goal is to regain their “historic” boundaries. With that goal in mind, Israel does indeed utilize a form of apartheid in Gaza and the West Bank, they do continue to build settlements on Palestinian lands, and further, Israel’s reprisals are far out of proportion to the harm they suffer from the Palestinians. In spite of all their talk about human shields, phoning inhabitants whose neighborhoods they intend to destroy, Israel is inflicting terrible damage on an essentially unarmed population, destruction far beyond any sense of proportionality.

Whether you agree with me or not there are, however, certain facts which seem obvious – namely, there was once a time not long ago when there was no state of Israel, the Palestinians did not sell all their lands but many were driven out by force, Israel has steadily encroached on Palestinian territory, and as a result, what we have is a war, a long drawn-out conflict in which one side, thanks to U.S. aid in armaments, consistently crushes the other.

Given these facts, a good many church members find it necessary to avoid this unpleasant reality by a series of denials as described above -- such things as learned scholars discussing Islam and the West and never mentioning recent history, or thinking the Palestinians sold their lands, or offering a trip to a shop in Bethlehem as evidence of Israeli innocence, that a tunnel is a terrorist weapon but fighter planes are not, that we can dismiss ideas such as apartheid without evidence, that the capture of one Israeli is a game-changer but the capture of hundreds of Palestinian fighters is not, that it is good for Israel to have the bomb but not for Palestinians, and above all, a belief held by millions of American Evangelicals, that modern day Israel is God’s chosen people and that nations that do not support Israel carte blanche risk incurring the wrath of God.

The issue I wish to address is not who is right or wrong in the Middle East, or even how the West should proceed in playing a constructive role in resolving the conflict. On the face of it, I am in favor of Israel’s continued existence, and this will require that they be armed. I am against, however, outrageous reprisals and continued encroachments. The reason for this essay is a question, Why are so many, many Christians incapable of facing reality and seeing that Israel has committed horrible acts? Why does one side need to be exonerated and the other condemned? Why are certain groups terrorists, while others who inflict far more terror on hapless populations, not terrorists? Or, to widen the inquiry, why were those who flew the planes into the World Trade Center terrorists, while those who engineered the “shock and awe” of the invasion of Iraq not terrorists, especially when a moment’s reflection will tell you that “shock and awe” means “terror”? What is terror for Americans is not terror for Iraq, but the invasion of Iraq, carried out under false pretenses, was an act of terror for many, many Iraqis, as well as the Americans who were killed, and the many tens of thousands of Americans who were physically or psychologically damaged for life. That also is terror. But let us return to the fundamental question of this essay.

Almost all people have attachments. Most infants attach to their mothers, and as they grow up, they attach themselves to their the family, their church or other social organizations, their country, their position, their job, wealth, or status, their friends, their political party, their intellectual beliefs, and their gods. As these attachments are formed, other attachments are rejected. Certain groups become the enemy, certain ideas are consider lies, some ways of life are deemed unacceptable. There are the good guys and the bad guys, and you may notice that some Americans, when talking of America’s many wars, refer to the enemies of America as the “bad guys.” Regardless of how it happened, Israel, for many Christian Americans, became the good guys and the Palestinians became the bad guys.

Once these attachments are formed, words or deeds that do ill to our attachments are experienced as an attack on our very selves. Parents, for example, normally love their children, and a bad word or deed in reference to a child is experienced as an attack. Those who love Israel experience negative words about Israel as an attack on their persons. For some, to espouse something like universal health care is an attack on the American way of life, the encroachment of an alien ideology, and in the end, a threat to every freedom loving American. For this reason, attempts to be fair-minded, to fully set forth the truth on a certain topic, to be even-handed in an approach to a conflict, often will provoke the hostility of those who had established deep attachments to the various parties under consideration. In many cases, and history is filled with examples, those who tell the truth can even be killed, Jesus being one of them.

Once these attachments and repulsions are in place, leaders and intellectuals -- those who give the talks at conferences, make government pronouncements, report on their recent trip to Israel, preach from the pulpit, announce the news, and write columns -- will usually follow the dominant point of view because they owe their position, their popularity, their status, and their income to the fact that they parrot what others want to hear, or they parrot the party-line of the organization they represent. If, for example, the intellectual at the conference on Islam had told the complete truth, had he proclaimed a prophetic message of corporate sin including America’s sin, he may well have found himself avoided the way he sought to avoid me. Had the person who had just come back from Israel given a comprehensive report, including American complicity in out-of-control killing, the congregation would probably have not been to happy. Had my father-in-law stuck to the normal script, he would have encountered no hostility and doubtless would have been invited back. Had the preacher who spoke of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev observed that there was an element of truth in his words, a truth which, to my mind does not justify killing innocent runners, the congregation would have felt that the speaker’s comments had exceeded the limits of appropriate preaching. If, however, the preacher had mentioned that Islamic people persecute Christians, and that we need to stand against these actions, it would have been entirely appropriate.

The things we love are our idols. Christians cannot look reality in the face because, deep in our hearts, we have our idols, and an attack by word or deed on our idols produces a reaction to minimize what was said, to avoid investigating the truth of the matter, and failing that, to ignore, minimize, or even obliterate those who stand for the truth. That is what is happening in the case of Israel, and since America plays an important role in the Middle East, it is unlikely that much will be resolved since there will not be an even-handed approach to the problem while millions of American cannot bear to see their idol impugned.

Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27). There is no such thing as “love of God and country,” as if one’s country belongs in the same phrase with God. Nor can there be faith in Christ as the one and only savior while believing a nation’s well-being depends upon its support of Israel. And if Christ commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves and to pray for our enemies, how can we call certain people terrorists while failing to recognize that some of these “terrorists” consider us or other nations terrorists for exactly the same reasons? A terrible idolatry, even hypocrisy, stands behind all this -- Christians have made an idol out of nations, ideologies, and ways of life.

And what are the results of this idolatry? There are many. First, the gospel message to believers here at home is compromised. Apart from Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God, all nations are very, very sinful, but if a nation is an idol, it has to be defended at all cost. As a result, the world of discourse in regard to the Israeli-Palestine conflict, like other discourses pertinent to idols, is surrounded by a haze of lies, half-truths, avoidance of contrary evidence, and reliance on authorities who parrot what we love to hear. When that happens the gospel message directed to us as sinners, both as individuals and in our corporate actions, becomes lost in the haze. What happens in regard to Israel and the Palestinians happens in every aspect of our lives. When will the church stand up and confess that she is sinful, that we are worshipping idols, that we are sinners in every respect, and that hiding the sins of our idols is itself a terrible sin? How can there be full repentance when preaching so often only addresses the sins of our enemies? How can the gospel be proclaimed when the stewards of the gospel are promoting the gods of this world?

Further, the gospel message abroad is terribly compromised. It my view, it is a miracle of God than any Islamic person would believe the gospel, and a further miracle that the original peoples of Africa, Asia, Australia, and North and South America would believe the gospel after what the Christian West has done to the world in recent centuries. God, however, builds his church, and there were those who brought the gospel out of love. Be that as it may, why would the Muslim world welcome Christ when Christians have invaded their countries, intervened politically in their internal life, established another country on their soil, and armed that country to the teeth? Or, to take another recent example, how could Sunni Iraqis be open to the gospel when their country was invaded, their political party banned, their leaders killed, and political power, in spite of U.S. rhetoric to the contrary, handed over to their ancient enemy, the Shiites? These actions were carried out by a nation considered Christian by Muslims, led by a president who publicly claimed to be born again, and therefore, the Sunnis would most likely see Christianity as a religion of death. Nevertheless, prominent conservative Christian leaders such as Franklin Graham, Charles Stanely, and Marvin Olasky, saw the invasion of Iraq as creating exciting new prospects for bringing the gospel to Muslims. Now that the Americans have left, however, the Sunnis and others have counter-attacked and are now driving Iraqi Christians from their ancestral homes. In fact, from the beginning of the invasion, many Christians were displaced by the terrible refugee crisis that occurred as the nation descended into chaos. Since 1990, three-fourths of all Christians have left Iraq. Or, to quote another source, “After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, violence against Christians rose, with reports of abduction, torture, bombings, and killings.”

Further, when the church, the body of Christ on earth, makes gods out of the powers of this world, the church is weakened. The church grows by the power of God and by those who love him with their whole hearts. How can we love God with our whole hearts when we love idols? How can we witness effectively when our minds are clouded with defending our particular temporal attachments? Where is the victory of Christ over the world, the flesh, and the devil when our hearts belongs to this world and not to the homeland that awaits us in heaven? We need a miracle from God.

When we make an idol out of any nation or ideology, our understanding of Scripture is inevitably distorted. This is true across the board. The view, held by many Evangelicals, that the modern state of Israel is fulfilling biblical prophecy is, in my view, false. Jesus Christ and not the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. This was believed by the church from the beginning and throughout her history. It is clearly taught in the New Testament. In the main, I leave it to the reader to investigate the matter and will offer only two references.

N.T. Wright is a scholar of the highest rank. Here is his view of what some have called Christian Zionism.

To suggest, therefore, that as Christians we should support the state of Israel because it is the fulfilment of prophecy is, in a quite radical way, to cut off the branch on which we are sitting. It is directly analogous to the mistake of the Galatians, who thought that if they were members of Abraham’s family they should go the whole way and get circumcised. It is similar to the mistake of which the Reformers accused the mediaeval Catholics, of supposing that in every Mass they were actually re-crucifying Jesus, when Jesus’ death had been once and for all, never to be repeated, on Calvary. It is a way of saying that in the cross and resurrection God did not actually fulfil his whole saving purpose; that Jesus did not in fact achieve the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy; that his resurrection was not the start of God’s new age; that Acts is wrong, Romans is wrong, Galatians is wrong, the letter to the Hebrews is wrong, Revelation is wrong. Say that if you like, but don’t claim to be Christian in doing so.

Gary M. Burge, a scholar teaching at Wheaton, has extensively investigated the critical issues surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I recommend his writings. In regard to Christian Zionism, he has this to say,

Numerous writers have critiqued this movement and found in its bold claims to territory (linked to eschatology) an angry and dangerous synthesis of theology and politics. Engaging their writings directly is difficult because it is a populist movement fueled by preachers who use its schema evangelistically. No carefully argued study has come from within its own ranks. No New Testament scholar his written in its defense. Its advocacy groups, such as Christians United for Israel, and Camera, are generally run by political activists. Its books come from the pens of popular television preachers or lobbyists. I have been invited to debate with some of their leaders and find myself with people who have no training in theology.

I believe in making temporal commitments. In a sinful world we need to choose between greater and lesser evils in regard to wars, political divisions, economic and social issues and much more. But it is one thing to make these commitments on the basis of our best appraisal of the facts, justified by the grace of God in Christ Jesus and thereby freed from the need to avoid facts and believe lies and half-truths to justify idols, and quite another thing to make political, economic, and social decisions blinded by idolatry. The result of such decisions is always the same -- killing, hunger, displacements, humiliations, and sorrows.

As is well known, the Jewish people for centuries have suffered horribly at the hands of Christians. In a world of love, generosity, and peace, perhaps Israel would return the lands she has stolen. That will not happen, and in one sense, in spite of the injustice of it, having a homeland is an understandable response to centuries of persecution. At the same time, however, if Israel continues her heavy-handed reprisals and encroachments, public opinion could turn against her. As a result of recent events, there has been a rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. It does not bode well for the Jews scattered throughout the world. The fact that the Palestinians would most likely act as does Israel if they had the firepower, does not warrant Israel’s actions. This world is a tinderbox, and excessive violence in one place can spark violence elsewhere. If Christians really cared about Israel, if they were not blinded by so-called biblical prophecy, they would realistically work for the greater good of both Israel and the Palestinians. Also, it would be good for Christians to work toward obtaining asylum here in the States for Palestinian refugees, now in their third or fourth generation in refugee camps, belonging nowhere and wanted by no one.

Finally, many Americans believe that the U.S.A. is the land of opportunity, the place of new beginnings, the city on the hill and the light in the dark. On all sides I find myself surrounded by Christians who believe that we are on the cusp of something great, a new spiritual enterprise which even now is waiting in the wings. Perhaps there will be a spiritual renaissance, but if so, it will not be born by claiming that our particular movement has started it, but only by repentance, suffering and sacrifice, and if the kingdom comes, we will only glimpse it from afar. Our homeland is not of this world. It is in heaven.

“According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, …” (1 Peter 1:3-4).

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).

"My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world" (John 18:36).

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).

The Rev. Dr. Robert J. Sanders Ph.D. is an Anglican theologian and an ACNA priest resident in Jacksonville, Fl.