You’ve got to award the Trump administration style points for timing. The dedication of the new American embassy in Jerusalem took place on the 70th anniversary of the formation of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948. The move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem delighted Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-right supporters in Israel as well as many evangelicals in the United States, but as the violence attending the opening suggests, the move hardly augurs well for peace in the Middle East.
The dedication featured Robert Jeffress, a Trump supporter and pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas. Jeffress, who previously had declared that Jews who refuse to convert to Christianity would never be admitted into heaven, opened the ceremonies in prayer, thanking the Almighty for a president who “boldly stands on the right side of history, but more importantly, stands on the right side of you, oh God, when it comes to Israel.” John Hagee, an evangelical Zionist from San Antonio, delivered the benediction. Ralph Reed, head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, wore a lapel pin depicting intertwined U.S. and Israeli flags.
Why are evangelicals so interested in Israel, and why did Donald Trump accrue such political capital with the religious right by relocating the embassy? It has to do with a peculiar and arcane mode of biblical interpretation called dispensational premillennialism that many American evangelicals began to adopt in the late 19th century. Whereas previous evangelicals believed they were building the kingdom of God — the millennium — on Earth by reforming society according to the norms of godliness — eradicating slavery, championing public education as a way to advance the interests of those less fortunate, women’s rights — evangelicals believed that Jesus would return before the millennial kingdom.
This recondite shift in biblical interpretation had enormous consequences, many beyond the scope of this discussion. Most important, because evangelicals believed that Jesus would return at any moment, they all but abandoned their agenda of social reform. If this world is about to be destroyed in apocalyptic judgment, why bother? The noble evangelical heritage of care for those Jesus called “the least of these” was cast aside in the embrace of premillennialism.
With regard to Israel, these premillennialist evangelicals believe that God, the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible, retains special affection for the Jews. But then it gets complicated. Evangelicals look for the return of Jews to Palestine — the formation of the State of Israel in 1948 was cause for great celebration — but they also expect that Jews will finally acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah. In effect, they must convert to Christianity.
American evangelicals, therefore, are simultaneously pro-Israel and anti-Semitic (from a Jewish perspective, in that evangelicals seek their conversion).
There are several flaws in this premillennial logic, of course, the most fundamental being a conflation of ancient Israel with the current State of Israel. Many evangelicals, therefore, believe that Israel can do no wrong, and Trump’s decision to move the embassy legitimizes their view of Jerusalem as God’s appointed capital of Israel.
But Jerusalem, along with other territory that Israel claims as its own, is contested space. Ostensibly at least, these matters are up for negotiation, awaiting resolution as the region moves toward separate Palestinian and Israeli states. Pending that resolution, most of the world — including, until recently, the United States — has insisted that Tel Aviv rather than Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Moving the American embassy to disputed territory, therefore, complicates the prospects for a two-state future — to say the least.
That, we must assume, is why Trump ordered the move, and that is why so many evangelicals support it.
Netanyahu has done nothing to discourage this evangelical conflation of ancient Israel with the State of Israel. He has avidly courted the support of American evangelicals, and leaders of the religious right showed up in force for the embassy dedication. Premillennialist evangelicals rarely criticize Israel, even as Netanyahu persists in building Jewish settlements on the West Bank, thereby rendering the possibilities for peace with the Palestinians more and more remote. The fact that the consensus in the international community is opposed to Netanyahu’s scheme matters not at all to premillennialist evangelicals.
It should be noted that not all evangelicals share this view (to the extent that the term “evangelical” retains any moral substance whatsoever after the evangelical embrace of Trump in the 2016 presidential election, but that’s another story). Jimmy Carter, a progressive evangelical in the tradition of 19th-century evangelicalism, devoted special energies to bringing peace to the Middle East, a place he understood as the Holy Land. On his first day in office he informed Walter Mondale, his vice president, that he intended to make this a priority.
And he did, convinced that peace, justice and equity was the surest way to secure a future for all parties. Carter brought Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel to Camp David to hammer out a framework for peace in September 1978. After 13 days of grueling negotiations, Carter finally brokered an agreement between the leaders of these two ancient enemies. He remains persuaded that a two-state solution, autonomy for both Israel and the Palestinians, is the pathway to peace.
Netanyahu and his evangelical allies are having none of it. Their mantra appears to be Israel, right or wrong. And anyone who thought that moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would ease tensions and brighten the prospects for peace in the Middle East has only to consider the confrontations between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian protesters outside the dedication gala. Hamas organized protests along the wall that separates Gaza from Israel. Some threw rocks; others deployed burning kites across the border fence. Israeli soldiers responded with tear gas and shooting. More than 60 Palestinians were killed.
The dedication of the United States embassy in Jerusalem provided great theater, and it probably cemented the religious right’s support for Donald Trump. It also immeasurably widened the distance to peace.
Randall Balmer is the John Phillips Professor in Religion and director of the Society of Fellows at Dartmouth. One of his recent books is Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter.