Onward Christian Zionists

alan

Keep it sane, brother.

Howard Thomas

Mr Liddle
This is BRILLIANT. Thanks so much. Zionism is destroying/ has destroyed Israel's good name. Everything that Israel is supposed to be about is in ruins. Please please continue to tell the truth about how dangerous this Zionism is for everyone.

will

Rod, you are right that it is very prevalent in evangelical circles and in this country. There are a number in my congregation that take, what I consider, to be extreme views about Israel. In fact interestingly it came up in the prayers last Sunday. The number who take a strong view is quite small - the problem is that they get a bee in their bonnet and it sounds like everyone agrees with it or that it is in some way widely representative - but I don't think that it is except in some congregations where the minister or vicar is a nutcase as well. This appears to be more prevalent amongst the independent churches than the larger evangelical churches.

Bill Corr

Well done, O Rod Liddle!

All of this is living proof that Lord Xenu Loves Us All and wants us to love and serve Him.

Seriously though, we are undoubtedly living in Latter Days.

If Hal Lindsay of the Trinity Broadcasting Network is right in asserting that Al Qaida has possession of the 26 suitcase bombs supposedly missing from a Muscovite arsenal soon after the old USSR went belly-up, we might as well start thinking Last Thoughts rather than bitching and moaning about how Bernie Madoff made our pension pots disappear.

You wouldn't want to be aboard the Gardianistas' Atheist Bus when the Last Trump sounds to announce the Imminence of Armageddon, would you?

Forlornehope

"The best lack all conviction, the worst are filled with a passionate certainty."

Simon Parsons

A bit late.

Try reading 'Hijacking America' by Susan George. Excellent on the rise of the religious right. Or rather, truly frightening.

Simon

Andrew Forbes

Hands off the term "evangelical". I am a conventional evangelical, characterised by a desire to spread the message of salvation through Jesus, an alarming propensity towards grinning inanely and wearing sandals.

Evangelicals too, believe in the 2nd coming, but I distance myself from the obvious relish these fellows have for the accompanying death and destruction.

Not Even Likely

Agree with will that the numbers are small but extremely vocal, which amplifies their influence. Most Christians aren't anxious for that second coming. And a lot of nominal Christians are really little more than agnostics. I personally have not seen the numbers of these extremist groups grow; in fact, I see fewer and fewer of them. No one knows the hour or the day, says the bible of the end time. That would seem to mean that anyone who announces an hour and a day is wrong.

tom

All good fun until you ask the question "does any of this matter ?" Uh, no, I'd say. Always whackos about and the ones that stand on mountain tops awaiting their elevation have been among us for millenia and are just as goofy (and marginal) now as they've ever been.

N

I enjoyed the article, but i must shake my finger at you. Your article makes a mockery of Christianity and what Christians believe in: the return of Christ. I understand that there may be a few "bad eggs" in the Christian population. In the U.S. one Christian preacher in the South preaches a fiery hate message against homosexuals with messages like "God hates fags". This guy, and people like him (people who bomb abortion clinics for example) who have no comprehension of the bible (God doesn't "hate" anyone) are the loonies, and whackos, and the militant. I understand you are trying to make a point, but you could be nice (and fair) and state that not all Christians, nor even most Christians, are "militant" and crazy.

Adam1983

Are these people more evil than those doing the killing? I'm not sure, but watching tidings of death and unimaginable horror with barely concealed "orgasmic" glee (I've seen it myself!) is a whole new evil in the most snivelling kind of way.

Gil

Howard Thomas, you really must try and keep up.

Israel is the fruit of Zionism so how can Zionism have 'destroyed/destroying Israel's good name?

And Rod Liddle is talking about a bunch of people who have warped the message of Zionism. He isn't attacking the concept itself.

Mark Solomon

As ever you miss the wood for the trees, or put another way, fail to see the elephant in the room. However many there are in the UK of these Christian extremists, they pale into utter insignificance, both in numbers and danger posed, by the huge number of Islamic extremists and their hangers-on, who have demonstrated they pose a clear and present danger in July 2005, yet still no serious steps are taken to counter their ideology, while all sorts of little surrenders take place monthly across the country. Diverting any attention away from the real threat to British and Western society does no one any favours.

And while we are at it, since when did Zionism become a term of abuse? It is nothing more than the perfectly respectable movement to establish a national home for the Jewish people on the site of ancient Israel, whose aims were accomplished backed by the UN and the UK government in 1948. Don't play the Islamists' game by using it as something reprehensible just because they see it as such - because they deny Israel's right to exist.

Cogito Ergosum

What a contrast is this article to Matt Ridley's exposition of modern scientific understanding!

Yet history is full of Dark Ages where religious fervour has eclipsed scientific study. I am not confident of the future of the Western World.

Kevin

"what with him being a pinko black fella and all"

To be fair, I think Obama's Antichrist credentials might have more to do with the fact that he has voted against legislation that would protect babies that have survived abortion.

I'll let that one sink in for a while.

John Lambert

Good knock about stuff Rod. Pity there's a war on.

Redolent of your earlier mis-adventures into knife crime as a fashion accessory where you took a bit of an online beating.

Yep they're all madder than a box of frogs, agreed, Christian Evangelicals, Mohammadans, zionists, Salafists, Jews, Jehova's Witness, Deobandis, Proddies, Papists, Jains, Zoroastrians and Mormons.

Anyone else we can offend? I rather like the Taoists / Buddhists.

They're all even worse than those secular Liberal Lefties who write for the Spectator.

All that said Hamas had ended the ceasefire, were lobbibg rockets into Israel with increasing intensity prior to the decision of Israel to respond militarily and Hamas, let's not forget, are backed by that other King frog box packer Armadinijad, who's hidden Imam is going to appear shortly and bring the end time to tbe blue corner - and the whole planet actually.

There may be a few pockets of sanity on both sides of this madness who would like to live their lives in peace. But the mentalists are everywhere and our prime mentalists, no not Crash Gordon, in the UK currently are those who go rucksack tube riding with a message of oblivion from God.

Those are the real threat and you know it. But it must be hard being a Lefty these days. The hatred for the capitalist US and its socialist secular proxy, locking horns with your own assessment that a Hamas style victory is victory for a death cult that wouldn't do much for secular liberalism either.

I'll go for the Israelis. They have past suffering on their side despite current military predominance.

Finsbury Park Front 4, Islington Town inmates 3, Stamford Hill Psychos 1. In descending order of threat.

Time to go back to the Guardian Rod. It needs you.

Tim Vince

The marketing and novel fundraising of many Christian groups deserves scrutiny but the final throwaway line of your article Rod reveals that you do not understand the evil of Jihadism or its threat to the free world. Israel and the Palestinian people are together in the front line against this evil (spiritual term used intentionally). The Palestinian people are unable to free themselves and the UN is set on perpetuating their misery. If the UN had been involved before World War II Germany and Europe would still be under the oppression of Nazism (democratically elected of course - such the manipulative power of the media!)

Tina Trent

"Backwoods denizens of the mid-Appalachians"? Good Lord, give it a rest. Unknot your knickers, wash out that mouth, and worry about something real for a change -- instead of this pseudo-tourism of American backwardness. Those of us who actually know and live around American "Appalachian" culture (sic) -- and evangelicals -- aren't losing sleep. I frankly can't believe the backwardness of much of what is written here. I'm beginning to see that it's quite fun, across the political spectrum, for you people to live out some fantasy picked up in movies and novels regarding American culture, but I expected more from purportedly preciously educated . . . folk.

Roger Pearse

Isn't Rod fortunate that the faith-hate legislation didn't pass, for this article is a disgusting piece of demonisation. These people are harmless and powerless -- leave them alone.

all I am saying.....

Does anyone in the media even know the meaning of evangelical?
These groups mentioned above are clearly extreme in their thinking and lack doctrine knowledge and true leadership.
Can you say Rev. Wright?
There are multiple groups in the world that supposedly believe in the cross but they use it for their own agenda.
This IS NOT biblical worldview.
Are these groups rampant? I guess if we knew the meaning of evangelical....

Peter Charnley

Take any large group of human beings and you will find good and bad people. You will find erudite and ignorant people, wise and foolish, strong and weak, gentle and aggressive people.

But, proportionally, among Christians, the positive attributes of humanity are undoubtedly in significantly greater abundance than within the ranks of those loudly procclaiming to atheism, or even among those indifferently living their lives as agnostics.

But, for now, Christians have just got to get streetwise and learn how to personally deal with the one-dimensional and skewed reasoning of the misrepresentation of their faith by the constant political and media cherry-picking of the screwballs that certainly do exist within their ranks.

Sometimes cherry-picked by Christians who are actually more devoted to their P45 and to their credibility in the eyes of the presently dominant anti-religious intellectual elite, than to their faith.

lauriemacdonell-sanchez

Anxious for the chance to read this article but for now I have to say it's about time someone REALLY focused -- fearlessly -- on this dangerous lemming-conga-line behavior. Catholicism especially & most Protestant religions abjure the faithful to live righteously rather than dwell on, or attempt to foresee the 2nd Coming. Besides that, the interpretation that the euphemistic "Christian Zionist" movement has accreted onto the term "parousia" sounds more like bad sci-fi than good theology. Terrible waste of good intention, effort, funds & lives in general, & again -- & especially now -- a highly dangerous variable to be tossing into the boiling cauldron of the Mideast. Thank you again, "Lightning Rod" Liddle.

Julian the Apostate

Israel is a synthetic state.Its foundation was due in no small measure to Christian Zionists like Balfour and Lloyd George.By the same logic you might as well return all of England to the Welsh on the grounds that their ancestors were displaced by the Romans 2000 years ago! Good grief,any one would think the Jews were some kind of 'chosen race'....

Larry

A hearty "bravo" to all the comments in this thread which respond to the incredibly naive and limited understanding evidenced in both this article and this thread concerning what the great mass of evangelicals believe. For "N"'s information: the preacher they're referring to dwells in Topeka, Kansas which is not now, nor never has been, in any way--geographically or culturally--remotely associated with "the South." But then again, that's about the level of knowledge demonstrated in most of the broadbrushed poseur attempts to analyze American culture one comes across in the Spectator.

Archibald Bomwitz

Ah yes, the Evil Evangelicals that control the USA. Still they were unable to get their man as president and lost seats in both houses in congress. Yes, they truly control the USA.

Max

Rod Liddle is the only journalist on the Spectator worth reading but even he gets it wrong sometimes.

Anything that connects the word “religion” with his chosen supplemental terms such as “mentalist”, “crazed”, “whackos” etc must be tautological. To be a mentalist or crazed or a whacko is the very essence of being religious. The supplementary words are therefore redundant.

Let’s keep it simple. The mentalists, the crazed, the whackos, (and the semi-sentients) ARE the religionists. Get them tucked-up nicely in mental institutions were they belong and you will have got rid of the problem.

If it is impossible to get rid of religion we should ensure that it is confined to private practice amongst consenting adults only.

There can never be any lasting “moderate” religion because religion depends on “faith” which can accept anything - including the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people from their homelands of the previous 2000 years “because it is god’s will”.

One of the saddest programmes I have seen on TV was about bright, intelligent Jews leaving Britain to emigrate to Israel. They justified their support for Israel by reference to the teachings of their religion, but their “beliefs” were so obviously self-serving that I was embarrassed for them. In any other aspect of their lives I am sure they would have been kind and generous because these were obviously good, lovely people. They had been corrupted by their religion.

The fact that many people believe in a god proves nothing. The human body is subject to much incapacity. The human spine is somewhat inadequate and more than half the population suffer back pain which is often disabling. But it is not evidence of a god. It is just evidence of the poor design of the human spine. The brain is no different in its susceptibility to malfunction.

It is also known to the medical profession that people who have suffered brain damage through stroke or other trauma to the brain often develop an interest in religion and/or art.

Religion is not benign, even here in the West. Stem-cell research has been slowed and sometimes even stopped to propitiate religion; and the resistance to condom distribution by western religionists has lead directly to the deaths of many thousands, perhaps millions of Africans.

And in the west we allow millions of animals die slow agonising deaths to satisfy the insanity of Halal and Kosher meat production.

By the way Mr Peter Charnley, all the best and the most advanced and the most civilised places, with the highest rates of decency and good citizenship, are where religion is weakest.

Conversely, the more backward the society the more religious are the people and the higher are the rates of oppression and crime and social dysfunction of every kind. And according to Sam Harris this effect shows clearly even in different parts of the USA.

Anyway, where would you rather live: Iran or Sweden?

Les Herasymchuk

I can't but keep wondering how come the Spectator's staff approves this delirium for printing.

Dave

Preposterpus! Many people can be described as Christian Zionists. The overwhelming majority are so because the survival of Israel and that of the US (not to mention the UK) are irrevocably linked.

The moonbats described are scarecely more in number than those who claim that 9-11 was Divine Retribution for a failure to persecute homosexuals.

In fact, there are an equal number of people who claim that Scriptures forbid a Jewish State
and that US support for same dooms America.

All of which are variations on Post Millenial Existential Pietism or as Paul Johnson puts it, "Secular Millenarism."

By whatever name it is more likely to be encountered in San Francisco or London than in Appalachia.

To place the likes of Pat Robertson in this category is either deliberate slander or a state of denial that borders on the pathological.

Liddle appears to be one of an unfortunately large number of Englismen who, when it comes to Israel, suffer from the medical condition known as CRIS. Cranial Rectal Inversion Syndrome. An infernal malady easily treatable in America but well beyond the capabilities of the British National Health Care System.

robert

Nice move, Rod! How does one maintain one's delicate balancing act between "salt of the earth, Milwall-supporting, shock the bourgeois man-of the-people" and ex-BBC Guardianista, in the face of the Isreal-Gaza conflict, without upsetting either of your lovable metro-sexual employers? Easy - attack the least relevant, unrepresentative, harmless idiots currently at work in the entire area. Nice one! Just shows that however hard you try to leave the "Today programme editor" labelling behind, you'll never shake off your responsibility for the loathsome politically-correct society in which we now live. Doubles all round!

Peter Charnley

What parallel universe does 'Max' exist in I am compelled to wonder? Certainly one where history books must be out of sight and under lock and key.

Have you heard of Stalinist Russia or Maoist China?

Max, you have indeed revealed yourself as a pseudo-religious atheistic disciple of the ilk of Sam Harris. One Harris would surely be proud of.

Max asks:-
"Anyway, where would you rather live: Iran or Sweden?"

Neither, I am a conservative Christian. As far as societies like Iran are concerned I will paraphrase the thoughts of the most powerful and influential Christian intellectual of the 20th century. A man who was an informed and considered believer in Christianity, not a blind devotee of 'religion'.

'Horrible religions have horrible cultures, and visa-versa.' C.S.Lewis

As for Sweden, where, as the contemporary travel writer Bill Bryson once wrote, "the national sport is suicide", I cannot think a Western nation where life is more devoid of character, depth and meaning.

And looking at the final two paragraphs of your simplistic, brainwashed, blanket, all inclusive tirade against 'religion'...

"By the way Mr Peter Charnley, all the best and the most advanced and the most civilised places, with the highest rates of decency and good citizenship, are where religion is weakest.....etc."

"Conversely, the more backward the society the more religious are the people and the higher are the rates of oppression and crime and social dysfunction of every kind...etc"

Substitute your one-dimensional use of the word 'religion' for the word 'Christianity' - and the exact opposite of what you say is the truth. This is fully backed by the both the facts of history and by the evidence of the world around us today.

But, if you want to remain as a parrot sitting on the shoulders of fundamentally dishonest and crazed anti-religious, and specifically anti-Christian, zealots like Sam Harris - sad as that may be, that is your choice.

But please bear in mind, the atheism of people like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens is every bit as 'religious', and every bit as fanatical, as any Shi'ite religious leader or ayatollah. And if people like Harris and Dawkins had their way, referring back to the words of C.S.Lewis, we would live in a truly horrible society.

One I personally choose not to contemplate because in the long term, thank God, I know they won't get their way.

Edward

This undeniably witty article is so bad I have unsubscribed from the Spectator e-mails. I suppose Rod Liddle would be against virtually any article of faith of any religion, for they are all no doubt too challenging for his wishy washy liberalism. If I would sooner have Israel than Hamastan, does that make me a Zionist?

Ben

One need not agree with any of Pat Robertson's theological speculations, but his respectful and decent attitude towards Israelis is in sharp contrast to the hate-filled malice towards Israel and Jews in general that disfigures so many other Christians. Furthermore, he and his followers contribute funds and aid to Jews in distress, something that few if any other Christian denominations have ever done or considered doing. Compare Robertson to the wartime Archbishop of Canterbury, who opined, while the Holocaust was taking place, that "the Jews had brought their misfortunes upon themselves". Whatever one thinks of their theology, the evangelical Christian Zionists are clearly morally and superior to the anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish Christian denominations.

Lorenzo

Rod, what's got into you? You are the person who wrote less than 12 months ago about how pathetic Islamic terrorists on British soil were.

The Spectator, 10th September 2008, the feature was headlined “Have we ever faced an enemy more stupid than Muslim terrorists?” I won’t quote the feature because people can read it here:
www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/2075071/have-we-ever-faced-an-enemy-more-stupid-than-muslim-terrorists.thtml

You invited us in that piece to ask whether these people were “intellectually challenged”, but I cannot say that they are. They have already killed over 50 people on the underground.

Your piece was carefully focused around the efforts of direct terrorist action in Britain thus far, but this is a global jihad. There are enough devious people here on British soil who help to cultivate jihadists on British soil and whom when they are not doing that are helping with the propaganda effort for the jihad in other parts of the world. This week, the focus is around Israel/Gaza.

But now this week you write this piece above and you seriously want us to worry about this bunch of Christian evangelicals? Are you kidding, Rod? You want me to blithely dismiss as stupid the jihadists in Britain who have killed over 50 people and would have killed a whole lot more if they got half a chance but you want me to get worked up about the Battalion of Deborah.

You made me laugh at the Battalion of Deborah, I’ll give you that. But I somehow doubt that anyone from the Battalion will be out to issue a fatwa against you or me for laughing at them. You can sleep easy on that, Rod.

You decide you want us to take the Battalion of Deborah as a serious threat and yet the very worst you can come up with to achieve this goal is that at one meeting or other: “one speaker was the lawyer who represented the illegal terrorist group Gush Emunim Underground… which murdered Palestinians in Hebron.”

Please, Rod. Who attacks lawyers because of the clients they represent? Isn’t this what lawyers are supposed to do? Represent people whomsoever they may be and whatever they are charged with?

That obviously won’t wash so you have another bash: “There are also links with the even more extreme Kach Kahane”. So, in other words, there is actually no blood on the hands of this wacky Battalion of Deborah, but quite unlike the British jihad, I‘m supposed to lie awake at night and worry about Debbie & Co.

These people are fruitcakes and I don’t endorse their having links with Kach Kahane but why would I worry about them? They might have all sorts of views on Israel, but all they’ll do is huff and puff. They won’t do more than that.

I might worry if this woman was seriously close becoming President of the US and had launched her political career in the living room of someone at the heart of Kach Kahane. You know, that would really get me worried. Think, too, how would the press react if Barack Obama had launched his political career in the living room of an unrepentant terrorist.

All Debbie seems to do to her detractors is either laugh or blush with embarrassment. If I’m going to worry about anyone having links with extremists in America right now, it will be about Barack Obama’s. What is it with you media pundits? Why do things that clearly so exercise you about some mad old bat called Debbie not matter one jot when they apply in almost the same way to St Barack?

As someone else has pointed out on here: there’s a war on - and it's a global war. I know it is with us every day and it is relentless but the jihad is not going to disappear any time soon. These Christian people are not going to blow me or you up. They are a silly piece of light relief. That is all.

I am slowly stripping away every single part of my life because of the jihad. Union membership - in the bin, because of the union’s attitude to Israel (I’m not a Jew), Labour vote in the bin - because of things like the Human Wrongs Act, a piece of law that I believe amounts to de facto sponsorship of Islamic terror. I will not pay money for newspapers that I consider to be grovelling to the jihad. Until a few years ago these were everyday parts of my existence. I had a vague idea I knew where I was going. No more. All I can do now is do my bit to stop any indirect assistance, no matter how small, to the global jihad. I have to think about everything. Where is this money going? Is it in any way shape or form advancing the jihadist agenda if I invest it in this place or that place.

I can't believe I'm having to think like this, but this is how big and successful this assault on us and our culture is. I'll worry all right, Rod, but not about Daft Debbie.

Honestly, Rod, from you of all people. Do you not have bigger fish to fry?

Susie

The 'Rapture Ready' website has a 'Rapture Index'- the "prophetic speedometer of end-time activity". The index is "not meant to predict the rapture" (phew, what a relief)but measures "the type of activity that could act as a precursor to the rapture". Its equivalent of the FTSE 100 comprises 45 "stocks", from False Christs and Floods to Israel, Globalism and 'Beast Government'. Surprisingly, the index on Jan 5 at 157 was well below the all-time record of 182 of 24/9/01 in 9/11 aftermath. It must be inching upwards every day Gaza goes on. One might think the website is a spoof, but it is in deadly earnest.
www.raptureready.com/rap2.html
Scary that such people have major influence in the US and increasingly with Israel.

Marc O'Polo

Frightening. It's time for an equal and opposite gang of the gentiles: the gang of Sharon. (Mind you, that's freakin Jewish 'n' all, innit?!) The gang of Stacey. With it's male counterpart, the gang of Colin. These people are nuts. Excellent article, Rod, (as usual.)

ian skidmore

balfour ws a chritian ionist

Max

Yes Mr Peter Charnley, but if you HAD to choose - would you rather live in Iran or Sweden?

The greatest achievement of western civilisation has been its constraint on religion because without it, development in western science and social improvement would have slowed to a standstill.

The renaissance movement transferred from southern Europe (Galileo 20 years under house arrest for daring to say the Earth circled the sun) to the north where people were freer to think without religion getting in the way – though religion it is still a handicap, as I mentioned in my last post.

You will also know the Spanish Inquisition was only brought to an end with the invasion by French revolutionaries inspired by the Jacobin (atheist) movement.

And you will know that Christians used the Bible to justify slavery and were instrumental in slowing progress to abolition. (Wilberforce was religious, but most of his fellow campaigners were not; and in any case his arguments depended on rational argument and not superstition.)

The bad atheists you mentioned did not do bad things in the name of atheism but lots of bad things were, and are, done in the name of religion. That’s the difference.

To their shame, many religious people like you claim that atheism is just another “faith”. Kindness requires that we assume you are under a misapprehension. Atheists do not believe there is a god for the simple reason that they can find no evidence of such a creature. Faith has nothing to do with it - because faith is worthless.

You claim (in so many words) that Christianity is the only true religion (out of the tens of thousands of others) but things aren’t looking too good for true believers such as yourself. You must have noticed that your cynical leaders are already riding on the back of the militant Islamic tiger by encouraging the spread of all religions, including Islam. They even advocate the establishment of Sharia Law in Britain.

If you think there is any chance of converting people of other religions to your “one true” religion you are crazy.

To quote Sam Harris again. “Why don’t you lose sleep over whether to convert to Islam? Can you prove that Allah is not the one, true God? Of course not. But you do not need to prove any of these things to reject the beliefs of Muslims as absurd.” You are as “an atheist with respect to the beliefs of Muslims”.

To understand the likely Muslim (or other) response to your “one true faith” argument, just change the word Islam and Muslim to any others of your choice.

It is fortunate for the Christian religion that few people are Bible scholars because much of its teachings are utterly unacceptable to sensible people. It promotes cruelty and depravity of the most extreme kind. Instead most people rely on the clergy to tell them what the Bible says. Unfortunately the clergy lie. They do not tell you (for example) that the Bible says every man has the right to sell his daughter into sexual slavery. (The Bible has screeds - and screeds - and screeds - of that sort of stuff, but effectively censored by omission or “interpretation” by your clergy).

Some questions.

Why has the Bible been so heavily censored by omission and interpretation in Christian theology? On whose authority was it censored? How are we to know what is god’s word and what isn’t if it has been censored? If god’s word has been censored, is it still god’s word? If it was deemed necessary to censor god’s word, what value should we place on other of god’s words not censored, and why?

Jesus said some good things (I suppose the law of averages must be operating here) but he also said that you must hate your family if you want to enter the kingdom of god. Do you hate your family Mr Charnley? If you don’t, you must think you are doomed.

We had religion under control, and I for one was indifferent to it. But times have changed. Soon the majority population and the wielders of power in this land will be South Asian with their unreformed religions being the arbiters of right and wrong. In India an “untouchable” has been killed for using a waterhole. In Africa a woman has been burnt to death for being a witch. In Islamic states young women who have been raped are stoned to death for “adultery”. All justified by religion in one way or another.

“Mentalists”, “crazed”, “whackos”? Who cares. Extreme religion has raised it cruel head again in this land. We are in great danger.

Finally to LORENZO. Well said. My thoughts exactly.

M.P. Cato

Well- that is all well and good- BUT what if one defends Israel because they believe that Israel has the right in the fight? Nothing evangelical there. Israel has been under attack since the Haj Amin al Hussein was murdering in British Palestine.Do they not have the right to wage war on these barbarians who have never ceased to seek their destruction?

Andy Smith

It's a shame that there doesn't seem to be a comment from any normal Christian Zionist. So I'll add one as a supporter of Christian Friends of Israel (CFI).

In the summer I went on a rally in support of Israel with others from CFI at Trafalgar Square. I was approached by many Jewish people and moved to tears at one point as people said, "I didn't know any Christians cared for us" and similar stuff.

Rod Liddle has described a bunch of nutcases and then pretended they are typical, rather than a tiny minority.

A bit like Hamas pretending to represent the Palestinian people ... remember it was Hamas who murdered Palestinians from Fatah when they seized power in Gaza in a military coup.

Let's have some balance please ...

sheila scott

A disgusting mock making of basic christianity. Read Revelation and also parts of the OT - Zechariah. I know Christine Darg. She has done a lot for the paelstinian people. Also the mayor of Jerusalem gave her a prayer room within the walls as he was so impressed with her work.

Peter Charnley

Max writes:-
"Jesus said some good things (I suppose the law of averages must be operating here) but he also said that you must hate your family if you want to enter the kingdom of god. Do you hate your family Mr Charnley? If you don’t, you must think you are doomed."

Whatever delightful lessons, lectures or discussions you have taken part in or listened to during your life - you must have left them with a real spring in your step!

Keep it coming. As a Christian I actually find it encouraging that you boldly display your ridiculous reasoning, your blatant distortions of faith and human history and your frenzied fanaticism so clearly above the horizon.

People like youself (and Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens) are the perfect antidote, for any rational Christian, who are the vast majority, to any Battalion of Deborah!

James Canning Seattle WA

Great piece! Elliott Abrams is the rabid neocon in the National Security Council who was in charge of encouraging the idiocy of the Christian Zionists, even though Abrams was supposed to be looking after US interests in the Middle East. Abrams is the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, the propaganda minister of the neocons (Taki's label).

david black

What a lazy bit of denigration. People who hold unpopular views, or foolish views, easy to call them monkeys, Rod. Well, I don't share those views, but I consider you a bigoted paranoid. You've really gone down in my estimation.

A. MacAulay

Jimmy Carter is maligned once more, and I think history will be kinder to him, not least for establishing Egypt as a US client alongside Israel and thereby bringing a modicum of stability to the NE and the wider world with it. Both Egypt and Israel were effectively bankrupt at that moment in time. Just being a Baptist from Georgia does not make nut out of a person.

The real influence of these apocalypse-now loonies starts in the Reagan presidency and I would suggest reading Gore Vidal's essays of the time to gain an insight into what was also then a critical situation.

The balesful influence of the apocalypticists is one factor in allowing Israel to drift so shamefully into one crisis after another intstead of using its very real power to effect a peace settlement. One which everyone has known for decades what it will, more or less, look like i.e. 2 States, return to pre 67 borders.

Lastly, the one encouraging thing about religious fundamentalism is that God's recieved commands, no matter which cultural group has recieved them, are anything but straight forward and the fundies are always arguing about meaning and doctrine, right up to the next schism. Take a look at the Church of Scotland, the Free Church and the Free Presbyterians in my Highland home as an example. Only in times of emergency and chaos do nutters like this get into positions of real power and that is when the books and people start to get burned.

Glen

"Rod Liddle on the crazed, quasi-fascist evangelicals in Britain and America who believe war in Gaza heralds the Second Coming of Christ"

Michael Gove was unavailable for comment.

Heike Vogt

A disappointing little piece focusing on a non-problem.

I wish we could finally say aloud that not all religions are alike. Give me a hundred Jewish-feet washing Christians (whose only crimes seem to be to write rather colourfully on the web and boost the Israeli tourist industry) over one Islamofascist suicide bomber any day.

Furthermore, the fact that 'Douad Abdullah from the Muslim Council of Britain' reckons anything whatsoever tends to convince one of the exact opposite in an instant.

Mary Jackson

Rod Liddle occasionally writes very perceptively on the dangers of Islam. Like so many lefties, he then, in the interests of "balance" feels that he has to say something rude about "fundamentalist" Christians, as if the dangers were in any way comparable.

The difference between fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims are that the former will bore you rigid by banging on about God. The latter will send you to meet him.

Elliot Wassertrager

What a load on rubbish from Rod Liddle, whom I used to respect for his wonderful Liddle Britain column. The most "extreme Zionist" groups in Israel merely insist on staying on their ancestral land, no matter what, and are willing to defend themselves when crazed Arabs throw stone, kidnap or lynch them. Rabbi Kahane may have advocated a forceful transfer of Arabs from all Israeli-administed land, but it never went beyond rhetoric. He, on the other hand was killed by a Muslim fanatic, who later on would go on to inspire the 9/11 attackers on the US. Christian Zionists are no more crazy than EU-liberals, who are anti-Semitic in effect, if not intent. The real villains are the Islamist Hamas, and if Mr Liddle doubts that for a moment, let him wait until pubs and pizzerias in London will be blown up by these fanatics, as is bound to happen if they are left to their devices.

Michael

Rod called them "quasi-fascist"revealed himself as islamo-fascist or maybe he is "useful idiot"which is a less sin.

Antonia

Rod, the leftists and Muslims are marching in the UK and the US screaming 'Jews to ovens' and beating up anyone who disagrees with them and you call evangelical Christian fascist?

dp damato

I hope this writer is not a Tory because he is part of the problem. Evangelical Christians could be an asset for the Tories like they are for the GOP. They are highly organized, passionate, and their numbers are growing in G. Britain. In the US, they are the most formidable opponent of left wing cultural madness. I may not agree with their worldview, but I respect them.
The writer is trying to equate the evangelicals with the backwoods of West Virginia. Do not buy into this attempted stereotype so typical of liberals like Liddle. Evangelicals highly value education and the majority are college educated. They predominate in the South and Midwest but are strong in California and the Western states. They are less prevalent in the Northeast. Why a Tory would bang on about Christianity, but be less concerned about liberal insanity is curious but revealing. The left never criticize their natural consistency, but an element of the right in Britain cannot refrain from condemning a potential political ally. I guess it pleases their left wing cultural masters. You do not have to be a practicing Christian to understand and respect the agenda of Christians who want to preserve Christianity and Western civilization. Believing in the rapture may seem absurd. What is worse the absurdities of the right or the malevolence of the left. Remember the woman who was demonized for declining to "marry" two men? What about the residents who were demonized for attempting to keep a gypsy enclave away from their estates? The right in America understands who our allies are. We win elections because of the evangelicals - why would we criticize them? Conservatives need to soley focus on what the left is doing to Britain. Banging on about Christianity to curry favor with the sophisticated class, is counter productive. In the long run Christians will be vindicated - especially on the issue of abortion. Abortion is a holocaust and those who oppose it will be vindicated by history.

J

The most stupid article I ever read!!!!!!!!!!!!

Roger Mortimer-Smith

OK, granted this Batallion of Deborah may not be playing with a full deck, but are you seriously citing the Muslim Council of Britain as moderate and reasonable commentators?

syhop

Ah Rod, you knew this would draw worms out of the woodwork didn't you? It would be laughable, all these people arguing whose imaginary friend is cleverer / righter / bestest, if it weren't for the fact that they are killing each other. Is that the only way they feel they can 'prove' their point?

Colonial

I think you need to look beyond the obvious. What I believe we are seeing is confused people articulating their dissatisfaction with the dismal state to which the West has been reduced by fifty years of its dominance and degrading by an equally mad left wing. Another sign of a pendulum about to swing?

A. MacAulay

Would it be possible for dp damato to spend some time thinking about the difference between being "Right Wing" and being "(C)conservative" for they are not the same thing at all.

It is not possible for any part of our pluralistic, democratic party system, whether presidential or parliamentry to make deals with religious, or otherwise, loonies. The danger being that the loony agenda may become government policy.

The example of the national conservaice and catholic centrists supporting the NSDAP, effectively holding the stirrups for Hitler, should be a lesson for all and for all times.

James Michael Price

Why would anybody be cheering for Hamas, the organization that threatened to murder Arafat if he signed the Oslo accords, that tyrannizes its own subjugates in the Gaza Strip, and terrorizes unarmed civilians in southern Israel? These are the extremists that get under my skin, not Christians with beliefs I don't share.

Terra firma

The ranting of the Batallion of Deborah aside, isn't it eery though that a distinct people with a six thousand year lineage who have been twice exiled from their homeland (as foretold in the Bible) - on the latter occasion being scattered to all points of the compass and reviled wherever they went (as also foretold in the Bible) - have now suddenly returned to that homeland (as again also foretold in the Bible), and have revived the once-dead language of their forebears for everyday use (as yet again also foretold in the Bible)?

After all, who today can trace their lineage back to the Chaldeans? Who today still speaks Assyrian? Who today can claim to be a Moabite or a Jebusite?

But a Jew....?

John Dale

Excellent piece Rod (even if not particularly "new news"). However, a sizeable number of the commenters here have combined to show you one sense in which you are mistaken - one doesn't need to be a Christyian Zionist Evangelical to be as mad as a fruit bat. It seems that just two, or in some cases even only one, of these attributes is enough to push people over the edge.

Bob

While I naturally sympathise with the people caught up in this war, on both sides, and while I don't "relish" it, I do believe that Israel's coming into existance is a direct fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. The last verse of the OT prophet Amos is crystal clear. Read it for yourself

herrmann

Oh God oh Rod! Did this 'article' have to be so long? I'll try to read it.

rod liddle

Many thanks for all comments. To address a recurring complaint: simply because Islamism is more dangerous and violent (and prevalent) doesn't mean that other things can't be bad, too. I'm broadly with Israel, as it happens. This is simply a little bit of background about a bunch of people who, in their own comparatively minor way, are making things a little worse in the middle east. Worthy of comment? I reckon so.
We've heard of them before, of course, but there does seem to be a growing number of Brits involved.

RepublicanStones

The Israeli govt themselves have admitted that in future their core American support will increasingly come, not form American Jews, but from these dispensationalist loonies.

Tony

I am a christian not part of the group Mr Liddle writes about but I do resent the tone of it. As usual with this type of sensational seeking article it makes sweeping generalisations which includes 'all christians in the same mould' tell me what area of any society doesnt have extreme view groups in it,including journalism. I look forward to Mr Liddles expose on Hamas,the muslims or Hezbolla. perhaps he might not feel so comfortable commenting in these areas

Bobby

(just saw this on the web - Bobby)

PRETRIB RAPTURE - HIDDEN FACTS !

How can the “rapture” be “imminent”? Acts 3:21 says that Jesus “must” stay in heaven (He is now there with the Father) “until the times of restitution of all things” which includes, says Scofield, “the restoration of the theocracy under David’s Son” which obviously can’t begin before or during Antichrist’s reign. Since Jesus must personally participate in the rapture, and since He can’t even leave heaven before the tribulation ends, the rapture therefore cannot take place before the end of the trib! Paul explains the “times and the seasons” (I Thess. 5:1) of the catching up (I Thess. 4:17) as the “day of the Lord” (5:2) (which FOLLOWS the posttrib sun/moon darkening - Matt. 24:29; Acts 2:20) WHEN “sudden destruction” (5:3) of the wicked occurs! (If the wicked are destroyed before or during the trib, who would be left alive to serve the Antichrist?) Paul also ties the change-into-immortality “rapture” (I Cor. 15:52) to the posttrib end of “death” (15:54)! (Will death be ended before or during the trib?) If anyone wonders how long pretrib rapturism has been taught, he or she can Google “Pretrib Rapture Diehards.” Many are unaware that before 1830 all Christians had always viewed I Thess. 4’s “catching up” as an integral part of the final second coming to earth. In 1830 it was stretched forward and turned into a separate coming of Christ. To further strengthen their novel view, which the mass of evangelical scholars rejected throughout the 1800s, pretrib teachers in the early 1900s began to stretch forward the “day of the Lord” (what Darby and Scofield never dared to do) and hook it up with their already-stretched-forward “rapture.” Many leading evangelical scholars still weren’t convinced of pretrib, so pretrib teachers then began teaching that the “falling away” of II Thess. 2:3 is really a pretrib rapture (the same as saying that the “rapture” in 2:3 must happen before the “rapture” ["gathering"] in 2:1 can happen - the height of desperation!). Other Google articles throwing light on long-covered-up facts about the 178-year-old pretrib rapture view include “Famous Rapture Watchers,” “X-Raying Margaret,” “Revisers of Pretrib Rapture History,” “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” “Wily Jeffrey,” “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism,” “Scholars Weigh My Research,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” “Pretrib Rapture Desperados” and “Deceiving and Being Deceived” - all by the author of the bestselling book “The Rapture Plot” which is available at Armageddon Books online. Just my two cents’ worth.

stan_PL

Rod Liddle's article is very instructive: thanks. Now, please, would you give us a look onto a Palestinian equvalent of those Christian extremists (Hamas? with their activities and relations to other Palestinians.)

Glenn

Not everyone here in the States is ga-ga over the rapture/Antichrist fantasy which, BTW, originated in 1830 among fringe-Brits. One journalist/historian here, Dave MacPherson, has spent decades here and there locating long forgotten "rapture" items. Interested? Google "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," "Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism," "X-Raying Margaret," "The Unoriginal John Darby," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," "The Rapture Index (Mad Theology)," "America's Pretrib Rapture Traffickers" and "Pretrib Rapture - Hidden Facts." Most Brits are too savvy to be taken up (pun) with this 179-year-old hysteria! Glenn

william kirk

These people may have Hi-jacked the title evangelical christian they are neither evangeical nor Christian!

andy gill

This is great. With so many religious fruitcakes ganging up against Israel, it's good to know there's a few fanatics on her side too. It's called fighting fire with fire.

Rami

I am a Palestinian, born in Jerusalem and grew up in Ramallah, and untill the age of twelve considered myself a Greek Orthodox Christian, untill I realised then that the slaughter of all the men, women, the little ones and everything that breathed was referring to US !!!
With their numbers swelling into the tens of millions, what exactly makes them think that they will be chosen from the few, the VERY, VERY, few....
I no longer believe in god, but if there is one, and he! has an iota of justice or decency, the Messiah sould be sent as a PALESTINIAN