Donald M. Lewis - A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century

I WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS my appreciation to those who have enabled this work. First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my wife, Lindi, whose loving support is deeply appreciated. Second, I want to thank the Regent College board of governors, who have generously funded my teaching and research over many years as a full-time faculty member. The board has enabled me to undertake the sort of sustained, serious scholarship that can only be done with the leisure of time and the funding necessary to travel, attend conferences, and do archival research. I am deeply indebted to the colleges generosity in all these matters.

I would also like to thank Dr. Cindy Aalders, the Regent College librarian, and her staff, who have been unfailingly helpful and considerate. I also want to express my appreciation to the librarians of the University of British Columbia and of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for their excellent professional services, which have enabled me to access their superb theological and historical collections. I also want to express my appreciation to the Rev. David Pileggi, rector of Christ Church, Jerusalem, who warmly welcomed me to Jerusalem, entertained me in his own home, and allowed me to consult Christ Churchs archives dealing with the London Jews Societys work in nineteenth-century Palestine. I also want to acknowledge the kind hospitality of Gary Hedrick of CFJ Ministries based in San Antonio, Texas, who allowed me to stay at the CFJs Halff House in Jerusalem during a period of research, and to the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, and especially Jehu Ketola, for their warm welcome to their celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles in October 2017. I am also grateful to Johannes Gerloff, a journalist and author based in Jerusalem who graciously welcomed me on my visit, providing insight and helpful background.

I want to express my appreciation to Jon Boyd, the editorial director for IVP Academic, whose professionalism and kindness have characterized all our communications.

A number of remarkably capable teaching assistants have worked with me on the book over several years, and I wish to thank them by name: Erica Bowler, James Hooks, Tim Opperman, Yehuda Mansell, and Jacob Samuel Raju. Three of these are now in doctoral programs, and a fourth is hoping to undertake doctoral studies in the near future.

There are a number of scholars who have read and commented on part or the whole manuscript, and I am especially grateful for their advice: Yaakov Ariel, Philip Church, Andrew Crome, Rodney Curtis, Paul Freston, Daniel Hummel, Daniel Nessim, Eric Newberg, Martin Spence, and Matthew Westbrook. And there are those whose advice I have sought on particular sections of the manuscript: Darrell Bock, George Carras, Gershon Greenberg, Gerald Hobbes, Paul C. Merkley, Stephen Pattee, Matthew Avery Sutton, Bruce K. Waltke, Steve Watts, Paul Wilkinson, and N. T. Wright. I am also grateful for helpful conversations with David Bebbington, whose encyclopedic knowledge of evangelical history never ceases to amaze. I also want to thank the three anonymous reviewers of the first draft of this book who were commissioned by IVP Academic. Their feedback has been invaluable. To all of these scholars I want to express my gratitude and appreciation.

While I am indebted to many academic colleagues who have assisted me in writing this book, I know not all of them will feel that they can agree with my conclusions. None of them is responsible for the use that I have made of their help, and needless to say, responsibility for any errors of fact or peculiarities of interpretation is to be laid at my feet.

Virtually no histories of Zionism, Israel, and the Arab-Israeli conflict have paid much attention to evangelical support of the advancement of the Zionist plan and the Israeli state.

Christian Zionism is usually examined solely through a political lens. This approach often fails to take the role of theology seriously, which as Faydra Shapiro has argued, misses a great deal about the culture of Christian Zionism. Focusing overly much on the political does a disservice to the complex and powerful motives and implications of this world view. The theological basis of the underlying Christian Zionist beliefs has kept on shifting over time, which makes tracking its history more difficult.