There are two underlying sources of Zionism within the US, firstly of course the US Jewish community itself but also perhaps more importantly the Evangelical Christian community within the US which is much larger than the Jewish community.
So Scofield was a con artist. Just like Joseph Smith was. Good old-fashioned 19th Century American Grifters, parodied by Martin Balsam in Little Big Man(1970, a classic).
I was brought up in the Episcopal church in San Antonio in the 1970s, and I remember when the priest gave a sermon on the fallacy of dispensationalism. It was no coincidence that this grifter named John Hagee had just opened what was then called a Pentacostal church just a few blocks away.
Thanks for pointing out that most Christians don't believe as these crazy-assed Rapture believers do. I've been agnostic for decades, but they don't deserve to be tarred with the same brush.
I'll only add that the same Episcopal church taught that the Revelation of St. John the Divine, so often quoted by evangelicals and made famous by movies like The Omen, was more a poetic description of the traumatic days of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, since it was written during that time and all.
Either that, or St. John got hold of some really good mushrooms. Seriously, the priest said that, and all these staid Episcopalians LOL'd, which is why I remember it.
Most of the Christian Zionist support comes not from theology but from a general approval of reactionary imperialist foreign policy.
If the dispensationalists were to die out, as they are likely to do, support for settler colonialism rooted in racism and reaction-not to mention centred below the Mason Dixon line-would all else being equal continue. The theology merely sanctifies a hatred and bigotry which is political and intrinsic tto imperialism.
Edmund Gosse's Father and Son is a good source on the Plymouth Brethren and much else.
It's a shame that in promoting the nonsense prosperity gospel and Christian zionism they had to kill all the best (and more authentic to Jesus's teaching) branches of Christianity like the social gospel. Young people today would be much more receptive to those too.
Kevin Kruse's book "One Nation Under God" details how the business elites, allied with unscrupulous conservative religious leaders, worked to kill the social gospel as they saw it as supporting the New Deal and being far too anti-capitalist and communitarian.
So Scofield was a con artist. Just like Joseph Smith was. Good old-fashioned 19th Century American Grifters, parodied by Martin Balsam in Little Big Man(1970, a classic).
I was brought up in the Episcopal church in San Antonio in the 1970s, and I remember when the priest gave a sermon on the fallacy of dispensationalism. It was no coincidence that this grifter named John Hagee had just opened what was then called a Pentacostal church just a few blocks away.
Thanks for pointing out that most Christians don't believe as these crazy-assed Rapture believers do. I've been agnostic for decades, but they don't deserve to be tarred with the same brush.
I'll only add that the same Episcopal church taught that the Revelation of St. John the Divine, so often quoted by evangelicals and made famous by movies like The Omen, was more a poetic description of the traumatic days of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, since it was written during that time and all.
Either that, or St. John got hold of some really good mushrooms. Seriously, the priest said that, and all these staid Episcopalians LOL'd, which is why I remember it.
Most of the Christian Zionist support comes not from theology but from a general approval of reactionary imperialist foreign policy.
If the dispensationalists were to die out, as they are likely to do, support for settler colonialism rooted in racism and reaction-not to mention centred below the Mason Dixon line-would all else being equal continue. The theology merely sanctifies a hatred and bigotry which is political and intrinsic tto imperialism.
Edmund Gosse's Father and Son is a good source on the Plymouth Brethren and much else.
It's a shame that in promoting the nonsense prosperity gospel and Christian zionism they had to kill all the best (and more authentic to Jesus's teaching) branches of Christianity like the social gospel. Young people today would be much more receptive to those too.
Kevin Kruse's book "One Nation Under God" details how the business elites, allied with unscrupulous conservative religious leaders, worked to kill the social gospel as they saw it as supporting the New Deal and being far too anti-capitalist and communitarian.
Thanks for the recommendation. I know Michael Hudson has touched on this topic as well.