I’ve never figured out how the Christians who are loyal to a country work that part out anyway. The author of the letter to the Hebrews says we’re just visiting this planet, and our true allegiance is to a heavenly country.
Jesus preached the good news of the Kingdom of God. I don’t believe either Israel or the U.S. of A. is synonymous with that heavenly kingdom.
Personally, as a secular liberal, I’d rather be supported by people like me.
I’m not an expert or anything, but shouldn’t a Christian’s ultimate loyalty be to God?
+1.
For one thing, the idea that ‘secular liberal goyim’ are rooting openly for Israel’s opponents is ridiculously foolish. In my experience - which I’d bet is wider than yours on this topic - most liberal folks either don’t care much or support Israel’s right to exist. So your argument fails right at the get go unless you’re believing someone’s hype.
On the second, the Christian Zionists aren’t on Israel’s side. Again in my experience, they want Israel to succeed so that Israel can cease to exist. Again, imagine that if their dream came true - Christ returned to claim his kingdom - they’d brush a jewish state aside as suddenly irrelevant. Like those idiotic ‘completed jews’ who believe that they’re jews who believe Christ was the messiah 2000 years ago and therefore they’re jews who have taken the final step.
In my book, jews who believe that Christ was the messiah ain’t exactly jews. Call me silly.
No, you’re way beyond silly. You’re verging on paranoid delusions.
I read conservative periodicals and web sites all the time. The ulterior motives you ascribe to Christian conservatives are way off the mark.
I’m not sure that responding to disparaging remarks is much of a test of loyalty.
Indeed, yet reading conservative periodicals and web sites leads you to believe that secular non-jews all oppose Israel? Isn’t it JUST possible that you’re being presented with a biased source of information?
And my read on messianic jews comes straight from a few churches and discussions I’ve had with leaders of such. I did an article for one of my newspapers on them several years ago.
It is possible to support Israel as the only functinal democracy in the region. That’s certainly true and I’d honor that. But the Christian fundamentalists aren’t doing it for that reason, they’re pursuing it for reasons that are inherently not about democracy and such. It’s religion that guides that sort of support.
Exactly. One would not get what is referred to in the trade as a “statistically significant sample size”.
That’s what I though the poll was going to be about.
My ultimate loyalty lies towards education, freedom, happiness, justice, mercy, democracy, and other values I feel are important to the future of humanity. Some random lines on a map have no impact on who I pledge allegiance to.
This. Holocaust guilt accounts for a portion of it, but from the way I’ve heard some conservative Christians go on about Netanyahu - I really have no idea what’s going on there. It’s like nervously introducing your friend to your crazy family member, then having said friend fall and love with and marry them. 
Ahhhh… well if that’s true, then there should be a long, ugly history of anti-semitism among Christians in the South. But there isn’t it. Jews have been accepted in the American South for centuries… possibly because Southern Protestants hated Catholics too much to work up too much hatred for Jews.
Don’t believe me? Trivia time:
What were the first two states to have Jewish Senators?
Who had a Jewish Cabinet member first- the USA or the Confederacy?
What was the first state with a Jewish governor?
Florida and Louisiana, in the 19th century (long before many Jews lived in either state)
The Confederacy
Georgia
Right, so you don’t have the kind of peculiar “strong affinity” described in the OP.
I have met these apocalyptic Christians. I’ve had neighbors who were such, and I’ve heard the preaching.
You are correct. These people are not “pro-Israel” in any conventional political sense, and they are not pro-Jewish in either a humanist or religious way. Their plan for Israeli Jews involves conversion at what they reckon the Biblically correct time; or, extermination and Hell.
Yes, liberal except for on abortion Catholic here, and I can’t imagine being “loyal” to one or the other. I live in the United States and folow its laws to the extent that they don’t violate my morals, but that’s about it.
Wasn’t able to answer the poll.
My loyalty is towards Jesus Christ, not to America, Israel, Cuba or Iran.
Any Christian who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you (or more likely, unconsciously trying to sell themselves) a bill of goods.
This thread seems to assume a very tribal orientated mindset.
It’s a bit weird.
Fwiw, unless you’re of the professional middle classes or higher, in the US it seems absurd to align yourself with the political class - the people who run the US have been kicking you in the balls for 50 years.
If you have any loyalty at it it must surely lay with fellow workers, and not politicians who wrap the agenda of corporate vested interests they serve in the national flag, and interpretations of the constitution.
I’m with JC on this one. I remember a couple decades back when the MSM first noticed the strong support for Israel among conservative Christians and were scratching their collective heads about where that came from. And all I could think was, “where have you guys been??” because I’ve been hearing this stuff for most of my 44 years as a Christian.
(I knew where they’d been, of course: the intersection of the two sets, “MSM reporters” and “conservative Christians” was pretty damn small.)
True or not, I see no way in which that’s relevant to the discussion at hand.
Yes, jews in the confederacy acheived things like recognition. But don’t you think that maybe…just maybe…it was because there was some other group - gotta be some group - more put upon in the deep south? Maybe?
It seems as though you’re trying to make some sort of southern christian from 150 years ago connection concerning modern political behavior. But I might have easily - and as usefully - tried to connect phrenology to modern scientific thought. Alternately, we could go out on a limb and prove that groups of people don’t believe the same things over the course of decades. It’ll be a hard lift but I think it can be done.
^ This. Also, to really understand the Old Testament writings one must understand the Jewish culture of the time. It is not unusual for someone to develop an affinity for a culture that they understand.
That has always been my take. They heap love upon Israel, wax poetically about Judeo-Christian values, and support Israel no matter what because the Jews have to be there for the End of Times to happen. Then once that’s done, they assume the Jews will go to hell for rejecting Jesus.
Or convert. I’m sure Jesus will be very easy going on that point once all’s said and done.