Answers to Quora Questions by Yair Davidiy (8 August 2017, 16 Av, 5777)
Why do Protestants tend to be more pro-zionist than other Christian sects?
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Protestants-tend-to-be-more-pro-zionist-than-other-Christian-sects/answer/Yair-Davidiy
Protestants often emphasized relating to the Bible (including the "Old" Testament) with more seriousness.
The Bible speaks of the Israelite Tribes, the Exile of Israel, and the future return of Israel to the Land.
This is depicted as something very positive. It is the will of God.
Protestants were also frequently more individualistic.
They were more inclined to read the Bible on their own and receive their own impressions.
It is natural that some of them took this message to its natural conclusion.
The Jews should be helped return to the Holy Land.
In Britain such sentiments coalesced in the Restoration Movement which was in effect Zionism under another name.
The Balfour declaration and early British assistance to Zionism were a result.
Meanwhile in the USA the same processes were at work based on the same approach and understandings.
Even though Americans (along with some Continental Europeans) had been part of the Restoration Movement from the beginning it did not fully really "kick in" until recently.
At present it seems to have done so with a vengeance.
In a sense this is what Anglo-Saxon civilization is all about, what it has been searching for from the beginning.
To defy the world, establish a kingdom, a beacon on the hill, a refuge for the oppressed, to seek justice and good, Biblical Prophecy, it is all there in Zionism.
Franz Kobler wrote a work describing the British Restoration Movement.
What he wrote is also applicable to Protestants who support Israel in the USA.
Here are a few extracts from Kobler:
Franz Kobler, "The Vision Was There. History of the British Movement for the Restoration of the Jews to Palestine," London, 1956,
http://www.britam.org/vision/BAN...
www.britam.org/vision/Kobler.pdfTHE establishment of the State of Israel may be rightly looked upon as the greatest collective achievement of the Jewish people in the history of the Diaspora. There is, however, a non-Jewish element hidden in the Restoration of Israel. The ideal of the Jewish people has in fact for centuries been shared, cherished and pursued by large sections of the nations amidst whom Jews have lived. Among them, the British people holds the outstanding place. Nowhere more than in Britain has the idea of the Restoration of the Jews been developed into a doctrine and become the object of a movement extending over more than three centuries. Only in Britain the leading spokesmen of many, generations have been inspired by the vision of a revived Israel. Only there the creation of a Jewish National Home has been a serious and almost continuous political issue which was finally translated into reality.
...after the break with Rome under Henry VIII, the Church had lost her place as the only religious guide of the English people, a place which was taken by another spiritual power: the Bible. In the words of John Richard Green, in his Short History of the English People, "England became the people of a book and that book was the Bible". This statement was confirmed in our own day by G. M. Trevelyan: " . . . though Shakespeare may be, in the retrospect, the greatest glory of his age, he was not in his own day its greatest influence. By the end of Elizabeth's reign, the book of books for Englishmen was already the Bible."
"The idea of Israel's Restoration is rooted in the fundamentals of the Commonwealth, Inseparable from the character and history of the British nation in spite of a temporary abandonment..."
"The movement [i.e. Restoration of the Jewish Independent Kingdom] [is].. an integral part of British religious, social and political history forming a parallel, not an annex, of the histories of Jewish Messianism and Zionism .... The recognition of Israel's Restoration as an organic part of British political ideas... a genuine religious, humanitarian and political trend within British history."
This is what there is. More is to come.
David Steele Commented:
David Steele: actually it is the evangelicals as most mainstream protestants are not very pro Israel. And the evangelicals have moved out of the protestant movement. Not sure what they are yet.
Travis Perry noted that the Protestants who are most pro-Israel are the,
"Evangelicals (which includes most Baptists), and also most Pentecostals, Fundamentalists, and Charismatics are largely pro-Israel. (So Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc. are not especially pro-Zionist)."
Israel Mair Rafael remarked:
It has surely been noted that the rise of Protestantism occurred after the development of printing. The newly translated King James Bible was a best seller that presents the reader will a solid basis for a Philo-Semitic outlook. This pro-Bible view was highly influential in America from the time of Pilgrims. Recently, some status conscious groups such as Presbyterians have lost social clout and become pro-left and anti Israel. In Europe this pattern is more pronounced and is probably encouraged by cultural marxists who are fixated on weakening the influence of the Bible in secular law (e.g. euthanasia, abortion, homosexuality etc) regardless of the obvious fact that global traditions (including Islam) take a more pro-Bible outlook.