In 1841, over 50 years before Theodor Herzl’s First Zionist Congress in Switzerland, the Mormons ceremoniously dedicated Palestine for the return of the Jews. Also that year, Smith announces that the Angel demands polygamy. Within years he takes on 40 wives, including girls as young as 13. Like the Masonic order, Daughters of Rebekah, they adopt the symbol of the Beehive, a symbol of cooperative industry , and Mormons were encouraged to breed and expand. Many took child brides.
The entire Mormon religion is based on the belief that the world will soon end, and that a Jewish State must be created in Palestine. The LDS Church, who identify as descendants of ancient Israel, was the only religious organization to officially support Israel’s creation in 1948. In 1989, Mormons founded a University in East Jerusalem.
The LDS Church is worth billions today, they are the main contender for the most Zionist organization of America, and Charlie Kirk said that half of his team were Mormons.
I have heard that some Christians believe that Jesus won’t come back until all the Jews in the world are back in Israel proper. Mormons aren’t the only ones.
Having read Revelation and Daniel, which I think are the two main prophetic books about the end times, I’m not sure where this belief comes from. But—which scripture is it that refers to “the time of Jacob’s trouble”? We’re livin’ THAT, folks!
I was also hoping to read more about the Freemasons. How do they come into this, in your opinion? Is it just the beehive? Wasn’t the bee also a totem of the Bourbon dynasty?*
*Edit: no it wasn’t : it was an emblem of the Merovingians and Napoleon I adopted it for the First Empire.
Yeah, it’s called Dispensationalism and is a relatively recent — many would also say heretical — innovation in Christian theology, traceable to the Scofield Bible (c. 1900), though it had some 19th century antecedents. It’s big among the fundies. Obviously, the Babylon Bee guys are Dispensationalists. It’s not for everyone.
I have my grandmother’s Scofield Reference Bible. The commentary is right there on that flimsy onion skin, crowded in with the text, and I read that many people didn’t distinguish between the Word of God and the Word of Scofield.
And who WAS Scofield? ( I don’t remember where I read so much about him, @drlorentz , so don’t bother asking me for a citation. I THINK maybe Gary Willis…? ). anyway, he was a disbarred lawyer, a drunk and an accused fraudster, who drifted into the circle of Arno Gabelein and the Long Island Chiliasts. ( don’t bother looking them up now, you’ll find stuff about a chili cookout on the beach, but I know they’re real: my brother went to Stony Brook School for Boys, when Arno Gabelein’s son was headmaster, and I went to an aspiring “sister school” in StonyBrook Long Island)
He’s a rock! Jumps right in to any possibly confusing area with both feet, for example, in connection with the Sons of God going in unto the Daughters of Men, he firmly dismisses any titillating ideas about sex with angels; no, this refers to the union of the Godly line of Seth with the ungodly line of Cain. There are no female angels, he somewhat gratuitously asserts.
I had an Australian friend dismissively comment , “Scofield was an American, wasn’t he?” (like of course he ws an unsophisticated rube). Yes but Darby, who first came up with dispensationalism and a lot of embroidery on Scripture like the Rapture, was British.
And yet, millions follow his teachings and Dispensationionalism is the animating force behind US policy on Israel, at least on the Right. Ted Cruz told Tucker Carlson that his principal purpose in getting elected to the Senate was to protect Israel.
Well, you may know more about this than I do, but I thought our present dispensation, the “dispensation of Grace” is especially hated by Jews because of the idea that now, we Christians are ALL God’s chosen people. It’s replacement theology. I don’t know the context in which Ted said the line you quote. IMHO reading the OT plain’n’ simple , without Scofield’s gloss, should be enough to make every Christian agree with him. God will curse those who curse them.
I’m far from an expert on this. However, I do know that many Christians reject this theological innovation: specifically, the Catholic Church among others. Given that, and that it is a relatively new idea (roughly two centuries) makes it seem unreasonable to claim that it is self-evident to “every Christian.” I also know that this theological interpretation is the animating force behind those Christians because, as you noted “…that some Christians believe that Jesus won’t come back until all the Jews in the world are back in Israel proper. Mormons aren’t the only ones.” Or, more specifically,
Dispensationalists contend that the unconditional covenants God established with Abraham, David, and Israel—collectively forming the backbone of His promises to the nation—require literal, future fulfillment for ethnic Israel, distinct from any spiritual application to the Church.
I have no dog in this theological fight. However, it is significant that a subset of Christians has taken up the Zionist cause and that this influences US foreign policy.
Zionist Christians, who outnumber Jewish Zionists by about 30 to 1, tend to be very sure of what constitutes the correct - and incorrect - Christian position on such matters as “Israel”. But then, in my experience, so do Christians of most other persuasions too. Whether they are Catholics, Orthodox, Calvinists, Baptists, Evangelicals or whatever else, they tend to believe what they’ve been brought up to believe by their preferred trusted authority.
Edit:
I don’t buy into some of what Zionist Christians believe, for example, because they are too obviously under the influence of some heavy duty 19th century campaigning by dubious characters like John Nelson Darby, not to mention the even more suspect Cyrus I Scofield and his worryingly influential Scofield Study Bible.
