عربي

Words by Ahmed Dahaby
Written in collaboration with Cinema AlHambra and My Kali magazine
Translation by Buthayna El Haggar
Images from documentary Praying for Armageddon
This article is a supplement within the “Frenquencies” issue

On October 8, 2023, one day after Al-Aqsa Flood Operation led by Hamas against the settlements surrounding Gaza, the documentary titled Praying for Armageddon screened in the United States.

Directed by Norwegian journalist Tonje Hessen Schei, the documentary explores the activities of a relatively obscure yet highly influential American church within U.S. politics – the First Baptist Church – to reveal how members of this extremist Evangelical church are pushing the world towards the war of Armageddon, as prophesied in the Book of Revelation in the Bible, with the aim of fulfilling the Second Coming of Christ through supporting Israel and exacerbating the conflict in the Middle East.

This article discusses the information presented by the documentary about the relationship between Israel and the Evangelical Church, and the contradictions surrounding it. It also examines the history of Zionism to uncover the nature of opportunism that have driven Zionism to collaborate with various adversaries of the Jewish people and marginalized minorities (like LGBT people and women) over the decades to achieve its dream of establishing and sustaining the State of Israel.

The Third Temple and “Praying for Armageddon”

Praying for Armageddon addresses the beliefs of the church from multiple angles through interviews with its members and following their activities, revealing the extent of their influence in U.S. politics. This includes pastor Gary Baird, a hardline evangelical who travels with his congregation on motorcycles across the United States to preach about Armageddon. (The group has even transported their motorcycles to Israel and traveled the Holy Land in support of the Occupation.) It also highlights other senior members of the church, including Southern Baptist Televangelist Pastor Robert Jeffress, and Pastor John Hagee, leader of the organization Christians United for Israel (CUFI).

Their influence extends into the U.S. military, transforming into an almost magical icon that transports it back to the Dark Ages, branding military weapons with Crusader symbols, baptizing soldiers, and instilling the belief that American wars are themselves Crusades to advance the word of the Lord. This rhetoric is similar to that used by former President George W. Bush to describe the invasion of Iraq.

The documentary further reveals the role of these church leaders have as advisors to the White House, including by pushing Trump to recognize occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017, and to move the U.S. embassy there in 2018. The director states, “When Trump came into power, we realized how important Hagee, CUFI, and fundamentalist Evangelicals were in lifting Trump up to the presidency. They believe he was gifted by God to be their tool.”

Such rhetoric and influence are, then, intimately tied to Israel with an underlying goal. Evangelical extremists believe that the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque and construction of the Third Temple will lead to the final war and the return of Christ. Supporting Israel, for them, is one means to fulfilling that prophecy, believing that Jews will either convert to Christianity or be killed by the soldiers of the Lord (faithful evangelicals). The documentary reveals the church’s motives and its relationship with the conflict in the Middle East to be almost conspiracy theories. And yet, a closer examination of the historical relationship between the church and the establishment of Israel was, actually, quite logical.  

The Only Colony

The idea of establishing a national state for the Jews was a dream adopted by Protestant evangelical groups in 17th-century England, long before the Jews themselves believed in it. These groups sought to establish the Third Temple on the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque, fulfilling an evangelical prophecy that would hasten the coming of the Messiah and the end of times. This movement was known as “Christian Zionism.”

The Jewish Zionist movement was established two centuries later by Theodor Herzl, an Austrian Jewish atheist. Initially, Herzl was enthusiastic about the idea of creating a Jewish national home in Argentina due to its suitable climate and its “resemblance to Europe,” which, as he mentioned in his diaries, would ease the process of integration. However, international pressure persuaded him to choose Palestine, seeing it as “the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence.”

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour supported the Zionist movement despite his hatred of Jews, viewing it as a way to rid Europe of the Jewish presence. He saw it as “a serious effort to alleviate the tragedy of the old Western civilization, which arose due to the presence of an anomalous and aggressive entity that is difficult to expel or absorb (referring to the Jews),” which led him to promise the land of Palestine to the Zionist movement in 1917.

Thus, Western colonial interests merged with anti-Jewish sentiments and evangelical interests to produce this white colony in 1948, at a time when European colonialism was drawing its last breaths.

In the 1990s, Israel cooperated with its ideological twin in South Africa to suppress the Black revolution led by Nelson Mandela, who succeeded in dismantling the apartheid system, leaving Israel as the only example of such a system on Earth.

The Homophobia that “Supports” Homosexuality

Since 2010, Israel used pinkwashing and purplewashing to promote itself as “oasis of democracy in the Middle East” and “a paradise for LGBTQ+ people.” It claims that there’s a sea, sex, and pleasure “in a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, and Christians are persecuted” –  in the words of Benjamin Netanyahu during his 2011 address to the U.S. Congress – as an attempt to distract from its occupation, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid practices.

But, by showcasing the alignment and allyship between the Israeli government and the First Baptist Church, the documentary exposes their hypocrisy regarding LGBTQ and women’s rights, and the hollowness of their pinkwashing agenda. The First Baptist Church fights against all facets of the LGBTQ+ community, abortion rights, and feminism—considering them “abominations of the devil leading the Lord’s country (America) to ruin,” as claimed by church members.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considers Pastor Hagee his most important American ally (jns.org).

In 2005, John Hagee claimed that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment on New Orleans for hosting an LGBTQ+ event. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he stated that abortion is the most wicked scheme of the devil, and in another post, he said, “The only marriages God will ever recognize is between a man and a woman.” He has also claimed that the Antichrist will be half-Jewish and half-gay, that women were created solely to procreate, that the Catholic Church is the “great whore” mentioned in the Book of Revelation, that Jews control the U.S. economy, and that Muslims are commanded to kill all Jews and Christians.

In his book The Countdown to Jerusalem: A Warning to the World, John Hagee further argues that God sent Adolf Hitler (the ‘Half-Breed Jew’) as a hunter to persecute European Jews and lead them to the Promised Land through the Holocaust. Just as the establishment of Israel was the result of a promise from an anti-Semitic British man, it now relies on the support of an anti-Semitic American man.

Pastor Robert Jeffress has also made numerous statements strongly opposing homosexuality, including, “What they [homosexuals] do is filthy. It is so degrading that it is beyond description. And it is their filthy behavior that explains why they are so much more prone to disease.”

He has also claimed that former U.S. President Barack Obama’s support for LGBTQ+ rights paves the way for the Antichrist to gain power, and he once described Islam as an “evil, evil religion.”

Despite all this, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regularly meets with Pastor Hagee to discuss the activities of Citizens United For Israel (CUFI) and considers him one of his most important American allies. Israel also sends politicians, diplomats, and media figures to hold meetings and conferences with him.

Self-Contradictory Concepts that Loom Beyond Time

These extremist views of hatred toward gays, trans people, Jews, non-white individuals, women, and Muslims, which contradict everything that the United States and its pampered protégé, Israel, claim to support (based on Western liberal principles), are not just the views of Hagee and Jeffress alone. They are the ideologies of the church they lead.

This church is completely detached from the fabric of the current zeitgeist and everything it represents in terms of principles and ideas. It is sharpening its influence to reach the moment of the final battle that would end this era or human age, operating within a bubble that seems to come from or be frozen in another time.

The church supports Israel with unwavering certainty as its tool with which to end this era. For Israel, like the church itself, is an anomaly in the fabric of this time, its essence contradicting its appearance. It struts around wearing the LGBTQ+ flag, claiming to be a haven for the world’s Jews and a bastion of liberal democracy, while its existence relies on a fanatical church that opposes these very groups with all its might. Why?

Because Israel is the product of an opportunistic ideology that spreads like cancer in all directions, with no regard for the consequences. It is a functional settler colony operating under an apartheid system—an entity that has no comparable except in the pages of the world’s tragic past.