Dr. Eran Shalev of the Department of General History at the University of Haifa, author of American Zion: The Old Testament as Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War, traces for host Gilad Halpern the theological and ideological origins of the special relationship between Israel and America.
Three brief notes on issues discussed in this piece:
1) America has always had a strong anti-government strand, and conservative Christians have often employed Old Testament stories of prophets against the kings as moral admonition, both to the government and as exemplar for those calling for the government to change. As State welfare programs increased, the full effect of such Biblical referent admonition lessens. Salvation, post death and in the here and now, was a local, micro community affair; government could enable, say with schooling for all, but not directly provide. But welfare programs (one of the first being the US military itself) changed the direct cause of help in the here and now, weakening the Biblical hold. So for many decades religious conservatives have railed against such programs, for they see them as insulating recipients from the admonition of improvement, which comes from godly thought. Jesus as savior remains, but Old Testament reference to crown moral failing fades–leaving ground for anti-Semitism in the Jesus persecution stories, now the Apostles and Jesus set off from Judaism, in contrast to the Jewish prophets struggling with the secular crown. Many Christian fundamentalists in reply have fused Old Testament references with Jesus through his attitude to the Romans (give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s), creating a quarantine attitude toward the State based on the failings of the Biblical kings. I actually had a fundamentalist get angry at me when I mentioned Bush II wanted to fund Christian welfare programs, for that would break the quarantine.
2. Calvinism employed an obscure passage in the Book of Revelations (there is only one such passage, of course) which essentially predefines the number of the saved, termed the “elect.” These were known to God from the beginning of creation, so Jesus cannot have a primary saving role; instead, he becomes a helpmeet to realizing one might be one of the saved. Much of Calvinism, and Puritanism, was devoted, as a social matter, to measures of how likely one is of the elect, for God would favor these in this world. One never knew if one was so, but the more favor found in this life was evidence of such, placing an obligation to help others perhaps realize their standing as well. Old Testament stories against the crown could then have wide play, for the Prophets could not in any case see themselves as part of the elect, not knowing of it. One served God because of what He could do in this world. Jesus comes to dominate once salvation is no longer so capped, the American westward expansion ideal ground for envisioning escape from subordination (including not being of the chosen). Plenty is at the heart of American salvation, both religious and secular.
3. A practicing left Catholic, married to an atheist Jew, both American, once told me that the Bible is the only book nobody can own. It’s wide distribution, coupled with State education mandated literacy of a kind, is inherently anti-elitist, even though until the Reformation Catholics were not encouraged to read it. Protestant liberation was amplified via American westward expansion where elite social control of anything was inherently weak. Popular support for Israel in the US is happenstance, a product of the use of the text for other means for what now amounts to over 200 years. Israel is grafted onto the westward expansion story through its own travails, Arabs seen as not so unlike the vanquished American Indian, heathen against true understanding of God, so the sometimes heard Israel as the “51st State,” perhaps weakened by Bibi’s “childhood’s end” rhetoric in his first term. The US grew up eradicating “barbarians,” and the attitude has not yet left us at the populist level. To some extent, I’d say that the current fight between right and left populism, both with religious strands, is over this lens of “barbarian” as fundamental to life and politics.