From Christ to Cruz: When Sunday School Becomes Foreign Policy
- bmoodyasaa
- Jul 3
- 4 min read
Over the past 50 or so years, I have been plagued with the gnawing instinct that we professing American Christians have fallen victim to elevating 19th-century Christian dogma into biblical doctrine.
How, in God’s green earth, did we manage to raise the nation-state of Israel to God’s favored nation over all others? I often lament in these blogs the abandonment of Jesus’ inauguration of the Kingdom of God as both a present and future reality in the life of the believer. Instead, we find ourselves with a government and Confessing Church that seem to have settled on “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as their complementary mission statements. I refer to that as “flat earth” Christianity.
The Dogma of Christian Zionism:
My own history began with the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) denomination, matriculating on to the American Baptist Churches USA, of which I have been an ordained pastor for the past 30 years. The one sacrosanct doctrine of CMA is “Premillennial Dispensationalism”, a theology that elevates the nation-state of Israel above the Confessing Church as God’s favored people.
To put it bluntly, hope for American Evangelicals has devolved from present fellowship with Jesus as Savior, Brother, and Friend to a wholly future realm, the preparation for which demands political and military dominion over not only the American people but over all peoples worldwide. This is known as the dogma of Christian Zionism.
Christian Zionism took root in the publication of the infamous Scofield Reference Bible, pretty much wiping out Jesus’ Gospel of the Kingdom of God as both a present reality and future hope. The code of separation of Church and State has conveniently been rebranded to mean separation of State from Church, but not Church from State.
Enter Sen. Ted Cruz and “Flannelgraph Christianity”:
All this was highlighted in a recent interview between Tucker Carlson and Sen Ted Cruz. Carlson elicited from Cruz that he had come into government in 2012 with the express purpose of being the leading defender of Israel in the US government. When Carlson challenged him on the grounds for his obsession with Israel, here’s the troubling answer that suggests the goal of earning favor with God outside the finished work of Christ: “As a Christian, growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible that those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed. I want to be on the blessing side of things,” he stated, an apparent reference to Genesis 12:3.1
What we have in Cruz’s focus, then, is US policy derived from teaching in Sunday School, a source of what our colleague, Buddy Spaulding, refers to as “Flannelgraph Christianity.” Gen 12:3 is from God’s call on Abraham to become the father of a “great nation.” Cruz failed to know where this life-directing Scripture was located and seemed confused over whether a reference to Abraham was short for the nation-state of Israel. The interview went viral!
Is Reason the Enemy of Faith?
The great reformer, Martin Luther, is quoted as having once said,
Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.2
What Luther may have intended by that is up for grabs, but with Ted Cruz reasoning that “Abraham” and the present, secular nation-state of Israel are interchangeable terms, his Christianity hangs on a feeble thread. As a result, does not the international politics of the United States of America hang likewise? What, pray tell, has this to do with our US Constitution or even orthodox Christian doctrine?
Here are a few Scripture verses that place Cruz’s interpretation in question:
Luke 16:16: The Law and the prophets were proclaimed until John (the Baptist); since that time, the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it (with the likely exception of Sen Cruz…he appears to be trying to force his way out of the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of secular Israel)
Matt 21:43: Therefore, I say to you (elders of the Temple in Jerusalem), the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people (Jewish and Gentile Christians), producing the fruits of it.
Gal 3:16: Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He (God) does not say, “And to seeds”, as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed”, that is, Christ.
Gal 3:28, 29: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you (true believers) are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. (i.e., all who belong to Christ are exclusively descendants of Abraham)
Gal 6:7: Therefore, be sure that it’s those who are of faith (in Christ) who are sons of Abraham.
Rom 2:28, 29: For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter (of the Old Covenant Law); and his praise is not from men but from God.
The list of rebuttal references from Jesus and the Apostle Paul goes on and on, leading us to the conclusion that descendancy from Abraham is something quite other than genetics. Building US international policy on a sacred footing of the secular nation-state of Israel is of highly questionable and dangerous merit. Paul leans toward a new Israel as a spiritual realm.
Sunday School certainly has had its place in American Church history, but as the basis for governmental security of Israel beyond US obligation to international alliances is a marked distortion of orthodox Christianity. Such a theology as a driver of international politics is classified by some biblical scholars as idolatry.
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