The analysis rejects the “Christian Zionist” framework, highlighting that Iran’s long-standing Jewish minority contradicts claims of genocidal intent. It concludes that modern Israel’s secular, state-level power dynamics differ fundamentally from the vulnerable diaspora described in scripture, rendering theological justifications for contemporary military support historically and logically flawed.
For one thing, if Iranians wanted to exterminate all the Jews, they would have commenced with their own Jewish population sometime during the last two thousand years, which is how long there has been a continuous Jewish presence in Iran.
The Rev. Franklin Graham, 73, son of the late world-renowned Christian evangelist Billy Graham (1918-2018) became chief executive officer of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in 2000 and is best known for his prolific worldwide humanitarian relief efforts as head of Samaritan’s Purse. A confidant of multiple American presidents, as was his father, Graham has often been critical of both major American political parties but is a longtime supporter of Donald Trump as someone he believes will pursue policies that are good for American society.
The president’s penchant for egotism and coarse speech–a matter over which Graham has expressed dismay–has not prevented him from joining the ranks of Biblical or quasi-Biblical heroes in Graham’s mind, which in itself is not necessarily problematic, considering the running Biblical theme of God using deeply imperfect men and women for his purposes. Nonetheless, Graham seems now to be falling in with the trend of seeing the Iran war as a paralleled opportunity to come forward with some sort of religious lunacy.
At the White House Easter Lunch, in a prayer that seemed intended more to make a point to human listeners than to supplicate God, Graham evoked the desire of Persians in Biblical times to exterminate the Jews and said that today’s Persia, “the Iranian regime, wants to kill every Jew and destroy them with an atomic fire. But you have raised up President Trump. You’ve raised him up for such a time as this. And, Father, we pray that you will give him victory.”
Franklin Graham, a man I generally respect and take seriously as a minister of the Gospel and friend of the unfortunate and oppressed, could use a bit of remedial course-work in Biblical studies, history, political science, and logic.
Persons familiar with the Bible immediately caught Franklin’s reference to events described in the Book of Esther, which is read in its entirety during the ceremonies of the Jewish feast of Purim and which recounts the origins of the occasion. It describes the adventures of Esther, the secretly Jewish wife of the Persian Emperor Ahasuerus (widely believed to be Xerxes I), and her uncle Mordecai, who foil a plot by the king’s wicked adviser Haman to massacre all of the Jews in the empire. Urged by Mordecai to risk her life by appearing unbidden before Ahasuerus, Esther informs him of the plot. Though the decree of annihilation is irreversible, the king allows the Jews to defend themselves, which results in a great Jewish victory. Haman dies on the very gallows he had intended for Mordecai.
To conceive of this as related in any way to current events is, in layman’s terms, really unintelligent and extremely weird.
For one thing, if Iranians wanted to exterminate all the Jews, they would have commenced with their own Jewish population sometime during the last two thousand years, which is how long there has been a continuous Jewish presence in Iran. Though the regime strenuously opposes Zionism, Judaism is officially recognized by the constitution, which guarantees the country’s approximately 10,000 Jews a representative in parliament.
It is indeed ironic that Franklin Graham and other Christian Zionists, in their concern for the plight of the Jews at the hands of the Iranian regime, do not for a moment consider the Jews who actually, uh, well, you know, live in Iran. (As I am proofreading this article, Al-Jazeera reports that Israel and the United States have just destroyed a synagogue in Tehran.)
Now, about those Israelis:
The Jews delivered from destruction by Esther and Mordecai (the Book of Esther, curiously, does not mention God) were in a rather different situation from today’s Israelis who, in Franklin Graham’s view, are being preserved by the divinely anointed Donald Trump.
The nation of Judah in Esther’s time, far from existing as a viable nation-state, was mostly in exile from the Holy Land, having been carried into captivity by the Babylonians, who subsequently lost their empire to the Persians. Eventually the Jews were allowed to return to Judea, but in Esther’s time they remained mostly scattered elsewhere within the Persian empire, with a large concentration in and near the capital at Susa. Their observance of the Jewish law set them apart from their neighbors, so the essence of Jewish life in Esther’s circumstances was a matter of being a conquered minority group living under the thumb of Persia and highly vulnerable to suspicion and resentment.
Contrast this with modern Israel, an overwhelmingly secularist apartheid garrison state armed to the teeth and backed lavishly by an American empire whose wealth and might make the Persians look like a ragtag girls’ softball team by comparison. Today the very idea of Israel as a struggling underdog is preposterous. Of course, as Hitler well knew, if the lie is big enough and told often enough, it will take hold.
I have observed elsewhere that the modern nation-state of Israel, mostly non-religious and well outside the scriptural conditions for a healthy, Torah-abiding covenant relationship with the almighty, does not meet Biblical criteria for Jewish possession of the Holy Land–no matter how “Christian” Zionists distort the Bible. The idea that God would appoint Donald Trump or anyone else to save contemporary Israel (which, among its other attributes, is home to the most homosexual-friendly city on the planet, Tel Aviv) is more than a little suspect.
Christians should not be hostile toward Jews, as a matter of either religion or ethnicity. Nowhere, however, does holy writ enjoin Christians to make the success of the Jews or of a Jewish state their project, let alone an obsession, especially at the expense of any Christian evaluation of how those Jewish persons or that state behave. The idea seems to be that ethnic Jews may do whatever they wish simply because they are ethnic Jews, a notion Jesus dismissed by telling his Jewish antagonists that God can turn rocks into descendants of Abraham. Today’s evangelicals desperately need a crash course not only in the history of modern Israel but in the history of Christian theology, in which Zionism is a recent innovation.
Notwithstanding everything amiss in the conduct of the current war, perhaps the most appalling display of all has been that of American evangelicals treating it as a holy war for poor little Israel. I am grieved to see a man of Franklin Graham’s stature get caught up in this, and I hope he will go no further with it. I also hope that Israel’s conduct in the lands under its control and among its immediate neighbors will goad at least a few evangelical Zionists to repent for their idolatry.
The Baptist church down the street from my home has on its front lawn a large, well-lit sign that superimposes the Star of David on the Cross, with the slogan “One Faith.” The street is actually a heavily traveled federal highway, which means that the church denies Jesus Christ in front of tens of thousands of motorists every day.
“He who denies me, him will I also deny before my father in heaven,” Jesus says in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, in which he also issues a chilling warning to the most accomplished putative servants of God:
“Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: Depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
I am a deeply flawed man, and my sins are ever before me. For me to upbraid Franklin Graham feels ridiculous; yet, like Martin Luther, here I stand, and I can do no other, God help me.
Franklin Graham has some reflection and repenting to do–and he has a lot of company.