Announcing the Second Issue of the Journal for the Study of Christian Zionism: Christian Zionism and Nationalism in the Era of Trump

Dear ,

The second issue of the Journal for the Study of Christian Zionism focuses particularly on Christian Zionism as it relates to the authoritarianism currently wielded by the second US Trump administration. The authors – Halah Ahmad, Ben Lorber, and Robert O. Smith – examine how Christian Zionism shores up American tyranny both at home and abroad, bolstering the repression of activism around Palestine in the United States and partnering with Christian nationalism as well as fueling Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Smith looks at three cases that demonstrate the real-world effects of Christian Zionist commitments and political activities: 1) Judge Julia Sebutinde’s jurisprudence for the International Court of Justice; 2) the Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther; and 3) the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Ahmad examines how Christian Zionist groups and individuals have for decades aimed to suppress democracy and gain electoral power in the United States, bringing us to the present authoritarian moment. Lorber does a deep dive into one such group actualizing the Christian Zionist policy agenda: the New Apostolic Reformation and its leader, Florida-based Mario Bramnick. Lorber argues that Bramnick’s increasing influence in the realm of Christian Zionism “illustrates the dominionist, messianic agenda, and increasingly transnational and multiethnic character of [the ideology], a bedrock of today’s authoritarian and Christian nationalist upsurge.”

Works written by Kathleen Christison (Justice on the Cross: Palestinian Liberation Theology, the Struggle Against Israeli Oppression, and the Church) and edited by Susan Landau (‘Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By’: Jews of Conscience on Palestine), reviewed by Dr. Michael Spath and Dr. Mark Braverman, respectively, then provide a welcome template for how to engage critically and ethically as Christians and Jews in the face of Christian Zionism.

Forthcoming journal issues will consider Christian Zionism in Latin America and indigenous Palestinian responses to Christian Zionism. Please also check out our new podcast, Bad Theology: Busted, co-hosted by ISCZ team members Dee Roberts and Jesse Wheeler which features such figures as founders of the Institute, Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer and Rev. Dr. Don Wagner, as well as academics, analysts, theologians, and activists from Latin America, South Africa, and beyond.

We hope you’ll consider supporting our work. To make a donation, please go to: https://studychristianzionism.org/donate/.

In solidarity,

Mimi Kirk

ISCZ Director

Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac (1979—) is a Palestinian pastor, author, and theologian based in the occupied West Bank. He completed a PhD at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, later becoming the director of the Christ at the Checkpoint conference and academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College. Rev. Dr. Isaac currently serves as Director of the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice, and in June 2025 he was installed as the Pastor of the Church of Hope Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ramallah. In December 2023, Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, under Rev. Munther's leadership, created a nativity scene depicting Jesus lying on a pile of rubble and his sermon "Christ in the Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament" went viral. This sermon became the title inspiration of Isaac’s 2025 book, Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza. Speaking from his vantage point as a prominent Palestinian Christian theologian, Isaac challenges Western Christians’ uncritical embrace of Zionist theology and politics. Christ in the Rubble is a must read for all Christians living in western countries.