When They Come for You, They Won’t Ask if You’re a Christian Zionist or Not |
On the eve of Easter 2026, a person dressed in black placed an explosive device at the entrance of the Israel Centre in Nijkerk, Netherlands. The building is operated by Christians for Israel, a nonprofit that promotes biblical understanding of God’s purposes for the Jewish people. The damage was limited. No one was inside. The message was not.
The attack fits a pattern that has spread across Western Europe since the US-Israeli war against Iran began in late February. Synagogues bombed in Rotterdam and Liège. A Jewish school targeted in Amsterdam. Ambulances run by Jewish volunteers set on fire in London. A car torched in Antwerp. The attacks have been claimed by a little-known Islamist group with possible links to Iran.
Nijkerk was different. This time the target was not Jewish. It was Christian.
While an explosive device was detonated at the door of a Christian organization for its association with Israel, Christians in other parts of the world argue fiercely about whether such an association is theologically legitimate at all.
Within Christianity there are two major positions on this matter. Dispensationalism holds that God’s promises to Israel remain in effect and that the Jewish people continue to occupy a central place in the divine plan. Replacement theology, or supersessionism, teaches that the Church inherited those promises and that Israel no longer has a special role. The differences between eschatological positions among believers are mostly about the chronology of certain expected events, but beyond that, the doctrinal pillars of Christianity are the same. A secondary topic like Israel’s position in this discussion should not generate a division so severe that it leads to serious accusations against the other side. Constructive and elevated dialogue is fine. But this discussion has spiraled completely out of control between two sides that basically believe the same thing about eternity.
What I do know is this: while that discussion takes place in seminaries, conferences, and social media threads, a man in black places a bomb at the door of a Christian center on the holiest weekend of the Christian calendar. He just sees a Christian organization supporting Israel.
My own chain of logic
During my teenage years I did not know what to believe. I decided to be an atheist. Then I read the Gospels and came to believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. Then I read Paul in the New Testament. Then I read the history of Israel in the Old Testament. And then the connection between Christianity and the Jewish people became evident. I did not have to dig for it when using the literal method of interpreting the New and Old Testament.
Jesus was Jewish. The apostles were Jewish. Paul was Jewish. Jesus explicitly endorsed the divine inspiration of the Pentateuch. Which means he endorsed the covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants, a covenant that predates Christianity by millennia, including the promise that whoever blesses Israel will be blessed and whoever curses Israel will be cursed. Has God ever failed to keep a promise? If the answer is no, the promise stands. It does not depend on a border. It does not depend on a political party. It does not depend on whether the Jewish people accept the........