Christian Israel

This chapter contributes to two rarely connected fields – the critical study of Christianity and critical scholarship on Israel. It discusses Israel as an example of the formative power of Christianity and Christendom – how Christianity, as a social and political force, has been instrumental in the making and sustaining of Israel. The chapter also shows why the concept of Christianity is highly relevant to our understandings of Israeli state formation, even if, indeed perhaps because of, how progressive scholarship largely ignores it. The aim is not to replace concepts such as ‘settler colony’, ‘race’ or ‘apartheid’, but to argue that Christianity is also foundational. In critical scholarship, Israel is usually conceived as no more (nor less) than a Western settler colony engaged in a project of dispossession and genocide against an indigenous population. However, if Israel is also understood in its Christian-inflected historical, regional and spiritual contexts, imaginings of its past, present and futures may be enhanced. The story of Christianity in the making of Israel is a neglected one that this chapter intends to elucidate.