The odd couple: Jews and premillennial dispensational fundamentalism (P.S. "and its cousins").

Marty, Martin E.

A text that sets the stage and tone for this essay and for my contribution to the symposium on Evangelical-Jewish relations as they bear on "politics, policy, and theology" comes from Abraham Lincoln's famed "House Divided Speech." The sentence is attractive to those of us who are historians, since it limits us as historians from predicting or projecting impulses into the future. Historians have nothing to say about the future, if they stay within the context of their discipline, yet they have some faith that what they do can be of service to people who deal with policy. Assessing "where we are" depends on "from where we have come," an observation that locates us in relation to the past, which is our field. So, anticipating its bearing on our subject, I quote Lincoln: "If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do and how to do it."

My task is to focus on what bearing modern religious fundamentalisms have on Evangelical-Jewish relations and, in a minor way, vice versa. Relating fundamentalism to these "relations" is only one part, perhaps a small part, of the whole that demands inquiry these years. In part this is the case because, as will become clear as we proceed, Judaism and Jews have, in the main, not been hospitable to or inventors of movements that make a clear match for Protestant fundamentalism. From the beginning, then, there is some imbalance and the metaphor of an "odd couple" might come to mind at once to observers of interactions among Jews and evangelicals.

We are not going to equate evangelicals and evangelicalisms with fundamentalists and fundamentalisms. They have much in common, as is clear to anyone who studies the origins and development of fundamentalisms. Yet, participants in evangelical movements are offspring who do not always want to be simply identified with their parent, the Protestant fundamentalism that began to take root between 1900 and 1920, after which it flowered. Many evangelicals could signal their assent to most doctrinal contentions of fundamentalism. Evangelicals, however, tend to be mistrusted by true-blue fundamentalists, who see them as compromisers who have been too eager to adapt themselves to nonfundamentalists in order to become more acceptable in the larger culture.

Meanwhile, many evangelicals show their distrust of and distaste for militant fundamentalists, heirs of ancestors who institutionalized these apparently conservative Protestant movements in 1943 when they formed the National Association of Evangelicals. These more moderate believers felt that the rudeness, brusqueness, and arrogance so evident in fundamentalisms hurt the cause of presenting Jesus Christ winsomely and effectively. They also set out to enlarge the agenda of evangelicalism and to distance themselves from the radical separatism of most fundamentalists.

Still, a study of what occasioned fundamentalism and why it took the shape it did can illumine the evangelical developments and make the tasks of comprehending and dealing with evangelicalisms more effective for Jews who want to be their allies, whether for pragmatic or for ideological reasons. Such study has been a special interest of mine for the past twenty years. Through six of those years, R. Scott Appleby and 1 directed a comparative study of militant modern religious fundamentalisms in, at first, thirteen and, in the end, over twenty religious bases. With the aid of scores of scholars who were associated or familiar with the ethos and practices of these religions we issued a five-volume work that is used globally in comparative studies. I will commend it to those who wish to pursue the ins and outs of the movement far beyond what one needs for the present topic. (1)

In that study for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences a large company of scholars studied six Christian movements, only one of which is relevant here, namely the U. S. Protestant phenomenon. The others--including Guatemalan Pentecostalism, U.S. Catholicism, the Italian Communione e Liberazione institution, and South Indian expressions--are not to the point. We also studied eight Islamic movements, only five of which are of importance in the environment of Jewish-Evangelical interactions. They are Egyptian Jama'at, Hamas, Iranian Khomeini, Iranian Shi'ite, Lebanese Hizbullah, and Pakistani Jama'at-iIslam. There were four Jewish movements. Two of them, Haredi and Habad, are of only incidental interest, but Gush Emunim and Kach, small though they are, or were, lent themselves to comparative studies. (South Asian cases, Hindu RSS, Sikh radical, and Sinhala Buddhist hardly relate to Evangelical-Jewish scenes.)

In passing, let me note that we isolated and defined but did not study "secular fundamentalisms," of which there are plenty: fundamentalisms of religious Lefts, traditionalisms such as Amish Protestant, ultra-orthodox Roman Catholicism, or Latter-day Saint ultra-conservatisms. Like Orthodox Judaism, each of these includes some "ultras," but they lack many elements usually associated with fundamentalism. Of course, whoever wants to throw light on American and Israeli scenes where evangelicals and Jews have reason to encounter each other will likely do as our scholars did: focus at times on what philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein called "family resemblances" and what others called "fundamentalist-like movements." Some of them relate strongly to the conference and symposium theme because of their engagements with or embodiments of "politics, public policy, and theology."

From a study of previous work on the Jewish-Evangelical front and its agendas, I deduced that the current assignment, despite its broad character, was not intended to be generic in dealing with fundamentalism. So there need be no reference here to Hindu-Muslim conflict in India or to Muslims anywhere but in the Middle East. American Jews are trying to make sense of their oft-time allies among American evangelicals, including their fundamentalist wings, while the more moderate evangelicals who deal with Jews and Judaism look for theological roots of "politics" and "public policy" in domestic Jewish affairs and vis-avis Israel. They are pressed to discern and define the part fundamentalism plays within them in America and in Israel. It is likely that there would not be Evangelical-Jewish conferences at all beyond the normal range of interfaith engagements, were it not for interests in Israel that are common to both of the otherwise not easily matched or linked "odd-couple" camps.

Observers of the Evangelical-Jewish scene confront complex and controversial features of these movement, because there are competing factions, each of which is more viscous and fluid than is the image they project of solid, firm, unchanging commitments. "Modern Orthodoxy" in Judaism and adapted evangelicalism deviate drastically in ethos, shape, and intentions from their spiritual ancestors. Behind all the moves, however, there are basic continuities that provide identities for members of the movements.

Some Elements of Classic (Post-1920) Fundamentalisms

While evangelicals thrive within the tradition of classical or historical Protestantism in the United States, when their ancestors less than a century ago invented fundamentalism, they were creating something new out of what looked like and was advertised as "the old-time religion." Most Protestants in the nineteenth century had called themselves evangelical, and guidebooks to American religion tended to equate evangelicalism and Protestantism.

Thanks to external forces and internal strains through the nineteenth century there developed movements that went by names such as "conservative," "traditional," "orthodox," or "classical." Most of these were positive movements, zealous attempts to cherish and propagate what the leaders perceived and sincerely regarded as the unquestioned center of the Christian faith. Of course, they carried on evangelizing work among Jews on the basis of their understanding of a commission by Jesus to evangelize and also their belief that temporal gains and eternal bliss were to be associated with the Christian gospel. Of course, they made enemies among other Protestants. Religious bodies and movements that are vital are always full of controversy. Yet, with few exceptions--for example, the Unitarian move away from Congregational roots early in the nineteenth century--the church bodies were able to contain many of their extremes.

Whoever wants to deal with evangelicals has to know that they consider themselves to be in continuity with this defensible and salvific "faith once delivered to the [nineteenth century] saints." Jews and others who deal with those modern evangelicals who have fundamentalist roots or ties have to know that these roots did not grow only in standard-brand Protestantism. Instead, they reflect the re-formational activities of these when specific challenges came. Our team of scholars never located any fundamentalism developing where there had not been prior conservatisms. No liberal or even moderate culture or church turned fundamentalist. Something had to happen to conservatisms to inspire defensive innovations. Something(s) did.

In July of 1920 after a meeting of the Northern Baptist Convention and during the publication of comment on it, proto-fundamentalist leaders complained about passivism and complacency within the denominational ranks. Everyone wanted to be conservative, but conservatives, they complained, were doing too little to face the challenges of modernism. In "our" turn, one Baptist editor went on, we want to be seen as re-active--mark that word or concept. Re-actors would counterpunch against modern threats. Some of these threats included "the higher criticism" of the Bible in Protestant seminaries, along with teachings that downplayed human evil and others that relied on what they presumed to be a literal reading of the Bible. The key word, as just noted, became "re-act," and the new partisans did re-act vehemently. They pledged to "do battle for the Lord" against enemies of the church from without and among the defenders of the faith itself.

This reactive feature is important for every Jew who deals with evangelicals to know, since it explains many of the defensive and militant extremes that often characterize participants in this form of Christian response. Much that was in the Bible had little direct bearing on the controversies among Baptists, Presbyterians, and other Protestants. The leaders engaged in what Appleby and I, following an idea of Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, called "selective retrieval."

Why "selective"? Most Protestants would have regarded the doctrine of the Trinity, the dogmas concerning the divine and human character of Christ, the meaning of the sacraments, and the saving activity of God to be the true fundamentals. The new fundamentalists continued to believe in historic versions of these, but in the 1920's, in the face of biblical criticism, the self-named fundamenalists reached for what they considered to be "literal" readings of biblical texts, which, they claimed, addressed the issues. In the face of Darwinian evolutionists they reacted by coming up with various "scientific" understandings of the Bible's stories of creation. In the face of progressive eschatologies, they convoked pessimistic views of what humans could achieve on the basis of their nature, apart from the activity of the Christian God. With an arsenal of teachings like these they stock-piled ammunition labeled "The Fundamentals," and were ready to fire.

Almost a century after this formation, Jews who work with evangelicals do well to recall this militant and defensive or reactive past of fundamentalism. The extremes of the movement have been softened among self-named evangelicals, but the older basic worldview remains, one that is at odds with post-Enlightenment secularity as it operates in university life. It is in this context that fundamentalists and evangelicals rage against "secular humanism," which they regard as a privileged ethos or ideology that must be faced.

Before leaving this illuminating theme of fundamentalist reaction to modernity and modernism, we would do well to insert a reference to a phenomenon that newcomers to these studies find puzzling. I refer to the fundamentalists' at-homeness with selective features of industrial-corporate life and invention, among them, most notably, mass media of communication. Fundamentalists seized and made their own media that most observers consider to be a hallmark of modern achievements and a bearer of anti-Christian messages. In open competition for almost a century now, they have been more adept in their use of such media than are their moderate, modern, and modernist competitors within the Christian community. Jews have certainly seen this feature in their dealing with liberal Catholics and Protestants, because the latter are relatively inept in their use of modern media, while evangelicals and fundamentalists dominate in the religious-broadcasting sphere.

One of the accents of early fundamentalism that survives in sometimes moderated form in evangelicalism is a philosophical concept coded as "inerrancy of the Bible." With it came another philosophical concept, its idea of "literal interpretation." The inerrantists provided one of the strongest weapons for reactive fundamentalism, based on a kind of syllogism: The Bible is the Word of God. God cannot err. Therefore, the Bible is inerrant, in its original manuscripts (that we lack). If there is an apparent "mistake" or contradiction in biblical texts, the flaw must result from the work of copyists. The fundamentalists find company among most Orthodox Jews, though the two religious camps disagree over which "literal" interpretation" of the Bible is correct. At this point we need only point out that religious groups that view their originating text as inerrant find it easier to focus power than do those that allow for ambiguity, contradiction, and acknowledged differences in interpretation, since it is more difficult to erect boundaries around a group that allows for differences.

Boundary-setting is something that all religious groups do to some extent as they fortify the group identity of members, while they exclude all others. Jews may assert and reinforce their identity in a variety of ways, from "nonobservant" and Reform to ultra-conservative and fundamentalist. When they deal with evangelicals, they face groups not formed on the basis of racial or ethnic identity or communal memory but on enclaves formed around their reaction to modernity in its many forms. Sometimes the Protestant fundamentalist groups are formed on interracial bases and in geographically disparate bases, but these are enclaves because, they testify, they are "born again," "had a personal experience of Jesus," or believed in a particular "literal interpretation" of the "inerrant Word of God." This feature becomes important when Jews deal with fundamentalists and evangelicals who are more insistent than most Jews, including many Zionists, that a certain set of boundaries of "the Holy Land" were set by God in the revealed Word, and no human dare yield any acres of Israel's land through political negotiations.

Fundamentalisms prospered and prosper when they effectively invent an evil and challenging "other." Jewish fundamentalists found this "other" in all Jews who were not formally Zionist and were seen as political and moral compromisers. Jews who deal with Protestant fundamentalists and even with moderate evangelicals will soon find that these (often "demonic") others often can be reduced to labeling as "modernist" or "liberal" or "secular humanist." Beyond that, the choice of enemies differs from time to time. Through much of its history American Protestant fundamentalism was radically anti-Catholic. In the "literal interpretation" of the "inerrant Bible" of the time, fundamentalists found references in the Book of Revelation and some writings of the apostle Paul that enabled them to name the pope as Antichrist. They did not invent this labeling: Early Protestants beginning with Martin Luther pointed to the pope when reading those biblical passages. But, in the twentieth century, fundamentalists took this theme over and opposed politicians who were Catholic and thus servants of the Antichrist.

Then came the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973, after which fundamentalists and evangelicals found most ready allies among militant Catholics. Now coalitions developed between Catholics and the moderate evangelicals to the extent that new political alliances emerged and gained power. More recently the demonic "others" for both Jewish and Protestant fundamentalists are qur'anic Muslims who, when they appeared in aggressive political or revolutionary form, became the latest group to provide coherence, focus, and emotional bases around which fundamentalists could unite.

If in 1920 Northern Baptists in America "waged war" chiefly against the denomination's mission agencies, publications, and seminaries for not being reactive enough against enemies of their gospel, today schools of fundamentalists, in the main Christian Zionists, reject all forms of Protestantism that do not share their interpretation and the philosophy of history that unites them. That philosophy supports their view, appropriated from the Bible, that God is with them, guiding them, giving them victories, and promising ultimate success, which will culminate in a particular version of a foreseen and promised Second Coming of Christ. We need not detail here the means and mechanisms, the conveyances and motors of this coming, over which "literal interpreters" differ, but we do need to notice that however and whenever (soon!) Jesus will come again, they will survive while the despised other--secularists and liberal Christians along with all non-Christian believers--will be "left behind" or destroyed.

Confidence in that final and total victory inspires apocalyptic and premillennial fundamentalists to make some surprising bargains in political and diplomatic alliances. They know that God wants them to be militant, to re-act, to "do battle for the Lord," but many will do this through patient and casual alliances, especially with Jews, while many Jews with other outlooks and intentions criticize their Zionist cohorts who do business with premillennialist Protestants who, some hear, foresee the conversion of Jews to Christ, while others will be "left behind."

Imbalances that Make Comparative Work Difficult

So we have Protestants fundamentalism and Jewish fundamentalism: What is there to compare? There are more Protestant fundamentalists in America's "Bible Belt" than Jews of all kinds around the world. In searching for traces of Jewish fundamentalism in most places and coming up empty, I think of the story of the purchaser of a book on the flora and fauna of Iceland. It has a folkloric character but captures an ethos well. It was written by Danish scholars, who manifested a taste for comprehension and meticulous inclusion of all things that grow. He noted on the Table of Contents page: "Snakes in Iceland," and, being familiar with Iceland, turned to the designated first page of the chapter. It read simply "There are no snakes in Iceland."

In the strict scholarly senses of the term, "There are no Jewish fundamentalists in Israel or the United States or anywhere else." Yet, we did study two militant groups, whose "selective retrieval" of materials from sacred texts differed considerably from ultra-Orthodox readings. Most notable among evangelicals is the fact that such Orthodox in most cases were not Zionists at all and would wait for the coming of the Messiah before they could profess faith in and support of restored Israel. Such evangelicals were confused by the fact that so much of Zionism was secular and that it provided no religious counterpart to them. While the small fundamentalist militant groups were of interest and became allies of evangelicals, they were of note to others only briefly or in minor and marginal ways, as they explicitly did cite scripture to defend the boundaries of Israel and to oppose and reject Palestinian Muslims and all other anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli Muslims. So, with not many Jewish fundamentalists in our scope, it remains for us to study how Israeli and supporters of Israel make sense of their oft-time allies among certain kinds of Protestant fundamentalists and evangelicals.

Here the focus fails on one strand of evangelicalism, which can trace roots back to the original Protestant reactive forces that organized between the 1880's and 1920's, the one named "Premillennial Dispensational Fundamentalism." Its boldest outlines have been blurred among moderate evangelicals, but versions of it provide the theological or scriptural background for the evangelicals who, by the millions, fit the modern State of Israel into their "literal interpretations" of an "inerrant Bible."

The premillennial dispensational fundamentalists "fit" all the details outlined as being at the heart of fundamentalisms, especially in the American Protestant version. A quick scan will show how this is so.

First, all the fundamentalisms, premillennial or not, developed on soil that had been the nurturing home of conservative, traditional, orthodox, and classical Protestantism, as we see them in Northern Baptist, Presbyterian, and some less denominationally minded groups

Next, in the common pattern of fundamentalism, they reacted against modern and modernist trends, beginning with scientific controversies over evolution and philosophically based and imported "biblical criticism." These also got carried over into explicit attempts to see America as God's providentially guided instrument in their times. It was pictured as being threatened by pluralist intrusions of immigrants who did not share the heritage. More nagging were the liberals who, they argued, were "giving the game away." Reaction and rejection of others colors the life of all the evangelicals with whom Jews interact in support of Israel.

These modernist assaults were perceived as focusing on "The Book," the Hebrew Scriptures and the Second Testament, which had always been viewed conservatively. Now it was necessary for proto-fundamentalists to isolate, lift up, and defend particular views of inerrancy and interpret them with a coded "literal" approach. William Jennings Bryan, a first-generation fundamentalist, heard modern Protestants reciting the creed but interpreting it symbolically, analogically, allegorically, or sacramentally, so he railed against them. He said that unless they used the word "literal" and the method associated with it by fundamentalists, they "sucked" the truth out of them. All Protestant fundamentalists agreed.

This feature may be confusing to Jews who deal with premillennial dispensational fundamentalists, because they ground much of their "literal" interpretation on biblical writings that are and that describe themselves as visions, expounding of dreams, rich in symbols.

Next, that such fundamentalists formed and form enclaves is immediately apparent. Jewish thinkers and people of action can deal for years with non-Jewish and broadly Protestant Americans without finding to which denomination each belongs. Are these Presbyterian, agnostic, Lutheran, Anglican, or "uncommitted"? There is no such problem with premillennial dispensational fundamentalists. They got their motivation to create boundaries and establish distances against liberals and modernists from what they saw going on in their own seminaries, missions, headquarters, and prestige pulpits.

We have observed that fundamentalists, with their particular view of beginnings in divine creation and ending in a millennium, held and hold distinctive philosophies of history. They "know" all about purpose and outcomes and find these centering in a particular view of divine dispensations, differing ways God deals with believers in various stages and unfolding events of history--the current one of which accents a special way of dealing with Israel. Jews will not find this philosophy of history among Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, Establishment Protestants, and even many Protestants who became evangelical independently of dispensational views. They do find that the unquestioned and unquestioning American Protestant political support of whatever policy Israel adopts in order to survive and prosper derives from this particular and in many ways novel (nineteenth century!) view of history.

If the need to "do battle for the Lord" is a mark of other fundamentalisms (and other Lords!), the Protestant evangelicals we are identifying have certainly done so. They have done this without purchasing artillery or weaponry of their own. Evangelical scholar Joel Carpenter reminded us scholars of comparative fundamentalism, "Remember, there are no guns in the basement of the Moody Bible Institute." Fundamentalists can rely on the potential for defense of Israel in American foreign and military policy, which they support vigorously. Jews who find support of Israel on the part of some other Protestants to be marked by vagueness, criticism, or half-heartedness, tend to regard Protestant fundamentalists as potential allies, while the fundamentalists themselves have from the beginning regarded nonfundamentalists as being apathetic about doing battle for the Lord--or even as being opponents of God and the truth.

A final mark of fundamentalisms when compared finds them sure of ultimate victory. There are lively arguments among cultural historians as to whether or not the founders and their successors were pessimistic when they devised their end-of-the-present-world schemes. It is certain that they were optimistic about themselves as a remnant but pessimistic over the fate of everyone else, which means the vast majority of the human race not destined to be "raptured," to use a code word and symbol in the dispensationalist lexicon. Often unnoticed but crucial here is the American fundamentalists' opposition to other views of the future when these are relevant. For instance, they opposed Marxist prophecies and efforts, while domestically most were critical of progressivisms and especially of the "social gospel" among other Protestants. In views of the future held by progressives and liberals the fundamentalists found all the flaws and addressed the public with their outlooks that so often made good sense. It was this vision of outcomes that moved them, as early as in proto-fundamentalist conferences after 1878, to be "Zionist" before Jewish Zionism was well-advanced. Their commitment to this philosophy of history, fortified by selectively retrieved and interpreted biblical texts, led them to be eager promoters of a nation of Israel as a modern political state.

Jews would never have had reason to be curious about or to make common cause with evangelicals were it not for the premillennial dispensational fundamentalist vision among them. In so many other respects "secular Jews," observant Reform and Conservative and many Orthodox politically liberal (and thus majority) Jews would simply have dismissed and disdained most features of the conservative Protestant, evangelical, and fundamentalist agendas.

Public media and pollsters often treat a whole range of religious phenomena as "evangelical." Not to take away from the fact that there are some common factors among Reformed and Baptist white Protestant lineages, Pentecostalisms, African-American churches, Wesleyan movements, reformist evangelicals, and many more, but it is to be noted that they are often disparate movements with competing distinctives. As this is true in theology, it is also, if sometimes on a gentler scale, determinative in much of the piety, liturgy, behavioral, and liturgical context. With most of these features most Jews will find little reason to show curiosity.

Talking about political stances of fundamentalists and evangelicals at all would confuse any who have taken the measure of movements at all fifty or even thirty years ago. Tracking back, historians point out that evangelicalism in Euro-America and elsewhere did have a long tradition that often included interest in social issues and reform, for example, in some anti-slavery and temperance causes, humanitarian missions in slums, and the like. However, through the middle of the twentieth century, most could still be conceived of and reported on as other-worldly, "Salvationist" at heart, and resistant to politics and public policy, especially if these took on a partisan cast. As late as my Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America, I could write the following, adducing massive documentation from the voices of evangelical leaders, especially when they were being polemical:

 One party, which may be called "Private" Protestantism, seized that
 name "evangelical" which had characterized all Protestants early in
 the nineteenth century. It accented individual salvation out of the
 world, personal moral life congruent with the ideals of the saved,
 and fulfillment or its absence in the rewards or punishment in
 another world in a life to come. The second informal group, which
 can be called "Public" Protestantism, was public insofar as it was
 more exposed to the social order and the social destinies of men.
 Whereas the word "evangelical" somehow came to be a part of the
 description of the former group, the word "social" almost always
 worked its way into designations of the latter. (2)

Along with other historians I tried to do justice there and in many other writings to the vitality of older evangelicalism, its reform energies (especially in matters of "vice" and "virtue" over which the individual had some control), its instruments of mercy such as the Salvation Army, and its partial role in the ancestry of the "social gospel." However, in a new phase, changes in the most recent three decades have been seen as drastic. The formerly "private" party suddenly became the most politically engaged; the once politically passive became the most activist, while the "public" party began to turn its reformist efforts more to local social movements as it became less vocal or effective on the national level.

Sociologists before the last third of the previous century, when they studied American religion including fundamentalisms and evangelicalisms as these related to Judaism in general on the domestic scene--Israel showed up rarely and in a minor way--found them to be more Antisemitic or wary of Jews and Judaism than were moderate and liberal Protestants. Thus, Bernhard E. Olson in Faith and Prejudice: Intergroup Problems in Protestant Curricula (3) found inferences and references to Judaism to be most negative as he came upon them in fundamentalist texts and sources. (Evangelicalism was not in the index!) Be it noted that, after such works appeared, evangelical and many other conservative curriculum writers changed considerably and muted their criticisms of Judaism.

While still seen as eccentric and marginal in the main political process, a number of historians such as Ernest R. Sandeen, David A. Rausch, and Timothy Weber began to discover and expose to view a different and neglected element in fundamentalism, namely Christian Zionism, which reached as far back as 1878. They detailed the unfamiliar--to the general public--major strain within earliest and continuing fundamentalism. It was the premillennial dispensational fundamentalism that is now so familiar but was then a novel interpretation of how a modern State of Israel must be developed and later defended in order for the millennial Second Coming of Christ to occur. For this view, fundamentalists had to "do battle for the Lord." The literature on Christian Zionism and later involvement by evangelicals with Israel pre- and post-1948 is extensive and cannot become our subject here, especially because experts have detailed it in similar conferences.

This development is a typical case of "selective retrieval," since the biblical texts cited by Christian Zionists were either extremely rare and considered to be minor or they were subject to amillennial, postmillennial, and alternative-kinds of-premillennial interpretation until the middle of the nineteenth century. So it is that here "the old-time religion" is in the eyes of most Christian orthodoxy "new-time"--shall we say "modern." It is anything but literal as it draws on the rare "dream books" in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Second Testament. What looked literal to fundamentalists looked different to the nonfundamentalist. For one scholar, dispensational invention was "a remarkable achievement of the mythopoeic fantasy."

 As a feat of the imagination it might well compare with the
 apocalyptic poems of Blake, and indeed these latter may have done
 something to influence its origin.... Whatever one thinks of it in
 relation to truth, and even if one looks on it as a mass of myth
 and fiction, dispensationalism is a remarkable and in many ways
 original approach to the understanding of the Bible. Though fully
 fundamentalist in almost every aspect, dispensationalism has
 originality and creativity of a sort that is lacking in 'orthodox'
 fundamentalism. It offers something new. Its most fervent devotee
 can hardly boast that dispensationalism is the faith which all the
 saints through all the ages have professed. On the contrary, it is
 something quite different: at a time when fundamentalism of
 orthodox types can be only merely conservative, recalling us to
 truths that were acknowledged before liberalism came along,
 dispensationalism reveals a total and peculiar system of
 interpretation about which no one knew before the mid-nineteenth
 century. (4)

But, whatever may be said about its creativity, when it is considered as a statement of Christian theological truth, dispensationalism creates for fundamentalist faith a difficulty in the opposite direction, for it can scarcely be doubted that dispensational doctrine is heretical and should count as such, if the term "heresy" is to have any meaning. If dispensationalism is not heresy, then nothing is heresy.

This is not to say that there have not been scores of other than dispensational "apocalypticisms" that anticipated the consummation of history and the Second Coming of Christ. Each period of Christian history--whether in earliest Christianity, Joachimites in the thirteenth century, among Protestant "sects" in the sixteenth century, or in later independent movements--offered its own versions. Apocalypticisms are episodic; they come and change and go. Mention of them helps locate the twentieth-century novelties and perhaps contributes to the sense in the minds of many that this form will not dominate or last forever. Seeing it as a late arrival and a minority movement does not mean that it is to be dismissed. One should not measure truth by counting noses nor dismiss something as heretical simply because it only developed in the nineteenth century. I adduce all this here as a means of indicating to Jews who reach out to such fundamentalist and evangelical devotees of dispensationalism and who support it why such outreach leaves most Christians cold and alienated, if not hostile.

This is crucial: Always inventing, adapting, and changing, American Protestant fundamentalisms found leaders taking a new turn as they moved into distinctive forms of political activities and coalitions. I observe that a key time came late in the twentieth century when their politics changed from what I call "the politics of fear and resentment" to "the politics of "will-to-power" or of "the assertion of power." It was in that later stage, as some political victories loomed or were achieved among them, that dispensationalist fundamentalism and its kin, acting in alliances and with coalitions, found connections with and sympathy for many kinds of Jewish expression in foreign policy. There has been less congeniality over domestic, usually liberal issues. It is part of the life of an odd couple that so many evangelicals support Jews when they deal with Israel but oppose them on most matters domestic, where Jewish liberalism appears.

Our 100-plus American Academy scholars, as already noted, found only rare and small counterparts to Protestant fundamentalism in Judaism, noting only Gush Emunim and Kach. The latter, to our scholars, appeared to be a tiny, noisy, passing phenomenon, little open to or noticed by evangelicals or most others. Gush Emunim, small though it was and generally treated in the past tense in the twenty-first century, did contribute to the interreligious or comparative models of modern religious fundamentalism. It could almost serve as a textbook case, especially as it related ancient texts to modern aspirations to describe the boundaries of Israel.

The issue of Israel aside, Gush Emunim and American fundamentalists did not draw on each other in any significant way politically or culturally. Moderate and liberal Jews do not accept fundamentalist theology, beyond some notice of dispensationalist "theology of the land" and divine covenant. Readers will find a classic list of substantive items in the original American Protestant fundamentalism in the writing of Sandeen. (5) All distinctives of evangelicalism are formidably christological and trinitarian, including the final reference to "the millennial age, when Israel shall be restored to their own land, and the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord." (6) Neither Jews, including Zionists, nor Protestant fundamentalists had held anything in common except the defense of Israel, which Christian Zionists defined as a revelatory divine intervention. Seldom were Zionist appeals made on such grounds.

A complicating factor in this odd coupling finds that the fate of Jews in the dispensationalist visions of the millennium--conversion, extinction as a people, etc.--has been treated ambiguously by many Christian Zionists. The fact that it so seldom concerns Jewish defenders of dispensationalism is a subject of puzzlement and criticism beyond the two parties that are involved. What Jews thought of early in the nineteenth- through mid-twentieth-century times about dispensationalism rarely shows up in accounts by Protestant historians. Protestant modernists such as Shirley Jackson Case of Chicago were alternatively so bemused, befuddled, enraged, or frantic about dispensationalism that their critiques were of no use to Protestant moderates. (7)

To conclude with the strophe of Abraham Lincoln about "whither we are tending," we note the obvious: that not all Christians are Protestant, not all Protestants are evangelicals, not all evangelicals are fundamentalist, and not all fundamentalists are dispensationalists, but all dispensationalists do believe that the restoration of the State of Israel with biblically stipulated boundaries is central to the divine plan for the Second Coming of Christ and his millennial reign.

I will close with some observations about the ironies in the alignments of some supporters of Israel and this dispensationalism.

First, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to sort out the various breeds and brands of evangelicalism on the basis of opinion polls and registers of memberships; there is too much overlapping among camps; boundaries are too blurry and informed participation too spotty; pop-cultural ("Left Behind") and contradictory approaches confuse believers and outside observers alike. But, whatever the size of the body of consistent Christian Zionists, they have political influence and emotional appeal, and they support Israel--though not so often unquestioningly--along with those who are not dispensationalist.

The political commitments of dispensational fundamentalist evangelicals in recent years have been closely identified with policies of what came to be called both the domestic and foreign policy of the "Right." These dispensationalists have been more firm in support of Israel and its policies than have recent political administrations, supportive of Israel though they have consistently been. The commitment seems to be firm because it is "theologically" grounded and therefore not up for negotiation in such evangelical eyes. Note also that fundamentalist claims are often more strident than those of most Israelis, whether in "theology," "politics," or "public policy.

Most observers see little influence on evangelicals by Jews in matters of domestic policy. There may be congenialities and coincidences, but these are more likely grounded in long-term political and economic understandings than in any theological rootage among either Jews or evangelicals. This means that, while approaches to Israel are nonnegotiable, attitudes toward cultural, social, and domestic political issues are negotiable. I offer one example among many political instances: The nation was somewhat stunned to see evangelist Pat Robertson supporting Rudy Giuliani for the Republican nomination for president in 2008, despite vast differences on most domestic issues and religious outlook.

As for the move of moments through history, just as Kach and Gush Emunim are usually spoken of in the past tense, so many evangelical movements have come and gone, or at least positions and commitments have changed, and these are likely to continue to change. Israel is the bond and best bet for continued dialogue and mutuality.

Let me point to two bemusements widely experienced by observers of the Jewish-Evangelical odd couple. The first and most familiar one is in the form of a generalization that admits some exceptions: How can Jews wholeheartedly accept and honor groups whose vision of the outcome of history includes either the conversion or destruction (even in hell) of conversion-resistant Jews?

The second is also recast as a question: How large and consistent is the premillennial dispensational faction in political evangelicalism? In some forums the claims point to scores of millions of constituents, but many chroniclers and public relation leaders are suddenly described as a small minority within evangelicalism when one points to their stands or their role in Judaism and Israel. In other words, it is hard to know what such fundamentalists assess: How many will be "left behind" after the raptured have been removed from the U.S.?

Since I am not Jewish, am ambiguously related to evangelicalism, and negative toward dispensationalism, I say to Jews and evangelicals in dialogue and coalition: "The ball is in your courts," and I'll be eager to keep observing and chronicling your efforts.

* This was the Murray Friedman Memorial Lecture at the conference on "Evangelical-Jewish Relations: Politics, Policy and Theology," held in Philadelphia on November 28, 2007.

(1) The Fundamentalism Project, a series from the University of Chicago Press (Chicago and London), was edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby. It includes five volumes as follows: Vol. 1, Fundamentalisms Observed ( 1991 ); Vol. 2, Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming the Sciences. the Family. and Education (1993); Vol. 3, Fundamentalisms and the State. Remaking Polities. Economies, and Militance (1993); Vol. 4, with associate editors, Nancy T. Ammerman, Samuel C. Heilman, James Piscatori, and Robert Eric Frykenberg, Accounting for Fundamentalisms. The Dynamic Character of Movements (1994); and Vol. 5, Fundamentalisms Comprehended (1995). See http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Complete/Series/FP.html.

(2) Martin E. Marty, Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America, Two Centuries of American Life, A Bicentennial Series (New York: Dial, 1970), p. 179.

(3) Bernhard E. Olson, Faith and Prejudice: Intergroup Problems in Protestant Curricula (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1963).

(4) James Barr, Fundamentalism (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977, 1978), p. 195.

(5) See Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1970), Appendix A, "The 1878 Niagara Creed," pp. 273-277.

(6) Ibid, p. 277.

(7) See Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), for a balanced view of fundamentalist philo-Semitism and Antisemitism