Israel's Definition Threat & Trump
It is my personal belief that the reason Trump is waging this war is due almost entirely to his ego. Trump is a narcissist. That narcissism is undeniable by even Trump's largest supporters. Unfortunately, it makes him highly susceptible to flattery and by extension, policy decisions driven by cajolery.
This past week, a number of high profile Christian Zionists visited the White House to pray over Trump and encourage him to continue the war. This was a familiar scene, as it also happened early-on during the first week of our military engagement with Iran. These same "faith leaders" are openly stating that Trump was chosen by God to defeat Israel's enemy, Iran.
Both Bibi Netanyahu and Ambassador Mike Huckabee said similar things. Trump was chosen to defeat Israel's enemies. This dovetails nicely with Trump's own gargantuan belief in himself. At a minimum, Trump knows he was a half inch away from being killed in Pennsylvania in 2024. God intervened to save him. But why God saved Trump is a narrative that is being exploited by Israel First politicians and Christian leaders.
"God saved you from execution and lawfare to put you into this role at this time to expand Israel and serve Israel - God's Chosen People."
I am sure Trump believes this. It is a narcissistic Messianic complex on steroids. It is also scriptually heretical and dangerous. We already made this a religious war by attacking Iran on the eve of Purim and killing the leader of the Shi'ite faith. Now we have an American President making decisions predicated on an absolute belief that God chose him. Countries led by such men never recover in history.
But there is another risk that is quietly being ignored. When Trump fails in Iran, he will expose something that almost every Covenantilist has said about Dispensationalists for a century: You are supporting the wrong Israel.
Biblical Israel was regarded by all Christians to be the Christian Community (church) writ large until the end of the 19th Century. Out of nowhere, the definition of Biblical Israel changed with the emergence of Dispensationalism. Suddenly, the Jewish people were regarded as "Israel," and Christians were a newly grafted entity into a Promise of God. This theological belief culminated in the establishment of a Jewish state calling itself "Israel" as Dispensationalism began to dominate Evangelical Christianity, beginning in the 1930s, and becoming a political force in America.
If Trump fails, he not only loses his Messianic mission, the very question of Biblical Israel is shaken, as well. Would God let His Chosen people suffer a defeat at the hands of Muslims? More importantly, the Islamic variant we are fighting elevates Jesus Christ. So, it would not only indicate a defeat by ordinary Muslims, but Muslims who invoke Jesus Christ and have fought to defend Christian communities throughout the Middle East - often at great expense to themselves.
If Biblical Israel's definition is reopened, it can have long term and expansive damage upon many churches that embraced that redefinition beginning in the late 19th Century. Again, Covenantisls have long argued that God's relationship with mankind is established by His Promises (Covenants) and the most important Covenant of God was the New Covenant through Jesus Christ. Believers in the New Covenant are the only Chosen people.
Correspondingly, if the question of Biblical Israel is reopened, it directly challenges the basis upon which nearly 80 years of American foreign policy in the Middle East has been based. This is why there is a near desperation on the part of some Christian leaders - many of whom are praying to God to use Trump, not as a vessel for HIS Will, but to defend their human (mis)understanding of Israel. That is potentially more dangerous than a misguided President driven by his own ego toward an unnecessary war.
