I have a minister friend who I have never met but have interacted with for many years over his bold stance—bolstered by an important book he authored—against the normalization of homosexuality around the world. He seemed fearless and willing to take the heat, a true Gideon, immune from the slop that courses down the sluices built by the “New Model Army Corp of Engineers” that are high jacking America.
So I was taken aback when he posted this on his FaceBook account:
“This truth deserves frequent repetition in today’s climate of mindless Anti-Zionism. “Zionism” is merely the belief that the House of Judah has a covenantal right to the Holy Land granted by God to Abraham and his descendants. Bible literalism affirms this right, which Gal 3:15-17 and Romans 11:25-29 confirm is not revocable nor merit-based like the Mosaic Law is/was.”
I responded: “I agree with your definition of Zionism. Couldn’t disagree more that it is supported by scripture.”
He responded: “Gal 3:15-17 and Romans 11:25-29: simple biblical “math.””
I then responded: “Using New (Darby/Scofield) Math, yes. Old, classical mathematics, absolutely not.”
And then, to quote the poet, “I felt the earth move underneath my feet” and hammered out a full-throated response:
You do realize, Scott, that for roughly 1,850 years the vast majority of Christian scholars—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant alike—understood that the only remaining promise concerning natural Israel was a future spiritual revival before Christ returns to close the scroll on this world, when many Jews would come to faith in Him.
As for every other promise—including the land grant—it was understood to belong to the true seed of Abraham: the Church. And the land? Not a narrow strip of territory in the Middle East, but ultimately the whole world.
Because of a theological thought virus that has infected you and millions of other well-meaning evangelical Christians, the world now finds itself in a very dangerous place.
The virus was manufactured in England by John Nelson Darby in the late 1820s and early 1830s, cultured in the laboratory of Plymouth Brethrenism, and then carried across the Atlantic when Darby conducted multiple preaching tours in America between 1862 and 1877—an environment already fertile soil for religious innovation, eccentric sects due to the distinctly Protestant assumption that “my private interpretation of Scripture is just as valid as yours.”
Once here, the virus found its super-spreaders: the Scofield Study Bible (1909–early 1950s); Dallas Theological Seminary (mid-1920s through the late 1960s); Lewis Sperry Chafer’s Systematic Theology (1947–48); Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth (1970); The Ryrie Study Bible (1978); and, eventually, the Left Behind novels (1995–2007).
And the result?
A large segment of American Christianity now reads the Middle East through a prophetic script written not even two centuries ago, unheard of for over 1,800 years. And ironically that script has helped draw the United States into conflict in the very region where those false prophetic expectations are supposed to unfold—all at the behest of natural Israel, no less.
If Shakespeare were writing tragedies today, he could scarcely ask for a more darkly ironic plot: a theological theory conceived in Victorian England helping to steer modern superpowers toward a war that could spiral into a global catastrophe, complete with nuclear weapons.
Don’t believe me? According to recent reporting, a watchdog organization (Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF)) has received more than 200 complaints from U.S. service members alleging that some commanders have framed the war with Iran in explicitly biblical “end-times” language: briefings where officers told troops that the conflict was: “all part of God’s divine plan”, “connected to Armageddon”, and related to the “imminent return of Jesus Christ.” One complaint from a non-commissioned officer said a commander referenced the Book of Revelation and told troops the conflict could trigger the biblical end times. Another allegation claimed a commander said that the president had been “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon.”
Iran knows they’re in a literal fight for their survival. They understand that Israel wants their Islamic regime wiped off the face of the earth. And America, Israel’s lap dog, has joined them. (Read Rubio’s comment to reporters on March 2, 2026, one he tried to walk back the next day.) Whatever demonic ideologies waft through the turbaned heads of their “velayat-e faqih”-led government, and there are many (don’t try to write-off what I’m saying by labeling me an apologist for Islam, Jihad, etc.; I’m not), Iran is well within their right to resist Israel and America’s satanic support of homosexuality, abortion, gender confusion, human sex-trafficking (Epsteinology), the seizure of Palestinians lands coupled with ethnic cleansing; and an Imperial America that thinks it has some kind of divine mandate to meddle in other country’s’ internal affairs and tell them what they MUST do or we seriously mess you up. And as true believers, many people in Iran—proud heirs and guardians of a civilization of immense antiquity, one whose kings ruled the known world and whose culture flourished thousands of years before America was even a glimmer in history’s eye—are more than ready, due in some cases to their own equally flawed eschatology, to light up Israel and every other Arab nation that—because of their compromising love of personal peace and affluence—are in bed with America (housing military bases, loosening moral standards, etc.).
And a number of other powerful nations like Russia, Turkey, and even China who share similar tradition-based values coupled with a fear of American imperialism may jump in as well.
“Desperatio facit audacem.” (“Desperation makes men bold.” Tacitus
“Do not press a desperate foe too hard.” Sun Tzu, “The Art of War.”
We shall see. Trump/Hegseth may haven’t gotten supremely lucky and taken out enough of Iran’s defense (and let me emphasize that they are more defensive than offensive) capabilities to neutralize any blowback that could lead to WWIII. (Google the “Samson Option”) .
And maybe not.