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| author | Matt Westbrook |
| title | The International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem and Renewalist Zionism: Emerging Jewish-Christian Ethnonationalism |
| abstract |
This study names and examines the Renewalist (Pentecostal-charismatic-neocharismatic) strain of Christian Zionism using the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem, as a primary lens into this global movement. The major finding in this dissertation is the contemporary emergence of a Jewish-Christian ethnonationalism, suggesting changes to the way nationalism is manifest in a global age, changes to certain segments of Christianity, and the emergence of a distinctive global political and religious culture centered around the existence of the state of Israel.
Scholars of Christian Zionism have long associated the Christian Zionism with the 19th century, largely American theological movement known as premillennial dispensationalism. This association is erroneous in that it does not recognize earlier and different sources of Christian Zionism, nor does it recognize alternate, contemporary forms of the movement. Such undifferentiating associations have consequences for scholarly approaches to understandings related to the socio-political activities of Christian Zionism globally, the history of Christian Zionism, millennialist Christianity, and the Christian appropriation of the state of Israel and Jewish religion, culture, and even persons. Using the ICEJ as a primary example of Renewalist Zionism, this dissertation examines the ways this Christian Zionism manifests in other historical and contemporaneous forms of Renewalist Christianity. This work includes ethnography of the ICEJ's annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration held in Jerusalem, Israel and attended by thousands of Christians annually. A further ethnography of the ICEJ-USA's constructed pilgrimage and tour to Israel explores the expressions and practices of Renewalist Zionism on the ground in Israel. The ways that charismatic authority is constructed, the interplay of text, contemporary political realities, and Renewalist spirituality, and the role of global Christian media are also examined in detail. Furthermore, using the sociological theories of cultural globalization and social memory, Christian Zionism is theorized as a subjective ground for truth for its adherents in a relativizing, global age characterized by transnational flows and local, socio-political particularizations.
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| school | Drew Theological School |
| degree | Ph.D. (May 2014) |
| advisor | Laurel Kearns |
| committee | Wyatt Evans
Terry Todd |
| full text | MWestbrook.pdf |
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