Cyrus Scofield and Palestinian Misery

Cyrus Scofield
 
The news of ceasefire and release of hostages in Gaza is cause for great rejoicing and for giving credit where it is due.  But the big questions remain: where to from here, and how did the world allow this to happen in the first place?  Where to from here will not have a happy outcome unless the question “how we got to this place” is honestly addressed, acknowledged and corrected.  Jonathan Sachs is right to identify unadulterated western style colonialism as one of the causes, I wish to draw attention to a shameful Christian distortion that lies at the heart of US conservative politics in as much that their foreign policy has dominated outcomes in the Middle East.

To understand this distortion and to understand how it has impacted the lives of 21st century Palestinians we have to delve into the legacy of one Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843 – 1921).

At a personal level, Scofield’s life does not measure up.  He was allegedly guilty of several acts of dishonesty and fraud.  He was allegedly an army deserter. He claimed titles, including Doctor of Divinity, he did not have.  He abandoned his wife and children, leaving them without means of support.
He was however capable of considerable charm and influence. In 1883 he was ordained a congregationalist minister with connections to the Plymouth Brethren and had considerable success building congregations. He was influenced for good by the missionary to China, Hudson Taylor, and by the publisher Dwight Moody, but he was influenced with ulterior motive by a Jewish Lawyer, Samuel Untermeyer. In “Unjust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to Jerusalem,” Prof. David W. Lutz writes, “Untermeyer used Scofield, a Kansas City lawyer with no formal training in theology, to inject Zionist ideas into American Protestantism”.  (It is said there are more Christian Zionists than there are Jews in the world – probably by a significant margin).

Influenced by Untermeyer and assisted by publication through the Moody Bible Institute Scofield produced the Scofield Bible.   This Bible went on to become the fundamental text of biblical literalism and the foundation stone of American conservative evangelicalism and consequently, the American political right.  Multiple millions have been published, even finding a place in the theological library when I was a student!

So, what is the Scofield bible about?  It divides human history into seven dispensations of which we are supposedly living in the sixth. The first dispensation is titled ‘innocence’ and is of course the period of Adam and Eve, before sin became a human experience!!   You can see how Scofield followers have come to believe creation stories as literal history – as is apparently the case with a staggering percentage of US citizens.

The dispensation we are supposedly now in, the sixth, is titled ‘grace’ and is defined as the period between Christ’s resurrection and Christ’s return.  The pre-emptive feature of this period is to be the restoration of Israel to what he claims to have been the unrestricted area from the ‘rivers to the sea’, the land promised to Abraham.  According to Scofield when this occurs Christ will return and rule from Jerusalem for one thousand years, during which time the world’s dross will be expunged. The one-thousand-year reign connects ‘millennialism’ with ‘dispensationalism’ as the corner stones of Scofield’s ‘theology’.  

Rather than diminishing in the 100+ years since Scofield’s death, his legacy has not only retained its influence, but since the 1967, 6-day war, and Israel’s control of all Palestinian land, it has in fact deepened.  How else can we explain why the accelerating occupation of Palestinian land, against international law has been totally unchallenged and why the US has vetoed all motions at the UN Security Council that in any way criticised Israel, let alone refused to sanction it.  Christian Zionists who have influence at the highest levels of American political life include Mike Pence, Vice President under the previous Trump administration, Sarah Palin and of course Mike Huckabee.

An oft used biblical mis-quote is a distortion of Genesis 12: 3.  In reference to Abraham it reads “Those who bless you, I will bless, and those who curse you I will curse”.  The mis-quote is “those who bless Israel I will bless and those who curse Israel I will curse.

In the biblical text Abraham and his descendants are called chosen for one clear reason; through them all peoples of the world are to be blessed. Chosenness in the biblical text has nothing whatsoever to do with benefit for self, least of all land at the expense of others. It is that through righteousness and mercy, harmony and justice, blessing, might flow to all.  This is of course the very opposite of how chosenness is interpreted in defence of Israel’s outrageous actions.

Returning then to where we began, given America and American politics have and will have enormous power over the future of both Israel and Palestine, the future for Palestinians will remain bleak if this grotesque distortion of Christian, let alone biblical truth remains at the heart of US policy and decision making.

All three ‘Abrahamic religions have reason to cherish extraordinary contributions to the wellbeing and harmony of life on this planet.  But equally, all three have reason to seriously repent of having pursued agendas that are not core matters of belief, but flow from partisan rivalry and desire for sovereignty and power.