The Origins of Christian Zionism Lord Shaftesbury and Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland

In this study of Lord Shaftesbury - Victorian England's greatest humanitarian and most prominent Christian Zionist - Donald M. Lewis examines why British evangelicals became fascinated with the Jews and how they promoted a 'teaching of esteem' that countered a 'teaching of contempt'. Evangelicals militated for the restoration of Jews to Palestine by lobbying the British cabinet on foreign policy decisions. Professing their love for the Jews, they effectively reshaped the image of the Jew in conversionist literature, gave sacrificially to convert them to Christianity, and worked with German Pietists to create a joint Anglican-Lutheran bishopric in Jerusalem, the center (in their minds) of world Jewry. Evangelical identity evolved during this process and had an impact on Jewish identity, transforming Jewish-Christian relations. It also changed the course of world history by creating a climate of opinion in the United Kingdom in favor of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which pledged British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Introduction; Part I. The Rise of British Evangelical Interest in the Jews: 1. The restoration of the Jews in Protestant thought; 2. Pietism, Clapham, and the Jews; 3. Evangelicalism, prophecy and the Jews; Part II. 'Shaftesbury and the Jews': 4. Shaftesbury the new recruit; 5. 'Christian Europe' in the House of Islam: political, cultural and religious factors leading to European interest in the Middle East in the first half of the nineteenth century; 6. Shaftesbury's attitude to the Jews and to Palestine; 7. Protecting 'God's ancient people' and preparing for their restoration; Part III. Evangelicals and Pietists Together: The Mission to Jews and Palestine: 8. British Evangelical and German Pietist missions in Palestine in the 1820s; 9. A British consul in Jerusalem; 10. An Anglican church in Jerusalem for the 'unwelcome intruders in the Home of Islam'; 11. The Jerusalem Bishopric; 12. Prussia's turn: the Episcopate of Samuel Gobat; Part IV. Shaftesbury's Final Years: 13. Toward the Balfour Declaration.

Donald M. Lewis is Academic Dean and Professor of Church History at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. An expert on nineteenth-century British evangelicalism and popular religion, as well as global Christianity, he is the author of Lighten their Darkness: The Evangelical Mission to Working-Class London and editor of The Blackwell Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, 1730–1860 and Christianity Reborn: The Global Expansion of Evangelicalism in the 20th Century.