Samuel Goldman on Christian Zionism in America

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2018

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Vice President Mike Pence addressed the Knesset in January of 2018, he hearkened back to America’s biblical heritage, recalling the pilgrims who saw themselves as charged with building a new promised land. “In the story of the Jews,” proclaimed Pence, “we’ve always seen the story of America.”

In the modern United States, this kind of rhetoric is common among conservative Evangelical Christians like Vice President Pence. But Christian sympathy for the Jewish national cause dates back much further than the rise of the modern Christian Right; indeed, it stretches back to the very beginnings of American political culture. In his new book, God’s Country: Christian Zionism in America, Professor Samuel Goldman of the George Washington University explores the fascinating history of America’s uniquely strong attachment to the Jewish people and the Jewish state.

In this podcast, Professor Goldman joins Tikvah Senior Director Jonathan Silver to discuss his book. Beginning with the colonial period, Goldman traces the long history of Christian philo-Semitism, proto-Zionism, and Zionism in the Unites States. Touching on everything from theology to pop culture, Goldman and Silver illuminate the depths and complexities of American Christians’ connection with Zionism—a connection that is deeply embedded in the America’s soul.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble as well as “Baruch Habah,” performed by the choir of Congregation Shearith Israel.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	In January 2018, Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States gave a powerful speech in the Knesset about the relationship between Israel and America.
0:17.3	The vice president told Israel's legislators that America's very first settlers saw themselves
0:22.5	as pilgrims, sent by Providence to build a new promised land.
0:26.7	The songs and stories of the people of Israel were their anthems, he said, and they faithfully
0:31.7	taught them to their children, and due to this day.
0:34.9	And our founders turned to the wisdom of the Hebrew Bible for direction, guidance,
0:39.8	and inspiration. Throughout American history, the biblical story of the nation of Israel has
0:44.6	fired the American imagination in both parties, on the right and on the left, from Puritan settlers
0:50.2	in the American north to African slaves in the American South, and because we've always
0:55.0	understood ourselves in light of this Hebraic story, America has been uniquely hospitable to the
1:00.7	idea of a Jewish restoration in ancestral Jewish lands, the idea of Zionism. At different moments,
1:07.8	Zionism has been a feature of American progressives, inspired by the laboratories of living they saw on the kibbutz, and it has been a feature of American progressives, inspired by the
1:11.6	laboratories of living they saw in the kibbutz, and it's been a feature of conservatives,
1:16.3	inspired by Israel's culture and Israel's enterprise, by the toughness and courage of Israeli
1:21.3	citizens, and by Israel's heroic work of bringing democracy and biblical religion together.
1:27.2	Welcome to the Tikva podcast on
1:28.4	great Jewish essays and ideas. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. My guest this week is Samuel Goldman,
1:34.4	Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, an executive director of its
1:38.8	Loeb Institute on Religious Freedom. Professor Goldman last joined the Tikva podcast to discuss Milton Himmelfarb's
1:45.3	classic essay, Church and State, How High a Wall. This week, we discuss his own new book,
1:51.2	God's Country, Christian Zionism in America, published by University of Pennsylvania Press.
1:56.5	If you like listening to our podcast, you can subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher, where I hope you leave us a rating and a review.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tikvah, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Tikvah and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.