Christian Restorationism

For the similar modern Christian belief, see Christian Zionism.

For other uses, see Restorationism.

Christian Restorationism, the Restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land was a nineteenth-century, Christian movement with both political and religious motivations.

Secular motivations

The crumbling of the Ottoman Empire threatened the British route to India via Suez as well as sundry French, German and American economic interests. The idea of a Jewish state east of Suez therefore held some appeal.

In 1818, President John Adams wrote, "I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation."^[1]

In 1831 the Ottomans were driven from Greater Syria (including Palestine) by an expansionist Egypt, in the First Turko-Egyptian War. Although Britain forced Muhammad Ali to withdraw to Egypt, the Levant was left for a brief time without a government. The ongoing weakness of the Ottoman Empire made some in the west consider the potential of a Jewish State in the Holy Land. A number of important figures within the British government advocated such a plan.^[2][3] Again during the lead-up to the Crimean War (1854), there was an opportunity for political rearrangements in the Near East. In July 1853, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury wrote to Prime Minister Aberdeen urging Jewish restoration as a means of stabilizing the region.^[4]

Messianic motivations

Many Christians believed that the return of the Jews to Judea, as prophesied in the Bible, was a necessary preliminary step towards the Second Coming, an attitude now known as Christian Zionism. In the classic, Christian interpretation, after the Jews returned they would both accept Jesus as their savior and rebuild the Temple, which would usher in the Second Coming of Christ.^[5]

In 1839, four Church of Scotland ministers were dispatched on a Mission of Inquiry to Palestine. They traveled through France, Greece, and Egypt and, from Egypt, overland to Gaza. On the way home they visited Syria, the Austrian Empire and some of the German principalities. They sought out Jewish communities and inquired about their readiness to accept Christ and, separately, their preparedness to return to Israel as prophesied in the Bible. Alexander Keith recounted the journey in his 1844 book The Land of Israel According to the Covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. It was also in that book that Keith used the slogan that became popular with other Christian Restorationists, a land without a people for a people without a land. In 1844 he revisited Palestine with his son, Dr George Skene Keith (1819–1910), who was the first person to photograph the land.^[6]

Religious motivations

In 1844, George Bush, a professor of Hebrew at New York University and the cousin of an ancestor of the Presidents Bush, published a book entitled The Valley of Vision; or, The Dry Bones of Israel Revived. In it he denounced “the thralldom and oppression which has so long ground them (the Jews) to the dust,” and called for “elevating” the Jews “to a rank of honorable repute among the nations of the earth” by allowing restoring the Jews to the land of Israel where the bulk would be converted to Christianity.^[7] This, according to Bush, would benefit not only the Jews, but all of mankind, forming a “link of communication” between humanity and God. “It will blaze in notoriety...". “It will flash a splendid demonstration upon all kindreds and tongues of the truth.”^[8]

Herman Melville expressed the idea in a poem, Clarel; A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land

"...the Hebrew seers announce in time
the return of Judah to her prime;
Some Christians deemed it then at hand
Here was an object. Up and On.
With seed and tillage help renew -
Help reinstate the Holy Land...

Practical motivations

Late nineteenth century, non-Messianic Restorationism was largely driven by concern over the fate of the Jews of the Russian Empire, beset by poverty and by deadly, government-inspired pogroms. It was widely accepted that western nations did not wish to receive Jewish immigrants. Restorationism was a way for charitable individuals to assist oppressed Jews without actually accepting them as neighbors and fellow-citizens.^[9][10][11] In this, Restorationism was not unlike the efforts of the American Colonization Society to send blacks to Liberia and the efforts of British abolitionists to create Sierra Leone. Winston Churchill endorsed Restoration because he recognized that Jews fleeing Russian pogroms required a refuge, and preferred that it not be in England or its colonies.^[12]

Blackstone Memorial

On November 24–25, 1890, William Eugene Blackstone organized the Conference on the Past, Present and Future of Israel at the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Chicago where participants included leaders of many Christian communities. Resolutions of sympathy for the oppressed Jews living in Russia were passed, but Blackstone was convinced that such resolutions - even though passed by prominent men - were insufficient. He advocated strongly for the resettlement of Jewish people in Palestine. Accordingly, the Blackstone Memorial of 1891 was drafted as a petition signed by 413 prominent Americans.

It read, in part: “Why shall not the powers which under the treaty of Berlin, in 1878, gave Bulgaria to the Bulgarians and Servia to the Servians now give Palestine back to the Jews?…These provinces, as well as Romania, Montenegro, and Greece, were wrested from the Turks and given to their natural owners. Does not Palestine as rightfully belong to the Jews?” ^[13]

See also

• Christian Zionism
• Zionism

References

1. ^ Kark, Ruth (1994). American Consuls in the Holy Land, 1832-1914. Wayne State University Press. p. 23. http://books.google.com/books?id=LkAvPDl5yfgC. 
2. ^ The question of Palestine: British-Jewish-Arab relations, 1914-1918‎, Isaiah. Friedman, Transaction Publishers, 1992, see Chapter 1 with a summary in the Introduction
3. ^ The foreign policy of Palmerston, 1830-1841: Britain, the liberal movement and the Eastern question, Charles Kingsley Webster, Pub. G. Bell, 1951
4. ^ Shaftsbury as cited in Hyamson, Albert, “British Projects for the Restoration of Jews to Palestine,” American Jewish Historical Society, Publications 26, 1918 p. 140
5. ^ American Consuls in the Holy Land, 1832-1914, By Ruth Kark, Wayne State University Press, 1994, p. 23
6. ^ M'Cheyne's friends
7. ^ Valley of vision: or, The dry bones of Israel revived : an attempted proof, from Ezekiel, chap. xxxvii, 1-14, of the restoration and conversion of the Jews, George Bush, 1844 "When the Most High accordingly declares that he will bring the house of Israel into their own land, it does not follow that this will be effected by any miraculous interposition which will be recognized as such....The great work of Christians, in the mean time, is to labor for their conversion. In this they are undoubtedly authorized to look for a considerable measure of success, though it be admitted that the bulk of the nation is not to be converted till after their restoration ; for it is only upon the coming together of bone to his bone that the Spirit of life comes into them, and they stand up an exceeding great army."
8. ^ Power, Faith, and Fantasy by Michael B. Oren REVIEWED BY HILLEL HALKIN, Commentary, Januare 2007http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/power--faith--and-fantasy-by-michael-b--oren-10818
9. ^ WEDGWOOD FAVORS JEWISH HOME LAND; Sees in Palestine Restoration Plan the Final Solution of the Eastern Problem. COMES HERE TO ADVOCATE IT Hopes Ambassadors from the New State Will Be in Every National Capital of the World; New York Times, Feb 4, 1918
10. ^ Persecution of the Jews, The Living Age, Littell, Son & Company, 1883, p. 604 ff.
11. ^ Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism, Victoria Clark, Yale University Press, 2007, p. 111
12. ^ Churchill's Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft, By Michael Makovsky, Yale University Press, 2007, p. 68
13. ^ Yaakov Ariel, On Behalf of Israel; American Fundamentalist Attitudes toward Jews, Judaism, and Zionism, 1865-1945 (New York: Carlson Publishing, 1991), pp. 70-2.