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A “Practical Outlet” to Premillennial Faith: G. Douglas Young and the Evolution of Christian Zionist Activism in Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Daniel G. Hummel
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Abstract

G. Douglas Young, the founder of the American Institute of Holy Land Studies (now Jerusalem University College), is a largely forgotten figure in the history of Christian Zionism. Born into a fundamentalist household, Young developed an intense identification with Jews and support for the state of Israel from an early age. By 1957, when he founded his Institute, Young developed a worldview that merged numerous strands of evangelical thinking—dispensationalism, neo-evangelicalism, and his own ideas about Jewish-Christian relations—into a distinctive understanding of Israel. Young's influence in American evangelicalism reached a climax in the years 1967–1971. This period, and Young's activism therein, represents a distinct phase in the evolution of Jewish-evangelical relations and evangelical Christian Zionism. Young's engagement with the Israeli state prefigured the Christian Zionists of the 1980s.

This article examines Young's distinctive theology and politics and situates them in intellectual and international contexts. It argues that Young sought to place Christian Zionism at the center of American evangelicalism after 1967 and that his effort was only partially successful. While Young spoke to thousands of evangelicals, trained hundreds of students, and sat on boards and committees to broaden the appeal of Christian Zionism, he also met stiff resistance by some members of the American evangelical establishment. The Jerusalem Conference on Biblical Prophecy, which saw Young collide with Carl F. H. Henry, a leading American evangelical, illustrates the limits of Young's efforts. Ultimately, a look at Young reframes the rise of Christian Zionism among American evangelicals and situates activism in Israel as central to the development of Jewish-evangelical relations in the twentieth century.

Keywords

G. Douglas YoungAmerican Institute of Holy Land StudiesChristian ZionismevangelicalismJewish-Christian relationsIsrael
Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , Winter 2015 , pp. 37 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 2015

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References

Notes

Special thanks for assistance on earlier drafts go to Jon Beltz, Sean Bloch, Athan Biss, Skye Doney, George Quarles, Terry Peterson, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, Jeremi Suri, and thewriting seminar in Fall 2013 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison led by Lee Palmer Wandell.

1. Young, G. Douglas, The Bride and the Wife: Is The re a Future for Israel? (Minneapolis: Free Church Publications, 1960), 12.Google Scholar Young did not leave a collection of personal papers; his correspondence and institutional records are available only piecemeal with the most important deposits at the Jerusalem University College in Jerusalem, Israel (hereafter referred to as JUC), the Billy GrahamCenter Archives inWheaton, Illinois (hereafter referred to as BGCA), and the Archer Archives at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois (hereafter referred to as AA). I draw on further archival research from the Israel State Archives (hereafter referred to as ISA). Young is either only mentioned in passing or briefly quoted in Weber, Timothy P., On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel's Best Friend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 225;Google Scholar Lahr, Angela M., Millennial Dreams and Apocalyptic Nightmares: The Cold War Origins of Political Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 91, 156, 164;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Carenen, Caitlin, The Fervent Embrace: Liberal Protestants, Evangelicals, and Israel (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 145, 158;Google Scholar and Spector, Stephen, Evangelicals and Israel: The Story of American Christian Zionism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).Google Scholar

2. G. Douglas Young to J. Herbert Taylor, October 6, 1967, box 24, folder 5, collection 20, Papers of Taylor, Herbert J., BGCA; Rausch, David A. and Voss, Carl Hermann, “American Christians and Israel, 1948–1988,” American Jewish Archives 40 (April 1988): 64;Google Scholar Hanson, Calvin B., A Gentile …with the Heart of a Jew: G. Douglas Young (Nyack, N.Y.: Parson Publishing, 1979), 155–66.Google Scholar

3. For the best summary of dispensationalist beliefs in the United States, see Weber, On the Road to Armageddon, 19–44. Of course, dispensationalism, like any set of ideas, has changed over time. For a critical historical approach to twentieth-century dispensationalism, see Bateman, Herbert W. IV, “Dispensationalism Yesterday and Today,” in Dispensationalism Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow, ed. Crenshaw, Curtis I. and Gunn, Grover (Spring, Tex.: Footstool Publications, 1994).Google Scholar

4. Young, The Bride and the Wife, 87. The school has had numerous names throughout the years: Israel-American Institute of Biblical Studies, American Institute of Holy Land Studies, Institute of Holy Land Studies, and, today, Jerusalem University College.

5. See Ariel, Yaakov, An Unusual Relationship: Evangelical Christians and Jews (New York: New York University Press, 2013), 86–90.Google Scholar For the history of Protestant fascination with Jews, see Smith, Robert O., More Desired than Our Owne Salvation: The Roots of Christian Zionism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013);Google Scholar and Clark, Victoria, Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 27–147.Google Scholar Other historians have focused on the nineteenth-century roots of Christian Zionism. See Lewis, Donald M., The Origins of Christian Zionism: Lord Shaftesbury and Evangelical Support for a Jewish Homeland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010);Google Scholar Goldman, Shalom, Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, and the Idea of the Promised Land (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009);Google Scholar and Ariel, Yaakov, On Behalf of Israel: American Fundamentalist Attitudes toward Jews, Judaism, and Zionism, 1865–1945 (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1991).Google Scholar The evangelical presence in Israel is less studied than is Christian Zionism in general. See Ramon, Amnon, “Christians and Christianity in the Jewish State: Israeli Policy towards the Churches and the Christian Communities (1948–2010)” (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 2012).Google Scholar

6. Young, The Bride and the Wife, 88, 91, 91, 26, 26.

7. See, for example, the case of Vern Asleson, a student at the institute in 1962 who desired to stay in Israel past his student visa expiration in order to teach English at the Jerusalem YMCA. Young, fearing Asleson would also engage in missions work, pressed himto leave the country. The Ministry of Religious Affairs compromised and allowed Asleson to obtain a new six-month visa in Cyprus and remain in Israel. See G. Douglas Young to Vern Asleson, July 7, 1962, box 5820, folder 15, Ministry of Religious Affairs files, ISA; and Saul Colby to Young, July 19, 1962, box 5820, folder 15, Ministry of Religious Affairs files, ISA. On Jewish missions, see Ariel, Yaakov, Evangelizing the Chosen People: Missions to the Jews in America, 1880–2000 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).Google Scholar See also Ariel, Yaakov, “Evangelists in a Strange Land: American Missionaries in Israel, 1948–1967,” Studies in Contemporary Jewry 14 (1998): 195–213.Google Scholar

8. Malachy, Yonah et al., Discussing Jerusalem: From the Proceedings of the Seminar for Visiting Academics Held at the Van-Leer Jerusalem Foundation, Jerusalem, 1972 (Jerusalem: Israel Academic Committee on the Middle East, 1972), 38.Google Scholar

9. For discussions of the contemporary (post–1980) Christian Zionist movement, see especially Yaakov Ariel, “An Unexpected Alliance: Christian Zionism and Its Historical Significance,” Modern Judaism 26 (February 1, 2006): 74–100; Clark, Allies for Armageddon; and Spector, Evangelicals and Israel.

10. Hanson, , A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew , 25.Google Scholar

11. On the founding of Faith Seminary, see Hankins, Barry, Francis Schaeffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 13–14;Google Scholar and Hanson, A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew, 32–39.

12. Sometimes called “interdenominational evangelicals.” See Glass, William R., Strangers in Zion: Fundamentalists in the South, 1900–1950 (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2001), 81–133;Google Scholar and Pietsch, Brendan, “Dispensational Modernism” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 2011), 24–29.Google Scholar

13. Allis, Oswald T., Prophecy and the Church (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1945), vii.Google Scholar

14. Carpenter, Joel A., Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 33–88.Google Scholar Divisions were especially acute among Southern Presbyterians. See Glass, Strangers in Zion, 134–84; and Waldrep, B. Dwain, “Lewis Sperry Chafer and the Roots of Nondenominational Fundamentalism in the South,” Journal of Southern History 73 (November 2007): 807–36Google Scholar. On the broad ranging debates between dispensationalists and other conservative Protestants, see Mangum, R. Todd, The Dispensational-Covenantal Rift: The Fissuring of American Evangelical The ology from 1936 to 1944 (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2007);Google Scholar and Fuller, Daniel P., Gospel and Law: Contrast or Continuum—The Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism and Covenant The ology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 1–20.Google Scholar

15. On Darby, see Weremchuk, Max S., John Nelson Darby: A Biography (New York: Loizeaux Brothers, 1993).Google Scholar Darby's writings are accessible online at http://www.stempublishing.com/authors/darby/. I borrow the term “anthropological dualism” from Bock, Darrell L. and Blaising, Craig A., Progressive Dispensationalism (Wheaton, Ill.: BridgePoint Academic, 1993), 23.Google Scholar Bock and Blaising write from within the dispensationalist tradition, but with a critical eye to its past. The “remnant” or “believing Church” stands in contrast to “Christendom,” which dispensationalists insisted contained many, if not a majority, of nominal Christians.

16. See, for example, Isaiah 9, Jeremiah 23, and Daniel 2, which dispensationalists interpret as describing a millennial government governed by Jesus. For a longer discourse from a dispensationalist perspective, see Walvoord, John F., The Millennial Kingdom: A Basic Text in Pre- Millennial The ology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1959).Google Scholar

17. For a discussion of supersessionism in postwar Protestantism, see Carenen, Caitlin, The Fervent Embrace: Liberal Protestants, Evangelicals, and Israel (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 59–92.Google Scholar For a summary of supersessionism in Jewish-Christian relations, see Wyschogrod, Michael, “Israel, the Church, and Election,” in Abraham's Promise: Judaism and Jewish-Christian Relations, ed. Soulen, R. Kendall (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 179–87.Google Scholar

18. Ryrie, Charles, The Basis of the Premillennial Faith (New York: Loizeaux Brothers, 1953), 6;Google Scholar Mangum, The Dispensational-Covenantal Rift, 175–211. For a sympathetic but well researched history of the Scofield Bible and its reception, see Mangum, R. Todd and Sweetnam, Mark S., The Scofield Bible: Its History and Impact on the Evangelical Church (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Paternoster, 2012).Google Scholar

19. George Marsden attributes at least a part of the “great reversal” in evangelical social engagement to dispensationalism. See Marsden, George M., Fundamentalism and American Culture, 2d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 85–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Henry, Carl F. H., The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1947), xv–xvi.Google Scholar

21. Strachan, Owen Daniel, “Reenchanting the Evangelical Mind: Park Street Church's Harold Ockenga, the Boston Scholars, and the Midcentury Intellectual Surge” (Ph.D. diss., Trinity International University, 2011), 3.Google Scholar For a classic study of the new (neo-) evangelicalism, see Marsden, George M., Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987).Google Scholar

22. Two of these men were also leaders in the EFCA. Olson was president of the EFCA from 1951 to 1976, and Kantzer was academic dean at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School from 1960 to 1978. Gerig was president of Fort Wayne Bible College and associated with the Missionary Church Association, an Anabaptist denomination based in Indiana.

23. See Moore, Russell Dwayne, “Kingdom The ology and the American Evangelical Consensus: Emerging Implications for Sociopolitical Engagement” (Ph.D. diss., The Southern Baptist The ological Seminary, 2002), 40–137.Google Scholar

24. Henry, The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, 46–48.

25. Donald Dayton argues, “The issue of dispensationalism was at the core of what was going on during the rise of neo-evangelicalism. It is probably not too strong to suggest that this was the crucial issue between the continuing fundamentalists and the emerging ‘neo-evangelicals.”’ See Donald Dayton, “The Search for Historical Evangelicalism: George Marsden's History of Fuller Seminary as a Case Study,” Christian Scholars Review 23 (September 1993): 30–31. Joel Carpenter moderates this claim, pointing out that Fuller Seminary, the flagship neo-evangelical institution, started with “about equal numbers of dispensationalists and nondispensationalists on its faculty … the new evangelicalism … could accommodate dispensationalism in some of its less starkly sectarian forms.” This tolerance dwindled as time wore on. As we will see in the differences between G. Douglas Young and Carl F. H. Henry in the early 1970s, dispensationalism would be characterized as “parochial,” among other pejoratives. Carpenter concludes, “Hanging onto or jettisoning dispensationalism was a key sign of whether one merely wished to reform fundamentalism or substantially change it.” See Carpenter, Revive Us Again, 310.

26. Ladd, George Eldon, “Israel and the Church,” Evangelical Quarterly 36 (October 1964): 210–11.Google Scholar

27. Young, The Bride and the Wife, 91. Young was not, of course, the only evangelical to try to combine dispensationalism and political activism in the 1950s. For another example, see the anticommunist efforts of McGee, J. Vernon in Dochuk, Darren, From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain- Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), 153–67.Google Scholar

28. Young, The Bride and the Wife, 9; Young quoted in Hanson, A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew, 434. Young's views on the Holocaust are discussed on 45–48.

29. See Boyer, Paul, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992), esp. 115–290.Google Scholar

30. Young quoted in Hanson, , A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew, 322;Google Scholar Young, , The Bride and the Wife, 19.Google Scholar

31. See especially the efforts of Franklin Littell and A. Roy Eckardt, both mainline Protestant clergy active in the Jewish-Christian interfaith movement and supporters of Israel. See Carenen, The Fervent Embrace, 155–60.

32. Young, The Bride and the Wife, 90.

33. Ibid., 65–66.

34. Trollinger, William Vance, God's Empire: William Bell Riley and Midwestern Fundamentalism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), esp. 65–70.Google Scholar “Human Relations” was a popular approach among American Jewish organizations during this period. See Sanua, Marianne Rachel, Let Us Prove Strong: The American Jewish Committee, 1945–2006 (Waltham, Mass.: BrandeisUniversity Press, 2007), 67–98.Google Scholar The seminar was geared toward the city's Jewish and African American communities.

35. Hanson, , A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew , 66.Google Scholar

36. Olson, Arnold T., The Search for Identity (Minneapolis: Free Church Press, 1980), 151,Google Scholar 152. By west, Halleen meant North America, seen from his homeland of Norway.

37. Hart, D. G., Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy Graham (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 24.Google Scholar United Evangelical Action was the title of the NAE's magazine. For the NAE's understanding of historical evangelicalism and its claim to be the rightful successor to the name, see Murch, James Deforest, Cooperation without Compromise: A History of the National Association of Evangelicals (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), esp. 3–15.Google Scholar The EFCA, more than many denominations, imbibed an ideal of cooperation and “silence” on secondary issues, such as baptism and predestination. See, for example, Olson, Arnold T., “The Significance of Silence”: The Evangelical Free Church of America (Minneapolis: Free Church Press, 1981).Google Scholar

38. Young, G. Douglas, “The Israel-American Institute of Biblical Studies,” Christian News from Israel 10 (December 1959): 32, 31.Google Scholar

39. G. Douglas Young to Saul Colby, July 1958, box 5820, folder 15, Ministry of Religious Affairs files, ISA; Hanson, A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew, 82–88. See also Young, The Bride and the Wife, 88–89.

40. See, for example, Young's correspondence with Herbert J. Taylor, an evangelical businessman and owner of Club Aluminum Products Corporation. Taylor was a key supporter of the institute and Young. The ir remaining correspondence is stored in the Billy Graham Center Archives, collection 20.

41. Quoted in Hanson, A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew, 118.

42. Ariel, “Evangelists in a Strange Land,” 195–213; Per Østerbye, The Church in Israel: A Report on the Work and Position of the Christian Churches in Israel, with Special Reference to the Protestant Churches and Communities (Lund, Sweden: Gleerup, 1970), 192–97.

43. Antimissionary activism was undertaken mostly by Orthodox Jews who feared for Israeli youth. Organizations such as Keren Yeladenu (“A Foundation for Our Children”) and Acheizer promoted Jewish youth activities and lobbied the Israeli government to curtail missionary activity. See Ariel, Evangelizing the Chosen People, 149–50.

44. One exception is the example of William Hull, the founder of Zion Apostolic Mission and a Pentecostal missionary. Hull had warm relations with many Israeli officials and spoke on Israel's behalf in the United States and his native Canada. He famously served as the religious councilor for Adolph Eichmann during the latter's trial in Israel in 1961–62. Even so, Hull's political reach was limited by his missions work and apparent disinterest in organizing North American evangelicals into a Christian Zionist political movement. For a brief biography, see Ariel, Evangelizing the Chosen People, 156–59.

45. Hanson, , A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew , 111;Google Scholar Saul Colby to Chaim Wardi, February 22, 1959, box 5667, folder 2, Ministry of Religious Affairs files, ISA; Brochure for the American Institute of Holy Land Studies, 1968, box 24, folder 12, collection 20, Papers of Herbert J. Taylor, BGCA; memorandum by G. Douglas Young, July 29, 1963, Institutional Records for the American Institute of Holy Land Studies, JUC.

46. Young, , “The Israel-American Institute of Biblical Studies,” 34.Google Scholar

47. The institute's activities in this regard paralleled those of many postwar American institutions engaging in cultural diplomacy. As Justin Hart writes of American policymakers, culture played an increasing role in advancing U.S. objectives abroad. Young, a naturalized American, was employing the same thinking advancing Israeli interests abroad in the United States. See Hart, Justin, Empire of Ideas: The Origins of Public Diplomacy and the Transformation of U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), esp. 25.Google Scholar

48. Marlene Olsen, “A New School with a New View in the Holy Land,” memorandum, 1961, Papers of G. Douglas Young, JUC; on organizing the lecturers, see G. Douglas Young to Anson Rainey, July 24, 1962, Papers of G. Douglas Young, JUC; Rainey to Young, December 11, 1965, Papers of G. Douglas Young, JUC; Young to David Flusser, December 8, 1964, Papers of G. Douglas Young, JUC.

49. “International News Bulletin of the AIHLS,” August 21, 1964, Papers of G. Douglas Young, JUC.

50. The se included well-known evangelicals such as theologian Dwight Pentecost from Dallas, Old Testament scholar William La Sor from Fuller, Christian apologist Edwin Yamauchi and, out of the evangelical mold, archaeologist George Ernest Wright from Harvard Divinity School, and past president of Augsburg College (and theologian) Bernhard M. Christensen.

51. Associated schools would circulate institute brochures and recommend students to study in Jerusalem. For a list of associated schools, see the letterhead on Young's newsletter in 1976 in the JUC files.

52. Memorandum, July 29, 1963, Institutional Records for the American Institute of Holy Land Studies, JUC; Young to Mr. Yeager, May 13, 1964, Papers of G. Douglas Young, JUC.

53. See Young's long-running series in the Evangelical Beacon, “The Bible in the Space Age,” which ran from November 1958 to April 1959; Young, G. Douglas, “Toward Arab-Israeli Coexistence,” Christian Century 79 (December 12, 1962): 1508–09;Google Scholar Young, “The Israel-American Institute of Biblical Studies,” 31–34.

54. Young, , “Toward Arab-Israeli Coexistence,” 1508, 1509.Google Scholar

55. For a summary of the American Jewish response to the war, see Zeitz, Joshua, “‘If I Am Not for Myself …’: The American Jewish Establishment in the Aftermath of the Six Day War,” American Jewish History 88 (June 2000): 253–86.Google Scholar

56. Malachy, Yonah, “The Christian Churches and the Six-Day War,” Weiner Library Bulletin 23 (1969): 24.Google Scholar

57. Werblowsky's role as advisor to the Foreign Ministry is discussed in Uri Bialer, Cross on the Star of David: The Christian World in Israel's Foreign Policy, 1948–1967 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 74–76.

58. Zwi Werblowsky, R. J., “The People and the Land,” in Speaking of God Today: Jews and Lutherans in Conversation, ed. Opsahl, Paul D. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), 80,Google Scholar 82.

59. Olson, Arnold T., Inside Jerusalem: City of Destiny (New York: Regal Books, 1968);Google Scholar Young to Yitzhak Lair, June 4, 1970, box 4548, folder 11, Ministry of Foreign Affairs files, ISA; Olson, Arnold T., Give Me This Mountain (Minneapolis: Arnold T. Olson, 1987), 177–94.Google Scholar

60. Lapide, Pinchas, “Ecumenism in Jerusalem,” Christian Century 85 (June 26, 1968): 839–42;Google Scholar Arnold Olson to Arthur Miller, November 19, 1969, box 4548, folder 11, Ministry of Foreign Affairs files, ISA.

61. Janssen, Peter E., Adventures in Dialogue: Impressions of 45 Years of Jewish-Christian Dialogue in the Rainbow Group of Jerusalem, Israel (Jerusalem: Lee Achim Sefarim, 2013), 194;Google Scholar Carenen, , The Fervent Embrace, 158.Google Scholar

62. The conference took place in New York City, December 8–10, 1975, and was cosponsored by the American Jewish Committee’s Department for Interreligious Affairs and the institute. The papers were published as Evangelicals and Jews in Conversation on Scripture, The ology, and History, ed. Wilson, Marvin R., Tanenbaum, Marc H., and Arnold James Rudin (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978).Google Scholar

63. American Institute of Holy Land Studies to Chicago area donors, newsletter, February 1, 1969, box 24, folder 5, collection 20, BGCA. See also Young to mailing list, report, May 22, 1972, Institutional Records for the American Institute of Holy Land Studies, JUC. For an example of Israel sponsoring Young's talks, see “Report on Dr. G. Douglas Young's Lecturing Tour in the Western States,” February 11, 1969, box 145, folder 2, Ministry of Foreign Affairs files, ISA.

64. G. Douglas Young, “Lessons We Can Learn from Judaism,” Eternity, August 1967; G. Douglas Young, “At Peace in Jerusalem,” Jerusalem Post, December 9, 1968; G. Douglas Young, “Israel: The Unbroken Line,” Christianity Today, October 6, 1978. Young often contributed letters to the editor for the Jerusalem Post. Some of them include: “Al Aksa—A Christian Accuses the Churches,” August 27, 1969; “Misconceptions about the Refugee Problem,” September 22, 1970; “Murdering of Jews,” May 17, 1974; “Arab Riots,” June 6, 1976.

65. See Chicago Consulate to Pragai, January 6, 1970, box 4548, folder 11, Ministry of Foreign Affairs files, ISI; Chicago Consulate to Pragai, May 6, 1970, box 4548, folder 11, Ministry of Foreign Affairs files, ISA.

66. McAlister, Melani, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945–2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 178.Google Scholar Young's speaking topics may be found in “Current Subjects,” promotional flyer, n.d., Institutional Records for the American Institute of Holy Land Studies, JUC. This flyer, which summarized Young's speaking engagements in “25 states and 4 countries,” was likely produced in 1970.

67. On the AJC's approach to Billy Graham, see Marc Tanenbaum to Bernard Gold, memorandum, June 26, 1970, box 4548, folder 11, Ministry of Foreign Affairs files, ISA. For the AJC's broader strategic approach to evangelicals, see “Program Prospectus: Evangelical Christians,” memorandum, January 9, 1975, AJC online archives, http://www.ajcarchives.org/ajcarchive/FileViewer.aspx? id¼13695. For an overview of American Jewish responses to evangelical support for Israel, see Grossman, Lawrence, “The Organized Jewish Community and Evangelical America: A Brief History,” in Uneasy Allies? Evangelical and Jewish Relations, ed. Mittleman, Alan, Johnson, Byron, and Isserman, Nancy (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2007), 49–72.Google Scholar

68. Tanenbaum, Marc, “Jewish-Christian Relations: Issues and Prospects,” in A Prophet for Our Time: An Anthology of the Writings of Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, ed. Judith Herschcopf Banki and Eugene Joseph Fisher (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002), 148;Google Scholar quoted in Montgomery, Paul L., “A Dialogue of Faiths at Seton Hall,” New York Times, October 29, 1970, 45.Google Scholar

69. Hanson, , A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew, 315.Google Scholar Historians have portrayed the conference uniformly as a successful event. Shalom Goldman asserts the conference was a “great success” (Goldman, Zeal for Zion, 293). Melani McAlister likewise judges the conference “a stunning success … a remarkable gathering of evangelicals” that “consolidated the newly politicized interpretations of prophecy” (McAlister, Epic Encounters, 170–71). Timothy Weber agrees, calling the conference an “important sign” of the way Israelis and evangelicals “started building their special relationship shortly after the Six Day War” in 1967 (Weber, On the Road to Armageddon, 213–14). See also Spector, Evangelicals and Israel, 145–46; and Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, 188.

70. Michael Pragai to Chicago Consulate, July 26, 1970, box 4457, folder 19, Ministry of Foreign Affairs files, ISA; Young to Herbert Taylor, December 12, 1970, box 25, folder 5, collection 20, BGCA.

71. Henry, Carl F. H., Confessions of a The ologian: An Autobiography (Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1986), 335;Google Scholar “Ockenga, Criswell Announce Historic First: Jerusalem Prophecy Conference,” full-page ad, Christianity Today, November 20, 1970, 171; Michael Pragai to Saul Ramati, July 26, 1970, collection 4457, box 19, Ministry of Foreign Affairs files, ISA.

72. Other members of the Israeli committee included officials from the Foreign, Tourism, and Religious ministries, Robert Lindsey (Southern Baptist), Canon Peter Schneider (Anglican), and Rabbi Jack Cohen.

73. On the beginning of the Bible conference movement, see Weber, Timothy P., Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875–1925 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 26–28.Google Scholar For the 1914 conference papers, see The Coming and Kingdom of Christ: A Stenographic Report of the Prophetic Bible Conference Held at the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, February 24–27, 1914 (Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1914).

74. Gaylord Briley to G. Douglas Young, May 16, 1970, box 1, folder 12, Papers of Wilbur M. Smith, AA.

75. Gaylord Briley to Wilbur Smith, June 2, 1970, box 1, folder 12, Papers of Wilbur M. Smith, AA; Young to Carl F. H. Henry, October 13, 1970, box 5, folder 4, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA.

76. This position, usually termed “historic premillennialism,” was popular among neo-evangelicals. For a study of its most prominent theologian, see D’Elia, John A., A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).Google Scholar

77. Henry, , The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, 46.Google Scholar

78. Henry to John Winston, June 12, 1970, box 5, folder 5, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA; Bernard Ramm to Henry, July 12, 1970, box 5, folder 5, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA; Henry to Wilbur Smith, May 30, 1970, box 5, folder 7, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA.

79. Henry displayed a similar reluctance with his participation in the Chicago Declaration on Social Concern in 1973. In that case, Henry worried about the leftward drift of the Chicago gathering. His hapless attempts to hold a collapsing center are well articulated in his own memoirs. See Henry, Confessions of a The ologian, 348. Thanks to Tim Padgett, a Ph.D. candidate at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, for this lead.

80. “Ockenga, Criswell Announce Historic First: Jerusalem Prophecy Conference,” full-page ad, Christianity Today, November 20, 1970, 171; Henry to Young, October 4, 1970, box 4, folder 5, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA.

81. Henry to Robert Walker, October 11, 1970, box 5, folder 4, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA; Gaylord Briley to Wilbur Smith, July 30, 1970, box 1, folder 12, Papers of Wilbur Smith, AA.

82. See Henry to Billy Graham, July 24, 1970, box 5, folder 5, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA; Young to Herbert Taylor, December 24, 1970, box 24, folder 5, collection 20, BGCA; T. W. Smyth to Henry, December 25, 1970, box 5, folder 4, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry AA.

83. Henry to Bernard Ramm, July 27, 1970, box 5, folder 5, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA.

84. Henry to Robert Walker, October 11, 1970, box 5, folder 3, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA; Young to Henry, October 13, 1970, box 5, folder 4, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA; Henry, Confessions of a The ologian, 335.

85. Young to Herbert Taylor, December 1, 1969, box 24, folder 5, collection 20, BGCA.

86. Young to Gaylord Briley, October 7, 1970, box 4457, folder 18, ISA; Young to Henry, October 13, 1970, box 5, folder 4, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA; Henry to John F. Walvoord, October 26, 1970, box 5, folder 5, Papers of Carl F. H. Henry, AA.

87. Other neo-evangelical speakers included Harold Ockenga (pastor of Park Street Church, Boston), Merrill Tenney (professor and dean at Wheaton College), and A. Skevington Wood (tutor at Cliff College, Derbyshire, England).

88. Smith, Wilbur, “Signs of the Second Advent of Christ,” in Prophecy in the Making: Messages Prepared for Jerusalem Conference on Biblical Prophecy, ed. Henry, Carl F. H. (Carol Stream, Ill.: Creation House, 1971), 185;Google Scholar Skinner, Tom, “Modern Youth in Biblical Perspective,” in ibid., 271.Google Scholar Smith injured his arm days before the conference and was unable to attend. His paper was delivered by General William K. Harrison, the president of the Officers’ Christian Fellowship.

89. Henry, Carl F. H., “Jesus Christ and the Last Days,” in Henry, Prophecy in the Making, 169;Google Scholar Henry, , Confessions of a The ologian, 335.Google Scholar

90. Young, G. Douglas, “Christian and Jewish Understanding of the Word ‘Israel,”’ in Henry, Prophecy in the Making, 161, 165–66.Google Scholar

91. R. J.|Zwi Werblowsky, “Prophecy, the Land, and the People,” in Henry, Prophecy in the Making, 345–47.

92. “Declaration on Jerusalem by Ad Hoc Group of Evangelical Christians,” June 17, 1971, box 4548, folder 13, Ministry of Foreign Affairs files, ISA. The signers included Young, Arnold T. Olson, Harold J. Fickett, Jr., John F. Walvoord, Myron F. Boyd, and John Warwick Montgomery; Michael Pragai to New York Consulate, telegram, June 17, 1971, box 4457, folder 20, Ministry of Foreign Affairs files, ISA; “Evangelists Meet in the Holy Land,” New York Times, June 20, 1971, 10; Yuval Elizur, “Evangelical Christians End 3-Day Meeting in Jerusalem,” Washington Post, June 19, 1971, 11.

93. Henry, Confessions of a The ologian, 334–35; Hanson, A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew, 328; Arnold T. Olson to Wilbur M. Smith, August 17, 1971, box 1, folder 50, Papers of Wilbur M. Smith, AA; Michael Pragai to New York Consulate, telegram, June 17, 1971, box 4457, folder 20, ISA.

94. Tanenbaum relied on an article from the Evangelical Beacon, the EFCA's official mouthpiece, for the declaration's wording, which may explain the sole credit given to Olson in the report. See Christians Support Unified Jerusalem (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1971), 1, 13–15.

95. Hanson, A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew, 378–84. Bridges for Peace's homepage is http://www.bridgesforpeace.com/il/.

96. “Evangelicals’ Concern for Israel,” New York Times, November 1, 1977, 12.

97. For a description of the congress, see Hanson, A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew, 343–54.

98. “Zionism Loses a Staunch Evangelical Supporter,” Christianity Today, June 27, 1980, 51.

99. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem's homepage is http://int.icej.org/.