Getting to Jerusalem had become part of the story.
For more stories from The Media Line go to themedialine.org
With US strikes on Iran, Iranian missile fire toward Israel, and repeated changes to regional air traffic, travel plans were uncertain for many of those trying to reach the country, as well as for tourists and residents wondering when they would be able to leave. For the pastors, theologians, diplomats, and Jewish leaders who came anyway, the disruption gave the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) summit a sharper edge than organizers might have expected.
The Jerusalem Summit, which took place between June 9 and 11, was a three-day gathering to discuss Israel, the Church, and antisemitism. By the time it opened, the regional crisis was no longer background noise. It was part of the atmosphere. But the speakers who took the stage were not focused only on Iran, missiles, or flight schedules. Their warning was that another crisis was taking shape inside parts of the Christian world itself, where support for Israel is being challenged by biblical illiteracy, political resentment, social media narratives, and renewed forms of replacement theology.
Organized by one of the world’s best-known pro-Israel Christian organizations, the gathering offered a view from inside the Christian Zionist movement at a moment of unusual anxiety. Speakers repeatedly argued that anti-Israel sentiment is no longer confined to the political left, Muslim communities, or secular activist circles, but is also emerging from parts of the American and European Christian right.
That concern gave the summit a different tone from a standard Christian Zionist conference. It began with music, formal greetings, and a message from Israel’s president, but the language quickly turned urgent. President Isaac Herzog, addressing the summit by video from the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, described antisemitism as a global challenge that required law enforcement, legal action, and education.
“We are witnessing a very disturbing surge of antisemitism all over the world,” he said. “This is a major challenge for humanity. This is the age-old, perhaps the oldest plague in humanity.”
The president told the Christian leaders that countering antisemitism requires “law enforcement, adjudication, and education,” adding that it cannot be accepted that people “erase Israel off the map, the only nation state of the Jewish people.”
'We need to act now,' even amidst concerns with Iran
Dr. Jürgen Bühler, president of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, said organizers called the summit because they saw a crisis on multiple fronts. He said the decision to hold the gathering was made despite regional instability and uncertainty over flights, and described the event itself as “a miracle,” saying organizers had expected some speakers to cancel, but all had agreed to come.
“We are living in a time of emergency. We need to act now,” Bühler told the audience. “That’s why when people came to me, Jürgen, let’s postpone that meeting, maybe next year is a better time. I said, no, we need to act now. We need to come together, and we need to hold that meeting.”
For Bühler, the concern was not only the rise of antisemitism after Oct. 7, but also the fact that anti-Israel arguments are finding space inside conservative Christian circles. He pointed to voices such as Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes as “the tip of the iceberg,” but said the deeper problem was silence from pastors and church leaders.
“They’re not silent because they are antisemites or they are against the Jewish people,” he said. “I believe most of them, from the bottom of their heart, they have some warm feelings towards the Jews at least. But I believe it’s blatant ignorance and illiteracy by most pastors about Israel. They don’t dare to speak.”
David R. Parsons, ICEJ’s senior vice president and spokesman, told The Media Line that the summit was born from a sense that Christian Zionists could no longer treat the problem as external.
“After Oct. 7, you’ve had this surge of antisemitism growing around the world, and it was not only on the left and then radical Islam, but it was quite shocking to start seeing it come from the American right and especially the American Christian right,” he said. Parsons said some Christians who still hold a favorable view of Israel are now afraid to say so publicly. “There are actually Christians there who have a heart for Israel, a favorable view of Israel, but they’re afraid and intimidated into speaking out.”
Fear of associating with 'Zionism' drives division
That fear, Parsons said, now has practical consequences. He pointed to a recent episode in Dublin, where a planned pro-Israel Christian gathering was canceled after pressure on the venue.
“We had a big meeting. They expected 1,000, 2,000 people in this big stadium in downtown Dublin, where I was going to speak,” he said. “All of a sudden, my little graphic poster of me is being spread on the internet that I’m a supporter of genocide, and we want to cancel this event.” For Parsons, the lesson was clear. “I don’t think we have any choice but to start fighting back as Christians against this intimidation,” he said. “If you want to stand with Israel today and be identified as a Christian Zionist, the word Zionist has become, you know, such a negative term. We have to redeem that term.”
The summit’s sharpest internal debate focused on replacement theology, also known as supersessionism, the belief that the Church has replaced Israel in God’s covenant. Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, executive director of Israel365 Action, told The Media Line that the issue is no longer merely academic.
“In the Christian world today, we have a situation where there are actors who are trying to drive a wedge between Jews and Christians, and they’re weaponizing theology,” he said. “And young Christians are not biblically literate. It’s a very big problem.” Wolicki said young Christians who go to church but do not read the Bible are vulnerable to old theological ideas now being used for political purposes. “What we’re seeing now in the last few years is this resurgence of supersessionism, replacement theology, with a political angle to it, saying that the Jewish people really have no right to be in this land, and that it’s not Christian to support Israel.”
Wolicki argued that the theological answer is not complicated, but that a generation unfamiliar with Scripture is less able to recognize it.
“When you look at the Bible, you see over and over again that God promised the land of Israel to the Jewish people,” he said. “And that it’s the most repeated prophecy in the Bible, that the Jewish people will one day come back to the land.” The modern return of the Jewish people, he said, should have been understood by Bible-believing Christians as confirmation rather than contradiction. “The fact that we did it should make every person who reads the Bible say hallelujah,” he said.
The trend, Wolicki said, is most visible in the United States, where some young conservatives have grown suspicious of foreign commitments and resentful of institutions they believe have turned against them. He contrasted that with many conservative Christian communities in Europe and Latin America, which he described as broadly pro-Israel.
“If you look around the world, and you look at European countries or South American countries, most Christians in those countries are pro-Israel,” he said. “So we have to ask ourselves the question, why is it that among American political conservative Christians we’re seeing a rise in anti-Israel rhetoric?”
The generational divide plays a role
He tied that shift to a wider mood of disaffection among younger Americans.
“When you have a generation that feels that they’ve been marginalized and that they don’t have hope for a brighter future, it’s only natural for them to look for a scapegoat,” he said. “This is really an old playbook, where you have a generation that feels that they’ve been marginalized and then someone, demagogues, take advantage of that, and it’s always easy to blame the Jews.”
Dr. Andrew J. “A. J.” Nolte, an associate professor of politics at Regent University’s Robertson School of Government, said the generational challenge begins with how young people now process information.
“I think the biggest problem that we have is that you are dealing with in Gen Z and Gen Alpha post-literate generations from a theological frame of evangelical Christianity and its related traditions that is primarily a biblical faith,” he told The Media Line. “So if you have a biblical faith, you have to read the Bible. How do you get people in a post-literate generation to read?” Nolte said one answer is to reconnect Scripture to place. “You have to connect the Bible to a place. And that place, of course, is the land where it took place,” he said.
For young Christians saturated with audiovisual content, Nolte said, Israel can help move the Bible from an abstract text into a tangible story.
“If it’s not simply a text, but it’s also a text that’s rooted in a place that took place in a place at a time with people, then you can start connecting beyond the page,” he said.
He argued that churches also need to offer young people something social media cannot: “authenticity, community, belonging, and a rhythm of sacred time that separates young people from the constant, ever-present now.”
Despite the numbers often cited by pro-Israel advocates, Nolte said he remains cautiously optimistic about young Christians. He said low support for Israel among younger Christians does not always mean they have adopted a hardened anti-Israel position.
“If you look under the hood,” he said, “what you’re finding is actually they’re not going to a hardened anti-Palestinian position. They’re either I don’t know, or this doesn’t really affect my life, so I don’t need to know. So it’s apathy.”
That distinction matters, he argued, because apathy can still be challenged through education, relationships, and direct experience.
“I think that there’s still time and there’s still opportunity to turn things around despite all the social media noise,” he said. “Things are bad, but they’re not as bad as people think.”
Some voices were left out to narrow the scope
The gathering did not include much direct engagement with Christian critics of Zionism, Palestinian Christian perspectives, or Christians who argue that support for Israel should be separated from theological claims about covenant and prophecy. Its focus was narrower: how pro-Israel Christians understand the erosion of support inside their own religious and political communities, and how they believe the movement should respond.
The question of experience came up repeatedly. For Christian Zionist leaders, bringing young Christians to Israel remains one of the most effective ways to counter online narratives. This year, the summit itself became part of that argument. Delegates arrived in a week of renewed military exchanges, uncertain flights, and security alerts, and organizers presented their presence as evidence that the relationship between Israel and Christians could not wait for calmer conditions.
Inside the hall, the message was not only that Christians should speak about Israel, but that they should encounter the country directly, meet Israelis, and understand Jewish history as more than an abstract biblical theme.
Ambassador George Deek, recently appointed as Israel’s special envoy to the Christian world, said Israel is also trying to place the relationship with Christians on a more formal and strategic footing.
“The creation of, for the first time, of the position of a special envoy to the Christian world, which doesn’t exist in any other country, by the way, is a statement by the state of Israel that we care deeply about our relations with Christians everywhere,” Deek told The Media Line.
As an Arab Christian Israeli diplomat, Deek said his role is first to listen to Christian communities and then to “tell a fuller story of Israel,” one that does not reduce the country to “good people and bad people and villains and heroes.”
Deek said part of that story is Israel’s position as the one country in the region where Christian communities are growing.
“Israel has become this country that overcame challenges and turned curses into blessings and is basically the only place in this region where Christian community is actually growing and where Christians are thriving,” he said. “Christians like me, I’m an Arab Christian, can live in Israel and succeed in every field of society, from government to high-tech to sports and art, and that is the power of Israel.”
He contrasted that with the shrinking Christian communities in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, arguing that the Middle East is losing its ability to tolerate minorities.
The relationship between Israel and Christians, Deek said, is not only a matter of diplomatic outreach, but also a shared regional responsibility.
“Our main task is to create partnerships with our Christian brothers and sisters around the world so we can help the state of Israel and help Christians and other minorities in the region be able to restore human dignity, to restore freedom, and to restore a better future for ourselves in this region,” he said. He also put the connection in explicitly biblical terms. “The people of Israel and Christian people are the only two nations that share the same Bible,” he said. “And therefore, our biblical values are based on the same book.”
For Deek, the role is also personal.
“For me personally, it’s a fulfillment of a longtime dream to connect my two most important identities, being a Christian and being an Israeli,” he said. “And to merge these two and to be a bridge between my country and my fellow Christians.” He called the position “the most important mission I will ever do,” and said he intends “to do everything in my power to succeed with the grace of God.”
The summit faced backlash from the pro-Israel Christian movement
Still, the summit did not avoid criticism of the pro-Israel Christian movement itself. Bishop Robert Stearns, founder of Eagle’s Wings Ministries and pastor of the Tabernacle Church in Orchard Park, New York, warned that Christian Zionists risk speaking mostly to the same aging audience unless they deliberately expand.
“There are only three words that matter in this moment,” he told the gathering. “Expand the base.” Looking around the room, Stearns said the movement needed to reach beyond its traditional demographic. “I love you all dearly, but I am [up] to here with going to Christian Zionist conferences and seeing the same 400 people,” he said. “This room is too old and too Caucasian.”
Stearns urged every participant to mentor at least one person under the age of 25 into Christian Zionist leadership.
“It is time for us to reach out to our African brothers and sisters, our Latin American brothers and sisters, our Asian brothers and sisters,” he said. “If we do nothing else than this when we leave this place, this is what we must do.”
His intervention reflected one of the most repeated anxieties at the summit: the movement’s older generation has strong conviction but limited reach, while younger Christians live in a faster, more visual, and more hostile information environment.
Wolicki said the Jewish side also has work to do. He acknowledged that many Jews remain hesitant about Christian engagement because of centuries of persecution and concerns about proselytizing.
“Jews have a very long historical memory,” he said. “They also are concerned that Christians have an agenda to convert Jews.” But he argued that more relationships between rabbis, pastors, seminaries, and local communities could help build trust. “I think it would definitely help if Jewish leaders everywhere in America had more ongoing relationships with local pastors, with local Christian leaders, and start bringing those communities together in a more cooperative way,” he said. “That would build more trust, and that would filter through.”
Oct. 7 made the ICEJ's work all the more important
Parsons, for his part, said ICEJ’s work in Israel has long gone beyond public advocacy. He said the Christian Embassy has helped nearly 200,000 Jews immigrate to Israel, supported Holocaust survivors, and funded bomb shelters and humanitarian projects. Since Oct. 7, he said, the organization has worked with displaced families, trauma care for children and elderly Israelis, and rebuilding projects in Gaza border communities.
“We’re rebuilding elderly centers, youth centers, a music therapy center, all sorts of projects, a horse therapy ranch, and petting zoo,” he said, describing efforts in communities such as Be’eri and Kfar Aza.
The goal, he added, is especially urgent for children who lived through years of rocket fire and then the attacks of Oct. 7.
“We want to help them heal and recover.”
The summit left no impression that organizers believe the problem can be solved quickly. Bühler himself said the gathering would likely be the first of many because “the emergency situation will not go away after the summit.” The rift between Israel and parts of the Church, he said, will not be healed overnight.
Yet the message from Jerusalem was that Christian Zionist leaders no longer see the debate as one that can be left to theologians alone or avoided by pastors who fear controversy. For the speakers gathered there, the battle was about antisemitism, biblical illiteracy, Christian identity, and the willingness of church leaders to confront anti-Israel sentiment inside their own communities. Silence, in their view, was no longer neutrality. It was part of the problem.