Israel and the Jewish People

This theology has been completely unaffected by current events. The latest collaboration between Grey Matter Research and Infinity Concepts is The Crossroads of Belief: Evangelicals and the Jewish People. The report shows how evangelical beliefs today about Israel and the Jewish people are identical to what they were before the explosion of hostilities in Gaza.

What Type of Support?

In our latest research, we dug a little deeper into evangelical beliefs regarding Israel and the Jewish people.

There is not unmitigated support from the evangelical world. Nearly two-thirds say praying for the peace of Jerusalem is extremely important to their own faith.  This this falls to 57% for helping Jewish people believe in Jesus as their savior, and 55% for opposing antisemitism or anti-Jewish bias.

Around half of all evangelicals say spiritually supporting Israel, as well as the Jewish people, is extremely important to their Christian faith. In contrast, just under four out of ten consider political support of Israel and/or the Jewish people the same way. Consistently, spiritual support for Israel and the Jewish people is more important to evangelicals than political support.

Evangelicals tend to be selective on what type of support is important to them. Only 24% of evangelicals consider all seven of these issues to be extremely important to their own faith.

Those who believe the Jewish people are still God’s chosen people are substantially more likely than others to consider all types of support of Israel and the Jewish people to be extremely important to their own faith.

Perspectives from Church

Evangelicals who attend church were asked how often they hear from church leaders about Israel and the Jewish people. They’re really divided. For example, 29% very often hear the Jewish people referred to as “God’s chosen people” from their church leaders, while 27% hear this somewhat often, 20% only occasionally, 13% rarely, and 11% not at all.

Similarly, when it comes to teaching that Christians have a biblical responsibility to stand with or support the nation of Israel, 22% say they hear this from church leaders very often, 26% somewhat often, 21% only occasionally, 14% rarely, and 16% not at all.

There is a strong correlation between how often evangelicals hear about Israel and the Jewish people in their church, and the strength of their own beliefs on this. It may be that people who emphasize this gravitate toward churches where they will hear about it more frequently. It may also be that church leaders teaching on these topics more often will result in stronger focus on this topic from the congregation.

Key Things We Learned

The research shows no changes in evangelical beliefs, even in the face of dramatic global events. However, evangelicals are far from unified in their beliefs about Israel and the Jewish people. They are more likely to be supportive than not.  But the areas they support, and the strength of that support, varies a lot. Interest and support are more likely to come from a spiritual perspective than a political perspective. It is also notable that there is far more support in nearly every way from older evangelicals than from younger believers.

Learn more about the perspectives of evangelicals on Israel and the Jewish people.  The Crossroads of Belief: Evangelicals and the Jewish People is from Grey Matter Research and Infinity Concepts. The Crossroads of Belief is free by request – just e-mail ron@greymatterresearch.com.

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