(RNS) — On Jan. 6, about 100 North Carolina pastors and their wives will travel to Israel on an all-expenses-paid trip. They will tour Galilee, where Jesus ministered, and go to Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified. On Jan. 11, they’ll have a private dinner with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
The trip is organized by the American Renewal Project, a group dedicated to mobilizing evangelical pastors to run for office. An anonymous donor gave David Lane, a Texas political operative and evangelical Christian, $2 million for the effort.
“We believe in the Abrahamic covenant,” Lane said. “God said to Abraham, I give you my word that I’m going to give you the land. So the land is the Jews’, and because we’re evangelicals, we have been grafted in. And you know, the evangelicals are the best friends of Israel.”
But those beliefs are changing. Pro-Israel evangelicals, sometimes known as Christian Zionists, have found themselves under fire in recent months from their fellow conservatives — including podcasters and provocateurs Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens — and from Palestinian Christians and other U.S. activists who reject the idea that the modern state of Israel is the same construct as the ancient Israel of the Hebrew Bible.
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