The recent decision by the US to to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognize the city as the capital of Israel has been met with very different reactions, from joy to bewilderment. I am very sad about this decision. This move has set the peace efforts in the Middle East back decades. However, just like the major discourses during the US elections, I still feel the public is missing the biggest and probably the most important piece of the puzzle: American evangelical Christians. In this essay, I will draw from my personal encounters with American Christians, which might shed light or perhaps contextualize the decision taken by the 45th president of the United States. Out of revulsion for his policies and personality, for the rest of this article, I will only refer to him as #45. 

I was in my first 4 months in the United States. Everything was awesome. I added this word to my everyday vocabulary after arriving in Des Moines. There were no electricity power cuts, no food shortages, and there was more than one TV station! It was overwhelming; everything seemed heavenly, it was like living the imagined American dream. Prior to moving to the States, I had watched Eddie Murphy’s ‘Coming to America’ as if it was a documentary about the US. I felt hurt though when I figured Americans were watching The Gods Must be Crazy in the same way. When they heard me speaking with my South African friend in Xhosa, the click sounds simply solidified their stereotype. Some had the audacity to ask me about my first experience wearing clothes. My first encounter with American evangelicals was clouded with stereotypes, but it was one single decisive event that finally got me completely disillusioned.  

“You mean they will pay for my flight ticket, hotel and food?”, I responded in amazement to my evangelical American friend who was encouraging me to go with her to a conference in Washington DC. I was still using a pay-as-you-go AT & T sim card, so I asked my friend to email me the event webpage  so I could check it out later at no cost from my laptop when I got back to dorm room. Return ticket included, accomodation at the Marriott Hotel... “How far is this hotel from the white house?’’, I thought as I browsed through the internet. “Man, I can get to see my brother, Barack Obama!”, I screamed to my British roommate whom I used to gossip with about Americans whenever we got the opportunity. Our main gossip focused on the amount of food a certain American girl or boy we bumped into in the dining hall was eating. This day however was not the ‘I know’ kind of response; he walked towards my laptop to check this news of a free ticket to visit the capital of the US. “This looks good mate, you should go for it”. Now, it’s five years later and  I wonder if my roommate actually meant it. 

The 3 day conference was by an organization called Christians United for Israel (CUFI). CUFI at that time ( 2012) claimed a membership of 3 million Christians who supported the ‘cause’ for Israel. On top of enjoying the comfort of the Marriott Hotel, we also had to divide ourselves into groups depending on our states or neighbouring states, and then we visited the Capitol building. This visit was not for tourism, it was to convince the senators and Congressmen/women to vote for a deal which would impose sanctions on Iran as it threatened the peace of the “only democracy in the Middle East.” We were also asking for 3 billion USD to be given to Israel for no clear reasons.  I really didn’t care what cause we were fighting for at that time, I was there to enjoy my time and possibly to bump into my brother. I figured I was also a trophy as an African supporting the cause for Israel; and I enjoyed my trophy status during my stay in Washington DC. 

Everything seemed out of place during the meetings which were conducted at the Washington Convention Center. Each time anyone gave a speech they made Obama’s horns grow longer; they painted a very ugly picture of my hero which I had not imagined. Mitt Romney was their man. If your memory is hazy, Bachmann was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2012 presidential election. She had also accused Obama of being a globalist Muslim who was secretly plotting to tie the economy of the US to that of Zimbabwe. She was the star of the day. There were different stars over the 3 days: Pastor John Hagee, Michelle Bachmann and Prime Minister Netanyahu who spoke via telecast on the night to honor Israel. I was in DC for fun, but each time I left the convention center there were a dozen people holding banners stating: ‘ Free Palestine’, ‘CUFI is a terrorist organization’ or ‘Free Gaza’ etc. At one point the police had to come and stop an alleged ‘riot’, which broke out after one of our CUFI participants attacked the protesters in a burst of passion. It was at  this moment that I realized that this was not about having fun. Many of these participants had a deeper conviction of something larger. This was my bottle moment like the protagonist Xi from The Gods Must be Crazy. In the movie a coca cola bottle falls down from the sky in front of Xi, who had never seen such a thing in his bushman life. And this bottle radically changes his worldview. 

Many people during #45’s run for high office were amazed at how American Christians lack morals. How can they support such a racist candidate who brags about harassing women? The American Christians I met were very good people, individually. What I understood and learnt from this conference and other encounters was that American Christians are not blind to #45’s bad sides, but they have a different system altogether to judge what is moral for a political leader than they do for everyday encounters. This is evidenced in the wilful disregard of Roy Moore’s history of sexual abuse by his evangelical supporters, who are bullheadedly obsessed with avoiding a Democrat majority. One particularly distatestful man trivialised Moore’s behaviour by comparing abusing minors to stealing a lawnmower. 

Beside enlarging Obama’s horns, there was one very important and crucial theme which recurred that I will use in this essay to understand #45’s move to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The theme was about the coming of Christ and the third temple.  Now this is an ideology which is very very strong in many Christians across the world.  It goes like this: When Christ comes back, he will come to Israel, but first the Temple has to be rebuilt. Evangelicals draw from the Bible as to how this would play out. Both Christian and Jewish eschatology believes that Herod’s second temple would be rebuilt as a third temple. This is the only thing Christians and Jews agree on: that a third temple would be built and the Messiah would come. The difference, however, in their beliefs is that for the Christians the Messiah would be coming for the second time but for the Jews it would be for the first time. Now the problem is that Herod’s temple is where the Al-Aqsa mosque stands: the second holiest site for the Muslims after the kaaba in Mecca. For the temple to be rebuilt then the Al-Aqsa will have to be destroyed, and for this mosque destruction to happen, Jerusalem has to be out of  Palestinians hands. 

This move by #45 has been praised by evangelicals; many see him as an important figure in fulfilling biblical prophecies. He is seen at the same calibre as John the Baptist who paved the way for the coming of the Messiah. #45 himself might not be aware of anything he is doing but his evangelical vice president, Mike Pence, knows very well what will win them influence. 

For a reader who is struggling to understand the evangelical mind on major issues which divide American society e.g global warming, abortion, etc., let me walk you through one; how abortion is understood by evangelicals. Parallels are drawn from the Bible and those are the bases which decide what is moral and who is a good leader. I recall during elections, how Obama made a joke about smelling like sulphur after the evangelicals accused him and Hillary Clinton of being demons, and it was on that day that I realized how clueless liberals were about evangelical ideology. Abortion is seen as a pagan ritual where foetuses, or babies, as the evangelicals call them, are used as sacrifices. Very convincing parallels are drawn from the Bible from the Book of Kings where Ahab brought in the worship of Moloch, a god associated with child sacrifice. Ahab was from a conservative Israel but married a wife from Phoenicia, a very liberal place and her name was Jezebel.  Jezebel was in a battle for power with Jehoram, and later Jehu an outsider/non politician came to get rid of Jezebel and her liberal ways of sacrificing children. In this case, Child sacrifice = abortion, Ahab = Bill Clinton who was from conservative Arkansas and married a liberal woman, Hillary Clinton, who is also equated to Jezebel. Jehorum = Obama as he continued the worship of child sacrifice, and then finally #45 is Jehu, an outsider who has come to get rid of Jezebel and all pagan worship and when he says ‘you can say Merry Christmas again’, it resonates well with the evangelicals. 

For me it was the ‘riot’ between a CUFI participant and the Free Palestine activists in Washington DC which brought my attention to the strength of these ideologies. These 3rd temple and Messiah-coming ideologies are shared even by people in the senate and congress. Mike Pence knows very well what works to get the evangelical vote and sometimes it is easy to forget that  #45 fully got them on board after his speech at one of the well know organizations for advocating for Israel called AIPAC, The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United State.  #45 continues to keep his evangelical friends in the loop by offering countless interviews to their TV station, Christian Broadcasting Network(CBN) and saying the US is withdrawing from UNESCO because of the organization’s anti-Israel bias. His concern isn’t about ‘bias’, it is about a very important vote that he wants to maintain: that of evangelicals. #45 and evangelicals do not care about Israel per se, #45 cares about winning a second term and evangelicals care about bringing Christ back to Jerusalem . It is a win-win scenario for their courtship. 

In the end, Jerusalem is more important for its future role than its past. It is important because of the future that Christians and Jews imagine, the future with a 3rd temple and a fresh Messiah. People like John Hagee, who is by the way well respected among many ministers across the world, has made it clear that his biggest dream is to see the temple being rebuilt and hopefully to see the Messiah. Him and many other ministers across the US promised #45 an evangelical vote if #45 would at least pave a way to achieve the 3rd temple dream. So a third temple for the evangelicals and a second term for #45!

It is not like these Americans are immoral,  stupid or that they don’t care about peace. They simply have a different set of standard to judge what is moral in a leader.  To them, a good president leads the country in the direction which God desires even if it might involve the killing of other people, and whilst the move to recognize Jerusalem as a capital of Israel is seen as ‘pathetic’ to the rest of the world, it is ‘prophetic’ to evangelicals. And what greater peace than the peace that comes with the prince of peace? It is very rational and very moral if viewed through the standards by which evangelicals see the world of a leader and how they envision the future. For me what started as a trip to have fun and a possibility of meeting ‘my brother’ ended up becoming one of the most revealing moments in my life. I had gone to America feeling like Eddie Murphy and was treated like a trophy on many occasions. But by the time I left, I was disillusioned like Xi from Gods Must be Crazy. When I heard  #45’s move on Jerusalem, I couldn’t help but think indeed the gods must be really crazy!