The Christian Zionist View of Foreign Policy Is Holy War

By Sara Gabler , Truthout
Published August 6, 2025

"You’re very much into God in this room and that’s very nice,” President Donald Trump told a group of business leaders at a July 14 luncheon hosted by the White House Faith Office. In attendance were dozens of corporate executives, including Hobby Lobby CEO David Green and oil billionaire Albert Huddleston, along with senior administration officials. “You’re more than just CEOs and business leaders and entrepreneurs. You’re stewards on divine assignment,” praised Paula White-Cain, the former televangelist who leads the White House Faith Office.

It seemed like a strange group of people to invite to the first-ever Faith Office luncheon, an office with the stated mission of ensuring religious groups can “compete on a level playing field for grants, contracts, programs, and other Federal funding opportunities.” But this was a gathering for Christian nationalists who believe that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation”; that the government should reflect Christian values (narrowly defined as white evangelical Protestant values); and that businesses such as Hobby Lobby can impose religious beliefs.

“We believe God is raising up business leaders who don’t separate faith from enterprise, but who see their platforms and their pulpits as their businesses and their instruments for eternal impact,” stressed White-Cain. This was not an ecumenical or interfaith message because, unsurprisingly, the Faith Office’s leaders are all Christians, and their “faith” is the political ideology of white Christian nationalism.

In true prosperity gospel form, Trump assured the CEOs and cabinet members: “Together we’re going to continue the fight for Judeo-Christian values of our Founding Fathers, we’ll grow our economy, we’ll protect our children.” Trump’s language about Judeo-Christian values is also operative in another extremist ideology at work in his administration: Christian Zionism. Whereas Christian nationalism gives Trump and his supporters a shared language to talk about issues like so-called “anti-Christian bias” and “parental choice,” Christian Zionism gives them a language to make their support of Israel the focus of U.S. foreign policy — a handy euphemism for U.S. empire.

Read more: https://truthout.org/articles/the-christian-zionist-view-of-foreign-policy-is-holy-war/