By : FAYDRA L. SHAPIRO

ABSTRACT This article examines a case of travel to Israel which might further complicate

the already blurry line between tourism and pilgrimage: evangelical, Christian Zionist

visits to Israel. The Israeli Ministry of Tourism estimates that evangelical Christians

account for one third of American visitors to Israel. My research investigates how

Christian Zionist travel to Israel is both ‘touristic' and ‘pilgrimage-like' and how this

case can serve to question some thinking about pilgrimage. Finally, I offer yet another

definition of what constitutes pilgrimage, which avoids at least some of the particular

hazards. A primary goal of the research is to provide more empirical data and deeper

analysis for our understanding of Christian Zionist travel to Israel and thus to

contribute additional nuance to discussions of pilgrimage and tourism more generally.

 

Introduction

 

A critical step in the investigation of all phenomena we subject to scientific

analysis is that of defining and delimiting their boundaries. While studies of

pilgrimage abound, there is as yet no clearly shared understanding of what

constitutes pilgrimage and where its limits lie. The task of developing

a workable definition of pilgrimage is compounded by the definitional

difficulties of some of its core elements. ‘Sacred' and ‘religious' are both

common categories for thinking about pilgrimage and they are bogged down

in their own, more serious, definitional quagmires. While explicit definitions of

pilgrimage do exist, we can also locate implicit scholarly assumptions about its

nature by seeing how pilgrimage is contrasted with its closest relative: tourism.

When Victor and Edith Turner declared 30 years ago that ‘‘a tourist is half

a pilgrim, if a pilgrim is half a tourist'' (20), they could not have imagined the

wealth of tourism and pilgrimage scholarship that would follow. In its time, this

formulation was exciting, opening up a relationship between the ‘religious'

and ‘secular' travel phenomena that might appear fundamentally divergent.

Since that time, the fuzziness of the boundary between tourism and pilgrimage

has been investigated, to great benefit. Yet the Turners' ‘half and half' formulation

is based on, and reinscribing of, a binary opposition between tourist and pilgrim.

While we are able to recognize that the two phenomena, or modes of travel,

are both linked and mixed, this formulation continues to assert that they are

fundamentally different.

 

Pilgrimage scholarship has investigated many cases that seem to traverse the

boundary between tourism and pilgrimage and developed additional categories

to classify these cases. Thus we have created ‘religious tourism' to refer to travel

to ‘religious' sites undertaken with ‘secular' (touristic or insufficiently religious)

motives, with the term implying a certain experiential and emotional distance on

the part of visitors from the sites themselves. We have also identified many cases

of pilgrimage that turn on notions of ‘civil religion' or ‘implicit religion', which

refer to serious visits to sites that are culturally or politically significant-perhaps

even ‘sacred' to participants, yet not religious in a traditional sense. Finally, some

scholars have examined situations of ‘homeland journeys' or ‘roots tours', like

travel to Africa by African Americans or diasporic Jewish homeland tours to

Israel, which are not quite ‘religious' in either site or motivation as we might

expect of ‘traditional' pilgrimage.

 

That pilgrimage is deeply intertwined with, perhaps even dependent on,

tourism has already been well established. It is also clear that the intertwining

is not a new phenomenon and that, historically, pilgrimage has also included

activities one might categorize as both ‘pious' and ‘non-pious'. The case

addressed here presents us with something more elusive: the way in which

what appears ‘non-pious' or ‘touristic' can, in the eyes of particular religious

practitioners, turn out to be the most pious of all. My intention is not to

reproduce the standard opposition between tourism and pilgrimage, pious and

non-pious, but to undermine it, as the practitioners in this case study do.

The present work examines a case of travel to Israel which might further

complicate the already blurry line between tourism and pilgrimage: evangelical,

Christian Zionist visits to Israel. My research investigates how Christian Zionist

travel to Israel is both ‘touristic' and ‘pilgrimage-like'1 and how this case can

serve to question some thinking about pilgrimage. I offer yet another definition of

what constitutes pilgrimage, which I hope avoids at least some of the particular

hazards. A primary goal of this research is to provide more empirical data

and deeper analysis for our understanding of Christian Zionist travel to Israel

and thus to contribute additional nuance to discussions of pilgrimage and

tourism more generally.2

 

The statistics are notable in themselves: the Israeli Ministry of Tourism estimates

that evangelical Christians account for a third of American visitors to Israel. The

Feast of Tabernacles, for example, is a massive annual event organized by the

International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem (ICEJ).3 The ICEJ seemed to have

no difficulty with merging pilgrimage and tourism. Following the event, the ICEJ

web site noted with pride: ‘‘Billed by Israeli media and government officials as the

largest tourist event of 2006, thousands of pilgrims from 80 nations congregated on

the shores of the Dead Sea . . . '' (http://www.icej.org/, access date: November

2006, emphasis added) This statement suggests no disavowal of or discomfort

with either term. At the Feast, the resounding applause of some 5,000 people

welcomed Israel's Minister of Tourism at the time, Yitzhak Herzog, to the stage

at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem. Participants seemed perfectly

happy to be called ‘tourists', to be addressed and thanked by the Minister of

Tourism, and to be partners in the Israeli tourism enterprise.

 

Christian Zionist Travel to Israel

 

The ICEJ Feast of Tabernacles is, no doubt, an annual mega-event that draws

many visitors. But Christian Zionist tours to Israel take place throughout the year,

under the auspices of many different organizations. Evangelical Christians

commonly travel to Israel in connection with large, para-church organizations

like the ICEJ, Bridges for Peace, and Christian Friends of Israel, as part of

church groups or with smaller ministries that place special emphasis on Israel

and Jews.

 

Christian Zionism is the label for a particular orientation and emphasis within

evangelicalism that ascribes critical theological and eschatological importance to

the Jews living in Israel.4 Christian Zionism is commonly ascribed to the political

outgrowth of a theological system known as ‘pre-millennial dispensationalism',

the details of which need not concern us here.5

 

The emergence of dispensationalism is commonly traced to early

nineteenth-century Britain from where it was exported to America with the

far-reaching ideas of John Darby and those evangelists whom he influenced,

including Dwight Moody, Cyrus Scofield, and William Blackstone. Individual

Christians both in Britain and America-together with the Jewish Zionist

movement-played a critical role in achieving a national homeland for the

Jews in 1948. For Christian Zionists, the birth of the state of Israel was a highly

important event with regard to their worldview, as will be discussed below.

Support for the state would only grow following the Israeli victory of 1967,

perceived by many as nothing short of miraculous. The expansion of Israeli

territory to include central biblical sites of course increased the excitement of

religious Zionists, both Jewish and Christian. This would be followed by the

growing importance of the ‘evangelical right' in domestic US politics, opening

the way for Christian Zionist priorities to influence mainstream politics at the

highest level.

 

Christian Zionist activism on behalf of Israel takes many forms, including

lobbying government officials (primarily in Europe and the United States) for

specific policy or budget changes, publicizing the importance of Israel to other

Christians, giving money to Israeli charities, encouraging and financially aiding

Jewish immigration to Israel, providing social services to Jews in Israel (such as

food banks, aid to the elderly, support to lone soldiers), and prayer intercession

or spiritual warfare. Christian Zionists are thus active in political, financial,

humanitarian, and spiritual ways to support Israel-and they visit Israel, of

course. In the fall of 2006, following an extremely tense summer of war

between Israel and the Hizbollah of Lebanon, I was taken aback when meeting

a Canadian Christian Zionist in Jerusalem on her thirty-ninth visit to Israel.

She was not part of an organized tour, but took the time to come to the annual

‘Jerusalem March', in which Christian Zionists from around the world

participate-often in ‘national dress'-to demonstrate their solidarity with the

people of Jerusalem. For this visitor, regular travel to Israel was an obvious part

of her love and support for Israel and the Jews.

 

Most Christian Zionist tours to Israel follow a fairly set routine: a combination

of sites connected to the life and ministry of Jesus and modern Israel. The former

commonly includes places like the Garden Tomb (the Protestant site of Jesus'

burial), Yardenit (a baptismal site on the Jordan River), and Megiddo (the site

of the anticipated future battle of Armageddon). Modern sites might include

the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament), the Independence Hall (where Israeli

independence was declared in 1948), and Har Herzl (the military cemetery).

Encountering modern Israel also commonly includes spending time or

volunteering with Jewish residents of Israel, who are usually carefully selected.

For example, encounters with recent immigrants to the country usefully show the

restoration of the Jews to their national homeland. Encounters with victims of

terror and war illustrate the precarious security situation and the country's need

for international support. Encounters with Holocaust survivors show the history

of anti-Semitism. These experiences of Israel are fascinating for the ways in which

they appear to blend the historical and modern, the religious and political,

pilgrimage and tourism.

 

Christian Zionist visits to traditional Christian pilgrimage sites look

immediately like pilgrimage, but Christian Zionist visits to contemporary sites

of modern Israeli and Jewish culture look more like tourism and/or sightseeing.

This is the crux of the problem: how to categorize these kinds of tours? Are

Christian Zionist visits to Israel simply pilgrimages when they involve visits to

sites of Jesus' life, but tourism when they involve visits to sites of modern Israel?

At first sight, this might seem like a simple case of the Turners' formulation: we

might assert that Christian Zionist visitors to Israel are either tourists (who are

in fact half pilgrims) or pilgrims (who are in fact half tourists).

 

Interestingly, Grace Halsell's popular investigative report about her experiences

during two tours of Israel in the 1983 and 1985, which were sponsored by Jerry

Falwell, includes her perplexity at a problem similar to our own. She expresses

her surprise thatIn colored brochures outlining each trip, Falwell did not mention we would be

in the land of Christ, where Jesus was born, had his ministry and died. Rather

the focus was on Israel. We had only Israeli guides, stayed only in Israeli hotels

and ate only in Israeli restaurants. (59)

 

Timothy Weber's fascinating history of the relationship between Jews and

evangelical Christians offers a helpful key to understanding Christian Zionist

tours. While not specifically referring to travel to Israel he notes that ‘‘The

embassy [ICEJ] has always claimed that its work is religious, not political, but

among Christian Zionists, the line between the two is often hard to distinguish''

(217). That, as I assert below, is certainly part of the point.

 

However, the problem of categorization was complicated by the paradox

encountered in interviews and participant observation: the encounters with

modern Israel had a much deeper effect on these active, committed

Christians-seemingly ‘just' tourism-than their visits to the more traditionally

religious sites. The Christian Zionists I encountered did not appear to make all

that much of ‘traditional' pilgrimage sites in Israel. Roman Catholic and/or

Orthodox sites were obviously not sacred centers or even provoked any degree

of religious experience. In fact, they served almost as anti-sites, representing

for these visitors a mistaken Christianity, connected with paganism and

anti-Semitism and useful for reinforcing their own evangelical worldview.6

The (Protestant) sites of Jesus' life and ministry or significant events in the

early Church were eagerly anticipated, yet ultimately forgone as less important

than what they signified. What seemed especially important to the visitors,

what appeared to move them the most, were places and experiences associated

with the modern, political state of Israel. It looked like tourism. It certainly

looked ‘political' and ‘secular' rather than ‘religious'. Yet it was all of these

at the same time.

 

An Israeli tour guide who specializes in guiding Christian tours of all varieties

confirmed my impression of this paradox and offered his own assessment,

suggesting that Christian Zionist visitors were in fact neither pilgrims nor

tourists:

 

The most important for the Christian Zionists is to see the resurrection of the

people of Israel and of the land of Israel. They don't care about that church, they

don't care about those stones, they don't care about this deed happened here or

this deed happened there. They don't care at all about it . . . The most important

for them is to watch the land, to see the hills, to read the Bible . . . It is not

tourism. It is coming to see the prophecies from the Old Testament being

realized. That's what it is. It's not pilgrimage. For Catholics and for regular

Protestants it's pilgrimage. It's walking the steps of Jesus Christ. For those

people [Christian Zionists], it's witnessing the prophecy that's being realized.

They read Ezekiel and they tell their people ‘‘Watch from the window. You see!

It's happening.'' It strengthens their belief. The Christian Zionists have a point

of view that starts from a simple fact: if God does not keep his promises to

the people of Israel, why will he keep the promises to us? It's a very objective

point of view. (interview, Jerusalem, November 2006)

 

Without doubt, Christian Zionist experiences of particular historical ‘religious'

sites in Israel are heavily influenced by the Protestant tendency toward a more

de-territorialized Christianity. This tendency is even more pronounced in

evangelical circles, with their focus on the Holy Spirit that transcends place

and is poured out everywhere. In the evangelical worldview, nations and

places are largely undifferentiated: open to the working of the spirit or ripe for

missionary activity.7 The one place that is radically different is the state of Israel.

The distinctiveness does not lie in the land of Israel per se, as the stage of the Bible

and the immediate environment of the historical Jesus.8 The shocking sacrality is

located in the modern, political nation state of Israel as formed by the United

Nations little more than 50 years ago. The sovereign Jewish state is profoundly

special, because-for Christian Zionist believers-it stands as proof, as witness,

as evidence of a God who keeps his word.

 

That the ‘ingathering of the exiles' is a religious ideal in Judaism is well-known,

but it is also part of significant streams of Christianity that view the words of the

Jewish prophets as pointing to future events.9 For them, what is sometimes

referred to as the ‘restoration' of the Jews to their ancient homeland is

a miraculous work in progress that must be supported with prayer, political

activism, and money. That the Jews have managed to build a sovereign and

successful state is an event whose significance for Christian Zionism cannot be

overestimated.

 

Christian Zionists view the modern state of Israel as nothing short of a miracle,

which functions as the critical connection point between past and future. Its sheer

existence, survival, and advancements are signs of God keeping his past promises

and, therefore, God's trustworthiness about what is to come, both for individuals

and the world. The state also serves as a sign of the times, an arrow pointing

toward the future and the second coming of Christ and his millennial reign.

Thus, in the Christian Zionist worldview, the state and its political history are

explicit manifestations of the divine plan for the world, justifying-if not actually

requiring-visits to sites like the Parliament or Har Herzl, which scholars tend

to associate with ‘civil religion'.10

 

At the same time, the visits are about demonstrating solidarity with God's

chosen people in God's promised land, by loving whom God loves and

providing them with material, emotional, spiritual, and political support.

In this Christian Zionists feel themselves to be partnering God, helping to

further his plan. The material actions on behalf of Jewish residents of the

modern state of Israel are understood in explicitly religious, biblical terms to

be either ‘comforting' Israel (Isaiah 40:1) or ‘blessing' her (Genesis 12:3) or

protecting her as a ‘watchman on the walls' (Isaiah 62:6).11

 

The Christian Zionists with whom I spoke, traveled, and worshipped see, like

Nelson Graburn's Japanese travelers, the pilgrim/tourist distinction in a very

conventional manner. Because of their sense of purpose, they do not view

themselves as ‘mere' tourists, although they are hesitant to refer to themselves

as ‘pilgrims'; in their lexicon ‘pilgrim' refers more to Christian visitors who have

a greater focus on historical sites than they themselves possess. Yet clearly, for

Christian Zionists, doing ‘touristic' things is a significant, meaningful, religious

act. At its most basic level, being a tourist to Israel shows solidarity with what

they perceive to be an embattled, wrongly isolated nation. It is a state that

represents, in a political sense, a bastion of Western style democracy in a sea of

undemocratic Arab states. Yet such political considerations are not the source of

the power of being a tourist to Israel. For Christian Zionists, the source of that

power is unabashedly religious in origin and is equally the source of any

explicitly political considerations. To participate in the state, to support its

economy through spending money, to support its environment through

donations to build forests, to support its inhabitants by donating blood

through Magen David Adom (the ‘Red Star of David', equivalent to the ‘Red

Cross' or ‘Red Crescent')12 are both profoundly religious and political activities.

This dynamic equally ensures that taking part in local culture, eating in

restaurants, buying wine or purchasing Israeli-made art and handicraft,

is relaxing, enjoyable, and commercial, but is at the same time religious and

a gesture of political solidarity.13

 

Of course, this kind of experience occurs neither spontaneously nor in a

vacuum. It goes hand in hand with the ideological priorities of both the Israeli

Ministry of Tourism to show Israel in a positive light and of individual tour

operators and guides. Zionist Israelis are eager to show an Israel that is both

strong and vital and welcoming of international support. Christian Zionists are

equally eager to consume such an Israel. One tour organizer, who has been

working with Christian Zionist tours to Israel for many years, explained to me that

[I see my purpose as providing] content-content of programming. Having

them hear speakers, go to Knesset, get them politically involved with

organizations that are very right-wing, have them lobby for us in

Washington, have them lobby for us in the UK. I don't want to just do a tour.

That's not what I'm here for. I want them to understand who we are. We need

the support of the Christian world. We can't stand alone anymore . . . Just think

of all the people, if they stood up for us during the Shoah [Holocaust], how

many people we could have saved. (interview, Jerusalem, November 2006)

How well the Israeli tourism industry actually understands and provides for

the needs of Christian Zionist visitors to Israel-and, by extension, how well

the country takes full advantage of their support and sympathy-is open

to question. Some observers and participants in the tourism industry believe that

it is inertia and lack of understanding that keep Christian Zionist visitors

as moderately attached to more traditional, religious pilgrimage sites in Israel

as they are. An Israeli tour guide asserted that Our Ministry of Tourism and our tour agencies don't know how to sell Israel.

 

There is a lot to sell, there is a lot to show. If the people make so much about

Jesus, it is also our guilt. Our Ministry of Tourism and our tour agencies who

don't know how to make other tours than those . . . It's the same old story. We

could make much better and we could take the people a bit out of it. We should.

(interview, Jerusalem, November 2006)

 

Implications for Thinking about Pilgrimage

 

We find ourselves still left with the basic question: are Christian Zionist tours,

such as I have described, a form of pilgrimage? The question is reasonable,

considering the extent to which these visitors are focused on sites that are not

obviously sacred, carry strong political overtones, and properly belong to another

culture. I shall use the present case study to uncover some difficulties in common

understandings of what constitutes pilgrimage in order to construct a definition

of pilgrimage that I hope avoids these pitfalls.

 

The Problem of Sites

 

Definitions of pilgrimage often use the ascribed status of the destination as a way

to classify the status of the journey. Yet sites are, as notable studies have argued,

constructed and contested and they possess multi-valent meanings (see, for

example, Eade and Sallnow and Coleman and Elsner). However tempting, it is

not useful to refer to a location as a ‘sacred site' when thinking about pilgrimage,

as this opens up the problem of circularity: because a site is a sacred center,

travel there is pilgrimage and because people make pilgrimages there, the site

is sacred.14

 

Sites do not, of course, actually possess meaning. Meaning is made in the

encounter between, at least, visitor and site.15 There are thus no actual, stable

‘pilgrimage sites', but only pilgrims-people who view the location as sacred.

Fundamentally, there are people, whether in contemporary or historical times,

who make (or made) use of religious rhetoric and action to make meaning of

the site.

 

Site-based thinking also leads to a prescriptive mentality: researchers come to

think that certain geographical points ought to be approached in certain kinds of

ways. Macioti, for example, writes that ‘‘Present-day pilgrims visit basilicas and

churches as various kinds of art exhibitions-more like eager tourists than

persons who are moved by some spiritual need'' (89). The tone suggests

a certain bemoaning of the fact that people visit ‘religious' sites in inadequate

ways. Yet these are ways that only appear inadequate or inappropriate because

of our prior assumptions about the site as either ‘sacred' or ‘secular'. The case of

Christian Zionism underlines that the opposite can occur: that present-day

travelers visit national memorials, illegal settlements, and parliament buildings

as expressions of God's divine plan-more like eager pilgrims than tourists.

 

The Problem of Motives

 

As Badone and Roseman correctly assert, the most common basis for

differentiating pilgrimage from tourism is ‘‘assumptions about the beliefs

and motivations of travelers who undertake journeys to religious shrines'' (2).

There are at least three problems with using ‘motives' to determine what

constitutes pilgrimage.16 Firstly, internal states are, for several reasons, difficult

for researchers to access, understand, and measure. Secondly, motives are

notoriously complicated and rarely pure or singular. The third difficulty is that

there is a jump from the definitional frying pan into the fire: how to determine

what constitutes ‘religious' motives? What kind of motives are ‘adequately'

religious for a journey to count as pilgrimage? This implies a presumption that

religion is a realm separated from other parts of life and culture. Motivations are

rarely ‘just' religious and at the same time ‘religious' motivations are impossible

to define and isolate.

I am especially interested in the latter. It might be easy to suggest that the

motives of Christian Zionist pilgrims are political rather than religious.

Doubtless the evangelical, pro-Israel worldview has serious political

implications. Yet where does the religious end and the political begin?

‘Religion' cannot be usefully isolated from other social and cultural forces.

Perhaps as a result of the pietistic heritage of evangelicalism, Christian Zionists

themselves do not separate these realms.

 

We might productively wonder at the assumptions and ideology that lead us to

isolate ‘religion' from ‘commerce' or ‘politics'. Speaking about a different

ethnographic context, yet addressing a similar problem concerning pilgrimage

and tourism, Graburn asserts that the ‘‘division between religion and nonreligion

is not a salient contrast for the majority of Japanese either in daily life or when

visiting temples and shrines . . . '' (136).17

 

I would even suggest that one reason why Christian Zionists travel to Israel is

almost entirely ignored in scholarship is partly due to a persistent belief that

religion and politics are discrete realms, with the latter polluting of the

former.18 Perks offered by the government of Israel, such as heavily discounted

‘familiarization tours' for pastors which are designed to encourage evangelical

tourism to Israel, strike us as inappropriately politicized, as a country using

power and state resources to encourage and dictate tourist experiences in order

to gain support for itself on the international stage. However, Israel is hardly

unique in this endeavour.

 

The Problem of Authenticity

 

The belief that something ‘authentic', ‘deep' or ‘serious' happens on a pilgrimage

is held in direct contrast to notions of tourism as ‘inauthentic', ‘superficial' or

‘relaxing'. Cohen (‘‘Pilgrimage'') contrasts the expected ‘rapture' of pilgrimage

with the ‘mere pleasure and enjoyment' of tourism. Based on his examination of

pilgrimage in Sri Lanka, Pfaffenberger provides a critique of persistent beliefs

that pilgrimage ought to be serious and austere in order to be authentic. He asks

the critical question: ‘‘If one strips the language of frivolity and gravity from the

concepts of tourism and pilgrimage, how can they then be distinguished?'' (61).

As Rountree explores, in addition to ‘religious' experience, the informants in her

study delight in experiencing local culture, including eating, swimming, and

local music. The presumed separation between ‘spiritual' experience and

‘bodily' experience does not hold for her Goddess pilgrims, especially as their

religious tradition does not celebrate asceticism.

 

Similarly, Christian Zionists do not make a strict separation between ‘religious'

and ‘bodily' experience, seeing in the body an opportunity to manifest the divine

will. Their participation in local Israeli culture is the performance of a ‘religious'

act, allowing them to partner God by using their material resources to support

and bless the people, whom he loves, and the miraculous state. That this might

be enjoyable or appear frivolous at times to an outsider does not diminish its

significance.

 

Equally, the ‘staged culture' that MacCannell suggests is unavoidable in

the tourist experience is ubiquitous. Everyone consumes a partial, selective

presentation of a location, tradition or culture. The critical point is not to

differentiate between ‘authentic pilgrims' and ‘inauthentic tourists', but to

examine whose ‘false back' is being presented and/or consumed and why.

Certainly, the Israel encountered by Christian Zionists is, if not actually

‘inauthentic', definitely polished with careful staging and selection by various

parties, including the government and the tourism industry. That it is constructed

and partial is unavoidable and it is thus a fragile basis for determining what

constitutes pilgrimage.

 

The Problem of Ownership

 

Cohen (‘‘Phenomenology'', ‘‘Pilgrimage) differentiates between pilgrimage and

‘serious' forms of tourism, based on the relationship of ‘the Center' to society.

In this formulation, pilgrims journey to ‘the Center' of their own culture, which

‘‘is given; it is not elective, not a matter of choice'' (‘‘Phenomenology'' 190).

In contrast, the ‘existential tourist', whose experience is quite similar to that of

the pilgrim, is alienated from the modern world and seeks authenticity in an

elective, chosen Center. However, Cohen's discussion contains a recognition of

our problem: he notes that ‘‘Indeed, in the complexities of the modern world, the

‘world' of any given culture and society is not clearly bounded; the cultural

inheritance of one society is often appropriated by, and made part of, other

cultures'' (ibid 191).

 

Christian Zionism provides an ideal example of Cohen's difficulty. On the one

hand, Christian Zionist visits to sites of modern Israel (both people and places)

look simply like tourism-a case of visitors from abroad, with no ethnic

connection to Israeli society or history, visiting important sites of someone

else's history. Yet a particularly unclear distinction between ‘my' center and

‘their' center arises from the unique historical relationship between Christianity

and Judaism. As Yaakov Ariel notes, ‘‘In no other case has one religious

community considered another religious group to hold a special role in God's

plans for human redemption, and to be God's first nation'' (41). For Christian

Zionists, Israel is by no means someone else's sacred center, distant in relevance

and lacking in significance for them.

 

One might argue that Israel's special historical role for Christian Zionism

renders the situation unique and makes this argument particular. However,

in an increasingly globalized context, which combines multiple attachments,

fluid identities, religious pluralism, and voluntarism of late Western modernity,

concepts such as ‘one's own socio-cultural center' are less and less useful, even

without explicit appropriation.

 

Conclusion

 

With these definitional problems in mind, together with the present case study

that serves as a useful entry point, I can offer another definition of pilgrimage.

I suggest that pilgrimage is ‘a purposeful journey to a specified destination that

engages in a religious discourse to justify its undertaking'. Several difficulties

may be immediately noted.

 

To begin with, this definition relies on the concept of the ‘religious' which, as

suggested above, only compounds our problems. However, for our purposes we

can understand ‘religious discourse' as discourse ‘with reference to non-material

entities'.19 The latter can include an astonishing diversity of possibilities,

including divine beings, humans whose authority comes from the immaterial

realm, and valued ideals like Truth. The word ‘discourse' recognizes that we

cannot measure internal states and must apply ourselves to what is accessible,

such as language, ritual, and material culture.

 

The term ‘purposeful' points to travel with a goal, without either determining

the goal or suggesting it is singular. The use of ‘destination' leaves open the

possibility of allegorical or mystical pilgrimage to non-geographic sites, such as

undertaking a journey toward ‘mystical union' or ‘Enlightenment'. That the

destination is specified, as expressed in the terms ‘purposeful' and ‘to justify

its undertaking', turns on my belief that there is no such thing as an

‘accidental pilgrim'. Pilgrimage requires a measure of intentionality from the

start. Finally, ‘to justify' suggests that, from a material perspective, pilgrimage

requires explanation: without justification, it appears to be a dangerous

undertaking that is an inefficient use of resources, such as time, money, and

energy. Only the pilgrim him/herself can make this action ‘make sense' and

justify its undertaking.

 

In the case study of Christian Zionism we find a purposeful journey to a place

that is not commonly thought of as ‘religious'-it is not a shrine, a temple or a site

associated with a founder. The Christian Zionist journey is to the modern,

sovereign state of Israel and its ‘placing' of Jews, where they are thought to

belong for God's divine purpose, as revealed in the Bible. The sites they visit

on these journeys-whether historical sites associated with Jesus, places of

political importance in the history of the state or Jewish citizens of that state,

the journey itself is entirely wrapped in religious rhetoric and action. As one

visitor to Israel explained to me,

 

Everything that's happened is just a fulfillment of God's prophetic word to

Israel. The desert will bloom, God's people-I think it's Isaiah 11-talks about

God's people coming back. All through the Old Testament it talks about the

people coming back . . . I believe that everything we see here in Israel is just

prophecy coming to pass. There's going to be incredible things happening in

Israel. It's a little tiny country, but it really is the center of the world. It's the

apple of God's eye. (interview, Jerusalem, November 2006)

 

No matter how political, contested, inauthentic, commercial, and

appropriative-characteristics in no sense unique to this particular

case-Christian Zionist travel to Israel is journeying to the apple of God's

eye. Regardless how ‘secular' or ‘political' we might think it to be,

participants' reliance on religious language to justify and authorize their

actions place their travel squarely in the realm of pilgrimage.

 

Faydra L. Shapiro is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion and Culture

at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada. CORRESPONDENCE: Department

of Religion and Culture, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada N2L 3C5.

 

NOTES

 

1. No term has as yet been coined to express this idea. Perhaps ‘pilgrimoid' or ‘pilgrimagic' could

serve.

2. Participant observation was conducted on two separate tours from North America, under two

different Christian Zionist organizational auspices, in addition to fieldwork at the 2006 Feast

of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, the 2007 Knesset Christian Allies Caucus Women's Summit, and

the 2007 Christian Friends of Israel ‘Shavuot' Conference, together with interviews with

individuals involved in Christian Zionist tours to Israel in various capacities. The author

gratefully acknowledges financial support for this research received from a grant partly

provided by Wilfrid Laurier University operating funds and partly provided by the SSHRC

Institutional Grant awarded to Wilfrid Laurier University.

3. This event takes place during the biblical Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot in Hebrew). There are many

reasons why this biblical Jewish feast is considered to be of special importance to ‘the Nations'

(Gentiles). The most significant for Christian Zionists is in Zachariah 14 : 16: God commands those

of the nations who will survive divine punishment at the end of days to observe the Feast of

Tabernacles. The ICEJ is not the only Christian Zionist group to highlight this holiday for a major

gathering. The smaller International Christian Zionist Center, although different in emphasis and

tone compared to the ICEJ, also holds its major annual program at this time. In the Christian

Zionist conference year, the biblical Feast of Weeks (Shavuot in Hebrew) is also highlighted, as it is

related to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. Christian Friends of Israel refers to its

annual spring conference as its ‘Shavuot/Pentecost' conference, even when the event dates

correspond with neither Shavuot nor Pentecost. In 2007, the event was scheduled to correspond

with the fortieth anniversary of the ‘reunification' of Jerusalem. This political, historic event was

significantly highlighted at the conference, whereas the ostensible themes of ‘Shavuot/Pentecost'

were not.

4. It is important to emphasize that not only are not all evangelicals Christian Zionists, there also

exists explicit outright opposition to Christian Zionism in some evangelical circles, especially

focused on arguments based in appeals to justice, evangelism or theology. See, for example

www.christianzionism.org, a group that challenges Christian Zionism and calls for ‘biblical

justice'-a most unfortunate phrase in my estimation-for the Palestinians. Some evangelicals

argue that the disavowal of Jewish evangelism by some major Christian Zionist organizations

abrogates a fundamental requirement of the Christian faith. Other evangelicals who espouse

a theology of ‘covenantalism' come to quite different conclusions about biblical prophecy, the

role of the Jews, and basic eschatology-to name but some issues-compared to Christian

Zionists. (See Sizer)

5. In the light of my research, I suspect that the role of dispensationalism has been over-stated as

a basis for contemporary Christian Zionist understandings of the Holy Land. For example,

appeals to biblical literalism, prophetic fulfillment, and covenant faithfulness are invoked far

more often than complex theological/eschatological schemas. Without doubt, post-9/11

emphasis on a putatively shared Judeo-Christian heritage over and against Islam, together

Christian Zionist Travel to Israel 317

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with the perceived threat of radical Islam, also play a role in strengthening recent Christian

Zionist support for Israel.

6. One may ask why Christian Zionist visitors are taken there at all. I believe this to be the result of

two elements. Firstly, Christian Zionists possess the historical and cultural curiosity that inspires

‘religious tourism'. Aside from their role as religious ‘anti-sites', these places are of significant

artistic, architectural, and historical interest. Secondly, as discussed below, the Israeli tourism

industry has not entirely figured out how best to fill the time Christian Zionists spend in Israel

and tends to repeat particular touring patterns.

7. See Coleman for a discussion of this dynamic in the context of evangelical understandings of

space and movement.

8. The land of Israel does hold a distinctive position in the evangelical cosmos, but the land without

a restored nation of Jews and political sovereignty is little more than a promised object. As a land,

its value derives solely from the fact of being promised by God to the Israelites/Jews.

9. Not all evangelical Christians embrace ‘futurism' with regard to biblical prophecy, believing

rather that some or all (‘partial' or ‘full' preterism) prophecy has already been fulfilled.

Futurism is, however, a critical element in Christian Zionism.

10. For a segment of Jewish Israeli society that adheres to what is referred to as ‘religious Zionism',

the re-birth of the political state of Israeli is similarly sacred, pointing to ‘the dawning of our

redemption'. This way of thinking is associated with Rav A. I. Kook and his son Rav Z. Y. Kook.

Interestingly, the sacralization of the state has become more marked over time, with the saying of

Hallel, a special liturgy for religious holidays, on Israel's independence day, for example, than the

sacralization of sites of Zionist history. The religious Zionist concern with space is largely taken

up with the attempt to establish control over disputed territories of Judea and Samaria/

Palestinian West Bank. There are many commonalities between Jewish ‘religious Zionism' and

Christian Zionism, the most obvious being a view of the Tanach (Old Testament) as revealed

scripture. Also, the shared belief in the prophetic importance of the contemporary state of

Israel helps to create additional areas of similarity, including support for its settlement,

cultivation, and security. Further, the conservative social values of evangelical Christians have

much in common with those of Orthodox Jews. Both groups are explicitly ‘messianic', even if

Orthodox Jews are awaiting the coming of the Messiah and evangelical Christians anticipate the

return of Jesus Christ. Both groups are deeply connected to the idea of the Temple in Jerusalem

and actively anticipate its rebuilding. Finally, the relative openness of ‘religious Zionist' Israelis to

both secular Israeli Jews and many aspects of modern culture is a position shared with Christian

Zionists.

11. There is a fascinating conflation on the part of some Christian Zionist rhetoric between the word

‘Israel' as it is used in the Bible to refer to what is now called ‘the Jewish people' and ‘Israel' of

contemporary usage, the name of the modern nation state. This can be seen in the title of this

article, which is based on the words of a Christian Zionist visitor to Israel. The mixing of terms,

and its implications, will be the subject of a forthcoming paper.

12. This has become a common part of both ICEJ Feast of Tabernacles and several smaller tours. It is

a meaningful way for people to donate something ‘of themselves' to the country. Leaving marks

and objects at travel sites to signify one's presence is quite common.

13. One evangelical pastor who was leading a group of visitors to Israel told me that he knows of

Christian Zionist tour groups whose goal to ‘bless Israel' is achieved by paying more than the

asking price for all products and services, in contrast with the common practice in Israel of

haggling for cheaper prices. He encouraged his own tour group participants to do the same.

14. Stoddard also criticizes the reliance on the notion of sacrality, but for him this is because sacrality

is resistant to measurement, not because the concept is less helpful or accurate than it might

appear.

15. Not just visitor and site, of course, but also text, memory, legend, religious officials, etc.

16. Badone and Roseman also note the first and second of these problems: inaccessibility and the fact

that motives are often mixed. Yet they suggest that something like ‘pious' motives do exist.

Stoddard also recognizes the problems about motives, but he maintains that a ‘‘true religious

pilgrim'' (46) does exist, although s/he is difficult to identify. In neither case does the difficulty of

delimiting ‘religious' or ‘pious' motivation arise.

17. Graburn lays responsibility for the separation between religion and other realms squarely at the

feet of Christianity. I would instead consider it a legacy of both modernity and the scientific study

of religion. At the very least, the present case study should remind us that the ‘‘tendency

318 F. L. Shapiro

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to separate religion from (the rest of) life'' that Graburn questions (136) does not necessarily arise

from Christianity.

18. Surprising for a phenomenon this large, there has been relatively little scholarly attention paid to

contemporary Christian Zionist visitors to Israel. Prior's highly politicized history of pilgrimage

to the Holy Land makes no mention of this phenomenon. Bowman offers some basic discussion

of Christian Zionist pilgrimage, but solely as an example of Protestant pilgrimage. A notable

addition is Feldman who offers a sophisticated investigation of the cooperation between

Protestant pastor and Israeli tour guide in creating Protestant pilgrimage to the ‘Bible Land'.

Coleman presents a pro-Israel evangelical organization in Sweden as a means of thinking

through charismatic ideas of movement and agency. Belhassen and Santos use the relationship

between an evangelical pilgrimage and politics to articulate the point that both guests

(evangelical pilgrims) and hosts (Israeli government officials) use tourism to promote their

own ideologies (439).

19. There is a rich tradition of debate about defining ‘religion' in the human sciences, largely breaking

down into two options: substantive (sharing a particular essence) and functionalist (share

a common function). There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to choosing wider or

narrower definitions, which leads to the classic problems of how to categorize practices that are

‘obviously' religious (some forms of Zen Buddhism), but do not fit into narrower definitions and

how to exclude cultural practices that are not ‘obviously' religious (hockey).

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Reprinted with Permission from the Jounal of Contemporary Religion

Vol. 23, No. 3, October 2008, 307-320