Christian Zionism is a political and religious ideology that, in a Christian context, espouses the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land. Likewise, it holds that the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 was in accordance with biblical prophecies transmitted through the Old Testament: that the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Levant—the eschatological "Gathering of Israel"—is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The term began to be used in the mid-20th century, in place of Christian restorationism, as proponents of the ideology rallied behind Zionists in support of a Jewish national homeland.
"Memorandum to the Protestant Powers of the North of Europe and America", published in the Colonial Times (Hobart, Tasmania, Australia), in 1841
Thomas Brightman, an English Puritan, published Shall They Return to Jerusalem Again? in 1615. This was one of the earliest Restorationist works.
The Puritans, once a "fringe" faction, came to power under Oliver Cromwell during the Commonwealth. Several of his closest advisors held Philo-Semitic millennialist religious views.
The Earl of Shaftesbury, influenced by Evangelical Anglicanism and the views of Edward Bickersteth was one of the first British politicians to seriously endorse a Jewish return to Ottoman Palestine as official policy.
The Gathering of Israel, or the Ingathering of the Jewish diaspora, is the biblical promise of Deuteronomy 30:1–5, made by Moses to the Israelites prior to their entry into the Land of Israel.
A stamp in a passport issuing the holder Israeli citizenship based on the Law of Return
