> In addition to its work in Israel, the Apostolic
> Congress is part of the increasingly Christian public
> face of pro-Israel activities in the United States.
> Don Wagner, author of the book Anxious for Armageddon,
> has been studying Christian Zionism for 15 years, and
> believes that the current hard-line pro-Israel movement
> in the U.S. is "predominantly gentile." Often, devotees
> work in concert with Jewish groups like Americans for
> a Safe Israel, or AFSI, which set up a mostly Christian
> Committee for a One-State Solution as the sponsor of
> last year's billboard campaign. The committee's board
> included, in addition to Upton, such evangelical
> luminaries as Gary Bauer and E.E. "Ed" McAteer of the
> Religious Roundtable.
>
> AFSI's executive director, Helen Freedman, confirms the
> increasingly Christian cast of her coalition. "We have
> many good Jews, of course," she says, "but they're in
> the minority." She adds, "The liberal Jew is unable to
> believe the Arab when he says his goal is to Islamize
> the West. . . . But I believe it. And evangelical
> Christians believe it."
>
> Of Jews who might otherwise support her group's view
> of Jews' divine right to Israel, she laments, "They're
> embarrassed about quoting the Bible, about referring
> to the Covenant, about talking about the Promised Land."
>
> Pastor Upton is not embarrassed, and Helen Freedman is
> proud of her association with him. She is wistful when
> asked if she, like Upton, has been able to finagle a
> meeting with the president. "Pastor Upton is the head
> of a whole Apostolic Congress," she laments. "It's a
> nationwide group of evangelicals."
>
> Upton has something Freedman covets: a voting bloc.
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