Even before Zionism gained any real traction some Christians actively supported Jews returning to Palestine. Israeli historian Anita Shapira is an example of this. Shapira founded the Yitzhak Rabin Center for research in Tel Aviv. She was also the Head of the Wetzmann Institute for the Study of Zionism at Tel Aviv University. Shapira suggested evangelical Christian Restorationists of the 1840s passed the notion of Jews relocating back to Palestine to Jewish leaders.

Evangelical Christian lobbying within England for Jewish restorationism (as a fulfillment of scriptural prophesy) was widespread prior to the 1820s. The Puritans (who attempted to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices) frequently prayed for the return of the Jews to Palestine.

John Nelson Darby, an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, was one of the most influential members of the Plymouth Brethren (a non-conformist and non-denominational movement that supported the Bible is the supreme authority for church doctrine and practice). Darby also founded the Exclusive Brethren (similar to the Plymouth Brethren).

Darby is considered the Father of Dispensationalism (that interprets the Bible literally), and Futurism (interprets the Book of Revelation, Ezekiel, and Daniel as future events in a literal, physical, apocalyptic, and global context). Dispensationalism promoted Zionism, especially after Darby's eleven lectures on church hopes, the Jews, and the Gentiles he gave in Geneva, Switzerland in 1840.

Not Dispensationalists, John Charles Ryle (the first Bishop of Liverpool), Robert Murray M'Cheyne (a Church of Scotland minister from 1835 to 1843), Andrew Alexander Bonar (a minister for the Free Church of Scotland), hymnist Horatius Bonar, and Charles Haddon Spurgeon (known as the "Prince of Preachers" in the Reformed Baptist church), all supported what they believed was the importance and significance of the Jews returning to Palestine.

Famous for writing The Talmud and the Jews, antisemite, and Russian Orthodox churchmember, Hippolytas Lutostansky insisted in 1911 Russian Jews should be helped to move to Palestine "as their rightful place is in their former kingdom of Palestine".

Other Christian supporters of Zionism included:

-David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of England from 1916 to 1922

-Arthur Balfour, the Prime Minister of England from 1902 to 1905. Balfour issued the Balfour Proclamation that supported a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.

-Major-General Orde Wingate, who's support of Zionism caused the British Army to ban him from serving in Palestine

-Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States and leading architect of the League of Nations

-Martin Luther King, Junior, of "I have a dream" fame. He was a staunch supporter of both Israel and Zionism

-Joseph Smith, the founder of the Later Day Saints movement, who declared, "The time for Jews to return to the Land of Israel is now". Smith also sent Orson Hyde, an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints to Jerusalem to dedicate the land for the Jews' return.

-After the Six-Day War of 1967, from June 5 to June 10, the Third Arab-Israeli War (that mainly involved Jordan, Syria, and Egypt), many Dispensationalists and non-Dispensationalists evangelical Christians in the United States supported Zionism.

Next Time: Sea Of Galilee #14:-Zionism #6 - Zionism Bad Raps And Ethnic Cleansing