Christian Zionism - New Life Tabernacle of Chattanooga

Samuel Gobat, a Swiss Lutheran. The arrangement with Germany then
lapsed and the bishopric became solely Anglican from 1881. 326
Having secured a sympathetic British Consul as well as an Anglican
Bishop in Jerusalem, the next step in the restorationist agenda was to survey
and map Palestine. To this end, Shaftesbury became the founding President
of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) in 1865. In his inaugural speech at
the launch of the PEF he openly declared their motives. ‘Let us not delay to
send out the best agents ... to search the length and breadth of Palestine, to
survey the land, and if possible to go over every corner of it, drain it, measure
it and, if you will, prepare it for the return of its ancient possessors, for I
believe that the time cannot be far off before that great event will come to
pass.’ 327
The influence of Lord Shaftesbury, therefore, in promoting the Zionist
cause within the political, diplomatic, and ecclesiastical establishment in
Britain was immense. Wagner claims, ‘He single-handedly translated the
theological positions of Brightman, Henry Finch, and John Nelson Darby into
a political strategy. His high political connections, matched by his uncanny
instincts, combined to advance the Christian Zionist vision.’ 328 Indeed it was
probably Shaftesbury who inspired Israel Zangwell and Theodore Herzl to
coin the phrase, ‘A land of no people for a people with no land.’ Shaftesbury,
a generation earlier, imagining Palestine to be empty, had come up with the
slogan, ‘A country without a nation for a nation without a country.’ 329
Shaftesbury had probably adapted the phrase of his colleague in the PEF,
James Finn, who in 1857, while British Consul in Jerusalem, had reported,
‘The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its
greatest need is that of a body of population.’ 330
326 Anthony O’Mahony, ‘Christianity in the Holy Land, The historical background’, The
Month, December (1993), p470.
327 Cited by Derek White, Christian Friends of Israel, http://www.cfi.org.uk/chrzion1.htm
328 Wagner, op.cit., p92.
329 cited in Wagner, op.cit., p92; also Albert H. Hyamson, Palestine under the Mandate,
(London, 1950), p10, cited in Sharif, op.cit., p42.
330 James Finn to the Earl of Clarendon, Jerusalem, September 15, 1857, Public Record
Office, FO, 78/1294 (Pol. No. 36). Finn wrote further, that, ‘The result of my observations is,
that we have here Jews, who have been to the United States, but have returned to their Holy
Land -Jews of Jerusalem do go to Australia and instead of remaining there, do return hither,
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