Lynne Hybels, Evangelicals, and Israel

There is a small but growing movement among evangelicals against unique friendship for Israel, embodied by the recent “Impact Holy Land” conference hosted by Evangelicals for Social Action in Philadelphia. Among the prominent U.S. and Palestinian church voices who spoke was Lynne Hybels, co-founder with her pastor husband Bill of the Chicago area Willow Creek Church, which itself spawned a widely replicated model for especially non-denominational congregations.

Speaking thoughtfully and temperately, Hybels made the case for evangelicals to be what one prominent evangelical relief group calls: “Pro-Israel. Pro-Palestine. Pro-Peace. Pro-Justice. Pro-Jesus.” Citing Christian Zionist critics, she related that she’s been called a “threat to the state of Israel, a subtle (and therefore extremely dangerous) anti-Semite, a spokesperson for the PLO, and a Christian Palestinianist who traffics in anti-Israel propaganda and historical misinformation.”

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