October 2026
2.6 Christian Zionism and the evangelical bloc
- Polling: white evangelicals said Israel fulfils Second Coming prophecy (63%, 2003) and that God gave Israel to the Jews (82%, 2013, a higher share than US Jews) (Pew 2003, Pew 2013) [V].
- Huckabee: met the Yesha Council at Shiloh (May 2025) and viewed red heifers raised "in preparation for the future building of the Temple" (Israel Hayom). Of a West Bank Palestinian state: "there's no room for it" (Times of Israel) [V].
- Hegseth:
- Secretary of Defense, with the secondary title "Secretary of War" under EO 14347 (Federal Register) [V].
- 2018: "there's no reason why the miracle of the reestablishment of the Temple on the Temple Mount is not possible" (video) [V].
- Has "Deus Vult" and Jerusalem Cross tattoos (WSJ) [V].
- Attends Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a church in the CREC network co-founded by Doug Wilson (AP, Politico) [V-s]. CREC theology is postmillennial and Reformed, not dispensationalist. Hegseth's Temple enthusiasm is therefore not standard CREC doctrine.
- Paula White-Cain: senior advisor to the White House Faith Office (EO 14205, 7 Feb 2025) (whitehouse.gov) [V].
- CUFI / John Hagee: claims more than 10M members (Dec 2020; this is the group's own figure) (CUFI) [V].
- Doesn't show: that every evangelical official acts on prophecy. Hegseth's church is non-dispensationalist and Huckabee calls his settler visits "solidarity." What is shown is that officials holding Temple and biblical-land beliefs sit at the top of defense and diplomacy.