The Israel Craze

I was listening to NPR this morning and heard an amazing story about 7000 Evangelical Christians in Israel this week to show their support for the Holy Land. Many don't often associate Judism and Christianity as bedfellows these days...Christianity marks itself by its strong and often aggressive exercise of converting others while that practice in Judism is not a thrust. But the "partnership" is hard to say no to for Israel when over the past 20 years, evangelical Christians have contributed billions of dollars to Israel.

I don't know where I stand on this right now but myself uneasy at remarks similar to this:

"The true and living God wants his people to be in an undivided Israel, undivided Jerusalem," he says. "There should be no more give-backs. Every time we give back the land of Israel, something happens in the United States. Katrina followed the give-back of the Gaza."

Anytime a "connection" between current events and God happens (i.e. 9/11 was God's punishment, Katrina was God washing out gambling, etc) I get wary. I can't say it is not true with certainty (although pretty sure it's not) but feel talking with such fervor over a connection does nothing but often spill gas of fires meant to remain sparks.