Dispensationalism

Dispensationalism is an important theology in the US, though seems less common outside there.

The basic idea is that there are seven (or between three and eight anyway) ages, or dispensations, with these being:

Innocence, or Adamic Law, in the garden of Eden

Conscience, from the Fall to the Flood

Human or civil law, or Noahide law, from the Food to the Tower of Babel

Promise or Patriarchal Rule, or Abrahamic Law, from Adam to Moses

Law or Mosaic Law, from Moses to the crucifixion

Grace, from the crucifixion to the rapture and the wrath of God

Millennial Kingdom, from the rapture until 1000 years have passed

History

The roots of this are quite interesting. The very earliest concept of the resurrection was that the nation of Israel would be raised again by God, and was not about the righteous coming back to life at all. Isaiah 32 is very much about that:

Isaiah 32:1 Behold, a king will reign righteously,

And officials will rule justly.

2 Each will be like a refuge from the wind

And a shelter from the storm,

Like [a]streams of water in a dry country,

Like the shade of a [b]huge rock in an exhausted land.

3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be [c]blinded,

And the ears of those who hear will listen.

4 The [d]mind of the rash will discern the [e]truth,

And the tongue of the stammerers will hurry to speak clearly.

5 No longer will the fool be called noble,

Or the rogue be spoken of as generous.

Over time the Israelites came to believe that the righteous would be resurrected - or at least the Pharisees did, while the Sadducees did not, and obvious Christianity adopted that.

But then, in the early nineteenth century, a guy called John Nelson Darby was studying Isaiah 32 and realised that actually it refers to the nation of Israel. Rather than follow through how the concept of the resurrection had evolved, he declared that there were two resurrections, one of the people, and another for the nation of Israel. This led to his ideas of ages, which were later called dispensations by a critic.

Darby was born in London and lived in England and Ireland, but it was America where his idea took off, and where it has had a big impact. US support for Israel is mostly down to the dispensational belief that Israel will rise, and a desire to hasten that event.

Politics

Frankly, if you want one single reject why we should strive to combat Christianity, this is it. US support of Israel is, in my view, a bad thing. It helps to destabilise the Middle East, and allows the nation of Israel to do things it should not, confident it will have the backing of a superpower. I do not support Hamas, what they have done is unforgivable, but it is undoubtedly true that they were provoked by Israel, and Israel have exploited the situation for their own ends.

Dispensationists also tend to feel that climate change is not an issue as the rapture will be here soon ("Jam Tomorrow!"), and that social reform is wasted effort.