Yeah. It's really pathetic. I think I know a few people that would probably volunteer for something like that, at least in spirit.

I read elsewhere a bit about the Scofield bible bearing some responsibility for the propagation of Christians like this. You familiar?

In Alison Weir's Against Our Better Judgment, she briefly mentions Scofield:

Stevens writes that the reason for this strategy was clear: “…while many Americans might not support the creation of a Jewish state, traditional American humanitarianism could be exploited in favor of the Zionist cause through the refugee problems.” [168]

Endnote

[168] Stevens, American Zionism, 28.

Joseph M. Canfield, The Incredible Scofield and His Book (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2004).

Researchers may wish to explore an interesting though speculative discussion about what might have been an earlier effort by Zionists to influence Christians. Many years before AZEC targeted Christians, an annotated version of the bible known as the Scofield Reference Bible had been published, which pushed what was a previously somewhat fringe “dispensationalist” theology calling for the Jewish “return” to Palestine.

Some analysts have raised questions about Cyrus Scofield and how and why the Oxford University Press published his book. Scofield, a Texas preacher who had been something of a shyster and criminal and had abandoned his first wife and children (when his wife then filed for divorce, the court ruled in her favor, noting that Scofield was “…not a fit person to have custody of the children”). (Canfield, Incredible Scofield, 113) He mysteriously became a member of an exclusive New York men’s club in 1901. Biographer Joseph Canfield comments:

“The admission of Scofield to the Lotus Club, which could not have been sought by Scofield, strengthens the suspicion that has cropped up before, that someone was directing the career of C. I. Scofield.” (Canfield, Incredible Scofield, 220)

Canfield suggests that Wall Street lawyer Samuel Untermyer, who was also a member of the Lotus Club, may have played a role in Scofield‘s project, writing that “Scofield‘s theology was most helpful in getting Fundamentalist Christians to back the international interest in one of Untermyer‘s pet projects – the Zionist Movement.” (Canfield, Incredible Scofield, 219)

Professor David Lutz, in “Unjust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to Jerusalem,” writes: “Untermyer used Scofield, a Kansas city lawyer with no formal training in theology, to inject Zionist ideas into American Protestantism. Untermyer and other wealthy and influential Zionists whom he introduced to Scofield promoted and funded the latter’s career, including travel in Europe.”

David Lutz, “Unjust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to Jerusalem,” in Neo-Conned! Again: Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq, ed. D. Liam O’Huallachain and J. Forrest Sharpe (Vienna, VA: Light in the Darkness Publications, 2005), 127-169.

According to the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy website, Untermyer “was a partner in the law firm of Guggenheimer, Untermyer & Marshall, and was the first lawyer in America to earn a one million dollar fee on a single case. He was also an astute investor, and became extremely wealthy.

He was instrumental in the establishment of the Federal Reserve System, was an influential Democrat and a close ally of Woodrow Wilson.

The bio continues: “Samuel Untermyer was one of the most prominent Jews of his day in America. He was a prominent Zionist, and was President of the Keren Hayesod. In addition, he was the national leader of an unsuccessful movement in the early 1930’s for a worldwide boycott of Germany, and called for the destruction of Hitler‘s regime.”

“Samuel Untermyer,” Untermyer Gardens Conservancy, accessed January 1, 2014,

http://www.untermyergardens.org/samuel-untermyer.html.

Irish journalist Maidhc Ó Cathail suggests that “absent such powerful connections, it is hard to imagine ‘this peer among scalawags’ ever getting a contract with Oxford University Press to publish his bible.”

Maidhc O Cathail, “Zionism‘s Un-Christian Bible,” Middle East Online, November 25, 1999,

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=35914.