This book explores why English Christians, from the early modern period onwards, believed that their nation had a special mission to restore the Jews to Palestine. It examines English support for Jewish restoration from the Whitehall Conference in 1655 through to public debates on the Jerusalem Bishopric in 1841. Rather than claiming to replace Israel as God's "elect nation", England was "chosen" to have a special, but inferior, relationship with the Jews. Believing that God "blessed those who bless" the Jewish people, this national role allowed England to atone for ill-treatment of Jews, read the confusing pathways of providence, and guarantee the nation's survival until Christ's return. This book analyses this mode of national identity construction and its implications for understanding Christian views of Jews, the self, and "the other". It offers a new understanding of national election, and of the relationship between apocalyptic prophecy and political action.
"The book's contemporary relevance, and its extensive engagement with secondary literature and historiographical debates, means that it is another book I would be obliged to add to the 'must-read' section of any reading list on this topic." (Lawrence Rabone, Reading Religion, readingreligion.org, August 17, 2020)
"Andrew Crome's work is an important addition to this reappraisal of the Anglo-American Christian Zionist tradition. ... Crome's book will be read with profit by religious historians, but it also makes an important contribution to the historiography of the nation-state." (Martin Spence, Fides et Historia, Vol. 51 (1), 2019)
"Andrew Crome's work is an important addition to this reappraisal of the Anglo-American Christian Zionist tradition. ... Crome's book will be read with profit by religious historians, but it also makes an important contribution to the historiography of the nation-state." (Martin Spence, Fides et Historia, Vol. 51 (1), 2019)