Like Birds in a Cage: Christian Zionism’s Collusion in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People

“This book is quite unique in the way that it combines a sound grasp of the history of Zionism, careful interpretation of the Bible, and firsthand, recent experience of everyday life for Palestinians living under occupation on the West Bank. David Crump understands Christian Zionists extremely well because he grew up as one, and because he reads and quotes what many Christian Zionist leaders have been writing in recent years. My hope and prayer is that this book will help American Christians of all kinds to wake up to the very significant ways in which Christian Zionism has contributed—and continues to contribute—to this tragic conflict. They might then be more able to challenge their government’s policies.”

—Colin Chapman, author of Whose Promised Land?



“Like Birds in a Cage is destined to become a standard text on Christian Zionism in the USA. With devastating precision, Dave Crump exposes the cancerous nature of this deviant theology. For Evangelicalism to survive with any credibility, it must repudiate the justification of apartheid and ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Crump’s book provides not only the diagnosis but also the cure.”

—Stephen Sizer, Founder and Director, Peacemaker Trust



“This new volume by David Crump may be the most comprehensive critique of Christian Zionism by an evangelical author to date. As a former ‘insider,’ his unique perspective has delivered a tour de force by combining scholarly biblical exegesis of key texts with incisive theological analysis. His solid grasp of the relevant political and historical context of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle adds context and texture to this wonderfully written book. I hope this volume will be widely read and reviewed across the evangelical spectrum by pastors, biblical scholars, students, and perhaps most urgently, evangelical politicians.”

—Don Wagner, author of Anxious for Armageddon



“A keenly reasoned, comprehensive, full-frontal critique of Christian Zionism. Equally at ease interpreting Saint Paul, critiquing ideologies of privilege, deconstructing Israel’s discriminatory legal regime, and narrating scenes of unarmed, tear-gassed villagers, David Crump mounts a formidable case against the troubling logic and deadly deployment of ethnocracy and territorial exceptionalism. This prophetic call to walk not where Jesus walked, but as Jesus walked, is more urgent now than ever.”

—Bruce N. Fisk, Senior Research Fellow, Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East