Africa's Christian Zionist Frontiers

Although not a new phenomenon, over the past decade, Christian Zionist theologies that emphasise the central role of the Jewish people in divine history and call on believers to support them and the modern state of Israel have increasingly come to impact religious life and political discourse in many parts of Africa. This paper reviews this development and the limited research on it. It assesses the uptake of Christian Zionist theologies by African Pentecostals and Messianic Jews and sketches out the impact of Christian Zionism on Africa's political landscape. The paper offers some directions for future scholarship on the subject, which may contribute not only to the fields of World Christianity and the anthropology of Christianity, but also to the historical, sociological, and anthropological study of African popular cultures, and to the study of African politics.