Christian Zionists who love the land of Israel are “under attack” by anti-Israel and antisemitic extremists in the United States, according to Joel Rosenberg, founder of The Joshua Fund.
Rosenberg hopes to bring 3,000 evangelical Christians to Israel, some for the first time, for what he is calling the “Epicenter Summit.” The event is intended to bring pastors, ministry leaders, “prayer warriors,” and laypeople to Jerusalem on April 7, 2027. Although the summit is still more than a year away, Rosenberg said he hopes church leaders will plan tours around the event and recruit congregants to visit the Holy Land, helping to “jumpstart Christian tourism” again after COVID-19 and more than two years of war.
He told Ynet Global that he also hopes the summit will provide visitors with the tools they need to push back against rhetoric in their home communities.
“What we're seeing in the extremist, right-wing voices like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, and others, is a direct attack on Christians who love Israel,” Rosenberg said in a phone interview last week, just days after he announced the summit. “When Tucker Carlson says that Christian Zionism is a brain virus or heresy, it is not just an attack on Israel and the Jewish people, he is attacking every single Christian.”
Rosenberg, who now lives in Jerusalem and runs the Christian website All Israel News, said that the rebirth of Israel in 1948 was “one of the most exciting fulfillments of Bible prophecy in human history” and yet “Tucker hates it, Candace hates it. But it’s still true that God is blessing Israel and the Jewish people.”
The gathering will include a day of teaching, studying, and discussing what the Bible says in order to equip Christians. It will also give participants an opportunity to reconnect with Israel or, in some cases, visit the country for the first time.
“After years of COVID and war, this will be an historic and extraordinary opportunity for 3,000 Christians from the U.S., Canada, Israel, and around the world to finally gather in the City of the Great King to better understand the powerful and prophetic forces that are changing the Epicenter of the world forever, and how the Church should respond,” Rosenberg said.
The Joshua Fund will run its own tour, but Rosenberg said that in order to reach 3,000 people, he is encouraging other ministries and church leaders to organize tours as well. With the war less intense and the ceasefire largely holding, he said, now is the time for Christians to begin returning.
Several high-profile figures are expected to speak at the summit, including President Isaac Herzog, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and well-known pastors Jack Graham and Greg Laurie.
“To get 3,000 believers from all over the world to come will do a couple of things,” Huckabee said in an interview with Rosenberg recently. “One, it will be an incredible encouragement to the people of Israel – to the Jewish people of Israel. This will encourage them that they’re not standing alone and that their Christian friends from all over the world are coming to say, ‘We’re with you.’ Second, it’s also an incredible opportunity for these believers who come here to return home, speak into their churches, and give testimony of what they have seen and heard.”
Herzog wrote a letter in support of the event, which was shared with Ynet Global. He said, “I am hopeful that it will offer not only a salient symbol of the friendship of Christians the world over with the State of Israel and the deep wish for peace, but also an opportunity for participants to derive pleasure and enjoyment from walking the length and breadth of the Land of Israel.”
Rosenberg also addressed criticism from some prominent commentators. He said that when Candace Owens calls Israel a “demonic nation, that is about as bad as you can possibly get. Jesus was Jewish. His disciples were Jewish. Jesus was not born in Brazil, Japan or Africa. He was born in Israel and grew up as an Israeli.”
While he stressed that Jews and Christians do not share all the same theological beliefs, he said the Bible is “super clear: We’re supposed to have unconditional love for Israel and the Jewish people. We're supposed to teach that God loves Israel.”