American evangelicals, driven by a biblical vision to protect Israel, have long been integral to U.S. diplomacy in the Holy Land. And now they have another player on the team.
Johnnie Moore, the evangelical public relations executive with deep ties in the Middle East, was appointed chairman of the embattled Gaza Humanitarian Foundation last Tuesday.
The Trump administration appointed Mike Huckabee, another prominent evangelical, and a former Southern Baptist pastor who has described himself as a Christian Zionist, as the ambassador to Israel earlier this year.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, created within the past year, is a private group, formed with Israel’s blessing after it sought to circumvent the aid relief previously provided by the United Nations. Israel has long accused the U.N. of anti-Israeli bias and has alleged that aid from the U.N. ultimately falls into the hands of Hamas, the militant group.
From March to May, Israel had blocked all food and aid from entering Gaza, a move it said was aimed at pressuring Hamas. When Israel lifted the food blockade in mid-May, chaos ensued at the distribution points, with Israelis opening fire on dozens of Palestinians as they approached the GHF hubs.
Your tax-deductible gift supports our mission of reporting the truth and restoring the church. Donate $50 or more to The Roys Report this month, and you can elect to receive “Primal Fire: Reigniting the Church with the Five Gifts of Jesus” by Neil Cole, click here.
Moore, like Huckabee, denied the shootings took place and blamed the media for false reporting.
In a Fox News op-ed published Tuesday, Moore wrote, “Over 7 million meals were delivered free to Gazans — no trucks seized, no aid diverted, no violence at distribution sites.”
The Red Cross and the U.N. human rights office said 27 people were killed on Tuesday. The Israeli army later acknowledged that it opened fire, though it has not said how many were killed.
Moore, 41, stepped into the role of chairman of the GHF after its previous head, Jake Wood, resigned hours before the initiative was set to begin late last month.
Wood cited concerns over the GHF’s ability to adhere to the “humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.”
Moore was co-chairman of Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board during Trump’s first campaign for president in 2016. The following year, Moore and other evangelicals pressed Trump to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. Trump later appointed Moore to serve as a commissioner on the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom.
Moore is part of a much larger group of white evangelicals that forms the backbone of U.S. support for Israel. These evangelicals believe there is an eternal bond between God and the Jewish people and that Christians should support the biblical covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants. Their vision for the state is rooted in the belief that God promised the land of Israel to the Jews in eternity.
Moore’s pro-Israel views have landed him roles on several boards or task forces of Jewish-led organizations. Those include the Anti-Defamation League and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, one of Israel’s largest philanthropic organizations. He is the 2017 recipient of the Medal of Valor from the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Moore started out as a spokesman for Liberty University, the school where he also earned a Ph.D. in public policy. He later founded a public relations group, Kairos, which was acquired in 2022 by JDA Worldwide.
The Roys Report previously reported how Moore made shocking remarks in a recorded conversation with disgraced pastor James MacDonald. At a time when MacDonald had filed a lawsuit to silence whistleblowers, Moore is heard joking with MacDonald about putting child porn on the computer of then-Christianity Today CEO Harold Smith.
More recently, Moore has been linked to scandal-plagued nonprofit group My Faith Votes, which had a six-figure contract with Moore’s PR firm.
During the National Religious Broadcasters convention two years ago, Moore talked on a podcast about his “zealous advocacy” for Israel, saying, “I started going to Israel and going to Israel again and again and again. I found so much of my faith come alive through that experience. … Israel has impacted me far, far more than almost anything else. I almost can’t think of my life as inseparable from Israel in some ways.”
Julie Roys contributed to this report.
Yonat Shimron is a national reporter and senior editor for Religion News Service.
English 
Spanish
6 Responses
Somewhat confused 😕
Isn’t Jesus – his divine identity as Messiah and God with us, his holy life, his death & resurrection, his teachings on Kingdom values and Kingdom behaviour, not to mention also what he clearly revealed that transcends this short life. The NEW and ONLY narrative for humanity and any person who makes claim to be his disciple specifically, regardless of their gender, ethnic & religious heritage, skin colour, first language and worldly social and national status? 🤔
At least that’s what orthodox theology and church history has
overwhelmingly emphasised for the last 2000yrs or so.
Surely when the Kingdom of God comes into full fruition through the prince of peace, it won’t be draped in Union Jacks, Stars of David Stars & Stripes or anything else of a political & cultural nature? 🤔
I take issue with this paragraph:
——–
Moore is part of a much larger group of white evangelicals that forms the backbone of U.S. support for Israel. These evangelicals believe there is an eternal bond between God and the Jewish people and that Christians should support the biblical covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants. Their vision for the state is rooted in the belief that God promised the land of Israel to the Jews in eternity.
——–
Why is that belief attributed to “white” evangelicals, when there are prominent black evangelicals saying the same thing? Watch the videos of Dumisani Washington, for example, repeating the above paragraph as articles of his faith. Ditto for Hispanic pastor Samuel Rodriguez, named one of Israel’s Top 50 Christian Allies last year.
And the “backbone” goes beyond the US. Last year, WaPo published an article about the strong Zionism among African Christians, with the wry headline, “Black Zionism adds a wrinkle to the politics of the Gaza war.”
The “wrinkle” is that it exposes the intersectional fiction that (white) Israel is supported by white Christians, and (non-white) Gaza is supported by Christians of color.
But that fiction in turn props up another fiction — that Israel is a ‘white colonial settlement project’. This idea sinks into a sea of “wrinkles” with an honest survey of the Israeli population. The majority are not only ethnically non-white families from Africa and the Middle East, but they have returned to the place where their ancestors lived for 1000 years before the first Muslim colonizers arrived from Arabia.
My point being that Zionism does not even need Bible belief for validation, let alone white people.
Hannah, I see it as not trying to racially divide, but as part of reporting on political and religious data, where “white evangelicals” are a defined bloc. It’s hard to fully capture Black (or non-white) evangelicals as accurately, as many do not identify with the term (even though it may be in line with the faith we practice) due to its political ties.
There are several studies, articles and books on this.
But I do see your point.
“American evangelicals, driven by a biblical vision to protect Israel,”
As someone who was messed up by The Gospel According to Hal Lindsay, I am very skeptical of such Christian Zionism. Because when you’re in over your head in End Times Prophecy, it gets very dark very fast. As in they don’t care about the Israelis (and especially the Arabs) as people; Israel is the tripwire for Armageddon and must be there to fulfill End Time Prophecy while the Arabs are just the Orc/Haradrim/Easterling hordes who’ll touch it off. (While Us Real True Christians watch it all from Heaven as the Ultimate Spectator Sport – the Ultimate Super Bowl.)
Because to the Rapture Ready the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Jews, the Arabs, the Russians, the Chinese, you, me – we’re all just expendable pieces on the End Times Prophecy gameboard.
I Left Dispensationalism Behind (pun intended). Of course, many Christians in the US fail to understand the modern secular state of Israel (complete with the Gay Capital of the Middle East known as Tel Aviv) is NOT ancient Israel of the OT.
Charles, what many Christians fail to remember is that ancient Israel of the OT was often as disobedient to GOD’s laws as the modern Israel of today. It’s a recurring theme in 3/4 of their Bible, and IMO much of it surpasses the offense of Pride Parades in Tel Aviv.
But if Tel Aviv sinfulness is enough for GOD to turn away from Israel, what will He do with the USA on account of its larger and more sinful cities??
In other words, you’d better hope that GOD keeps His promise to never abandon Israel, because He will use the same yardstick for the ‘Christian’ nations.
What Bible-based Zionists are – or should be – focused on are those promises that “in the last days” GOD will (a) plant the Jews back in their own land, in defiance of world opinion; and (b) cleanse them from sin and put His Spirit within them, for the first time ever.
That being said, I have the same cynical view as Ken Pick about the pre-trib rapture, among other reasons because it allows for (a) but delays the fulfillment of (b) until one split-second after the Lord pulls out all His saints… when it’s “too late” to escape yet another round of slaughter and persecution.
Given that the Jews were made into enemies of the Gospel – by GOD’s design, for the sake of the Gentiles (Rom. 11) – that timetable slanders His very character as the Merciful One.