The United States is in the throes of an ongoing and increasingly intractable war with Iran, alongside our ally Israel. There have been many recriminations about that war. It is very unpopular, really across the political spectrum. We’ve talked before about the emerging faction of anti-war, America-first influencers on the far right. We also see anti-Israel and anti-war sentiment on the far left, and really across the spectrum in Democratic politics. Many American Jews are reconsidering their own relationships with and support for the state of Israel.
Pew Research Center just came out with a survey this month that shows just how dramatic these shifts in American public opinion are. In 2022, four years ago, when Pew asked Americans about their views on the Israeli government, 47% had a favorable view and 43% had an unfavorable view — almost even, with a slight lean toward support for the Israeli government. Now look at 2026: 62% unfavorable, 32% favorable. That’s a 34-point swing in public opinion on Israel in four years. That is crazy.
We live in a very polarized society where people don’t change their views — they’re very entrenched. This is a seismic shift in Americans’ views on Israel in a very short period of time. It’s a real moment of reckoning for Israel on the global stage. In the past four years we’ve seen the war in Gaza (2023–2025), the 12-day war where the United States and Israel bombed Iran in 2025, and now this ongoing war with Iran in 2026.
The CUFI Summit
But there are still some American Christians who are avowedly pro-Israel and pro-war with Iran. Just this month, on July 5th–7th, there was the Christians United for Israel Summit — CUFI — in the DC suburbs. It was timed to follow right on the heels of Donald Trump’s Fourth of July extravaganza. Speakers included prominent pro-Israel figures like Mark Levin and Glenn Beck. But the people who actually attend these CUFI summits are the lobbyists pushing the United States to continue supporting the Israeli government, and even to escalate the war with Iran.
CUFI is the foremost Christian Zionist organization in the country, founded in 2006 by Pastor John Hagee. It has roughly 10 million members. There are about seven million Jews in the United States — and 10 million members just of CUFI. This is an enormous, influential organization.
A lot of people these days, on both sides of the political spectrum, talk about the influence of AIPAC — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — and “the Zionist lobby,” as if that were the driving force behind American policy on Israel. I’m not saying AIPAC isn’t important or that we shouldn’t pay attention to those dynamics. But many of these conversations about the politics of the American-Israeli alliance make it seem like Jewish Zionism is the real driving force in American policy toward Israel. I’d argue that the real driving force, at least demographically, is Christian Zionism — evangelical Christian Zionist voters are a huge factor in our politics around Israel. And CUFI is the hard-charging political juggernaut of the Christian Zionist lobby.
One way to think about CUFI is to compare it to the NRA. The NRA isn’t built on hiring professional Beltway lobbyists who know how to work the system with individual lawmakers. Instead, it’s a single-issue lobbying operation concentrated entirely on gun rights, and it’s grassroots-driven. Politicians know that if you cross the NRA, it’s not just donations that get pulled — it’s angry local gun-rights voters from your own district calling and giving you an earful. They deploy political power through networks of dedicated local activists. CUFI works the same way: a single-issue lobbying operation for Christian support of Israel, highly effective and grassroots-driven.
So today I want to help you see and hear some of what was said at the CUFI Summit. How are they trying to rev up their grassroots activists? What are they saying to them right now, in the midst of this very unpopular war with Iran and this increasingly unpopular alliance with Israel? And I want to flag some of the up-and-coming leaders in American Christian Zionism.
CUFI and Christian Zionism overlap heavily with the world I study and research — the New Apostolic Reformation, independent charismatics, and the religious leaders close to Trump and the White House. That’s my beat. So let’s start with the summit overall, with a couple of clips from CUFI’s own recap video, just to give you a feel for the tone — John Hagee, the founder, with his Texas drawl, exhorting the crowd, intercut with shots of the conference.
CUFI’s agenda is, first, to protect Israel — which to them means arming Israel to the teeth and automatically backing it with the U.S. military. But they also talk about wanting to “defeat” anti-Semitism. That phrasing might sound a little odd. Why not “dismantle” or “resist” anti-Semitism? But to CUFI, those are namby-pamby words. Their mentality is that they’re in a grudge match against anti-Semitism, especially now, amid a rising tide of anti-Semitic sentiment on the far right, and they intend to stomp it out of existence.
The Hipster Christian Zionists
To really get a sense of what’s going on at a place like CUFI these days, I wouldn’t just listen to someone like John Hagee, who is getting quite old now and has an old-school Christian Zionist style and appeal. I want you to get a sense of the rising generation of Christian Zionist preachers and leaders, the hipster Christian Zionists. One of the biggest rising stars in that world right now is a guy named Russell Johnson.
Russell Johnson is the hipsterest of the hipster preachers. At 40 years old, he dresses and styles his hair like he just walked off the stage at a rock concert. Johnson is the pastor of an independent charismatic church, think a fast-growing, non-denominational Pentecostal church, called Pursuit, in Seattle, with multiple campuses. He operates in many of the same circles as the New Apostolic Reformation crowd I study. He’s still a young pastor who founded Pursuit in 2014 and is adjacent to that whole NAR world.
Like any rising right-wing influencer, Russell Johnson is a skilled provocateur. He was one of the pastors who challenged COVID restrictions in 2020 and 2021, refusing to accept limits on church gatherings. He has counter-protested many of the demonstrations against the Gaza war framed as “pro-Israel,” but implicitly pro-war, justifying it as a righteous, godly war. In May 2025, about a year ago, Johnson helped stage a large anti-LGBTQ worship event in Seattle on May Day, alongside some New Apostolic Reformation leaders. The event was, in effect, a middle finger to the Seattle LGBTQ community. There were protesters, and Seattle police got aggressive, roughing up a number of LGBTQ protesters last summer. Being a skilled provocateur like that is a good way to get on the radar of right-wing MAGA politics.
Here’s Russell Johnson hanging out with Paula White Cain, director of the White House Faith Office and Donald Trump’s most trusted religious counselor. She preached at his church last summer; they’re buddies now.
Here he is with Senator Josh Hawley, getting in with legislators in DC.
Here he is with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
And here’s an image from last December, in the Oval Office, a group of Christian leaders surrounding Trump, a very common image these days. Russell Johnson is circled in this photo.
In fact, today, July 24th, this very evening, Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk and now CEO of Turning Point USA, will be speaking at Russell’s church in Seattle.
You get the picture. Russell Johnson is also a rising star in the CUFI universe. He’s the Washington State director for CUFI, and he’s a very good preacher. He gets a plum speaking slot at the CUFI Summit every year because they know he’ll deliver. Russell Johnson, at the CUFI Summit this past month, tries to make this message land with young people, with young evangelicals who might be drifting away from support for Israel. He frames the current politics around Israel and refers to Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens without naming them. I’m certain everyone in that room knew exactly who he meant.
This is what the pro-Israel side of the civil war within Trump’s coalition sounds like, and they are not backing down. In a recent interview with a reporter I know, for a story in the Bulwark, Russell Johnson said, off the cuff, that Candace Owens is “retarded” and added that reporters should feel free to quote him on it. He wants that out there. The gloves are off. These are the people backing Trump right now, backing the war, backing Israel, and ready to rumble with this rising crop of far-right, America-first anti-Semites.
Johnson talks about the war in Iran in terms of Christian Zionism, sending a message to its most dedicated activists about what they need to be drilling home right now.
A Divided Community, a Turning Tide
Christian Zionism is really important, and rather controversial — kind of like the NRA. The American Jewish community is very divided right now over questions of Israel. This is dividing Jewish congregations, Jewish friendships, even Jewish families, over differing views on Israel’s foreign and domestic policy. So just because you know someone is Jewish, don’t assume you know anything about their views on Israel.
Christian Zionists, who already outnumber Jews demographically by a wide margin, are chanting “rah, rah, rah” for Netanyahu and for this war. This is the crowd that kept backing Israel as things got worse and worse in Gaza, and things have not really improved in Gaza; it remains a humanitarian crisis to this day. There are also settlers committing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. And this is the crowd cheering “more, more, more.”
Christian Zionism is still very popular in some circles, but survey after survey shows its popularity decreasing, especially among younger evangelicals. We see the tide of American public opinion turning against Israel across the spectrum. What will this crowd do? Can people like Russell Johnson galvanize evangelical youth against the Tuckers and Candaces of the world?
As talks with Iran seem to have broken down once again, with active exchanges of fire between the U.S. and Iranian militaries ramping up and casualties mounting, I think it’s worth paying close attention to what John Hagee, Russell Johnson, and the whole CUFI crowd are doing. People talk endlessly about AIPAC. I’m not saying AIPAC isn’t important. But we should also be talking a lot more about CUFI and its influence in our politics.
I am very concerned about the rising tide of anti-Semitism in this country, and about how it endangers my Jewish friends, colleagues, and family members. But I’m also concerned about Christian Zionist extremists who want to walk us into war with Iran, and even prolong and accelerate that war, because they have a theological agenda for Israel. That also endangers Jewish, Iranian, Bahraini, Iraqi, Kuwaiti, Omani, Lebanese, Jordanian, Saudi, Palestinian, and yes, American lives.
We can be concerned about multiple things at once.
