By Angus Harley

Senator Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson have been at each other’s throats for many a year now. The main conflict is currently over Zionism, and has developed in recent times into Christian Zionism. Ambassador Huckabee and Cruz are the two main Evangelical politicians of the right who ardently defend Zionism and Christian Zionism. Both have zero time for Carlson’s anti-Zionist agenda, and Carlson has the same amount of care for their pro-Zionist beliefs. They are at the point of not just ideologically opposing one another but are verbally pounding each other.

Cruz is practicing his belief- one pumped out in a gazillion premill churches throughout the world, but particularly here in the States- of ‘Israel is special’. Cruz says that the youth of those assemblies that reject Christian Zionism are being lied to. Cruz notes how ‘Christ is King’ is used by anti-Zionists to hate on Jews and Zionism. Cruz utterly repudiates Replacement Theology, the theology that Israel are no longer the people of the promise, have no right to the land, and have been replaced by the assembly.[1]

Carlson and Cruz both need to get their acts together. Carlson stirs things up, and his language gets way out of control. There are times when he openly confesses this…invariably quite a while after he has destroyed someone’s character! I agree with Cruz that online persons are using ‘Christ as King’ as a hate-phrase.  Yet, not all, Senator Cruz! Nor is everyone who adheres to Replacement Theology a liar. Now who’s doing the hating? Apparently, it is a grievous sin, an almost unpardonable sin, in Cruz’s estimate, to say Zionism is drivel. And what if, in response to Jewish exclusivism and to a Christian Zionist version of the same exclusivism  I retort that ‘Christ is King’ and we will not return to temple worship?

Carlson and Cruz have a right to believe whatever they want. We all do! To hold to Christian Zionism does not make a man a ‘liar’, nor is it ‘lying’ to say Christian Zionism is unbiblical.  I am an ardent believer in Replacement Theology. Israel were cast off as God’s people of the Old Covenant thousands of years ago. They have been replaced by the assembly and the New Covenant. Just read the book of Hebrews. Glorious Replacement!

Yet, has God fully rejected Israel? No. There is a remnant. According to which promises? Those of the Old Covenant? No. Which, then? Of the Abrahamic Covenant. It’s a remnant that is saved according to the Abrahamic Covenant. So says the NT. And if you want more on that promise theology, read Romans 4 or Galatians 3. All the physical, material, aspects that did belong to the Abrahamic Covenant- such as land and circumcision- have been jettisoned. The ‘flesh’ and ‘earthiness’ are disposed of. The Christian- whether Jew of faith, or Gentile of faith- is heading home to the heavenly Zion (Heb.11; Gal.4:21-31).  A heavenly land of promise, promised in the Abrahamic Covenant, fulfilled by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and entered into by faith by all kinds of men. Glorious Replacement!

What you say says a million things, but so does what you don’t say. Cruz is prepared to endorse a promised land, the Jews themselves, a restored temple, etc., but his rhetoric never, somehow, spills over into the facts that Israel are the enemies of God and his Gospel, they crucified the Christ, or that Christ is indeed the king, having provided the one and only sacrifice for sin. You are what you speak and what you don’t speak, Senator Cruz!

The idea of a temple is an attack on the doctrine of the sufficiency of God’s sacrifice in his Son. The notion of a physical promised land not only takes us back, eventually, to all of the Abrahamic physical attributes, including circumcision, but, in effect, raises up the Old Covenant from the grave!  I will forever be a true believer in Replacement Theology, and I am not for one moment ashamed of it. For it is only by this theology that all men- Jews and Gentiles- are admitted into God’s heavenly kingdom. How can Jews be saved without a sacrifice for sin, a heavenly Christ? And how can they enter his heavenly kingdom without faith in that Christ? THIS is the Good News, Senator Cruz, not Israel the nation and its so-called right to exist!

[1] David Brody, “Ted Cruz Warns of Rising Antisemitism Inside the Church; Says Tucker Carlson is Targeting Evangelicals”, CBN News, March 3, 2026, https://cbn.com/news/politics/ted-cruz-warns-rising-antisemitism-inside-church-says-tucker-carlson-targeting.