White House Bible Teacher Made Pro-Israel Push the Day After Iran Strikes
Far-right preacher began feeding cabinet members and members of Congress biblical arguments for supporting Israel
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The day after Israel launched its first strikes against Iran, late on June 12, the man who leads the White House and congressional Bible-study groups posted his study guide for the next week’s study sessions: “The Biblical Case for Defending Israel.”
The study groups are run by Capitol Ministries, and led by its co-founder, Ralph Drollinger, a far-right preacher whose organization influences public officials in almost all the state capitals and a growing number of national capitals around the world.
At first, Pres. Donald Trump had called on Israel to give negotiations time. Then, after Israel’s attack, questions swirled about whether Trump would join the conflict.
That’s when Drollinger made the case to Trump’s cabinet members and congressional GOP leadership that God wanted America to get Israel’s back. Which was precisely what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asking Trump to do.
(Drollinger is a Netanyahu fan, having joined in “thundering applause” when he attended a Netanyahu address to Congress.)
As members of Congress seek answers this week about the Trump administration’s supposed — and rejected — intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program, little attention has been paid to Drollinger’s influence.
As I revealed last month, his study groups include Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), both cheerleaders for America taking up arms on Israel’s behalf.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), has been known for years to be part of Drollinger’s study groups. (The only Democrat known to participate is Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), who has recruited for Drollinger and is an ally of the Israeli government.)
As the Military Religious Freedom Foundation reported this week, some U.S. military commanders see the clash with Israel in terms that are both Biblical and, specifically, related to prophecy of Earth’s final days.
Drollinger’s Bible lessons about America supporting Israel would last two weeks, over a two-part study guide and in study sessions at the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives. The first study guide was posted June 13. The second was posted on June 14.
In a video posted June 14, Drollinger referred to his Bible studies at the White House and Congress. “In that study, we’re going to be looking for the next couple weeks at what’s the Biblical argument for why we’re pro-Israel.” He continued:
“Fortunately, we are, by way of culture — now there’s Ivy League school rebels that aren’t; we see that every day in the media — but the profound significance of our legislative body and our executive body being pro-Israel is a huge blessing to the nation…”
In a second video, apparently taped the same day but posted on June 17, Drollinger referred to “The Bible study here that I’ll be teaching this week in DC to our Senate, House, and White House members.”
(The study groups meet at 8am, serving breakfast to attendees, in the Senate on Tuesdays, White House on Wednesdays, and House of Representatives on Thursdays.)
On June 21, Trump launched the illegal military action against Iran, targeting three nuclear sites without congressional authorization and in the absence of any Iranian military attack on the U.S.
Drollinger not only has a record of influencing American officials, he boasts about it, and it’s the explicit purpose for the existence of Capitol Ministries. His Bible lessons, for instance, offered a Scriptural defense for the child separations of Trump’s first-term immigration policy.
In the June 13 study guide — emailed to Drollinger’s group on the 15th (they go out every Sunday) — Drollinger counseled lawmakers and officials that, “America should be committed to Israel.”
His intended audience was explicit in Part 2, dated June 14. “How an American lawmaker reasons this issue from Scripture,” he wrote, “has huge implications in American foreign policy and as, many conclude, whether God will continue to bless America.”
And Drollinger leaves no doubt of the context. “America needs a reliable ally in this area of the world,” Drollinger wrote in Part 1, “due to the nuclear threat of Iran (caused by the nearly available enriched uranium) which has repeatedly declared its hatred for America.”
Dollinger explains to his White House and congressional study groups the modern-day ramifications of God’s Old Testament promises to Israel:
“…the promise of blessing or else cursing those who bless or else curse Israel applies for individuals, terrorist groups, and nations today. This biblical fact more than insinuates and informs— it screams loudly—as to why American foreign policy should be extremely positive toward Israel! Such policies bless America. Plain stupid is an executive branch or Congress that doesn’t get this!”
He makes that point again in Part 2, writing that, “God’s blessing on individuals and nations is in part predicated on how they treat Israel as a nation.”
Similarly, in his June 17 video, Drollinger contemplates the prospect of America turning from Israel. “Just think if America ever slips from that mooring, like we’ve slipped from, y’know, marriage between a male and a female. We’ve slipped on a lot of our Mosaic understandings of truth and what God’s pleased with and what He’s not, but fortunately we haven’t slipped on this one.”
And if we do? Drollinger invokes the threat of God’s curse: “[T]here are no godly reasons to justify being anti-Israel. Our nation must stand with Israel because He commands it and because the God-given consequences to do otherwise are fearful.”
Part 1 concludes with this assertion:
“Since God is not through with Israel, and since God has a huge future plan for Israel, it stands to reason—based on the healthy fear all should possess relative to Genesis 12:3—that all individuals and all nations should be sure to stand on the side of Israel. Amen!”
Although the two study guides are dated this June, they’re actually just reposted from years past. Drollinger puts them online and, thanks to the vagueness about specific current events, they might well seem to be responding to whatever’s going on at the time.
For instance, the June 13 study guide notes that, “Given ongoing attention to Israel and Gaza, I thought this would be a good time to provide a biblical primer as to why you and our nation should remain staunch allies of Israel.” That language has been in there since at least Oct. 18, 2021, almost four years ago.
In his June 14 video, Drollinger revives old language about Iran language. But he doesn’t disclose that it’s recycled, and now he’s sharing it less than 48 hours after Israel’s attack on nuclear sites and other Iranian targets:
“In an increasingly tumultuous Middle East, we need an ally to protect ourselves. America needs a reliable ally in a world where there’s a nuclear threat coming to maturity called Iran and we need to have a presence near our adversaries and it’s nice to have a reliable ally in Israel.”
Drollinger’s study guides have described the Middle East as “increasingly” tumultuous since at least as far back as 2011.
In that same, 2011 iteration of the study guide he revived this month, Drollinger described “the nearly-enriched nuclear threat of Iran.” It’s been nearly enriched in every archived version over the past 14 years.
Nevertheless, when Trump ordered the U.S. to enter the conflict on Israel’s side, U.S. military commanders reportedly rejoiced — not so much for confronting the supposed nuclear threat, but for ushering in the end of all threats.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) reported earlier this week that almost immediately after Trump announced the June 21 U.S. strike on Iran, the foundation was “inundated” by reports of military commanders rejoicing in the prospect that the End Times were near.
One service member wrote to the MRFF about his commander’s ostensibly optional Bible study the day after the U.S. strikes:
“…the Commander and his wife spent most of the Bible study yesterday in excessive and extreme glorification and overall celebration of the sudden attack on Iran by American forces and all of the other matters connected to the Israeli attacks on Iran. This includes the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza, the Ukrainian-Russian war, the tensions with North Korea and China and between India and Pakistan and a number of others. They had big fat grins on their faces as they assured us that the ‘End Times’ were now here just as heralded and predicted in the New Testament Book of Revelation.”
While many evangelicals justify support for Israel based on its prophesied role in the End Times — Israel’s existence is a prerequisite for Jesus to return — Drollinger makes a subtler point.
Israel’s role in the last days of the world proves that Israel is still entitled to claim the Abrahamic promise that Israel is special to God, that those who bless Israel are blessed and those who curse Israel are cursed. Some evangelicals argue that the U.S. need not side with Israel anymore, because God’s covenant was inherited by Christians when Jesus was crucified.
In other words, these evangelicals claim that the privileges once enjoyed by Israel no longer apply. The U.S. has no obligation to help out.
Drollinger’s spoken publicly of his frustration with this interpretation, that alliance with Israel is no longer a divine commandment. He attributes it, at least in part, to antisemitism.
Drolling also complains about some of his congressional students. Their knowledge of their own religion, he suggests, is shallow. In his June 17 video, he speaks with unapologetic condescension about dumbing down his lessons:
“I’m speaking to a lot of people in DC that aren’t necessarily schooled in Sunday school. They run for office. They’re Biblically illiterate. Yet they have a scratching and a yearning to learn the Bible, so I have to kind of put the cookies on the lower shelf… when I use a big word, at least in DC, I try to define what I mean by that.
“They’ll come to Bible study to get a cookie, but if you’re putting, like, a filet mignon up there on the top shelf, they might not be able to digest that.”
But they do digest what he feeds them. As he said in his June 14 video about Israel, they’re teachable, and he’s teaching them:
“I can be the first to tell you there’s a high quotient of Biblical illiteracy amongst our elected leaders; that’s what Capitol Ministries is all about, is to try to change that and have good, cogent, in-depth Bible study every week so as to bring the word into the mind of our legislative body…”
He makes a similar point in his second video, posted June 17, in which he discusses arming U.S. officials with biblical arguments for a pro-Israel foreign policy:
“Fortunately, I’m speaking, in Bible studies in DC, to a pre-disposed [pro-Israel] audience, but because of biblical ignorance, many people that are in office don’t understand … they don’t necessarily understand the biblical case for being pro-Israel…
“A lot of our members that I teach the Bible to have a pragmatic reason for being pro-Israel, and it’s, uh, it’s cool to be pro-Israel. But they don’t necessarily have Genesis 12, Romans 11, and Revelation 7 tucked away in the back of their cap as to why they have such strong convictions.”
It’s that mission of steeling members of Congress to hold their ground on Israel based on the Bible — rather than politics, strategy, or constituent sentiment — that drives Drollinger’s lessons. In his June 17 video, he says he wants to give his political students Biblical arguments, even if many already picked up an affinity for Israel as kids in Sunday school:
“…praise God for that, that we’re not fighting an uphill battle like we are, say, with LGBTQ or with environmental concerns — like, God’s really not in charge of the environment and we have to do that for Him because He really doesn’t exist — we don’t have to fight such an uphill battle with this matter [Israel] and so, at the same time, we need to buoy the convictions of our members based upon Scriptural truths… so that when push comes to shove, they know why they believe they’re pro-Israel: From what the Bible says.”
And although a number of Democrats are fiercely pro-Israel, Drollinger in the first video complained about them, too. In fact, he predicted their party’s possible demise for straying from the biblical policies Republicans pursue:
“…we see one political party for the most part basing their policies on the Mosaic law, the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20, and we see another one, increasingly — no matter what the matter is — it’s contrary to the Ten Commandments in their basis for reasoning, which is really shaky ground and it could demolish a political party that continues to do that. I often quip, when are they gonna start building a golden calf, because it’s so abhorrent. The views that they hold are not tied to Mosaic law.”
Drollinger doesn’t address the oath everyone in Congress takes to uphold not Mosaic law, but the Constitution and its prohibition on respecting an establishment of religion.
Although Drollinger is absolute in his certainty about God standing with Israel and the unavoidable implication that America should, too, he does allow for the possibility of diverging from Israel’s side. First, he makes this declaration:
“…the three major biblical chapters when studied together exclaim why every legislator, government leader, citizen, and human being should befriend Israel.”
And then he adds the caveat:
“Obviously this statement should not be taken too far so as to mean a blanket endorsement of everything the nation [Israel] might engage in or do that is ethically or morally unsubstantiated.”
If it seems like this would be a hugely important caveat — to avoid officials thinking God demands unquestioning fealty to every Israeli policy — Drollinger doesn’t give it that kind of prominence. It’s literally a footnote.
I’m a veteran journalist and TV news producer who’s worked at MSNBC — as co-creator of Up w/ Chris Hayes and senior producer for Countdown with Keith Olbermann — CNN, ABCNews, The Daily Show, Air America Radio, and TYT. My original reporting on Substack is made possible by a handful of paid subscribers. Thank you.
Why the fuck is “White House bible teacher” a thing?
Thank you, Jonathan, for your careful research and your courage.
Thank god (apologies to atheists here) someone is researching and reporting on this, and that someone is Jonathan. I regularly share these articles with my UCC brethren and sistren.