The new White House National Security Strategy is more than a bureaucratic document. It is a theological statement dressed up as geopolitics. It invokes “God-given natural rights,” the “laws of nature and nature’s God,” calls for “spiritual and cultural health,” and laments Europe’s looming “civilizational erasure.” Yet as Robert Zoellick notes, it also reflects a vice-presidential worldview of spheres of influence, deal-making, and a willingness to treat small nations as irritants to be managed rather than covenants to be honored.
For Christians who care about the Bible, the Jewish people, and the moral use of American power, this strategy is both promising and deeply unsettling.
For Christians who care about the Bible, the Jewish people, and the moral use of American power, this strategy is both promising and deeply unsettling.
Civilization language without covenant loyalty
On its face, much of the strategy’s language will resonate with many believers. It speaks of restoring strong families, reviving national character, and rejecting a technocratic globalism that dissolves borders and despises faith. It criticizes a hollow European project that has lost confidence in its own cultural inheritance and warns that, if current trends continue, the continent will be “unrecognizable” within a generation.
There is truth here. A West that forgets its moral and spiritual foundations cannot long defend its freedoms. But Scripture is clear that the roots of what we call “Western civilization” run through Israel. Paul says Gentile believers are wild branches grafted into an olive tree that is not of our own planting (Romans 11:17–18). Any talk of civilizational renewal that does not take with utmost seriousness the security and dignity of the Jewish state is severed from its own root.
That is the central tension in this strategy. It speaks of “spiritual renewal” and “God-given rights,” yet frames the world primarily as a map of bargaining zones in which great powers adjust spheres of influence and strike deals. Ukraine, in Zoellick’s phrase, becomes an “irritant” to be resolved so that normal relations with Moscow can resume. (The Wall Street Journal) The question is unavoidable: if small nations can be traded away for “stability” in Europe, why should Israel assume it will never be treated the same way in the Middle East?
The good news: Israel is not an afterthought
To be fair, there is real cause for gratitude in the document. The Middle East section explicitly names Israeli security as a core American interest and highlights the significance of the Abraham Accords and the more recent wave of normalization and ceasefire deals. It describes a region where Iranian power has been degraded, hostages have been freed, and Arab states increasingly cooperate with Israel against extremism.
This builds on concrete actions from recent years: U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the relocation of the embassy there, (Trump White House Archives) the Abraham Accords that opened peace with the UAE, Bahrain, and others, (U.S. Department of State) and renewed efforts to fold regional partners into a security architecture in which Israel is a central pillar. From a Christian perspective, each of these steps represents a welcome alignment between American policy and the biblical affirmation of the Jewish people’s enduring connection to their land (Genesis 12, Romans 9–11).
The strategy also rightly names Iran as the chief destabilizing force and affirms that the United States has a “clear interest” in ensuring that Israel remains secure and that the Abraham Accords expand. That clarity is essential; it rejects the lazy equivalence that treats the only Jewish democracy as morally interchangeable with the regime that openly calls for its destruction.
The danger: a “solved” Middle East and a shrinking American spine
And yet, in the same breath, the NSS speaks of the Middle East as yesterday’s problem. Energy diversification and American exports, it argues, mean the region need no longer dominate U.S. foreign policy. The future, it suggests, is one in which Gulf monarchies, backed by American technology and capital, shoulder more of the security burden while Washington “shifts priorities” elsewhere.
There is prudence in avoiding open-ended nation-building wars. But Christians should be wary of any narrative that treats the region of Abraham, the prophets, the apostles, and the Jewish people’s modern rebirth as just another theater to be “down-prioritized” once it is profitable and quiet enough. Scripture’s storyline does not license us to ignore the Middle East the moment it becomes convenient; it teaches that the spiritual health of the nations is bound up, in some mysterious way, with God’s dealings with Israel (Romans 11:12, 15).
Moreover, a posture of high “non-interventionist” thresholds and transactional burden-shifting is not neutral. When combined with a declared willingness to treat Europe and Russia as roughly equivalent players to be balanced rather than morally distinguished, it sends a signal to every revisionist power: hold out long enough, and Washington will eventually look for a deal. Israel’s enemies can read between those lines. So can Tehran.
Europe, Israel, and the test of civilizational honesty
The strategy’s harsh tone toward Europe—accusing the continent of regulatory suffocation, demographic decline, and civilizational self-doubt—has already drawn sharp rebukes from European leaders. (Reuters) Yet, again, there is a grain of truth: a Europe that refuses to defend its borders, forgets its Christian inheritance, and tolerates rising antisemitism is indeed in danger of losing itself.
Here the pro-Israel Christian lens is clarifying. Europe’s “civilizational erasure” did not begin with immigration; it began with its refusal to repent fully for a long history of anti-Jewish hatred and its continuing moral confusion about the existence of a Jewish state. When European institutions rush to condemn Israel’s self-defense while saying little about Hamas tunnels under schools or Iranian rockets aimed at civilians, they reveal not compassion but a deep spiritual disorientation.
If America wants to speak credibly about civilizational renewal, it must first be ruthlessly honest about this reality—and insist that any transatlantic revival include an unambiguous stand against antisemitism and for Israel’s right to exist in secure, recognized borders.
A Christian framework for an Israel-honoring strategy
Without dictating party platforms or legislative details, a biblically informed view suggests at least four tests for any American national-security strategy:
- Moral clarity about regimes and movements
Not all states are morally equivalent. A strategy that blurs the lines between flawed liberal democracies and explicitly genocidal or theocratic regimes denies the biblical distinction between justice and wickedness. There is no moral symmetry between Israel and Hamas, or between a Europe struggling with its identity and a Kremlin that wages aggressive war. (Brookings) - Covenant-like faithfulness to embattled allies
Israel is not just another ally; it is the only Jewish state on earth and a strategic partner whose survival has repeatedly been threatened. American commitments to preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge, constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and resist diplomatic isolation should not be casually subordinated to short-term “deal flow.” - Peace that does not forget justice and truth
The Abraham Accords and subsequent normalization agreements are genuinely hopeful signs: Arab states choosing cooperation with Israel over permanent rejectionism. (Welcome | UAE Embassy) But economic integration cannot by itself dissolve ideologies that sacralize Jewish death. A just peace requires that America and its partners confront, not accommodate, the demonization of Jews in school curricula, media, and mosque preaching across the region. - Consistency between “God-talk” and policy
If U.S. strategy is going to invoke God, natural rights, and spiritual renewal, that language must be more than civil-religious ornament. The God of Scripture cares how powers treat the vulnerable, including the Jewish people. Genesis 12 warns that nations are blessed or cursed based on how they bless or curse Abraham’s descendants. Any administration that speaks of a “new golden age” while quietly signaling that it is tired of the burdens of standing with Israel is playing a dangerous game—not just strategically, but spiritually.
The 2025 National Security Strategy is right about one crucial point: the great questions before us are civilizational as much as they are military or economic. But a civilization that forgets the people through whom its Scriptures, its Savior, and its moral vocabulary all came into the world cannot be renewed; it can only decay more slowly.
An authentically pro-Israel Christian reading of this moment will welcome every concrete step that strengthens Israel’s security and advances genuine peace. It will also refuse to be lulled by flattering rhetoric about “God-given rights” and “soft power” if, behind the words, America begins to treat its commitments to the Jewish state as negotiable. Nations, like individuals, are judged by how they keep their promises. In an age of shifting balances and quick deals, the United States should aspire to something older and deeper: covenant faithfulness—especially toward Israel.