Abstract

The rhetorical function of the future in Christian Zionists' commemoration of Israel is a core component of their collective memory. As a discursive act, commemoration typically involves a remembering of the past. Based on an analysis of a corpus of US Christian Zionist texts from 1934 to 2010, I argue that a sort of commemorating and remembering of the future takes place, which silences alternative future worlds and possibilities that discord with Christian Zionist ideologies. These texts exhibit a concern with the future that is rooted in a particularized narrative in order to validate Christian Zionist understandings of the role of Israel in human history. Thus, for Christian Zionists, remembering the future is a strategic resource for constructing specific expectations about Israel. Moreover, I argue that these expectations inform how discourse participants assign meaning to the present by forming biased mental models of Israel and manipulating social cognition.