October 1956 — President Dwight D. Eisenhower picks up the rotary phone on his mahogany desk. He reportedly consumes up to 24 cups of coffee a day during high-stakes crises such as this. He is furious. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden has attacked Egypt alongside France and Israel to reclaim the Suez Canal.

Today, many assume that the post-WWII era — a time of historic, record-high American church attendance — meant automatic, unconditional U.S. backing for the nascent Jewish state. But this is far from reality. In 1956, the institutionalized “special relationship” that dictates foreign policy today did not exist. Washington did not view Israel as a high priority, seeing it instead as a small, fragile, frontier state. The horrors of Nazi atrocities were fresh, yes, but they had not yet translated into military or foreign policy priorities. The political powerhouse of Christian Zionism had not yet emerged.

Eisenhower’s strategy was simple: deter the Soviet Union and protect vital oil reserves. To understand where priorities actually lay, look no further than Billy Graham, one of the best-known pastors of the era and a confidante of Eisenhower. That same year, Graham founded Christianity Today to give evangelicals a voice. Yet, during the height of the Suez Crisis, neither Graham nor his publication lobbied the White House to intervene on behalf of Israel. The evangelical focus was anchored in personal salvation and defeating communist atheism at home.

For the 1956 churchgoer, the fact that Jesus was a Jew carried no political weight; they simply did not believe they had a........

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