Insights about past thinking on Middle East are unknown
In 1898, Bible student Aldersmith published '˜The Fulness of The Nations' in which he asserted that Great Britain would deliver Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks in 1917 [see historian Gordon Lucy's feature on General Allenby, British capturer of Jerusalem, News Letter, December 11, 2017].
Aldersmith was joined by the famous preacher and writer Grattan Guinness.
Guinness also foresaw in his book ‘Light for The Last Days’ that the Turkish Empire would fall and Jerusalem become a free city in 1917.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, many of the British ruling class were deeply persuaded and influenced by evangelical thought which shaped their approach to the politics of Middle East and their sympathy for the emergence of a Jewish homeland.
These insights into our past are not widely known, nor are their implications.
Dr Clifford Smyth, Belfast BT6