N.T. Wright is the brightest theological light in the Anglican tradition. He has been the Bishop of Durham, and a research professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St. Mary's College in the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He is a senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall at the University of Oxford.
Wright has written over 70 books, most on the intersection of theology and Christian living. He has criticized the idea of the secret rapture.
When asked about Christian Zionism, he notes that it is not a “thing” outside of America (although he does mention that his father-in-law was in the Plymouth Brethen). It has no real currency in Britain or Europe, where they understand the concept of Spiritual Israel, and that God’s promises to Israel are fulfilled in Christ and in the Christian Church.
That Christian Zionism does not really exist outside of the United States in the way it does here, yet within the U.S., Christian Zionism is nearly co-terminous with evangelicalism, underscores the overwhelming influence of the Scofield Bible. Too many conservative American Protestants have not been able to distinguish between what is holy writ and what is just some random man’s opinion, some random man who took bribes, kited checks, abandoned his family, and fraudulently claimed to be a “doctor of divinity.”
Here is another in the same vein:
Finally here is a longer discussion of the issues: