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'Til Kingdom Come | Independent Lens

Multiple people raising arms in prayer and facing yellow Star of David overlaying black cross
Courtesy of Abraham “Abie” Troen
/
PBS
Hands raised in prayer, Middlesboro, Kentucky.

Mon. Mar. 29 at 10pm on WKAR-HD 23.1 & STREAMING | Pastors encourage an impoverished community to donate to Israel in anticipation of Jesus's return.In an impoverished Kentucky community, pastors encourage their congregants to donate to Israel in anticipation of Jesus’s impending return, perpetuating an unlikely bond between Evangelical Christians and Israeli Jews. Directed and produced by Emmy-winning filmmaker Maya Zinshtein and Academy award-winning producer John Battsek and Abraham (Abie) Troen, ‘Til Kingdom Come examines this bond in a story of faith, power, and money.

Prominent among the millions of American Evangelicals praying for the state of Israel is Pastor Boyd Bingham IV, one in a line of a dynasty of Kentucky pastors, and the congregants he leads in a small coal mining town. Firm in his conviction that his calling in life is to raise money for Israel, he and his congregants donate to Israel’s foremost philanthropic organization, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Their donations are fueled by the belief that Jews are crucial to Jesus’s return: a central issue that Zinshtein ultimately leaves the small Kentucky community to explore on a wider scale.

With unparalleled access, ‘Til Kingdom Come unravels the global significance of American Christians’ dogma concerning Israel’s role in the Second Coming, traveling from rural Kentucky to the halls of government in Washington, through the controversial moving of the American Embassy to Jerusalem under the Trump administration and the annexation plan of the West Bank. It exposes a stunning backstory of the Trump and Netanyahu administrations, where financial, political and messianic motivations intersect with the apocalyptic worldview that is fundamentally reshaping American foreign policy toward Israel and the Middle East.

Watch the special at video.wkar.org during or after the premiere date.

MORE ABOUT INDEPENDENT LENS:
Independent Lens is an Emmy® Award-winning weekly series airing on PBS Monday nights at 10:00 PM. The acclaimed series, with Lois Vossen as executive producer, features documentaries united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement and unflinching visions of independent filmmakers. Presented by ITVS, the series is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people, with additional funding from PBS, Acton Family Giving, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Wyncote Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. For more, visit pbs.org/independentlens. Join the conversation: facebook.com/independentlens and on Twitter @IndependentLens.

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