[1]RUCKERSVILLE, Va. (BP) – Aaron Evans was fresh from viewing an Auschwitz exhibit at the Reagan Library on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched the deadliest attack on Israel since the Holocaust.
The tragedy forever changed the Millennial 38-year-old Southern Baptist, he told Baptist Press.
As studies indicate less than a third of evangelicals age 35 and younger see the Israelites as God’s chosen people, Evans is on a mission to lead evangelicals to view Jewish people through a biblical lens. He describes the mission as one of the most important contemporary causes.
“I would even just call it divine, in how I think God was working in my heart to prepare (me) even before October 7,” Evans told Baptist Press. “I’ve always been a supporter of the Jewish people and understanding God’s unique covenant with Abraham and his descendants.”
Exhibit curators “did a phenomenal job,” Evans said, “focusing in on … Auschwitz before the war, and what the community was like, and then how Germany became radicalized, and how anti-Semitism and the violence actually happened.”
While some Christians spoke against the Holocaust in Hitler’s days, others were complicit, Evans learned. The exhibit book “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away” – now a fixture in Evans’ office – had been on his desk two weeks when Hamas attacked Israel.
“I hadn’t felt that way since 9/11 (2001),” Evans said. “I’ve been married 16 years, and I think my wife has seen me cry three times. I’m not an emotional person. I’m sitting there with tears in my eyes, just watching the TV screen” as news of the Hamas attack unfolded.
As protests in the U.S. adversely impacted Jews, revealing and spurring antisemitism, Evans was reminded of the exhibit highlighting the atrocities of the Auschwitz extermination and concentration camps of the 1930s.
[2]“This is something that can only be successful with passivity and silence,” he said of antisemitism. “We’ve got to be bold and we’ve got to stand up for truth, and we’ve got to use our voice.”
Scripture presents Israel as God’s chosen people, but young evangelicals are slow to embrace that truth, a 2025 study by Infinity Concepts and Grey Matter Research found. Only 29 percent of young evangelicals believed that Jews are God’s chosen people, 26 percent gravitated towards a replacement theology, 16 percent said there were no chosen people, and 26 percent were unsure. The same was true among white and ethnic young evangelicals.
“We’ve got good Christian young people who do not have the Old Testament foundations, who do not fully understand the covenant between God and Abraham, and who are getting their news off of TikTok,” Evans said. “And that combination has created a real problem that, frankly, is also being exploited by people who are investing a lot of money into propaganda targeting those same youth, in this country.
“The best antidote to lies is truth.”
Evans had never heard of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) before the Hamas attack, but an acquaintance invited him to a meeting. There, he found an avenue for his voice, and today volunteers as vice president of the young leadership affinity group for the FIDF Washington Chapter near his Virginia home.
He speaks to young evangelicals, building bridges and encouraging them to stand with Jewish communities. He approaches young evangelicals with love and respect, he said, engaging in dialogue and challenging false concepts.
“Whether my voice can impact a few hundred, or a few thousand, or a few million, it’s really more about just being faithful with my voice, and my time and my talents,” he said, “and not being a silent bystander.”
Evans and his family attend Legacy Church, an SBC of Virginia church in Ruckersville, where Evans has served as an elder. He interned at Southern Baptist congregations while attending Liberty University, including a stint as a youth pastor at Ringgold Baptist Church in Ringgold, Va.
The public relations professional encourages pastors to teach the whole counsel of God, including Old Testament Scripture, which, Evans has found is not foundational for many young evangelicals.
“I think it goes back to the church,” he said. “We can’t ignore 66 books of the Bible.”
Evans traveled to Israel in May 2024 with an FIDF delegation, visiting military bases and meeting with troops, among whom are Christians, Muslim and Jews.
“One of the things that really jumped out was how humble the entire army was, just talking to them,” Evans said. “They would say that they’re not courageous, the hostages are the ones with courage, because everything was just so focused on getting the hostages out.”
Evans encourages Christians to connect with FIDF [3], a non-profit humanitarian outreach that doesn’t support war itself, but ministers to Israeli soldiers by providing education, financial aid, bereavement programs, mental health care and other services.
“FIDF’s really the only organization where they’ll have the opportunity to go to bases and actually meet the troops,” he said. “To me, that’s really amazing to just go, as a Christian, and let them know that we love them, we’re praying for them, that we’ve got their back. That means a lot to them.”
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