Return of the red heifer

Byron Stinson spends half of his year in Texas running his ranch and a transportation management company. The other half he spends in Israel, conducting archaeological digs and looking for a way to revive an Old Testament purification ceremony. It blends his ranching skills, transportation know-how, and faith in prophecy.

In his free time, Stinson, a self-­described follower of Yeshua, takes his mission to Washington.

In February, he joined a group of Christians, lawmakers, and conservative activists gathered at the Museum of the Bible near the National Mall for an hourslong prayer session. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Jim Garlow, a New Apostolic Reformation pastor, hosted the third annual National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance. Roughly 40 lawmakers, Republicans all, attended and delivered public prayers on a variety of topics. They included House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Rep. Randy Fine of Florida, and Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee. Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama was the only ­senator in attendance.

Every lawmaker left before the second part of the event, when Stinson joined Garlow and Rabbi Tsaki Mamo on stage to describe their efforts to build a new Temple.

Stinson, along with many of the prayer gathering’s leaders, believes the law and prophecies in the Old Testament still apply to modern Israel. He is waiting for the eventual construction of a Third Temple. Some Jewish and Christian eschatological beliefs interpret a vision in the Book of Ezekiel to provide a blueprint for a Temple that has not yet been built. For Jews, the Third Temple can restore Israel and usher in the Messiah. For dispensationalist Christians, it represents a fulfillment of end times prophecy and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

The law of Moses stated that builders and priests of the Temple must undergo purification ceremonies. In the Old Testament, a priest would kill an unblemished red heifer, sprinkle the blood in front of the Tabernacle, and then burn the animal and mix its ashes with a source of water. That water was then considered purified and used in priestly cleansing rituals.

Third Temple groups are controversial, even in Israel, and Stinson is affiliated with many of them. He founded Boneh Israel, an archaeological group that collects Israeli artifacts with potential Biblical significance. The website describes the mission as “building Israel and bringing the redemption closer.” He also created the Father’s House Educational Foundation to bring pastors and church leaders on Holy Land tours. He partners closely with the Temple Institute, which has fundraised and started reconstructing garments, roasting pans, copper pitchers, and basins for a future Temple. Mamo, who presented alongside Stinson at the prayer breakfast, leads Uvne Jerusalem, an organization that has purchased land around Jerusalem, including on the Mount of Olives, the site of a hoped-for future priestly purification ceremony.

Stinson has also worked for years to breed unblemished red heifers for the ceremony. Starting in 2021, Stinson and Mamo, and other rabbis, toured Texas searching among Red Angus herds. If they found even a single white hair, the cow was disqualified. And if a cow had an ear tag, that counted as a blemish. Whenever they found one, they would buy the cow and ask the owning rancher to allow the animal to breed but not tag the calf. Israel does not allow the import of any livestock, so when it came time to send the heifers to the Holy Land, the group classified them as pets.

“No pet has ever been treated with more love or safety than our cows,” Stinson wrote in a book about the project. “So, we named them all and applied for a license to import our pets to Israel, and it was accepted!”

Mamo hosted Stinson, other rabbis, and Israel’s Heritage Ministry director-­general, Netanel Isaac, for an arrival celebration when the cows landed. But not everyone was pleased when they saw the microchips implanted in the cows’ ears (a shipping requirement). More than 300 rabbis convened to discuss whether this blemished the heifers.

“You can put three rabbis in a room, and you’ll get 12 opinions,” Stinson said. “You can put 300 in a room, and you have 12,000 opinions.”

Erring on the side of caution, Stinson decided these weren’t the cows for the ceremony after all, so now he is breeding them to raise a new herd. In the meantime, he’s also building a visitor center for tourists to come visit the cows.

“We’re flying in the reddest of semen from around the world, and we’ll start having calves,” Stinson said. “You’re going to get some bulls and some heifers, but it’s very exciting.”

Byron Stinson explains how rabbis inspected the red heifers he found in Texas. Screengrab from video

More than four years after starting the project, Stinson is not frustrated by the delays.

“It’s not about rushing,” he said. “It’s about a long-term plan of God to bring about peace on earth and for us to study and make relationships between the Jewish fathers of faith and Christians worldwide.”

That includes Christians in Washington. Stinson says he has met with government officials who “absolutely believe that a Temple should be built,” although he declined to name names.

Stinson was also encouraged by the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has publicly supported the idea of Temple construction in the past.

“There’s no reason why the miracle of reestablishing the Temple on the Temple Mount isn’t possible,” Hegseth said at an event in Jerusalem in 2018. “That’s why going and visiting Judea and Samaria and understanding that sovereignty—the very sovereignty of Israeli soil, Israeli cities, locations—is a critical next step to showing the world that this is the land for Jews and the Land of Israel.”

A rabbi inspects a red heifer in Texas. Screengrab from video

In July, Stinson and Mamo held a practice purification ceremony, which they livestreamed, with a disqualified cow. After the House recessed for August, Speaker Mike Johnson took a delegation of Republicans on a private trip to the Middle East. On Aug. 3, they commemorated Tisha B’Av, a day of fasting on the Jewish calendar to mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem.

“Our prayer is that America will always stand with Israel,” Johnson said in a video posted on social media. “We pray for the preservation and the peace of Jerusalem. That’s what Scripture tells us to do. It’s a matter of faith for us and a commitment that we have.”

—Read this issue’s cover story and companion piece on end times views, “Visions of the Apocalypse” and “Prophetic foreign policy.”