At Zion Oil, such pilgrimages have become common. For many Christians, when it comes to helping Israel, the lines between business and philanthropy blur. Last year, one Christian at the company’s drilling site attempted to thrust fistfuls of cash into the hands of the company’s C.E.O. (Rinberg says he refused to take the money.) During its I.P.O., Zion received letters from evangelical shareholders who said they had taken second jobs and worked midnight shifts to earn enough money to make the minimum $700 stock purchase. “I invested to support Israel. I love Israel as much, or more, than this country,” says investor Bettye Petree, an evangelical minister from Dallas. “They’re our only true ally in the world.”

“It hit me,” Rinberg says during an interview in his sparsely furnished office in Israel this May. “In the mind of the evangelical, there’s no difference between investing in a company and making a charitable donation.” Brown says that while he welcomes Christian support, he never solicits investors in their places of worship. “I would never go to a church or a synagogue or any religious place” to raise money, he states. Instead, Zion Oil advertises on evangelical websites.

One of the firm’s strongest marketing advantages, however, may be the current fascination with the apocalypse in many Christian circles. Rapture fantasy has become a multibillion-dollar business, and for a certain type of Christian, Zion Oil provides proof that a global confrontation will soon unfold on the battlefields of Armageddon, as prophesied in Revelations (according to evangelicals’ literal interpretation). For his part, Brown bristles at the apocalypse mania. “I don’t see us as people that are in Israel trying to get this oil because that’s going to make the Messiah come. Some of these evangelical people—they get a little crazy,” he says. “You know I just don’t buy into it. Is he going to come back? Yeah. When? I don’t know.”

On a sultry afternoon in June, about 50 Zion Oil shareholders crowd into a second-floor conference room at the Hotel Palomar, in Dallas, for the company’s first annual stockholders’ meeting. Israeli folk music plays in the background as Brown’s followers take their seats. A Methodist pastor and an Orthodox rabbi, standing at a chestnut lectern flanked by Israeli, American, and Texas flags, begin with readings from Psalms 133 and 127. Prayers follow. This should be a jubilant moment, with the company announcing the much-anticipated results of the first well. But, as Rinberg and Perry tell the faithful, the news is nominally bad: Zion’s Maanit No. 1 came up dry.

Perry and Rinberg assure the shareholders that the company will drill its second well this fall. “Now that we know the beast,” Perry says, “we’ve planned and sourced material for the next well.” Brown is up next. He strides to the lectern, his shock of white hair glowing under the ceiling lights. Opening his Bible to 1 Kings 18:45, he tells the shareholders, “I want you to know that God specifically told me that Zion is about God’s faithfulness to the nation of Israel—it’s not about my faith.” The audience begins to nod and murmur “Amen.” “Rest assured,” Brown continues, “we’re determined. We’re men of faith. We’re men of substance. And God has provided everything Zion has needed so far.”

Brown’s speech seems to have melted away whatever lingering hesitations remain about Zion’s future. A pair of eager middle-aged women clutching handbags rush up to Brown to snap photos. “We’re going to spread your vision!” they tell him.

The meeting spills out into the hallway, where shareholders gather over refreshments. The mood is buoyant. “I believe specifically what the Bible says in those Scriptures about finding oil in Israel,” says Anson O’Connor, a retired Rockwell mechanical designer from the Dallas area. An impish man with bushy sideburns and dark eyes, O’Connor says he called Brown in 2005 after reading about Zion on the internet. After the two read Scripture together for an hour at Zion’s Dallas office, O’Connor invested $30,000—almost 10 percent of his life’s savings—in Brown’s company. Despite the fact that no oil has yet been pulled from the earth, O’Connor isn’t worried about losing his money. “It was an act of faith. I needed to do it,” he says. “I wouldn’t risk $30,000 if I didn’t believe.”