Posted on 11/25/2006 7:17:24 PM PST by Alex Murphy
As Christian evangelicals in the United States grow their support for Israel, conversion of Jews to Christianity continues to be a thorny issue for both Christians and Jews.
The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination, has made the conversion of Jews official policy, while the San Francisco-based "Jews for Jesus" exists solely to convert Jews to Christianity. Bill McCartney, a former University of Colorado football coach who co-founded the evangelical Promise Keepers movement for men, now runs The Road to Jerusalem, an organization whose mission is to convert Jews to Christianity.
While many U.S. Jews still consider conversion a huge problem and an impediment to interfaith relations, these days some Jewish leaders, not wanting to jeopardize Christian support for Israel, maintain that conversion isn't a major issue for Christian Zionists.
David Brog, a well-connected Washington insider, was recently tapped by Texas evangelist Rev. John C. Hagee, pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, to be the executive director of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a high-profile pro-Israel lobbying effort that Hagee founded a few months back.
In a recent interview, Brog, who is Jewish, pointed out that, "All activities of CUFI are strictly non-conversionary. Christians who work with Jews in supporting Israel realize how sensitive we are in talking about conversion and talking about Jesus."
"So those who work with us tend not to talk about Jesus more, but talk about Jesus less. They realize it will interfere with what they are trying to do -- building a bridge to the Jewish community to insure the survival of Judeo-Christian civilization."
In the preface to his new book, "Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State," Brog gives Christian Zionists his stamp of approval, writing that he was "convinced that the evangelical Christians who support Israel today are nothing less than the theological heirs of the righteous Gentiles who sought to save Jews from the Holocaust."
Regardless of Brog's assertion, the question of whether Christian evangelicals should continue to try and convert Jews is still unsettled, and one that makes many Jews wary of the motives of Christian evangelicals.
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein is the head of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, made up of a core group of 450,000 Christians, in addition to 6,000 Jews. Last year, Eckstein's organization received nearly 70 million dollars -- mostly from U.S. Christians -- to help poor Israeli Jews with their basic needs, and to help Jews immigrate to Israel.
In a recent interview with the South Bend Tribune, Eckstein acknowledged that the question of conversion is "a big issue," but he insisted that "it's just not true" that evangelicals are interested in converting Jews.
"We did a study, a formal study, that found that the primary reason for (evangelicals') support is the shared values of freedom and democracy that Israel has," he said.
J. Lee Grady, the editor of Charisma, a prominent evangelical magazine, is also a strong supporter of Israel. He, however, has a different take on the conversion question. In a recent commentary for Charisma Online, Grady wrote that while it was good that Christian evangelicals were "expressing solidarity with the nation of Israel like never before... our coziness with Israel has created an awkward theological dilemma."
"Although we feel a biblical obligation to protect Jews from ethnic hatred (and we should), we also have been given a mandate to share the gospel with Jew and gentile alike. After all, the apostle Paul himself -- the most celebrated Jewish convert to Christianity ever -- told us that the message of Christ was sent 'to the Jew first'."
"To complicate things," Grady added, "some Jews believe that Christian evangelism is a form of anti-Semitism -- as if converting a person to faith in Jesus strips them of their Jewishness. For that reason, some Christians who have become involved in pro-Israel activism actually have stopped sharing the gospel with Jews altogether. Some have even developed strange doctrines that suggest that Jews, because of God's Old Covenant promises, are granted special tickets to heaven as if they don't need Jesus to save them from their sins."
Grady recognizes that he's treading on dangerous ground by raising the conversion question, and he insists on using "logic" to resolve the issue: "Do we believe the Bible or not? If the Christians in the book of Acts -- most of whom were Jews who converted to Christ -- aggressively shared Jesus throughout Israel and beyond, why should we back off from that assignment?"
He cites the recent conversion campaign in New York City conducted by the San Francisco-based Jews for Jesus (JFJ), one of the major organizations working to convert Jews to Christianity. Its July action in New York City, Long Island and northern New Jersey resulted in the distribution of "1.8 million gospel pamphlets on the streets, sen[ding] 450,000 brochures through the mail and show[ing] a movie about Jesus to 80,000 Yiddish-speaking Chasidic Jews."
According to JFJ, 241 Jewish people "prayed to receive Christ as their Messiah during their Behold Your God campaign." In addition the campaign garnered reports on 13 television stations and articles in "every major newspaper ... including the Jewish press."
While vigorously supporting Israel's right to exist and its need to combat terrorism, Grady is also mindful about "car[ing] about our Arab neighbors -- and to share Christ with them as well. Arab Christians living in places such as Bethlehem, Beirut and Baghdad often are sidelined and forgotten in the midst of Middle East violence. They know, perhaps better than anyone, that Jesus is the only hope for reconciliation in that war-torn region."
Ultimately, Grady concludes that "Any pro-Israel work we do cannot be truly biblical if we compromise our mandate to share the love of Christ with those He first came to save."
Members of Christians United for Israel and other so-called evangelical Christians "are forgetting one thing -- one very important thing," Laurence M. Vance, a freelance writer and an adjunct instructor in accounting and economics at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, Florida, wrote in a recent commentary posted at LewRockwell.com. "Christians in the Bible were involved in Jewish evangelism."
According to Vance, "Other evangelical Christians [in addition to Hagee]... are exchanging evangelism for dialogue."
Some Christian leaders appear to be exchanging evangelism for a place at the podium. In mid-June, Rick Warren, the author of the bestselling "The Purpose Driven Life" and a very popular and influential mega-church pastor, spoke at the Friday Night Live Shabat services at Sinai Temple. According to Rob Eshman, the editor-in-chief of The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, "Warren managed to speak for the entire evening without once mentioning Jesus -- a testament to his savvy message-tailoring."
Warren told Ron Wolfson, the Rabbi that invited him to speak, that "his interest is in helping all houses of worship, not in converting Jews."
Jews are cool with me even though I don't personally know any. I do know the muslim saying of "First comes Saturday and then comes Sunday" and that puts Jews and Christians on the same side.
Jews and Christians on the same side? I guess, in some sense that might be true. After all they did give birth (so to speak) to Christianity.
Jesus was GOD incarnate, something that Jews refuse to recognize. I love the Jewish people and pray for them in their stuggle … mainly because they are GOD’s chosen people.
Because they refuse to recognize Jesus as the messiah, I have trouble equating them as equal to Christians.
I have a secret to tell you guys....Jesus said go to ALL THE WORLD and preach the Gospel...The plan it to not leave anyone out.
My step-father is jewish, and we tend to avoid conversations of this level. We stick to cars and movies and work.
The real issue is just to communicate the Word and let God do all the work. Without faith through Christ, nobody gets to the Father. Those who deny the SOn, do not have the Father in them. From Pentecost till the Great Tribulation, the Holy Spirit indwells all believers. Simply being of the Jewish race doesn't bring the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Taht only happens by God for those with faith in Christ, Jew first, then the Gentile.
As Paul said when he preached to the Jews..
" Seeing you consider yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, we turn to the Gentiles."
If they are interested show them the gospel but don't try to corner them. It will only drive them away.
That's because it isn't true. Torah says that Hashem is one and He is not a man. Man-gods are of pagan origin.
Jews need to be encouraged to return to the God of their fathers, the God of their part of the Book, and to find out for themselves from Moses and their own prophets who their Messiah was really supposed to be: their Jewish Messiah who would subsequently be embraced by the Gentiles as well.
Replacement theologians need to do the same thing. Instead of trying to propagate the myth that the God of Israel has abandoned His chosen people for the Gentiles, they need to search out the truth in the prophets as well.
Paul still preached in the synagogues as he traveled, though. He never stopped preaching the Gospel to the Jews.
My jewish girlfriend's mother would like to see it the other way around. : )
**Paul still preached in the synagogues as he traveled, though. He never stopped preaching the Gospel to the Jews.**
My thoughts is Paul was speaking of those specific Jews there.
God HASN'T abandoned His chosen people, He is seeking them every second of every day...As Paul does tell us, He gave the Jews of Christ's time the first signs, the first opportunity to recongnize the Messiah...Some did, many didn't. God didn't force anyone (Jew or Gentile) to reject His Christ, they chose to do so on their own. The Gentiles of today are not trying to tell the Jews they have to reject their history, but rather to embrace the promises of the prophets that clearly show Jesus to be The Christ.
God used His prophets to deliver the promises of the coming Christ and yet many choose to explain Christ away as a "good man" of "wise instructor" but not the Messiah. If Jesus is not the Messiah, who possibly could be in this day and age which is one filled with a lack of devotion to God and one where news is shared world wide instantaneously? God promised thru the prophets that the Christ would be a man of little fanfare, a man despised by men and cursed to hang on a tree. Crucifixion is no longer an acceptable method of death, how will this be fulfilled? The list can go on and on about the prophesies of Christ that He has fulfilled that frankly, just can't happen in our world today. God knew the right time to have His Messiah be delivered to His peoople.
I would welcome all those who reject Christ to read the New Testament to see the promises of Christ manifested in it's Holy words. Read and see the promised Messiah literally raising from the pages fulfilling the words of the prophets and coming to us in person 2000+ years ago. Read and see the love of God and His mercy for us by giving us His only Son to be the atoning Sacrifice for the sins of many. The O.T. is flowing with the prophecies about Christ and Christ clearly fulfills them all.
I pray that all peoples of the Earth are brought to Christ Jesus and to know His Love as He brings us to know the Spirit and The Father as Triune God.
Lord Jesus Christ, please bring Your people home to You, bring them to the knowledge of The Way, The Truth, and The Life...
God's blessings to all...
Shame on Warren. How hateful of him to exclude them from the gospel.
Let me know when you come across a genuine "replacement theologian". I've never met one, myself.
Well then let me introduce you to a few: D. James Kennedy and R.C. Sproul, who have declared that Israel has no special title to land in the Middle East, having been replaced by the Church. But of course, maybe they are not "genuine" replacement theologians, merely "pretentious" replacement theologians, but still replacement theologians nonetheless.
If it is as I understand it, I think that I believe that replacement theology is an appropriate view, but if someone could pass along more resources, I would appreciate it.
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