I am curious why we need to turn a thread about Chabad trying to make irreligious Jews better Jews into a debate on Christianity vs. Judaism.
Now if it’s true that our dear Chabadniks are not seeking to evangelize both Jew and Gentile, putting them head to head with the core faith mission of Christianity, then someone please say so. But from the description above it didn’t look like it.
Anyhow, it matters to a crazy Christian like me when someone is given a false gospel. Knowledgeable Christians will take a light hand with respect to Jewish people. They will fulfill the mission of showing the gospel in an attractive manner.
However when we got preachers out there preaching against us then this is spiritual war!
And my personal thrust here? Same as Paul’s: I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. I would not be surprised to see the Chabad approach dissolve into a series of sarcastic remarks when faced with serious, thoughtful Christian theological assertions. But as for us crazy Christians, we still say God bless them (and as modern Israel has made manifest, we “pay” God bless them too).
And make that... clueless sarcastic remarks. What we see is just one example.
And, I say what I say, with the additional comment “what a pity for everyone.” It wasn’t Chabad that civilized most of the Diaspora territory where Jews have lived for the last 2000 years. The norm of the world is to hate, hate, hate Jews. This came to a near halt in America and it’s because it largely believed the Christian gospel. Even George Washington who was very bold about Christianity being America’s “blessed religion” personally wrote to a Jewish congregation in Philadelphia expressing irenic hopes for the Jewish people. It didn’t even have to wait for the modern premillennial Christian theology, as helpful as that has proven to the Jewish people. I am bemused by Jewish claims that all the fruits they’ve seen of Christianity is a bunch of pogroms. Even the tragic Inquisition, a definite nadir for Christianity, killed fewer Jews in centuries than Stalin in his officially atheist USSR did in decades.
So basically, our Jewish friends, please glorify the Lord as best you know how amongst yourselves, and if it means going to Jewish Eskimos then by all means do it and God bless you as you go. But when the issue of Judaism vs. Christianity is forced head to head, then Christians will speak up for Christ. But they won’t ever curse Jews, not if they are obedient to scripture. In fact Christians are told in New Testament not to curse anybody!