Rabbi warns: Some Christians are attempting to convert Jews

PJ Star.Com (Journal Star) ^ | April 1, 2003 | Sarah Okeson

[ComtedeMaistre]

Rabbi warns: Some Christians are attempting to convert Jews

Speaker says congregations should watch out for Southern Baptists, Assemblies of God

April 1, 2003

By SARAH OKESON of the Journal Star

PEORIA - Jews believing in Jesus as savior, says Rabbi Michael Cook, makes about as much sense as an International Society of Vegetarians for Meat.

"How can you eat meat and still be a vegetarian?" Cook asked.

Cook, perhaps the only rabbi in the United States with a Ph.D. in the New Testament, talked to about 60 people Monday at the synagogue shared by the two Jewish congregations in Peoria.

Cook, a professor at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, said some Christian denominations have stepped up their efforts to convert Jews in the belief it will help bring about the second coming of Christ.

"They believe the only way that glorious end of the world can happen is if enough Jews move to Israel first or accept Jesus," Cook said.

He predicted Jews have about three more decades of strenuous conversion efforts to suffer through because the last time this happened - after the first millennium - efforts to convert Jews didn’t die out until 1035.

"We have 32 years of missionary fervor to get through," Cook said.

In the meantime, Cook ran through a list of believers to watch out for including Southern Baptists, Assemblies of God, Jews for Jesus and Messianic Jews.

He said Southern Baptist and Assemblies of God are sometimes misleading in their efforts to convert Jews and that Jews for Jesus was founded by a Baptist minister.

"Their big desire is to convert Jews without Jews knowing they are leaving the Jewish fold," Cook said of Jews for Jesus.

The rabbi said Catholics and liberal Protestants stopped trying to convert Jews after the Holocaust and said Jews had a convenant with God and didn’t need to worry about being saved.

[Quix]

Actually, according to my PhD research, you are wrong.

There ARE

INTRINSIC

and

EXTRINSIC

believers of all persuasions including atheist/agnostic.

But the charismatics/pentecostals in my group as a group scored much more in the INTRINSIC direction.

In other words, their Christian convictions were heart-felt and lived out vs held in a surface way as one would put on a coat.

Traditional denominations had a much higher percentage of people scoring much higher in the EXTRINSIC direction.

I think your biases are coloring your perceptions or you have a very skewed sample to look at in your life experiences.

[Illbay]

Nope, just my opinion, based on living among them my entire life.

Doesn't mean all are like this, but most SBs and AGs are much, much more into "feeling" than thought. Very, very emotion-based sects.

[Quix]

MUCH AGREE WITH YOU.

[Gurn]

God Bless the Jews, indeed.

I am a Baptist, a Zionist, and a lover of the Jews.

They are God's chosen, and I am convinced that their persecution over the millenia is because Satan is aware of that fact. He wants God's most precious people to suffer.

I pray for their conversion, not to hasten Christ's return -- that is something of which only God knows the time -- but because, like Paul, I know that God wants as many of possible of his Chosen to be redeemed.

Many Jews -- such as Rabbi Lapin -- take the right attitude: "Just listen and politely say, 'no thank you.'"

[Illbay]

Sounds like they are doing something right to get this kind of flack!

That's the kind of "shallow" thinking I had in mind. The notion that if you're "offending" some other religion, you must be "doing something right."

Very sophomoric.

[Gurn]

Very, very emotion-based sects.

And what's your "sect"?

[TLBSHOW]

This web site is one way we are celebrating three decades of ministry for the Lord under the banner of Jews for Jesus. We started with a handful of Jewish believers sharing their faith in Jesus on the campuses and streets of the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 70s. Today, Jews for Jesus is an international ministry with a staff of 214 spread out over eleven countries and twenty cities. Since we started, over 800 people have faithfully served on our staff and have helped to make the messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to millions of individuals. And together, we rejoice over what God has done!
http://www.forjewsforjesus.org/

[Quix]

EMOTIONAL COMPONENTS TO BELIEF AND PRACTICE

tend to be a function of many things.

1) Childhood quality of attachments or lack thereof

2) Genetic make-up

3) Teaching and modeling by the group leadership in that particular congregation and in a large congregation--in the particular subgroup-reference group of the individuals concerned.

4) The behavior/modes/tendencies of one's closest Friends.

---

I'd wager that I could find just as much emotionalism in Church of Christ, Lutheran, Presbyterian, etc. groups.

BUT IT WOULD BE EXPRESSED DIFFERENTLY AND OVER DIFFERENT ISSUES.

People are people. We are all emotional creatures. Custom, habit, reference groups, genetics tend to determine how such is expressed and how much in what contexts.

Sects?

Sounds like a bit . . . of a stern judgment on your part.

[Gurn]

God bless Jews for Jesus. Your executive director (dang, I can't recall his name, but he's originally from Mobile, AL) was at my church (gasp -- Baptist! in Mississippi!) a few months back.

Moshe Rosen spoke at my (gasp! Baptist!) church in Virginia about 10 years ago. J/J has been on my prayer list ever since, and I send y'all a dollar or two now and again.

May God continue to bless your ministry.

[Illbay]

I don't mean they aren't heart-felt: Many are.

I have observed that many of them have a sort of "cognitive dissonance" about their religion that allows them to live one way during the week, and another on Sunday.

One example would be the Baptist girl a few years ago, who was the rental agent at some apartments I was looking at.

She told me all about her boyfriend, how they'd met at Church, did Church stuff, blahblahblah, they were living together and might get married, but now that she had gotten to know him he didn't seem enough of a "go-getter" to her, but she was going to give it a chance, etc.

Or the youth minister in Alabama, who would sleep with his girlfriend from time to time (though they wouldn't live together, that would be "wrong") but kept it quiet so the kids wouldn't know about it. They were going to get married as soon as she finished accounting school and they could afford it.

Like I said: I have lived among those people all my life, and find their attitudes quite humorous.

[Illbay]

How is a Jew that disdains Jesus Christ and refuses to acknowledge His Messiahship, "Chosen" exactly?

You sectarians have such a quaint, diffuse "theology" concerning this. All the more humorous because two generations ago, Jews were "Christ-killers" as far as you were concerned.

[Gurn]

Since you find our attitudes so amusing, why don't you tell us which "sect" you call your own?

[Quix]

IF

you haven't lived long enough as a believer

or you

haven't threatened the enemy's camp sufficiently as a believer

TO KNOW THAT WHEN YOU ARE DOING A GOOD JOB, HE LOVES TO CHALLENGE YOU AND TRY TO GET YOU TO WEAKEN, STOP, GET OFF BASE OR OFF TRACK

then I am likely to be convinced that your Christianity

IS NOT

very deep, very mature, very tough, very active, very significant.

That's mere correlational observation from extensive experiences and extensive observations of 1,000's of case studies.

Nothing shallow about it at all.

And certainly nothing sophomoric.

BTW, is your mirror broken?

[Illbay]

I don't belong to a sect. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ.

[Bella_Bru]

Alouette, what was the old name for Jews For Jesus?

I agree with politely saying no thank you.

[BrooklynGOP]

How are these pro-Israel Christians being repaid for their support of Israel? With insults and denigration. Rabbi Michael Cook and those who think like him are ingrates.

Give me a break! Let's throw a few imams in your neighborhood and try to convert a few Christians to Islam. I'ld like to see YOUR reaction then.

[MHT]

He doesn't have to worry about conversion--the Jews are dying out on their own and at their current growth rate, the Christians better hope the second coming is soon because they will not have many people to convert down the road.

According to census statistics, there has been a decline of 600,000 Jews worldwide within the past decade from 12.9 million to 12.3. Of these Jews, five million live in Israel and 5.9 million in the US. At this rate, within the next 20 years, Palestinians and Christian Arabs will outnumber Jews in Israel. Similarly, it is not surprising that Jews are targeted in France as they only comprise 1% of the national population (600,000 of 60,000,000 citizens).

The Jewish birth rate is close to 2 children per household while the Muslim birth rate is between 5-6. Nor do Jews emphasize conversion of non-Jews.

This rabbi would do better focusing on keeping the Jewish population growing than worrying about whether or not Christians are targeting their market.

[Illbay]

I don't disagree. In fact, my growing up in the good ol' South, gives me some insight into how such cultural components have a great deal to do with this "emotionalism."

Me, I think a healthy blend of both emotion and intellect is what is required. I have seen those who rely completely on the intellect, and they are very cold. I've also seen those who are totally emotion-based, and they are pointless.

[FreedomCalls]

If Jack Chick says it, it must be true:

[Bella_Bru]

I really wish they'd try their hand outside of a Yeshiva, instead of going to college campuses, seeking out young Jews who have no connection to the local Jewish community. Having them try to tell Rabbis what the Hebrew Bible says (when they cannot read Hebrew) would be quite amusing.