Jews For Jesus,Editorial Board

As has been widely reported, Jews for Jesus, a Christian missionary group, is once again out on the streets targeting Jews with the message that one can at the same time believe in Jesus and be Jewish. What is different in their new campaign is that the group has a grossly enhanced budget and a determination to make this year's crusade the grand finale of its five-year global "Behold Your God" campaign.

According to the group's executive director, instead of the usual core of 25 volunteers, more than 150 have arrived in New York and a sophisticated program of website offerings, concerts, films and public transportation advertising campaign has been mounted.

We recognize that mainstream evangelical Christian groups see the Jewish community as appropriate objects of evangelical importuning, but we are dismayed that the current onslaught has not drawn their criticism. After all, it is one thing to suggest that Jews are unfulfilled as a matter of Christian theology, but quite another to urge that Judaism itself is not inconsistent with belief in the signature element of Christianity.

We applaud the efforts of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York to galvanize efforts to confront this missionary onslaught. But we would also urge the mainstream evangelical Christian community to weigh in on a positive note. Evangelicals' support for Israel is laudable, but their public disavowal of Jews for Jesus and similar deceptive missionary outreach programs would be a sign of good faith, particularly given the long and tragic history of conversionary efforts directed at the Jewish people.

Read Comments (2)

Misplaced emphasis
Date 04:07, 07-26, 06

The editorial calling for evangelical Christian censure of Jews for Jesus is misplaced and will never happen. There is a fundamental misunderstanding of the message of Jews for Jesus that leads to such a strange editorial from the Jewish Press. Those of us in Jews for Jesus have never claimed to represent Judaism. We are Christians by faith who are Jews by birth. We insist that being Jewish is not first and foremost practicing the religion of Judaism but a matter of birthright and heritage. We have a right to insist on our heritage as Jews even if we dissent from the Jewish religion as taught by the rabbis. Please don't accuse us of insisting that Judaism teaches Jesus is o.k. Believe me, we know full well it does not.

Jesus Uber Alles
Date 02:07, 07-27, 06

The Protestant fundamentalists/evangelicals have a theological compulsion to get Jews "saved." They may support Israel but only to usher in the 2nd coming of their man-god. Don't be fooled by them; they are wolves in sheeps' clothing.

I. Corinthians 9:20 is the New Testament source of the "heavenly deception" that compels them to "witness" to Jews.

Threats of eternal hellfire and damnation in the afterlife have historically been known to cause hell here on earth.