Jews for Jesus
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Jews for Jesus is an Evangelical Protestant organization founded in 1973 by Martin Rosen, also known as Moishe Rosen, an ordained Baptist minister, with a goal of converting Jews to Christianity.
Their official mission statement is "to make the messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide", and the organization claims to be "one of the most extensive evangelistic outreaches to Jewish people in the world today". They have also sent their members as far as Ukraine and Russia.
According to its Executive Director, Jews for Jesus has many non-Jews in administrative and staff positions but deploys "only front-line missionaries who are Jewish or married to Jews". [1] (http://www.jfjonline.org/about/corevalues/core4.htm) However, some of the missionaries identify themselves as Jewish when in fact only their spouse, father, or grandfather is Jewish, and these missionaries would not be considered Jews in most of the communities they evangelize.
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Critical responses
Jews for Jesus is rejected as "un-Jewish" by Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Judaism and by other messianic Jewish groups and by many Christians. Its critics charge that Jews for Jesus is Jewish in name only, due to the organization's lack of Torah observance and a statement of faith indistinguishable from those of other Evangelical para-church groups.
The Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, an umbrella organization that includes Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran and Presbyterian church groups, has condemned Jews for Jesus as promoting activities "harmful to the spirit of interreligious respect and tolerance". The conference also denounces the group's "deceptive proselytizing efforts", stating that when practiced on "vulnerable populations" such as the young or the elderly, these efforts are "tantamount to coerced conversions". [2] (http://www.adl.org/special_reports/jews4jesus/christian_responses.asp) The Rev. Clark Lobenstine, a Presbyterian minister and executive director of the Conference, has stated that his group condemns Jews for Jesus and other messianic Jewish groups by name because they "go beyond the bounds of appropriate and ethically based religious outreach". [3] (http://www.rickross.com/reference/jews_for_jesus/jews_for_jesus30.html)
The Board of Governors of The Long Island Council of Churches voiced similar sentiments in a statement that "noted with alarm" the "subterfuge and dishonesty" inherent in the "mixing [of] religious symbols in ways which distort their essential meaning", and named Jews for Jesus as one of the three groups about whom such behavior was alleged. [4] (http://www.adl.org/special_reports/jews4jesus/christian_responses.asp)
The Christian Scholars Group on Christian-Jewish Relations, consisting of 22 Christian scholars, theologians, historians and clergy from six Christian Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church, issued a statement in September 2002, "A Sacred Obligation: Rethinking Christian Faith in Relation to Judaism and the Jewish People", offering ten positions "for the consideration of our fellow Christians". Among them the following are listed: "Christians should not target Jews for conversion. Christian worship that teaches contempt for Judaism dishonors God."
The Boca Raton News newspaper wrote in November 2003 article County Jewish organizations protest evangelical attempt (http://www.bocaratonnews.com/index.php?src=news&category=LOCAL%20NEWS&prid=6689):
- "The JCRC (Jewish Community Relations Council) is deeply disturbed and distressed, however, with the practices of these so-called ‘Hebrew Christians’ that demean Judaism by suggesting it is not as valid a faith as that of the proselytizer. These groups have undertaken an aggressive and deceptive campaign of proselytizing to the Jewish community, targeting our most vulnerable members, including the frail elderly and college students, with the intent to convert them to Christianity."
Jews for Jesus defends its actions against these charges, stating:
- "If a person believes the Bible and believes that Jesus is the only way of salvation (John 14:6, Acts 4:12, Romans 10:9,10) and then that person declines to tell a Jewish friend about Christ, it indicates one of two things. Either that person has decided that the Jews are not worthy of the gospel, in which case he would be a racist, an anti-Semite and a hater of people instead of the lover of people that God wants him to be. Or perhaps he has judged the gospel as being unworthy of the Jews in which case he has trivialized the passion of Calvary and the awesome significance of Christ's resurrection." [5] (http://www.jfjonline.org/about/targeting.htm)
Support
Jews for Jesus is a member of numerous evangelical Christian groups such as:
World Evangelical Alliance, Canadian Council for Christian Charities, Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain, Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability, Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism, National Association of Evangelicals, The Internet Evangelism Coalition, and the World Evangelical Fellowship.
Jews for Jesus actively seeks money from Christians to fund their organization and specifically recruits Christians to work in their agency.
See also
- B'nai Noach
- Comparing and contrasting Judaism and Christianity
- Second Vatican Council
- Christian-Jewish reconciliation
- Jewish Messiah, Messianic Judaism
- Jewish view of Jesus
- History of anti-Semitism
External links
- Official website (http://www.jewsforjesus.org/)
- Jews for Judaism (http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/)
- Ex-Jews for Jesus (http://www.exjewsforjesus.org/)
- Jews for Jesus: Targeting Jews for Conversion with Subterfuge and Deception (http://www.adl.org/special_reports/jews4jesus/jews4jesus.asp) - the view of the Anti-Defamation League
- Why Jews Don't Believe In Jesus (http://www.aish.com/spirituality/philosophy/Why_Dont_Jews_Believe_In_Jesus$.asp)
- Who is financing "Jews for Jesus"? (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism/FAQ/09-Antisemitism/section-18.html)