Jews condemn Southern Baptist effort

[Coastie for Truth]

A leading Jewish organization is condemning the Southern Baptist Convention for using a group of "messianic" Jews -- those who have converted to Christianity -- in its evangelism.

Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman said the effort is offensive because the Southern Baptists are using Jews who have converted to Christianity "to go after other Jews."

"If people convert, that's their individual business," Foxman said. "But don't use them as a tool to convert other people."

At the heart of the ADL's complaint is a decision by the Southern Baptist Convention executive committee to ask its missionary boards to study the idea of recognizing the Southern Baptist Messianic Fellowship as "an evangelistic mission to Jewish people."

The fellowship is made up of about a dozen congregations in the United States. Its Web site says its mission is "to encourage Jewish believers that their ethnic and historical heritage need NOT be lost upon their commitment to Yeshua ."

The idea to use the fellowship was proposed at the national convention in Nashville in June. The SBC executive committee recommended last week that its International Mission Board and North American Mission Board study the possibility.

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[onager]

1. Oh yeah, they're really sincere...

"It’s interesting at great political rallies how you have a Protestant to pray, a Catholic to pray, and then you have a Jew to pray.

With all due respect to those dear people, my friends, God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew.

For how in the world can God hear the prayer of a man who says that Jesus Christ is not the true Messiah? That is blasphemy."

--Rev. Bailey Smith, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1987. He got a standing ovation for the comments.

http://www.togetherforeverchanging.org/Never%20Again.htm

The article says: The Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution in 1996 calling on its members to "direct our energies and resources toward the proclamation of the gospel to the Jewish people."

The SoBC passed its first such resolution in 1867. It has passed 8 more identical resolutions since.

Full Disclosure: former SoB, happy atheist for many years.

[Meshuga]

2. Messianic Jews are annoying!

That's a religion created by members of a baptist church back in the sixties in order to attempt to convert Jews to Christianity.

Judaism and Christianity are two different animals!

Christianity tells you to live your life in preparation for the afterlife so you don't burn in hell for eternity. Judaism tells you to live for this life on earth to make the world we live in a better place with good deeds.

Christianity has guilt and a Judaism has conscience. A Christian who feels guilt looks for a priest to find comfort. A Jew who has guilt looks for a shrink to try to resolve the issue.

In judaism, conduct is more important than faith. In Christianity, faith in Jesus is more important than anything.

In Judaism you try to live an ethical life by following the mitzvot system. The Talmud attributes God as saying that He would rather see a person abandon Him as long as the person follows the mitzvot since the person would eventually find God when performing good deeds.

Christianity, on the other hand, says that if you have no faith you go to hell. Even if you are a good person and perform good deeds you are going to hell if you don't believe in Jesus as the savior.

Judaism doesn't care what religion other people follow and never tries to convert anybody. Judaism believes that people are judged by their conduct and not their faith.

Christianity tries to convert people at all costs in order to save these people's souls from eternal damnation. Look at the price humanity had to pay as today we don't know anything about many of the religions and cultures of many native tribes in the americas because the natives had to be converted to Christianity.

I personally have no problems with Jews who become Christians and follow the Christian faith. Many Jews become good Christians and thats alright with me. But Messianic "Jews" use this label just to make people think that Judaism = Christianity and that the idea of the Jewish messiah is the same as what Jesus was.

It pisses me off when messianic "jews" do that because it's a show of no respect for another religion.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Messianic Jews are an oxymoron

One can be a Christian or one can be a Jew, but not both! The "Jews for Jesus" cult are exclusively Christian.

[rockymountaindem]

4. Especially considering most of them probably weren't Jews to begin with.

I know a lot of Christians who follow Jewish rituals in some way or another (as best they can figure out) and then try to pass themselves off as having some connection to Judaism. These ardent Christians come up to me and act like we've got some sort of spiritual connection because their mega-church has a "seder" for its congregation and they sell "prayer shawls" in the gift shop. Gimme a break.

Asking them if they can recite the Shema is usually a good way to get them to leave me alone. Asking them if they would be willing to accept "Hear O Israel, the Lord is your God, the Lord is One" as an affirmation of their faith usually convinces them that they're not Jews.

[Sgent]

5. On a related note

why is it that these same idiots are the ones that always use the phrase Judeo-Christian , when 99% of the time what they are advocating has nothing to do with Judaism.

Theologically we have more in common with Muslim's than Christians -- but don't tell them that.

[rockymountaindem]

6. No kidding

I hate it when they say "Judeo-Christian". They don't speak for me or my religion. Let Jews be Jews and Christians be Christians. They need to stop conflating the two.