Jews for Jesus is a Christian evangelistic organization that focuses specifically on the conversion of Jews to Christianity. Its members consider themselves to be Jewish — either Jewish as defined by Jewish law, or Jews according to Jews for Jesus — as "living out their Jewishness." Jews for Jesus defines "Jewish" in terms of parentage and as a birthright, regardless of religious belief. The identification of Jews for Jesus as a Jewish organization is overwhelmingly rejected by Jewish religious denominations and secular Jewish groups due to the Christian - specifically evangelical - beliefs of its members. The group's evangelical activities are opposed also by some Christian organizations and scholars.
Aims and organization
Jews for Jesus is based in San Francisco, California. Jews for Jesus official mission statement is "to make the Messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide." They say that belief in Jesus as Messiah is a fulfillment of the prophecies of Hebrew scripture. Through media advertisements, production and distribution of literature, producing music and organizing person-to-person evangelism, the organization asserts that "a specifically Jewish mission" is necessary, saying "Jewish people tend to dismiss evangelistic methods and materials that are couched in Christian lingo, because they reinforce the assumption that Jesus is for 'them' not 'us.'"
Jews for Jesus promotes awareness of the Jewish heritage of the Christian faith. Their website contains brief descriptions of Jewish festivals, and also runs programs explaining the significance of Passover, Sukkot and Hanukkah, explaining what they consider messianic elements and how they believe these festivals are related to Jesus.
Beliefs
A summary of Jews for Jesus' beliefs:
- The Old and New Testaments, as originally written, are divinely inspired and inerrant.
- Recognition of the value of traditional Jewish literature, but only where it is supported by the Bible.
- God the creator exists as a trinity, is perfect, all wise, all powerful and all loving.
- Jesus is the Messiah, the second person of the Trinity, was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died for the sins of all humanity, rose again, and is co-equal with God. Jesus will return to earth in the near future.
- People are saved through a belief in Jesus as savior and an acknowledgment of their sins, not by their achievements.
- Heaven is a reward for those who are saved; Hell is a place of "everlasting conscious punishment" for the lost.
- Israel exists as a covenant people through whom God continues to accomplish His purposes and that the Church is composed of both Jews and Gentiles who acknowledge Jesus as Messiah and Redeemer.
Jews for Jesus takes the mainstream Christian positions that Jesus is the Messiah, that his coming was prophesied in the Tanach, and that Jesus is the son of God, the second person of the Trinity.
According to an article on Jews for Jesus by B. Robinson of Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance,
Their doctrinal statement is basically indistinguishable from Evangelical and other conservative Christian groups. ... They differ from some Evangelical Christian groups in their belief that Israel continues to exist as a "covenant people." They also integrate some Jewish customs and use Hebrew and Yiddish in some literature.
Background
One of the most important Jewish principles of faith is the belief in one God and one God only with no partnership of any kind (see Deuteronomy 6:4), and belief in Jesus as deity, son of God, or Christ, is held as incompatible with Judaism.
In his book A History of the Jews , Paul Johnson describes the schism between Jews and Christians caused by a divergence from this principle:
To the question, Was Jesus God or man?, the Christians therefore answered: both. After 70 AD, their answer was unanimous and increasingly emphatic. This made a complete breach with Judaism inevitable.
Jews for Jesus believes it is entirely compatible with the view of God presented in Jewish scriptures and that the doctrine of the Trinity, fundamental to the Christian faith, is not entirely alien to Judaism: "While it is true that the Old Testament portion of Scripture does not present as clear a picture of the three-in-one/one-as-three Godhead, there are indications of the plurality of the Godhead in the Hebrew Scriptures."
According to a common belief in Judaism, these "indications" are based on mistranslations and Jesus did not fulfill the qualifications for Jewish Messiah. The vision of God as a trinity is seen by Judaism as a deviation from monotheism and therefore is rejected.
America's Religions. An Educator's Guide to Beliefs and Practices contains " note about Jews for Jesus, Messianic Jews, Hebrew Christians, and similar groups: Jews in these groups who have converted to Christianity but continue to observe various Jewish practices are no longer considered part of the Jewish community in the usual sense."
Stated core values
Jews for Jesus describes its core values in the following way:
Leadership, funding and outreach
The organization was founded under the name Hineni Ministries in 1973 by Moishe Rosen, an ordained Baptist minister who was born Jewish and converted to Christianity at the age of 17. Rosen remained its executive director until May 1996 when he was replaced by David Brickner, who, though having some Jewish ancestry, is not Jewish according to Jewish Law.
Jews for Jesus is funded by donations from fellow Christians. It has a full-time staff of 150 employees running branch offices in nine cities across the United States. There are also branch offices in Australia, Brazil, Canada (in Montreal and Toronto), France, Germany (in Essen), Israel, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Ukraine (in Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Kiev and Odessa). In addition to its English-language website, the group has websites in Hungarian, Persian, Italian, Spanish and Korean.
According to the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, the group's total income in FY 2005 was $17,523,386.
Methods of evangelizing
The majority of evangelism used by Jews for Jesus consists of large mailings and pamphleteering. The organization uses colorful pamphlets and T-shirts to get their message across and is known for targeting populations of Jews which they see as receptive to their message, such as recent immigrants, college students, senior citizens and interfaith couples.
Stephanie Persin writes, "Evangelists in the organization have been trained to recite phrases from the Old Testament and to use Yiddish words so as to convince potential converts that Jews for Jesus maintain Jewish traditions."
On their official website, Jews for Jesus says that they give out 8 million pamphlets a year. They use college-age volunteers for much of their evangelism. Each July they send a team of 20 to 30 to New York City, which they say has the world's largest and most diverse Jewish population.
Opposition and criticism
One of the criticisms of Jews for Jesus surrounds the tactics they employ in their missionary and outreach programs. Critics say that the organization uses vague and misleading language along with deceptive tactics in its attempt to convert Jews to Christianity. These tactics include statements that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish prophecy of Messiah and attempts by Jews for Jesus to interpret core principles of Judaism in an effort to bring these Jewish principles into accord with Christian doctrines. To this end, critics say that Jews for Jesus uses the ambiguity in the definition of "Jew" and "Jewish" to confuse their prospective converts into believing there is a possibility of one being a follower of both Christianity and Judaism simultaneously. However, belief in Jesus as deity, son of God, or Christ, is held as incompatible with Rabbinic Judaism.
Although Jews for Jesus believes their views of the Messiah are entirely compatible with the view of God presented in Jewish scriptures, and that the doctrine of the Trinity, fundamental to the Christian faith, is not entirely alien to Judaism, these interpretations by Jews for Jesus are rejected by Judaism. Jews for Jesus responds to these allegations by stating that their allusions to "Jewishness" refer to ethnic descriptions and not religious ones.
Jewish opposition
In 1993 the Task Force on Missionaries and Cults of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRCNY) issued a statement which has been endorsed by the four major Jewish denominations: Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism, and Reconstructionist Judaism, as well as national Jewish organizations. Based on this statement, the Spiritual Deception Prevention Project at the JCRCNY stated:
On several occasions leaders of the four major Jewish movements have signed on to joint statements opposing Hebrew-Christian theology and tactics. In part they said: "Though Hebrew Christianity claims to be a form o
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