CHRISTIAN EVANGELISM: THREAT TO JEWISH SURVIVAL?
By Harmony Grant
26 Jul 07
In the last decades, Jewish activists and leaders have worked
to preserve Jewish identity with a plethora of writing, films, museums
and art pieces about the Holocaust. Aggressively they warn that the
Shoah can reoccur anytime because Gentiles are untrustworthy and
irrationally hateful of Jews. This false lesson unites Jews and is
also increasingly used to demonize Christianity. Countless Jewish
opinion-makers falsely equate Hitler's malevolent desire to destroy
Jews with Christians' benevolent desire to convert them.
Here's proof. The Vatican this month ordered continued use of an
old Latin mass that asks God to mercifully convert the hearts of
Jews. The powerful Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith denounced
the order as "a body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations."
ADL head Abe Foxman announced "We
are extremely disappointed and deeply offended that nearly 40 years
after the Vatican rightly removed insulting anti-Jewish language
from the Good Friday liturgy, that it would now permit Catholics
to utter such hurtful and insulting words by praying for Jews to
be converted."
The ADL press release suggests the Pope acted to "satisfy
a right-wing faction in the Church that rejects change and reconciliation." Is
it possible he acted to satisfy Christ? The mass says, "For
the conversion of the Jews. Let us pray also for the Jews that the
Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also
may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray: Almighty
and everlasting God, You do not refuse Your mercy even to the Jews;
hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people
so that they may acknowledge the light of Your truth, which is Christ,
and be delivered from their darkness."
The mass expresses no more or less than basic Christianity. Our
desperate need for the saving strength of Christ's atonement is Christianity.
St Paul wrote, "If Christ has not been raised, our preaching
is useless and so is your faith.... If only for this life we have
hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." (1 Cor.
15)
Christianity is not a way to be a good person, not a comfort system,
not an "opiate" of hope to numb life’s distress.
Christianity is the stunning and demanding revelation that God bridged
the abyss between His pure love and our rebellious state; Christ
and Christ alone is that bridge. This one belief defines Christianity
and separates it from all other religions and ethical systems. If
we do not need the Jesus' blood to be saved, Christianity means nothing.
It also offends no one.
Abe Foxman's outrage at Catholic prayer for his conversion candidly
expresses his Jewish attitude toward the basic heart of Christianity.
He is threatened and incensed that some believe (and dare to say)
we all--Jew and Gentile, male and female, foolish and wise--must
convert and become like small children, humbly trusting the mercy
of our Maker to be saved from sin. In a word, he is outraged by Christ.
To unconverted Jews like Foxman, the gospels are every bit as abhorrent
as the Catholic mass. In their minds, the apostle Paul is a traitor
who deserved his persecution. In reality, Paul deeply and tenderly
loved his Jewish brothers and sisters. Witness his heartbroken words, "I
have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could
wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my
kinsmen according to the flesh..." ( Rom. 9:2,3)
Before Christ confronted him on the road to Damascus , Paul acted
as a sincere Jew ... by persecuting Christians. Afterward he acted
as a sincere Christian, by peacefully and zealously preaching for
the conversion of eternal souls, whether carried by Jewish or Gentile
bodies. If you sincerely believe Christ is our only hope against
God's scorching anger, you can do no less! For his trouble, Paul
was mobbed, flogged, imprisoned, and driven through countless hardships.
Today, the message Paul spread in self-sacrificing love is treated
as hate speech by Abe Foxman and other activist Jews. If the ADL
succeeds with hate crime legislation, all Christians who express
such "hateful" concern--who witness to the most central
heart of our faith, as compelled by conscience--will be locked up
and silenced.
Through hate crime laws, modern, organized Jewry (led by ADL/B'nai
B'rith) thus seeks to excommunicate Christianity from public life.
Catholics are the first target, because they are in some ways the
easiest. They are lesser in number than evangelicals. They have been
historically plagued with scandals and abuses of power. They hold
some beliefs considered odd even by other Christian denominations.
But--most galling--Catholics have frequently been the only Christian
source of real criticism of Zionism, the state of Israel , western
Jewish activism, and the neocons' Mideast war agenda. As Catholics
are targeted, evangelicals should not feel safe. The moment they
awaken to the real nature of racist, Christ-persecuting Talmudic
Judaism--and speak against it--they too will be called the enemy.
In fact, they don't even have to do that. Abe Foxman's book Never
Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism describes the New Testament
itself as a text of hatred. Even absurdly Zionist, war-mongering
so-called Christians like John Hagee are suspect as a long as a Bible
sits beside their bed.
Most evangelicals continue to resist the idea that organized Jewry
and the Anti-Defamation League are behind hate laws and are consciously
persecutive of Christianity. Unwilling to recognize the ongoing spiritual
conflict between Judaism and Christianity, the American church now
blindly and unBiblically supports the Jewish state. It embraces and
actually empowers those who seek to silence the name of Christ in
our nation. By its actions, it damages the eternal souls of Jews
and Christians, and actually inspires anti-Semitism by empowering
Israel 's abuses.
Two millennia ago, nails were driven through the hands of Christ;
He rose again to life, and started a movement that revolutionized
the world. His first followers were Jews who recognized His fulfillment
of the promises God gave their fathers. His first persecutors were
also Jews, religious fanatics whose pride in legalism, self-righteousness,
and sinful self-will drove them to crucify the Lover of their souls.
Today, the conflict continues. It matters to us all, whatever faith
we hold. As organized Jewry and the ADL hate laws agenda gains political
and social power, its ability to silence Christianity--and other
systems of "idolatry"--will increase. If one group can
be silenced and imprisoned, so can others. The USA ’s great
miracle is astonishing, unprecedented freedom borne from our forebearers'
Christian convictions. It’s up to us to preserve the liberty
of their just laws. This liberty crucially makes space even for the
most unpopular beliefs.
As a Christian, it breaks my heart that the gospels' message is
now criminalized as "hate speech" in countries like Canada
, Holland , and Israel . That is not yet true in America .
Our unique freedom of speech should be precious to every American,
whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, or atheist. The battle against Judeofascist
regulation of speech is a battle for the soul of America . It is
a battle in which every American is obligated to fight. The pope's
freedom is yours.
Harmony
Grant writes and edits for the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative
watch dog organization.
Let the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith teach you how they
have saddled 45 states with hate laws capable of persecuting Christians: http://www.adl.org/99hatecrime/intro.asp.
Learn how ADL took away free speech in Canada and wants to steal
it now in the U.S. Congress. Watch Rev. Ted Pike's Hate
Laws: Making Criminals of Christians at video.google.com. Purchase
this gripping documentary to show at church. Order online at www.truthtellers.org for
$24.90, DVD or VHS, by calling 503-853-3688, or at the address below.
National Prayer Network, P.O. Box 828, Clackamas,
OR 97015
