34 thoughts on “Jews for Jesus”

1. On Sundays I sometimes take the subway to church. I almost always see a subway ad (inside the subway car, posted near the ceiling) for Jews for Jesus. It usually says something like “Shlomy found Jesus. Let him tell you about it.” That’s my rough paraphrase. Might be a bit off. But it makes for interesting Sunday-morning contemplation.

   A recent baptism in our ward has a Jewish background. A good friend of hers, a “Jewish atheist” tells her she “isn’t Jewish anymore.” It seems strange that a Jewish person can deny the existence of God and still claim the Jewish identity while another Jewish person who accepts Jesus as Messiah is said to lose the Jewish identity. I’m not entirely sure what to make of that.

2. I know two people from the tribe of Judah, one in Miami and the other in Brazil, who have been baptized. Neither conversion was easy. Norman Rothman has some interesting books on Jews converting to the Church.

3. We get Jews for Jesus missionaries here in Chicago, too. I sometimes see them passing out tracts on Michigan Avenue.

   My impression, and I’m willing to be corrected if I’m wrong, is that we Mormons suck at basic Christian conversion. With the exception of places like Japan, most of our missionary outreach is to people who are already Christians. We’ve never had much success proselyting Jews. So I guess in that sense they are doing something that we can’t.

   But my overarching feeling is that they are not Mormon allies. In sociology of religion terms, they are religious competitors. They are essentially Evangelical Christians in Jewish dress, and it is that group I(Evangelicals) with which we are most at odds in the religious marketplace. And there is a fair amount of deception and bait and switch with Jews for Jesus, which is part of the reason they are so infuriating to mainstream Jews.

   I see JfJ as a kind of gimmick or schtick. If a Jew really wants to convert and become a Christian, he could do worse than to check out the LDS Church, which makes no pretense of being “Jewish,” yet is the most phil-Semitic of all the Christian traditions outside of so-called Messianic Judaism.

4. Next up. Ephraimites for Jesus.

5. I don’t know, Kevin. I think our doctrine strongly teaches that we *are* the representatives of the true Judaism, and that what currently goes by that name are just lagging a little. e.g. that the fulness of the Gospel is the fulfilment of the Law, every jot and title, and not the termination thereof.

   The book of Hebrews teaches that Christianity is the true Judaism, we teach we are the authorized representatives of true Christianity, ergo we are the authorized representatives of the true Judaism.

6. Jews for Jesus is a unique ministry for Jews preaching Christianity to other Jews. I think the Jews for Jesus have a point that when a Jew becomes a Christian, they don’t stop being Jewish and can maintain thier past traditions if desired. I think their Jewish critics have a point that they are now Christian, at best only culturally Jewish, and they should be more candid about it.

   What does all this mean vis a vis Mormonism? Hell if I know. I say G-d bless the Jews, the Jews for Jesus, the Mormons, etc.

   Mark #5,
   Jewish converts are welcome to maintain their Jewish traditions, but those are not to be imposed on gentile converts. We gentile converts do not have to pass through Judaism to find Jesus. We are not Jewish and I’m sure your statement is offensive to true Jews, be they religious or cultural.

7. Define Jewish.

8. Jew n.

   1. An adherent of Judaism as a religion or culture.
   2. A member of the widely dispersed people originally descended from the ancient Hebrews and sharing an ethnic heritage based on Judaism.
   3. A native or inhabitant of the ancient kingdom of Judah.

   Judaism n.

   1. The monotheistic religion of the Jews, tracing its origins to Abraham and having its spiritual and ethical principles embodied chiefly in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Talmud.
   2. Conformity to the traditional ceremonies and rites of the Jewish religion.
   3. The cultural, religious, and social practices and beliefs of the Jews.
   4. The Jews considered as a people or community.

   The scriptures have the following things to say about the descendants of Judah:

   Now these words, O Lord, we have spoken before thee, concerning the revelations and commandments which thou hast given unto us, who are identified with the Gentiles.
   But thou knowest that thou hast a great love for the children of Jacob, who have been scattered upon the mountains for a long time, in a cloudy and dark
   day.
   We therefore ask thee to have mercy upon the children of Jacob, that Jerusalem, from this hour, may begin to be redeemed; And the yoke of bondage may begin to be broken off from the house of David;

   And the children of Judah may begin to return to the lands which thou didst give to Abraham, their father.
   (D&C 109:60-64)

   And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.

   And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

   And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

   The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim
   (Isaiah 11:10-13)

   And they also of the tribe of Judah, after their pain, shall be sanctified in holiness before the Lord, to dwell in his presence day and night, forever and ever.
   (D&C 133:35)
   

   is adequate to establish that Ephraim and Judah share the same religion, and worship the same God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Jews are no more and no less than one of the tribes of Israel, who have been scattered, like the rest of the children of Israel, in a dark and cloudy day.

   In the days of old it was Judah was first, and Ephraim last, in this dispensation it shall be Ephraim first, and Judah last, that the scripture may be fuilfilled stating that the “last shall be first, and the first shall be last”. Nonetheless, in due time the unity of the House of Israel shall be restored once again, healing the break when the northern tribes split from the southern, according to the prophecy of Isaiah.

9. It always looks smaller in the edit box…

10. Are JfJ our allies? It depends on who “we” are, and what our purpose is. If our purpose is to get people baptized into the LDS Church, then they will not be our allies, because they are evangelicals who will tend to view us as a cult. If our purpose is to lead souls to Christ, then I think they are our allies in a practical sense, although they would probably be offended by the notion.

11. Mark,
    You can’t be serious that a dictionary and other reference materials somehow makes claims of the LDS church or Christianity being the “true Judaism” anything but grossly insensitive and hurtful to Jews, who reject Jesus as a false messiah. We are not Jewish and it is harmful to make such claims against a fine religion of fine people who deserve our love and respect, not abusive claims that their’s is a bogus religion.

12. Steve EM,

    It appears to me you have a striking tendency to regard personal feelings as the arbiter of all truth. Feelings are not the standard of truth, the Word of God is. And the word of God clearly states that all the tribes of Israel, Jews and Christians, adopted or otherwise alike, worship the same God, the Holy One of Israel, and furthermore that the Jews in general will come to appreciate this in due time.

    So if some Jewish people are offended by this assertion, in the same manner that many Christians are offended by the assertion that Mormons are Christian, that is unfortunate, but no amount of personal opinion or sensitivity can change the truth of the matter one way or the other.

13. I agree, Steve EM. There are better ways to articulate the Church’s teachings without saying “We’re the real Jews.” My sense is that J4J are considered very marginal (and a little bizarre) even among Evangelicals, btw.

    Surprised no one on this string has mentioned past controversites re: temple baptisms for victims of the Holocaust, etc. The (mistaken) notion that the Church has been involuntarily converting Jews post-mortem struck a rather raw nerve as well.

    In response to Geoff B’s initial question, I’d vote no. They view the LDS as a cult, and there is no evidence that their converts go on to become Mormons. How can there be an “alliance” here?

    Love their brochures though. Very clever. Anybody here familiar with Chick Tracts? They’re also extremely clever and often disturbing evangelical literature. Don’t think they’ve done anything anti-Mormon, but they sure take on lots of others. Someone often winds up being thrown into the lake of fire on the last page:

    http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0041/0041_01.asp

    The Evangelicals sure make it easy, though.

14. no. the adversary only needs to keep people from getting baptized and other ordinences…he will decieve and even at times lead people to part or near truth’s…in short, J’s for J, is a part truth, we are the complete truth. If they really are for Him… they will be baptized by immersion for the remoission of thier sins, and move forward from thier like all members have. (or should have.)

15. The doctrine that Chick Tracts: Flight 144 teaches is a vile distortion of the truth, of course. No one is ever cast into hell for doing good things, even if they do not quite measure up to the work of salvation.

    The most scholastic Calvinism paints a more accurate picture of the doctrine of salvation than the perversion known as the doctrine of eternal security (once saved, always saved). Any good Calvinist would tell you that no one could be motivated to dedicate their lives to the alleviation of suffering, without some portion of the spirit of the Lord working within them.

    And of course our doctrine (and that of the Arminians in general) is rather more accurate than that, accounting for the role that our own free will plays in adopting and maintaining such a mission of mercy.

16. I think the Chick Tracts capture the essence of contemporary Evangelicalism very well. The mega-churches (Saddleback, Willow Creek et. al.) gloss over these core doctrines with a thick layer of popular culture and hollywood gloss. Apparently this has fooled many LDS into thinking that similar conservative social views = similar religion. As I’ve asserted in here before: not true. Mormonism will expand again in America when it emphasizes its difference from Evangelicalism, not its superficial similarities.

17. MikeIWH,

    I agree that Chick Tracts captures the essence of a certain brand of evangelicalism quite well. However evangelicalism is not of a piece, or in other words evangelical churches have a broad spectrum of doctrines, and the majority would dissent in certain fundamental ways from the doctrine as taught in that tract, the objectionable part known as the doctrine of Eternal Security.

    The doctrine of Eternal Security is a new thing, a strange and unprecedented hybrid of Arminianism and Calvinism in a way both traditional Arminians and traditional Calvinists find highly objectionable.

    Unfortunately, many over-zealous Arminian evangelicals (you can find them just by doing a Google search for “eternal security”) conflate the doctrine with the Calvinist doctrine of Perserverance of the Saints, the “P” in TULIP.

    The basic difference is that in Calvinism, one can never be completely sure whether one has been elected or not, so the apparent fall from grace of any Saint, is simply evidence that God had not elected them in the first place.

    Now we are rapidly drifting off topic, but suffice it to say that faithful Calvinists (e.g. those in the Reformed tradition) as well as faithful Arminians, consider the doctrine of Eternal Security a perversion, sometimes known as “cheap grace”. Cheap meaning that a person can be believed to be being saved without any evidence of the Lord’s grace working within them, whether the choice to receive the grace of the Lord is voluntary or not.

18. I agree with the idea that emphasizing similarities is a counter-productive approach to missionary work. Unless there is something fundamental in our Church that other denominations are seriously lacking, why should anyone go through the pain of conversion?

19. Well I definitely believe once saved always saved in faith alone through Christ alone, hence my Nacle handle. But a person can voluntarily walk from grace. That is the only way they can lose it. That’s what enduring to the end is all about. The Calvinist stuff is hooey.

    Back to topic, I don’t think the Jews for Jesus are odd. As per my earlier comment, they have a valid point that upon becoming Christian, they don’t stop being Jewish. Their Jewish critics have a valid point too regarding the candor of their message.

20. Mark,
    There’s an old book that served me well on my mission, better than anything we had on the official list: How to Win Friends and Influence People. It was absolutely key to my relative success in a part of the world most LDS regard as a hopeless mission hell hole. I’m not saying I follow it as I should today, decades later, and I’m long overdue for a re-read. But I highly recommend the book to you.

    Yep, I know I’m going to get snarked on this one.

    Steve EM
    Banned from BCC for comparing some GAs to W, as all asleep at the switch.
    Perpetually banned from T&S for being alive.

21. Let me be the first to snark: SteveEM…if you get to be considered a real Mormon then I should too! How does calling yourself an Evangelical Mormon and saying “once saved always saved” go over with your Bishop?

    Thanks for an easy-to-understand summary, Mark B. I’d long ago forgotten about Calvin’s TULIP but you brought it all back. Remarkable that wars were fought over this stuff, ya’ know?

    Here’s a good Wiki entry about Perseverance:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseverance_of_the_saints

22. Mike,
    I think you missed what I wrote, that a person can voluntarily walk from grace, otherwise, it’s once saved, always saved. But even then, since when did overall doctrinal purity against some standard become a matter of salvation, let alone LDS church membership? There’s nothing I’ve posted here that’s outside the creed we’re asked about in a Temple recommend interview. And even if I claimed belief outside that creed, I’m denied a recommend, not my membership.

23. Steve EM, First of all, let me say that I believe that scholastic Calvinism is seriously flawed in that it denies free will. However, it is accurate in the sense that it asserts that a life of sin is sufficient evidence to conclude that such a person is not in the process of being sanctified, and pretty determinate evidence of the opposite. The Arminians (whose doctrine more closely resembles ours) would say the same, except emphasizing the role of free will in departing from the path of sin.

    The closest thing we have to the doctrine of the perseverance of the Saints is the doctrine of having one’s calling and election made sure, and even that is not completely unconditional.

    ***

    Now as far as Judaism is concerned, I certainly do not plan to publish the doctrine upon the housetops without due authorization, but I will add that I consider it exceeding unlikely that any faithful adherent of Judaism would convert unless he or she felt that our religion was the fulfilment of everything that was good and true about what he already understood. Every Jewish convert I know of views the gospel that way. So do Messianic Jews. We have more to offer Judaism as presently understood than what Messianic Judaism does, however, notably a proper understanding of the temple.

24. Igor Barbanel, the head of Jews for Jesus in Russia, said he considers himself a double Jew. Sitting behind his desk in his cramped Moscow office, located in the attic of a bland brick church in the city’s industrial suburbs, he described how he came to Christianity through Messianic Judaism.

    Like many Soviet-era Jews, Barbanel’s parents observed major holidays like Passover and Yom Kippur but considered themselves atheists. In 1991, he started receiving literature from Jews for Jesus; three years later, he and his wife attended Sabbath services at a messianic church. At the service, someone read a passage from the gospel of Luke. Barbanel said he decided then that as a Jew, he had to serve God as a missionary.

    He insists his goal is not conversion. Though Barbanel and his family attend a Baptist church on Sundays and consider themselves Christians, they can still be Jewish, he said.

    “I’m still a Jew,” he said, casually touching a copy of the Bible adorned with the Star of David. “I have my tradition still, like a Russian can become an American. The real Judaism is believing in Jesus.”

    Alexandra Alter, “Messianic Jews gaining ground in Russia”, Columbia News Service, April 27, 2003
    http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/cns/2003-04-27/233.asp

25. Mark,
    Good point, but just like on our missions, if you don’t make the right first impression, they never get to hear the message. I will add the term Messianic Jew for a Christian Jew may be hurtful to a believing true Jew, for they too are Messianic, just not with Jesus whom they view as a false messiah.

    Steve EM
    Banned from BCC for comparing some GAs to W, as all asleep at the switch.
    Perpetually banned from T&S for being alive.

26. I suppose they thought the term “Christian Judaism” wouldn’t go over very well.

27. There’s an interesting conversation about the Mormon understanding of grace going on over at T&S:

    http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=3330#more-3330

    Sorry if I came across as critial, Steve EvangelicalMormon. I just find the way you present yourself very unusual and, quite candidly, theologically problematic. It’s as if you’re in some kind of denial about how different LDS theology is from contemporary Evangelicalism. The Restoration wasn’t like rolling out a new-and-improved Christianity+ (“Cheer, Now With Color Guard!” — “Christianity, Now With Authorized Ordinances!”). The foundational event is a vision wherein God tells the Prophet that “ALL their creeds were an abomination in his sight.” From then on a new religious movement rolled forth. Despite some similar language and behaviors/moral views, I can’t think of any core doctrines that are the same between Mormons and Evangelicals. They’re not the same religion. The Evangelicals totally get this, btw, recent olive branches (Beckwith, et. al.) notwithstanding.

    Gosh, I’m starting to sound like some Evangelical anti-Mo here. That’s not my intent at all. It just kind of makes me queasy to see Mormons running around saying “we’re really not that much different. Please accept us, Please, PLEASE!”

28. Mike,
    First, you don’t want me to go back to the Nacle handle I used before EM. Second, in no way am I some sycophant looking for someone’s acceptance. Third, IMHO, you are reading scripture, in this case the 1st vision account, far too literally. We aren’t supposed to hang on every word like that. That’s how LDS end up in ridiculous conclusions like sexual sin being next to cold blooded murder, because one verse of scripture says so, contrary to the whole of life experience and scripture.

    The major truths of the protestant reformers are retained and added upon in the restoration. For background on me, I realized I was EM in an epiphany event years ago when an anti yelled at me “we’re saved by faith alone in Christ alone” and I had no quarrel with her. I went up to her and said “what do you think I believe? Only a theological moron would think their puny works somehow contributed to their salvation. You’ll have to do a lot better than that to get Mormons to question their faith.”

    So, if it wasn’t clear, please be assured I don’t give a rat’s ass what some ill-informed bigot of another denomination thinks of me or my beliefs.

29. What was the former handle, EM ??? Now all of M* wants to know!

    For what it’s worth, I don’t read any scriptures literally and I’m not an active member so my opinions are automatically suspect. But I don’t think you can toss away the entire gist of the First Vision and conclude the Restoration “retained and added upon” Protestant Christianity. Joseph didn’t add a fresh coat of paint. You wouldn’t even need a Restoration to do that. The Restoration really guts it out and establishes something entirely new (or more correctly, re-establishes something very old).

30. “Jews for Jesus” has their own disaffected ex-staff web site at: http://exjewsforjesus.org/.

    Since the LDS church is also accused by disaffected ex-members as being a cult, I suppose one should also take what the ex-JfJ’s with a grain of salt too.

    Like many other evangelistic organizations, JfJ seems to be built around a “cult of personality” of the founder and/or executive director. They also seem to get a lot of bad press. I won’t link to it, but the “Rick Ross” web site has a page of links to news articles about JfJ.

31. Mike,
    For background, I have no issue with your being less active. If you told me before, I forgot about it. Moreover, it wouldn’t matter to me if you resigned, were ex’d, had four wives, were gay, worshiped BKP and BRM, etc. I can even converse with antis if they’re straight shooters, but if they deal from the bottom of the deck, I’ll eviscerate them in a heartbeat.

    That said, I don’t see how the restoration as we received it could have played out without the background work of the reformers. But we can agree to disagree whether the restoration builds on the work of the reformers or not. I mainly wanted to rebut any insinuation that I’m some kind of sycophant. I honestly believe in exaltation by faith alone in Christ alone. Our greatest works are just too puny vs. the atonement to have any bearing on the matter. Good works are done out of love for the Lord and our fellow beings. They don’t save us; Jesus does.

    Other’s are welcome to mention my old handle. I’ll pass, as I’m aware it offended some. Let’s just say it referred to a past sin common before marriage. EM is much better.

    Back to topic, G-d bless the Jews for Jesus and the Jews.

32. You’re clearly no evangelical sycophant, Steve! Maybe a hybrid. Or just idiosyncratic. I dunno. Certainly hope you don’t take any of my comments as critical. I just find a sentence like “I honestly believe in exaltation by faith alone in Christ alone” utterly fascinating.

33. Mike,
    Here’s a background link FYI.

    G-d bless

34. To Steve EM (#6), I am a “true Jew” as I am a Jewish convert to the church. I take no offense with Mark’s statement. I believe he is correct.

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