http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/719889.html
The history of Church-endorsed efforts
to convert Jews by the sword,
by application of red-hot irons,
by the threat of torture, beating,
exile, public disgrace, loss of livelihood,
is a matter of more than a thousand years
and a thousand cities.
We're not that good at forgetting.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/719889.html
When converting a Jew to Christ
By Bradley Burston
To the many true Christians who
wrote in response to an article
on Jews for Jesus,
a letter of thanks:
Dear brothers and sisters,
I am grateful for the many who wrote in
sincere concern for my personal fate,
in light of the possibility -
which I readily grant may
turn out to be entirely true -
that, of all those cited in the article,
the only one who may ultimately face
eternal damnation, is me.
Those who read with care,
responded with what can
only be described as lovingkindness,
and explained why they it was important
to them that I accept
Jesus as my personal
savior,
have my admiration and my honest thanks.
Others, and they were many,
who voiced anger at my anger,
scorn for my scorn,
have my thanks for reading thus far,
and allowing me a chance to further
discuss what appears to be my stubbornness,
my refusal to listen to logic,
my scale-coated blindness to
seemingly self-evident truths
about Christianity and its messiah,
and, at root, my refusal to accept
Christ as my own.
Some readers suggested that the problem
was that I never had a chance to get to
know Jesus.
Not true.
I lived in a world suffused
with Jesus and his teachings.
In December,
as Christmas vacation neared for our public school,
we sang carols heralding the virgin birth of the
infant King of Israel.
Television evangelists brought
the New Testament into our home.
Perhaps as a result,
I believe that Jesus was
an extraordinary holy man,
one with great gifts of wisdom,
perception and strength.
But I'm a believing Jew,
and as such, I cannot accept Jesus as divine.
If I may address our Christian readers directly,
how can I say this so that you can understand
and accept this?
I can only ask that you take
on faith the following statement:
It is against my religion.
Growing up, most of my friends were Christian:
Methodists, Roman Catholics, Mormons, Armenian Orthodox.
I occasionally visited their
houses of worship as they
occasionally visited mine.
I found Christianity to be
filled with beauty and generosity,
wondrous grace and wisdom.
In every respect, a magnificent religion.
Just not mine.
What we all learned,
perhaps just out of instinct,
was a profound respect for
one another's beliefs.
We learned something else as well.
Beliefs sometimes conflict.
One day when I was nine,
my friend Dennis,
who lived just up the street,
came home from his parochial
school with a worried look on
his face.
He explained that he and his family
would be saved and would go to heaven,
and that we - with whom he was close -
would not, and that we would all be sent to hell.
I believe now that what made
Dennis so fearful for us was,
in part, his intuitive sense
that none of us Jews in the
Burston house were about to
accept Jesus as divine,
that the Jewish interpretation
of the second of the Ten Commandments
forbade us from doing so, and that,
if he truly respected our faith,
he would make no effort to try
to persuade us to give up our
religion and join his.
Dennis respected our faith.
Other readers have suggested
that the problem was, well,
Judaism.
"A careful study of the true Torah,
the writings, and the prophets
(Not the heretical Talmud which
is not the Word of God,
but a rabbinical corruption)
clearly and plainly teach that
the Torah of itself and Judaism
does not save anyone,"
wrote a reader who holds a
doctorate in Biblical Studies.
"Judaism is a relic of the past
and today there is something much better -
faith in Yeshua who fulfilled all the
Torah concerning Messiah,"
the reader said, also calling Judaism
"obsolete" and explaining at length exactly why.
Still others tried their best -
and I believe, succeeded - in helping
me understand how they saw the act of
spreading the Gospel to the Jews.
"Tell me, if you honestly believed with
all your heart and soul that there was
only one God, only one true religion,
only one path to salvation,
and that every single person
on Earth who does not take that
path will spend eternity and a
very real, literal hell,
how would you feel about
such lost people?
Your neighbors and friends?"
wrote a reader from Chevy Chase, Maryland.
"Would you not feel obliged to help
them if you were in a position to do
so?
If you were walking by a burning house
and saw someone sleeping on the couch,
would you just keep walking? Wouldn't you help?
That's all we Evangelical Christians are doing."
A number of readers
(see Heather of Virginia, Talkback #924)
felt that I had condemned Christianity as
a whole for acts of evil committed in its name.
That was not at all my intention,
and that is not at all my belief.
But it is no less unfair,
to expect Jews to be able to view
the act of conversion dispassionately.
The history of Church-endorsed efforts
to convert Jews by the sword,
by application of red-hot irons,
by the threat of torture, beating,
exile, public disgrace, loss of livelihood,
is a matter of more than a thousand years
and a thousand cities.
We're not that good at forgetting.
Perhaps the largest number of readers
wrote in to assure me that believing in
the divinity of Jesus in no way compromises
one's Jewishness.
It fact, several said,
it makes one a better,
more complete Jew.
I know that this statement is an
expression of a wholesome and entirely
commendable desire to share glory,
to expand God's realm, to bring balm
to strife-torn souls and ensure their
place in Paradise everlasting.
This is also, however,
the argument that goes to the very
heart of the Jews for Jesus problem,
and which makes the movement such a
source of torment for Jews throughout the world.
Please try to imagine that I, as a Jew,
tried to persuade you to give up your
belief in Jesus,
and then told you that if you did,
you would be no less a Christian.
This, for us, is the crux:
Jews want Judaism to survive.
You remember Judaism.
The religion that gave birth to yours.
I ask you to accept the
following as an article of faith:
Judaism cannot survive as a form of Christianity.
That is one reason why Judaism,
which forbids suicide and offers
exemptions to religious precepts
when human life is at stake,
also has a strong belief in Kiddush Hashem,
literally, Sanctification of the Name [of God],
a term applied to those occasions when Jews have
chosen death over conversion to Christianity.
I beseech you:
Respect this religion,
this faith which gave
birth to yours.
Let this religion live.
Respect the right of the Jews to live as Jews.
To worship as Jews, and to respectfully
decline to worship Jesus.
I beseech you: Respect the teachings
and the practices of the Jews in your midst,
as you would have had the Jews of Jesus' time,
respect his.
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