JTF.ORG Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: kahaneloyalist on March 26, 2014, 03:52:35 PM
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http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.579182 (http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.579182)
Support for Israel is weakening among evangelical Christians, prompting a new struggle for the hearts and minds of younger members of America’s largest pro-Israel demographic group.
While hard numbers are not available, evangelical leaders on both sides of the divide on Israel agree that members of the millennial generation do not share their parents’ passion for the Jewish state; many are seeking some form of evenhandedness when approaching the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“What is happening is that the hard line of Christian Zionists was not successfully passed forward to the next generation, because it was based on theological themes that are now being questioned by younger evangelicals,” said David Gushee, professor of Christian ethics and director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University in Atlanta.
The grip of Christian Zionists over young evangelicals has been loosening for several years, according to observers within the community. But in recent weeks, the leading evangelical pro-Israel organization, Christians United for Israel, has set off alarm bells in articles and interviews decrying the inroads made by pro-Palestinian activists into the evangelical community. CUFI’s leaders are calling for a new strategy to block them.
“The only way of solving a problem is when people know about it,” said CUFI’s executive director, David Brog, who has been leading the effort to win back millennial evangelicals. “This is the best way to rally our troops.”
Brog penned a lengthy article, published in the spring edition of Middle East Quarterly, in which he detailed what he views as a growing phenomenon and the reasons behind it. Titled “The End of Evangelical Support for Israel?” the article laments that “questioning Christian support for the Jewish state is fast becoming a key way for millennials to demonstrate Christian compassion and bona fides.” Brog argues that younger evangelicals are now “in play” and their support for Israel can no longer be taken for granted.
This conclusion is based primarily on gut feelings and anecdotal data. In June 2011, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey among evangelical leaders convened in Cape Town, South Africa, for the third Lausanne Congress of World Evangelization. The findings indicated lower support for Israel than previously believed. A majority of American evangelical leaders (49%) expressed neutrality when asked if they sympathize more with Israelis or with Palestinians. Thirty percent expressed support for Israelis, 13% for the Palestinians.
The survey polled only leaders who participated in this international conference and did not offer insight into the views of rank-and-file evangelicals. But it highlighted the fact that only a minority within the evangelical leadership today hold strong pro-Israel views when it comes to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and attendant conflict with the Palestinians.
Still, Christian Zionism is by far the largest organized voice on Middle East issues among evangelicals. CUFI, led by the Rev. John Hagee, founder of Cornerstone Church, in San Antonio, has 1.6 million registered supporters and a staff of 25 full-time employees. With an operating budget of more than $7 million, CUFI organizes dozens of pro-Israel events throughout the country and an annual Washington conference that brings together evangelical activists and politicians.
CUFI’s leaders are now trying to mobilize funders and supporters to confront the shift among younger members of their community. The challenge they face is made up of individuals, campus activists and professors, small organizations and even documentary films that depict Israel as encroaching on Christian freedom of faith in the Holy Land.
On university campuses, pro-Palestinian Christians have seen some success in the face of CUFI’s more established 120-chapter campus operation. Activists in Illinois’s Wheaton College, a leading Christian school, protested a planned CUFI event on campus in 2009; in Tulsa, Okla., Oral Roberts University has appointed a harsh critic of Israel to its board of trustees, and at Bethel University, in Minnesota, President Jay Barnes visited Israel and the Palestinian territories on a trip that changed participants’ views on the conflict. Barnes’s wife, Barbara Barnes, published a poem after the trip, in which she wrote: “Apartheid has become a way of life. I believe God mourns.”
American evangelicals sympathetic to the Palestinians are also bringing co-religionists to Israel and the West Bank for tours and conferences. This week, Bethlehem Bible College and the Bethlehem-based Holy Land Trust are hosting their third “Christ at the Checkpoint” conference. Speakers at the gathering, which presents a Palestinian perspective on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank for Christians, include Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, the Gaza physician who worked closely with both Arabs and Israeli Jews until his three daughters were killed in their home by Israeli tank fire during the 2008 Gaza military campaign; William Wilson, the president of Oral Roberts University; and Gary Burge, a theology professor at Wheaton College and author of the book, “Whose Promise? What Christians Are Not Being Told About Israel and the Palestinians.”
The conference’s 12-point “manifesto” strongly condemns “all forms of violence” and warns against the “stereotyping of all faith forms that betray God’s commandment to love our neighbors and enemies.” It also rejects “any exclusive claim to the land of the Bible in the name of God” and states that “racial ethnicity alone does not guarantee the benefits of the Abrahamic Covenant.”
For some on Christian college campuses, the appeal of pro-Palestinian views may be part of a general trend among young evangelicals to question the conservative ways of their parents’ generation. Some students are pursuing a theological understanding of their religion that is more progressive on social issues. Polls conducted in recent years indicate that young white evangelicals are less conservative on issues of same-sex marriage, abortion and contraception. They are also less aligned with the Republican Party. This same trend of political diversification may be taking place on international issues.
CUFI’s concern, as voiced by Brog in his article, is about the younger generation of evangelical leaders; unlike such figures as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, they are not vocal about the issue of Israel. He describes the new generation of evangelical opinion makers as a “largely well-coiffed and fashionably dressed bunch dedicated to marketing Christianity to a skeptical generation by making it cool, compassionate, and less overtly political.”
One of the organizations gaining the most attention on this issue is the Telos Group, a Washington-based not-for-profit set up five years ago that describes itself as “pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, pro-American, and pro-peace.” In an interview on Glenn Beck’s “TheBlaze TV,” Brog singled out Telos, saying: “This is not your parents’ anti-Israel group. These guys are savvy, these guys are smart.”
Telos, which focuses a significant part of its work on faith communities, has to date taken 43 groups on tours of Israel and the Palestinian territories. President and co-founder Gregory Khalil said the group intentionally engages with a variety of Israelis and Palestinians on their trips. “I actually think David Brog could learn a lot about Israel if he would join one of our trips,” Khalil said, arguing that Brog mischaracterized the work of Telos.
But while the budding debate in the evangelical world over Israel is real, its proportions may be overstated. “We’re a tiny organization,” Khalil said of his group, which has only two staff members. Other publications and groups cited by CUFI as pro-Palestinian are also much smaller than CUFI’s own pro-Israel operation.
CUFI is not waiting for them to grow larger. In January, at a Jewish fundraising event, the group presented its plan to take two groups a year of young evangelical opinion leaders to Israel. “We need to use the same tool to fight back,” CUFI declared in its pitch for Jewish donor support. The group is also launching speaking tours on campuses, and intends to invest in videos and social media activity that will monitor Christian influencers and “confront them when they cross the line.”
The glaring precedent that pro-Israel evangelicals cite to justify their approach is the path taken by the mainline Protestant churches. In the past, many were sympathetic to Israel, or at worst neutral. But some have since become a stronghold of pro-Palestinian views in the American Christian world. A few groups, such as the Presbyterians, have been leading the way in calls for divestment and boycott against Israel.
But Gushee argued that evangelicals are unlikely to take this path. The mainline Protestant churches today may be aggressively anti-Israel, he said, but the shift among evangelicals “is not from pro-Israel to anti-Israel, but from pro-Israel to a more balanced approach.”
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Most people claiming to be Christians never were. This has been the case throughout history. The issues in question may change, but real believers will always be a remnant, a minority.
That being said, I'm surprised Haaretz cares. This Goebbelsian propaganda paper has always been teaming up with the most ferocious Jew-haters the world has had to offer.
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Most people claiming to be Christians never were. This has been the case throughout history. The issues in question may change, but real believers will always be a remnant, a minority.
That being said, I'm surprised Haaretz cares. This Goebbelsian propaganda paper has always been teaming up with the most ferocious Jew-haters the world has had to offer.
Yeah, every 'Christian' thinks he is the 'real Christian' and the others are fakes... To me there is no such thing as a 'real' Christian, they all invented their own churches...
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Yeah, every 'Christian' thinks he is the 'real Christian' and the others are fakes... To me there is no such thing as a 'real' Christian, they all invented their own churches...
There is actually a specific definition of Christian in the NT, but obviously going into that is outside the scope of JTF. The issue is that for most people it is a banner, a label, a point of cultural identity rather than a personal conversion of heart.
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Evangelical Christians hate Ha'aretz and Ha'aretz hates them. Ha'aeretz likes Christians such as John Ba'al Kerry.
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Pro-Jew Christians are a good thing, and I am thankful for them, but unfortunately they are only small and recent splinter movements within Christendom, which has traditionally embraced replacement theology, which naturally leads to anti-Semitism at the end of the day.
When you say recent splinter, how recently do you mean? What do you think caused it?
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When you say recent splinter, how recently do you mean? What do you think caused it?
The establishment of the state of Israel. Before this virtually all of Christianity was against the Jewish people. Some branches of Christianity felt threatened by the rise of the Jewish state, while others saw it as a step toward the rapture (involving the return of their messiah, and the death of the Jewish people who reject him)..
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Yawn. Does this mean they'll pack up Jews for Idolatry and all their other movements to convert Jews now?
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Well ever since Protestantism started, there have been many different churches arising who claim to take their doctrine from the Christian Bible alone, and have no unified tradition, so you have many different people interpreting it in different ways. So in any given Protestant church you have a mish-mash of different philosophies--for example some believe you have to be baptized and some don't, some believe you have to speak in tongues and some don't, and some believe people have free will and some don't, etc. Now one of the Christian philosophies that came about in the 1800's was Dispensationalism, which says that the Jews are still God's chosen people and Christians are a separate covenant altogether, while the church historically said that only Christians (both Gentiles and Jews who believe in Jesus) were God's true people because the covenant with the followers of Jesus made the national covenant with the Jews obsolete because all the promises were fulfilled "spiritually". I'm sure with the establishment of the State of Israel, more people came to believe in the dispensationalist philosophy. People from a variety of churches who have been influenced by this philosophy tend to be the most pro-Israel.
Thanks Dan.
So what brought about this "Dispensationlist" philosophy?
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The explanation is that the majority of those who have called themselves Christians throughout history have not truly been. Would a moral person whose heart has been regenerated support Nazism and genocide and discrimination?
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There were lots of "moral" people like the Greeks and Romans that did, and lots of people with "regenerated hearts", even ones that were "reborn" like the Assyrians that did. Anyways, yes, you're completely correct, the real true actual version of Catholicism came into being recently and was always the true one.
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There were lots of "moral" people like the Greeks and Romans that did, and lots of people with "regenerated hearts", even ones that were "reborn" like the Assyrians that did. Anyways, yes, you're completely correct, the real true actual version of Catholicism came into being recently and was always the true one.
Is it not obvious who is really a righteous person and who isn't? History is full of evil people and of phony "good" people.
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Is it not obvious who is really a righteous person and who isn't? History is full of evil people and of phony "good" people.
Yet everyone says their beliefs makes them good people. Good people x= good ideology. Some people are good in spite of things. You look at the majority to determine the effect of the belief.
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Yet everyone says their beliefs makes them good people. Good people x= good ideology. Some people are good in spite of things. You look at the majority to determine the effect of the belief.
Most Republicans are phony RINO sellouts, most Jews are self-hating, most "conservatives" today would have been called extreme liberals 50 years ago, etc. Most people are just no damn good, period.
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The "good" people in any given religion do not necessarily represent the authentic believers in that religion. For example, it is great that there are some Muslims who oppose jihad, but those are not really the true believers in Islam when you consider Islamic sources and the historic interpretation of those sources.
The "good" Muslims are generally the secular ones, or those who have deliberately chosen to overlook or ignore the parts of the Koran they don't like and thus have basically created a new religion; that's the difference.
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The "good" people in any given religion do not necessarily represent the authentic believers in that religion. For example, it is great that there are some Muslims who oppose jihad, but those are not really the true believers in Islam when you consider Islamic sources and the historic interpretation of those sources.
I think that any religion/ideology can be interpreted and applied in whichever way one wishes. True many times their is the general ideology, but people usually don't read, understand or care about the whole. Perhaps Judaism and the Torah as well. It wouldn't represent the whole truth but people find whatever they want to find within anything.
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In Christianity there is no such thing as good as they are "none good but god".
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Most Republicans are phony RINO sellouts, most Jews are self-hating, most "conservatives" today would have been called extreme liberals 50 years ago, etc. Most people are just no damn good, period.
And most Christians are rotten scoundrels..
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I don't know about other churches but in every Serbian church there is admiration for Jewish people. In January at family celebration our local priest spoke about how we should look upon Jews and donate more for our church. According to him God has given many Jews a very good fortunes because of their willingness to donate. At many seminars priests compare what Jerusalem means for the Jews and what Kosovo means for us.
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And most Christians are rotten scoundrels..
I must be missing something.
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I must be missing something.
Most Republicans are phony RINO sellouts, most Jews are self-hating, most "conservatives" today would have been called extreme liberals 50 years ago, etc. Most people are just no damn good, period.
So if MOST Jews are self-hating so too it is correct to say MOST Christians are rotten scoundrels...
I think it is an overstatement to say MOST Jews are self-hating. If fact most Jews I know are not... But I guess if we are going to generalize, we may as well GENERALIZE!
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Oh, I see.
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Most Republicans are phony RINO sellouts, most Jews are self-hating, most "conservatives" today would have been called extreme liberals 50 years ago, etc. Most people are just no damn good, period.
Today they are. Historically, more Republicans were righteous. Most people aren't good. That I agree with. Remember though, you're talking to someone who was raised in this religion, and I have family who still try to argue with me about the religion. I started out in a xtian communist "apocalyptic" sex cult, which wasn't accepted by the mainstream, I went to the best Jesuit school in the section of the continent, and later discovered real true actual xtianity with Evangelicals. I also had a Mormon friend, and there isn't really many denominations of the religion I can't tell you every single detail about. Without Muman and Tag, I would have been somewhere else today, likely terrible.
What I can tell you is that the "real" versions of the religion deny certain parts of their scripture, the mainstream ones add their own proudly made-up books to it, the outcasts combine it with other religions and ideologies, and the book itself, no one follows, since it's pretty confusing (I'm being as undivisive as possible).
If the creator of the universe came down and said it wasn't true, most people would be back at it the next day, since it simply works well with group mentality (not the term I'm actually thinking of).
Muman, most Jews are secular, and by their religion, have no share in the world to come, so they're at least ignorant or insane, and most of the ones you see on the tube are self-hating. Historically, most Jews were 100% religious, and many of the most positively influential people of the world came from them.
My point in all this is that in this generation, everything is the opposite. Except muslims. They're still the same as they started.
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And most Christians are rotten scoundrels..
Yeah, you're right. I acknowledged that; we all did.
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I don't know about other churches but in every Serbian church there is admiration for Jewish people. In January at family celebration our local priest spoke about how we should look upon Jews and donate more for our church. According to him God has given many Jews a very good fortunes because of their willingness to donate. At many seminars priests compare what Jerusalem means for the Jews and what Kosovo means for us.
Yes, that's true. You don't need to be a dispensationalist evangelical to support Jews. Many Christians that are not of that background do too.
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I don't know about other churches but in every Serbian church there is admiration for Jewish people. In January at family celebration our local priest spoke about how we should look upon Jews and donate more for our church. According to him God has given many Jews a very good fortunes because of their willingness to donate. At many seminars priests compare what Jerusalem means for the Jews and what Kosovo means for us.
For some reason I don't know enough about to explain, Serbia generally seems especially righteous.
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Ok, now here I go...
We have a LOT OF WORK to do, all of us... I am not going to sit back and accept that the world is full of ignorant and malicious people. I am certainly not a person who wears rose colored glasses, but I am an optimist with a plan in my mind. I accept what most of you are saying here. I have shut out the mainstream world, as many know I do not watch cable TV, I don't go to movies, and I surely don't listen to the radio and modern music. I only watch things which I want to watch, including 'conservative' news sources and documentaries and various forms of music.
But that is not what I want to say. I think that JTF should not spend so much time dumping on all these ignorant people. There are people who can be influenced by a positive thought, a carefully thought out message to those around us. As a Jewish man who came to observance late in life, and over several years, I know that presenting Judaism in a positive manner is very important.
A short personal story; a Vietnamese man I work with and haven't seen in months came to me the other day and asked me if I was Jewish, and he wanted to share with me his experience from watching the Shindlers List film. I had an opportunity to enlighten him about the Jewish people. I wear Tzit-Tzits and headcovering and my side-locks are long, so I am an obvious Jewish man. I am proud of who I am, and I impress the people I am with by the conversations I have with them.
We all have the ability to connect with other people. In my family my brother was the one with all the Charisma, and I was always the nerdy guy who was shy and didn't take a stand. I discovered during my Teshuva in 2003 that the 'Charisma' gene ran in the family, and I just needed to harness it through coming back to the faith of my forefathers.
I realize my message may not reach everyone. Many people like to complain, and argue, and berate others. My experience with most every long time JTF member has been positive, despite the occasional flare ups and unintended insults, and I feel that our goal is a very, very righteous one.
I am honored to have a group like JTF who shares my view toward Israel, the problems of the Middle East, and terrorist islam. So many other on-line forums are full of Jew haters, but I know Jew haters don't stand much of a chance of lasting here at JTF.
Maybe we can win back the Evangelical Christians somehow. If anyone can think of a way to reach out to them, to explain how important Israel and the Jewish people are for the purpose of creation, please take action...
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Reading Muman's post randomly made me think that since Judaism says that just converting to it won't make you a better person, "what Judaism is does not depend on the behavior of Jews" (Rabbi Mizrachi). It seems a bit unfair to say that just because they were killing Jews for 1000 years and used their religion to back it up, what the religion says is bad. I know what it's like though, and basically if you follow everything in Judaism, you know how to do everything in your life perfectly, and if you're a righteous Noahide, you aren't breaking any law that brings punishment, and you can choose to engage in whatever spirituality you want, and aren't necessarily paying anyone (though really you could do a cooperative equals type of church thing where you all own the building together and can invest in stuff and buy nice things for the building after if you want) and with Catholicism (because technically that's where it all came from, anyways) every different culture can have their different breed of it, because even though everyone admits it's a part two, it's not like you find many that are experts in it, or even a correct translation out of the tens of thousands of translations they put before part 2. The Filipinos or one of those guys can nail themselves to crosses and take stuff to foam at the like they used to, the Haitians can do Catholic mass with Mary and do voodoo like they used to, most everyone can have their mother, father and son statues like their ancestors most likely used to, the Greeks can have their strict religion like they're used to, the secular states all have varying degrees of watered down versions of it, (because didn't "G-d"'s avatar-son love everyone? If you follow the religion correctly, isn't the proper response to be loving?) and the Americans have their versions which are different from the British mostly, and the Chinese return of the messiah lady has a lot of Chinese ways mixed into her thing. Africa doesn't count because it's basically all missionaries from other places. But yeah, who can really follow 100% what the book you claim was also written by G-d, you're left with "be loving" for billions of questions that will require you to interpret that twice as many ways. You also have to tell people about the book, and love them while knowing that they will burn in hell for all eternity if they don't hear about a story, and really believe that it happened based on the testimony of the people in the book and/or either say or say and believe that G-d's son-avatar came into the heart that G-d made and controls every aspect of. You can be for or against the Jews, "Jesus was a Jew" doesn't indicate in itself that you should at all like Jews. To say you're Jewish or Catholic doesn't mean anything, but to say you're religious when you're Jewish always means a precise set of things (unless it's considered heretical or traitorous, like Neutered Kapo) and to say you're a religious Xtian doesn't mean anything other than a belief in a 15 second story. You can't compare apples and oranges that way. Judaism is a 100% perfect religion (and no Catholic denies that the Torah came from G-d on mount Sinai, though they say that G-d changed his mind about the way stuff should be done) and Catholicism, without mentioning premise validity, can be followed religiously and 90% differently from the guy down the road or your great great grandfather.
Muman, their nations are going to attack Israel and try to destroy it soon, and they even claim they believe it. There's nothing you can do to stop it, other than cause Israel and the nations to turn to G-d. Fighting for their support is like the Haredi fighting for support from the secular government in exchange for loyalty.
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Ok, now here I go...
We have a LOT OF WORK to do, all of us... I am not going to sit back and accept that the world is full of ignorant and malicious people. I am certainly not a person who wears rose colored glasses, but I am an optimist with a plan in my mind. I accept what most of you are saying here. I have shut out the mainstream world, as many know I do not watch cable TV, I don't go to movies, and I surely don't listen to the radio and modern music. I only watch things which I want to watch, including 'conservative' news sources and documentaries and various forms of music.
But that is not what I want to say. I think that JTF should not spend so much time dumping on all these ignorant people. There are people who can be influenced by a positive thought, a carefully thought out message to those around us. As a Jewish man who came to observance late in life, and over several years, I know that presenting Judaism in a positive manner is very important.
A short personal story; a Vietnamese man I work with and haven't seen in months came to me the other day and asked me if I was Jewish, and he wanted to share with me his experience from watching the Shindlers List film. I had an opportunity to enlighten him about the Jewish people. I wear Tzit-Tzits and headcovering and my side-locks are long, so I am an obvious Jewish man. I am proud of who I am, and I impress the people I am with by the conversations I have with them.
We all have the ability to connect with other people. In my family my brother was the one with all the Charisma, and I was always the nerdy guy who was shy and didn't take a stand. I discovered during my Teshuva in 2003 that the 'Charisma' gene ran in the family, and I just needed to harness it through coming back to the faith of my forefathers.
I realize my message may not reach everyone. Many people like to complain, and argue, and berate others. My experience with most every long time JTF member has been positive, despite the occasional flare ups and unintended insults, and I feel that our goal is a very, very righteous one.
I am honored to have a group like JTF who shares my view toward Israel, the problems of the Middle East, and terrorist islam. So many other on-line forums are full of Jew haters, but I know Jew haters don't stand much of a chance of lasting here at JTF.
Maybe we can win back the Evangelical Christians somehow. If anyone can think of a way to reach out to them, to explain how important Israel and the Jewish people are for the purpose of creation, please take action...
I agree. Also, our best weapon would be JTF Christians. They know their scripture(Christian) better than anyone, so they would know what to use to get others to support Jews and Israel.
I would also like to know this scripture. ...
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"Muman, most Jews are secular, and by their religion, have no share in the world to come, so they're at least ignorant or insane, and most of the ones you see on the tube are self-hating. Historically, most Jews were 100% religious, and many of the most positively influential people of the world came from them."
First off I am happy to hear what you said earlier, and glad to be one of the 2 (+ Muman) who influenced you positively.
Now about this, it is not necessarily so. Someone who isn't religious is not automatically "Damned". Their are different circumstances and the ultimate Judge is G-D. Yes, we as Jews should definitely do outreach and explain things to our brothers and sisters, and the world as well actually, but their are and were many Rabbanim who always said that their is a concept known as "Tinok ShNeshba". Even the Hazon Ish who is THE "ultra,ultra,ultra-Orthodox Rabbi" from last generation said this. As did the Rambam (in regards to the children and grandchildren of the Karaites who rejected the Oral Torah). So this is not a simple matter. It doesn't work like that. The ultimate Judge is G-D, never-the-less these Jews should be brought back and we (Jewish communities) should do our parts as well.
What you said about historically, not so true and accurate as well, but ookay. Also being "Religious" isn't an automatic pass in doing the right thing. During the second Temple period most people were Religious, they kept the Laws but their still were wrong ideologies, infighting and bad middot involved that lead to the Temple's destruction. Also some cases of wrong focus and making fights even with Romans for stupid things (such as them cutting a vine tree of a couple) and other examples. ALSO Rambam mentions not learning the art of War. Can be Religious, keep all the laws but still loose the war if you don't know how to fight. We don't expect G-D to intervene. It is a sin.
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4 minute mini-shiur http://torahforme.org/files/Q%20and%20A/Frnk%20QA%20Rav%20Kooks%20View%20of%20Secular%20Jews%20Did%20Other%20Rabbis%20Agree%205774.MP3
Rav Kook's view of Secular Jews and did others agree?
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Ok, now here I go...
We have a LOT OF WORK to do, all of us... I am not going to sit back and accept that the world is full of ignorant and malicious people. I am certainly not a person who wears rose colored glasses, but I am an optimist with a plan in my mind. I accept what most of you are saying here. I have shut out the mainstream world, as many know I do not watch cable TV, I don't go to movies, and I surely don't listen to the radio and modern music. I only watch things which I want to watch, including 'conservative' news sources and documentaries and various forms of music.
But that is not what I want to say. I think that JTF should not spend so much time dumping on all these ignorant people. There are people who can be influenced by a positive thought, a carefully thought out message to those around us. As a Jewish man who came to observance late in life, and over several years, I know that presenting Judaism in a positive manner is very important.
A short personal story; a Vietnamese man I work with and haven't seen in months came to me the other day and asked me if I was Jewish, and he wanted to share with me his experience from watching the Shindlers List film. I had an opportunity to enlighten him about the Jewish people. I wear Tzit-Tzits and headcovering and my side-locks are long, so I am an obvious Jewish man. I am proud of who I am, and I impress the people I am with by the conversations I have with them.
We all have the ability to connect with other people. In my family my brother was the one with all the Charisma, and I was always the nerdy guy who was shy and didn't take a stand. I discovered during my Teshuva in 2003 that the 'Charisma' gene ran in the family, and I just needed to harness it through coming back to the faith of my forefathers.
I realize my message may not reach everyone. Many people like to complain, and argue, and berate others. My experience with most every long time JTF member has been positive, despite the occasional flare ups and unintended insults, and I feel that our goal is a very, very righteous one.
I am honored to have a group like JTF who shares my view toward Israel, the problems of the Middle East, and terrorist islam. So many other on-line forums are full of Jew haters, but I know Jew haters don't stand much of a chance of lasting here at JTF.
Maybe we can win back the Evangelical Christians somehow. If anyone can think of a way to reach out to them, to explain how important Israel and the Jewish people are for the purpose of creation, please take action...
If they don't want to support us, f them. They are phonies and G-d will deal with them. The righteous will always know which path to take.
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If they don't want to support us, f them. They are phonies and G-d will deal with them. The righteous will always know which path to take.
NO! This is not the right thinking. Jesus even said he came for " the lost sheep". People are easily mislead, especially when they are young, or surrounded by evil people. So, someone who is nice, kind, and mislead, should perish?
Also, think of it as a big war... you need as many people as possible, or if you bring enough people back, there may not be a war. .. I hope!
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NO! This is not the right thinking. Jesus even said he came for " the lost sheep". People are easily mislead, especially when they are young, or surrounded by evil people. So, someone who is nice, kind, and mislead, should perish?
Also, think of it as a big war... you need as many people as possible, or if you bring enough people back, there may not be a war. .. I hope!
He also said that the wheat would be separated from the chaff. Some people are just plain evil. We should be reaching out to the wishywashy Christians that don't understand why Zionism is a big deal, not the Nazis.
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I can't speak for the Protestants, but this Latin Mass Catholic will ALWAYS support Israel.
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I think the most important thing is for Jews to be proud, brave, and not self hating. After all, you can't make people like you. But if people know they can't harm or mess with Jews and get away with it, at least we'll get some (grudging) respect.
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I agree. Also, our best weapon would be JTF Christians. They know their scripture(Christian) better than anyone, so they would know what to use to get others to support Jews and Israel.
I would also like to know this scripture. ...
If JTF Christians want to do that on their own, let them. But JTF should not encourage spreading Christianity. Spreading Christianity in the name of JTF would lead people to say JTF supports missionaries. I remember when Allen-T wanted to start a Christianity section for Christian members.
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^ "But JTF should not encourage spreading Christianity. Spreading Christianity in the name of JTF would lead people to say JTF supports missionaries. I remember when Allen-T wanted to start a Christianity section for Christian members."
I wasn't saying that! And I definitely was not telling them to spread Christianity in the name of JTF. .. I was telling them to use pro Zionist Christianity to fight and save non Zionist Christians. ..
Another question I have is... is not the children of Esau, the children of Abraham?
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The seed of Abraham is only called through Isaac and Jacob, not through Ishmael or Esav.
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If JTF Christians want to do that on their own, let them. But JTF should not encourage spreading Christianity. Spreading Christianity in the name of JTF would lead people to say JTF supports missionaries. I remember when Allen-T wanted to start a Christianity section for Christian members.
So you hate Christians who are missionaries to Muslims? You'd rather that they remain Muslim Nazis?
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So you hate Christians who are missionaries to Muslims? You'd rather that they remain Muslim Nazis?
I'd rather they become Noahides, but I think you know that already. The Jewish/Noahide view of G-d is more similar to the Islamic view of G-d. But the Jewish/Noahide view of morality is more similar to the Christian view of morality than the Islamic view.
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I'd rather they become Noahides, but I think you know that already. The Jewish/Noahide view of G-d is more similar to the Islamic view of G-d. But the Jewish/Noahide view of morality is more similar to the Christian view of morality than the Islamic view.
You do realize that that post looked not so good, don't you? Not only did it look like you are against all Christian missionaries (meaning those who are not targeting Jews), but you also implied that we are all potentially like Anus-T.
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If Christians want to missionize to Hindus, I think that would be a step in the right direction. But people who already believe in the One G-d should be encouraged to continue to believe in Him while dropping the murder and thievery associated with Islam. Any of the truths Islam has were taken from Judaism. Everything else Mohammad either copied off of Christianity and/or Pre-Islamic Arabian lunar worship or made it up.
Through the Jewish People, the World began to believe in G-d. That was the role of Christianity and Islam. But if they already have G-d as with Muslims, they should be encouraged to become Noahides. There already is one such Noahide on the forum.
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I am not a Hindu and would never consider that religion, but would you personally feel the need to convert a Zionist Hindu?
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In the 19th century there were allot of British protestant churches that strongly supported Zionism. Nowadays the few who do are at the absolute fringes of British Christendom. It could happen to the American evangelism movement as well. While some are true and staunch supporters. Others might have just used zionism as a tool to rally support for themselves and are likely to discard it if it goes out of fashion and popularity. Also there are already deeply entrenched trojan horse elements inside the Evangelist establishment like the Green family, that hideous Rick Warren mega church etc.
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In the 19th century there were allot of British protestant churches that strongly supported Zionism. Nowadays the few who do are at the absolute fringes of British Christendom. It could happen to the American evangelism movement as well. While some are true and staunch supporters. Others might have just used zionism as a tool to rally support for themselves and are likely to discard it if it goes out of fashion and popularity. Also there are already deeply entrenched trojan horse elements inside the Evangelist establishment like the Green family, that hideous Rick Warren mega church etc.
It really goes back to what I've said all along, most professing Christians are phonies, evangelicals or not. Christianity is different from both Judaism and Islam in that it is a faith of personal decision rather than being ethnonationalistic. You aren't, properly speaking, "born into" it. You can be born into a Christian family/country but the choice is still yours when you are old enough to understand it, and it takes a lifetime of testing to see if that choice was meaningful to the core.
There will always be a righteous remnant, but Jesus himself did state that most of those who call on him were never his children.
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It really goes back to what I've said all along, most professing Christians are phonies, evangelicals or not. Christianity is different from both Judaism and Islam in that it is a faith of personal decision rather than being ethnonationalistic. You aren't, properly speaking, "born into" it. You can be born into a Christian family/country but the choice is still yours when you are old enough to understand it, and it takes a lifetime of testing to see if that choice was meaningful to the core.
There will always be a righteous remnant, but Jesus himself did state that most of those who call on him were never his children.
Muslims go by the father. They also say everyone is Muslim until they choose otherwise (including if they were born to Non-Muslim parents.). I guess they think the Non-Muslim parents captured the babies. Muslims don't believe in ethnonationalism. They think everyone should be Muslim under the rule of a Worldwide Islamic empire.
I think Catholics also say someone is Catholic if the father is and since Catholicism believes in Replacement Theology, they think Catholics are born into it just like Jews are born into Judaism.
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So you hate Christians who are missionaries to Muslims? You'd rather that they remain Muslim Nazis?
Wasn't the person saying to use the Christian Bible to so spread support of Israel actually saying to use it to get other Christians to support Israel? Obviously Christians that support JTF are free to do what they want with their fellow Christians. I was just saying that in the name of JTF, we only support spreading Judaism and the Noahide Laws.
We don't need to try to win over Muslims. I don't think anyone was saying that. Muslims as a religion are evil. The good ones are the exception and therefore are not real Muslims. I don't see anyone trying to win over the majority of blacks that support Obama.
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So you hate Christians who are missionaries to Muslims? You'd rather that they remain Muslim Nazis?
No go ahead.
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Wasn't the person saying to use the Christian Bible to so spread support of Israel actually saying to use it to get other Christians to support Israel?
Who are you talking about, Anus-T?
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Who are you talking about, Anus-T?
I was talking about Ephraim Ben Noah. Somehow you made it like I'm against missionizing to Muslims. I was referring to Ephraim saying to use the Christian Bible to get other Christians to support Israel. I just said that JTF should not support spreading Christianity to get people to support Israel but individual Christian members are free to do so. JTF is Jewish so everything done on the behalf of JTF should only be in the name of Torah Judaism.
http://jtf.org/forum/index.php/topic,75134.msg629095.html#msg629095
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I was talking about Ephraim Ben Noah. Somehow you made it like I'm against missionizing to Muslims. I was referring to Ephraim saying to use the Christian Bible to get other Christians to support Israel. I just said that JTF should not support spreading Christianity to get people to support Israel but individual Christian members are free to do so. JTF is Jewish so everything done on the behalf of JTF should only be in the name of Torah Judaism.
http://jtf.org/forum/index.php/topic,75134.msg629095.html#msg629095
OK for that, but them converting mudrats means the mudrats they convert will likely be killed, and they are occupied not going after Jews. Missionaries turn antisemetic after debating Jews on facts, so let them go after mudrats, it's just great.