Canadian-based int'l Christian organization call to proselytize Jews in Europe labeled "serious affront."
By ETGAR LEFKOVITSAbe Foxman 224.88 AJ(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
The New York-based Anti-Defamation League on Sunday denounced a call by a Canadian-based international evangelical Christian organization to target European Jews for conversion, calling it a "serious affront to the Jewish people" and "disrespectful" to Judaism.
The reaction followed the publication last month by the theological commission of the World Evangelical Alliance of a document, "The Berlin Declaration on the Uniqueness of Christ and Jewish Evangelism Today," reiterating its commitment to proselytize European Jewry.
"Promoting a campaign to convert Jews away from their faith is a serious affront to the Jewish people and disrespectful to Judaism's own teachings," ADL national director Abraham H. Foxman and ADL director of interfaith policy Rabbi Eric J. Greenberg said in a statement. "To issue this declaration from Berlin, where the Nazis directed their Final Solution to exterminate the Jewish people, is the height of insensitivity."
The document comes after publications put out by the loose alliance of Evangelicals - including an advertisement in The New York Times earlier this year - that reiterated the validity and importance of preaching to Jews.
"It is our prayer that the Berlin Declaration 2008... will prove to be equally useful in supporting the work of taking the Gospel to the Jew first," the theological commission's executive director, Dr. David Parker, said in a statement.
The loose umbrella organization is made up of a network of churches in 128 countries and claims to represent 420 million evangelical Christians.
In the past, the organization, which aims to represent the diversity of the evangelical world, has refused to take a stance on Israel's claim to Jerusalem as its eternal and undivided capital.
The nonpartisan stance taken by group clashed with the consensus of American evangelical organizations, which strongly support Israel.
Indeed, the call to preach to Jews came amid good relations between Israel and the largely supportive evangelical community around the world. It highlighted continuing Jewish concerns over proselytizing.
The World Evangelical Alliance's call to convert Jews was representative of the majority viewpoint among Evangelicals, Rabbi David Rosen, the director of interfaith relations at the American Jewish Committee's office in Jerusalem, said Sunday.
Israel did not work with evangelical organizations that actively proselytized, he said, adding: "The defining characteristic of evangelical Christianity is that faith in Jesus is the only way to find redemption."
Rosen said evangelicals could be divided into three groups: those who believed they had an obligation to actively proselytize among Jews; those who thought that ultimately Jews will have to accept Christian belief, but that God will facilitate that in due course; and those who believe that since there is an original covenant between God and the Jewish people they should not be involved in proselytizing.
Some of the groups that were most energetic for Israel tended to be the strongest believers in the need to convert Jews, he said.
"As long as the WEA teaches that Judaism is incomplete or misguided, anti-Semitism will continue," the ADL statement said.
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
