Zionist interlude again

The magazine of ICEJ (International Christian Embassy Jerusalem). Advocating that Christians should not try to convert Jews. Nice. Good work, boys. You read about these sorts of ‘Christian’ organisations in works that survey the range of Christian interactions with Judaism, or which look at the competing theologies of the synagogue and church or in survey of Christian Zionism (such as Stephen Sizer’s useful, if diffuse work, Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon? [IVP, 2004]) but when you actually read this stuff with your own eyes then you really know about it.

Three publications by the ICEJ full of codswallop is enough for me. Great – charitable work aimed at Jewish people across the world and in Israel. Love, service and generosity are not bad things. We might argue that there is greater need elsewhere, such as on the doorstep of those Jewish people in the Arab ghettos, but whatever… However, trying to make a theological and sociological case that Jews don’t need the gospel of Christ is just horrible. Sharing the gospel with Jews is not antisemitism (as the Jewish Chronicle of June 20 reports an inflammatory Rabbi as saying in response to recent Jews for Jesus outreach in London) – not sharing the gospel with someone because they’re Jewish is antisemitism!

tiny Zionist interlude

Reams of fascinating stuff here at JewsagainstZionism.com. My heart goes out to these guys - their reasons for rejecting Jesus as Messiah are thin (as we can see by reading their FAQs, the section of questions from Christians that I have linked to). What complexity in the debate over cultural and religious self-definition there is! What remarkable stories are written in the newspapers, and how many shades of grey, or splintering, fragmenting shards of grey there are in Christian and Jewish life. Almost as many opinions as people!

Surely Christian Zionists need to do some more pausing for thought before the usual anti-Arab knee-jerking...