Israel’s global isolation combined with critical educational deficiencies outside the Orthodox world have created an opening for missionaries to lob spiritual missiles from within the Jewish state while Hamas and Hezbollah shoot ballistic missiles from without.
Missionaries trying to convert IDF soldiersYad L’achim
Since the start of the war with Hamas on October 7th, evangelical Christians have been vocal in professing their love for the Jewish state. But this love may come at a price as some covertly seek to corrupt the Jewish spirit. Surreptitious missionaries are exploiting Israel’s growing isolation to infiltrate Jewish life, ingratiate themselves to agencies and institutions, and pledge their enduring friendship – all while harboring a conversionary agenda aimed at divorcing Jews from the faith of their ancestors. To this end, many are volunteering on farms where they furtively seek to “witness” to Israelis, or befriending IDF soldiers in the hope of exposing them to Christian scripture.
And they often target those who are lonely or poorly versed in Torah.
The sad fact is that many secular Israelis, like their nonobservant American cousins, do not know their own scripture well enough to parry missionary propaganda. Still others understand the incongruity between Christian and Jewish beliefs but feel they must accept assistance from any source in a world that increasingly despises Jews and Israel and at a time when support from secular and nontraditional Jewish sources is compromised by partisan division.
Israel’s global isolation combined with critical educational deficiencies outside the Orthodox world have created an opening for missionaries to lob spiritual missiles from within the Jewish state while Hamas and Hezbollah shoot ballistic missiles from without. They are also targeting Jews outside Israel by pledging solidarity against the rising tide of antisemitism, often masking conversionary intentions.
Though there are many fine Christians who support Israel without ulterior motives (e.g., those unafraid to learn Tanakh and acknowledge their own scriptural fallibility), they can be difficult to distinguish from those offering friendship merely to gain access. Given Christendom’s history of antisemitic persecution and conversionary excess, it is reasonable to question the motivations of those who profess love for Jews and Israel. And because the Christian past evokes memories of forced baptisms, ghettos, crusades, inquisitions, and genocide – and with today’s evangelical churches spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually to missionize Jews directly or through “messianic Judaism” – Christians bear the burden to prove their sincerity.
Jews need not become experts in Christian scripture to recognize missionary deception, but they should be aware of the template set forth by Paul in the Book of Corinthians regarding evangelism through dissimulation:
“To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law…so as to win those not having the law…To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some…” (1 Corinthians 9:20-23.)
In fact, dissimulation is the foundation of friendship evangelism, whereby missionaries ingratiate themselves by proclaiming affinity with Jews, though fundamental Christian beliefs (e.g., that a divine messiah died to expiate the sins of man, G-d is divisible, and Torah law is obsolete) are found nowhere in Tanakh and are antithetical to it. Nonetheless, evangelical subterfuge can be effective against nonobservant Jews unfamiliar with their own scripture when presented as “Judeo-Christian” tradition and not only to imply common core values.
Beyond some similar moral principles, however, there is little if any doctrinal commonality.
Christians and Jews may share a commitment to assisting the poor, for example, but their foundational values and beliefs are disparate. Those who claim a shared heritage must ignore fundamental inconsistencies between Judaism and Christianity when declaring that we all believe in the same bible (we do not) or that Christians differ only in their belief that the messiah has already come. Such platitudes are false and serve only to highlight our differences.
When Christians use the word “messiah,” for example, their meaning differs from Tanakh. They believe the messiah is divine and his function is to die as a sacrifice to redeem mankind from sin. This belief may be consistent with pagan concepts like the apotheosis of man, vicarious atonement, and human sacrifice, but it conflicts with Tanakh’s definition of Mashiach as a mortal, national savior of the Jewish people.
According to Tanakh, he will reign during the ingathering of exiles in an era of peace when the Temple will be rebuilt, idolatry will be abolished, and all nations will recognize Hashem. His coming will be preceded by repentance (regarding which only G-d can grant atonement) and he will reestablish the Davidic dynasty as a descendant of King David through Shlomo his son. As king, he must come from the tribe of Yehudah – and because tribal affiliation passes down patrilineally according to Torah law, claims of “virgin birth” would preclude eligibility.
Nor do we believe in the same canon. The Hebrew Bible consists of the Torah, Nevi’im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings). It does not include Christian scripture; and while Christians embrace the “Old Testament” (a term implying supersessionism), they have mistranslated and manipulated it so profoundly that it does not truly reflect Tanakh – though they paradoxically concede the divinity of the Hebrew original. Moreover, in altering original text through ignorance, artifice, or malice, the Gospel writers violated G-d’s commandment against changing His words: “Do not add to the word which I command you, nor diminish from it, to observe the commandments of the Lord your G-d which I command you.” (Devarim (Deuteronomy), 4:2.)
Jews need not have a thorough grasp of Christian scripture to understand this, but they must learn their own to recognize missionary hype. They should also realize that not all Christians have conversionary goals; many are well-meaning but simply ignorant of Hebrew scripture.
Regardless of intentions, however, many persist in preaching commonality through shared “Judeo-Christian” values, as illustrated by Christian efforts to enlist American Jewish support to enshrine the Ten Commandments in public buildings. The Jewish response tends to be ambivalent.
Indeed, the question many Jews ask when solicited is, “whose Ten Commandments?” The version in the Christian “Old Testament” differs from that found in Torah, which Jews refer to as the “Aseret Ha-Diberot” (ten utterances) or “Aseret Ha-Devarim” (ten statements) as it contains or references more than ten individual obligations. Remembering the “sabbath day” and “making it holy,” for example, are distinct obligations within the same (fourth) statement. Moreover, the phrase “zachor et yom ha-shabbat” (“remember the Sabbath day”), refers specifically to the seventh day of the week, not Sunday (yom rishon), Friday (yom shishi), or some nonspecific “Lord’s day.”
And the first statement (“I am the Lord your G-d Who brought you out of Egypt…”) is not a commandment at all, but rather a charge to the Jewish people directly, begging the question of whether the statements that follow are insular, universal, or a combination.
There are other differences that give Jews pause, for example, those regarding the sixth commandment, which prohibits murder, not killing; and the eighth, which refers to the theft of people (i.e., kidnapping), not petty larceny.
Perhaps most problematic for Christians is the second statement, which states: “lo yihyeh lecha elokim acheirim al-panai…” (“You shall not have the gods [or divinities] of others upon My presence”). The significance here is that Hashem cannot be divided into multiple entities, personalities, or manifestations, which makes the concept of a trinity highly problematic. Further, it renders idolatrous the concept of a duality wherein G-d rules Heaven and Satan rules earth. Such ideas are antithetical to Torah and found nowhere in Tanakh.
Observant Jews are ambivalent about the Christian obsession with the Ten Commandments because it misconstrues Hebrew text and implies similitude between faith traditions that are incompatible. Furthermore, educated Jews balk at enshrining passages from the Christian “Old Testament” that do not comport with the Hebrew original. Though some Jews may embrace a symbol they consider cross-cultural, it cannot be divorced from its meaning in Hebrew scripture.
Unfortunately, however, not all observant Jews are immune from missionary cajolery. I have a friend who was learning in Kollel and teaching in yeshiva, who nevertheless accepted a free trip to Israel from a Christian group that proved to be missionary. He took the trip regardless, confident in his ability to debate if necessary – even though the underlying purpose in hosting observant Jews was to project a disarming image to secular Jews whom the organization was actually targeting for evangelization.
He should have known better.
Though many Christians are sincere, there are wolves in sheep’s clothing who justify our suspicion and warrant intervention by the government in Israel and institutional establishment in Diaspora. The problem is spiritually existential, and ignoring it constitutes an abdication of communal responsibility.
@peloni
Yes, I would agree. Anyone who take advantage of another’s vulnerability, for any reason, is despicable, regardless of their motivation. That said, perhaps Christians need to be more conscious of what they say and do, and Jews need to develop a thicker skin. I remember many years ago hearing Barry Farber tell a story about some good-natured ribbing he took from a friend in North Carolina about his Jewishness. Farber gave back as good as he got in the exchange, and yet they remained good friends. Farber was a great example of wisdom, grace, and common sense. For what it’s worth, it might be worth asking how wolves in sheep’s clothing are able to get in, spiritually speaking. Nature abhors a vacuum, as the saying goes. If someone in the Jewish community is weak and vulnerable, shouldn’t other Jews be filling that void before the wolves have a chance?
@Raphael
I honestly don’t believe this is a fair interpretation of the author’s intent, nor is it implied or consistent with what he wrote. He is specifically alerting the Jewish community to those “wolves in sheep’s clothing” who would use the current circumstances to ply their proselytizing antics against the Jewish people. In fact, alerting fellow Jews to the tactics employed by such wolves should not be interpreted as an abuse of the Christians who are acting in good faith as they support the Jewish community in its hour of need. Indeed, the distinction between the wolves and allies of the Jews should be understood to be an important facet to grasp, not only for the Jews who are accepting Christian charity, but also for those Christians who are offering it. Indeed, any Christian who would manipulate this attack on the Jewish people as an opportunity to further erode the faith of those Jews who were not counted among the slaughtered, should be recognized, by both Jews and Christians alike, as being no friend of the Jewish people, but quite the very opposite in fact.
In stating this, however, I should like to reinforce the fact that the Jews have no greater allies than the American Evangelical Christians and that bold and persistent friendship has been a great asset to us in many difficult times. Still, our allies must appreciate that there are boundaries which exist between the Jews and their allies, boundaries which should not be crossed, and to the degree to which those boundaries are crossed, anyone considering themselves as an ally to the Jews would in fact be demonstrating the most treacherous betrayal of that alliance.
We all have boundaries, in faith, personal relationships, and in business. In fact it is important that such boundaries not only exist, but that all parties be aware of and that they should each respect the basis for these boundaries, if for no other reason than to preserve the relationships which do exist and to not render them to be less than they otherwise would be.
Hence, there should be no reason that the Jews should not be alerted to the practices of those false allies of the Jews who would manipulate us against ourselves by the bad Christian apples, if you take my meaning, who would stoop to such a loathsome undertaking as Hausmann describes. There should also be no reason for Christians who do not harbor such false intentions to be offended when we Jews remark about those Christians who do. Consequently, in all fairness, I think the topic raised by Haussman above is not only a fair conversation to be had, but an important one to remark upon and support.
Would you not agree?
Can you imagine the catastrophe if American Christians stopped supporting Israel? They are what holds back the floodgates of antisemitism in America. Think what could happen if America went over to the dark side. Attacking Christians who support Israel is foolhardy.
Christian sympathy for Israel is real and strong, but it must not be forgotten that it is religiously motivated. Because Christians believe that Israel is G-d’s land, and the Jews are G-d’s chosen people, they naturally love what G-d loves. Given that reality, accepting Christian friendship may come with some baggage. Some Christians will proselytize, but most don’t, out of respect for Jewish sensitivities. The solution is easy. You don’t have to accept Christian friendship and support, but if you do, then just be prepared to respectfully, but firmly, say “No”, if talk of their religion offends you. Let’s move on now, shall we, and turn our attention to those who want to destroy Israel.
Now’s the time to reassess the “narrative” developed by the Romans under Constantine at Nicea around 300+AD, with the understanding that this was a political narrative developed by a highly politicized Roman leader… and who knows who else.
As a Christian Zionist myself, I understand Israel’s concern and distaste for missionizing Christians. In fact, most Christians no longer do this. We can no longer believe in replacement theology, which used to be taught – the belief that Christians are the “new Israel”, and have replaced Israel itself. That belief flouroshed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as Israel no longer existed as a country and a State. Now, however, it is obvious to all that Israel does exist and has been reborn, as the Bible foretold. Therefore, it’s the duty of Christians to support Israel and Zionism and NOT to try to convert Jews, who are still the Chosen People and who have a covenent with G-d that has never been revoked. I am perturbed by the revival of anti-semitism and anti-Zionism in some areas of the church, and we must all speak out and fight that wherever we find it. The People of Israel live!