One of the annoying things about some zealous Christians is their efforts to aggressively convert people. This is an article written by Jewish Rabbi Tovia Singer about the "Road to Jerusalem" conference.

I have to agree with the Rabbi on this. Its annoying.

Is aggressively converting people part of the Christian faith? Is it right to attempt to blur the lines between the two faiths?

No Jewish person has ever tried to convert me. I appreciate that.


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Christians Unite for the Conversion of the Jews
by Rabbi Tovia Singer

Convincing the Chosen People that we chose wrong.


Some of the men will be wearing yarmulkes, and the women, all modestly dressed, will be dancing in the isles to the rhythmic sound of an Israeli musical beat. Shouts of "Shabbat shalom!" will be heard as participants joyfully great each other under colorful banners filled with Hebrew words and Stars of David. If this all sounds like an upcoming Zionist convention, think again. And, although Jews who don't believe in Jesus are not invited, we are the subject of this entire symposium. Catholic priests aren't preparing to dress up like Chasidic rabbis in order to witness to yeshiva boys.

Are you Jewish and confused?

That is what participants of the upcoming "Road to Jerusalem" conference are hoping for. Converted Jews - so called "Messianics" - and prominent Gentile Christians are gathering in Virginia this coming weekend in order to unite their efforts to evangelize the world's unsaved Jews to Christianity.


At first glance, their banner headline "Bringing Peace & Reconciliation to Jews and Gentiles in Messiah" reads ecumenical enough. But the word "messiah" in this banner only means the Christian one, others need not apply. The folks attending this gathering are seeking to unite their efforts and target Jews for conversion.


Two of the speakers at the weekend conference, which begins on July 20, call themselves "Rabbi," but as you would suspect, neither of them attended a rabbinical school and one of them isn't even Jewish. The other speakers at the conference are heavy hitters in the Christian Zionist world who are seeking to place "Messianic Jews first" in their effort to bring the Jews to the Cross.


The Messianic movement, whose churches and membership have grown exponentially over the past three decades, seeks to blur the distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. They call Jesus "Yeshua," their churches "synagogues," and their ministers "rabbis," in order to lure vulnerable Jews who would otherwise reject a straightforward Christian message. To the horror of Jewish communities worldwide, it is an effort that has been enormously successful, and the cost in terms of Jewish souls is dear.


There were not many stellar moments in Jewish-Christian relations over the past month. Last week, Pope Benedict XVI issued a directive authorizing the use of an archaic Latin prayer service that includes a prayer for the conversion of the Jews. But the Catholics aren't planning to do much more than ask Jesus for help in removing "the veil from the hearts of the Jews" and overcoming their "blindness." They are just going to talk to Jesus about it, nothing else. They're not planning any workshops on how to convert their accountants, and Catholic priests aren't preparing to dress up like Chasidic rabbis in order to witness to yeshiva boys. The Vatican is taking a few steps back in time, but keeping it in the church.

The practitioners of evangelism to the Jews are aggressive spiritual predators.

The fundamentalist Protestants attending this week's conference, on the other hand, are doers. Their plan is to talk to Jesus in Virginia and then get out on the streets in major Jewish communities worldwide in an effort to convince the Chosen People that we chose the wrong religion.


The practitioners of evangelism to the Jews are aggressive spiritual predators who will stop at nothing to harvest Jews for the Cross. They may love our Jewish state, but they abhor our Jewish faith. And, although they consider Judaism defective, they will freely borrow from our Jewish symbols and traditions in order to set us straight on their narrow path to fundamentalist Christianity.


As Jews work with Christians in our effort to strengthen Israel, we must make it clear to our evangelical friends that our new-found relationship can only flourish on a firm foundation of genuine mutual respect and understanding. The repeated Christian proclamation, "We love the Jewish people," must include "and we respect your Jewish faith," in order for our two peoples to stand together for Zion's sake.

For Zions sake . . Hmmm, a controversial 3 words if ever ! And "spiritual-Predator", have never seen those 2 words adjacent before :)

Hahaha being a christian I would never push to convert anyone. The people that do have a lack of respect for other beliefs.

I have no time for religion and do not practice yet I bought three tiny little prayer type books (the size of a large postage stamp)for my three Grandchildren ....

That's really tiny. How do they read it? With a magnifying glass?

I guess that's where they coined the "Zionist" movement.

I think, to be fair, there are only a very small number of Christians that I know who try to convert others.

Other than those who go around knocking on doors.

Even if the so-called "Christians" managed to convert the entire world to "Christianity", that would only be the start of the real Holy Wars.

We already see this in the huge disagreement between Protestantism and Catholicism. Neither one of them consider the others to be "True Christians".

And just look at all the different Protestants denominations. You'll never get the Southern Baptists to agree with the Northern Amish, etc.

There are huge, and often quite drastic differences between the beliefs of various Protestant faiths.

If the whole world became "Christians" they wouldn't solve anything. All we would see at that point is all these so-called "Christians" pointing fingers at each other proclaiming that only one of them has the "True Interpretations" of scriptures and the other one is confused.

People have truly got to be kidding themselves if they think that there even is such a thing as "True Christianity".

All that exists are a myriad of disagreeing interpretations of extremely confused, obscure, and ambiguous ancient fables.

There truly is no such thing as "Christianity" really.

If there were, it would have to be Catholicism. All the Protestants have done nothing more than PROTEST against the "TRUE Christianity" of Catholicism.

"True" in the sense that it's the only form of Christianity that has any historical merit at all. Not "true" in the sense that it has any genuine truth to it in a cosmic or spiritual sense.

But trust me on this,.... if the whole world were converted to "Christianity" that would just become DAY ONE of the "Protestant-Catholic" holy wars.

And if the Protestants managed to win that battle the next war would be the Protestants versus the Protestants.

It would have to come down to the last man standing. And he would be standing there screaming to a DEAD PLANET,....

"My interpretations WIN!"

In our town it would be the Southern Baptists against the Methodists.


I was listening earlier to a Jewish Rabbi sermon on line and he talked about how a single word in a Bible verse could be changed and that could change the entire meaning and interpretation of what it meant.

So interpretations could be, and are, completely opposite from what they were supposed to mean. Do that a few times, (and there have been many translations) and there is no way anyone can know how to interpret the Bible.

I confess I might have told a wee white lie there I have just measured one and is measures 2 1/4 inches by 1 1/2 inches

at least the Amish only cut off each others Beards!

This is the part I feel is the deception. Its the way these Christians are specifically targeting Jews and calling their ministers "Rabi's" and their churches "synagogues" and Jesus "Yeshua."

Its a very confusing cross between Christianity and Judaism. Yet it is Christianity, NOT Judaism.

It would be like me starting my own church, wearing a habit and calling myself a nun while worshiping the goddess of the moon.

But I guess its a free country. I think I'll order my habit. Or maybe a priest's collar and a black suit. With a skirt of course. Or a nun's habit with a collar. A cross between a Priest and a nun!

Wow what a great idea. That will really annoy those Southern Baptists.

For a long time, I've wondered if the most aggressive of these 'aggressive spiritual predators' were merely people with acute cases of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Consider: they've made a pact with an entity whom, when they gaze into the pool, tells them they are created in his image.

This alone empowers them to do pretty much what they want because as the Chosen, they will receive unlimited forgiveness for their trepasses against the people who have not made said pact.

It also empowers them to, with a straight face, tell their neighbors how they MUST live. Nevermind that said neighbors are people of great principle and have excellent human values and empathy.

Some make a big show of feeling sorry for the poor Unbeliever who is damned to hell, but many times, you can tell by the haughty posturing that it's _really_ just Schadenfreud being manifested.

Watch the big-time TV preachers sometime-- far from being creatures existing in sackcloth-and-ashes humility, they live the lives of Keeping-Up-the-Joneses, and arrogantly preach 'The One Truth' from their pulpits high above the mere mortals, for when they are there, they probably would tell you they are a conduit for the Almighty Himself.

I've always liked this passage from Gibran:




-Kerry O.

For me, that's the single most annoy negative aspect of religious proselyting and "evangelism".

It's really not about higher moral values at all. Not in the least.

All it's about it degrading and refusing to respect the moral values of other people simply because they haven't officially joined and supported a specific religious cult.

"What? You haven't acknowledged that Jesus is Lord and Savior and that our interpretations of what that entails are correct? You are a sinner and the scum of the Earth!"

I mean really. These religious sects feel that way about each other. The Christians, Muslims, and Jews love each other about as much as Dogs, cats, and mice love each other.

The Catholics and Protestants fight like rabid wolves. And Protestants renounce each others interpretations.

All it basically comes down to are haughty religious zealous accusing everyone who doesn't support their version of a religion as being "immoral".

And they even "harass" highly moral people simply because they those people are either atheists, or view spirituality in a totally different way.

It's basically comes down to, "If you don't accept my religion I judge you to be ungodly".

That's all truly amounts to.

There is no such thing as "Christianity", or "Islam" or "Judaism" for that matter. All that exists are human opinions and views that people attach to these labels and then use these labels to judge the morality of others.

When will this ever stop?

Aggressive Spiritual Predation should truly be recognized as emotional terrorism. Freedom to believe in a religion is one thing, freedom to emotionally terrorize other people with it is a totally different matter.

The proselytizing of religion by accusing people of being "sinners" or implying that some God will reject them or harm them in any way if they fail to succumb to the religion should be outlawed.

Invitations to be "evangelized" are one thing. But aggressive plots designed to evangelize unsuspecting people is nothing short of an ambush of emotional terrorism.

Inviting people to "come" to a religion is ok. But trying to coerce people to join a religion by threatening them that some God will ultimately harm them if they refuse to join, is truly nothing less than mental and emotional coercion.

It doesn't do anyone any good and is a detriment to humanity in general.

I have never known any spiritual predators. I know many Christians who believe they need to share the Gospel with everyone, but not a one who would keep talking if I said "stop". Yes, I've had plenty of Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and Baptists at my door. But, none who kicked in my door or refused to leave when I said, "no, thanks."

I don't resent them for telling me I will burn in hell if I don't believe in X,Y or Z because I DON'T believe this. I never understood why people would get mad at someone for this. One of my friends gets furious at Christians because "They believe I am going to hell!" Well, who cares? It's like she believes it's going to be true because they say it is.

I think the anger stems from a time in the past where a person may have believed what they said, or may have cared what other people thought.

I resented being fooled, or having faith in the authority who I know now lied to me. I am speaking about my own parents who lied to me about Santa Claus. I was intelligent enough not to believe in that myth, but I chose to have faith and for a very short time I believed simply because I did not think my own parents would purposely lie to me. I had faith. I believed on pure faith against my better logic.

When the Biblical lie was presented, they didn't have a chance.

Now, like you Ruth, I don't care what anyone believes of me. I know who I am.

But specifically I'm not sure how I feel about churches who call Jesus "Yeshua," their churches "synagogues," and their ministers "rabbis."

Is that deception or some sort of protest?

I became ordained by the on-line Universal Life Church as a kind of protest that makes a statement that I believe. I believe that each person is a minister unto themself and can have a ministry without the blessing and approval of some organization who may not approve of you or your beliefs.

I truly believe in the Universal Life Church ministry that grants legal ministry status to anyone. I understand how this may mock or attempt to devalue a minister who spent years learning from some religious organization to achieve some status.

But I feel that all people do have equal access to God, and all people have free will and the right to their own beliefs and that includes the right to their own ministry.

But for some reason I don't feel comfortable with Christians calling their churches "synagogues," and their ministers "rabbis." I think that serves to confuse people.

I dont know if someone can be a 'predator' without seeking others out. Churches and conferences dont really fit that idea,, IMHO.

I also dont think that 'respecting' has to involve agreeing with. So if one is a vegan who doesnt eat any meat by products and another is another is a vegetarian,, the vegan can respect the vegetarian's choice to be a vegetarian but will probably still believe it is not as 'healthy' a choice as being vegan.


other than that, I agree that trying to 'force' faith will never work. I think witnessing involves mostly being an example and speaking inspiration to those who might not otherwise hear it.

I have met vegans and I find their beliefs to be almost like a religion. My experience has been that they judge non-vegans ruthlessly and are always trying to convert people to their life style. I respect their choice, but they don't respect mine.

I feel very uncomfortable around them when it comes to eating.

In my town, many people I run across go to some Christian church and their life centers around their church activities and their religious beliefs. While they openly discuss their religion and beliefs, I feel uncomfortable mentioning that I have a tarot card deck because I know that there are some who judge me as a witch for such things and I don't want to alienate people or make them uncomfortable around me.

Yet I feel patronizing and stifled at times that I cannot talk openly about my non-church approved lifestyle.

I don't want to be a crusader for secular lifestyle, or tarot cards etc. nor do I want to pretend that I believe as they do. So I just politely keep quiet most of the time.

Of course this is a small town. I'm sure most of them have me pegged as some kind of pagan.

Exactly.

I don't really care what people think about me today. I know who I am.

Like Jeannie, as a young person I had faith in people who lied to me. Moreover, I personally feel that the religion in general had a negative and harmful affect on my life back at a time when that had a major impact on how my future would unfold.

So, as far as I'm concerned the religion (and more correctly, the social affects of the religion) had a quite negative impact on my life which I could have done without, thank you very much.

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So I speak out on behave of people, who today, are in the position I was in many years ago.

I have since learned why the lies hold no truth. So I'm in a position to point that out. Something I didn't have the ability to do when I was younger.