David Brickner, Director
Jews for Jesus
Dear David,
I just got yours of the 22nd, having returned from Lebanon yesterday afternoon. I am of course always pleased to slog out issues like these, since that must be done to work the reconciliation of Christ in any situation, and so I was pleasantly surprised to hear from you. Indeed, I will post it on my website if you want, together with this word to you, and, if you like, any response you may wish to give.
Your response confirms to me your failure to understand the requirements of the gospel Jesus preached, foreseen in the prophets before Him. You've "tried very hard to avoid" taking a political position concerning Israel and the Palestinians because the "only hope for peace is found" in Jesus. This statement reveals that your Jesus reconciles people without speaking truth to power, in order that people should have an easier time believing in Him. This is not the Jesus revealed in the gospels, the Jesus of the apostolic gospel He sends us to proclaim.
We will see the reconciling power of the gospel, as you say, "when Arabs and Jews love one another in Jesus' name," but in the gospels and the prophets peace is made only by speaking hard truth to iniquity, thereby inviting persecution, as we read in Matthew 5. Since you understand and have frequently made this point regarding Christians who make nice instead of proclaiming truth about Jesus to Jews, in order to make peace by their truthless niceness, for you not to understand this point is simply inexcusable.
Jesus did not tell people to just believe in Him, figuring that once they did so the details of their iniquity could be addressed afterward, as you and most other Christians I know seem to suppose. In fact, He said a few things upfront in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and finished by saying that you just have to do the stuff, and not just say, "Lord, Lord." That was His gospel - should it not be yours?
You state your belief that my perspective has been shaped by what I've been seeing in the media. Of course that's true, if you mean that it is through various electronic and print media that I am even aware that things have been happening there. But it looks like you're saying I'm deceived in some way by misinformation, without specifying how. What purpose can such a contentless accusation serve but to try to make me feel vaguely insecure and to shut up. Where I am deceived about the situation, be specific!
You remind me that the government of Israel is comprised of unbelievers, but your conclusion that we should leave them unrebuked because we should not expect righteousness of them does not follow. Nineveh, Babylon, Edom, Moab, Ammon, and various others are all commanded to repent by the prophets - how much more should that apply to an ostensibly Jewish government!
My occasion for withdrawing support from you was your promoting a book which claims that the land belongs to the Jews and not to its Arab inhabitants, because the Jews are special and should therefore receive our special support for their real estate claims. But as soon as their misbehavior comes up, these same Jews suddenly become like any other unbelievers, and no better should be expected of them. Did you learn this hypocrisy from Scripture?
It's nice that some of your best friends are Palestinians, but "some of my best friends are Jews" has never excused those who keep silent when Jews are treated as Jews treat Palestinians today. I've not drawn the conclusion as you assert that Jews for Jesus supports all the actions of the Israeli government, but you have made it quite clear that Jews for Jesus considers it expedient to remain silent as others remained silent when Jews were treated as they now choose to do to others - thus holding in utter contempt their parents who endured such things. Jews for Jesus considers it expedient to remain silent while Jews rob the Palestinians of drinking water to fill their swimming pools - knowing well as you do the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16), in which Jesus plainly declared that those who disbelieve the prophets in this way will not believe even though Jesus should rise from the dead. Jews for Jesus finds it expedient to remain silent as Jews wage war against fruit trees and agricultural land (Deuteronomy 20:19-20)), specifically defying Moses at this point. If, as Jesus says, they will not believe Jesus even if he rises from the dead, so long as they disbelieve the prophets and the Law, does it not follow that to bring about faith in the real Jesus you must confront their unbelief in the prophets and the Law?
My conversation last week in Marjaoun with a Hizbollah man in a fairly responsible position may illustrate my point. He asked me how I felt about the Palestinians and Israel, and I answered thus:
Who has what rights based on what happened 4000 years ago or 2000 years ago could never be solid enough to really settle anything for anybody; it's what Paul the apostle said about endless genealogies. But beyond dispute, whatever is done by anybody must conform to these three principles: 1) Do justice, 2) Love mercy, 3) Walk humbly with your God. If it doesn't agree with these three, whoever you are, you can't do it.
He agreed with that heartily. I therefore drew from this that Israel simply can't continue occupying and oppressing the Palestinians and call themselves Jews. Supposing Israel has been promised this land, that doesn't allow them to violate these three principles in order to possess it. At the same time Israelis also live here and you just can't tell them to leave either.
He then brought up the right of return for Palestinians and, "Would you accept ANY compensation not to go back to your home?" I allowed that I might have to, if the only alternative in making things right was to do other things wrong - sometimes you can't fix a mess without making more mess, as we see in the case of black people wanting compensation for slavery. And the Sudeten Germans aren't going back to Czechoslovakia. Finally, there are 3-year-olds running around in Israel: can you throw them out in the street if it's wrong for Sharon to do that to Palestinian 3-year-olds?
That look appeared on his face that shows up on any human face as truth is received - unlike Sharon, the Hizbollah man is unwilling to mess with any three-year-old.
Now I didn't explicitly bring up Jesus, and of course we didn't iron out the details of a solution to all this. And his political position may well be unchanged. But, while I learned from him, he received Biblical truth from a disciple of Jesus: a tiny instance of teaching the nations whatever Jesus has taught me (Matthew 28:19-20). Barriers to further truth are perhaps lower. From how Jesus did it, we see that teaching the things He has taught us (v.20) is not supposed to wait for them to believe and be baptized - they come to believe by our showing them beforehand in word and deed what a disciple of Jesus believes and does.
At this point, you're where anti-abortion groups would be should certain people begin on a large scale to shoot abortionists and blow up clinics. To avoid taking a position would implicitly endorse those activities. By keeping silent and waffling, you are likewise implicitly endorsing the utter betrayal of everything Jewish by the Jews of Israel. You are presenting the gospel as a mere belief in a name, devoid of ethical content - precisely what Jesus rebuked in Matthew 7, and what no prophet of Israel ever stood for. To be Jewish is, as Paul made clear, to know that to worship God in the spirit and to do justice are in fact one thing (Micah 6:8, Phil. 3:3) - a point made often and in many ways before him by the prophets of Israel. Accordingly, your silence at Israel's abominable conduct (and probable silent agreement in part) is neither Jewish nor "for Jesus." And so for now, I must wait for you to live up to your name, to be indeed, Jews for Jesus.
Your brother,
Peter Attwood