Redstate

Leverkuhn,

It is hard to understand why Abe Foxman and the ADL, considering the overwhelming threat of radical islam to Jews, would be so critical of the Evangelicals, who are very supportive of Israel.  I find it refreshing and uplifting that a religious group like the evangelical Christians support Israel because they see it as a moral cause--that the return of the Jews to Zion is morally desirable.  The ADL has done much good in the past, so it is sad to see them so myopic on where the current threat to Jews and freedom lies.

Or is it just he?

Sadly, it is not just Foxman that is myopic (or if it is just him, it's infectious).

Politically speaking, American Jews are guilty of the same blind party allegiance that people like Foxman are more than happy to attribute to others (Evangelical Christians, perhaps?)(e.g. in my entire extended family, there are two known GOP voters:  myself, and my cousin).  As Leverkuhn pointed out, the danger now is that it prevents entire generations from realizing the true threats to their safety and security.

No cultural or political group in history has been better to the Jews than America's Christians, and while Foxman and many others are within their rights to disagree politically, to defame Christians and declare them the enemy is beyond damaging...it's downright pathological.

Foxman's recent statements cross the line, and his replacement can't come soon enough (not that his successor won't be more of the same).

And yes, they ARE the say Ten Commandments.

As an evangelical.  I am a Pentecostal Christian (one of those who goes to church more than once a week.)  Not only does our church recognize Israel, we believe that the Jews are God's chosen people.  Now granted, we are especially fond of the Jews for Jesus group and wish more people, Jews included, would come to know Christ personally.  But why in the world would they feel persecuted by a group of people that blatantly acknowledges them as God's chosen people.  I'll bet they'll never hear that from a Muslim.

Isn't it possible that the ADL is concerned about Muslim Jew-haters AND people trying to establish state religion in the US? It's not like an organization can focus on only one thing.

ergo I "they" (those in the ADL) are also myopic.

Foxman's statements represent a decisive shift in policy for the ADL.  Their main goal now is to resist the Christain "threat."

I'll never forget how dumbfounded I was the day I learned that there were Christians that did not try to win others to the faith.

Forget religion pre se, I am compelled to share ANY good news or insights with others. To not do so seems selfish and unnatural to me. And I dont resent others that try to convert me. Im flattered in fact and think much more of someone that cares enough and thinks the info important enough to tell me.

The gospel is the good news, literally, and the main cheese, Jesus commanded us to GO YE!

look, its all fine and good for folks to pick and choose bible verses they like and build a church, but dont call it christianity if you cant even follow the book where its clear.

but I digress

and the thing about christianity is that Jesus respects mans free will

no compulsion

maybe foxman thinks the messiah has come

I meant to say "Ergo, I think "they" ...

I hate it when that happens.

I'm just not that familiar with the ADL.  The leader's position seems very extreme and wacko to me.  I guess that makes the ADL and its membership extreme and wacko, too, unless they get right on the job of repudiating his words.

what does it mean for you to acknowledge Jews as God's chosen people? I mean, I understand what Jews themselves mean by it - they had a Covenant with God and are His favored children on Earth. But you speak from a Christian perspective where neccessarily Jews are not in the state of grace required to truly, in a religious sense, be God's Chosen. What does that status imply in your eyes?

God doesn't break promises.

of the dysfunction that is hurting all of us so badly.

We are in grave danger.

and all the transplanted New York Jews in Florida, that if Gore had beed elected President, Syria would still be in Lebanon, Saddam would be closer to lobbing bio weapons into Tel Aviv while paying off suicide killers' families, Libya would still be sponsoring terrorists, Israel would not have been greenlighted to blowup Iranian nuclear plants as soon as appropriate and Irael would still have be in Gaza because the above would not have happened. This guy is nothing more than another Donk hack of the type that have takren over the NAACP, Sierra Club, NEA and ACLU.

I certainly agree that Foxman's shift is noteworthy, and the strength of the rhetoric is curious.  But I must also admit that I don't see him worrying that Evangelical Christians are about to start bombing synagogues, beheading Jews, or spouting anti-Semitic slogans.  I would also guess (though I don't really know) that he values Evangelical Christian support for Israel.  By citing the poll results (even if they're nothing new), he seems more to be expressing worries about Constitutional protections on freedom of religion, a matter I can easily understand religious minorities caring about.  What am I missing?

which would probably involve giving him the boot, then I will gladly retract my statements about the organization itself.

For most Evangelicals, the idea that the Jews remain "God's chosen people" is intricately associated with the part of Evangelical theology that Jews find most noxious: the need for Jewish conversion to Christianity. Romans 9, which speaks of the Jewish branch being "grafted back into" the Christian Tree (i.e., the Christian church) is governing principle behind the missionary efforts that alternately amuse and exasperate the Jews.

However, there is a practical as well as a spiritual element to Evangelical doctrine concerning the Jews. Evangelicals are nothing if they are not literalists, an attribute they share with much of Orthodox Jewry. For them (I should say, for us), when God promised a homeland to the Israelites he made an immutable contract. Moreover, that contract refers to a very specific patch of land; the Jews can't trade Palestine for Buenos Aires or New York any more than the Palestinians can claim what has never, and can never, be theirs. It doesn't work that way.

As a side note, the establishment of a Jewish state in 1948 struck many Evangelicals at the time as an event of startling eschatological significance, contributing to an upsurge in apocalyptic literature in the second half of the 20th century. As a further side note, many of us are justifiably embarrassed by the more fanciful and speculative examples of that literature (not naming names here ... cough Jenkins ... cough LaHay). Even so there is a sadly predictable market for each new book/movie having something to do with the "End Times."

Re: "But I must also admit that I don't see him worrying that Evangelical Christians are about to start bombing synagogues, beheading Jews, or spouting anti-Semitic slogans."

Probably not. But that was never the point. The point is that there ARE people doing those things, and they are not Evangelicals. Moreover, if he is going to insinuate that Evangelicals are a threat to "Constitutional protections on freedom of religion" shouldn't he at least explain which policies of conservative evangelicals tend toward that objective? He does not. He leaves that vague, for the obvious reason that the points on which he and Ralph Reed are likely to disagree have little or nothing to do with actual constitutional rights.

Haven't Evangelical Christians killed Jews and burned Synagogues in the past?

The issue is political.  You would probably find widespread agreement across the political spectrum that you would be within your rights, as recognized by our laws, in making your witness to Mr. Foxman, and that he would be within his rights to ignore you.  So long as you never came to blows, say, you would both (in terms of civil law) be blameless.  That blamelessness may be a minor legal nicety compared to what's paramount, but if you seek to engage those that are "of the world" in a political forum, then it has real relevance (By the way, I'm assuming that's why we're all here.  If not, I'll just slip out by the side door).  

In the political arena, the question is quite different.  There is a large faction out there that hangs quite a bit on the Establishment Clause, and the fight they want to have is over the extent to which it restrains any religious group that they see as wanting to use the apparatus of the state (usually the public schools, but that's also what's behind the brouhaha over the Ten Commandments displays) to promote a religious agenda.  So if you want to undercut them, here are the points:

• Item X, Y, Z (prayer in school, particular choices for curriculum, that Ten Commandments display) is not an effort to use the apparatus of the state to promote a religious agenda  -- OR --
• Item X, Y, Z may have religious overtones, but it does not run afoul of the Establishment Clause.

I doubt Foxman would try to stop anyone from proselytizing privately, an activity that clearly enjoys the full protection of the First Amendment.  Foxman's fear seems to be that Evangelical Christians are trying to use the apparatus of the state in ways that violate the Establishment Clause (and are adverse to his objectives).  If they're adverse to his objectives, too bad.  The place to engage him, if we care to, is at the First Amendment.

in the past that has happened. It kind of depends on who you consider "evangelicals," but I suppose that some of the synagogues that were firebombed during the Civil Rights period were attacked by people who attended Evangelical churches.

But recently, no. The immediate threat comes from other quarters.

is to shout "terrorisim"?

I've looked into your comment history, and it is rather, let's just say, suggestive. I'm not an administrator, so I don't have the power to do anything about that, but I have composed a poem in your honor. I hope you like it.

    Little troll

    on the wall

    why do you scamper

    creep, and crall?

    Don't you know

    I have a shoe

    made just right

    for squishing you?

but only to a point.  True "trollisim" would involve derogatory comments about people , their character and motivations, purposefuly inflamatory remarks etc.  It would involve unwillingness to hear and credit opposing views.  

You'll find none of that in my comment history. You may find questions or comments that are not consistent with the view of the majority of posters here, but is that in and of itself, being a troll?  

If it is, the comment posting rules are not accurate.  

I also believe there is much to be said for conservatisim.  The question is how its defined, and to pursueu those goals.

because you deliberately employed the "straw man" technique. Nobody said "terrorism!" is the answer to everything. That was a snarky and petulant comment.

In the case of Foxman, it's fair to point out that he is devoting the considerable resources of the ADL to fight an enemy that poses no threat to Jews here, or anywhere else. Meanewhile, there is a very real threat to Jewry in the here, and everywhere. What Foxman proposes is to make war on his allies and ignore his enemies.

will withdraw the comment.  Terror is a serious issue and sometimes it seems that the concern about terror is used to obscure discussion of other things.  That's all.