Making the Task More Difficult (Part Two)

While this post is a couple of days later than promised, and probably longer than you might have expected, this blog is now prepared to give you my review of Good Will for the Common Good:  Nurturing Baptists’ Relationship with Jews (both the DVD and related materials).  The reason for the delay is simple, this post needed to thought out, carefully considered, and completely without sugar-coating.

Part one of this article “Making the Task More Difficult describes the incredible difficulty that Jewish evangelism faces when we are forced to respond to such arguments.   What creates even more struggle in writing a proper response is that one often simply does not know where to begin.

Do we begin by noting the inconsistencies of the theological arguments?  Do we note the fallacious statements that are made about those who advocate Jewish missions?  Do we note some of the direct quotations made by those who see no need to reach Jewish people with the Gospel message that was first for them?  Where to begin is the question that created this struggle and delay in posting a response?  Therefore, this post will begin by answering these very questions.

First, and after a careful viewing of the DVD and reading of the study guides (student and teacher) along with the recommended reading materials, the theological underpinning of their arguments is shaky to say the least.  The two mantras of the DVD are goodwill and loving your neighbor.  Excellent concepts in the abstract but the DVD attempts to pigeon-hole the reality of these concepts into their mold that creates a barrier to sharing the Gospel with Jewish people.  They will say that it to share the truth of Jesus’s Messiahship with His brothers and sisters is not an example of goodwill or loving your neighbor.  However, it must be asked about whether you can truly exhibit goodwill and neighborly love if you fail to share with them the only way to a relationship with God the Father and an eternity in heaven (John 14:6; Acts 4:12)?  The teacher’s guide for the DVD encourages the facilitators to encourage the class to respond with words that “result in good for everyone”; however is this possible if the Jewish people do not hear the Words of Life from those who profess to believe in Jesus?  One of the DVD recommended articles for the teacher to read before class states the opinion of one San Antonio pastor (not the one you are thinking but another one!) who describes the belief of the uniqueness and exclusivity of salvation through Jesus as “insidious”.  In fact, this pastor closes this article with this statement:

As God’s people — Jews and Christians and Muslims — let us see the community of faith as a centered set rather than a closed set.  Let us see the true and living God as the center, a center of love and unity, and all the peoples of the world who seek to love and serve God as moving toward that holy, burning center.

In addition to the theological problems created by the DVD, the work is also guilty of casting aspersions on proponents of mission work to the Jewish people.  Al Mohler is capable of defending himself as he is still alive.  However, to challenge the life and work of Jacob Gartenhaus is not acceptable and this post will explain why.

Jacob Gartenhaus was born in Europe and appeared to be destined for the life of a wealthy man.  An unexpected illness and a personal encounter with Jesus changed the direction of his life forever.  Gartenhaus was disowned by his family, beaten for his faith, and ultimately disappointed by many of his Christian family.  He was educated at Moody Bible Institute and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  He was a clarion voice of warning to Southern Baptists during the war years about the atrocities of Hitler’s Europe.  He left the SBC, even after serving for almost 30 years with the Home Mission Board, due to the fact that the convention failed to listen to his warnings about the deaths of millions of European Jews and their failure to become invested spiritually in the work of Jewish evangelism.  He left the mission board and began his own ministry which still exists even almost 25 years after his death in 1984.  The work of Jewish evangelism within the SBC stagnated (i.e., died a slow death) until some moments of life were found beginning in the 1980s.

 This DVD and its corresponding materials accuses Gartenhaus of deceptive tactics and describes the work of Gartenhaus and other as “the unsavory world of Jewish evangelism.”  Nothing could have been further from the truth as Gartenhaus was the only voice in the 1920s and 1930s within the SBC world calling for not only physical but spiritual protection of God’s Chosen People.

Finally, and in response to the third question, direct quotations from the DVD and its related materials should suffice to illustrate the dangerous and dual covenantal path this work wants the Christian world to tread.

But saying “Ours is the only way” is a statement of faith.  It is a belief that we hold in our hearts and practice in our lives.  Hopefully our commitment to our belief will deeply impact the quality of our lives and the integrity of our relationships.  And, if we are right [emphasis mine], then one day we will enjoy the fruits of eternal life and the bliss of god’s blessings forever.

[From student's guide] Besides that, Jesus did not counsel us to impose our faith or dominate the faith conversation by marginalizing those who differ from us.  Jesus said tha we would be known by the way we love God and our neighbor.

[From student's guide] I know that there are those who teach there is only one way to God.  I have to wonder for the sake of peace and security if I shouldn’t defend the path of another as legitimate as my own, even if that path diverges from the path most familiar and comfortable for me.

[From student's guide] No one wants watered-down Judaism or watered-down Christianity, just to make them look more alike.  Jews and Christians do indeed worship the same God and ascribe authority to shared writings, but we also understand God’s redemption and revelation in starkly different terms.  This is difference, not failure. [emphasis mine]

In conclusion, and you could probably recognize this fact, this post could have gone on for pages as a multitude of examples were not given.  Only the highlights could suffice.  The work of reaching out to the Jewish world with the Gospel is already difficult.  Works such as this DVD and related materials only make the task more difficult.  However, the work must not stop as the task is too great and the time is too short to do anything else.

For while the DVD and related materials offered ample material for criticism, there is one section I agreed with, albeit with a different intepretation than they intended.  The teacher’s guide described the four principles of courage as (1) doing “right actions”; (2) seizing “opportunities”; (3) acting with “proper motives”; and (4) doing “the will of God”.  And the most courageous action (involving those four principles) you can undertake today is to share the Gospel of Messiah Jesus with a Jewish person (Rom. 1:16).