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Revision as of 11:18, 7 January 2004 by Davidcannon (talk | contribs) (Hyperlink added)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Jews for Jesus is an Evangelical Protestant organization founded in 1973 by Moishe Rosen, an ordained Baptist minister, with a goal of converting Jews to a belief in Christianity. It is a well-known form of "messianic Judaism".
Their official mission statement is "to make the messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide," and the organization claims to be "one of the most extensive evangelistic outreaches to Jewish people in the world today." They have also sent their members to the Ukraine and Russia.
According to its Executive Director, Jews for Jesus has many non-Jews in administrative and staff positions but deploys "only front-line missionaries who are Jewish or married to Jews." However, some of the missionaries identify themselves as Jewish when in fact only their spouse, father, or grandfather is Jewish, so many of their missionaries would not be considered Jews in the communities they evangelize.
Jews for Jesus is rejected as un-Jewish by Orthodox, Conversative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Judaism and even by other messianic Jewish groups. Its critics charge that Jews for Jesus is Jewish in name only due to the organization's lack of Torah observance and a statement of faith indistinguishable from those of other Evangelical para-church groups.
Jews for Jesus is a member of numerous evangelical Christian groups such as:
World Evangelical Alliance, Canadian Council for Christian Charities, Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain, Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability, Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism, National Association of Evangelicals, The Internet Evangelism Coalition and the World Evangelical Fellowship Jews for Jesus actively seeks money from Christians to fund their organization and specifically recruits Christians to work in their agency. See also:
- Messianic Jews - a general synopsis of the Messianic Movement
- B'nai Noach
- Comparing and contrasting Judaism and Christianity