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News

Old Testament, What?

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In case anybody was worried, Jews for Jesus are alive and kicking in L.A. I chanced upon the above gem as I was walking across the UCLA campus last night – the placement of which, it turns out, is (surprise!) no coincidence:

“You will find us Jews for Jesus out on the streets and on college campuses handing out our gospel tracts… It is all part of our Jews for Jesus commitment to remain visible, vulnerable and available as we maintain direct Jewish evangelism as our priority.” – Jews for Jesus website, www.jewsforjesus.org

Nothing like a little targeted evangelism, especially from “Jews” to Jews. Yes, in case it was unclear, Jews for Jesus are people who claim to be Jewish and believe that Christ is the messiah. I have no problem with people’s personal religious beliefs, but, call me crazy -- when their website says things like, “Apart from Christ and the power of His Spirit, we can do nothing. Yet we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us,” I wonder if maybe they aren’t just …Christian.

In any case, I found my run-in with Jews for Jesus particularly poignant as the always lovely Ann Coulter today made headlines for saying, on the air, that Jews need to be “perfected” – as, she explains, Christians have been.

I realize that the Coulters of the world are for the most part glorified shock-jocks, and that Ann has all but proven herself to be certifiably insane. But as long as she and her ilk are given airtime and I have to waste my time trying to ignore them, maybe incorporated missions whose stated purpose is, “We exist to make the messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide,” should be a little more careful about their paraphernalia.

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