c. 1996 Religion News Service

(RNS)-We Jews have a hard time with Jesus, and for good reason. For 2,000 years, Christians have been trying to convert us, at times with much bloodshed, usually ours.

Still, I see no reason to get worked up over the Southern Baptist Convention’s recent decision to appoint a missionary whose task is to oversee the denomination’s efforts to convert Jews.

Winning converts is exactly what evangelical Christians who take their faith seriously are supposed to do. Moreover, it’s what Southern Baptists have almost always done.

Larry Lewis, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Mission Board, explained that the denomination first appointed a missionary to evangelize American Jews in 1921. Eight years ago, the post became vacant through retirement, and was then eliminated for financial reasons.

The decision to reinstate it now, Lewis said, came about because of an improved financial outlook. Equally important was the return to the United States of Jim Sibley, who will lead the new mission effort. Sibley spent the last 13 years working to convert Jews as a Southern Baptist missionary in Israel.

American Jews are now among more than 100″ethnic”groups officially targeted for conversion by Southern Baptists. Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians are among the others. Southern Baptists consider anyone who is not an evangelical-including members of some Christian denominations-as in need of evangelization.

Yet American Jewish leaders have largely responded to the Baptists’ decision with alarm, as if they alone have been targeted for elimination.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles reacted with”shock and horror.”The American Jewish Committee called the move”an extreme form of spiritual arrogance.”B’nai B’rith called it”a thoroughly retrograde step in relations between Southern Baptists and Jews”-ignoring the fact that official relations between Southern Baptist leaders and the Jewish community are virtually nonexistent.

Such reactions are predictable. Jews, given their history of persecution and forcible conversion, are particularly sensitive to being evangelized, and widespread acceptance in America has not healed that psychic wound.

Ironically, it has created new concerns. Along with acceptance has come assimilation and the loss of a traditional religious connection for millions of American Jews-leaving many of them hungry for spiritual ties and ripe for conversion.

But 1996 America is not 1492 Spain. We’re not talking about forcible conversion.

Contemporary America is a religious free-trade zone where every faith-from the most sublime to the most ridiculous-has the right to promote its worldview. Even so esteemed an American Jewish leader as Rabbi Alexander Schindler, the recently retired president of Reform Judaism’s Union of American Hebrew Congregations, has suggested that Jews should seek converts among non-Jews.”Judaism has an enormous amount of wisdom and experience to offer to our troubled world, and we Jews ought to be proud to proclaim it with fervor and pride,”Schindler said in 1993, adding that Jews historically sought converts but stopped the practice when the cultures in which they lived as a minority reacted with outrage. Sound familiar?

The only issue that should concern Jewish leaders about the Southern Baptist position is deception. According to traditional Judaism, one ceases to be a Jew once formal adoption of another faith occurs. Belief in Jesus as the Messiah, according to the entire spectrum of mainstream Judaism, constitutes formal conversion.

That all-important distinction is often not fully appreciated by Christians. They wonder why Jews who profess atheism are still considered Jews, while Jews who profess belief in Jesus are not.

But Christians who say that Jews can believe in Jesus and yet remain Jews are, according to mainstream Judaism, being deceptive.

But rather than worry about what Southern Baptists are up to, Jewish leaders would do better to concentrate on creating”intentional Jews”-Jews who take their faith as seriously as Southern Baptist leaders take theirs. Jews who are knowledgeable about their faith and are spiritually nourished by it will not be easily converted.

In the wake of Sibley’s appointment and the Southern Baptist Convention’s resolution on strengthening Jewish evangelism, most Jewish groups have reacted emotionally. But not all.

Phil Baum, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, said the nation’s diversity of religious belief”is testimony to the poignant struggle human beings have had in trying to define a proper relationship to their God.”Some believe their religious viewpoint alone constitutes truth and therefore have a duty to share it with the world, he said. “They have a right to believe it,”Baum continued.”We have a right to disbelieve it. The First Amendment accords them the right to try to sell their notion of exclusive access to God. It accords us the right to say that view is misguided, and that no matter how we try to make allowances, it smacks of offensive doctrinal arrogance.” That sounds like a pretty good recipe for religious pluralism. Let Baptists practice their version of Christianity and let Jews practice Judaism. And may the theological tensions that result serve to sharpen each group’s understanding of God.

MJP END RIFKIN