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| == Stuff taken out == | |||
| I removed some parts that were quite wildly not neutral. I feel bad about just throwing text away, so here it is: --] (]) 22:00, 18 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ====== | |||
| If needed, {{oldid|Talk:Jews_for_Jesus|315032592|Apoc2400's deletions may be reviewed via this oldid link to this Talk page}} ] (]) 22:31, 22 June 2011 (UTC)] | |||
| ===Discussion about my changes=== | |||
| I was reverted by A Sniper. Please explain. --] (]) 22:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| :You call a purge of so much material justified? ] (]) 22:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| :: Yes, since the material was not neutral and doesn't belong in this article. This article was (still is) a complete hit piece, which is not acceptable. --] (]) 23:14, 18 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| :::You have re-written the entire article, which was created by a group of editors of varying backgrounds. Your changes were not just minor ones but removing entire sections, total re-writes, and all under the guise of removal of POV - and your re-write smacks of it. Why not try editing a section at a time and allowing for the usual editors to get around to consensus? Best, ] (]) 05:29, 19 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::Yes, I made big changes and this article will need more. Do you really think the article was written from a neutral point of view? Also, I think you are aware of ]. --] (]) 19:14, 19 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Please review ]. Your edits were '''bold''', they were '''revert'''ed; now let's '''discuss''' them. Please '''do not''' start an edit war. — ] {{toolbar|separator=dot|] | ] }} 19:36, 19 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::You cannot just revert "per BRD". You have to give a reason for reverting. Reverting with a reference to edit warring is just hypocritical. I ask again, do you think the version you are reverting to is neutral? --] (]) 21:38, 19 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::I put ] at the Neutral point of view noticeboard. --] (]) 22:14, 19 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::Good for you. Best, ] (]) 23:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::Please, do you think all the POV pushing I removed actually belongs in the article? BRD does not mean you should revert without any reason. --] (]) 00:23, 20 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| :::::::::As respected editor ] has stated, you were bold and you were reverted. Now, if you'd like to take one section at a time, giving other editors the opportunity to agree, refute or expand, fair enough. All editors can have the chance to support or to challenge. However, your stating what you have at the neutrality page begs the question as to whether you yourself have an agenda. I myself am hoping your attempt was in ]. Even members of Jews for Jesus acknowledge that they are Christians and that all denominations of Judaism reject that they are practising a form of Judaism. That isn't ''opinion'' - it is established fact. So is the provocative nature of their ministry, which can also be referenced without being POV. Yes, the article isn't perfect but it does not warrant a complete purging. Best, ] (]) 00:45, 20 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::::::I think you raise some good questions, Apoc2400, concerning whether this article strikes an appropriate balance and achieves NPOV. May I ask that any substantive discussions be postponed until Monday? Some of the editors who may be interested in participating are precluded from using their computers during their observance of the Jewish New Year this weekend. Thank you. — ] {{toolbar|separator=dot|] | ] }} 03:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC) | |||
| ==very unfair, non neutral article== | |||
| Jews for judaism is allowed to advertise on the Jews for Jesus page but on the Jews for judaism page they can't even talk rationally about Jesus. here's some advice it's this kind of bias in mainstream judaism against christianity that Jews are tired of. everyone knows what the torah says, christians made it the most printed book in history, many jews don't see a conflict between it and yeshua translated iesous translated Jesus. some jews let the talmud (any logical, honest individual can see obvious problems with it when compared to the torah) and people who hate christians for other reasons (based on emotional, irrational behavior planted in them from another person within the Jewish community) dictate to them what it means to Jewish. others don't. | |||
| Jews for Jesus whether it is an outreach or not will always exist because Jews who take an interest in Jesus are ostrtacized, rejected, persecuted, by not only their communities but their families. Jews for Jesus gives them a place they can fellowship with other Jews who have gone through the same thing. shame on judaism for its treatment of people who accept the most famous Jew in history whose resurrection even non Christian historians have a hard time denying. | |||
| :may i suggest people who oppose Jews for Jesus (any member of Judaism who considers a belief in Jesus to take away a persons Jewishness) be unable to remove information that supports the organization. this is analogous to a muslim taking control of the page on judaism. | |||
| ] (]) 16:40, 31 October 2009 (UTC)GRMIKE | |||
| ::Shouldn't the ] article be compared to the ] article, rather than the ] article? ] (]) 18:54, 1 November 2009 (UTC) | |||
| A ] article on Jews for Jesus will contain complete coverage of opposition to the organizations activities. I think the article is reasonably well balanced. ] ] 20:00, 1 November 2009 (UTC) | |||
| I agree that the opposition section of this article is highly unbalanced and anti-Jews for Jesus. If Jews for Jesus wish to call themselves Jews, that is their prerogative. It is highly bigoted and xenophobic to say that someone who considers themselves a Jew is not a Jew. It is just like certain evangelicals saying that Mormons are not Christian. I would also point out that certain denominations of Christianity cling to certain Jewish beliefs, such as celebrating the Jewish holidays (including Sukkot), refusing to celebrate Christmas and Easter, following the Jewish dietary laws, and following the practice of unleavened bread during Passover. I would point to Armstrongism and 7th Day Adventists as two examples. Neither of those articles contains a criticism section where major Christian denominations denounce them as non-Christian. The criticism section of this article is skating very close to bigotry, xenophobia, and racism, which is a violation of Misplaced Pages policies. --] (]) 04:19, 28 July 2019 (UTC) | |||
| ==too much of the article deals with its opposition== | |||
| opposition to it within the Christian community is sparse if not non existent. | |||
| on the page for Judaism is half the article about opponents to Judaism ? this is obvious hijacking of an article. this page deserves better. | |||
| ] (]) 17:37, 1 November 2009 (UTC)grmike | |||
| :I think the included information probably belongs in the article if ] is followed. The activities of Jews for Jesus are not a minor issue to Jews and that needs to be made plain if there is to be complete coverage of the subject. ] ] 19:57, 1 November 2009 (UTC) | |||
| Though I have little interest in this article (I only checked it out, because Rosen, who I had met, recently died), I must concur that it is extremely unbalanced,, and deficient of encyclopedic content. If there were an award for worst article on wikipedia, this definitely be a candidate: | |||
| * The sections on lawsuits warrants a brief paragraph, not a detailed enumeration of every legal action. | |||
| * There in absolutely no information about the History of the organization, which should be largest section in the article | |||
| * The Background section, is really just polemic against the organization, which misrepresents opinion as fact. | |||
| * The section on leadership misrepresents Brickner's background (his father was Jewish, and his mother's father and her maternal grandmother were Jewish, making him fully Jewish according to Jewish law (plus many people identified as Jews on wikipedia have Gentile mothers). | |||
| * The the method's of evangelism section, is worded as such, for the purpose of inferring that Jews for Jesus, intentionally uses manipulative and deceptive tactics. | |||
| * The list of references is overkill to the extreme and does not enhance the article | |||
| These issues need to be addressed before this can be considered a valid article. Otherwise it should be deleted. | |||
| -] (]) 00:43, 7 June 2010 (UTC) | |||
| I have addressed some of these concerns. Check out the article now. ] (]) 23:47, 21 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| ==Christian support== | |||
| I added a mention of that to the intro. Obviously many Christians do support them, giving money, letting them speak in churches, etc. More of this could be documented in the article. I am neutral. I think both Judaism and Christianity are good religions. ] (]) 14:24, 13 September 2010 (UTC) | |||
| This article is so biased, so slanted against Jews for Jesus, and is so obviously critical in its contents that I'm not sure it can be fixed. I appears that efforts were made to dredge up every critical comment available and quote it as a source. If you're going to list comments from detractors, how about at least listing Jew for Jesus responses to the criticism? Incidentally, I'm not a Jew for Jesus, and, in fact, have considerable disagreements with their theology. This is supposed to be an encyclopedic source, not an editorial column. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 02:32, 25 October 2010 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> | |||
| :Since there are so many complaints about this article, but A Sniper has pushed on this Talk page for incremential fixes to this pages' NPOV problem, I'm therefore trying to show who more specifically believes what, which I've seen help NPOV on other pages, my favorite example being ]). In particular, I've noticed that the "Christian oposition" cited in this article is largely (if not entirely) Liberal, and therefore this is a fight between Liberals and Conservatives, not Christianity as a whole vs Jews for Jesus. Will you help? Thanks! ] (]; Please also see ]) 17:41, 14 June 2011 (UTC) | |||
| I have addressed some of these concerns. Check out the article now. ] (]) 23:49, 21 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| == evangelism vs. evangelical vs. evangelistic == | |||
| Zad68 asked for clarification in the edit, asking "noun is 'evangelism', isn't the adjective form 'evangelical', not 'evangelistic'? there are 2 attempts to use an adjective form of 'evangelism' in the lede, they should match one way or the other". These are 3 words used 4 ways: | |||
| *evangelism (noun) is the act of attempting to convert another to your point of view | |||
| *evangelical (adjective) describes a person or activity that does evangelism | |||
| *Evangelical (noun) refers to a group of Christian denominations that practice evangelism as a core doctrine | |||
| *evangelistic (adjective) describes an activity conducted to support evangelism --] (]) 16:26, 5 November 2010 (UTC) | |||
| ==Tags== | |||
| An editor wandered in and did a drive-by tag with several ''reasons'' for concern about the article, although none of these was fully explained or bolstered by any evidence or argument - nothing here at the talk page. As someone who has edited the page - and monitored recent editing accomplishments over here - I have removed the tag. Best, ] (]) 02:01, 18 February 2011 (UTC) | |||
| : The tag in question was <nowiki>{{Multiple issues | criticisms = February 2011 | expert = February 2011 | globalize = February 2011 | POV = February 2011 | pov-check = February 2011 }}</nowiki>. I've put <nowiki>{{Undue-section}}</nowiki>, which covers a more specific issue and only on the ] section. This is not a "drive-by," because I'm working on it. My main reasoning is that the criticism is more than half of the article, whereas the ] section is only a few lines. There are plenty of positive reports just on the alone. Discussion and/or help welcome ] (]; Please also see ]) 02:43, 22 June 2011 (UTC) | |||
| == Copyright: does direct quote require quotation marks? == | |||
| <!--BEGINNING of {{help me-helped}} --> | |||
| <table class="tmbox mbox-small"><tr><td class="mbox-image">]</td><td class="mbox-text"> | |||
| <div style="font-size:95%;">This help request has been answered. If you need more help, please place a new '''{{tlf|help me}}''' request on this page followed by your questions, or contact the responding user(s) directly on their ].</div></td></tr></table> | |||
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| In section, "1987 – freedom of speech", the content, "as part of a larger ban on what they described as First Amendment activities. Jews for Jesus challenged the airport's right to institute such a sweeping ban." is a direct quote from the . Although it has an end-noted citation, it is not enclosed in double quotes. Is this acceptable? If not, I wonder if there are other, similar violations in this article. I searched a little bit (e.g. ]), but would appreciate some help (thanks! :). | |||
| ] (]) 21:40, 12 June 2011 (UTC) | |||
| :Direct quotes need to be clearly indicated as such. They cannot be inserted into the article with no indication, regardless of whether or not they're cited. Quotation marks should be used, unless the quote is longer than four lines. If this is the case, format them as block quotes by using <nowiki><blockquote></nowiki> and <nowiki></blockquote></nowiki>, or {{tlp|quotation}}. Not indicating that they are direct quotes is a copyright violation, and should either be changed or removed. To find additional instances where this is occurring, you could try using the . <span style="font-family: Georgia">– ] <sup>] • ]</sup></span> 03:30, 13 June 2011 (UTC) | |||
| ::Thanks GW: now that I know the answer, it was easier to find : ). It doesn't come right out and say that quotation marks are required, (I guess because you can also use <nowiki><blockquote></nowiki> as you noted), but says: ] ] (]) 16:29, 13 June 2011 (UTC) | |||
| == This article is confusing .... == | |||
| I have little interest in this article, but | |||
| the NPOV is out of whack, and full of troll edits. | |||
| for example: | |||
| on the "methods of evangelism " section: | |||
| {{talkquote|The majority of evangelism used by Jews for Jesus consists of large mailings and pamphleteering. The organization uses colorful pamphlets and T-shirts to get their message across and is known for targeting populations of Jews which they see as receptive to their message, such as recent immigrants, college students, senior citizens and interfaith couples.}} | |||
| "targeting" ... perhaps this entry should be in the 'criticism' section, or a new section 'criticism of evangelical methods' | |||
| reference has a boatload of criticism to evangelical methods. | |||
| references to actual methods could be more helpful. | |||
| Compare "methods of evangelism" section with stated methods at http://www.jewsforjesus.org/about/whatwedo | |||
| and it is obvious that the person who wrote/ edited this section is anti JfJ. | |||
| Also, BTW reference is a dead link. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 07:45, 20 July 2011 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> | |||
| :It looks like your organization has changed some the URL's of its pages. In any event, I fixed the link which is now to the one you provided here. If you don't like the word "targeting" perhaps you can suggest another one. Bear in mind that "targeting" is a formulation used by a number of reliable sources, including Billy Graham, who is quoted in another footnote saying "I have never targeted Jews." --] (]) 02:44, 21 July 2011 (UTC) | |||
| == Revert of "Western pluralistic opposition" section == | |||
| I'm a relatively new editor and am still learning, so I'd appreciate help understanding this reversion: | |||
| {{diff|Jews for Jesus|448561852|448564641|Steven J. Anderson: None of this describes opposition to JfJ. It's an argument against that opposition and ]}} | |||
| * Although the removed material isn't direct opposition to JfJ, is it not relevant to the opposition to JfJ? Is not presenting these two sides fitting with ]? | |||
| * I thought original research referred to the editor's own research. In contrast, this argument was obtained from a published book, and even quoted it in part. What am I missing? | |||
| Thanks very much! :) | |||
| ] (]) 21:32, 5 September 2011 (UTC) | |||
| Please also see ]) | |||
| :Directly after the sentence in the article that reads "Some Western Christians object to evangelizing Jews because they see Jewish religious practice as valid in and of itself." you wrote: | |||
| :{{talkquote|Such a view, however, espouses the ] common in the Western world, which can be shown to be a logical fallacy. One can easily show "the impossibility that all religions are equally valid in light of the fact that many religions contradict each other."<ref>{{cite book |author=Winfried Corduan |year=1998 |title=Neighboring Faiths |publisher=InterVarsity Press |page=133}}</ref> In the case of the two faiths at hand, the most fundamental contradiction is that Christianity requires the belief that Jesus is God, and Judaism holds that belief as idolatry: it teaches that Jesus is not God. To claim that both of those beliefs are equally valid violates the ]. | |||
| {{reflist-talk}}}} | |||
| :Now, here are some relevant questions that will determine whether this is original research or not. First, who is attempting to refute the (referenced) objection to evangelizing Jews based on the idea that Judaism is valid in and of itself, you or Corduan? If the answer is you, what you're doing is original research. Did Corduan mention Judaism or evangelism of Jews in the material cited (if so it's not in the quote provided). If not, it's original research. Did Corduan say anything about the quoted sentence being a logical fallacy? If not, it's original research. Did Corduan mention the dichotomy between Christian belief that Jesus is God and Jewish rejection of that belief? If not, it's original research. Does Corduan mention the "Law of Noncontradiction" in reference to evangelizing Jews or the view some Christians have that Jewish religious practice is valid? If not, it's original research. | |||
| :It appears to me that the material I deleted was Pdebonte's personal view on the matter, thinly supported by a ''very general'' statement from Corduan about how some religions hold clearly contradictory views to other religions, with no clear indication that Corduan ever mentioned Christianity or Judaism or any conflict between the two, ever said anything about Christian evangelism targeted at Jews, ever addressed the view held by some Christians that Jewish practice is valid, or ever attempted a refutation of the view that your edit attempts to refute. | |||
| :But, I might be wrong and I'm willing to be shown. | |||
| :By the way, I don't think you have any conflicts of interest. Please see ] to understand why. --] (]) 03:20, 6 September 2011 (UTC) | |||
| == Subject opposing the group should only be informational == | |||
| I came across this page in order to find out about Jews for Jesus (i.e., information about the group - its founding, its belief system, etc.). As I kept reading, I found an enormous amount of information about Jewish organizations that oppose the group or are against its teachings. It seems that the site has been hijacked by those opposing the group. This would be similar to allowing others of different beliefs to take over pages of organizations they dislike or who have differing viewpoints. | |||
| I can see the opposition of Jewish groups to this group as part of the general information, but it should not eventually be the dominant theme by taking up so much space. Perhaps all the dialogue opposing the organization should have a link to a site called "Jews opposed to Jews for Jesus" or something to that effect, and more information could be provided on that page. | |||
| Would we allow religious groups to take over an "Atheist" or "Agnostic" page stating why they oppose people who have these beliefs? <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 22:22, 8 January 2012 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> | |||
| :There are very few religious groups that adopt the name of another religion whose basic tenets are fundamentally opposed to their own. Because the Jews for Jesus call themselves Jews, it is necessary to clarify the fact that their religion is, in no way, shape or form, Judaism. Suppose I were to start a religious group called "Muslims for Krishna"? Clearly, being a Muslim and believing in Krishna are mutually exclusive and anyone trying to write an accurate article on such a group would be at pains to make that fact clear. --] (]) 01:47, 9 January 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::: Krishna has nothing to do with being Muslim, while Jesus was born in Israel and was Jewish. The point being that your reasoning doesn't make sense. The previous editor has a valid point. Because you say Messianic Judaism is not a religion doesn't make it so. It may not be Judaism as you know it, but it exists. What you are saying equates to Christians calling other Christian's sects and denominations false religions.] (]) 20:12, 9 January 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :::::You are conflating two separate issues. Just because someone is a Jew does not mean that other people can build an entirely new religion around that person & then call it Judaism. It is your reasoning that doesn't make sense while the previous editor has the correct analogy. No one is saying that "Messianic Judaism" is not a religion; we're saying that it's Christianity and not Judaism. It's not Judaism as anyone knows it, no matter what proselytizers call it in order to trick Jews into apostasy. This is also nothing like the intra-religious squabbling between fellow practitioners. It's two entirely different religoins, not "two different sects of the same religion". ] (]) 08:42, 28 February 2017 (UTC) | |||
| :::: I have worked on other controversial articles and I can tell you this article has definitely been hijacked by those opposing Jews for Jesus. The tone is not neutral at all. Its obvious from Steven Anderson's comment that his viewpoint is bias. I dont have the time or the energy but someone should at least take the time to make this article fair.] (]) 02:51, 9 January 2012 (UTC) | |||
| I have addressed some of your concerns. Check out the article now. Thanks! ] (]) 23:50, 21 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| :::::Oh, Zad - why did you edit that stuff from 71.14.72.170 out? It was pure comedy - I laughed myself off the chair. ;) ] (]) 04:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::This article is not ] when the criticism section is 3x longer than the main article and covers lawsuits in greater detail than the groups history has been allotted. Are we saying that the only reason this group is notable is it's opposition? I just popped into see if was a member of JfJ. ] (]) 23:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Footnotes sections are oddly done == | |||
| Is there a reason why several of the footnotes are several paragraphs in their own rights? Footnote 7 is 8 paragraphs long. | |||
| Also, this source is being used as ] but it is to a hate site and has many complaints against it from the WOT security analysis. ] (]) 01:00, 2 February 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :Hello, “oddly done” is putting it mildly. In fact, the references are a second article. The statements in the footnotes should imo either be integrated into the text, if pertinent, or be removed, if irrelevant. ] (]) 11:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == When updating the article, please update the reference too == | |||
| I see there is interest in updating this article. If you add or change information that no longer matches what the cited source says, please be sure to provide an updated source to support your new information. With the recent changes (8 May 2012), there is now a dead citation link http://www.ecfa.org/?PageName=MemberProfile2&MemberID=6322 that should be updated to http://www.ecfa.org/MemberProfile.aspx?ID=6322, and the article was updated from saying "Jews for Jesus employs more than 150 people" to "Jews for Jesus employs more than 200 people" but the reference that is in the article http://forward.com/articles/154180/the-very-first-jew-for-jesus/?p=all says "Jews for Jesus now employs more than 150 people" so the new article information doesn't match the source any more. Could you please help out by making sure the sources are up to date when you make content changes? Thanks. ] (]) 23:46, 8 May 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :Dear Zad68: Okay, I will update the references. I also received a Conflict of Interest message from Misplaced Pages. Yes, I do work for Jews for Jesus and was not trying to hide that from anyone. I just didn't know that I was supposed to declare that here. But the things I edited were either inaccurate statements of fact (such as how many cities and countries we have branches in) or just our perspective (quoted from our old website) on charges from others that we "target" weak individuals or use "deceptive" methods. It doesn't seem right that it is okay for someone to post these charges without allowing our own group to provide its perspective, especially when I can provide a reference from our own website on the issue. Please let me know if I can put back those statements of fact and the paragraph I wrote about our perspective on those charges. Thank you! <small><span class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 14:57, 9 May 2012 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> | |||
| ::Thanks for bringing updated references, and also for being up-front about your involvement with J4J. Misplaced Pages does not forbid employees of organizations from making updates to the articles about the organizations, but it is often very difficult for such employees to make edits that comply with Misplaced Pages policies regarding ] and ] especially. You can expect other editors to scrutinize your edits carefully. If you understand and apply Misplaced Pages policy, and bring excellent sources to back up your edits, it should not be a problem. Also, please do not misunderstand the purpose of Misplaced Pages articles. They are supposed to neutrally present information about topics, be backed up by reliable sources, and have content in balance found in the reliable sources. They are not supposed to be a battleground with someone making "charges" against a subject made in Misplaced Pages's voice. However, if there is controversy about a subject, and there are reliable sources that cover that controversy, that controversy will be covered in the article. Hope this helps. ] (]) 15:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Dear Zad68: Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. You will see that I made a few changes on statements of fact (statistics, income, etc.) with updated references. Now I would like to go into the "Evangelizing" section and quote from our own web page about our perspective on "targeting" and methods. May I proceed with that? <small><span class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 15:32, 9 May 2012 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> | |||
| :Go ahead! ] You don't need my permission! :) Regarding the edits you made, you updated the number of employees and removed the Forward reference, but the reference you put in http://www.ministrywatch.com/profile/jews-for-jesus.aspx doesn't give information about the number of employees, can't you put in a link to something on the J4J web site regarding the number of employees? References to a company's own web site for uncontroversial information like the number of employees is allowed under ]. The other changes look great. Regarding the "Evangelism" section changes, there will probably be a back-and-forth of edits before there is ] on how the information is presented. ] (]) 15:45, 9 May 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Dear Zad68: Actually, if you look at the last paragraph under "History" in the ministrywatch.com reference, you will see that they report that we have 214 employees. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything on our website that lists the number of people we employ.] (]) 17:14, 9 May 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :You're right, I missed that, it's a relevant reference then. As the ministrywatch.com text is provided by J4J (it says at the top of that History section "This is a description of the history of Jews for Jesus as told by Moishe Rosen the Founder."), it is effectively in the same ] category as if it were on the J4J site itself. ] (]) 13:56, 10 May 2012 (UTC) | |||
| Dear Zad68: There is a note above the Opposition and Criticism section saying that an editor feels that section may be unfairly weighted against Jews for Jesus. I don't object to other organizations and individuals voicing objections to Jews for Jesus, but I'm wondering if I could add a section entitled positive comments or positive criticism (since criticism can be either positive or negative) in which I document good things that other reputable organizations and individuals have said about Jews for Jesus? Please let me know what I could label this category and whether this is acceptable to Misplaced Pages. Thank you.] (]) 18:37, 25 May 2012 (UTC) | |||
| :Hi MM, there's a section already "Affiliations and support", looks like the content would be appropriate there. Make sure everything you add is sourced to a good source and is relevant. I don't "own" this article any more than you do, you don't need to ask my permission. I'm about to leave for the weekend, have a good one. <code>]]</code> 19:17, 25 May 2012 (UTC) | |||
| == Things are not clear in the article == | |||
| Maybe this is beating on a dead dog, since the article is already a mess, but the content is misleading. I live in a south american country and none of the jews for jesus here are ethnically or religiously jews, they are merely christians claiming to be jews. The article seems to imply otherwise... ] (]) 00:59, 21 May 2013 (UTC) | |||
| I don't see how the content is misleading. I am ethnically a Jew and believe in Jesus. I also consider myself "religiously" a Jew because I believe every word of the Hebrew Scriptures. I don't know what South American country you live in, but unless you know all of the Jews who profess belief in Jesus in your country, how can you say that "none of the Jews for Jesus here are ethnically or religiously Jews?"] (]) 17:53, 21 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| :: My guess is that he's going off the norm. Most so-called Jews for Jesus are not actual Jews & have never been Jews. I, personally, know of someone who claimed to be a Jew for Jesus &, when pressed, finally admitted that it was just his neighbor who was Jewish. ] (]) 08:46, 28 February 2017 (UTC) | |||
| :By definition, if you worship jesus, then you are not a jew, as Judaism denies that jesus is or was a messiah or a god. ] (]) 04:26, 25 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| :: Actually, by definition, if you worship Jesus, you are practicing Christianity. You're still a Jew; you're just a sinner. You got the rest correct, of course. ] (]) 08:46, 28 February 2017 (UTC) | |||
| == Secular Jews are eligible for Israeli citizenship but Jews For Jesus are not == | |||
| Why? ] (]) 20:08, 19 January 2013 (UTC) | |||
| :The question is answered on the page | |||
| :{{talkquote|In 1993 the Supreme Court of Israel, in a case involving a couple affiliated with Jews for Jesus, ruled that Jews who adhere to the Christian beliefs are regarded by Israeli law as "members of a different faith," and are not eligible for the automatic citizenship that Israel grants Jews. This is done not to try to change Jewish Law, but to preserve the Jewish character of the State of Israel – i.e., that allowing in people whose sole mission is to get Jews to become Christians is inimical to one of the core ethics of the country (to be a haven for Jews; see Israeli Declaration of Independence). In its summary of the ruling, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the belief that Jesus is the Messiah "cannot be reconciled with Judaism" and "marks the clear separation between Judaism and Christianity.}} ] (]) 18:21, 11 November 2013 (UTC) | |||
| == implement auto-archive? == | |||
| There are several threads over two years old that are no longer active. Anyone have an objection to implementing auto-archive for this talk page? ] (]) 19:06, 16 September 2015 (UTC) | |||
| == NPOV tag == | |||
| Someone added an NPOV tag about a week ago, but there's no discussion so far. | |||
| Could someone outline what the issue is or point out the offending section(s)? Thanks. ] (]) 19:08, 16 September 2015 (UTC) | |||
| :I didn't originally place the tag, but did position it correctly. As to the issues, I hope it would be evident from a look at the page. Right now, it looks like a tug of war between people who like the organization and dislike it. As one example, there's a bunch of verbatim marketing fluff, especially the bulleted items under the "Beliefs" and "Stated core values" sections. That ought to be trimmed out and replaced with neutral prose. There's also quite a bit of editorial, much unreferenced, much presented "in Misplaced Pages's voice" when it ought to be attributed. Some examples: | |||
| :{{talkquote|Unaddressed by many Jews, including former Jews such as Jews for Jesus adherents and other Christians, whether evangelicals or non-proselytizing Christians, is the deep self-hate and shame that are the root cause of Jewish conversion to Christianity. The most infamous case of this self-hate by a former Jew who converted to Christianity in the modern era was the Catholic Archbishop of Paris, Aaron "Aharon" Lustiger. His self-hate and shame issues as a Holocaust survivor whose mother was murdered at the Auschwitz death camp and concentration-death camp complex remained unaddressed both by himself and by Catholic scholars and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church itself at the time of his death.}} | |||
| :{{talkquote|The argument posited by Jews for Jesus converts to Christianity that they are still Jews is negated by the fact that their offspring will have little if any connection to Judaism, and the next generation following will have no connection to Judaism. This has been proven again and again in examining third and fourth generation offspring of Jewish American immigrants to America from the Old World, e.g. 1880 - 1920, when descendants abandon any Jewish identification or convert outright. So the argument presented by Jews for Jesus followers is a specious, false and deceptive argument.}} | |||
| :The article should ''describe'' the organization and criticism against it, not "take a side" on whether it's good, bad, or otherwise. ] <small><sup>]</sup></small> 20:19, 16 September 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::Thanks. I agree wholeheartedly and would support changes to this effect. This isn't my area of expertise so I don't know that I'll be of much help, but at least the conversation has begun. I look forward to seeing the article improve. ] (]) 13:33, 17 September 2015 (UTC) | |||
| ::I've made a stab at making the article more NPOV, taking out some of the "tug-of-war" aspects and generally tightening it up. We don't need to present every criticism and every defense, just enough to represent the controversy. Readers can follow the cites if tehy want more details. ] (]) 16:02, 26 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| == Opinionated and Not Educational == | |||
| Recently a young woman who went overseas with the Jews for Jesus program came to speak at our church. She told us all about her trip, and the things she saw and did there. I found it very interesting, so I came online here to find out more about this program, "Jews for Jesus", as I had never heard of it before her presentation. I was very disappointed to read this article, as it really told me almost nothing about the organization. Who founded the organization? When? How was it started? The article refers to a chairman, but what is the rest of the infrastructure of the organization? Are positions elected or appointed? How long do they serve? | |||
| There are references to a boycott because of an annual meeting, however no mention of the meetings or their purpose are mentioned. This article is very clearly slanted against the organization, which is most disappointing because I was interested in learning facts about the organization, not hearing someone's opinion about it. This is by far the most unhelpful and uninformative article I have ever read on wikipedia. | |||
| Moreover I cannot believe some of the blatant "junk" that is in this article, and I cannot understand how it has been allowed to remain here. The group advertises by wearing t-shirts? Why in the world is this worth mentioning? Many, many people use apparel as advertising- do all of their wikipedia entries mention this? | |||
| According to the young lady at our church, they did speak to a lot of people on their trip, however they did not target any particular groups as this article mentions again and again. They were staying somewhere, and allowed people to come inside to talk to them, or they talked to them on the street, or if the people were afraid of being seen talking to them they met them elsewhere. People are familiar with the organization and approached her and her friends to talk to them. This article seems to imply that the volunteers chase down certain groups of people and badger them into listening to them. I think most people would realize that doing this would be counter productive to the message they were trying to spread. | |||
| I am sure that there may be some overzealous volunteers out there, however I don't think that makes it fair to condemn the organization as a whole. Do volunteers undergo training before their trip? (I didn't think to ask at the time, however now I am curious). What are the organizations policies on how to approach people or who to approach? These are the types of things I expected to read here, not just quotes from people who don't like the organization. (And where are quotes from supporters of the organization then? Where is the other side? If you are going to post opinions, then you need to have both, not just one.) | |||
| The article repeatedly mentions the volunteers handing out pamphlets. Again, why is this worth mentioning? Why is that special or unusual? Is that mentioned on everyone else's wikipedia page? I believe they also met people by playing the guitar and singing outside of their hotel. Perhaps that should be mentioned as well, along with a quote by someone who hates music? (That was sarcasm. Just trying to make a point). In conclusion, someone who knows something about the actual organization should look at this and provide the inquiring public with actual facts and information about the organization. That would be most helpful. And someone else, not affiliated with the organization of course, should go through and take out all the meaningless nonsense that is not helpful, constructive or at all educational, that my high school writing teacher would have called "filler". Thank you. 17:44, 8 October 2015 (UTC)] (]) | |||
| I have addressed some of your concerns. Please check out the article now. Thanks!] (]) 23:52, 21 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| :] , please familiarize yourself with relevant wikipedia policies regarding ] and ]. Thank you. ] (]) 14:39, 22 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| Mr. Swordfish, I just read the policies. Are you an official editor for Misplaced Pages? I understand now that the sources I cited as from a not-yet published media kit are not acceptable. Will they be acceptable when the media kit is published? The media kit is a fact sheet. It is not self-promotion. But you (I assume it was you) deleted everything I posted yesterday. For example, you deleted our Jews for Jesus Statement of Faith. I checked other Misplaced Pages sites of religious groups and their Statement of Faith is posted. Why did you delete ours? Also, do you see how many statements from those who oppose Jews for Jesus are on this site? It dominates the entire site, which is ridiculous. So I posted letters from people who agree with our beliefs and what we do. Yes, the letters are from our website. Is that why you deleted that entire section? It seems like you are not permitting me to post any references from our website to state our positions. You also deleted our own statements about who we are, what we do, why we do it, our own statements about the controversy over our That Jew Died for You site. I'm sorry, but I have read your policies and this still seems to be like total censorship. You did not leave up a single thing I posted yesterday. Do you have the authority to do this. Please explain. Thanks.] (]) 18:53, 22 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| :], I am just an ordinary editor; I do not have admin status or the ability to do anything that any other can't. That said, I'm sure that any admin reviewing this would agree that your recent edits do not conform to wiki policy. It is the duty of every editor to follow the policies, and to remove material that violates it. Your edits were a clear violation of multiple policies and would have been removed by someone else if I hadn't gotten to it first. | |||
| :Once your media kit is published it may be used as source material for the article, but within fairly tight limits as outlined in ]. Wholesale copying of promotional material is not allowed. | |||
| :Also, it appears you have a ] so you should not be editing this article at all. | |||
| :I would encourage you to learn a bit more about wikipedia and how the editing process works before continuing to edit pages. The ] is a good place to start. ] (]) 21:09, 22 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| :] I have read the Conflict of Interest policy and it appears that I do have a COI. I do work for Jews for Jesus. If you read my past conversations on this talk page (see above, from 2012), you will see that I have never sought to hide that fact from Misplaced Pages. I just didn't know until now that that constituted a conflict of interest. So what I am going to do now is make some suggestions to the editors on this talk page and see if they agree with those suggestions and can reach a consensus and make those edits, as the COI policy states that I should not be the one making edits. I just want to add that although I am a paid employee of Jews for Jesus, I am not trying to self-promote the organization in the sense of making us look better than we are or distort anything about our organization. I am simply interested in helping this Jews for Jesus Misplaced Pages page to be more in balance. If you read the comments from other editors above, you will see that many of them, who have no axe to grind one way or the other, feel this page is way out of balance in that it gives much space to those who oppose Jews for Jesus and little to no information about the history, stated mission and operations of the Jews for Jesus organization. I will respect the Misplaced Pages policies and begin to make some suggestions on this talk page, but I will not make the edits myself.] (]) 17:01, 26 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| ::] I have followed your advice and listed myself as having a COI, as you can see if you look at the item below this one. I floated an idea for changing the lead sentence, but no one has replied since one initial exchange (see below). So I thought I would run my request by you, and perhaps you can share it with other editors. Here it is: | |||
| I would like to suggest an edit to the lead sentence for this article. Regarding the use of the term "convert," I am not alone in my reluctance to use this term. The following website gives this advice about talking with Jewish people about Jesus: "'Convert' implies leaving behind one’s Jewishness. It is better to speak about 'becoming a believer (or follower) of Jesus.' But it is appropriate to explain that biblical conversion was spoken of by the prophets as meaning “turning back to God” rather than “changing one’s religion” (see Isa. 44:22; Jer. 4:1; 24:7; Joel 2:12). Here's a similar thought from another website: "Many Jews don’t like to be called converts since they already believed in God, and in their religious observances, they were already responding to that part of the Word of God in the Tanakh, or what we call the Old Testament. When we recognize the Messiah and enter His Church, we fulfill or complete our Old Testament Faith. But we do not lose our ethnicity, who we are." | |||
| Here's my suggested lead sentence: "Jews for Jesus is a non-profit organization founded in 1973 which seeks to share its belief that Jesus is the promised Messiah of the Jewish people."] (]) 22:23, 9 March 2016 (UTC) | |||
| There are several other things that I believe need editing, but I would like to first get the editors to agree to changing the opening sentence. What do you think of my suggested change? | |||
| Hello all. I am the original poster of this thread from last year, and after the opinionated piece I found here on what is supposed to be a factual site, I did my own research into the "Jews for Jesus", by seeking out and speaking to other members of the organization. I am not affiliated with the organization in any way, I am not Jewish, I am a proud UCC member, and part of our task given to us by God is to love our neighbors, so I wanted to learn more about our "Jews for Jesus" neighbors. It is unfortunate that the other poster on here had a conflict of interest, because I would very much like to have heard what he said. I am the one who edited the first sentence, because after everything I have heard from the people I have met, that is a more accurate description of what they do. Anyone who alters it should be required to speak to at least one of these members before they can do anything. This organization is not trying to "covert" anyone, nor are they trying to eliminate Judaism or anything of the sort. Jesus WAS a Jew. Other Jews of the time recognized him as the Messiah, and followed him. He did not tell them they couldn't be Jewish, or that they should abandon their ways. Jews for Jesus volunteers that I have met are still Jewish- Kosher, prayerful, celebrate Hanukkah, etc.- and all of them had one or both Jewish parents. The article claims someone said these people are not Jewish but Christians pretending to be Jewish. I did not meet anyone like that, however if you consider anyone believing in Christ to be a "Christian", then they would now be your definition of "Christian", however they were born, and still consider themselves to be, Jewish. They observe the Jewish rites and rituals, those who had children were raising them as Jewish, with the only difference being they believed in the teachings of Christ, had read the New Testament of the Bible as well, and believe as Jesus said, the only way to the Father was through Him. | |||
| All the "Jews for Jesus" people I met, wanted to share the teachings of Christ, and recognize that to get to the Father, one must accept Christ into their heart, and follow his ways. They had no desire to abandon their Jewish ways, or "convert" anyone, but simply teach others to love one another, care for one another, care for our Earth, and be the best person you can be, every day. Thank God for what you have, don't fret over what you don't have, and know that God will care for you. I don't see any of these core beliefs that they all held reflected in this article. | |||
| Now, with millions of Jews for Jesus members all over the world, I have only met a tiny handful, and I suppose it's possible that these people I have met are "special", or act differently from everyone else in the group, and I am sure there are zealots out there just as with everything else (from religion, to sports, to food eating contests,) but in general, everything I have seen and heard in my research has shown a peaceful, loving, accepting group of people, who are Jewish, and believe in the teachings of Christ. I would like to see that reflected in this article. <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 01:42, 4 July 2016 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> | |||
| == I am an employee of Jews for Jesus and want to work with Misplaced Pages editors to improve this page == | |||
| Now that I have read the Conflict of Interest policy, I realize that as a paid employee of Jews for Jesus, I do have a COI. Therefore, if I understand the policy correctly, it is inappropriate for me to make any edits to this page, and I will abide by that (unless you advise me otherwise). Having said that, I would like to begin to work with you in small pieces on this article. The opening statement of this article is currently as follows: "Jews for Jesus is a Messianic Jewish evangelical organization that focuses on the conversion of Jews to Christianity." One major problem I have with this statement is that I don't see any source (footnote). The other problem is that "conversion" is a highly-charged term, due to atrocities like the Spanish Inquisition in which Jewish people were forced to convert under threat of execution. As a Jewish person myself, I can assure you that there is a visceral reaction to the term "conversion" because of the past atrocities. That's why Jews for Jesus prefers not to use that term, yet is still very clear on the fact that we want to present the claims of Jesus to Jewish people for their consideration. And I hope nobody on this forum is going to go the route of disputing whether I am a Jew or not. My parents, grandparents, their parents, etc. are Jewish. Almost all of my grandmother's family from Lithuania were killed in the Holocaust. The Nazis had no question we were Jews. Ethnically, I am Jewish. I didn't suddenly become ethnically not a Jew when I came to believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. With that out of the way, I would like to suggest that the editors of this page replace the opening statement with this one: "The stated mission of Jews for Jesus is 'to make the Messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide'"<ref>http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/hanukkah-with-the-jews-for-jesus/383780/</ref> Please note that this is a third-party source, a feature story on Jews for Jesus in the Atlantic Monthly. Please let me know if you as editors can agree on this change and, if so, if one of you can go ahead and make the edit. Finally, I would like to place the "connected contributor" template on the top of this Talk Page to disclose that I am a paid employee of Jews for Jesus, but I don't know how to do that. Can someone show me how! Thank you!] (]) 17:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| {{reflist-talk}} | |||
| :Thanks for making the required disclosure. I've put the template above the page as you requested here. So far as your suggested language, that's a bit puffy and marketese for a ] article, and the language is a bit over the top. I don't really see attempts at conversion as saying something negative; certainly Jews for Jesus does, in some way, seek to change people's religious beliefs or convince them to follow different religious principles. We don't normally have references in the lead, since the lead should always be supported by the article text, so you generally should look to the article body for references rather than the lead. There is a lot that does need done, like yanking out verbatim marketing materials and unreferenced criticism. ] <small><sup>]</sup></small> 17:58, 26 January 2016 (UTC) | |||
| I would like to suggest an edit to the lead sentence for this article. Regarding the use of the term "convert," I am not alone in my reluctance to use this term. The following website gives this advice about talking with Jewish people about Jesus: "'Convert' implies leaving behind one’s Jewishness. It is better to speak about 'becoming a believer (or follower) of Jesus.' But it is appropriate to explain that biblical conversion was spoken of by the prophets as meaning “turning back to God” rather than “changing one’s religion” (see Isa. 44:22; Jer. 4:1; 24:7; Joel 2:12).<ref>http://www.equip.org/article/how-to-share-the-gospel-with-your-jewish-friends/</ref> Here's a similar thought from another website: "Many Jews don’t like to be called converts since they already believed in God, and in their religious observances, they were already responding to that part of the Word of God in the Tanakh, or what we call the Old Testament. When we recognize the Messiah and enter His Church, we fulfill or complete our Old Testament Faith. But we do not lose our ethnicity, who we are."<ref>http://www.hebrewcatholic.net/are-jewish-converts-still-jewish/</ref> | |||
| Here's my suggested lead sentence: "Jews for Jesus is a non-profit organization founded in 1973 which seeks to share its belief that Jesus is the promised Messiah of the Jewish people." | |||
| There are several other things that I believe need editing, but I would like to first get the editors to agree to changing the opening sentence. What do you think of my suggested change?] (]) 22:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC) | |||
| {{request edit|d}}I would like to suggest an edit to the lead sentence for this article. Regarding the use of the term "convert," I am not alone in my reluctance to use this term. The following website gives this advice about talking with Jewish people about Jesus: "'Convert' implies leaving behind one’s Jewishness. It is better to speak about 'becoming a believer (or follower) of Jesus.' But it is appropriate to explain that biblical conversion was spoken of by the prophets as meaning “turning back to God” rather than “changing one’s religion” (see Isa. 44:22; Jer. 4:1; 24:7; Joel 2:12).<ref>http://www.equip.org/article/how-to-share-the-gospel-with-your-jewish-friends/</ref> Here's a similar thought from another website: "Many Jews don’t like to be called converts since they already believed in God, and in their religious observances, they were already responding to that part of the Word of God in the Tanakh, or what we call the Old Testament. When we recognize the Messiah and enter His Church, we fulfill or complete our Old Testament Faith. But we do not lose our ethnicity, who we are."<ref>http://www.hebrewcatholic.net/are-jewish-converts-still-jewish/</ref> | |||
| Here's my suggested lead sentence: "Jews for Jesus is a non-profit organization founded in 1973 which seeks to share its belief that Jesus is the promised Messiah of the Jewish people."] (]) 18:42, 22 February 2016 (UTC) | |||
| :The article is directed at ordinary users of English. I appreciate that you dislike the word "convert", it is bad for your image, and you avoid it in your own material. However it is the ordinary English word for what the organisation seeks to do. Your PR needs are irrelevant here. ] (]) 23:36, 22 February 2016 (UTC) | |||
| ] I understand that the readers are ordinary users of English. However, this is not about our "image," nor is it about our "PR needs," as you put it, which I find offensive. We don't "convert" anyone. We share the message, our belief that Jesus is the Messiah. Then it's between the person and God as to what they do with it. And it is not just Jews for Jesus who avoids the word "convert." As you can see from the other websites I cited, there is a common understanding among many Christians that "convert" implies that a Jewish person stops being Jewish. So among the "ordinary users of English" in Christian circles (which encompasses a large portion of the general population), the word "convert" is not used when referring to Jewish believers in Jesus. I would appreciate getting feedback from other editors on this point. ] (]) 19:05, 26 February 2016 (UTC) | |||
| ] I'm new to Misplaced Pages, so apologies if I'm doing this wrong. However, I agree with ] in that the word "convert" seems appropriate. While Judaism is the precursor to and has many close ties to Christianity, they are distinct religions today. They may be closer than say Buddhism and Judaism, but are not different sects of the same religion like Salafi and Wahabi Islam. Thus, I think that in standard usage today, "convert" would be appropriate. ] (]) 01:33, 10 March 2016 (UTC) | |||
| {{Not done}}, This is an inane semantic argument. The usage here of the word convert is consistent with its everyday meaning, to change religious affiliation. There is no implication that a Jordanian who converts from Islam to Christianity loses their identity as an Arab. Similarly there is no such implication here. The use of terms like “turning back to God” or "share the message" are colloquialisms are are not appropriate in an encyclopedia article. ] 18:01, 18 April 2016 (UTC) | |||
| == Messianic Judaism as Christianity?? == | |||
| The first line includes the following ... focuses on the conversion of Jews to Christianity. Most Messianic Jews would not agree on the grounds Christianity is the faith Jesus/Yehshua taught filtered through a Greek and eventually Latin lens accepted by gentiles. Evidence of this is that Messianic Jews call the man Yehshua rather than Jesus - his Hebrew name rather than a 17th century Anglicized form of Iesu. Furthermore Messianic Jews correctly point out that their acceptance of Jesus as Hebrew messiah makes them no less 'Jewish' than Buddhist Jews who accept Buddha, or Atheist Jews who deny the existence of God or gods. Most Messianic Jews continue to practice their Judaism. Also, the history of the Messianic Jewish acceptance of Jesus as their Messiah differs from the history of the Christian church so there are interpretative differences between Christian reading of texts and Messianic Jewish readings even if the object of their veneration is the same. In Israel recent survey's have shown that most Israeli's don't see Messianic Jews as non-Jews (most don't care what they believe) - though some more militant elements of society (namely Orthodox) do. The connection Messianic Judaism has with Christianity is that Messianic Jews believe the gentiles have 'correctly identified Yehshua as Israel's Messiah' so Christianity remains a religion of gentiles and Messianic Judaism is the region of Jews (albeit a minority), with acceptance of Jesus/Yehshua as the common point. Accordingly, it would be better (meaning more neutral) if the first line read something to the effect 'focus on proclaiming acceptance of Yehshua (who Christian's call Jesus) as the long awaited Hebrew Messiah'. As it reads now, however, it displays an anti bias (likely because of the controversy). Judaism has a long history of seeking and proclaiming messiah's so really proclaiming another as messiah is not foreign to Judaism. | |||
| ] (]) 23:41, 22 April 2016 (UTC) | |||
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| *Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090805111235/http://www.pcusa.org/oga/publications/christians-jews.pdf to http://www.pcusa.org/oga/publications/christians-jews.pdf | |||
| *Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120325191616/http://www.adl.org/special_reports/jews4jesus/christian_responses.asp to http://www.adl.org/special_reports/jews4jesus/christian_responses.asp | |||
| *Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100924171610/http://www.ifcmw.org/node/28 to http://www.ifcmw.org/node/28 | |||
| *Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060829062832/http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/08/25/jackiemason.ap/index.html to http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/08/25/jackiemason.ap/index.html | |||
| *Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061211161941/http://www.jewsforjesus.org/blog/20061108jackiemasondenied to http://www.jewsforjesus.org/blog/20061108jackiemasondenied | |||
| *Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071016154929/http://nymag.com/daily/intel/tags/religion to http://nymag.com/daily/intel/tags/religion | |||
| When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs. | |||
| {{sourcecheck|checked=false|needhelp=}} | |||
| Cheers.—] <span style="color:green;font-family:Rockwell">(])</span> 04:52, 25 November 2017 (UTC) | |||
| == "Jews for Jesus is not considered a sect of Judaism by any mainstream Jewish authorities." == | |||
| Do we have a citation for this? It's a very broad statement and I don't find that statement in either of the two references provided. It recently replaced less definitive, more equivocal language (which I agree was problematic), but it may be over-reach. Can someone provide a cite or clarification? Thanks. ] (]) 17:05, 24 October 2018 (UTC) | |||
| : There are not that many Rabbinical Authorities, so it is not hard to verify that none of them recognize Messianics. This link is to a Joint Statement by all the major rabbinical authorities in the USA repudiating Jews for Jesus and Messianic Judaism: . And another, older one: ] (]) 13:41, 4 April 2019 (UTC) | |||
| ::This statement in the article shows exactly how biased this article is against Jews for Jesus. Compare this article with the articles on Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormonism. There is no statement in either of those articles saying "Jehovah's Witnesses (or Mormonism) is not considered a sect of Christianity by any mainstream Christian authorities". Doctrinal differences are highlighted, but there is no such statement in either the JV or Mormonism articles. --] (]) 04:01, 3 December 2019 (UTC) | |||
| :::Jews for Jesus is ''not'' accepted by any Jewish authorities. Judaism is a more centralized religion, in a way not unlike Catholicism. For the Catholics, the Pope is the authority and no sect can be Catholic without the Pope's acceptance, if the Pope says no, you can't really argue. In Judaism, they have the Rabbinic authority. Protestants do not have such centralized authorities. | |||
| :::Judaism is allowed to make their own rules. They have specifically rejected Jews for Jesus. Saying anything less gives the false impression that Misplaced Pages supports their contested claim to be a Jewish sect.] (]) 11:04, 15 December 2019 (UTC) | |||
| ::::There are in fact major leaders within protestant Christianity. The Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God are two of the largest protestant denominations in the United States. I suggest you ask the leaders of these organizations if they feel Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are Christians. The answer will surprise you. Moreover, America has a number of prominent evangelical Christian colleges, two of which are Liberty University and Wheaton College. I suggest you ask the leaders of these colleges if they feel Jehovah's Witnesses are Christians. Here again, the answer will surprise you. In the end, the really disappointing thing about this article is that it takes the question "Who is a Jew?" and applies a double-standard that is not applied to any other religion. This is a violation of Misplaced Pages's goal of neutrality. --] (]) 15:42, 28 December 2019 (UTC) | |||
| ::::: If it is relevant to Jehova's Witnesses or Mormons, then yes, it should be permitted in their description, that they are considered controversial by other Protestant denominations. A quick peek at their wikipedia pages show that controversy about their beliefs is mentioned on both. That Jews for Jesus is not accepted as a Jewish sect by '''any''' Jewish authority is not even in question. And it is relevant to those seeking information about the organization from an encyclopedia type reference. | |||
| ::::: As for this being a double standard - please explain how you would classify a theoretical "Christians for Muhammad" organization seeking to promote the belief that Muhammad is the Christian Messiah, and that Muhammad supersedes Jesus. Do you feel that it would be incorrect to point out any controversy about accepting "Christians for Muhammad" as a Christian organization? <!-- Template:Unsigned --><small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) </small> | |||
| First you say there are no Christian leaders who say that Jehovah's Witnesses are not Christian, and then when I point out that there clearly are, you shift your argument to some other claim. In fact, you are incorrect about the content of your original link to the JCRC of New York. You incorrectly claim this is a national organization, when it is just New York. Look up the definition of Jew in any standard dictionary. It does not mean just those who practice the Jewish faith. The primary meaning of Jew is people who trace their descent from the Biblical Hebrews or from adherents of Judaism in the Jewish diaspora. It is primarily based on ancestry, not current religious practice. Thus, your reference to "Christians for Muhammad" is incorrect, since there is no ethnicity called "Christian". In fact, the original 12 apostles of Jesus were Jews. Were they not "Jews for Jesus"? --] (]) 05:31, 3 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| : I never said ''no'' Christian leaders said that Jehovah's Witnesses are not Christian, and I was just trying to reference ''your'' examples. Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are not relevant to Judaism at all and I make no claim to know anything about them. | |||
| : I did not claim anything about the JCRC. On the page I linked to, there is a list of PDFs with letters from ''national'' Jewish organizations sent to the JCRC, each pdf contains multiple letters. The list of statements is comprehensive. | |||
| : I have done no original research, I have only been active on the talk page anyway. | |||
| : The Jewish community is free to define themselves however they wish. | |||
| : Any person of Jewish ancestry is more than free to define themselves as such. | |||
| : absolutely none of this is actually relevant to the '''sentence''' that bothers you - "Jews for Jesus is not considered a sect of Judaism by any mainstream Jewish authorities" | |||
| : - To prove otherwise, you could show ''one'' mainstream, legitimate Jewish authority that recognizes Jews for Jesus as a Jewish organization. | |||
| : ] (]) 13:28, 4 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| :: You may feel that the Jewish community is not defined by a dictionary, but that is not how Misplaced Pages works. Misplaced Pages is based upon reliable sources, like standard dictionaries. If you want to create an encyclopedia with different rules, you are free to go off and do that yourself, but Misplaced Pages has clear guidelines about appropriate sources of information. --] (]) 14:21, 4 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| :::::{{u|Westwind273}} Please read (or re-read, if you have read them in the past) ] and ] - these are policy here, and must be adhered to. In your comments above, you have directly accused another editor of lying, you have implied that they are a bigot, you say they are obsessed, and compare their arguments to those of the nazis. Such hyperbole is not conducive to a collaborative editing environment; please don't personalise this, make your arguments without resorting to invective. ]] 14:26, 4 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| The reference to lying is point taken. I apologize, and I have edited my remarks to make this point with civility. As for bigotry, I do not believe the other editor is generally a bigot. But I do believe the content of this article exhibits bigotry, and when an editor restates the content of the article on the talk page, it also exhibits bigotry. If there were a Misplaced Pages article which stated factually that all Muslims are devils, then would an editor be incorrect in stating on the talk page that this is a bigoted article? The Nazi regime is not hyperbole, it is a historical fact. Historical comparisons are in fact valid argument. In the end, Misplaced Pages's greatest weakness is its liberal and anti-evangelical bias. The members of Jews for Jesus are of Jewish ancestry and self-identify as Jews. Can't you see how insulting it is for a Misplaced Pages article to factually state that they are not Jews? But I guess Misplaced Pages editors always come down on the side of liberals and anti-evangelicals. So I give up. I will not post here anymore. --] (]) 23:21, 4 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| :{{u|Westwind273}}, thanks for apologising. I don't need you to stop posting, I just need you to keep it civil - comparisons to nazis, for example, are specifically prohibited by NPA. I can't see anywhere in this article where it says that Jewish members of Jews for Jesus are not Jews - the article says that it is not recognised as a sect of Judaism by Jewish authorities. I have no view on whether that assertion is correct or not, but do please try to keep the discussion on point. ]] 10:33, 5 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| ::Are we reading the same article? The criticism section clearly states that "belief in Jesus" is "not compatible with being Jewish"? The section goes on to use the pejorative "Hebrew Christians" rather than Jews to refer to Jews for Jesus. Conversely, the introduction to the article goes out of its way to state that Jews for Jesus is not a sect of Judaism, when Jews for Jesus never claim that it is. I challenge you to find the statement "We are a sect of Judaism" anywhere on the Jews for Jesus website. You will not find it. In fact, the Jews for Jesus website goes out of its way to explain what are the sects of Judaism at https://jewsforjesus.org/publications/newsletter/newsletter-feb-1990/the-three-branches-of-judaism/ | |||
| ::In the end, this article is simply a hit piece on Jews for Jesus. It is one of the worst examples of liberal bias on Misplaced Pages. I also wonder why you chose to moderate me, and not the above editor TimothyJosephWood calling another editor inane and inappropriately using the Not Done template. I guess it is because he is arguing the other side of the issue. Again, liberal bias. --] (]) 14:42, 6 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| :::{{u|Westwind273}}, apologies - I was referring only to the statement in the lead, which this thread is named for, and which was what I thought you were disputing. I haven't actually read the article, because I'm not here to comment on content, only to ensure that expected standards of conduct are maintained. I chose to comment on your conduct for the reasons outlined above - you made at least one blatant personal attack, and you were making comparisons of other editors to nazis. Policy is clear on this, those kinds of comments are expressly prohibited. I might also add that your ascribing my decision to a perceived liberal bias, rather than just accepting that I made it because you crossed over a line, is in itself casting ] , which is also a violation of NPA. Stop commenting on other users, or what you believe their biases might be, and restrict yourself talking calmly about content and sourcing. You'll find that's more effective at winning people over, and it won't get you blocked, which is what will happen if you keep up the personal attacks. ]] 19:19, 6 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| ::::If an editor notices that those on one side of an argument are subject to stringent moderation, but those on the other side are not, what is the proper reaction? --] (]) 22:30, 6 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| :::::{{u|Westwind273}}, perhaps ask me politely why I haven't done anything about that? The comment is from April 2016 - do you really think it needs my attention? ]] 23:24, 6 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| Thank you. I will try to follow your guidelines. --] (]) 04:25, 7 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| :: {{u|Westwind273}} I will edit my arguments above to leave only those specific to the sentence in question. I ask that you please edit your comments to remove the rest of the Bigot and Nazi references, and anything directed towards me, and just leave your comments about the sentence. Thank you. ] (]) 04:38, 7 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| ::: I think I did it just now, but if you see anything else you don't like, feel free to edit my remarks. Thank you. --] (]) 05:00, 7 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| :::: I don't like editing other people's posts - but I am going to remove one sentence of yours and I think we can get back to the discussion at hand. | |||
| <br>To address newer claims - Jews for Jesus ''does'' present themselves as a Jewish organization (this is one page from their website filled with references to themselves as Jews )<br>Neither this article, nor this sentence address ]. The organization in question is not accepted as Jewish. That doesn't mean that there aren't Jews (as well as non-Jews) in that organization. | |||
| I have never heard that "Hebrew Christians" was pejorative, and a quick google search doesn't turn anything up for me (there is even a wikipedia page on the Hebrew Christian movement, and it seems fairly positive).<br> | |||
| There is (obviously) a lot of controversy around Jews for Jesus. The point that "Jews for Jesus is not considered a sect of Judaism by any mainstream Jewish authorities." is an important part of addressing the controversy. Although, I could see making the argument that Jews for Jesus is more of an organization and "Messianic Jews" would be the correct name for the "sect". Unless you don't consider Jews for Jesus to be a sub-organization of Messianic Jews? <br> | |||
| If you feel the article is missing information, then you could add it. ] (]) 07:04, 7 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| :First off, let me say that I am now converted to the civility camp. I will interact with civility. :) As for what we have been discussing, I know that the talk page is not for posting personal opinions. However, when creating an article, the choice of which reliable sources to use, and in what volume, is inherently a subjective exercise. Similar to how one can selectively pull phrases from the Bible to justify pretty much any belief, one can also selectively pull from reliable sources to slant an article in many different ways. I would like to thus offer these observations about the article, with a view to taking a balanced approach when pulling from reliable sources. One odd thing about this article is that it repeatedly states that Jews for Jesus is not a sect of Judaism, when Jews for Jesus never claims to be a sect of Judaism. (I challenge you to find any place on the Jews for Jesus website where they say "We are a sect of Judaism".) So why include a negative for which there is no positive? This seems illogical. It strikes me that the activities of Jews for Jesus are identical to the activities of the original apostles of Jesus, who were Jewish and proselytized to their fellow Jews. Here is what I think is really happening. Mainline Protestantism is dying rapidly. Catholicism is also in decline. The only branch of Christianity that exhibits any vibrancy in America is evangelicalism. Judaism lacks a full-fledged equivalent of evangelicalism, so it is particularly at risk of losing adherents to evangelical Christianity, especially through Jews for Jesus. This upsets many Jews in America who want to continue the sharp distinction between the two faiths. They view Judaism as under attack and in decline. Although Christianity and Judaism are in fact intertwined in a complex way at their origins, many modern Jews wish to draw a sharp distinction between the two faiths. However, drawing this sharp distinction raises a number of problematic issues: How can it be wrong for Christians (i.e. Jews for Jesus) to engage in activities identical to what the original and immediate followers of Jesus did? Why is it wrong for Christians (i.e. Jews for Jesus) to proselytize to Jews, but OK to proselytize to all other non-Christian religions? Isn’t this in fact granting some special status to Judaism that it does not deserve, and by implication denigrating the other religions? In sum, I think the authors of this article should tread very carefully when composing this article. I think my comments summarize the origin of a lot of the negative feedback on this talk page regarding the neutrality of the article. --] (]) 03:35, 8 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| ::: The negative feedback you are responding to was about this article from 5 to 10 years ago. It was a very different article that they were talking about. | |||
| ::: If you feel that there is information missing you can add it, but it's not correct to remove information because you don't like it. The information about Jews for Jesus's controversies are relevant, reasonable and cited. Your observations above are really not relevant to ''this'' article. That type of speculative discussion about religious beliefs might have a better place on a different type of website. ] (]) 04:47, 8 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| :::: From their website, an example of Jews for Jesus justifying themselves as a Jewish organization. (can we abbreviate it as JFJ?) | |||
| :::: https://jewsforjesus.org/jewish-resources/community/messianic-jews/ | |||
| :::: As I said before, there is a an argument to be made that JFJ is not precisely a sect, but that "Messianic Judaism" would be the sect and that JFJ is an organization under that umbrella. I think the confusion is that JFJ was instrumental in creating modern "Messianic Judaism", and has become so tightly associated, that it has been used as a synonym. The article from JFJ's website says basically as much. | |||
| :::: If that is a concern, I would agree that the article could be clarified to keep the position that JFJ is an organization, although I will defer to you on that point. | |||
| :::: That JFJ is controversial is not something that you can explain away with theology. JFJ was created to target one group, and that group resents being the target. It is an important point - JFJ doesn't do much ''besides'' target that group. ] (]) 05:15, 8 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| :::::It is not correct for you to include information in the article simply because you like it. Your comments are not relevant to this article. The words “Jew” and “Jewish” have two meanings: (1) Jewish ethnicity (culture, customs), and (2) Jewish faith. The word “Judaism” has only one meaning: the Jewish religion. JFJ calls themselves Jewish (in the sense of ethnicity, culture, customs), but nowhere do they claim that their faith is a sect of Judaism, nor that their organization belongs to a sect of Judaism. Your speculation about JFJ claiming to be a sect of Judaism would be more relevant to a different website, not Misplaced Pages. I agree that JFJ is controversial, but that doesn’t mean the Misplaced Pages article should state things that are not true (i.e. JFJ claiming to be a sect of Judaism). Yes JFJ targets Jews. Mormon missionaries in France (e.g. Mitt Romney) target the French. Evangelical missionaries in Nigeria target Nigerians. This does not mean the Misplaced Pages article should imply untruths about JFJ. I agree that many Jews (including Jewish leaders) react negatively to JFJ, and it is fine for the article to state so in the Criticism section. But that section should not imply that JFJ is claiming to be a sect of Judaism, because they do not. --] (]) 20:35, 8 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| :::::As an aside, I would mention that all Christians consider their faith as the ''fulfillment'' of Judaism. It is why the Christian Bible contains the entirety of the Tanakh (the Old Testament). This is not in any way unique to JFJ. --] (]) 20:41, 8 January 2020 (UTC) | |||
| == Change "Sect" to "Organization" and other changes & cleanups == | == Change "Sect" to "Organization" and other changes & cleanups == | ||
| Line 458: | Line 87: | ||
| <br/> | <br/> | ||
| :::: I see that your resolve to be civil has had a setback. As it is not relevant to this article, I am not going to engage. Please keep comments relevant. ] (]) 18:10, 6 February 2020 (UTC) | :::: I see that your resolve to be civil has had a setback. As it is not relevant to this article, I am not going to engage. Please keep comments relevant. ] (]) 18:10, 6 February 2020 (UTC) | ||
| ::::: This is so ironic. I have only said back to you exactly what you said to me, no more. It was in fact you who led this discussion into an uncivil space. I engaged in a civil manner, and you chose to be uncivil. When you chose to be uncivil, I simply said back to you exactly what you said to me. You claim to be civil, and yet you initiate unprovoked uncivil attacks. And then you claim the other person is being uncivil. You have an astounding lack of self-awareness. Look back at our discussion here and in the previous section. Who first accused the other of determining content based on whether one "likes it"? You. Who first accused the other's observations of being irrelevant? You. Who first accused the other of having bias? You. Who first accused the other of basing suggested article improvements on whether they do or do not like JFJ? You. Who first accused the other of purposely attempting to slant ("soften") the article? You. I can see that your extreme lack of self-awareness prevents you from being civil, all the while accusing the other person of being uncivil. As your most recent comment is completely irrelevant to the article, I will not respond any further. Please try to make your comments relevant to this article and stop commenting on the civility of others, when it is in fact you who initiate the incivility. --] (]) |
::::: This is so ironic. I have only said back to you exactly what you said to me, no more. It was in fact you who led this discussion into an uncivil space. I engaged in a civil manner, and you chose to be uncivil. When you chose to be uncivil, I simply said back to you exactly what you said to me. You claim to be civil, and yet you initiate unprovoked uncivil attacks. And then you claim the other person is being uncivil. You have an astounding lack of self-awareness. Look back at our discussion here and in the previous section. Who first accused the other of determining content based on whether one "likes it"? You. Who first accused the other's observations of being irrelevant? You. Who first accused the other of having bias? You. Who first accused the other of basing suggested article improvements on whether they do or do not like JFJ? You. Who first accused the other of purposely attempting to slant ("soften") the article? You. Who first accused the other of being uncivil and having a setback? You. I can see that your extreme lack of self-awareness prevents you from being civil, all the while accusing the other person of being uncivil. As your most recent comment is completely irrelevant to the article, I will not respond any further. Please try to make your comments relevant to this article and stop commenting on the civility of others, when it is in fact you who initiate the incivility. All this simply reinforces my belief that you have an ax to grind against JFJ which blinds you to considering the views of others, and your severe lack of self-awareness prevents you from having any relevant discussion. I can recognize what is and isn't civility, but you unfortunately cannot. In your view, whatever you say is civil, but when someone uses the same words back at you, it becomes "uncivil". There is no "setback" that I have had, but you have never even progressed to the point of being able to tell whether you yourself are acting in a civil manner. You can't have a setback because you never got to the point of being able to see incivility in yourself in the first place. Quite disgusting. You are unable to counter any of the points I made, so you simply revert into accusing others of incivility and go crying to the moderators when your own words are used back at you. It is sad to see that you are unable to escape your cocoon of lack of self-awareness. --] (]) 05:47, 10 February 2020 (UTC) | ||
| :::::: I went to the moderator because you called me a Nazi. | |||
| :::::: It's not a word I used, which is clear from the history of the chat. | |||
| :::::: You need to remove your most recent opinion of me from the discussion. | |||
| :::::: ] (]) 09:32, 21 February 2020 (UTC) | |||
| ::::::: What is clear from the history of the chat is that everything that I have said recently (that you claim is uncivil) is simply me using your own words back at you. You are completely oblivious to incivility in yourself, and yet quick to accuse others of it. You need to remove your most recent opinion of me ("resolve to be civil has had a setback") from the discussion. --] (]) 05:56, 26 February 2020 (UTC) | |||
| == Major changes - most not good == | |||
| The large changes, dropping lots of accepted information and adding a lot of propaganda need to be discussed on the talk page. Most of this article is not acceptable as is at the moment. The point of this article should not be as a propaganda piece for Jews for Jesus, and you can not leave out criticisms. Many of the changes are to things that have been discussed over many years to come to a consensus. <!-- Template:Unsigned --><small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 18:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> | |||
| I agree, this should be a protected page. Too much promotional and biased editing. ] (]) 20:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC) | |||
| == No balance of information on this page == | |||
| Scanning through the page, I was surprised at the bias against this organization. I know it is a controversial topic, but this clearly violates Misplaced Pages’s neutrality standards. There should be a balance of information. Because of that, I’ve added a couple relevant quotes to the article to help restore some of that balance. I have also removed/edited a couple statements that have logical fallacies, which I will explain in detail below: | |||
| * '''Removing The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America from the list of those criticizing evangelism of Jews''': The referenced doctrine doesn’t actually say the church criticizes Jewish evangelism. It only says to be aware that most Jews believe Messianic Jews and Jews for Jesus have “forsaken Judaism, and consider efforts to maintain otherwise to be deceptive,” which is not them criticizing Jewish evangelism. I did some further research and couldn’t find any other statement from them criticizing the evangelism of Jews. | |||
| * '''Removing Rabbi Irving Greenberg’s quote on Jews for Jesus and supersessionism''': The quote of Rabbi Irving Greenberg accusing Jews for Jesus of teaching Christian supersessionism contains major factual errors. In reality, Messianic Judaism has publicly denounced the idea of supersessionism, and Jews for Jesus has as well. I found several sources that confirm this, which I can list if need be. Since his statement mostly contains false information, it should be removed. | |||
| If anyone disagrees with any of the changes I made, before undoing my changes, please respond to me on the talk page and let’s discuss this. I intend to be very responsive on this page. <!-- Template:Unsigned --><span class="autosigned" style="font-size:85%;">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 01:39, 8 March 2021 (UTC)</span> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> | |||
| :I agree that this article suffers from severe bias against Jews for Jesus. The introduction to the article is pretty much a hit piece on the organization. There are two fundamental problems with the introduction to the article: (1) It completely ignores the meaning of Jew as an ethnicity, not a religion, and (2) It ignores the fact that all the original followers of Jesus were ethnically Jews and also considered themselves to be of the Jewish faith. They did not see themselves as having abandoned Judaism by following Jesus. First century Judaism was a very diverse faith, with the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and the followers of the Jesus movement. In this context, the followers of Jesus were not any more out of line with Judaism than the Essenes. It was not until the destruction of the temple in 70 AD that the Sadducees and Essenes disappeared, and the majority of followers of Jesus came to think of themselves as Christians, separate from Judaism. Pharisaic Judaism was the only surviving Judaism after the destruction of the temple, and it evolved into the Rabbinic Judaism that we know today. ] (]) 05:34, 23 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Better Business Bureau == | |||
| @] I removed the information about the Better Business Bureau because it included a large chunk of what is a standard BBB message when a charity does not interact with it. A lot of churches do not seek BBB approval. They might use a different group like ] (aka GuideStar) or ]. Jews for Jesus might well be problematic as far as finances; however, Misplaced Pages needs a reliable source stating this. Note the BBB also states in a section not quoted: "It is not intended to recommend or deprecate". Is there a reason you want to include this in the entry? ] (]) 04:30, 28 March 2024 (UTC) | |||
| == Jews for Jesus and the Ebionites == | |||
| == An Educator's Classroom Guide in the lead, dubious sources removed == | |||
| A lot of the statements in this article directly contradict the Misplaced Pages article on the Ebionites. After all, if it is impossible to be a Jew who believes in the divinity of Jesus, then who were the Ebionites? Weren't they exactly that? This article reeks of Jew vs Christian bigotry, similar to what caused the cancellation of the popular TV show "Bridget Loves Bernie" in the 1970's. This bigotry has a long history in the United States, and it is disappointing to see it continued in this article. ] (]) 14:47, 25 December 2024 (UTC) | |||
| I have removed the citation to "An Educator's Classroom Guide to America's Religious Beliefs and Practices" in the lead because the source didn't actually say anything about Jews for Jesus "rebranding" anything as Christian. I've also removed some non-] web sources such as Jews for Judaism. While I was at it I also changed "seeking to share their beliefs" into "seeking to proselytize"; reliable sources confirm that Jews for Jesus employ "missionaries". "Sharing your belief" via missionaries is proselytizing. ] (]) 22:32, 16 November 2018 (UTC) | |||
Latest revision as of 12:24, 26 December 2024
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Change "Sect" to "Organization" and other changes & cleanups
I suggest that the second sentence of the introduction be changed to "Jews for Jesus is not considered a Jewish organization by any mainstream Jewish authorities." --Westwind273 (talk) 17:05, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
- I agree with this. I think that all references to sect should be changed to organization. I can do this later tonight, or you can go for it and do it now Laella (talk) 23:12, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
- No hurry. Take your time. Thank you. --Westwind273 (talk) 04:15, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
I would like to offer some observations and advice as we all work to improve this article over time. As we work with reliable sources, two key examples of sources which are being considered as reliable are: (1) The JVL page, which the article introduction references https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jews-for-jesus, and (2) the JFJ page that you (Laella) referenced https://jewsforjesus.org/jewish-resources/community/messianic-jews/. I would like to point out that although these are being used as reliable sources, both pages contain multiple statements that are demonstrably false. Thus my point about use of “reliable sources” as being a subjective exercise. Probably the most egregious falsehoods on the JVL page are when it ascribes solely to JFJ certain beliefs which are in fact held by all evangelicals. Just to take one example, JVL states that JFJ uses the Old Testament (OT) as evidence that Jesus is the Messiah, whereas evangelicals use the New Testament (NT). In fact, both JFJ and standard evangelicals use both the OT and NT as proof that Jesus is the Messiah. Turning to the JFJ page on Messianic Jews, JFJ claims as history certain things for which there is no objective historical proof, or in fact there is historical proof to the contrary. Without getting into the nitty gritty details, the JFJ page goes through historical gymnastics to try to demonstrate that there always existed throughout history groups that we would call Jewish Christians, when in fact Jewish Christianity stemming directly from the ministry of Jesus lasted only as long as the Ebionites and the original Nazarenes at most. When you have both sides issuing falsehoods like this, creating a balanced and factual Misplaced Pages article can be very difficult. This is why I ask future authors to tread very carefully. My basic point is that things are not black and white. There are many shades of gray. Yes, JFJ tends to maintain many Jewish practices while being evangelical Christians. But so do certain Christians. Most Christians don’t celebrate seder meals, but in fact there are a large number of Catholics and Protestants who do celebrate seder. It is not forbidden by the Christian faith, and many consider it a way to get in touch with the Jewish roots of Christianity. Furthermore, there are some Christian denominations who are even more Jewish than JFJ. Armstrongism comes to mind, where they do not celebrate Christmas/Easter (pagan origins), do not eat pork/shellfish, do not believe in the Trinity, and worship on Saturday not Sunday. As I mentioned before, Christianity and Judaism have origins which are deeply intertwined, and blanket statements of criticism often destroy neutrality in the article. --Westwind273 (talk) 04:46, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
- As we go through the article, we can come to terms with each section and its sources. We are already "starting at the top" so to speak, so we can just work our way down.
- If you have a suggestion for the order of sections, or changes to the sections? (not the content of each section, just a "table of contents") maybe we can find some good examples of similar organizations? Starting with the right structure may make the article more coherent.
- While you are interested in debating the truth of JFJ's or their opponent's beliefs, we will need to be careful not to include your apologetics or observations. If JFJ gets some things 'wrong', it is ultimately an article about them, and not how they should be. This would need to include beliefs that you feel are wrong. It should be fine to state that JFJ believes "X", in contrast to the more common belief "Y".
- Yes, I agree that on both sides (both mainstream Jewish authorities and JFJ), even if their beliefs are demonstrably false by other reliable sources, they are nonetheless the beliefs of both sides, and therefore should be represented as such in the article. But in this environment, we just have to be very careful not to go overboard in explaining criticisms in the article, for example "sect of Judaism" vs "Jewish organization". This is not something that urgently needs to be changed, but rather something to think about as we go forward: My main remaining concern is that the "Opposition and criticism" section is not really describing the true nature of the opposition and criticism. The "Mainstream Judaism" section seems to focus on whether JFJ is Judaism or not, whereas the real problem that major Jewish organizations have with JFJ is (as you have described) that they react negatively to being specifically targeted by an evangelical group. The true sense of the JVL page is negative reaction to being targeted, not whether JFJ is a sect of Judaism or not. (In fact, the JVL page does not even contain the word "sect".) Likewise, in the Christian and Other sections, the actions described are general goodwill outreach from mainstream Christianity to Judaism, not actions that are specifically critical of JFJ. In particular, mainstream evangelicalism is largely supportive of JFJ's activities (primarily because JFJ is evangelical, albeit with somewhat more Jewish emphasis than standard evangelicalism). --Westwind273 (talk) 11:57, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
- The criticism of JFJ as not being a Jewish sect are actually criticisms of Messianic Judaism. The issue being that the terms JFJ and Messianic Judaism are sometimes used interchangeably due to their intertwined development. This can be clarified. That actually might be a useful clarification for the intro paragraph, because it is a very common confusion.
- The Criticism section needs to be better organized. There are several criticisms of JFJ, beyond targeting Jews. While I understand not wanting to make this page a comprehensive explanation of every bad thought anyone ever had about JFJ, There are some main categories of criticisms that need to be included. If we make it as a list, then the in-depth explanations of some criticisms can be linked to, rather than explained here.
- If you look at the page Chosen_People_Ministries the box on the right that says "This article is part of a series on Messianic Judaism" - it seems like that should be included on the JFJ page as well. I am not sure if it is something we can just drop in, or if it is something that is organized from somewhere else? Do you know?
I think that the outline of the page needs to be improved. Following other similar pages, I suggest the following structure: (I included all sections that are in the current article) I welcome your feedback on this.
- History
- Background
- Founder/Leaders (links to pages of people)
- Current
- Activities
- Evangelism
- Funding and Outreach
- Beliefs
- Differences with other Messianics
- Differences with other Christians
- Activities
- Criticisms
- Opposition
- Jewish
- Christian
- OTher
- Controversies
- Litigation
- Opposition
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Laella (talk • contribs) 19:27, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
- Other than the content of the Introduction and the Criticism section, I think your outline is fine. I know that editors should compromise with each other regarding content, but in order to avoid seeming deceptive about my view of the article content, I want to explain how I would change the article, if I had my druthers. I would change the final sentence of the first paragraph (introduction) to say "The evangelical efforts of Jews for Jesus have garnered a negative reaction from some Jews and Jewish organizations." Then, I would revise the content of the "Opposition and criticism" section. The "Mainstream Judaism" section here is misguided in its intent. The main point is that Jews and Jewish organizations have exhibited a negative reaction to being targeted by the evangelical Jews for Jesus. This negative reaction should be the main point of this section, not content that bickers over whether Jews for Jesus is Judaism (a claim Jews for Jesus never makes). Secondly, I would delete the "Christian" and "Other" sections as not being notable. The so-called opposition to JFJ here is really just some mainstream Christian organizations reaching out to Judaism, not specific criticism of JFJ. Mainstream Christianity has largely ignored JFJ, and evangelical Christianity (i.e. all those Trump supporters) have largely been supportive of JFJ. As evidence, go to the website of the major evangelical publication Christianity Today and search on Jews for Jesus. Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that a major part of Jewish enmity for JFJ is really just liberal Jewish enmity for evangelical Christianity. All in all, I feel a balanced article would be rewritten along these lines. As is, the article reads like someone has an ax to grind against JFJ. --Westwind273 (talk) 20:27, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
- I appreciate your calm recognition of your bias.
- The problem with your suggested sentence is the exact same problem with the original sentence you had issue with - "The evangelical efforts of Jews for Jesus have garnered a negative reaction from some Jews and Jewish organizations." - It's not "some" - it is "all" and you are trying to soften that by using imprecise language. (and please do not try to argue that because the word "Jews" is in there and that some Jews are JFJ it should be "some" - the context obviously implies practicing / non-apostate Jews).
- If you prefer "The evangelical efforts of Jews for Jesus have garnered a negative reaction from all Jewish organizations." I would probably agree to that, although I am not sure it's a significant improvement over the sentence it replaces.
- Looking at the bigger picture, your idea that the negative reaction to JFJ by Jews is only because of being targeted by JFJ, is incorrect. And, the distaste Jews have for JFJ is not "Jewish enmity for evangelical Christianity" You are projecting your incorrect assumptions onto Jews and Jewish organizations, and misunderstanding the issue. (Most Jewish organizations and synagogues participate in inter-religious activities and have a decent relationship with many evangelical Christian organizations on an institutional level).
- The arguments about "JFJ is not mainstream Judaism" is mostly about claims made by Messianic Judaism - which does make that argument explicitly. And JFJ is not only an organization under the umbrella of Messianic Judaism, it was highly instrumental in the development of the current Messianic Judaism sect. I agree that they are "seperating" and that the distinction should be clarified.
- Although JFJ has obviously made effort in trying to clean up their image, they do have a history of using deceptive tactics. In practice, they still do use deceptive tactics, even if they are not spelling out their methods on their website. The main Jewish argument against JFJ is about the deceptive tactics, many of which do revolve around trying to convince people they are more Jewish than they really are. It is a lot to separate out, but I do agree that this page is not the right one to explain the controversy around Messianic Judaism in general. It should be selective to JFJ controversies only - but there is more to the controversy than resentment of being targeted for proselytizing.
- I do feel there is a place for Christian and other controversies, but it could probably be simplified to a single section.
- While you read this article as "like someone has an ax to grind against JFJ" - I read it as overly favorable to JFJ. The only negative information is under the "Controversy" header, so all negative issues are clearly marked. The rest of the article reads like it was copied directly from one of their pamphlets. Of course, you don't want to see criticisms of an organization you clearly admire. I do feel that the criticisms are poorly explained. Just posting a few statements, rather than giving an explanation of what the main criticisms are. Maybe it will sound less critical to you, if the criticisms are explained.
- I do see that JFJ proselytizing and criticisms of that activity are all JFJ has (at least in this article). You favor them, so maybe it would feel more balanced to you, if you explained some positive things they do, other than proselytizing Jews? Do they do anything else?
- --Laella (talk) 20:38, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
- I likewise appreciate your calm recognition of your clearly biased view with regard to this article. You are in fact projecting your incorrect assumptions onto Jews, Jewish organizations, and JFJ. You have a strong desire to see criticisms of an organization (JFJ) that you clearly detest. You are trying to add vitriol to the article by saying that “all” Jews react negatively to JFJ. (Have you polled each and every Jew in America?) That being said, I could compromise by deleting “some”, and just saying something like “Jews have generally reacted negatively to JFJ”. Frankly speaking, there are a lot of Jews who are indifferent to JFJ. In 2016, 71% of Jews voted for Hillary, and 81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. Clearly Jews and white evangelicals are at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, although there is some “strange bedfellows” agreement on Israel. But overall, this is not a “decent relationship”. What you condescendingly call “deceptive tactics”, JFJ would call their earnestly held religious beliefs. They believe that many aspects of the Jewish faith persist into Christianity. Looking at the history of Christianity, this is clearly a reasonable position. Jesus was a Jew. All of his followers were Jews. Judaism at that time was quite diverse, not the consolidated rabbinic Judaism of today. Were the Essenes Jews? What about the Pharisees? The Sadducees? The Samaritans? The “Jesus Movement” (it was not yet called Christianity) was originally seen as a sect of Judaism. As I have said previously, the dogma of virtually all denominations of Christianity is that the Christian faith is the fulfillment of Judaism. JFJ simply emphasizes this more than other groups. Moreover, proselytizing is what all evangelicals do, not just JFJ. JFJ does as many positive things as any other evangelical church. It is quite common within evangelicalism for believers of a certain ethnicity to focus on outreach to their own ethnic group. Many evangelical mega-churches in the US have Hispanics doing Spanish language outreach to other Hispanics. JFJ is simply proselytizing to their own ethnicity; this is very common across all of American evangelicalism. It is quite condescending of you to ask if JFJ “does anything positive”. Why hold JFJ to a standard that no other evangelicals are held to? In sum, this article is not a playground for you to engage in attacks on JFJ. That is not the purpose of a Misplaced Pages article. Your crusade to make this article into an attack piece on JFJ has rendered it one of the worst articles on Misplaced Pages, due to extreme bias.
- Finally, as an aside, you are grossly mistaken about my biases. I actually have a strong dislike for the main aspects of evangelicalism (including JFJ), in particular their beliefs of sola fide, biblical inerrancy, and the strong white evangelical support for Trump. But I have had a number of evangelical friends over the years, and so I am sensitive to Misplaced Pages’s liberal bias being played out as a hit piece article on JFJ. --Westwind273 (talk) 21:17, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
- I see that your resolve to be civil has had a setback. As it is not relevant to this article, I am not going to engage. Please keep comments relevant. Laella (talk) 18:10, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
- This is so ironic. I have only said back to you exactly what you said to me, no more. It was in fact you who led this discussion into an uncivil space. I engaged in a civil manner, and you chose to be uncivil. When you chose to be uncivil, I simply said back to you exactly what you said to me. You claim to be civil, and yet you initiate unprovoked uncivil attacks. And then you claim the other person is being uncivil. You have an astounding lack of self-awareness. Look back at our discussion here and in the previous section. Who first accused the other of determining content based on whether one "likes it"? You. Who first accused the other's observations of being irrelevant? You. Who first accused the other of having bias? You. Who first accused the other of basing suggested article improvements on whether they do or do not like JFJ? You. Who first accused the other of purposely attempting to slant ("soften") the article? You. Who first accused the other of being uncivil and having a setback? You. I can see that your extreme lack of self-awareness prevents you from being civil, all the while accusing the other person of being uncivil. As your most recent comment is completely irrelevant to the article, I will not respond any further. Please try to make your comments relevant to this article and stop commenting on the civility of others, when it is in fact you who initiate the incivility. All this simply reinforces my belief that you have an ax to grind against JFJ which blinds you to considering the views of others, and your severe lack of self-awareness prevents you from having any relevant discussion. I can recognize what is and isn't civility, but you unfortunately cannot. In your view, whatever you say is civil, but when someone uses the same words back at you, it becomes "uncivil". There is no "setback" that I have had, but you have never even progressed to the point of being able to tell whether you yourself are acting in a civil manner. You can't have a setback because you never got to the point of being able to see incivility in yourself in the first place. Quite disgusting. You are unable to counter any of the points I made, so you simply revert into accusing others of incivility and go crying to the moderators when your own words are used back at you. It is sad to see that you are unable to escape your cocoon of lack of self-awareness. --Westwind273 (talk) 05:47, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
- I see that your resolve to be civil has had a setback. As it is not relevant to this article, I am not going to engage. Please keep comments relevant. Laella (talk) 18:10, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
- I went to the moderator because you called me a Nazi.
- It's not a word I used, which is clear from the history of the chat.
- You need to remove your most recent opinion of me from the discussion.
- Laella (talk) 09:32, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
- What is clear from the history of the chat is that everything that I have said recently (that you claim is uncivil) is simply me using your own words back at you. You are completely oblivious to incivility in yourself, and yet quick to accuse others of it. You need to remove your most recent opinion of me ("resolve to be civil has had a setback") from the discussion. --Westwind273 (talk) 05:56, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Major changes - most not good
The large changes, dropping lots of accepted information and adding a lot of propaganda need to be discussed on the talk page. Most of this article is not acceptable as is at the moment. The point of this article should not be as a propaganda piece for Jews for Jesus, and you can not leave out criticisms. Many of the changes are to things that have been discussed over many years to come to a consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laella (talk • contribs) 18:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC) I agree, this should be a protected page. Too much promotional and biased editing. Yoleaux (talk) 20:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
No balance of information on this page
Scanning through the page, I was surprised at the bias against this organization. I know it is a controversial topic, but this clearly violates Misplaced Pages’s neutrality standards. There should be a balance of information. Because of that, I’ve added a couple relevant quotes to the article to help restore some of that balance. I have also removed/edited a couple statements that have logical fallacies, which I will explain in detail below:
- Removing The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America from the list of those criticizing evangelism of Jews: The referenced doctrine doesn’t actually say the church criticizes Jewish evangelism. It only says to be aware that most Jews believe Messianic Jews and Jews for Jesus have “forsaken Judaism, and consider efforts to maintain otherwise to be deceptive,” which is not them criticizing Jewish evangelism. I did some further research and couldn’t find any other statement from them criticizing the evangelism of Jews.
- Removing Rabbi Irving Greenberg’s quote on Jews for Jesus and supersessionism: The quote of Rabbi Irving Greenberg accusing Jews for Jesus of teaching Christian supersessionism contains major factual errors. In reality, Messianic Judaism has publicly denounced the idea of supersessionism, and Jews for Jesus has as well. I found several sources that confirm this, which I can list if need be. Since his statement mostly contains false information, it should be removed.
If anyone disagrees with any of the changes I made, before undoing my changes, please respond to me on the talk page and let’s discuss this. I intend to be very responsive on this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AEditing3 (talk • contribs) 01:39, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
- I agree that this article suffers from severe bias against Jews for Jesus. The introduction to the article is pretty much a hit piece on the organization. There are two fundamental problems with the introduction to the article: (1) It completely ignores the meaning of Jew as an ethnicity, not a religion, and (2) It ignores the fact that all the original followers of Jesus were ethnically Jews and also considered themselves to be of the Jewish faith. They did not see themselves as having abandoned Judaism by following Jesus. First century Judaism was a very diverse faith, with the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and the followers of the Jesus movement. In this context, the followers of Jesus were not any more out of line with Judaism than the Essenes. It was not until the destruction of the temple in 70 AD that the Sadducees and Essenes disappeared, and the majority of followers of Jesus came to think of themselves as Christians, separate from Judaism. Pharisaic Judaism was the only surviving Judaism after the destruction of the temple, and it evolved into the Rabbinic Judaism that we know today. Westwind273 (talk) 05:34, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
Better Business Bureau
@Intercalate I removed the information about the Better Business Bureau because it included a large chunk of what is a standard BBB message when a charity does not interact with it. A lot of churches do not seek BBB approval. They might use a different group like Candid (organization) (aka GuideStar) or Charity Navigator. Jews for Jesus might well be problematic as far as finances; however, Misplaced Pages needs a reliable source stating this. Note the BBB also states in a section not quoted: "It is not intended to recommend or deprecate". Is there a reason you want to include this in the entry? Erp (talk) 04:30, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
Jews for Jesus and the Ebionites
A lot of the statements in this article directly contradict the Misplaced Pages article on the Ebionites. After all, if it is impossible to be a Jew who believes in the divinity of Jesus, then who were the Ebionites? Weren't they exactly that? This article reeks of Jew vs Christian bigotry, similar to what caused the cancellation of the popular TV show "Bridget Loves Bernie" in the 1970's. This bigotry has a long history in the United States, and it is disappointing to see it continued in this article. Westwind273 (talk) 14:47, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
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