NEW YORK, Aug. 12 (JTA) — Richard Mouw has been a conflicted man — until now. The president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. — known as “the Harvard of evangelical seminaries” — has been torn between fealty to his faith, which requires him to proselytize “the Jew first,” and his desire to respect all religious people. In private conversations and in public presentations last January during a conference at Fuller convened with the American Jewish Committee, Mouw made clear that he was seriously struggling to mediate those tensions. Mouw, an influential voice in the national evangelical community, had come under fire from members of his own faculty, particularly those involved with the Jewish evangelism courses offered at Fuller, where Jews for Jesus sends its Southern California leaders for training. They took strong issue with Fuller’s partnering with a mainstream Jewish organization while excluding what they call the messianic Jews, including Jews for Jesus, whom they view as a bridge between the Jewish and evangelical communities. Mouw has responded to his critics in a strongly worded editorial in the Aug. 11 issue of Christianity Today, perhaps the pre-eminent evangelical publication. In his editorial, titled “To the Jew First — Witnessing to the Jews is Nonnegotiable,” Mouw makes clear that he is, above all, an evangelical Christian. “Let’s be clear about this: evangelism is a mandate,” he writes. “I have a nonnegotiable commitment to evangelism — and this includes witnessing to Jewish people about my firm conviction that Jesus is the promised Messiah.” Mouw softens his position, though, by adding, “I also oppose treating Jews as if they were only `targets’ for evangelism,” apparently referring to last year’s resolution by the Southern Baptist Convention, which said that Jews should be targeted for conversion. Mouw writes that Christians have much to learn from Jews, and cites the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and the fiction of writer Chaim Potok as spiritual inspiration. He also writes, addressing his evangelical audience, that “we must cooperate with Jews in working for the health of society,” specifically citing fighting “racism and Jew-hatred” as part of his agenda. “Dialogue and cooperation with Jews have their own genuine value,” writes Mouw, who was on vacation and unavailable for comment. But he also writes: “We need to keep reminding Jewish friends that if they are serious about having better relations with evangelicals — which many of them are — they cannot demand that we think and act like liberal Protestants or Roman Catholics,” two groups that in general refrain from identifying Jews as a group requiring special missionary attention. Rabbi A. James Rudin, the American Jewish Committee official who organized the conference on religious pluralism at Fuller in January, said that he views Mouw as a “religious pilgrim” whose search is not yet over. But, he said, Mouw’s new statement reflects “the irreconcilable tension which is so much a part of evangelical-Jewish relations, and between his faith commitment and his commitment towards Jews and society.” Rudin said Mouw’s clearly articulated pro-proselytizing position will not deter the AJCommittee from pursuing joint work with Fuller. Fuller seminary students may soon be joining other Christian and Jewish seminary students from the Los Angeles area on retreats, Rudin said. He also hopes that Fuller students will soon be learning about Judaism from a real rabbi, rather than a “messianic” Christian using the same title. “Mouw has to continue to have relations with the real Jewish community and not abstractions,” Rudin said, “and be confronted not just by the conversionists, but by who we really are.”
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