Converting Jews and Mormons is an important goal for the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention. These two groups represent major challenges to Southern Baptists. The Jews, of course, have long resisted the truth-claims of Christian salvation while the Mormons challenge the Southern Baptists’ claims to represent family values and conservative Protestant Christianity.
The “conversion of the Jews” has been led by James Sibley, a man who has known that he wanted to convert the Jews to his brand of Christianity since he was 14-years old. He doesn’t think that American Jews should fear his evangelical calling, but instead should welcome it. Right. Am I the only one who thinks he’s simply wasted his life?
American Jewish leaders considered it an insult and a major setback for interfaith relations in America. Such attempts at conversion basically tell Jews that their faith is inferior and even wrong — something which reminds many of the anti-Semitic policies which led up to the Holocaust.
For that reason, a number Jews consider the conversion efforts to be an affront to the memories of all those who died because of their Judaism and due to intolerance. Most American Christian churches abandoned conversion efforts after WWII and the Southern Baptists are the only ones to have officially taken it up again.
According to Sibley, the “dual-covenant theology” which postulates that both Jews and Christians have an equal and valid pact with their God is “slick,” but “...based on human reason rather than the word of God.” As far as Sibley is concerned, “Jesus is the only way of salvation, for all men, regardless.”
In support of this effort, he has spent 14 years evangelizing in Israel and is organizing intensive seminary courses to train people “how to share the Gospel in a way Jewish people can hear it.” I guess it hasn’t occurred to him that maybe they have heard it and just aren’t interested?
The choice of holding the 1998 convention in Salt Lake City was made with a particular purpose in mind: converting the local Mormon population. The convention in 1997 was held in New Orleans, and evidently the delegates had entirely too much fun in their off-hours by attending bars and strip-clubs.
Mormons are not considered “Christian” by most conservative Christian churches and Utah was flooded with revival meetings along with a $600,000 advertising campaign. This is very ironic, considering that both Baptists and Mormons regularly join together to support conservative “family values” issues, such as abortion, euthanasia, gambling, the use of tobacco and alcohol, and the status of religion in society.
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