CARTER TRIES TO DISUADE CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS FROM SUPPORTING ISRAEL

Some Evangelical Christians are BIG supporters of Israel. There are some Jews who are uncomfortable accepting such support, fearing it comes with a hidden agenda. Jimmy Carter is working the other side. He doesn't think Evangelical Christians should support Israel.

Carter Challenging Baptists On Conversions, Says Rabbi (JewishWeek)
Wading into the delicate fray over the alliance between Jews and pro-Israel Evangelicals, former President Jimmy Carter last week reportedly said it was a mistake for Jews to accept such ties, and that he was working to convince Southern Baptists to change the way they look at Judaism and the Middle East.

Christian Zionists can be better friends of Israel by challenging its government’s policies, while accepting Judaism as a legitimate path to God, Carter told a group organized by Rabbi Michael Lerner in California last week, according to the rabbi....

“Carter described his efforts to counter the extreme right-wing Christian Zionists, and his efforts to help the Baptists understand that the real way to be allies to the Jews is not by giving unconditional support to the current government of the State of Israel,” Rabbi Lerner announced in an e-mail to supporters after the meeting. He said the comments were on the record, taped and would appear, in part, in Tikkun this summer.

In a phone interview from California, the rabbi said Carter, a devout Southern Baptist, “has been involved and continues to be involved in theological debate within the American Baptists on the issue of how best to serve Jewish interests …

“He pointed out the strong connections between Christian Zionism and the desire to push the Jews eventually toward converting to Christianity or burning in hell. He pointed out that the Christian Zionist view is part of that general theology that essentially views the Jews as an obstacle, not as friends, but temporarily views the Jews as friends in the process of bringing back Jesus and at that point having all of us convert .”

Carter, said Rabbi Lerner, “says that Judaism is an equally legitimate path to God and does not believe that a second coming of Jesus requires destruction of the Jewish path to God … He argues that the book of Revelations from which this perspective has been derived is deeply misinterpreted by the fundamentalists.”

Rabbi James Rudin, the expert on Christian-Jewish affairs for the American Jewish Committee, took exception to the notion that Jewish leaders were acting against their interests.

“The Jewish community is much more sophisticated than maybe the president thinks,” said Rabbi Rudin. “We certainly understand that there are people such as he is describing, but that’s not the majority of Christian Zionists. There are many different views.”