General Discussion Christian Zionist Don Finto on Jews, Israel, and the Christian church- your thoughts?

[NatG05]

Hi I hope this is the appropriate sub Reddit for this. I wanna discuss Don Finto. Finto wrote a book called Your people shall be my people: How Israel, the Jews, and the Christian church will come together in the last days. Now I think it's great that Finto supports Israel and doesn't believe that the Christian church has replaced the Jews ( replacement theology), however I just wonder what Jewish people think about Finto and his beliefs. I was watching a video on Finto and he believes Christians are grafted into Israel. I just think that maybe Finto is misguided a bit. Judaism Stresses endogamy for Jews and I am sure most Jews are against Christians trying to convert Jews to Christianity. Now, Finto is the type of Christian who believe Jews and Christians will come together as one new man. But doesn't Judaism teach that Jews need to remain distinct from all other people, including Christians? Now I just wonder Jewish and Israeli opinions on this. Do you think Israel and Jews need all the friends and allies it can get, so it doesn't matter what people like Finto believe, or do you have a different opinion of Finto and people like him? Not trying to drive a wedge between Jews and Christians, I think it's great some Christians support Jews and I am not trying to start a flame war, I am just genuinely curious about your thoughts and opinions on this topic. Thanks so much!!!

I am the OP. lol I copied and pasted from my Reddit post. Lol at the first sentence, my bad.

[Baruch]

I just googled and saw a video by this man. While I think it is important that Jews and Christians should work as people of faith to get along. I have no desire to surrender my faith as a Jew. I do not insist that Christians abandon their faith. It's about free will.

With this having been said. I desire that Christians stop insisting that Jews should turn to Christianity. The Mormon Church also claims to have additional thoughts and beliefs. Should Christians flock to this new faith ? No, people should be left alone to believe what they choose to believe.

[Jason]

I only take issue with the expression "choose to believe." I don't think that we can really choose to believe things. If something convinces us, we believe it. If it doesn't convince us, we don't believe it. To some extent, we can choose what information we look at and what information we ignore – but even that not fully.

If I told you to choose to believe that a stapler is a telephone, you might pretend with me and put the thing against your ear. You will not be able to choose to believe that you can place calls with a stapler, though. Unless something extraordinary happened such that the stapler really started ringing or you heard a voice through the hole where the staples come out! Perhaps someone wired a stapler to work like a phone, so that it is a stapler in shape but a phone in function.

Unless you have such evidence, you will not believe that a stapler is a telephone under normal circumstances.

You do not have much control over what you believe (or, more generally, what you think – which is always influenced by something outside of your control).

## Steps off soapbox.

[nili]

... Finto is the type of Christian who believe Jews and Christians will come together as one new man.

What does that mean? So, for example, would this new man (or woman) believe in the divinity of Jesus?

[Channalee]

Do you think Israel and Jews need all the friends and allies it can get...

I don't live in Israel, or have to contend with what Israeli citizens have to contend with on a daily basis, so I don't feel qualified to say whether or not Israel needs all the friends and allies it can get.

Speaking for my own Jewish self... There are some people whom I would not care to befriend or ally myself with, regardless of how much they purport to love the Jewish people. I think that there are some Christians who support Israel for the wrong reasons.

[Channalee]

Excerpt from the Jews for Judaism website:

The Jewish community was widely exposed to Don Finto’s agenda when he made an appearance in 2011 at a mass rally in a Texas stadium with messianic associates, and openly prayed for the conversion of the Jewish people. The “Response” prayer rally, the brainchild of then Texas Governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry, made international headlines and was a source of national debate in addition to causing concern in America’s Jewish community...

As far back as 1997 Don Finto was making waves and headlines with his sermons and promotion of the Christian mandate to convert the Jewish people...

For years Jewish leaders and activists have consistently and persistently denied that they were working with missionaries, and insisted that Christian Zionists were not interested in bringing Jews to faith in Jesus. However now that this is obviously no longer true, Jewish activists are scrambling to keep these unholy alliances intact. The new strategy is to deem the missionary infiltration into Israel as benign and benevolent. Rather than take an honest accounting of a tragic mistake, the questions now being asked and explored by Ari Abramowitz, Jeremy Gimpel and others are, “should we be afraid of missionaries?” and “should Christian missionaries be banned or embraced?”

Click here for entire article.

[Jason]

Excerpt from the Jews for Judaism website:

The Jewish community was widely exposed to Don Finto’s agenda when he made an appearance in 2011 at a mass rally in a Texas stadium with messianic associates, and openly prayed for the conversion of the Jewish people. The “Response” prayer rally, the brainchild of then Texas Governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry, made international headlines and was a source of national debate in addition to causing concern in America’s Jewish community...

As far back as 1997 Don Finto was making waves and headlines with his sermons and promotion of the Christian mandate to convert the Jewish people...

For years Jewish leaders and activists have consistently and persistently denied that they were working with missionaries, and insisted that Christian Zionists were not interested in bringing Jews to faith in Jesus. However now that this is obviously no longer true, Jewish activists are scrambling to keep these unholy alliances intact. The new strategy is to deem the missionary infiltration into Israel as benign and benevolent. Rather than take an honest accounting of a tragic mistake, the questions now being asked and explored by Ari Abramowitz, Jeremy Gimpel and others are, “should we be afraid of missionaries?” and “should Christian missionaries be banned or embraced?”

Click here for entire article.

♥