Neighborly Relations: Jews/Baptists

Neighborly Relations: Jews/Baptists

Dear Editor:

I find it interesting that Rabbi Alan Bright and local Jewish leaders are so vehement against their Southern Baptist neighbors' Celebrate Jesus 2000 campaign. Are they presuming to tell the Baptists how to fulfill their obligations to God? Would they allow a Christian group to tell them how to conduct their religious ministry?

The rabbis seem overly concerned with the Baptist outreach. Just how many Jewish citizens would they expect to attend a Christian program? And what percentage of those who might go would be easily swept away from their Jewish heritage into the Baptist church? Are not Jewish folks free to think and make religious choices on their own?

Rabbi Bright paints the Baptist effort as a "campaign to impose Jesus on non-Christian faiths." This seems a bit hysterical. To invite folks to read a tract or attend a religious service cannot be construed as imposing a faith on anyone. In public schools kids are taught about Jewish holy days and customs. Is that imposing Judaism on non-Jewish children?

The rabbis have used their influence to keep their Christian neighbors from using a community facility owned and paid for by all, including Southern Baptist residents of Sun City. Rather than the Baptists "undermining interfaith activities," perhaps it is the other way around. It seems that a spirit of good will among friends would have said, "I am glad for you to use it."

I am not Baptist. I won't be attending the campaign, but I do think such a bitter reaction is counterproductive. It is the kind of behavior that demigods can use to poison one group of people against another. As a famous Jewish rabbi once said, "All things there fore that ye would that men do unto you, even so do ye unto them: for this the law and the prophets."

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