Christian Zionism - New Life Tabernacle of Chattanooga

11.2 Jews for Jesus: Messianic Dispensationalism (1973)
Jews for Jesus (JFJ) was founded in 1973 by Moishe Rosen 571 an ordained
Baptist minister 572 and arose out of the Californian hippy culture Jesus
movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. 573 In the Haight-Ashbury district of
San Francisco from where Jews for Jesus was born, Time magazine
estimated that 30% of hippies were Jewish while Moishe Rosen believes 20%
of the Jesus People were also. 574 JFJ claim to be ‘… the largest and bestknown
of the non-denominational Jewish evangelistic agencies’ with
missionaries in ten countries and an income in 2000 of more than $12
million. 575 While identifying itself as ‘evangelical fundamentalist’ JFJ enjoys
the support of conservative evangelicals such as Dr. J.I. Packer. 576 In addition
to their fifteen branches and sixty chapters, JFJ sends out evangelistic teams
such as the emotively named ‘Liberated Wailing Wall’. 577 Their founder
Moishe Rosen, executive director, David Brickner and scholar in residence,
Louis Goldberg are all classical dispensationalists. Their Doctrinal Statement
reflects this, asserting belief in the continuing existence of two parallel but
separate covenants for Israel and the Church: ‘We believe Israel exists as a
covenant people through whom God continues to accomplish His purposes
and that the Church is an elect people in accordance with the New Covenant,
comprising both Jews and Gentiles.’ With a similar ministry philosophy to that
of Campus Crusade for Christ, Young Life and the Navigators, Jews for Jesus
represents a robustly evangelistic form of dispensational Premillennialism. As
an organisation of Messianic Christians committed to both evangelism among
Jews as well as Restorationism, JFJ are unique, having, in their own words,
‘Out-Zioned the Zionists’. 578
of Jews for Jesus and a dispensationalist.
571 Moishe Rosen, Overture to Armageddon? Beyond the Gulf War, (San Bernardino,
California, Here's Life Publishers, 1991).
572 Ruth Tucker, Not Ashamed, the Story of Jews for Jesus, (Sisters, Oregon, Multnomah,
1999), p240.
573 Ibid., pp77-92.
574 Ibid., p78.
575
http://www.ecfa.org/MbrProf.asp?MemberID=207
576 Tucker, op.cit., p239; ‘Foreword’.
577 Jews for Jesus, ‘“Billy Graham was Misunderstood” Says Jews for Jesus Leader’,
Briefing Bulletin, http://www.jews-for-jesus.org
578 Louis Goldberg, ‘Whose Land Is It?’ Issues, 4.2.
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