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Change "Sect" to "Organization" and other changes & cleanups

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I suggest that the second sentence of the introduction be changed to "Jews for Jesus is not considered a Jewish organization by any mainstream Jewish authorities." --Westwind273 (talk) 17:05, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this. I think that all references to sect should be changed to organization. I can do this later tonight, or you can go for it and do it now Laella (talk) 23:12, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No hurry. Take your time. Thank you. --Westwind273 (talk) 04:15, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to offer some observations and advice as we all work to improve this article over time. As we work with reliable sources, two key examples of sources which are being considered as reliable are: (1) The JVL page, which the article introduction references https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jews-for-jesus, and (2) the JFJ page that you (Laella) referenced https://jewsforjesus.org/jewish-resources/community/messianic-jews/. I would like to point out that although these are being used as reliable sources, both pages contain multiple statements that are demonstrably false. Thus my point about use of “reliable sources” as being a subjective exercise. Probably the most egregious falsehoods on the JVL page are when it ascribes solely to JFJ certain beliefs which are in fact held by all evangelicals. Just to take one example, JVL states that JFJ uses the Old Testament (OT) as evidence that Jesus is the Messiah, whereas evangelicals use the New Testament (NT). In fact, both JFJ and standard evangelicals use both the OT and NT as proof that Jesus is the Messiah. Turning to the JFJ page on Messianic Jews, JFJ claims as history certain things for which there is no objective historical proof, or in fact there is historical proof to the contrary. Without getting into the nitty gritty details, the JFJ page goes through historical gymnastics to try to demonstrate that there always existed throughout history groups that we would call Jewish Christians, when in fact Jewish Christianity stemming directly from the ministry of Jesus lasted only as long as the Ebionites and the original Nazarenes at most. When you have both sides issuing falsehoods like this, creating a balanced and factual Wikipedia article can be very difficult. This is why I ask future authors to tread very carefully. My basic point is that things are not black and white. There are many shades of gray. Yes, JFJ tends to maintain many Jewish practices while being evangelical Christians. But so do certain Christians. Most Christians don’t celebrate seder meals, but in fact there are a large number of Catholics and Protestants who do celebrate seder. It is not forbidden by the Christian faith, and many consider it a way to get in touch with the Jewish roots of Christianity. Furthermore, there are some Christian denominations who are even more Jewish than JFJ. Armstrongism comes to mind, where they do not celebrate Christmas/Easter (pagan origins), do not eat pork/shellfish, do not believe in the Trinity, and worship on Saturday not Sunday. As I mentioned before, Christianity and Judaism have origins which are deeply intertwined, and blanket statements of criticism often destroy neutrality in the article. --Westwind273 (talk) 04:46, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As we go through the article, we can come to terms with each section and its sources. We are already "starting at the top" so to speak, so we can just work our way down.
If you have a suggestion for the order of sections, or changes to the sections? (not the content of each section, just a "table of contents") maybe we can find some good examples of similar organizations? Starting with the right structure may make the article more coherent.
While you are interested in debating the truth of JFJ's or their opponent's beliefs, we will need to be careful not to include your apologetics or observations. If JFJ gets some things 'wrong', it is ultimately an article about them, and not how they should be. This would need to include beliefs that you feel are wrong. It should be fine to state that JFJ believes "X", in contrast to the more common belief "Y".
Laella (talk) 06:08, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree that on both sides (both mainstream Jewish authorities and JFJ), even if their beliefs are demonstrably false by other reliable sources, they are nonetheless the beliefs of both sides, and therefore should be represented as such in the article. But in this environment, we just have to be very careful not to go overboard in explaining criticisms in the article, for example "sect of Judaism" vs "Jewish organization". This is not something that urgently needs to be changed, but rather something to think about as we go forward: My main remaining concern is that the "Opposition and criticism" section is not really describing the true nature of the opposition and criticism. The "Mainstream Judaism" section seems to focus on whether JFJ is Judaism or not, whereas the real problem that major Jewish organizations have with JFJ is (as you have described) that they react negatively to being specifically targeted by an evangelical group. The true sense of the JVL page is negative reaction to being targeted, not whether JFJ is a sect of Judaism or not. (In fact, the JVL page does not even contain the word "sect".) Likewise, in the Christian and Other sections, the actions described are general goodwill outreach from mainstream Christianity to Judaism, not actions that are specifically critical of JFJ. In particular, mainstream evangelicalism is largely supportive of JFJ's activities (primarily because JFJ is evangelical, albeit with somewhat more Jewish emphasis than standard evangelicalism). --Westwind273 (talk) 11:57, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The criticism of JFJ as not being a Jewish sect are actually criticisms of Messianic Judaism. The issue being that the terms JFJ and Messianic Judaism are sometimes used interchangeably due to their intertwined development. This can be clarified. That actually might be a useful clarification for the intro paragraph, because it is a very common confusion.
The Criticism section needs to be better organized. There are several criticisms of JFJ, beyond targeting Jews. While I understand not wanting to make this page a comprehensive explanation of every bad thought anyone ever had about JFJ, There are some main categories of criticisms that need to be included. If we make it as a list, then the in-depth explanations of some criticisms can be linked to, rather than explained here.
If you look at the page Chosen_People_Ministries the box on the right that says "This article is part of a series on Messianic Judaism" - it seems like that should be included on the JFJ page as well. I am not sure if it is something we can just drop in, or if it is something that is organized from somewhere else? Do you know?

I think that the outline of the page needs to be improved. Following other similar pages, I suggest the following structure: (I included all sections that are in the current article) I welcome your feedback on this.

  1. History
    1. Background
    2. Founder/Leaders (links to pages of people)
  2. Current
    1. Activities
      1. Evangelism
      2. Funding and Outreach
    2. Beliefs
      1. Differences with other Messianics
      2. Differences with other Christians
  3. Criticisms
    1. Opposition
      1. Jewish
      2. Christian
      3. OTher
    2. Controversies
    3. Litigation

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Laella (talkcontribs) 19:27, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Other than the content of the Introduction and the Criticism section, I think your outline is fine. I know that editors should compromise with each other regarding content, but in order to avoid seeming deceptive about my view of the article content, I want to explain how I would change the article, if I had my druthers. I would change the final sentence of the first paragraph (introduction) to say "The evangelical efforts of Jews for Jesus have garnered a negative reaction from some Jews and Jewish organizations." Then, I would revise the content of the "Opposition and criticism" section. The "Mainstream Judaism" section here is misguided in its intent. The main point is that Jews and Jewish organizations have exhibited a negative reaction to being targeted by the evangelical Jews for Jesus. This negative reaction should be the main point of this section, not content that bickers over whether Jews for Jesus is Judaism (a claim Jews for Jesus never makes). Secondly, I would delete the "Christian" and "Other" sections as not being notable. The so-called opposition to JFJ here is really just some mainstream Christian organizations reaching out to Judaism, not specific criticism of JFJ. Mainstream Christianity has largely ignored JFJ, and evangelical Christianity (i.e. all those Trump supporters) have largely been supportive of JFJ. As evidence, go to the website of the major evangelical publication Christianity Today and search on Jews for Jesus. Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that a major part of Jewish enmity for JFJ is really just liberal Jewish enmity for evangelical Christianity. All in all, I feel a balanced article would be rewritten along these lines. As is, the article reads like someone has an ax to grind against JFJ. --Westwind273 (talk) 20:27, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]


I appreciate your calm recognition of your bias.
The problem with your suggested sentence is the exact same problem with the original sentence you had issue with - "The evangelical efforts of Jews for Jesus have garnered a negative reaction from some Jews and Jewish organizations." - It's not "some" - it is "all" and you are trying to soften that by using imprecise language. (and please do not try to argue that because the word "Jews" is in there and that some Jews are JFJ it should be "some" - the context obviously implies practicing / non-apostate Jews).
If you prefer "The evangelical efforts of Jews for Jesus have garnered a negative reaction from all Jewish organizations." I would probably agree to that, although I am not sure it's a significant improvement over the sentence it replaces.
Looking at the bigger picture, your idea that the negative reaction to JFJ by Jews is only because of being targeted by JFJ, is incorrect. And, the distaste Jews have for JFJ is not "Jewish enmity for evangelical Christianity" You are projecting your incorrect assumptions onto Jews and Jewish organizations, and misunderstanding the issue. (Most Jewish organizations and synagogues participate in inter-religious activities and have a decent relationship with many evangelical Christian organizations on an institutional level).
The arguments about "JFJ is not mainstream Judaism" is mostly about claims made by Messianic Judaism - which does make that argument explicitly. And JFJ is not only an organization under the umbrella of Messianic Judaism, it was highly instrumental in the development of the current Messianic Judaism sect. I agree that they are "seperating" and that the distinction should be clarified.
Although JFJ has obviously made effort in trying to clean up their image, they do have a history of using deceptive tactics. In practice, they still do use deceptive tactics, even if they are not spelling out their methods on their website. The main Jewish argument against JFJ is about the deceptive tactics, many of which do revolve around trying to convince people they are more Jewish than they really are. It is a lot to separate out, but I do agree that this page is not the right one to explain the controversy around Messianic Judaism in general. It should be selective to JFJ controversies only - but there is more to the controversy than resentment of being targeted for proselytizing.
I do feel there is a place for Christian and other controversies, but it could probably be simplified to a single section.
While you read this article as "like someone has an ax to grind against JFJ" - I read it as overly favorable to JFJ. The only negative information is under the "Controversy" header, so all negative issues are clearly marked. The rest of the article reads like it was copied directly from one of their pamphlets. Of course, you don't want to see criticisms of an organization you clearly admire. I do feel that the criticisms are poorly explained. Just posting a few statements, rather than giving an explanation of what the main criticisms are. Maybe it will sound less critical to you, if the criticisms are explained.
I do see that JFJ proselytizing and criticisms of that activity are all JFJ has (at least in this article). You favor them, so maybe it would feel more balanced to you, if you explained some positive things they do, other than proselytizing Jews? Do they do anything else?
--Laella (talk) 20:38, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I likewise appreciate your calm recognition of your clearly biased view with regard to this article. You are in fact projecting your incorrect assumptions onto Jews, Jewish organizations, and JFJ. You have a strong desire to see criticisms of an organization (JFJ) that you clearly detest. You are trying to add vitriol to the article by saying that “all” Jews react negatively to JFJ. (Have you polled each and every Jew in America?) That being said, I could compromise by deleting “some”, and just saying something like “Jews have generally reacted negatively to JFJ”. Frankly speaking, there are a lot of Jews who are indifferent to JFJ. In 2016, 71% of Jews voted for Hillary, and 81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. Clearly Jews and white evangelicals are at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, although there is some “strange bedfellows” agreement on Israel. But overall, this is not a “decent relationship”. What you condescendingly call “deceptive tactics”, JFJ would call their earnestly held religious beliefs. They believe that many aspects of the Jewish faith persist into Christianity. Looking at the history of Christianity, this is clearly a reasonable position. Jesus was a Jew. All of his followers were Jews. Judaism at that time was quite diverse, not the consolidated rabbinic Judaism of today. Were the Essenes Jews? What about the Pharisees? The Sadducees? The Samaritans? The “Jesus Movement” (it was not yet called Christianity) was originally seen as a sect of Judaism. As I have said previously, the dogma of virtually all denominations of Christianity is that the Christian faith is the fulfillment of Judaism. JFJ simply emphasizes this more than other groups. Moreover, proselytizing is what all evangelicals do, not just JFJ. JFJ does as many positive things as any other evangelical church. It is quite common within evangelicalism for believers of a certain ethnicity to focus on outreach to their own ethnic group. Many evangelical mega-churches in the US have Hispanics doing Spanish language outreach to other Hispanics. JFJ is simply proselytizing to their own ethnicity; this is very common across all of American evangelicalism. It is quite condescending of you to ask if JFJ “does anything positive”. Why hold JFJ to a standard that no other evangelicals are held to? In sum, this article is not a playground for you to engage in attacks on JFJ. That is not the purpose of a Wikipedia article. Your crusade to make this article into an attack piece on JFJ has rendered it one of the worst articles on Wikipedia, due to extreme bias.
Finally, as an aside, you are grossly mistaken about my biases. I actually have a strong dislike for the main aspects of evangelicalism (including JFJ), in particular their beliefs of sola fide, biblical inerrancy, and the strong white evangelical support for Trump. But I have had a number of evangelical friends over the years, and so I am sensitive to Wikipedia’s liberal bias being played out as a hit piece article on JFJ. --Westwind273 (talk) 21:17, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]


I see that your resolve to be civil has had a setback. As it is not relevant to this article, I am not going to engage. Please keep comments relevant. Laella (talk) 18:10, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is so ironic. I have only said back to you exactly what you said to me, no more. It was in fact you who led this discussion into an uncivil space. I engaged in a civil manner, and you chose to be uncivil. When you chose to be uncivil, I simply said back to you exactly what you said to me. You claim to be civil, and yet you initiate unprovoked uncivil attacks. And then you claim the other person is being uncivil. You have an astounding lack of self-awareness. Look back at our discussion here and in the previous section. Who first accused the other of determining content based on whether one "likes it"? You. Who first accused the other's observations of being irrelevant? You. Who first accused the other of having bias? You. Who first accused the other of basing suggested article improvements on whether they do or do not like JFJ? You. Who first accused the other of purposely attempting to slant ("soften") the article? You. Who first accused the other of being uncivil and having a setback? You. I can see that your extreme lack of self-awareness prevents you from being civil, all the while accusing the other person of being uncivil. As your most recent comment is completely irrelevant to the article, I will not respond any further. Please try to make your comments relevant to this article and stop commenting on the civility of others, when it is in fact you who initiate the incivility. All this simply reinforces my belief that you have an ax to grind against JFJ which blinds you to considering the views of others, and your severe lack of self-awareness prevents you from having any relevant discussion. I can recognize what is and isn't civility, but you unfortunately cannot. In your view, whatever you say is civil, but when someone uses the same words back at you, it becomes "uncivil". There is no "setback" that I have had, but you have never even progressed to the point of being able to tell whether you yourself are acting in a civil manner. You can't have a setback because you never got to the point of being able to see incivility in yourself in the first place. Quite disgusting. You are unable to counter any of the points I made, so you simply revert into accusing others of incivility and go crying to the moderators when your own words are used back at you. It is sad to see that you are unable to escape your cocoon of lack of self-awareness. --Westwind273 (talk) 05:47, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I went to the moderator because you called me a Nazi.
It's not a word I used, which is clear from the history of the chat.
You need to remove your most recent opinion of me from the discussion.
Laella (talk) 09:32, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
What is clear from the history of the chat is that everything that I have said recently (that you claim is uncivil) is simply me using your own words back at you. You are completely oblivious to incivility in yourself, and yet quick to accuse others of it. You need to remove your most recent opinion of me ("resolve to be civil has had a setback") from the discussion. --Westwind273 (talk) 05:56, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Major changes - most not good

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The large changes, dropping lots of accepted information and adding a lot of propaganda need to be discussed on the talk page. Most of this article is not acceptable as is at the moment. The point of this article should not be as a propaganda piece for Jews for Jesus, and you can not leave out criticisms. Many of the changes are to things that have been discussed over many years to come to a consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laella (talkcontribs) 18:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC) I agree, this should be a protected page. Too much promotional and biased editing. Yoleaux (talk) 20:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No balance of information on this page

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Scanning through the page, I was surprised at the bias against this organization. I know it is a controversial topic, but this clearly violates Wikipedia’s neutrality standards. There should be a balance of information. Because of that, I’ve added a couple relevant quotes to the article to help restore some of that balance. I have also removed/edited a couple statements that have logical fallacies, which I will explain in detail below:

  • Removing The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America from the list of those criticizing evangelism of Jews: The referenced doctrine doesn’t actually say the church criticizes Jewish evangelism. It only says to be aware that most Jews believe Messianic Jews and Jews for Jesus have “forsaken Judaism, and consider efforts to maintain otherwise to be deceptive,” which is not them criticizing Jewish evangelism. I did some further research and couldn’t find any other statement from them criticizing the evangelism of Jews.
  • Removing Rabbi Irving Greenberg’s quote on Jews for Jesus and supersessionism: The quote of Rabbi Irving Greenberg accusing Jews for Jesus of teaching Christian supersessionism contains major factual errors. In reality, Messianic Judaism has publicly denounced the idea of supersessionism, and Jews for Jesus has as well. I found several sources that confirm this, which I can list if need be. Since his statement mostly contains false information, it should be removed.

If anyone disagrees with any of the changes I made, before undoing my changes, please respond to me on the talk page and let’s discuss this. I intend to be very responsive on this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AEditing3 (talkcontribs) 01:39, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this article suffers from severe bias against Jews for Jesus. The introduction to the article is pretty much a hit piece on the organization. There are two fundamental problems with the introduction to the article: (1) It completely ignores the meaning of Jew as an ethnicity, not a religion, and (2) It ignores the fact that all the original followers of Jesus were ethnically Jews and also considered themselves to be of the Jewish faith. They did not see themselves as having abandoned Judaism by following Jesus. First century Judaism was a very diverse faith, with the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and the followers of the Jesus movement. In this context, the followers of Jesus were not any more out of line with Judaism than the Essenes. It was not until the destruction of the temple in 70 AD that the Sadducees and Essenes disappeared, and the majority of followers of Jesus came to think of themselves as Christians, separate from Judaism. Pharisaic Judaism was the only surviving Judaism after the destruction of the temple, and it evolved into the Rabbinic Judaism that we know today. Westwind273 (talk) 05:34, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Better Business Bureau

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@Intercalate I removed the information about the Better Business Bureau because it included a large chunk of what is a standard BBB message when a charity does not interact with it. A lot of churches do not seek BBB approval. They might use a different group like Candid (organization) (aka GuideStar) or Charity Navigator. Jews for Jesus might well be problematic as far as finances; however, Wikipedia needs a reliable source stating this. Note the BBB also states in a section not quoted: "It[this report] is not intended to recommend or deprecate". Is there a reason you want to include this in the entry? Erp (talk) 04:30, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Jews for Jesus and the Ebionites

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A lot of the statements in this article directly contradict the Wikipedia article on the Ebionites. After all, if it is impossible to be a Jew who believes in the divinity of Jesus, then who were the Ebionites? Weren't they exactly that? This article reeks of Jew vs Christian bigotry, similar to what caused the cancellation of the popular TV show "Bridget Loves Bernie" in the 1970's. This bigotry has a long history in the United States, and it is disappointing to see it continued in this article. Westwind273 (talk) 14:47, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]