THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Saturday, February 8, 1997            TAG: 9702080013
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A12  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Letter 
                                            LENGTH:   41 lines

BAPTIST RESOLUTION IS MISUNDERSTOOD

At a time when declarations, statements or resolutions have to be ``politically correct,'' the religious world is shaken by a resolution approved by the Southern Baptist Convention to engage in Jewish evangelism. The aftermath of such resolution is that relations between these two religious bodies are today at a ``boiling point,'' and the voices for and against it are getting louder and louder.

An example of this is the Jan. 25 article, ``Beach angered over letter urging Jews to put faith in Jesus.''

In the first place, this is an internal resolution of the Southern Baptist Convention. This was not a resolution to ``arouse Christendom to a sixth crusade against the infidels,'' as a rabbi friend wrote in a letter to me. It is an awakening call to Southern Baptist churches to reach out to the Jewish people, an endeavor that the Southern Baptist Convention had engaged in in past decades but had now neglected.

Second, the proclamation of the gospel to all nations is in the heart of every Christian religious group. If it were not for these early Messianic Jews who believed in Jesus, there would be no Baptist, nor any Christian for that matter.

Third, the aforementioned declaration does not say how the Jewish people will be reached with the gospel of Jesus. There is no call to ``convert.'' It does say that they are to pray for the salvation of Israel, that they have a debt of love to the Jewish people and that the Jewish people have been neglected by the churches in the proclamation of the gospel.

Whoever reads into this an instigation to form another Crusade, the embryonic stage of coming pogroms, or the rebirth of forced conversions by the Inquisition should carefully consider the spirit and the letter of this resolution.

DAVID SEDACA

Executive director for the Americas

International Messianic

Jewish Alliance

Virginia Beach, Jan. 27, 1997