Comments (1)Jewish Leader of Evangelicals
July 28, 2010Neil Rubin
Editor
David Brog is keenly aware of how skeptical many fellow Jews are about his Christian evangelical pals.
Those Jews who are open-minded, they come in like I did when I first went to a church—guarded,” said the product of a Philadelphia-area Jewish home and executive director of Christians United for Israel, the nation’s largest Christian Zionist group. “But they leave happy and exuberant because when you realize that this support for Israel is real, you can’t help it.”
Mr. Brog, a former chief of staff for Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), is trying to spread that word—and his own worldviews—by blogging on his website (http://davidbrog.com) and by writing his two books, the 1996 title “Standing With Israel: Why Christians Support The Jewish State” and “In Defense Of Religion,” which was published earlier this month.
Why should the Jewish world listen? “We have almost 50 million out of 70 million who are theologically predisposed to supporting Israel,” Mr. Brog said matter-of-factly of the country’s Christian evangelicals. “Someone needs to come and really focus their attention on what our leaders call the biblical mandate to Israel, to connect the theological data and provide information about Israel historically and Jewish history. That’s the role of our staff.”
On this broiling day in Washington, D.C., he is exhausted from running around while directing the CUFI annual gathering of some 4,000 delegates. He is quick to answer questions he has no doubt heard before. But he admitted he has just been tossed one that is not routine: What impact has working with evangelicals made on his own Jewish identity?
He paused, smiled and said, “It’s an interesting phenomenon. I have met a lot of people who take their faith seriously enough that it impacts their lives, and it impacts their lives for good. It presses them to be the type of people the Bible wants us to be, which is loving and unselfish.
“I’d say I’m still not an observant Jew, but I have re-engaged with my faith more deeply and I have thrown myself into studying. Working with the evangelicals has made me a more serious Jew,” he added.
For sure, Jewish skeptics about evangelical desires abound. There is “end-time” theology, which, as the story goes, for the Jews not slaughtered in the battle of Armageddon ends with their accepting Jesus as messiah. There is the support for Hebrew-Christian missionary groups of other evangelical groups. And there is a disdain of most Jews for the domestic agenda of conservative Christians on issues such as separation of religion and state.
For the record, CUFI’s spiritual leader and founder—the Rev. John Hagee—a rotund man with a mellifluous and captivating Southern Baptist speaking style—has consistently pledged to kick out proselytizers, rejects Jews for Jesus groups, declares that God’s blessings and promises for the Jews remain valid, and says that it’s up to God—not mere humans—to bring on the Armageddon so in the meantime everyone must help the State of Israel.
As for Mr. Brog, he’s busy building Mr. Hagee’s empire—which already includes a 19,000-member mega-church in San Antonio, Texas, a national television and radio network, and 20 books that have included best-selling titles such as “The Beginning Of The End.”
So CUFI’s executive director is out expanding the faithful from beyond the confines of white evangelical churches into Hispanic and African-American ones. This year’s banquet featured representatives of those latter two groups standing upon request and being resolutely cheered.
“Now we’re reaching out to Catholics and mainliners [non-evangelical Protestants, some of whose leaders have promoted anti-Israel divestment campaigns],” Mr. Brog said. “We often hear from [mainliners] who are unhappy about their leaders on Israel and we give them information to fight their battles in their organizations. The last thing they want is a bunch of evangelicals coming in and doing it for them.”
So after four years on the job, are Jews more accepting of what he does?
“It would be nice if the Jewish community appreciated it,” he said, “Those who are opposed to us typically have a worldview that precludes them from appreciating us. I’d like to have them onboard, but we’ll be able to help Israel without them.”