Letters to the Editor

The Judeo-Christian tradition

Some of us evangelicals commend reporter Julia Duin for bringing to light a nearly taboo topic: the bizarre hypocrisy of most evangelical Christians who refuse to help Jews for Jesus’ proclamation of redemption through Jesus Christ alone, while embracing Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein’s inclusive programs (“Jews for Jesus criticizes evangelicals,” Nation, Tuesday). Miss Duin included several paragraphs from Jews for Jesus President David Brickner’s recent courageous letter to donors in her report.

My Jewish friend, the late Haviv Schieber, who was a Christian, put it this way: “Had Jesus dealt with the Jews of his day the way Jerry Falwell deals with the Jews of our day, he never would have been crucified.”

Responsibility for the emergence and spread of these trends among evangelicals in the 20th century can be traced to the Israel-first, Jew-first “dispensational” theology set forth by Cyrus Ingraham Scofield in his notorious so-called Scofield Bible, which became a major text and reference work in most Bible colleges and some seminaries. (The Rev. Lon Solomon is one of this area’s leading Scofield dispensational teachers.)

I recommend the writings of Grace Halsell to those who are concerned with this very real problem in Christianity today.

DALE CROWLEY JR.

Berryville, Va.

•

I met Julia Duin in Texas when she was a journalist there. I have the highest respect for her as a professional and as a person. However, in twice referring to Jews for Jesus as the nation’s “largest Messianic Jewish organization,” she does the cause of Messianic Judaism an inadvertent disservice by committing the all-too-common error of painting all Messianic Jews with the Jews for Jesus brush.

Although many on Jews for Jesus staff are Jewish believers in Jesus, there are only 240 of them, as your article accurately states. Obviously, the Messianic Jewish congregational movement is numerically far larger, even if Jews for Jesus’ budget dwarfs our own. More to the point, the vast majority of us have viewpoints concerning our evangelical friends and the Jewish community that are far more irenic than those Jews for Jesus is espousing.

For example, I have benefited greatly from the camaraderie and educational excellence of the Fuller Seminary, where I have received a master’s degree and am soon to be awarded a Ph.D. As a Messianic Jewish congregational rabbi, I find it disappointing and surprising that a member of Jews for Jesus’ Board of Directors saw fit to go to print with a drubbing of such a fine evangelical institution. This is but one illustration of the vast difference in perspective between many Messianic Jews and the smaller but well-funded and vocal Jews for Jesus organization.

In contrast to the stridency of Jews for Jesus’ statements, we commend all Christians who support Jewish causes and who build bridges of mutual respect with the Jewish community. Miss Duin’s article portrayed Jews for Jesus as an organization that demonizes many evangelicals and most Jews, seeing one as the disapproved target of derogation and the other as a distrusted target for evangelistic bombardment.

While it is true that there are some who stand ready to applaud Jews for Jesus for taking such a hard-line stand, I wish Miss Duin had made it clear that there are multitudes of Messianic Jews who stand neither with Jews for Jesus in their adversarial posture, nor among those who applaud them for their approach.

The vast majority of us prefer to take our stand as Messianic Jews amidst the wider Jewish community, applauding all Christians who stand by Israel in all its diversity.

STUART DAUERMANN

President, Hashivenu Inc.

Rabbi, Ahavat Zion Messianic Synagogue

Beverly Hills

A place for Rose

In reference to Tuesday’s editorial “The 14-year-old lie”: For the record, I am no fan of Pete Rose, aka Charlie Hustle.

I am a lifelong New York Mets fan and still have not forgiven Rose for the fracas he started with Mets shortstop Bud Harrelson during the 1973 National League Championship Series — a series won by the underdog Mets three games to two.

For the record, also, I consider myself a baseball purist. I don’t like lights at Wrigley Field in Chicago. I don’t like artificial turf. I don’t like domed stadiums. I don’t like the designated hitter. I really don’t like interleague play, and I don’t like Major League Baseball being played in Florida after April 1.

However, as a baseball purist who is no fan of Rose, I do support his entrance into the hallowed halls of Cooperstown, N.Y. — the Hall of Fame.

Rose should be judged, as those who stood before him, on his skills as a baseball player — on his actions on the field of play. If he should be judged for his nonplaying ethics or nonplaying morals, there should be a level playing field, and the Hall of Fame would lose some of its best players, who, by the same token, were some of the worst characters.

Babe Ruth, long considered the greatest to play the game, was a drunk and a womanizer. Oftentimes, he was publicly belligerent and pugilistic. Ty Cobb was a virulent racist, and on the field, he played with sharpened spikes, sliding intentionally high in order to injure his opponents.

Ruth and Cobb will always be considered two of the greatest to play baseball. If Rose, who broke Cobb’s long-standing record for most base hits in a career, should be denied entrance among the elites, then the hall ought to be stripped of all those deemed morally bankrupt and ethically corrupt.

I do not condone Rose’s gambling on baseball. His ban from the game should continue. But what of Southern Methodist University’s sentence of the college football “death penalty” some years ago? Today, SMU struggles as an active member of the Western Athletic Conference. Clearly, that penalty was not forever. How many chances should drug-using players such as former pitcher Steve Howe have been given — suspended and allowed to return to the game numerous times? And Howe’s drug use is a crime.

Rose’s gambling on baseball should not be forgiven or forgotten. It should be a message to those who follow him. Like those miscreants before him, Rose should be granted his rightful place in Cooperstown, where his exploits on the field of play will also never be forgotten.

SANFORD D. HORN

Alexandria

Check the numbers

In response to Dan Callahan’s letter (“Financing science,” Tuesday) on S. Fred Singer’s “Human exploration of Mars” (Op-Ed, Friday), I would like to set the record straight on “the lunar programs of the past 40 years,” which, according to Mr. Callahan, cost “trillions.”

First, the main lunar program, Apollo, cost about $25 billion. To allow for inflation, I will make a few same-year comparisons. The total of all National Aeronautics and Space Administration budgets, for Apollo and all other programs, from 1959 through 1975 (when the last Apollo spacecraft was launched to a rendezvous with a Soyuz) was $58 billion. The 1975 budget alone for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare was $59.9 billion (not including Social Security). The 1975 NASA budget was $3.3 billion, compared with the $5 billion spent in 1975 for the Food Stamp Program.

What did we get from the Apollo Program, besides moon rocks? I summarized Apollo’s results in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society in 1996; Teflon was, incidentally, not one of them. To give a documented example: the Landsat Program was stimulated by astronaut color photographs taken chiefly during the 10 Gemini flights, Gemini being an integral part of the Apollo program. Landsat has been generally considered one of the most valuable space-applications programs and has triggered international progress in remote sensing.

A less tangible result of Apollo was its effect on the Cold War. In 1970, an open letter to the Soviet government was sent by three leading liberals, headed by the late Andrei Sakharov. Summarizing the failings of communism, they specifically cited the fact that “the first men to land on the moon were Americans.” They then called for “democratization” of the Soviet Union, and for greater freedom of information and expression of opinion.

To this day, only Americans have been to the moon, but the moon race was one in which both sides were the eventual winners.

PAUL D. PLOWMAN JR.

Bowie, Md.