Saturday, September 24, 2005

The Brown/Boteach Debate

This past Monday, I wrote about a debate to be held the next day between Michael Brown and Shmuley Boteach. There was an article on the debate earlier this week in The Pitt News. Judging from this article, it seems that many people used the debate as an opportunity to accuse evangelistic Christians of being deceivers, racists, etc. As you read the article, notice how little attention is given to the evidence regarding Jesus and how much attention is given to other issues that are more subjective. Here are some excerpts:

Critics of Jews for Jesus call it a Christian front, bent on converting as many Jewish people as possible....

Boteach — at a disadvantage because so many Jewish people refused to come to the event — spoke with passion and fury.

“The Holocaust was due to evenings like tonight,” he said loudly. “Jews are made to feel spiritually inferior. We are a race punished for not believing in Jesus.”

Boteach was angry for most of the debate — even to the point of screaming fiercely at an audience member who interrupted him....

“They keep trying to convert us instead of respecting us like we have respected them,” Boteach said. “This is the essence of racism.”