Torkelson: Christians, Jews forge friendship

By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 30, 2006 at midnight

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The gospel hymns throbbed with a rock beat Sunday and 5,000 Christians punched their hands Super Bowl high in praise. It was the first of two massive morning services at New Life Church in Colorado Springs and Pastor Ted Haggard was just getting warmed up.

"Let's give the Lord Jesus a mighty hand clap - oh, he is so good!" Haggard boomed.

Whoa - what's an orthodox rabbi doing there?

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, was there celebrating a worldwide day of prayer for the peace and security of Israel.

Wearing a yamulka, bearing a guitar and telling some puckish rabbi jokes, Eckstein told the crowd that, yes, Christians have been responsible for their share of 2,000 years of "fratricide and anti-Semitism" - learn your history, he said gently.

But today, there's a common enemy, radical Islam. In Iran, he said, there's a popular slogan: "Kill the Jews, kill the Crusaders" - a code word for Christians.

"We come together against forces that seek to destroy our Judeo-Christian heritage," he said. "Christians and Jews have got to stand together."

His global movement raises $50 million dollars a year for Israel, said Eckstein, 54, an affable native of Canada who now lives in Jerusalem and the U.S.

The movement resonates with special force at New Life, where its pastor is also president of the National Association of Evangelicals. That traditional wing of Christianity provides robust financial and moral support to Israel, which they revere as God's own homeland, where Jesus Christ, the Messiah of the Jews and all believers, will return some day.

Yet the alliance is often uneasy. Eckstein and Haggard planned a town meeting Sunday evening to field questions about ongoing tensions.

For example, last November the head of the Anti-Defamation League called evangelicals a danger to Jews for trying to "Christianize America." In an interview Sunday, Eckstein said that Abraham Foxman "is making a serious error."

"It's irresponsible" to make enemies of friends, he added.

Evangelicals can also embarrass, as when televangelist Pat Robertson recently suggested God had punished Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a massive stroke for making land concessions to the Palestinians.

"Uh-oh, another doozie," Eckstein said of the remark by Robertson, whom he calls a friend. "What he said was wrong and hurtful. Even though there are thousands of Jews in Israel who also believe it, there are certain things you don't say when you're a leader."

And how can Eckstein feel so warmly toward a religion that wants to convert him to follow Jesus?

"I don't blame them for sharing their faith," he said. "But as a Jew, I believe the Jews remain in covenant with God, so I'll say a polite 'No thank you.' "

Then - proving perhaps that his mission requires a sense of humor - he added: "What will happen at the end of days when the Messiah comes? We'll ask him then if it's his first or second coming."

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