From the Coordinator
LCJE and the Vatican
We in LCJE are more important than have ever thought. At any rate, if we can go by what Shelomo Alfassa, who on the website Israelinsider is described as Executive Director of International Society for Sephardic Progress.
Here Alfassa writes in the article The Vatican and its Friends (dated April 4, 2005 - i.e. before the death of Pope John Paul II) the following, among other things:
"Many in the Jewish community forget there is a well-crafted, strategically minded and highly funded crusade to convert the Jewish people, and the Vatican is conspiring in this cause. There is a secretive group called the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism, which was founded in association with American preacher Billy Graham. The Vatican has participated in this conference, which strategizes on how to target the Jewish people for conversion. One of the Lausanne Occasional Papers stated that God has forsaken the Jews for not believing in the Christian scriptures and Jesus. Their statement is purely anti-Semitic, for what type of greater anti-Semitism exists than telling Jews that their God has forsaken them?"
As International Coordinator of LCJE I am afraid I have to disappoint Shelomo Alfassa. For I happen to have inside knowledge of the relationship between the Vatican and LCJE! Of course such a relationship does not exist. Of course the Vatican has not participated in LCJE activities. And LCJE is no "secretive group." Secretive groups do not issue publicly accessible Bulletins, they do not have websites and do not post conference materials on the internet - as LCJE does.
Shelomo Alfassa has a right to be against Jewish evangelism. What surprises me is that individuals, in order to fight Jewish evangelism, will go as far as to fabricate such stories.
By the way, it is now possible to see on www.lausanne.orgthe document which seven persons, related to LCJE, drew up in Pattaya, Thailand, in October 2004. The main point is that God has not forsaken the Jews, but that the Jews need Jesus for salvation.
More about this document on page 9.
Kai Kjær-Hansen
lcje.int@gmail.com