It has recently emerged that Jews For Jesus UK have moved to stifle Messianic and evangelical criticism of Stephen Sizer, and given him advice on how to evangelise, making a public appearance at his church without criticising Sizer’s dalliances with antisemitism.
This move did not go unnoticed by other Jewish believers in Jesus in the UK.
Why did Stephen Sizer invite Jews For Jesus? Did he think that he was demonstrating his love for Jews by inviting JFJ? Was he attempting to provide cover for his vile actions and theology?
In 2010, a representative from Jews For Jesus in Germany gave an exclusive interview to a German website for members of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX), an ultra-traditional Catholic group, which splintered away from the Vatican.
The SSPX had recently made headlines internationally, as in 2008, their Bishop Richard Williamson claimed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were true, and in 2009, Williamson publicly denied the existence of gas chambers in Nazi Germany.
The SSPX refused to denounce Williamson in 2008, were loathed to distance themselves from him in 2009, and have only expelled him this month, October 2012.
The SPL Center says of the SSPX and the Nazis:
Although there have been recent attempts by the Vatican to pull SSPX back into the Catholic mainstream, the organization, all of whose priests were excommunicated in the late 1980s, has continued to publish anti-Semitic materials, flirt with Holocaust denial and reject any reconciliation with the Catholic Church.
Lefebvre was always on the hard right. During World War II, he supported the pro-Nazi Vichy regime, a puppet government in the part of France not occupied by the Germans. He lamented the eventual liberation of the country, describing it as “the victory of Freemasonry against the Catholic order of Petain. It was the invasion of the barbarians without faith or law!”
[…]
The following year, police arrested fugitive French war criminal Paul Touvier, who had been hidden for years by the order, at an SSPX monastery in Nice, France. Touvier was later convicted of ordering the execution of seven Jews in 1944.
Also in 1989, one of Lefebvre’s “bishops,” Englishman Richard Williamson, gave a speech to a Canadian church in which he decried the alleged persecution of Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel by the Canadian government. Williams, then rector of SSPX’s main North American seminary in Winona, Minn., told his audience: “There was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies.” The Canadian government reacted by banning all SSPX publications.
Why were Jews For Jesus Germany happy to give an interview to SSPX in 2010, without criticising their track record on harbouring Nazi criminals, and protecting antisemitic bishops? Did they know who the SSPX are, and give the interview anyway, or did they simply not do their research?
On a similar note, why were Jews For Jesus UK happy to appear on a platform provided by Stephen Sizer?
