Moshe Gafni and Yaakov Asher, two Orthodox Jewish members of Knesset, Israel’s governing assembly, have introduced a bill that would prohibit any non-Jews from engaging in conversation aimed at witnessing, proselityzing, sharing one’s faith, or converting someone to a non-Jewish religion.
The “Prohibition of Solicitation for Religious Conversion” bill would amend a 1977 Israeli penal law to make Christian witnessing a crime. The punishment for having a prohibited evangelistic conversation is one-year imprisonment, but if one is attempting to evangelize a minor child, the offense is punishable by two years imprisonment.
Although the ban applies to all religions other than Judaism, the bill specifically notes that “the attempts of missionary groups, mainly Christians, to solicit conversion of religion have increased.”
According to All Israel News, the bill “appears to be making it illegal for followers of Jesus (“Yeshua” in Hebrew) to explain why they believe that Jesus is both Messiah and God with the hope that Israelis might consider following Him.”
“At times these attempts do not involve monetary promises or material gains and are therefore not illegal according to the current law, but the many negative repercussions, including psychological damages, warrant the intervention of the legislature,” the bill states.
The bill does not apply only to person-to-person encounters, but covers social media and the Internet, as well, making it illegal to engage with a person “directly, digitally, by mail, or online in order to convert his religion.”
The legislation was introduced by the members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, so it does have a chance of becoming law. But Neanyahu is very aware of the American evangelical community’s longstanding and very helpful support of the modern state of Israel, and presumably is aware that this law would be poor public relations.
The proposed law, and its chances of passage, are discussed in this CBN video clip.
Comment:
The unwavering support for the modern state of Israel among American evangelicals is based largely on a wrong reading of Bible prophecy which interprets modern Israel as a fulfillment of end-time Bible prophecies. But is a state that would outlaw the sharing of the gospel of Jesus Christ really the Israel of God in end-time prophecy?
Obviously not.
One wonders what it will take to convince our evangelical brethren to re-read Romans and figure out that, “it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.” Rom. 9:8