A Review of Rabbi Rudin's Baptizing of America

Bob Allen at Ethics Daily has written a good review of Rabbi James Rudin's The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right's Plans for the Rest of Us.

Allen describes Rudin's explanation of the reasons for the ambivalence within the Jewish community toward the Christocratic Right:

America's Jewish community, Rudin says, is divided and ambivalent about the Christian right's support for Israel. Many Jews are uncomfortable with evangelicals' strong Christological basis for supporting Israel, and most are uncomfortable with active campaigns to convert Jews to Christianity.

Some Jews eagerly accept evangelical support for Israel and look the other way at "the attempted imposition of a Christocratic agenda on the country," he writes. "For such Jews, Israel's survival and security trumps all other concerns."

"Other Jews remain aware of the evangelicals' domestic goals and expressing suspicions about working with that Christian community on any issue, even Israel."

Rudin's book is well worth reading. He makes at least one mistake. He baptizes me a Presbyterian when he quotes one of my speeches. While the speech was delivered at a Presbyterian church, I've always been a Mainstream Baptist.