American Alliance of Jews and Christians

Dear Friend,

Greetings. I pray this has been a blessed, healthy and prosperous year so far for you and your loved ones.

Like television, baseball caps, and hamburgers, American ideas quickly spread around the world. My worry right now is that American ideas seem to include hating success, hating Judeo-Christian values, and glorifying vulgarity. The problem is that ideas have consequences. The more people who start buying into an idea, the more that idea gains a foothold in the culture.

The culture claims that your financial success depends only upon good luck, greed, and government. Thats why they call those of us who have saved, worked, and built for many yearsthe fortunate ones! The Bible teaches quite the opposite.

The culture claims that Chick-fil-A president, Dan Cathy, is bigoted for defending traditional values on marriage. The Bible teaches quite the opposite and would commend him for following God's marriage blueprint and for enabling his employees to spend Sundays with their families.

The culture claims that popular entertainment depicting destructive and dysfunctional behavior is funny. The Bible teaches quite the opposite.

Yet it was also clear to me that Bible-believing Christians in America are vilified , insulted, and denied respect by many in media, entertainment, education, and government. I think its crazy that Christians are being attacked for holding values that protect civilization. After all, these values were not only the values of my forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but they were also the values of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America! It is not only crazy to denigrate these values and those who defend them, but it is also evil and destructive.

It is particularly destructive, because it is obvious to all that the Bible has brought blessing to those who sculpted their cultures around it.

There are some who try to discourage meaningful communication between Jews and Christians, because united we would present an almost irresistible force for spiritual renewal. AAJC is determined to bring about communication, alliance, and yes, spiritual renewal along with the material renewal that would follow.

I was blessed with the friendship of wonderful Jewish and Christian brothers and sisters who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me as we began building the bridges that would one day become the American Alliance of Jews and Christians .

We felt bonded by what we sharethe Bible . We recognized that the central core of our culture was a majestic and mysterious book that has never been out of print.

Out of this came the American Alliance of Jews and Christians. Let me tell you a little more about the idea behind the AAJC and its goals and dreams.

The American Alliance of Jews and Christians grew from my deep conviction that despite theological differences, millions of us Jews and Christians share a common ethical vision of how people can best live alongside one another.

We all prefer to believe in the big G of God, rather than in the little g of government. We believe in ourselves and our families practicing individual acts of love, charity and compassion through our churches and synagogues. Were less enthusiastic about confiscatory rates of taxation imposed on hard working families that are used, in some cases, to underwrite multi-generational dysfunctionality.

We prefer freedom and individual accountability to centrally planned tyranny and promoting the virtue of the victim. We prefer people enjoying economic independence through their own efforts to socialism. We believe that marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman devoted to one another and to their children. We believe that both the beginning and end of life should be in Gods hands alone.

All these ideas we cherish are beliefs that spring from the pages of Scripture. Like the American Founders, we prefer a Biblically inspired culture to the sordid stain of secularism and the socialistic society it tends to inspire.

I believe that Americas great blessings as well as the tranquil haven of prosperity she has provided for members of so many religious groups and nations are a result of these Biblically-inspired principles. Because these timeless truths are chiefly protected by Bible-believers, I am increasingly terrified of a post-Biblical and post-Christian America.

Though they are becoming abandoned today, the ideas and systematic spiritual strategies of ancient Jewish wisdom were well known to and appreciated by most Christian leaders of colonial America. One New England pastor, Abiel Abbot wrote in 1799 these words, The people of the United States come nearer to a parallel with Ancient Israel, than any other nation upon the globe. By the way his parents named him Abiel because in Hebrew the name means God is my father .

The sacred mission of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians is to provide the ammunition for keeping the culture attached to its Judeo-Christian spiritual roots enabling it to continue as healthy and successful.

May God bless you and protect you and may we all be privileged to do our part in protecting the legacy He entrusted to humanity on Mount Sinai over three thousand years ago.

More here: http://www.rabbidaniellapin.com/dynpage.php?id=1

Rabbi Daniel Lapin

President

American Alliance of Jews and Christians