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ISRAEL, September 14, 2003: This report, thought apparently five years old, from “We Hold These Truths,” a Christian evangelical website, is especially informative in light of reactions to India’s adopted and proposed laws regulating Christian conversion. The report reads, in part:



“Some leaders of the Christian evangelical movement here have agreed to give up spreading the Gospel of Christ in the Holy Land in order to avoid being jailed under a proposed Israeli law aimed at stamping out Christian missionary work in Israel. Anti-Christian forces led by a wide-ranging group of high-ranking Israeli officials won a major victory on March 30. Representatives of 50 different international Christian evangelical groups entered into what was described as an ‘unprecedented’ joint statement promising not to carry out Christian missionary work in Israel. In return, Israeli lawmaker Nissim Zvili said that he would drop his sponsorship of a proposed measure before the Israeli parliament (widely supported among various political factions in Israel) that would outlaw any effort to teach or propagate Christian doctrine in Israel. Under Zvili’s highly popular proposal, any Christian missionary found guilty of violating the law would be sent to prison for one year. Zvili hailed the Christian surrender, saying: ‘This is better than a law. This is a very big accomplishment.’



“Although Israel today is torn asunder by vast feuding among various political and religious factions even within the Jewish community as a whole, the anti-Christian proposal by Israeli lawmaker Zvili had wide-ranging support throughout the Israeli population.”



A second report, dated May 27, 1998 and from the Southern Baptist Church web site (click here) discusses this same or similar legislation. It reads, in part,



“A bill proposing a three-year jail sentence or $13,700 fine for people who verbally witness about Jesus the Messiah cleared a first reading in the Israeli legislature May 20, 1998. But the bill, like other restrictions on free speech and religious freedom, faces an uphill battle against international opposition. Among those voting in favor of the bill was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The bill represents the fourth attempt to curtail free speech in religious matters in Israel during the past 21 years. A bill passed in 1977 banned persuading someone to change their religion for the broad and ambiguous motive of ‘financial gain.’ Three more restrictive bills during the past two years have sought to drop the requirement to prove that motive.



“Evangelicals are troubled that, in an Oct. 5, 1997 letter, Netanyahu told his Jewish Orthodox minister for construction and housing he would support ‘an appropriate bill that will reflect the suitable balance between the preservation of the freedom of religion and of expression on the one hand, and the worthy war against missionary activity on the other. Not only do I not support missionary activity, but the opposite is true: I oppose any such activity,’ his letter continued.”

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