"How did a fat, balding, middle-aged Jew like you become a Jesus freak?"

by Zola Levitt, it deals with some of the issues rather well I thought.

Actually, the only Jewish friend I've ever lent it to didn't like it at all, but then he wasn't fat, balding or middle aged (;-> and he did later convert to Christianity but that's another story. But others have loved it.

It's a small out-of-print paperback, published about 1974 I think.

It's supposedly an actual correspondence between Zola and an old friend who is not a Christian at the start but is going through a personal crisis which leads him to ask the question which is the title. The correspondence begins with the remarkable and romantic story of Zola's own conversion, and proceeds to deal with questions that neither of them fully understand nor pretend to. There's a refreshing honesty throughout, although I still wonder sometimes about the credibility of some of Zola's narrative. His description of his meeting with his (first) wife particularly seems a bit far-fetched but is so entertaining it got me in anyway. Well, perhaps truth is stranger than fiction.

Since writing this book Zola Levitt has been quite a controversial figure. He's now published more than 50 books and 150 songs including two musicals, runs "Zola Levitt Ministries", has a TV show and organises trips to Israel. He has a particular focus on the Jews, being a Jewish convert himself.

He's also been continually pilloried by those who take a more literal view of Scripture than he does, and who perhaps see him as a soft target following his divorce (and I'd love to know whether his first wife confirms his remarkable account of their meeting). He has invited their criticism by his outspoken support and involvement not just with ecumenicism but also with inter-faith dialogue, while maintaining a personal mission of evangelism to the Jews. He thinks the geologists are right in their estimates of the age of the earth, which is not unusual, but what is unusual is that he's invited to stand up and say so at Evangelical Christian meetings. At one stage he further angered the Christian right wing when he announced that the "New Age Movement" was not a worry to him as it had won so few adherents worldwide. An interesting figure indeed!

Sometimes I think I must have it right myself because the liberals think I'm a raving fundamentalist and the fundamentalists think I'm a raving liberal. Well, Zola's a bit like that too. And like Spong he's also open to the charge that his real agenda is book sales and headlines.

So you'll find his books in some Christian bookshops and not others!

I have read only the now out-of-print book I mentioned above, and some of his other titles look well off-centre, but they might be worth a look too. He appears in many places on the Web, and what he says is not always right IMO but it's always well thought out and original, sometimes very heavy theologically (on one page he talks of "neo-dispensationalism", what's that and who cares?) but most often still approachable and entertaining.

(A Netfriend)