Ann Coulter might have just lost a ton of credibility with the last group she was counting on to support her: fundamentalist Christians. Yeah, it’s mostly Jews, liberals and sane people who are upset with her right now, but there’s nothing new about that.
Let me back up.
A lot of people are up in arms about Coulter’s recent pronouncement that all Americans, including Jews, should convert to Christianity and that evangelicals “just want Jews to be perfected.” Later she clarified, “that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews.”
To a limited extent, Coulter is indeed expressing a common evangelical belief. I’ve never heard the term “perfected Jews,” but many evangelicals do refer to Jewish converts to Christianity as “completed Jews” (though the nearly as misleading “Messianic Jews” is still the most common term). As an extension of this belief, a minority of fundamentalist Christians have taken to thinking of themselves as completed Jews, often observing Christianized versions of Jewish holidays and rituals as a way of exploring their roots. There’s a sizable market for Judaica in the Christian subculture of late.
Now, this does not mean that all these people would agree with Coulter that converting the Jews is a worthy goal. Most Christians I’ve met would be far more comfortable saying, “While it’s true that the Bible says Jesus wants everyone to accept him, God has a special plan for the Jews that may be partly hidden from us, so the wisest and most Christian course is to leave them in God’s hands.” Certainly I was witnessed to now and again, but more often I heard sentiments like, “Jews and Christians are brothers and that’s good enough for me.”
On the other hand, Ann Coulter really steps in it when she tries to backpedal.
No, no, no, no, no. I don’t want you being offended by this. This is what Christians consider themselves, because our testament is the continuation of your testament. You know that. So we think Jews go to heaven. I mean, Falwell himself said that, but you have to follow laws. Ours is “Christ died for our sins.” [emphasis added]
Well, Ann Coulter may think Jews go to heaven, but to say that we think that -- meaning all, most or even more than a tiny few evangelicals -- is simply wrong, and shows as an astonishing ignorance of the theology that Coulter professes to hold deeply. Yes, many evangelicals are too polite to say this to a Jewish person’s face (“God decides who gets to heav