ATTENTION MESSIANIC NON-JEWS: Your adherence to the way of life practiced by Yeshua is killing Stewart Dauermann. Why can't you just go back to church and be good Christians who hate Torah?
I'd better hurry up and post Dauermann's rant before it gets deleted from "the internets." Here you are:
"We pause for a rant about what I term “Messianic Jewishism.”
If we ignore Paul’s teaching in Galatians and elsewhere we can get the Bible to say what we want. But no one seems to give a damn about how the privileges God gave to Israel are just being grabbed by others on their own terms, without so much as an “Excuse me.” Paul says this for example, “They are Israelites, and to them **belong** the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them **belong** the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” (Romans 9:3-5 ESV)
The religion we see developing in some corners of the MJ movement is NOT Messianic judaism because there is NO respect for the priority of the Jewish people in His covenantal purposes for Israel. What we have is a new religion which I call Messianic Jewishism. These are congregations that practice a kind of Judaism-lite, but by design, not really a Judaism, but a community with enough Jewish religious cultural flavoring for everyone in the fellowship to embrace it, enjoy it, practice it. It’s really Protestant Christianity with a tallis, and it is not Messianic JUDAISM but rather Messianic Jewishism. Messianic Judaism requires a deeper adherence to the communal boundaries and covenantal markers *given to* and *reserved for* the Jewish people. As I said, SOME people are grabbing whatever they can on their own terms using these things as they see fit, feeling absolutely entitled on the basis of their questionable interpretations of certain Bible verses, but with NO respect for the Jewish people who have given their blood for thousands of years to protect this patrimony given them by God.
If people wanted to convert, that would be something else. There is a responsible process whereby people can take on the covenantal calling of the Jewish people irrevocably and hook line and sinker. But this does NOT involve the kind of pirating of Jewish treasures which we see all around us, and the strange distortions of Jewish life, all done with a sense of entitlement because the people in question have a BIble verse that “entitles” them. And if you say “What do you think you are doing?” you will be accused of being a bigot and anti-gentile, neither of which is true. One can be pro-Jewish without being anti-gentile.
NO ONE IS SAYING that gentiles can’t touch, handle, taste Jewish things, But there is a conspicous failure to pay due respect to the fact that such are asking to handle Jewish treasures given to the JEWS by God.
I am NOT anti-gentile, but does ANYONE understand what I am saying?"
FROM: http://mymorningmeditations.com/2014/10/06/upon-reading-a-rant-about-messianic-jewishism/
"the bitter old man on his front porch trying to keep all the dirty goyishe kids off his sacred lawn."
ReplyDeleteHa!
He definitely had the tone of a bitter old man.
I wish he could see the positive, rejoice at the work of G-d being done among the Gentiles, and work in love to help non-Jews understand the Way.
But, if ultimately he chooses to fight against the work of HaShem, he will continue to be extremely disappointed.
Jon,
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind, would you share a little about your background for the readers? You have very interesting opinions and I'm sure people would like to understand your perspective better.
Jon, you very much speak for me here. I particularly enjoy your final analogy of the aging curmudgeon chasing children off his sacred lawn. That pretty much nails it!
ReplyDeleteHaving been part of the early stages of this argument in the mid-1990's, while serving as an Elder at a leading Messianic synagogue, I have watched this conversation with great dismay. The watershed work, of course, was Kinzer's "Post Missionary Messianic Judaism". Many absorbed the anti-Gentile sentiment from there, without even realizing it.
There are elements of Stuart's rants with which I actually agree. What he is truly protesting is the hijacking of Judaica that goes on among Gentiles who are 1) just entering the Messianic community, or 2) part of the anti-Jewish Hebrew Roots communities. But I believe the appropriate response to both is to educate, not to disassociate. But, rather than welcome and teach, he holds up his palm to them, resisting those who desire to "take hold of the tallit of a Jew".
Dauermann may be one of the most vocal proponents of bi-polar ecclesiology, but he is definitely not the only one. Personally, what I find most distressing is the number of MJ synagogues that have been infected by this rabid racism. Having been a member of MJ since 1981, and serving on the Board of Elders at a shul in Maryland since 1986, my wife and I have found ourselves gradually displaced from our normal areas of service in the congregational life of the Messianic shuls in our area.
My own response to the concerns Dauermann raises takes the form of identifying the problematic ideology--not the bloodline--that causes confusion amongst the immature Messianic candidates, and addressing them. I have, in fact, created an acronym that I believe represents a mature Messianic posture--TOGI (yes, it rhymes with Yogi Bear). If anyone is interested, they are invited to read more on this topic at
http://www.messianic4all.com/2014/08/23/the-vision-of-messianic4all/
or
http://www.mishkandavid.net/wordpress/?p=3880
The WHOLE problem lies much deeper: it is in the attempted hemaphrodic fusion of Evangelical/Fundamental/Charis-maniac Christianity with some sort of "Jewish-oid" practices...which simply render the participants "Hebrew Rite Christians" at best...just like there are, for example, Eastern Rite Catholics whose ultimate loyalty is to Rome but they use the cultural/liturgical form of the Eastern Orthodox tradition to express their Roman Catholic faith, so the "messianics" (Jewish and gentile) ALL run roughshod over the historical Jewish community and theological tradition, rummaging through and pillaging whatever they think is "neat" or "cool" and especially that which allows the non-Jews to engage in Juda-oid "Cos-Play"....in the process, the whole "messianic" movement in all its permutations, has simply become irrelevant to the historic Jewish community, especially in America, which is the only Jewish community I can speak with some knowledge of....this is why, for the first time in decades, Jews For Judaism did NOT send a representative to the UMJC convention, as the historic Jewish community has come to realize the "messianic" movement is NO threat to it because of its cultural and theological irrelevence.
ReplyDeleteSince the "Great End Times Revival" of the Jewish people has NOT happened, and the average "messianic" congregation is overwhelmingly gentile, all I can say is: Would the last Jew out of the "messianic" community please turn the lights out?
ReplyDeleteThe problem, as I see it, is pride. While I agree that the Jewish people are the elder brother, it is not as if they developed a culture whole cloth in and of themselves as, for instance, the people of India did. The Jewish people were given commandments by G-D Himself. He told them how to handle their beards, what was food, what HIS holy days are, what was righteous conduct, etc. As a woman and a mother, it seems to me that the big brother has taken the position that 'Dad's' other kids should not be trained up as they themselves were. There is no logic to the idea that the People of G-D behave in two different ways, have different holidays, etc. I would not treat my children in such a fashion and if that is true of me who is wicked, it cannot be the case for He Who is the definition of Holy.
ReplyDeleteAlan,
ReplyDeleteYou should try reading the Torah some time. Because if you took a moment to read the words of HaShem you would see that He is the One who calls non-Jews to Torah and that this is one of the harbingers of the Messianic Era when non-Jews go to Jerusalem to learn the Torah.
It is sinful---SINFUL--for a Jew to demean a non-Jew who is trying to learn about the mitzvot! How do you know this is not a potential Jew (by your Theology)? One such as Ruth?
And one more thing:
Yeshua IS the Messiah. He is not the Messiah of perfect people. He is the Messiah of sinners--even such as me, a filthy Gentile sinner. So the only thing that is irrelevant is what the UMJC or other denominations are doing. The only thing that is relevant is whether Yeshua is the Messiah.
Examine Yeshua's teachings, not the UMJC. Because it's only what Yeshua has to say that affects where you will spend eternity. And I guarantee you that if you SINCERELY ask Yeshua to reveal Himself to you that He will respond.
Hear the words of Isaiah and hear them well:
"He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors."
If you think that non-Jews are "rummaging through and pillaging whatever they think is "neat" or "cool"
ReplyDeleteand especially that which allows the non-Jews to engage in Juda-oid
"Cos-Play"" then the question that you need to answer for yourself is what part has the Jewish community played the situation. Part of the problem, I'd say that the majority of the problem, has been what I expressed initially and which you've so eloquently exhibited. Ask yourself, Alan, what was/is the purpose of the Jewish people - not from your mind - but from scripture? The issue that you've raised would not exist if the Jewish people who DO care about the biblical mandate set forth by Adonai was fulfilled. Perhaps if they humbled themselves and taught those who seek to know things would not be as they are. I'm not welcome in an orthodox synagogue so what would you have people like me do, Alan. By the way, I don't see the Jewish people sending me my money back. I don't see them telling me to be quiet when I show up at rallies for Israel or when I stand up for them against anti-Semites. What hypocrisy you've exhibited. Further, you behave as if the Jewish people developed as a people in a vacuum. I say that is not the case. Adonai is the One who created the Jewish people. Adonai is the One who has preserved them as a people. He alone has done this. He ALONE gets ALL credit, glory, and praise. Does not scripture state, 'to whom much is given, much is required'? Do you truly believe that the task set forth for the Jewish people, in particular, has been accomplished? How many JewBu's, atheist/agnostic Jews, are actively working against the precepts and decrees of The Holy One yet, you have the unmitigated gall to talk of whether the UMJC is a threat to the Jewish community? Out of the justices of the Supreme Court, three are Jewish. Not one of them is an Evangelical/Fundamental/Charis-maniac Christian. Go review their votes, Alan. How are they reflecting the holiness of the G-D of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or His Torah? For all that vitriol, I'm sure you have answers that respond to my points.
You personally are going to meet Y'shua face to face. Do you think it possible that His first question to Alan Benjamin Previto Levy will be, "what have you done, Alan, to teach My people my laws, decrees, and precepts for I am L-rd of ALL". You might consider getting your answer ready now. He is coming.