Protest-ant

When I was in boot camp in the Navy, I volunteered to be the Protestant Petty Officer, which basically meant that I brought any protestants who wanted to go to church, to church on Sundays. Luther began his reformation with a protest, and so was born the word protestant.  This blog, Luther’s Baggage, contends that Luther began with good intentions but didn’t protest enough to remove all of the unBiblical doctrines within Catholicism. As a result, protestants still have these leftovers today, and they don’t spend much time questioning why they are there. The rise of Messianic Judaism has brought these matters to our attention once again, and FFOZ is one of the best voices in that regard.

FFOZ (First Fruits of Zion) is celebrating their 20th year in ministry. This has inspired them to evaluate where they are and where the “church” is in regard to FFOZ’s desire to communicate with them. In the Spring 2012 edition of their Messiah journal, Boaz Michael states some interesting things: (and I quote)

“First Fruits of Zion… is attempting to transform conventional Christian/Jewish thought in four key areas:

1. Jesus is Jewish (Defending against anti-missionaries and a false view of Messiah)

2. The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand. (Defending against distorting the gospel and biblical prophecy)

3. The Torah is not abolished. (Defending against antinomianism and denigration of the Law)

4. The Jewish people are God’s people. (Defending against replacement theology and anti-Semitism)

Our mission affects Christianity and its view of the Torah, Israel, and itself. Our mission affects Judaism – and its view of Messiah and the nations. Our mission informs Messianic Judaism -a movement that is still in a birthing process, a movement which, upon its maturity, will have significant prophetic importance.

We labor each day to see change in the people of God. Healthy, positive change is the action of moving  something from where it is to where it should be. One must understand where and what something currently is before trying to move or alter it. Through extensive collaboration with a national network of volunteers, we have come up with four basic realities, statements that define where the church, Judaism, and Messianic Judaism are at this juncture in time that represent the difficulty inherent in undertaking this mission.

Our “Four Realities”

• The Church: For the most part the church does not want what we have, and tragically misunderstands our message. Churches have literally hundreds of thousands of resources at their disposal, disseminated by hundreds of publishing companies. While there may be a suppressed, underlying desire for some kind of change, most churches have no reason to believe that the solution lies outside mainstream Christianity. Rather, if a church realizes that it has problems, it is more likely to look to popular Christian programming for solutions, believing that the fault lies in its application of Christian doctrine to its situation, and not in a fundamental misreading of Scripture. Churches think they are correct – that they should be changing others, not that they need to be corrected or changed. Coupling this with a low appreciation of learning in today’s church culture makes it virtually impossible to bring new understanding and views. There are exceptions to these which justify our focus.

• Judaism: American Jewish Orthodoxy is firmly rooted in tradition and largely isolated from the larger American culture; it is entirely resistant to Messianic Judaism and Messianic Jews. Liberal Judaism is loosely rooted in the tradition (and even less so in the Bible) and is increasingly influenced by liberal and postmodern cultural values; its resistance to Messianic Jews is therefore progressively weakening with each new generation. Liberal Jewish resistance to Messianic Judaism is weakening marginally, still fed by Jewish memory and the common human resistance to the gospel. Recent Jewish scholarship legitimizing Yeshua the Jew is both a sign and an agent of shifting attitudes that portend a continued increase in respectful Jewish-Christian dialogue.

• Messianic Judaism: Messianic Judaism has developed a culture of being Jewishly informed. In recent years, Messianic Judaism has become more accepted into the Christian cultural diversity and has exposed some to Jewish expression and interpretation to the body of Messiah. A challenge arises when this “informedness” becomes a perception of already knowing. In a generation where “going viral” can be a positive thing, a small amount of Jewishly flavored teaching which is now common to Messianic Judaism and to the church has functioned like an effective vaccination. Messianic Judaism need not investigate further, because it already participates in “Messiah in the Passover” type activities and programs. Messianic Judaism must continue to press on and advance from its established foundation as an outreach to unsaved Jewish people and as a cultural expression of Jewish Christianity.

• Economy: [Mine] The faltering economy and its affect on giving is noteworthy, but not relevant to this blog’s subject, so I’m not including their comments. (But I do encourage you to contribute to FFOZ and their work!)

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Elsewhere in the journal, there is an article, (part 2 of 4), that is very relevant to all of this: I will begin an introduction of it now and continue next week.

Origins of Supersessionism in the Church, by James Pyles. 

“I’m not writing this series to drive a wedge between Christians and Jews (since I’m a Christian, I have no motivation to do so), but to point out some uncomfortable facts, so that we can recognize them for what they are. Once we’ve done that , we can move forward as disciples of the Master and stand side by side with our Jewish brothers in the faith before the throne of God…

[There are] three different aspects of replacement theology in Christianity that [remain today]: 

salvation doctrine, 

eschatology, and the 

treatment of religious festivals. 

Here we shall see how supersessionism is woven into the very fabric of Christianity, particularly classic reformed Christianity, to the point where it becomes almost impossible for the individual to separate the ancient attempt to eradicate the Jews from any involvement in the discipleship of the Jewish Messiah and the actual words and lessons of Yeshua and the Apostles.”