What daffyduck said.
I will admit I am not entirely sure what the relationship between mainstream judaism and messianic judaism sects is, but it seems as though there is something fundamentally offensive or wrong about them calling themselves Jewish. Is there something of substance behind this or is this somewhat like a Catholic getting offended about a Mormon calling themselves Christian? I am a fairly religious person, but I do not follow any mainstream religion so I tend to self-identify as agnostic or atheist because I have difficulty communicating my beliefs accurately. I know very well how religious beliefs can differ between individuals, and how that could theoretically cause tension, but is there something I am missing in this situation?
I would feel honored if somebody extended an invitation to me to attend any sort of religious ceremony – in a lot of cases I wouldn’t go, but it is still a gesture of good will. She is your neighbor, not a door-to-door missionary. I am guessing her religion brings her joy and she wants to share this joy with her neighbors. Nothing the OP stated indicates that she is annoyingly insistent about converting everybody around her, and by merely extending an invitation she has given you something but has not taken anything away. Do not get nasty, do not get rude, but rather explain to her that you are honored, but do not feel it is right for you to attend the Seder. Invite her over for a casual dinner with the intent of
[list=a]
[li]Explaining to her that you are worried religion might cause unwanted tension between you, and you would like to avoid the subject[/li][li]Finding out something secular in common so she has something else besides the word “Jewish” to go on. I’d avoid mentioning your opinion as to who’s really Jewish and such. [/li][/list]
If after this she still persists, well she’s the one being rude, and you deal with that in the ways you deal with any secular rudeness.
Just my two cents,
*Groman, who spent a little too much time balancing between zionist, mormon, atheist, scientologist, protestant, gay, communist and republican friends. *
Keep it polite. Hostile neighbors are a Biblical curse.
By the way, what’s with this Google ad offering complimentary (sic) “Jewish ringtones”? When you get a call, do you hear a reproachful voice saying “So when’s the last time you called your mother?”?
Further diversion: In a restaurant this past weekend I heard a ringtone consisting of a tinny female voice saying “Blah blah blah. Blah blah blah…”
Quite apt.
Messianic Judaism is a strain of evangelical Christianity. It’s not part of Judaism at all, it’s a tactic for converting Jews to Christianity. By adopting some Jewish trappings and ceremonies and Hebraisms, they hope to lull some less educated Jews into believing that they’re still practicing Judaism. Theologically, Messianics are completely incompatible with Judasim, mainly because they worship Jesus Christ. There is no part of Messianic theology which is incompatible with evangelical Christianity, but they are theologically antithetical to Judiasm (there is nothing Christologically wrong with observing a sedar or learning some Hebrew words so those are meaningless and deliberately deceptive gestures).
The differences are more significant and more central than the differences between LDS and mainstream Christian denominations.
A Christian is a person who believes Christ was the Messiah, son of God, savior whatever. They do, so they are Christians. No problem there. However, in my experience, they deny they are Christians (calling themselves Messianic Jews) while actually being Christians. Second, they assume the trappings of Judaism in order to proselytize real Jews. I’d be fairly confident that the Seder the OP was invited to would not be limited to the traditional ceremony, but would have a lot about Jesus in it.
There is absolutely nothing wrong or offensive about a Christian inviting a Jew to church (or vice versa, for that matter.) But think about the case where the invitation was to a normal service, for the music, and the visitor was hit with a hard core attempt at conversion. That’s an invitation under false pretenses, and it’s wrong. I’ve been to church with my friends, with never a problem, so the issue has nothing to do with Christianity in general.
I hope you see the difference between them and a normal converts. We’ve had threads on them before.
My experience has been when I tell them I’m a Jew, they think “Extra Points!!!”.
These days, I just say “No, thank you” and end the conversation.
I think this is part of the issue. It is my belief that she would rather convert the two of us than 10 of any other group. “Extra Points!!!” is accurate.
It’s really the deception that bugs us. The “seder” invitation says NOTHING about Jesus. It says nothing that a traditional Jewish seder invitation would not say. But it’s not gonna be the same.
We have no problem if a religious practictioner is upfront about why they are there and what they want. We are having dinner with 2 Mormon elders on Monday, after having done so last month, because they have questions about Judiasm. That’s fine - everything is above board. This lady, and her congregation, do everything with subterfuge. That’s what we dislike.
Thanks for all your replies. Good stuff there! I’ll let you know how it shakes out.
-Steve-
It would be like a sect that claimed to be Christian but denied that Jesus Christ was/is the Resurrected Son of God – and then went out and tried to convert Christians to their version of “Christianity.”
Jews don’t believe the Christ was the Messiah, much less the Son of God made man. If you believe those things, you believe things that are fundamentally not Jewish. Those are Christian beliefs. And the vast majority of Messianic Jews are not even ethnically Jewish; they’re WASPs who have imported a bit of (misunderstood) Judiasm into their existing belief structure, which is Christian.
There’s a pretty good book called Girl Meets God by . . . shoot, I can’t remember her name . . .a young woman who was a devout and pretty scholarly Jew before she converted to Christianity, so she was/is very familiar with the beliefs and worship practices of both. The thing about Messianic Jews and Jews for Jesus that bugged her the most was that they aren’t even decent Jews; they don’t speak Hebrew, or know the Talmud, or understand what the rituals they clumsily follow actually mean to real Jews. She thought if you were going to avow to follow a particular faith, you should put a bit of time into finding out what it means. Messianic Jews don’t bother.
Lemme see if I can find this book . . . Ah. Here it is. Lauren F. Winner. She visits a Messianic Jewish congregation in Memphis, and this is part of her reaction:
Actually, no, messianics are way more annoying than southern baptists. You know how annoyingly zealous recent converts (to almost anything) can be.* Well, this is a relatively new religion–so they are ALL converts, and they can be awfully gung-ho.
There are many varieties of messianics. The ones I know of do in fact consider it more important to convert Jews, even though they are mostly (about 3/4) people who were raised Jewish themselves. The rest of them seem to be largely from the charismatic old-time religions, Pentecostal, 7th-day Adventist.
My husband is one of these people (a messianic convert, that is, raised as nothing and espousing Buddhism at the time we got married many years ago), and a couple of years ago I took a Hebrew class at his congregation because I thought it would be interesting to learn Hebrew. It would have been, too, except people in the class were too damn busy witnessing for a lot of language instruction to get through. (It was free. You get what you pay for.)
*A couple of years ago I started a thread describing how, during Passover, my gung-ho convert husband decided the cats’ food had leaven in it and they would therefore need to eat something else for the duration. Ye gods.
Really? So, what do you give a cat for its bar mitzvah?
They are only 8 and 3 right now. Also they are resistant to learning Hebrew. I don’t think this will be a problem.
Castration 
Apart from the joke that I found irresistable, this is quite interesting, I did not realize that such hybrids existed. Sure I know about the Hollywood Kabbalah stuff but …
I suppose the key thing is whether you like the woman, whether she has any redeeming features - or whether she is just a thick, dull pest.
It also sounds as if you are vaguely interested in comparative religions, if she is bright then you might find that entertaining, if she is not then you could sell her off as a convert to the Church of Latter Day Saints.
There is a certain psychology that views your resistance as a challenge. It’s not all that dissimilar from dealing with a pesky suitor, or a drunk who just won’t take no for an answer. As long as you’re polite they won’t stop.
Just because someone’s religous views are important to them, it doesn’t mean they are important to you, or that it isn’t horribly rude for them to insert themselves into your personal life like that. I don’t see much difference between a neighbor hounding you to convert and a neighbor asking you to swap partners. Broaching the subject once is a little bold. Broaching it again after being rebuffed is just obnoxious.
So, these messianic Jews don’t have to have any Jewish background at all? My brother had a friend that became a Jew for Jesus (he was nuts and I think a bad acid trip was involved in there somehow) but I didn’t realize there was a larger evangelical of movement non-Jews .
Mouse fritters.
Someone’s brother had a friend? This religion is more annoying than that religion? An atheist declaring one religion unacceptable among other religions? And this is in General Questions? Holy cow.
There’s very little in this thread other than equivocation, speculation, opinion, and advice — none of which is conducive to a factual question and answer. If there can be an Atheists for Jesus, there’s no reason there can’t be a Jews for Jesus. Besides, “Jew” can be an ethnic term as well as a religious term. Many of the first Christians were Jews, and there’s no reason that a Christian today cannot be a Jew other than an arbitrary declaration that they cannot be. As the OP’s Wikipedia article points out, the people most likely to consider these people not to be Judaic are Christians and Jews who oppose the idea of Messianic Judaism on principle. Why people who are neither should care one way or the other boggles the imagination.
Etiquette questions like this (which is what the OP said it was) are typically handled in IMHO. And since there’s so much opinion flying around in this thread, mine is that this thread belongs there. It is also my opinion that speculations on the relative validity of Messianic Judaism are worthless at best and unnecessarily contentious at worst. It would be like someone asking a question about prosyletizing Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses and people responding that Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t really Christian.
Messianics and J4J’s aren’t really the same thing. Jews for Jesus was started by a Baptist minister for the expressed purpose of converting Jews to Christianity, but anybody can join, as long as they’re willing to prostelytize Jews. J4J is more or less up front about being Christian.
Messianics are a mixture of converted cultural Jews and Gentiles who claim to be Jews, but they use a disingenuous definition of “Jew.” They say they’re “not Christian” but “authentic Judiasm,” "authentic Judiasm being defined by them as acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Messiah and as God…mainstream Judaism, they claim is in error. Messianics are practicing the “real” Judaism and all the other Jews have it wrong. In practice, what MJ’s really are is Christians (often ethnically Jewish but not always) who think that observing some aspects of the Torah (like observing Passover and keeping kosher) and learning some Hebrew makes them more authentically Jewish than Jews who actually believe in Jewish theology and practice.
Messianics are rejected as a Jewish religious movement by all mainstream Jewish denominations as well as by the state of Israel (which denies them the Right of Return).
A disingenuous definition of “Jew”? And your choice of definition, as an atheist, is somehow ingenuous, is it. :dubious:
Atheists for Jesus is not a religious movement. They don’t worship Jesus. Messianics do. You cannot worship Jesus and be religiously Jewish. Jewish theology not only rejects Jesus as the Messiah, but even more importantly, does not permit the WORSHIP of the Messiah, no matter who he is. The Jewish Messiah is not God. You can’t worship Jesus and be Jewish any more than you can worship the Hindu pantheon and be a monotheist.
As for “opposing” Messianics…who here has opposed them? They can believe whatever they want. The issue is how to deal with pushy evangelism. That’s an issue of dealing with rude social ettiquette, not an issue of trying to stifle anyone’s practice of religion.