Some non-Orthodox Jews believe in a Messianic Age rather than a Messiah. That means the stuff the Messiah is supposed to do will get done, but not necessarily by one person.
We don’t expect the Messiah or contributors to the Messianic Age to be born of a virgin or die for anybody’s sins, or anything of that sort.
Silly games like “69 weeks… of 365 day times!” are minor compared to the true acts of vileness that Messianic “Jews” can engage in.
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That is pretty vile. I guess the women figured that Hitler didn’t do a good enough job?
Yeah, because converting someone who is mentally impaired is just like gassing them & throwing them into ovens.
Now, I agree that this is misguided & unethical. They should have been up front before taking the job about their beliefs & what they planned to play & talk about. BUT they also told the daughter openly what they had done, perhaps thinking it might get the daughter to consider faith in Christ. Wrongheaded as their actions are, they were not malicious, and THAT is what pisses me about the argument. That somehow, Christian evangelism towards Jews (or anyone) is deliberately malicious. Hell, just a matter of time before there’ll be a move to make it a hate crime.
Btw, I’d like to see a cite just to see the context for the story.
In general, you should never suspect a conspiracy. It’s very doubtful that a couple would look at an elderly woman with dementia and think, “Oh gee, there’s a good victim to latch on to and convert.” Probably they were just highly religious and would try to convert a goldfish if it had ears.
However, this really seems off topic from the OP.
Not only that, if they were indeed diabolical spiritual genociders, would they then have told the daughter? “Nyah, nyah- we got your Mom! Now come to Jesus if you ever want to see her again! BWAHAHAHAHA!”
To my mind (and I think in the mind of most Jews) it isn’t a “hate crime”, it is just plain unethical, creepy as hell, and annoying.
Want to convert us? Fine: live a life worthy of emulation.
Here’s your cite.
And no, there’s nothing at all malicious about trying to secretly convert a old dying woman, and then after her death, bragging to her daughter about what you’ve done.
As for, “converting someone who is mentally impaired is just like gassing them & throwing them into ovens.” This woman survived the Holocaust. She survived a concerted effort to kill her and wipe Judaism off the face of the earth. In spite of all that, she fought to hold on to her religion and stay alive. And then she moved to Israel, where, for all the people trying to destroy the country, she should be safe and secure in her religion, at least. And then when she’s old, when she’s sick and feeble, and dying, when she needs the most protection, her family trusts two people to keep her company, people who pretended to be Jews but are doing their best to destroy Judaism. The difference is, the Nazis at least admitted they were enemies of the Jews. These missionaries don’t even have the honor to do that.
Thanks for the cite. Btw, may I note that the representative of Israel’s Jews for Jesus even objected to their tactics, as did I.
Btw, it had an interesting link to another story too!
Except that’s exactly what they did. The first woman got a job, specifically, with an old senile holocaust survivor. And then she recommended that her friend be brought in to ‘help’. And both of them pretended to be doing what their employers wanted, but as soon as they left they started trying to convert the woman to Christianity.
I was discussing this with Fenris offline some. It is as you say a little sad and more than a little odd. I live in Texas and run into this attitude all the time. A coworker even told me he’s flatly against reducing our arms assistance to Israel because as Christians it is our duty to protect Israel. His ridiculous assertion of the necessity of religion deciding foreign policy aside, the crux of his explanation for his position* went like this:
The Jews are God’s chosen people. There is no way for Christians to contradict or circumnavigate this single fact, because it is right there in the OT and it is what Jesus taught his followers. Jesus is the Messiah and Christians must follow his teachings. Therefore it is imperative to bring Jews to the realization that they are only one step from becoming Christian, and that is recognizing Jesus as the Messiah. In their minds, it is not conversion but an extension of the same faith.
Before you ask: No. They do not even begin to fathom how incredibly insulting this is. In their minds, they are trying to save the Jews as God directed. It never occurs to them that they are two separate beliefs or that many Jews understand Christianity perfectly well but think it’s wrong.
*He is not alone in this attitude. Many Christians feel the same way.
According to you and perhaps according to the employers. I don’t see anything in that article that can’t be explained by simple stupidity and religious fervor.
There wasn’t a big announcement document that grandma had been converted. There was a log of their daily dealings which showed how religion crept in midway. The lady didn’t come meet with the daughter to announce that her mother had been converted, she came in to talk over stuff, and the topic came up.
That’s not to say that the people weren’t essentially evil. But stupidity is one of the greater forms of evil. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot you can do about stupidity beyond keeping it away from yourself.
Funny. I’ve suddenly got a hankering for a moon pie.
But I want very much to wash it down with an RC Cola.
- me.
There’s also a tradition that the Messiah will be born on the fast day of Tisha b’Av, which is coming up at sunset tonight (well, I suppose it’s already started in some places).
Well, Ted, you certainly are sticking to your guns as far as your right to do the thinking and feeling for these folks!
Now, I am also looking in from the outside, since I am not a Jew either. I may have been guilty of jumping to conclusions, assuming things without any particular reason, and so on, on the same subject. And once I was advised that if three Jews were asked the same question you would get four different answers. But the difference is that I am really trying to understand, where you see only potential converts. And, by necessity, you must calculate that Jews (for Judaism!) need to have their own religion explained to them.
Okay, another point:
(from the same site:)
“Psalm 22:17
Missionary interpretation: Missionaries say that this passage predicts the crucifixion of Jesus.
Problems with this interpretation: (1) This scripture does not point exclusively to Jesus but refers to the Jewish people as a whole. (2) Jesus did not expect G-d to save him. (3) Missionaries have made up a new Hebrew word (one that never has existed). They say that korai means pierced which leads them to mistranslate the passage. The word ka’ari (כָּאֲרִי ) means like a lion or as a lion. This same word is used in Numbers 24:9, Isaiah 38:13, and Ezekiel 22:25…”
Now, Ted, is making up a word to connect this passage with the Crucifixion the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do?
Hmmm?
You don’t lose your Jewishness no matter what you believe. If a Jew becomes an atheist or a Christian, then later changes his/her mind and wants to practice Judaism again, s/he doesn’t have to convert to Judaism the way someone who never was Jewish would. S/he just starts keeping mitzvot again (this might include such activities as joining a synagogue, keeping kosher, etc). Once you’re born Jewish or convert to Judaism, there’s nothing you can do to make yourself not Jewish in the eyes of the Jewish community.
Now, whether other Jews would think that the religion of the followers of the new Messiah was Judaism or not is a separate issue. But Jews thinking that some other Jews practice a religion that is not Judaism is not a new or unique thing- some Orthodox Jews don’t think Reform Judaism is really Judaism.
There’s no centralized authority to declare that one set of beliefs and practices is Judaism and another one isn’t. We each get to make up our own minds on this. I will say, though, that it’s very common for Jews to think that any system of beliefs and practices that includes Jesus as the Jewish Messiah is not Judaism (I personally believe this). But remember, there’s no one person or group that decides “this is Judaism, that isn’t”, so this isn’t any kind of an official position.
Say, Finn, I’ve been wondering about something. It seems that a short while back I came across something about supposed Messianic Jews that have never been believers in Judaism or have a family background in same, such as having one or both parents being Jewish. IOW, some “ordinary” Christian proselytizers making a complete masquerade for the sake of conversions. If so, my guess is that some of them are “rabbis.”
Is this sometimes the case with MJ missionaries? You seem to imply as much in post #36, although it doesn’t seem definite to me.
Yeah, I’ve come across that same thing. It’s all part of the trickery going on, some Christians with no real connection to Judaism pretend to be Jewish and/or Jewish religious leaders. I can dig up some cites if it comes to it, but there are some “rabbis” whose ordination comes off the back of a cereal box and other “Jewish religious leaders” whose pedigrees include only Baptist seminaries.
Even the founder of “Jews” for Jesus had something like one Jewish parent of questionable knowledge/religiosity, and then he went on to seminary, became a Baptist minister and missionary and his name ‘just so happened’ to switch from Martin Meyer Rosen to “Moishe” Rosen.
What luck!
I was more mocking Friar’s contention that he knows more about Jewish theology than centuries’ worth of rabbis, Talmudic scholars, etc… The whole ‘Let me tell you about what Judaism really says about Jesus…’ dog and pony show.
Hell, I’ll give you another name- Michael Esses, yet another 1970’s Charismatic evangelist with a fake testimony of being a converted Rabbi, with his books published by the same folks (Logos, now defunct) that published fake ex-Satanist Mike Warnke.
There’s also Gentiles who convert to MJ, then get ordained & call themselves “Rabbi”. I agree that’s totally misleading, even IF they are open & honest about their Gentile background, as well as calling Messianic assemblies “synagogues”. The ONLY time I think those things would be remotely appropriate is if a real ordained Rabbi came to faith in Christ (it has happened!) or, even more rare (perhaps unknown since the first century CE), the majority of synagogue-members came to such a faith. I’ll also admit the vast majority of MJs who are ethnically Jewish usually have not been particularly religious until coming to JC. In the cases where such MJs get ordained & form assemblies, they should find some title & name that is honestly Christian/Messianic. Calling a Messianic group “Beth El Synagogue” (for example) is deceptive. Calling a group Beth El Messianic Assembly is not, IMO. A Gentile or non-religious Jew who becomes Messianic & then goes into ministry should not call themselves ‘Rabbi’ or ‘Rav’, but if they want to get punny & call themselves ‘Rev’, OK.
See! I do have my limits!
~“Ribeye Ted”