By Drashi
Michael L. Brown
From http://www.realmessiah.com/OBJgeneralPF.htm
vol. 1, pp. 9-15 wrote:Objection 1.5: “Messianic Judaism, or Hebrew Christianity thing is just one big deception, designed to lure unsuspecting Jews into Christianity. Half of the people involved aren’t even Jewish. Those that are Jewish were mostly Christian ministers who changed their names to sound more authentic.”
Answer: “Maybe your bad experience with a messianic Chrstian has given you a wrong impression of the whole. Is it possible that you have misjudged our hearts and motives without knowing the facts? Most Jews who have come to know Jesus as Messiah have experienced a deep reawakening of their Jewishness. Many have recovered aspects of the biblical Jewish lifestyle, while others have made aliyah (i.e., emigrated to Israel) for life. In fact, their children now attend Israeli schools and fight in the Israeli army. It is because these people have so deeply recovered their Jewishness that some of them have changed their names -- e.g., from Martin to Moishe. Others changed their names so as to refute the lie of past ‘Christian’ anti-Semitism which said, ‘You can’t be Jewish and believe in Jesus.’ As for the Gentile believers who have joined Messianic Jewish congregations, they have done so out of love for Israel and Jewish life. Is this wrong?”
It is interesting to note that one of the major points, the makeup of a typical "Messianic Congregation" is given a sort of a footnote, a final sentence to focus on the Jews and sewwp under the rug the truth that the MAJORITY of members of Messianic Churches (a more appropriate title) never had a Jewish mother, nor were a member of any Jewish society.
But this is also one of his longest explanations, adding:
I am surprised that you're repeating the standard party line about Messianic Jews being deceptive....I (along with other Messianic Jewish leaders whom I know personally) would never think of engaging in such dishonest activities.
I think he does know the leaders of Jews for Jesus.
He has obviously either not gone to http://www.exjewsforjesus.org/ or has chosen to ignore their stories.
He then claims that be calling himself a messianic Chrstian, he is being more honest by letting people know what his beliefs are and are just trying to communicate clearly.
But the original Christian texts are Greek, and as we have noted before, there are not ancient "Messianic" synagogues, and thus the Greek term for a follower of a Christ is a Christian ("Christ" + "ianos"). A "Christian Jew" would be far more honest, because while "Messianic" may not be 100% understood by all Jews, especially the uneducated ones from Russia, "Christian" is certainly universally known.
He then asks the question that if you discovered that Jesus was the Messiah, would you stop calling yourself Jewish?
If I was to be honest, then I would say "yes". If I would want to say "no", then I need to look at why being Jewish is so important if I want to be a Christ Devotee (Christian).
He also says that the goal of the leaders of the Messianic (Christian) movement is not to be deceptive, to not trying to appear to be something that they are not, but to be loyal to G-d.
And I believe that Michael Brown really believes this. And his opening statement that anyone who says otherwise is just following the "party line" is saying that those who oppose him are not thinking for themselves and that the truth is hidden from them.
He also tries to explain why they do what they do is not deceptive:
1) Avoid the term Christ because it is associated with a non-Jewish religious figure.
2) Sing and pray in Hebrew to remind themselves of their connection to Abraham, etc.
3) Use Tallit, Kipot, and Tefillin because it is a part of their Jewish roots.
4) Follow Jewish calender because it is part of the Jewish cycle.
5) Call the leader "Rabbi" instead of "Pastor" because "pastor" sounds too Gentile. Similarly, they use the term "synagogue" because it is a Greek term used in the Christian texts.
6) Call their Christian seminaries "yeshivot". But many within their movement didn't like the term, because maybe it would look deceptive, so they changed it in a way to show that Gentiles could attend as well.
7) Taking on Jewish names to connect to Jewish roots. He compares Martin Rosen (Baptist minister who founded Jews for Jesus) calling himself "Moishe" no different than Martin Kahane calling himself "Meir Kahane"!
He does admit that some Messianic Jews are more comfortable wearing a cross around their neck and being part of traditional churches, while others are not.
And what makes them Messianic Jews? Well, "Christ" is a Greek word for "Annointed one" and so "Moshiach", and a follower of a Christ would be a Christian in Greek, or a Messianic in Hebrish, and so long as your mother was a Jew, you are a messianic Chrstian (rather than a Christian Jew).
He then ends it by saying that he has met deceptive ultra-Ortodox Jews, and therefore one should not judge all of Messianic Judaism by a few bad eggs.
He does admit that a Missionary (or he calls such a person a messianic Chrstian who wants to witness) will take on the garb and customs of the observant Jew so that such a person will feel comfortable in his presences in order to hear the meassage of you-know-who.
He uses Paul as an example of a true Jew whom no one questioned as being a Jew. But he does forget that the real Jews kept trying to kill him for trying to get Jews to embrace avodah Zerah, until he fled for the last time and took the message solely to the Gentiles, saying that he needed to dispose of his Judaism in order to accept a Christ.
And no one doubted that message for many, many centuries.
And he ends his statement with something very freak, when saying why they don't like to use the term "Christian" because it is so much associated with the Crusades and anti-semitic hatred:
Is it fair to call us deceptive for saying that we are still Jews, that we are not part of that church, and that we refuse to deny our solidarity with our prople? Would our critics rather have us call outselves modern-day Crusaders, burning down synagogues and persecuting Jews?
In other words, he is really, REALLY uncomfortable with being associated with Christianity, so much so, that he takes the Greek word for Christian and takes on the Hebrew variant to be more comfortable with it.
He then makes a generalization which seems to imply that to be a proper Christian, you need to hate Jews and attack them wherever they exist!
That is very, very, weird!
Especially since the majority of his membership is composed of people who never had any Jewish roots or was even halachically a Jew.
And he sweeps that one little tid-bit under the rug.
