For the past few years, I've followed a certain Messianic Jew's blog. We shall call her "Hannah". Now, "Hannah" started out in evangelicaldom like I did. And also like I did, she eventually got fed up with how they do things so she left in favor of a more ritualized form of religion.
That's about as much as our respective faith journeys have in common though.
Obviously I ended up in the Catholic Church. Or I will be in the Catholic Church by the end of April of this year. Same difference. "Hannah", though, ended up in Messianic Judaism. And, man, what a ride!
Now, I should pause here to say that I long ago learned that a small amount of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. That's not new information for me. But even with that truism in mind, the blog "Hannah" maintains really is in a class all by itself.
There are many points I could make and many examples I could cite. However, I ultimately decided to leave "Hannah" safely anonymous and instead deal with just a few issues that concern me.
First off, there's Messianic Judaism itself. I have a high regard for their commitment to studying God's Word. For whatever else I could say about the MJ movement, they don't mess around when it comes to study. That's the good news. The bad news though is they have reached all the wrong conclusions.
The entire thrust of the MJ movement is their selective adherence to the Mosaic Law. I suppose the Council of Jerusalem mentioned in Acts 15 wasn't specific enough for them vis a vis a Christian's religious requirements, be he Jew or Gentile.
The other issue though is that Messianic Judaism is ultimately designed to appeal to Jewish converts who expect (depend on?) a fairly strict code of religious obligation. As such, legitimate teaching authorities such as the Messianic Jewish Rabbinical Council tend to view Gentile converts as not only unnecessary but likely unbiblical.
Being a Gentile herself, that poses a pretty serious problem for "Hannah". When your own teachers and leaders think you shouldn't be there, you have to go through some pretty interesting logical contortions to justify your continued attendance.
In the case of "Hannah", she resolves this, first, by bad-mouthing the rabbis who teach on these matters and, second, by claiming that the early Church abided by Torah. But then the wicked Constantine came along and he ruined the whole thing, you see.
Apart from the fact that the historical record doesn't support her in any way whatsoever (and what's with Constantine being the Grand Central Station for blame for all the early Church's problems anyway?), it makes you wonder if Our Lord was only kidding when He said He would be with us always, even unto the end of the age. So, what, right around 330 AD, He went on vacation for a bunch of a centuries and only took an active interest in His Church again during the 1970's in America?
Now don't get me wrong, Protestants have to overcome similar hurdles. They have an easier time though because they can at least claim the Catholic Church operated properly for millennia but eventually fell into error. Luckily though, it was right around then that Martin Luther showed up to lead his rebellion revolution "reformation". The Protestants would say that the church never went away; it simply needed to be reformed.
Messianic Jews obviously can't claim even that much. As a result, many of them don't even try. Except obviously for "Hannah", that is.
"Hannah" recently closed down comments on her blog. She claimed that she was being inundated by annoying, pious, holier-than-thou-art wannabe Christians and rather than endlessly moderate the virtual deluge of vitriol and negativity, she's ended comment privileges altogether.
Now, it's impossible to know for sure what those other comments said. Or if they even exist. Because none of them were ever posted. The only comments "Hannah" approved tended to be flattery of her "expert" scholarship. On top of all that, and because of all that, the only vitriol and negativity visible on her blog was written by "Hannah" herself. Whether it was merely a different opinion or, for that matter, an innocent human error, "Hannah" shows no mercy when anybody dares say something she disagrees with.
For my part, I tried on two occasions to gently correct her misunderstandings of history. My opinion then and now was that a careful, honest review of history shows the Catholic Church to be on the right side. So rather than endlessly debate doctrines and Scriptural interpretations, I tried to stick with objectively true or objectively not true facts of history that anybody can verify for himself. The tone I went out of my way to take was polite and conversational. "Say, I don't know if what you wrote up there is true because there are records aplenty of early Church Fathers saying almost the total opposite of what you claim," or "Believe it or not, there is no record of ANY kind of holiday being celebrated on December 25 prior to Christianity. Claims to the contrary are sourced exclusively from Protestants with an axe to grind" and the like.
And shortly thereafter, "Hannah" began disallowing comments. It's hard not to see it at least in part as a reaction to the two comments I submitted.
Apart from a sketchy view of history, "Hannah" appears to hold to a rather bizarre view of Sola Scriptura (which is to say Scripture alone is the only infallible source to guide men's faith and religion). I say it's "bizarre" because the MJ movement is predicated on forms of tradition, which, by definition, cannot be found anywhere in Scripture. How does "Hannah" square the (seemingly selective) Sola Scriptura viewpoint with a movement so heavily founded on oral tradition? It's impossible to know because "Hannah" never spells it out.
Last of all, however, is the view "Hannah" has of End Time prophecy. This is perhaps where her roots in evangelicdom are strongest, as she believes we are IN the End Times. Now, many evangelicals believe we're "near" the End Times. Be it Hal Lindsey, Chuck Missler, Tim LaHaye or any hundreds of others, it's simply not difficult to find people who teach these things. To a man, they would all say we're "near" the End Times.
Where "Hannah" sets herself apart from the pack. She doesn't believe we're "near" the End Times. She believes that we are IN the End Times. For as extreme as the teachers and writers that I mentioned may appear to be, NONE of them (I've checked) have ever said that we are "in" the End Times.
Not. One.
Now, the purpose of this isn't to criticize "Hannah". In fact, it's not even to criticize Messianic Judaism. I mention this to say, ultimately, that this is how badly things can go wrong without a Magisterium to lead and teach the flock. Our Lord built His Church, promised He would never leave it and that the gates of Hell won't prevail against it. He must have been telling the truth or else he wouldn't be Our Lord. If you can't accept that fundamental premise, I question whether you even have the right to say you belong to Him.
More to follow.
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