fake synagogues

[cellio]

It's old news that some of the more evangelical Christian denominations are major sponsors of "messianic Judaism" [sic], or dressing up churches and Christianity with the symbols of Judaism in an effort to convert uneducated Jews to Christianity. I'm used to that from the Southern Baptists, but was surprised to hear that the Presbyterian church is now doing this. I don't know all that much about Presbyterians, but I've always perceived them as among the more liberal "live and let live" folks. Is the Philadelphia Inquirer on crack, or is this real?

It's well within the rights of any belief system to try to openly convert others to their point of view. I have no problems with that. If missionaries want to come to my door, that's fine -- so long as they take a polite "not interested" as the end of the conversation. (Or, alternatively, if they want to compare beliefs with the understanding that conversion is not on the table, I'll sometimes talk with them.) All of my encounters with Jehovah's Witnesses, and my recent encounter with Mormons, have been polite.

But pretending to be a Jewish congregation and then slipping communion, salvation through Jesus, and so on into the service is fraudulent, and the perpretrators ought to be ashamed of themselves. If I were a Christian, I would be outraged that they think the argument for Christianity is so weak that they have to disguise it in an effort to dupe people. Any belief that cannot stand up to scrutiny out in the light is not a belief worth holding. And I know that's not true for many of the Christians I know -- they have thought about this, studied it, and come to solid positions, which they can articulate, about why they are Christians. There is obviously something there for them that does not require cheap marketing stunts, and I respect them (while not following the same path). Fake synagogues, along with being offensive to Jews, are a major insult to serious Christians.

Comments

[cortejo.livejournal.com]

DUDE! Thats shocking!

[fiannaharpar.livejournal.com]

Any belief that cannot stand up to scrutiny out in the light is not a belief worth holding.

I agree with you. This behaviour I typically chalk up to fear of the unknown, or fear of the different and try my best to move on. In this particular case, these people should be tarred and feathered, they are malignant and need to be cut out.

I was reared a Presbyterian, and from what I can tell, things differ greatly from congregation to congregation...something that seems to be true for most churches in general.

[siderea]

This behaviour I typically chalk up to fear of the unknown, or fear of the different and try my best to move on.

There is a meme that sometimes infects Christianity -- a meme which moves around from denomination to denomination -- that one gets moral brownie points for converting people. It's sort of like spiritual Girl Scout Cookie selling, where if you sell enough cookies to enough people, you get some afterlife prize.

Once that meme has taken root in a group of people, it's a short walk from there to the social norm of someone who converts more (or more difficult-to-convert) heathens gets more social status. So converting people becomes a contest within the sect, where the best converter has maximal social status.

And then, once you're at the point of collecting souls for valuable prizes and the admiration/envy of your friends, it really doesn't matter how honest one is in going about it. You get your moral brownie points even if you have to lie, cheat, steal, etc. to do so.

I think that that is what is going on when Christians do dishonest things to try to gain converts. From the outside, it looks completely absurd, but I think it makes sense to them within their social group and its theology.

I think that most of these people doing these stunts aren't particularly concerned with belief or theology or divinity. For them, religion is a social phenomenon. It's an expression of their social group's identity (church, study-group, neighborhood, family, whatever), and a medium of social relating. Hence the competition for converts. Regardless of what they say, they're not trying to convert you for your spiritual benefit, they're trying to convert you for their own social benefit.

That's why it doesn't strike them as incongruous to deceive in the name of their religion. They're not really thinking about issues of wrong/right, sin/virtue, etc. They're just jockeying for position within their social milieu.

[revlainiep.livejournal.com]

Mainline protestant churches vary widely in their beliefs. There are strong conservative movements in many mainline denominations, so this sort of thing really isn't all that surprising.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty well astonished by the Presbyterians getting in on this. I knew about others - "Messianic Synagogues", people calling themselves "completed Jews", even the Mennonite things, but, yeah, I've never thought the Presbyterians would do that.

Mennonite things: there's a tourist site in Lancaster, PA called the "Hebrew Tabernacle". It's a replica of the Mishkan, the portable Sanctuary the Hebrews carried in the Wilderness between Egypt and the Land of Israel. We went there on a visit. We didn't bother actually paying to see the replica, but we did go to the gift shop. Which was full of Messianic and missionary material aimed at Jews - including books on how to convert your Jewish friends and neighbors once you've been converted yourself, and Hebrew "New Testaments". We were staying in a local B&B, and our innkeeper told us that some Mennonite groups have become active in the J4J movements. This was seven or so years ago.

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if I've asked you this before or not, but if so I apologise for the double question.

What is it about J4J that bothers you (and other Jews I've heard mention it) so much? Are they doing something slimy beyond "trying to convert Jews"?

K.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Because they are *lying*. Because they are pretending that two religions that have some fundamental differences are actually the same religion, and they are doing it for the express and stated purpose of using that deceit to win over converts, whom they then hope to bring to standard (usually Baptist) churches.

Because they are preying (and yes, that is the word), mostly, on Jews who know little or nothing about their own religion so they have no basis to know truth from lies - throw in some Hebrew terms and mistranslations and you might win someone over. It's very effective for newly emigrated Russian Jews, who have no Jewish education whatsoever. So they have no defenses when invited to what they think is a free "seder", only to find that the central theme of the seder is not the redemption from Egypt.

I'm not talking about J's Witnesses or Mormons or other *open* missionaries who are upfront about wanting to "save" Jews and other nonChristians from eternal Hell. I have a prejudice against missionaries, but these people are, at least, not practicing deceit. These people adopt Jewish names - many, not all, are not and never have been Jewish - and Jewish terminology just to win converts - converts they'd never get if they did not practice this deceit.

Examples, beyond the seders, are houses of worship that look superficially Jewish - they wear tallisim and kippot and use prayerbooks with Hebrew in them, but the sermon is from the NT and the name Yeshua is tossed around in an attempt to make the name Jesus less...problematic. It may well have been his original name, of course, but that's not why they use it.

Other examples - I have in my possession "The Orthodox Jewish Brit Chadasha" - a "translation" of an English NT into Yeshivish English, referring to Jesus as "Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach". It's hysterical, actually, but it seems to have been meant seriously. There were even attempts to use Yiddish to convert Lubavitcher Chasidim, who have been known to revere their late rebbe as the possible Messiah. I guess they figured that if they can consider one person the messiah, why not another? This attempt appears to have also failed.

[cellio]

What bothers me is the deception involved. If they invited Jews into their churches that'd be fine, but what they do is try to convince ignorant Jews (like, for example, ones who just immigrated and aren't so good with English) that they are joining a synagogue, and only then slipping in the real message. So they get a bunch of people to violate the very religion they think they're practicing -- and mostly, these are people who have no background and wouldn't know the difference.

You can, of course, argue that people should look closely at any major acquisition, whether it's a house, a car, an SO, a house of worship, or whatever, and if you can't be bothered to do your homework then fooey on you. But I think it's sleazy to prey on people who aren't in a position to protect themselves. And it's especially sleazy in areas where there is a strong "trust" meme, as in religious congregations, support groups, and so on.

Ah, there's a good analogy: J4J is sort of like Budweiser setting up a fake AA chapter, luring people in under that guise, and then quietly introducing the idea that beer isn't "really" alcohol and they shouldn't be cautious about it like they have to be with "real" alcohol like whiskey. People are used to the idea of trusting AA, and in this example (which, I hasten to add, I just made up) Budweiser would be preying on the weak and susceptible.

A side issue would be that they appear to be taking sacred Jewish objects like Torah scrolls and using them in decidedly non-Jewish (and anti-Jewish) ways. Imagine that someone were to take your sacred texts (whatever they are) and use them in rites that are completely at odds with your beliefs (e.g. the gospels being used in satanic rituals). Or, imagine that someone were to take a synbol you care greatly about and print it on toilet paper. It's kind of like that. It's perfectly legal (and should remain so), but it's in extremely poor taste.

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

Supposedly some missionary Christian organizations practice a similar kind of "stealth conversion" in Muslim countries. They will take on the customs of the local population, phrase their message in the vocabulary of Islam, etc as an attempt to convince people that accepting Jesus as a savior is a valid (and even necessary) aspect of Islamic faith.

Bleh. I, too, am usually willing to talk with people who are respectful and honest about their motivations... but a religion seeking converts ought to be able to do so by standing openly on its own merits.

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

They may be thinking of this (and this may in fact be the problem) as merely getting a chance at an actual evaluation. The theory goes that many people, possibly most, will never think seriously about conversion or religion, merely rejecting it out of hand, similar to a child who won't eat broccoli even though he's never tried it. So, his mother mixes cut-up broccoli into his macaroni and cheese, he eats it and when she asks him how it was, he says that it was delicious, and then she reveals the secret ingredient. These guys use little cut-up bits of Jesus instead of broccoli, but the idea is the similar.

Trying to convert Jews as a special target seems to me to be pretty silly--it would be a lot more effective in terms of causing more salvation to go after the agnostic secular masses instead. It's like targetting A- students for special help classes while letting the D students alone. (Admittedly this evaluation is based on the continuum of salvation theory, according to which the only thing being a Christian gets you is a big boost to the likelihood of salvation rather than its guaranteedness, and which is not endorsed by most all-or-nothing protestant groups.)