NEW: Please subscribe to my Substack/newsletter at the bottom of the page. Thanks!
Why I No Longer
Identify Myself as “Christian”
In their historical novel
Jerusalem Vigil,
Bodie and Brock Thoene [Thoene Books
The old woman gave a wink. “I have heard Brother Nathan was less than hospitable.” She addressed Dr. Baruch. “You did not tell him you are a Catholic.”
The doctor replied without bitterness. “I am not a Catholic. Not any longer. I am … since the war … since Auschwitz … a Jew first. That separates me from what the Church has become. This Franciscan would have been turning Jews over to the Nazis in Czechoslovakia if he was asked … for the sake of neutrality.”
… The nun continued, “Brother Nathan is a Syrian. His hatred of all Jews is long-standing. Ingrained, I fear.”
Baruch said brusquely, “As a Christian he wears the name of the greatest Jew who ever lived, and yet still in his small mind Jews are Christ-killers. He walks Via Dolorosa each Friday carrying the cross, but he does not know what the cross means. I tremble that a man such as this calls himself a Christian.”
Mother Superior said sadly, “But surely the smallness of his soul cannot make you deny your faith.”
Baruch looked her in the eye. “I deny those in the Church who deny the Jewishness of the Messiah. They have made Jesus a Gentile. One of themselves. For centuries Jews have known almost nothing about Jesus … Yeshua … and, because of hatred from men like Brother Nathan, have wanted to know even less.”
Mother Superior sat down wearily on the bench. “Not all have forgotten that we Gentiles are merely branches grafted into the root and trunk of Judaism.”
Baruch sat beside her, his hands open as though he held a book on his lap. “The Gentile Church has forgotten its roots. … The way, the truth, and the life grew out of the covenant God made with Abraham. Those Gentiles who are grafted on do not replace the original branches. From the seed of Abraham all the nations of the world will be blessed. The blessing was, is, the Messiah, Yeshua, descendant of David. Shepherd and sacrificial lamb. King. Redeemer. Healer of the sick. Lover of the unloved. Bread of Life. He who calms the seas. He who goes into the battle to slay our giants. I know my Savior well, Mother, but I will never again call myself by the name Christian. Too much evil has been done in that name. I am a Jew who follows The Way.”
— from Jerusalem Vigil, the first book in the Zion Legacy series
by Bodie and Brock Thoene www.thoenebooks.com,
a “fictionalized” but historically extremely accurate
series about Israel’s war for independence.
Additionally, I no longer consider myself a Christian because I believe that the “Church” — who calls herself “the Bride of Christ” — has effectively divorced herself from Him. I believe that one can successfully argue that “Christianity” is an exclusively Gentile religion, separate and distinct from both Messianic and non-Messianic Judaism. The following are but a few of the false teachings of Christianity that make it separate and distinct from both Messianic and non-Messianic Judaism:
• Because the Jewish people rejected Jesus at His first appearing, God has rejected Israel and the Jewish people.
• Jesus came to abolish the error of Judaism and establish a new religion called Christianity.
• The “Church” has become “the Bride of Christ” and has replaced Israel in God’s plans and covenants (this is known as supercessionism or “Replacement Theology.”
• Salvation in Judaism is based on a system of “works” (obedience to Torah), whereas Christianity is based on faith only in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• Jesus did away with the burdensome “Law of Moses” and “nailed it to His cross"; only nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the “New Testament,” making them relevant to Christianity; for a Jew to become a Christian, he/she must renounce not only the Torah, but nearly all Jewish tradition; some Christians go so far as to require Jewish converts to confirm their conversion by eating pork and/or shellfish as a testimony.
• God’s seventh-day Sabbath has been exchanged for a first-day “Lord’s Day” (there are a few “sabbatarian” Christian denominations that observe God’s Sabbath).
• The only obligation of a Christian is to believe that Jesus died for their sins; public confession of such belief is all that is necessary to “be saved” and go to heaven (some congregations and denominations add their own list of required “works,” including “baptism”).
• Christians reject the seven “Appointed Times” (feasts and festivals) that God established for all of His people to meet with him corporately, insisting they are the “Feasts of the Jews”; instead they only celebrate Christmas and Easter (both of which are pagan and neither of which is taught in the Bible), and many (particularly charismatics) celebrate a Christian version of Shavuot (Pentecost), celebrating it as the “birthday of the Church,” not as the anniversary of the giving of the Torah at Sinai.
• In the “Last Days” or “End Times” God will either send or allow the Antichrist to execute judgment against Israel for seven years as punishment for their rejection of Messiah; the “Church” will be miraculously preserved from that judgment by being taken out of the world in the “Rapture.”
I am simply someone who follows
“The Way of Yeshua”
I was “born into the Church.” The son of an evangelical Christian pastor, I cannot remember the time before I came to faith in Yeshua as my Savior. I began teaching “little kids’” Sunday school at the age of 10, and by the time I was a sophomore in high school I had assumed a minor leadership position in my local congregation.
My first “pastoral” position was assumed in 1965 when, at the age of 19, I served as Youth Pastor in the base chapel at the U.S. Naval Hospital on Guam, and I have held both pastoral and non-pastoral congregational leadership responsibilities almost continuously since then.
As early as 1966 or 1967 I began to notice what I considered “uncomfortable” discrepancies between what I had been taught in Church and Sunday school and what I was reading for myself in the Scriptures. I thought that perhaps some formal Bible education might help resolve the issues, so while still in the Navy I enrolled in correspondence courses from the Bible school from which my father had graduated.
Somewhere along the line, about my mid- to late-40s or so, I discovered my genealogical records which traced my Jewish ancestry[1] (surprise!) back to England in the very early 1400s, considerably before the Messianic Jewish explorer Cristobal Colon discovered America. It was then that I began to search out my “Jewish roots,” though with not much success.
Some time later, in a futile effort to resolve those “uncomfortable discrepancies,” I attended seminary on the west coast, earning post-graduate degrees (M.A., Th.M, Th.D, and D.Min.) in Bible studies, theology, comparative religion, and ministry (and graduating summa cum laude and class valedictorian from all programs), and have I held both instructional and administrative positions at three seminaries, with a teaching specialty in systematic theology, pseudo-Christian cults, and comparative religion.
While serving as both Professor of Systematic Theology and bi-vocational pastor, I continued to teach and preach “the party line” even though after nine years of post-graduate theological education I still had not resolved those “uncomfortable discrepancies,” but could find no viable alternative in which to serve.
That led to the 1995 establishment of Family Bible Church and the launching of this web site, in both of which I have endeavored to share those things that are being revealed to me by Ruach HaKodesh.
In early 2000 I was introduced to the Messianic Restoration Movement, and as I began to study the Scriptures from the perspective of my Jewish ancestors, I soon realized that those “uncomfortable discrepancies” were never going to be resolved, because what the Church teaches is very often considerably different from what the Prophets and Apostles actually taught and wrote.
As I now have come to understand that Christianity bears little, if any, resemblance to the first- and second-century Jewish sect of the Apostles known as haDerek (הַדֶּ֔רֶךְ), The Way (short for “the Way of Yeshua”) — in the words of the fictional Dr. Baruch (ab0ve):
“I deny those in the Church who deny the Jewishness of the Messiah. They have made Jesus a Gentile. One of themselves. For centuries Jews have known almost nothing about Jesus … Yeshua … and, because of hatred from men like Brother Nathan [and Mary Nero], have wanted to know even less. I will never again call myself by the name Christian. … I am a Jew who follows The Way.”
I, too, deny those in the Church who deny the Jewishness of Messiah Yeshua and who blaspheme Him by making false claims about His supposed antagonism towards His Jewish heritage. Since that includes most who call themselves Christian, I deny them and their Church. I, too, will never again call myself by the name Christian. I, too, am simply one who follows The Way. I am a disciple and subject of Rebbe Yeshua from Nazareth, Israel’s Messiah, King of the Jews, King of all kings, the Living Torah, and Son of God. He is my King and my Sovereign. I am a citizen of His Kingdom, the Commonwealth of Israel.
For a much more thorough discussion of my personal spiritual quest please refer to Why is This Teaching Different and to Chapter One of my in-process work The Model for the Messianic Community.
1. Although I may be a distant biological descendant of Avraham, that does not make me in any way halachically Jewish (according to Jewish law), no matter how badly I wish that could be the case. In order to be considered halachically Jewish I would need to undergo a formal process of conversion. [BACK]
|
 |
Subscribe to my Substack/newsletter |
ANXIOUSLY WATCHING FOR MASHIACH’S RETURN,
SPEEDILY AND IN OUR DAY. MARANA, TA!
