From: strom@watson.ibm.com (Rob Strom)
Subject: Re: Missionizing to 2-year-olds
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1992 19:01:41 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM Research

In article <1992Sep1.081845.16954@pbs.org>, btiffany@pbs.org writes:
|> Robert A. Levene writes:
|> 
|> > Subject: Re: Missionizing to 2-year-olds
|> > Organization: Johns Hopkins University
|> > 
|> > Are you seriously suggesting that shunning grown children is somehow
|> > worse than making death threats against pre-schoolers?  If not, then
|> > please clarify what you meant.
|> 
|> Making death threats against pre-schoolers?
|> 
|> Can you cite any incidents where Messianic Jews threatened pre-schoolers with
|> death?
|> 
If you're discussing what my wife's relatives did to my children,
I think it was very abusive and frightening, although I would
not go so far as to call it a death threat.  They told him
at age 5 (together with his sister, who was 3-1/2), that he would
burn in hell *after* death if he didn't believe in Jesus.  They
also told him that the reason he hurt himself in the water was
that he didn't believe.  This, while he was still just
learning to swim, made him afraid that he might drown
through lack of faith.

During vacation, my son (now 14), agreed to write down his
experiences.  This was useful because I was able to separate
out two separate events, one year apart, with two separate
uncles, which I had previously been merging together into
one story.  His sister Tamara (now 13) claims to recall
some of these experiences and volunteered to write these
down as well, but as of now she has not done so.

I have left David's original words intact.  I have made
insignificant changes: (1) Although I asked David to write
down just the facts, and not his opinions, David managed
to put a few in anyway, and I have deleted some of these
which were overly judgmental and would have been hard to
substantiate, (2) in a few places the references to people
were unclear, (3) in a few places the sentences were ungrammatical,
(4) he misspelled "epitome".  In all cases, I marked
the changed text in brackets, and enclosed my own explanatory
comments in double brackets.

What follows is by David Avram Strom:
-------------------------------------
Although I come from a [Jewish family], two of my mother's
siblings converted to Christianity in their teens, because
of [[David's speculations deleted]],
and then proceeded to marry Christian spouses.

When I was about 4, my parents foolishly left me alone with
my uncle [[Robert, the brother of
my wife Judith]] and his wife for the first time ever.
The only thing I knew about religion was that my religion
was Judaism, and they took full advantage of this.  The
first thing they said was that Jesus Christ was "our saviour"
and was always behind me wherever I went.  Of course I took this
literally, and always looked back wherever I went.  My father
found [this behavior] odd and asked me why I was doing it.
I told him what my uncle told me, and he taught me how we
Jews don't believe that and why. [[David's characterization
of his uncle's behavior as "brainwashing" deleted]]

[Afterwards], my father confronted them, and told them never 
to try to convert me again, but they showed me pictures and
cartoons of Jesus and explained their significance.  Not
surprisingly, I was never allowed to be with them again alone,
and nothing happened when my parents were present.  [[When
David got older, and we were more confident in his ability
to resist such behavior, we were able to leave him alone
with his aunt and uncle with confidence.]]

Another example of a conversion attempt was made by another
"Messianic" relative of mine. [[The following passage refers
to David's uncle Stephen, the husband of my wife's sister
Janice.  David is incorrect in calling Stephen "Messianic" ---
although Janice was converted from Judaism by Messianics,
Stephen is an Evangelical Gentile Christian who is
now a Congregationalist minister.]] By this time I was
older [about 5!] and knew a great deal more about religion
and its significance and felt very proud of my religion and
heritage.  I already knew that this particular relative,
although I love him dearly, was a religious nut.  To
look at his house, with books characterizing conversion of Jews
as an art form [[here David jumps ahead into the present --- he
obviously had not read those books when he was 5]], one would 
think that the epitom[e] of his existence was to save
poor "non-believers" from burning in fiery hell.  Wow!
As I recall, we were at the beach and he was pleading with
me to {\em believe} in Jesus or burn.  To reiterate, I was
more educated than in previous encounters and, doing my best not
to sound pugnacious [[At that age, he wouldn't have succeeded
in not sounding pugnacious]], shouted "I'm Jewish.  I do not
believe in Jesus.  No Jews believe in Jesus", and went into
the water to swim.  While swimming, I happened to stub
my toe on a rock, and I came out in pain.  My [uncle] looked
at me and said in a soothing, tranquil manner, "You see what
happens when you don't believe in Jesus".

This has gone on countless occasions when[ever I was alone with them].
Even at the age of 12, my sister is still subject to the religious
barraging [sic] and abuse.

Other examples [of Christian conversion attempts] are of
one of my mother's close friends, a born-again [[not Messianic]]
who sent educational Christian books as birthday presents
for me when I was young [[age 5]], and to this day, sends
Christmas cards quoting the New Testament.

[Example of Jehovah's Witnesses deleted.]

I conclusion, I would like to (a) reiterate this passage
which cited specific examples of the continuous attempts
to make me and my family believe something we do not, (b)
to remind readers that not all Christians are like this, and 
that I respect their religion and their right to believe
what they want, (c) state the fact that there is no such
thing as a Messianic Jew, because it is a contradiction
and paradox such as military intelligence, jumbo shrimp,
or honest politician --- in the sense that Jews by
definition only believe in one G-d, not two [[oops --- look
like he never quite caught on to the trinity]].  However,
I respect these people as Christians provided they do not
inflict their views on anyone else, and (d) to state that
I love and admire all --- well, most --- of my relatives,
even with their faults and quirks, but I just wish that
they would accept people for who they are and what they
believe.

David A. Strom
-- 
Rob Strom, strom@watson.ibm.com, (914) 784-7641
IBM Research, 30 Saw Mill River Road, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY  10598
Newsgroups: alt.messianic