From: tom@portland.mdc.unisys.com (Tom Albrecht)
Newsgroups: alt.messianic
Subject: Re: Yehudim for Yeshua
Date: 15 Apr 92 16:48:24 GMT
Organization: Unisys - Applied Technology

In article <kunnfpINNqeo@pollux.usc.edu> kjh@pollux.usc.edu (Kenneth J. Hendrickson) writes:
>
>Why are Jewish Bhuddists, Jewish Hindus, Jewish atheists, Jewish
>agnostics, Jewish Muslims, Jewish Bahai's, etc. "bad Jews", but Jewish
>Christians "not Jews at all"???  I think you are exhibiting hypocrisy.

I think the point that Rob Strom and Robert Levene makes is a valid one,
and is pointed out by your examples.  Jewish Buddhists, Jewish Hindus, etc.
(some of these seem pretty strange) are ethnic Jews who practice some
religion other than Judaism.  Now, there are Christians who fall into this
same category.  They may be ethnically Jewish, that is, they were born of
Jewish parents into a Jewish home, but they now practice the religion of
Christianity, not Judaism (in one of it "natural" forms).

The problem you get into is when these Jewish Christians begin insisting
that their version of Christianity, their religious customs and manners, is
a valid form of Judaism, i.e., the Jewish religion.  Not only do they
insist that it is A valid form, many, like Bruce, insist that it is THE
valid form of Judaism.  (Some of them are so bold as to suggest that
Christians who don't worship this way aren't even real Christians, but some
beast know as "gentile Christians"!)  

This form of Christianity is not Judaism, and we shouldn't kid ourselves in
the Christian community into thinking it is.  Peter and Paul and the other
disciples may have been born into ethnically Jewish homes, and they may
have, for a time, practiced an acceptable form of Judaism, but the day that
proclaimed Jesus as Messiah they were cut off once and for all from the
Jewish religious community.  Anyone who professed Christ was excommunicated
from the synagogue, because they were now religiously Christian (cf. John
9:22).

Religiously speaking, Christianity and Judaism separated a long time ago. 
The early church recognized this fact.  The Church Fathers brought with
them all from old covenant Judaism which was compatible with the Christian
religion.  They tested every practice by the word of God.  Those which
stood the test, they kept.  Those which failed the test, they discarded. 
Synagogue worship and structure, Christian communion and sabbath worship
are three perfect examples.  In the case of the sabbath, the Fathers
understood the need to keep the moral aspect of the 4th Commandment, the
creation principle of one-day-in-seven rest and worship.  But they also
recognized that Jesus through His apostles changed the day of the week from
the last to the first.  In the case of communion, they understood that the
annual feast had given way to the more frequent, and unbloody, eucharistic
meal of bread and wine.  Jesus is our Passover.  He is the substance, and
we no longer observe the shadows.  And we owe much of our organizational
congregation structure, elders/bishops and deacons, etc., to the synagogue
model.

If Christians want to use a certain style of music in their services, or if
they want to conduct portions of their service in another language, that's
fine.  Roman Catholics have done this for centuries.  As long as the
practice doesn't violate the word of God, we should have no objections. 
(Although, as I mentioned some time ago, the MJ observance of annual feasts
like Passover is no more biblical that the rabbinic version.  Both are the
"traditions of men.")  But don't insist that these practices make the
worship "Jewish."  They do not.  And saying they do is dishonest.

-- 
Tom Albrecht