Evangelisation of Jews

Blind Jew

Probably the most hilarious thing happened recently. I had posted on the new forum of the World Jewish Adventist Friendship Centre (WJAFC) on their Facebook page. The post was on the forum for quite a few days and then when I was online I managed to capture their response with my post still in tact and their comment “Thanks for your response. I don’t agree with everything you posted here but do respect your perpective.” Underneath their comment it says You have been banned from this forum. It not suprising that such a thing should happen in light of the following from the WJAFC sister organization BTV:

Their line of reasoning may be summarized like this:

How could these Jews possess the Scriptures and study them, and yet miss the main point of their teaching? Jesus tells them and us: they do not have the Word abiding in them. They are “in the Word,” but the Word is not abiding in them. This is so because Christ is not only the central theme of the Word, He is the key to the Word. Christ is the key that unlocks the message of the Word. The Jews are not willing to come to Him so that they may have life. Thus, they are blind to the central message of the very Scriptures they possess and regard so highly.

The answer to the above is very simple:

28 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. Deut 29

18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens, He is God; that formed the earth and made it, He established it, He created it not a waste, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD, and there is none else. 19 I have not spoken in secret, in a place of the land of darkness; I said not unto the seed of Jacob: ‘Seek ye Me in vain’; I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right. Isaiah 45

There is no mandate in Tanach to believe in a divine/ human messiah so as to receive extra divine revelation or salvation. Instead the fullest revelation has already been given this side of the messianic age.

Pious Jew

The ongoing saga continues in the form of an outburst from someone who has chosen to ignore myself a long time ago, well at least since 6th August 2012 (today is the 7^th BTW). The note; “To claim to be a man of G-d” from the outset of course goes over familiar ground with respect to accusations of narcissism on my part [G-d bless me] and being labeled an anti-missionary (see further down the thread) etc… Accusation of Loshon Hora (evil speech) is of course privy only to those who are pure as the driven snow. Never mind that if one was to take Loshon Hora to its logical conclusion, then no one would utter a peep at all. But what a good way of pursuing one’s evangelistic goals by silencing the opposition! The opposition of course is anyone who uses their G-d given brain and expresses their thoughts in writing. The evangelistic goal is pursued in this case by using the classic:

“if you were a real [insert religion of choice] then you would not say or express that idea because it’s offensive and exposes my agenda to convert you to [insert religion of choice]. Instead you just have to accept what I say and based on my approval you have validity and a right to exist”!

Now make no mistake here, the Seventh-day Adventist Church and its global mission is to convert anyone of any creed or color, even people who are already Christians to their particular brand of Christianity. After all we would not want any of ‘them’ getting that mark of the beast: Sunday worship, would we? It also does not stop them from having a go at the ‘real baddies’: the Roman Catholic Church, whilst at the same time employing a Roman Catholic lawyer (The Roman Catholic attorney has represented the General Conference in at least some of its trademark lawsuits since their inception in the mid-1980s) to get their name ‘trade marked’ so the opposition (other SDAs with a different view for example) may be silenced via another route. It would appear that the religious liberty of the Adventist Church is more precious than those who would disagree with it!

The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church like other denominations has also jumped on the bandwagon of what is probably the hardest nut to crack of all, namely the conversion of Jews to Adventism. However, under the guise of interfaith dialogue; areas of identifying common understanding, such as respect, honor, family relationships, justice, love, cooperation, support for one another, can help build bridges between faith groups……..as the Adventists say. Of course if one was to really respect another faith, nationality or religion, one would not attempt to go about converting another to your faith. By default, according to the SDA church, the implication is that faith of another is inferior, as evidenced by the SDA converting you to their faith.

To make things worse Jews like me have to endure the daily misinformation / misrepresentation of Judaism that plops out of the organs of the so called “Jewish” Adventists. In a crazy world of mixed non arbitrary values, for the Adventist Church with respect to the operation and/ or theology of the Jewish Adventist movement, it may be convenient to let the ends justify the means and go ahead even with things that contradict Adventist doctrine, well at least for the time being that is!

Torah Ignorance

Not knowing Aleph from your elbow!

A typical attack on Orthodox Jews goes something like this: “You Jews with your Oral Torah/ Rabbinic Judaism/ Talmud, have added to the written Torah. In great triumph they quote Deuteronomy 12:32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: you shall not add thereto, nor diminish from it., to say look you YOU HAVE GOT IT ALL WRONG AND ARE ALL GOING TO HELL etc.. My response to such nonsense is to point out and ask what they blow on Rosh Hoshana. Their response is “its a shofar or a trumpet, it says so in Numbers 29:1 and in Leviticus 23:24”. I point out to them that their translations add trumpet/ shofar but the Hebrew of these verses do not have a Hebrew word for trumpet or shofar. On what basis? The sages, the same ones’ whose words are recorded in the Talmud inform us that the day of blowing (יוֹם תְּרוּעָה) is a day of blowing the shofar! After this they tend to get a bit ruffled when I suggest that since the written Torah does not say what to blow and they are not to add to the Torah, then may be the best they could do is blow their noses.

Torah Desecration

Hot on the heals of Beth Tehillah Vetikvah’s stunning ignorance of Torah comes the ultimate (?) desecration of the Torah so far from the fraudsters of the messianic “jewish” movement. A notorious missionary, “Messianic Rabbi” Ralph Messer, wraps mega-church leader Rev. Eddie Long in a Torah scroll. The scroll allegedly came from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Rev. Long is currently embroiled in scandal after being accused of sexual misconduct with five young men.

The video, which is now circulating widely on the Internet, is a shocking illustration of how the so-called “Messianic Jewish” (Hebrew-Christian) movement exploits, distorts and violates the most sacred objects and rituals of normative Judaism.

The video also illustrates the scope of acceptance and impact that Messianic Jews are having within the broader Evangelical Christian world. By teaming together with this massively influential group, “Jews for Jesus” style missionaries are able to magnify their effectiveness. Some people still wonder if there really is a missionary problem. This video, which shows just the very tip of the missionary iceberg, clarifies the vital importance of the counter-missionary work of Jews for Judaism et al.

Other messianic groups went into overdrive in trying to distance themselves from the above spectacle. Notably  ‘Rabbi’ Greg Hershberg of Beth Yeshua International who went on Youtube to complain that the above almost ruined all his hard work (of converting Jews to Jesus obviously). In the photo of Beth Yeshua International is a supposedly more respectable way of honouring a Torah Scroll. In the red ring added to the picture is David Stern’s “Complete Jewish Bible” sitting in the aaron with the Torah Scroll. Like as if this added book of the messianics is meant to be much more honourable. Just the book contents itself would be bad enough but of course the title obviously means that the Torah is incomplete without the New Testament and its erroneous claims and falsehoods. This I find equally but differently awful compared to the pornographic event above. Instead with Beth Yeshua International et al, is a much more subtle attempt in terms of causing the spiritual suicide of a Jewish person by them being persuaded to convert to Jesus / Yeshua with the ‘right’ way to honour a Torah Scroll.

It would appear that the same ‘Messer’ we saw wrap Bishop Eddie Long in a scroll and being ‘crowned king’ has also done the same thong to Paula White. The video shows the Torah scroll being torn as a result of performing this wicked act.

Beth Tehillah Vtikvah (BTV)

A classic case of ‘Jewish’ Adventist leaders not being able to read a Torah Scroll. These are not the 10 commandments as described in their caption below their photograph. It is in fact the song at the sea Exodus 14:30-15:19. This portion can be found in a siddur as part of daily morning prayers. Laughable folks playing at being Jews and Rabbis!

Menashe Walsh is Narcissist

A list of my contemptuous words you can read here on my blog. I unlike the so called Rabbis of the WAJFC, I have never claimed to be a Rabbi either. Santiago Cuellar has recently been elevated to Lay Pastor and now may be also a possible Lay psychologist too with the conclusion of me being a narcissist. The length these cults go to!! Paranoia has set in I am afraid!!!

Perhaps the lay psychologist at the WAJFC may have been inspired by the following gem in the Adventist Review:

Spiritual deficiency or lack of relationship with God is not a cause of mental illness, as some people have surmised. It is a biologically based illness, with neurochemical deficiencies and structural changes, which become more prominent when treatment is delayed. The Stigma of Mental Illness and its Treatment in the Context of a Christian Belief System BY JILL CARLSON (http://www.adventistreview.org/article.php?id=4641)

Based on the goings on so far it would appear that the only cure for any mental health issue in the Adventist structures is a wholesale acceptance of their doctrines. What a sad state of affairs when a cult has to descend to labelling as a means to perform character assassination and limit religious thought and expression.

History has a Way of repeating itself!

Adventists in Nazi Germany

The Silent Church, Human Rights, and Adventist Social Ethics

Dr Zdravko Plantak, author of The Silent Church: Human Rights and Adventist Social Ethics, is a Seventh-day Adventist scholar and the Chairman of the Religion Department, Columbia Union College.

Here is a brief excerpt from Plantak’s book, published by Macmillan Press (UK) & St Martin’s Press Scholarly and Reference Division, New York, N.Y. (USA), 1998. (Text excerpted from pp. 17-21).

Adventists in Germany

The German Adventists seem to have fallen short of their proclamation of religious liberty at the time of World War I, between the two wars and during World War II. In imperial Germany, most Adventists espoused extreme nationalism and active military collaboration. An Adventist author argued in December 1915 that ‘the Bible teaches first, that participation in war is not against the sixth commandment; second, that fighting on the Sabbath is no transgression of the fourth law’. The German church leaders, however, recognized the error of their policies after the war and confessed their loyalty to the worldwide Adventist community at the European Division meeting at Gland, Switzerland on 2 January 1923.

This declaration, however, was weakened by an additional pronouncement which recognized that each member possessed ‘absolute liberty to serve his country, at all times and in all places, in accord with the dictates of his personal conscientious conviction’. This statement allowed German Adventists to repeat the mistake from the First World War during Hitler’s regime under the Third Reich.

As Erwin Sicher has rightly observed in ‘Seventh-day Adventist Publications and the Nazi Temptation’, Adventists failed in numerous ways in regard to the Nazi regime. As early as 1928, before Adolf Hitler came to power, Adventists were calling for a strong Führer. Article after article dealt with this Führer ideal in German writings as well as in Adventist publications.

Later, Adventist writers welcomed the apparent rebirth of Germany in their publications and also by vote. The Adventist town of Friedensauhad voted by 99.9 per cent for the Nazi parliamentary state. When some Adventists refused to salute the Swastika flag and to use the Hitler greeting, the President of the East German Conference, W. Mueller, argued that it was bad for the church’s image. He concluded that ‘under no circumstances did any Adventist have the right to resist the government, even if the government prevented him from exercising his faith. The resistance would be unfortunate because it would mark Adventists as opponents of the new state, a situation that should be prevented. Another prominent Adventist writer and the editor of various Adventist church papers, Kurt Sinz, saw Hitler’s strong command at the beginning of National Social rule as designed by God. Otto Bronzio went a step further, saying in the official Adventist paper, Der Adventbote, that ‘the National Socialist Revolution was the greatest of all time, because it made the maintenance of a pure inheritance the basis of its ethnic life’. Some suggest that what he meant may be gleaned from a boxed quotation from Hitler—on the question of blood—which appeared on the same page.

This idea of a ‘pure inheritance’, instigated by Hitler and carried throughout the German nation, also afflicted German Adventists. Although blatant racism seldom appeared in Adventist publications, Adventists did frequently print negative comments about the Jews, they tacitly supported sterilization of the mentally disabled, and many were caught in the quickened pride of German nationalism. The same doctrine of German superiority to other nations was carried into Adventist education in Germany where students were encouraged to learn to ‘will and to think in German’. To will in German was a mystical Nazi concept; for, the Party taught, Germans ‘will’ differently from any other nationals. Educator W. Eberhardt insisted, in addition, that Adventist schools nurtured ‘the National Socialist Spirit’ between class periods, when they reviewed the news, studied Nazi ideals and sang German national songs.

With growing pressure for greater collaboration, many Adventists of all age groups joined Nazi organizations such as the Hitler Youth, the BDM (Association of German Girls), the Labour Service and the German Red Cross. All these clubs were designed for the purpose of Nazi indoctrination, and although Adventists knew that a significant percentage of the Labour Service participants were members of the SA, SS and Stanhelm, the most fanatical Nazi groups who indoctrinated and militarized the youth, they approved of participation in the clubs. Johannes Langholf strongly supported the Labour Service. He wrote in Aller Diener, ‘We expect every member to follow the divine command, “pray and work”. It would be absolutely contrary to our understanding if we refuse the Labour Service.’ Patt suggested that the principal reason for Adventists joining the Nazi Labour Front was unemployment and other economic hardships and that ‘most Adventist workingmen succumbed to the pressure and became members of the labor service to save their families.’ Yet, joining a party organization was not obligatory, and some joined the party as well.

In Germany Adventists supported Nazi foreign policy and, eventually, the war. Possible lack of access to reliable information and, as a result, a misconception of the real situation led them to believe that their Führer was ‘a man of peace’. When Austria was incorporated into the Reich, German Adventists ‘shared in the happiness over Austrians’ return home to the motherland’. They believed that by God’s help and through ‘God’s assistance our capable Führer Adolf Hitler became the liberator of Austria’. After the liquidation of Czechoslovakia on 16 March 1939, Adventists still raised no objections. Even for this act of cruelty and oppression they found some justification. Then came the attack on Poland which the whole of Europe recognized as an act of aggression. Nevertheless, in an editorial Sinz could write that in view of the ‘inhuman tortures our Volkskomrads have suffered among this foreign people’, the German attack was probably justified. Adventists continued to support Hitler and celebrated his 51st birthday 11 days after war had escalated in the West with the German invasion of Denmarkand Norway on 9 April 1940. The Adventist Morning Watch Calendar although printed four months earlier stated:

Trust in his people has given the Führer the strength to carry through the fight for freedom and honour of Germany. The unshakable faith of Adolf Hitler allowed him to do great deeds, which decorate him today before the whole world. Selflessly and faithfully he has struggled for his people; courageously and proudly he has defended the honour of his nation. In Christian humility, at important times when he could celebrate with his people, he gave God in Heaven honour and recognized his dependence upon God’s blessings. This humility has made him great, and this greatness was the source of blessing, from which he always gave for his people. Only very few statesmen stand so brilliantly in the sun of a blessed life, and are so praised by their own people as our Führer. He has sacrificed much in the years of his struggle and has thought little about himself in the difficult work for his people. We compare the unnumbered words, which he has issued to the people from a warm heart, with seeds which have ripened and now carry wonderful fruit.

It is ironic that while Adventists had insisted upon religious liberty, they did not raise a voice against the persecution of countless Jews. Instead, they even dis-fellowshipped those of Jewish background. At a time when German Adventists were publishing the religious liberty magazine Kirche und Staat (an outside observer noticed its primary purpose as being the opposition to the Sunday laws), they kept quiet about the 1933 purges when hundred were murdered, and they said nothing against the persecution of Jews or about the occupied territories. Although some individual Adventists apparently resisted the Nazi temptation, Sicher has shown from contemporary publications that ‘no active official opposition to the inhuman Nazi regime seemed to have existed nor even to have been permitted among Adventists. Sicher’s is an unfortunate but honest portrayal of German Adventism in the first half of the twentieth century.

Yet More from those Adventists

The latest round from the so called ‘Jewish’ Adventists who call Jews impure on their latest article about impurity on their discussion board. Apparantly my blog articles are causing a bit of a stir leading to this posting:

For more of their messy missionary antics see below:

A Battle for the Jewish Soul

A paradigm shift has taken in recent years with respect to the targeting of Jews for conversion to one of many brands of Christianity, or has it? I say a paradigm shift only because one would have to compare present attempts with previous ones. Take for example, this little ditty:

The World Jewish Adventist Friendship Center (המרכז העולמי לידידות בין יהודים ואדוונטיטיס) is a multinational organization dedicated to fostering mutual respect, dialogue, understanding, education and research between Israel and the church, especially between Jews and Adventists. The closeness and similarities between Adventism and Judaism (Style of life, Sabbath, Messiah etc…) give them the unique opportunity to generate interfaith dialogue at the highest levels, bringing together Jewish and Adventist leaders and renowned scholars.

And compare it to this one:

What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:

First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly – and I myself was unaware of it – will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.  (On the Jews and their lies, Martin Luther, Part XI)

Now at this point I must say that the first quote from the The World Jewish Adventist Friendship Center, I have placed here because of a recent problem that I have encountered with them. Namely, that in merely quoting from their resources under ‘fair use’ of their material (in my blog for example), a potential threat of legal action has been given with respect to copyright of their material. Examples of ‘fair use’ include commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work. Defining ‘fair use’ as being ‘not fair’ simply because one disagrees with a certain theological position, falls well outside the legal framework for making a successful legal action, or does it? Under the guise of copyright violation, a person with a valid argument is potentially stifled from almost ever expressing the valid argument in a printed form. In contrast we must also consider the considerable freedom of expression the Adventists give to themselves:

The time was when Protestants placed a high value upon the liberty of conscience which had been so dearly purchased. They taught their children to abhor popery and held that to seek harmony with Rome would be disloyalty to God. But how widely different are the sentiments now expressed! (E. G. White, The Great controversy, CHAPTER 35 Liberty of Conscience Threatened” page 564)….

“The Constitution of the United States guarantees liberty of conscience. Nothing is dearer or more fundamental. Pope Pius IX, in his Encyclical Letter of August 15, 1854, said: `The absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error–a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a state.’ The same pope, in his Encyclical Letter of December 8, 1864, anathematized `those who assert the liberty of conscience and of religious worship,’ also ‘all such as maintain that the church may not employ force.’ (ibid pages 565 and 566)

Cf

“The question has been raised whether it be lawful for the Church, not merely to sentence a delinquent to physical penalties, but itself to inflict these penalties. As to this, it is sufficient to note that the right of the Church to invoke the aid of the civil power to execute her sentences is expressly asserted by Boniface VIII in the Bull ‘Unam Sanctam’” (The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol 12, p 266, article “Pope”).

Or from a more recent article:

It’s hard to describe the conflicting emotions I felt when I saw the headline: Justices Rule for Protesters at Military Funerals.¹ If I’m honest, my first reaction was very human: disappointment. As a Christian, I’ve been dreadfully embarrassed by the religious sideshow that is Reverend Phelps. No matter how you parse the words of the Bible, it’s hard to conceive of Jesus – who wept at Lazarus’ tomb – picketing a funeral as a publicity stunt. He simply never cashed in on human misery….

The ongoing embarrassment of the WBC is the price we pay for the freedom to proclaim our distinctive last-day message. It’s a hedge against the erosion of our religious liberty, as distasteful as their public stunts might be. And the longer that hedge exists, the better we can accomplish our task as a church. (Shawn Boonstra, Why the supreme court got it right about the Westboro Baptist Church, Adventist Review, Feb 24, 2011)

Well it certainly seems that the religious liberty of the Adventist Church is more precious than those who would disagree with it, as evidenced in my case by the issuing of a potential threat (via copyright) to stifle critique of certain ‘Jewish’ Adventist teachings . At least Luther is much more honest about his real intentions. The old adage is true “its OK to have an opinion as long as it is the right opinion“. Indeed I suppose nothing much has changed really, there is no paradigm shift with respect to the targeting of Jews for conversion to one of the many brands of Christianity after all!

YWAM ‘loving’ Israel

Yet another example of the low down depths that some organizations may sink to in order to get a foot in the door to evangelize Jews in Israel! The husband of Devorah Boer had got a job painting a house in Tiberia. However, YWAM (youth with a mission) stole his work from him by offering to do the work for free! The problem of these missionary groups is their blatant disregard for the ramifications of their actions, especially in an area such as Tiberia which is not one of the most prosperous corners of Israel! Christians ‘loving’ Israel is just another thieving scam which is not love of Israel at all!

The obvious agenda is to ultimately secure the spiritual genocide of another Jew by their conversion to Jesus by exploiting those who are poor. There are many Jewish organizations doing good work in Israel without an agenda such as YWAM, these Jewish organizations just need money. If these Christians really loved israel they would give to these Jewish organizations.