A few quick comments on this story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/from-colombian-evangelicals-to-jews-in-region-with-a-hidden-jewish-past/2012/11/23/04889712-2f2f-11e2-af17-67abba0676e2_print.html
i) Apostasy is always sad. These converts are repeating the error of the congregation in Hebrews. And they don't even have the extenuating circumstance of persecution to mitigate their guilt.
ii) It's quite possible to be both a Christian and a Jew. After all, most all of the NT writers were Messianic Jews.
iii) But to the main point, this parallels Catholic conversion stories about "coming home" and being "deep in history." Only here it's used to justify conversion from Evangelicalism to Judaism rather than Catholicism. That illustrates the promiscuous logic of the Catholic conversion narrative.
A few months ago I listened to this dialogue between Michael L. Brown and former Assemblies of God minister Rabbi Moshe Otero. He describes his conversion to Judaism and at least one congregation that went from being Christian to Jewish. It's so sad. Especially since Otero seems to be so ignorant on so many basic issues which if he knew more about, he wouldn't have had a good reason to convert to Judaism.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/7LHGw6SA82s
Many Christians might just as well go back to the Synagogue. Their desire to live by the law betrays their Christ, anyway. Isn't that what St. Paul told the Galatians?
ReplyDeleteA little bit of me and a lot of God. It's everywhere in the church.
Thanks.
"Living by the laws" is a simplistic way of framing the issue. The issue in Galatians was whether law-keeping is justificatory. The answer is a resounding "no." That doesn't mean that law has no role in Christian life. Paul himself goes on to reaffirm Lev 19:18 in Gal 5:14.
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