Dark Christianity
dark_christian
.::: .::..:.::.:.

May 2008
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dogemperor [userpic]
Interesting articles re "Messianic Judaism" et al

Whilst the ADL is rather less blatantly antidominionist than SPLC and still actively courts Evangelical Christians (which IMHO is a *huge* mistake on their part, partly due to the fact so much of the "evangelical" community has been infiltrated by dominionists and/or are blatantly dominionist themselves), they ARE quite concerned about "Messianic Judaism"--aka the propensity of dominionist groups (very often associated with Southern Baptist or Assemblies of God, or "non-denominational" pentecostal groups) to specifically target the Jewish community and essentially convert them to "Christians who keep kosher".

http://www.adl.org/special_reports/jews4jesus/jews4jesus.asp has an excellent article on this, including specifically something we've seen for a long time in the dominionist community--"evangelism by stealth".

http://www.outreachjudaism.org/response.html has a *very* interesting post from a Jewish perspective on "messianic Judaism" and on things pushed in the dominionist community (especially the whole "blood atonement" thing--it's actually actively promoted in dominionist churches that Jews were absolved of sin by blood atonement and that Christ was supposedly the "final blood atonement" (and, at least in the particular AoG church I walked away from, also supposedly spent three days in hell wrestling Satan down...) so it was a duty to convert the Jews because the poor things had to keep kosher and no longer had priests to sacrifice animals *rolls eyes*)

As an aside (and please forgive me for the minor aside here, I think it's important to mention this in context of dominionist groups and the general misuse of Biblical quotes by them--a common practice in coercive "Bible based" cults in general)...they do mention a specific Bible verse, Numbers 15:30-31 (in context of Numbers 15:27-31):

"But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be on him."

This particular phrase was used in the specific dominionist group I walked away from, and (from what I have heard) in many other coercive and dominionist groups--the dominionist group specifically used this to claim that anyone who had been in the church, and later walked away and rejected its teachings, was PermaDamned (tm) because they "acted defiantly" and were "blaspheming the Lord". This included specifically gay people who walked away, or *any* walkaways or kids who were being "defiant" and *especially* people who were outspoken against the church after walking away; this was also specifically termed the "One Unforgivable Sin" (suicide was also considered unforgivable, but only due to the technicality that one could not repent after one was dead for "self-murder").

The verses, incidentially, are part of a larger whole (noted in the article) on absolutions for accidential rather than deliberate sins *in the context of the ancient Hebrew priesthood*--in other words, someone who killed someone else in cold blood was not going to be allowed into the sanctuary, whilst someone who accidentially killed another could get absolution from the priests. http://www.searchgodsword.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T7552 actually gives a fairly decent explanation of the historical context here.

The above link also gives (as another small aside) some info on why certain armageddonist dominionists are trying to produce a line of red calves (and misunderstanding that red calves are for very specific sorts of sacrifices).

http://members.shaw.ca/leemarsh/soc-death.html mentions specific misuse of Numbers 15:30-31 among Jehovah's Witnesses.

(And I do hope you all can forgive me a bit regarding the minor detour; I just thought it useful to show some of the various tactics used by dominionists to keep control of their own flock.)

http://www.outreachjudaism.org/evangelize1.html (on targeting of the Jewish community by dominionists--again, info on "stealth evangelism" including a discussion of the tactics used by dominionist groups; this and the link below also specifically detail how the dominionists' eschatology essentially sees Jews as a pawn to start Armageddon and trigger the Rapture)

http://www.outreachjudaism.org/evangelizingthejews2.html (More on "messianic Judaism" and specific tactics used by dominionists, including taking people to dominionist-run "retreats"--as an aside, the dominionist group I walked away from owns several hundred acres known as "Prayer Mountain" specifically as a church owned retreat, and is even used as a camp by the church's "Christian alternatives" to the Boy/Girl Scouts (the Royal Rangers and Missionettes--yes, even the Boy Scouts are seen as "not Christian enough"))

http://www.adl.org/Interfaith/left_behind_and_jews.asp (more on dominionism and their general escathology in regards to Judaism. In essence, many dominionists essentially see Israel and the Jewish people as a "rapture trigger" or "armageddon trigger"--when all the Jews are reunited in Israel and when a certain number are converted to dominionism, that will trigger the End Of Things. Many dominionists see the existence of Israel itself as a sign of the End.)