A Messianic Jew who is trying to refute Catholicism . .

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Interestingly, I’ve noticed a current of anti-Catholicism among the messianic jewish folks. I don’t know where it came from.
 
Its really incredible the amount of anti-Catholicism coming from all quarters.
I believe its because all of those people are insecure and scared because we know the Catholic faith is the only true faith and they think we might be right!!
 
thistle said:
Its really incredible the amount of anti-Catholicism coming from all quarters.
I believe its because all of those people are insecure and scared because we know the Catholic faith is the only true faith and they think we might be right!!
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Oh I don’t know. . . . I’m kind of anti-evangelical and they certainly don’t hold the corner on truth. . . .

There is quite a bit of anti-Islam in the US as well as anti-Judiaism all over the Middle East.
 
ringil said:
Oh I don’t know. . . . I’m kind of anti-evangelical and they certainly don’t hold the corner on truth. . . .

There is quite a bit of anti-Islam in the US as well as anti-Judiaism all over the Middle East.
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I would suggest that the anti-Islam is more anti-their actions than concern about their beliefs.

Sometime back a rabbi posted re some celebrity’s supposed Antisemitic beliefs : A long as they don’t beat up my kid, kill my dog, or key my car, I don’t care what they believe. It’s a free country.
 
thunderbolt94 said:
Hey everyone,

I recently came across this blog and video that claims to refute Roman Catholicism. I wanted to get a Catholic perspective of this to get an understanding of the Catholic church would respond to stuff like this:

messianicdrew.blogspot.com/2011/06/messianic-look-at-roman-catholic-claims.html#comments

Thanks in advance. God Bless, 🙂
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I often wonder why we are not Messianic Jews. I don’t recall Jesus ever telling anyone to start a new religion? I often wonder if Paul was overstepping his authority.

Just thoughts…
 
michaelmas said:
I often wonder why we are not Messianic Jews. I don’t recall Jesus ever telling anyone to start a new religion? I often wonder if Paul was overstepping his authority.

Just thoughts…
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Jesus didn’t start a new religion. He fulfilled the old one. Paul didn’t start a new religion. He made the teaching and experience of Jesus accessible to gentiles by questioning whether the Torah was applicable to them and affirming that our relationship with God is not determined by the law, but by love, which fulfills the very purpose of law.
 
… hi dear friends ,

… the old serpent sattan always stirs up trouble for us , it is demonic influence working thru men to persecute etc the true church of god , it’s just the age old battle between god and satan , coulfd be a little of christ vs the antichrist developing too ??? …

… may god bless and love you alll 👍🙂 ,

… john …
 
michaelmas said:
I often wonder why we are not Messianic Jews. I don’t recall Jesus ever telling anyone to start a new religion? I often wonder if Paul was overstepping his authority.

Just thoughts…
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Your name is Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church. It depends on your perspective if this was a new religion. I think from the world’s point of view it was. Mine is that this was a continuation of the covenant made with Abaraham that some of his descendants did not follow. Are you one of those who claim that it was Paul that established the Chrisitan religion. Paul over steped nothing including his place in the Church that Christ established.
 
ringil said:
Interestingly, I’ve noticed a current of anti-Catholicism among the messianic jewish folks. I don’t know where it came from.
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When I think of Messianc Judiaism, think of non-denominational Evangelical Fundamentalism mixed with modern Reformed Judaism. The worship style and doctrines are extremely close, to the extent that closeness is possible without a central authority.

This has been my personal experience. I have attendded the Messianic Jewish synagogue and am extremly familiar with Evangelical worship here in the deep south.

To me, Messianic Judaism is very close to Evangelical Christianity. The idea that one is saved by accepting Jesus as their messiah and other doctrines are very similar. Many MJ Synagogues are very into miracles and the end times coming soon. I really lump them in the same boat as Evangelical Fundamentalism.

-Tim-
 
michaelmas said:
I often wonder why we are not Messianic Jews. I don’t recall Jesus ever telling anyone to start a new religion? I often wonder if Paul was overstepping his authority.

Just thoughts…
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We aren’t jews because Christ said “I am the way, none get to the Father but through Me”. Christ Himself started a new religion. He built what we call today the Roman Catholic Church. And that friend, is why we are Catholic.
 
thunderbolt94 said:
Hey everyone,

I recently came across this blog and video that claims to refute Roman Catholicism. I wanted to get a Catholic perspective of this to get an understanding of the Catholic church would respond to stuff like this:

messianicdrew.blogspot.com/2011/06/messianic-look-at-roman-catholic-claims.html#comments

Thanks in advance. God Bless, 🙂
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The second video, in which an apparently Messianic Jew is speaking, is not a refutation of Catholicism, unless I misinterpreted what he is saying. Rather, it is a speech designed to convince Jews (mainly Orthodox Jews, it appears, based on the composition of the audience) that the Torah should be interpreted in a way different from the traditionally Orthodox interpretation. If anything, this person is criticizing the Jewish view that Jesus was not the Messiah. Since the blog (including the first video) is targeted, as stated, toward influencing Jews in the direction of Evangelical Protestant belief, the Catholic Church is criticized as well. Messianic Judaism has its own subdivisions: those who are Hebrew Catholics are a part of the movement, as well as former Fundamentalist Protestant members, former mainstream Jews (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform), and former agnostics and atheists. They are not all necessarily united in their beliefs and practices of Judaism, nor in the worship services of their “synagogues,” although they all agree concerning the divinity of Jesus.
 
michaelmas said:
I often wonder why we are not Messianic Jews. I don’t recall Jesus ever telling anyone to start a new religion? I often wonder if Paul was overstepping his authority.

Just thoughts…
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Catholics are about as close as you can get to true Messianc Judiasim.

To the ancient Jew, worship was sacrifice, and it could only happen at the Temple in Jerusalem. In the life of a Jew, especially the men, worshipping and offering sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem was the most important thing they would ever do. It was so important that the Law of Moses commanded that every man go to the temple to offer sacrifice three times each year at the three major festivals.

The idea of sacrifice as worship did not change for the first Christians who were converts from Judiasm. They saw Christ as the perfect sacrificial lamb, and the celebration of the Eucharist - breaking bread as it is called in the New Testament - where Christ was made present and His Body offered to God the Father as sacrifice, was simply a continuation of sacrificial temple worship. To the first Jewish converts to Christianity, Christ was truly God and as such, he was both the perfect sacrifice and the perfect temple in which to offer sacrifice. Remember that Christ was a faithful Jew, and his institution of a new form of worship was based on Jewish temple worship. Also remeber that Christ is God; he himself established both Old Testament sacrificial temple worship as well as the perfection of that temple worship - Eucharistic worship - where God the Son was the perfect sacrifice and the perfect temple, and where God the Son was offered as that perfect sacrifice to God the Father.

The closest thing today to both Jewish sacrificial temple worship in the Old Testament and New Testament worship of the first and second century Christians, Catholicism is the closest to both. Much of what takes place at Mass today would be familiar to a Jew who had lived and worshipped at the time of Jesus. And if a modern Catholic could be transported to the temple, parts of their worship would be familair to us. Let me know if you want specific examples.

Messianic Judaism and much of reformed Judaism is about as far from temple worship as Evangelical Christianity is from first century Christian worship. The idea of worship as sacrifice has been completely removed from the worship of either, and both OT Jews and early Christians would have looked at you like you had three heads if you had proposed such as worship.

-Tim-
 
Ah, Messianic Judaism, always a pleasure to get in a scuffle with these folks. I like to view them with the metaphor of someone finally jumping aboard a train 2,000 years late and trying to tell the conductor he’s got it all wrong.

There seems to be a good deal of overlap amoing those who call themselves Messianic Jews and those who call themselves Nazarenes. The theology at the cross section of those two is quite nebulous as well. Some are trinitarian, some are not. Some believe our lord was the Christ but not God, some think he was an angel, some admit they have no idea but still the “evil Catholic church is all wrong” while others will either accept Paul’s writings regarding the old law or reject his writings and call him all sorts of bad names. Some consider themselves evangelical Christians while some despise the name “christians”. This is all from my heated arguments with many of them as well as some perusing of their sites.

In a situation as muddy as that I have no idea where to start.

Pray for them.
 
James924 said:
Ah, Messianic Judaism, always a pleasure to get in a scuffle with these folks. I like to view them with the metaphor of someone finally jumping aboard a train 2,000 years late and trying to tell the conductor he’s got it all wrong.

There seems to be a good deal of overlap amoing those who call themselves Messianic Jews and those who call themselves Nazarenes. The theology at the cross section of those two is quite nebulous as well. Some are trinitarian, some are not. Some believe our lord was the Christ but not God, some think he was an angel, some admit they have no idea but still the “evil Catholic church is all wrong” while others will either accept Paul’s writings regarding the old law or reject his writings and call him all sorts of bad names. Some consider themselves evangelical Christians while some despise the name “christians”. This is all from my heated arguments with many of them as well as some perusing of their sites.

In a situation as muddy as that I have no idea where to start.

Pray for them.
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I think it was either Chesterton or Lewis who commented that there are an infinite number of ways to be wrong, but only one way to be right. 😉
 
The most compelling reason I think is the simplest explanation of the views of MJ regarding the RCC. The fundamental churches including the AOGS, Pat Robertson, Hal Lindsay etc is this: these preachers and their followers (regardless of what one thinks of their beliefs and behaviors) have STUDIED the Jewish scriptures and, because of their Premillenial/Rapture views, see the Jews as still being chosen of God and believe (I think) that the Jews will be saved “en mass” at the judgement seat of Christ.

In the words of a close friend, who is a very conservative Orthodox Jew "Pat Robertson (Who spoke at a JEWISH Conference in Miami of Orthodox and affiliated Jews) knows more about Jewish Scriptures (OT) and the Torah than most Jews. Because these Fundamentalist/Evangelicals (not all just the ones I am referring to) do NOT think Christ founded a new religion and instead believe that the new convenant is simply an extension of the old convenant with Abraham (with the sacrifice of Christ being a permanent temple offering) they focus on the those with Jewish roots with an intensity that I doubt that most other Protestants (and also RCCs) would understand.
 
Joe_Kelley said:
I think it was either Chesterton or Lewis who commented that there are an infinite number of ways to be wrong, but only one way to be right. 😉
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Couldn’t have thought of a better description of exactly this situation. Well said!
 
HPM1984 said:
The most compelling reason I think is the simplest explanation of the views of MJ regarding the RCC. The fundamental churches including the AOGS, Pat Robertson, Hal Lindsay etc is this: these preachers and their followers (regardless of what one thinks of their beliefs and behaviors) have STUDIED the Jewish scriptures and, because of their Premillenial/Rapture views, see the Jews as still being chosen of God and believe (I think) that the Jews will be saved “en mass” at the judgement seat of Christ.

In the words of a close friend, who is a very conservative Orthodox Jew "Pat Robertson (Who spoke at a JEWISH Conference in Miami of Orthodox and affiliated Jews) knows more about Jewish Scriptures (OT) and the Torah than most Jews. Because these Fundamentalist/Evangelicals (not all just the ones I am referring to) do NOT think Christ founded a new religion and instead believe that the new convenant is simply an extension of the old convenant with Abraham (with the sacrifice of Christ being a permanent temple offering) they focus on the those with Jewish roots with an intensity that I doubt that most other Protestants (and also RCCs) would understand.
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Whom are you referring to that “focuses on those with Jewish roots with an intensity…”: the Messianic Jews with Fundamentalist roots or the Fundamentalist Evangelicals who are not Messianic Jews, such as Pat Robertson, or both? And if, as I think you’re correct, the Fundamentalists believe the Jews will be saved en masse, why do they continue to preach individual conversion of Jews in a way more persistent than Catholics, who also believe in the message of Jesus and the apostles regarding evangelization?
 
meltzerboy said:
Whom are you referring to that “focuses on those with Jewish roots with an intensity…”: the Messianic Jews with Fundamentalist roots or the Fundamentalist Evangelicals who are not Messianic Jews, such as Pat Robertson, or both? And if, as I think you’re correct, the Fundamentalists believe the Jews will be saved en masse, why do they continue to preach individual conversion of Jews in a way more persistent than Catholics, who also believe in the message of Jesus and the apostles regarding evangelization?
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The Fundamentalist Evangelicals (and I appreciate the way you qualified Evangelicals, being an Evangelical myself but NOT a Fundamentalist- many thanks for that!:)) have taken a different approach than other Evangelical Protestants and the RCC.

I am not taking issue with the RCC position or effort around Jews simply pointing out that Robertson et al (especially on the Pentecostal side of Protestanism) have been most vocal about the State of Israel, Jews being the Chosen People, Stuying the Torah and the OT. Their belief that the Christianity is an “Extension of Revealed Judaism” make them (and this may create a firestorm) more acceptablee - especially the belief (if I have it right) that the Jews will convert "en mass) have made them “secularly” percieved by many American Jews as their “Best Christian Friends”

Here is a website that illuminates my point- straight from Robertson himself

patrobertson.com/Speeches/IsraelLauder.asp

Let me quote from this;
"*We are with you in your struggle. We are with you as a wave of anti-Semitism is engulfing the earth. We are with you despite the pressure of the “Quartette” and the incredibly hostile resolutions of the United Nations. We are with you despite the threats and ravings of Wahabbi Jihadists, Hezbollah thugs, and Hamas assassins.

We are with you despite oil embargos, loss of allies, and terrorist attacks on our cities.

We evangelical Christians merely say to our Israeli friends, “Let us serve our God together by opposing the virulent poison of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism that is rapidly engulfing the world.” Having affirmed our support, I would humbly make two requests of our Israeli friends:
First, please don’t commit national suicide. It is very hard for your friends to support you, if you make a conscious decision to destroy yourselves."*

I am not saying that this is correct (morally or even Biblically) but I think you would be hard pressed to find a statement coming from the RCC church or Mainline Protestant Churches with this sentiment!😉 To be kind I will simply say that the Jewish view (from my experience) of the RCC & many mainline Protestant Churches is less than sanguine.

Again - I am not saying that the RCC in its effort is off base or even wrong- but simply explaining why the MJ and Jews who have been exposed to Fundamentalists such as Robertson have changed the way they think about these particular parts of Christianity.
 
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