Jews for Jesus Blogspot

Not of This World: Reflections on the Death of J. D. Salinger

2010-02-02T09:02:00.000-08:00

Jewish (on his father’s side) author J. D. Salinger has just died at 91 years of age. For many decades he had been a recluse, the “hermit crab of American letters¹,” according to TIME magazine, the “Garbo of letters²” in the New York Times obit. “Famous,” the Times continues, “for not wanting to be famous.”

What Salinger is even more famous for is, of course, his 1951coming-of-age novel The Catcher in the Rye, which struck a chord with rebellious youth. Holden Caulfield, the novel’s protagonist, was not not comfortable in this world. Nor were Salinger’s other characters, such as the Glass family. The Times article observed, “That the Glasses (and, by implication, their creator) were not at home in the world was the whole point,” [journalist Janet] Malcolm wrote, “and it said as much about the world as about the kind of people who failed to get along there.”

A statement released by Salinger’s literary agents reads in part, “Salinger had remarked that he was in this world but not of it.”

Readers may well ponder exactly what it means to be “in this world but not of it.” In one sense, that characterization probably fits most teenagers at some point, and it undoubtedly fits many adults as well. “Misfits,” “square pegs in round holes,” “Freaks in Love” according to an Elton John song—not very flattering labels, which is why when filtered through fiction like The Catcher in the Rye, the outcast suddenly becomes desirable and “cool” to many. “Misfits” are loners; fiction can bring us alongside someone like us so that we are no longer alone. Some may flaunt their Holden Caulfield-ness while others are hardly aware of it, like Thoreau’s mass of humanity that spend their lives in “quiet desperation.” Still others suppress it and live lives of pretense.

Curiously, there is a passage in John’s Gospel where Jesus prays to God the Father and says, “They”—referring to Jesus’ followers—“are not of the world, even as I am not of it.” Salinger, perhaps, was recalling this passage in his quote. And, perhaps, Jesus and those who followed and still follow him are in fact square pegs in the round hole of this life. When someone feels “out of place,” they can respond in several ways. There is the way of retreat and withdrawal. There is the way of attempting to celebrate it. But there is also a third way.

I don’t know if British author C. S. Lewis of Narnia fame ever read The Catcher in the Rye, but he had a lot to say about literature, both secular and sacred. He once said something to this effect. We get hungry, and there is food. It would be odd if we had such cravings with nothing to fulfill them. We get thirsty, and there is drink. We have other desires, with other things that answer to them. And, he noted, we have a desire for something that this world cannot supply; since the “Fall of Mankind” recounted in Genesis chapter 3, with the ensuring alienation of humanity from one another, from God, from ourselves, from the environement—since that time, we are all out of place here. Therefore, he said, and this was his main point, there must be something beyond this world that does meet these deep-seated cravings. This is the third way: to transcend this world to a place where we are no longer Holden Caulfields but become what we were always intended to be, which comes through faith in Jesus.

Salinger handled being not of this world by retreating into a shell. Others reached out to God, found Jesus, and were liberated for another world, “a place prepared for them.”

Have you ever felt “not of this world”? Leave a comment at this article to tell us about it.

End Notes:

“hermit crab of American letters,” according to TIME magazine

“Garbo of letters” in the New York Times obit

The Book Eli Just Couldn't Put Down

2010-01-29T12:33:00.000-08:00

by Matt Sieger

From the Movie: The Book of Eli

As Eli (Denzel Washington) listens to “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” by Al Green on his I-Pod-like relic in post-apocalyptic America, the real question is, how do you mend a broken world? This film captures tikkun olam on a major scale.

Picture this: Gangs roaming what’s left of the United States, looting and raping and searching out the rarest commodity—water. We get a glimpse of what life was like before from Eli: “People had more than they needed. We had no idea what was precious, what wasn’t. We threw away things we’d kill for now.”

But Eli believes he is carrying the most precious commodity, the answer to rebuilding the planet—the only remaining copy of the Bible. He says that God led him to find the Book and then told him to bring it out west to preserve it. He goes by foot and is known as The Walker.

It’s been a long journey—30 years—almost as long as Moses spent in the wilderness. As with Moses, God has promised to protect Eli on his mission. There are those out there who want what he has, especially Carnegie (Gary Oldham), and he will kill for it. He recognizes the power of the words in that Book, and since only the survivors of the nuclear war, like Eli and Carnegie, can read, he wants to be the dispenser of his own twisted version of its message.

It calls to mind the words of the prophet Amos in the Hebrew Scriptures:

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Men will stagger from sea to sea, and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.” (Amos 8:11-12)

When Carnegie tries to pressure Eli into giving him the Book, he thinks he has left Eli no choice but to comply. But Eli responds, “There’s always a choice.”

Yes, the Bible can be misused to promote evil, but it can also be used as God intended it, to mend a broken world, restore fractured relationships and even heal our individual souls. And, as long as we still have it around, there will always be a choice for us as well. We can choose to ignore it, twist if for our own purposes, or live by it.

Today’s choices shape our tomorrows. What will you choose?

A Little Taste of Heaven

2010-01-26T10:43:00.000-08:00

by David Brickner

You may have described an idyllic vacation spot as "a little taste of heaven" or perhaps you've uttered something to that effect after sampling a spoonful of one of those luscious calorie-rich desserts. But the little taste of heaven I am thinking of is the memory of sweet and meaningful times of fellowship I have enjoyed with God's people in different parts of the world. To spend time with fellow believers, to pray and worship the Lord together and to share a meal together can indeed be a little taste of heaven.

I know what you may be thinking. I've also heard the little ditty, "To live above with saints we love—oh that will be glory! To live below with saints we know, now that's a different story." Yes, it is a different story, a story that has had its share of conflict—but it is not a story without a little taste of the glory that is to come. It is important to remember that.

I sometimes receive letters from folks who want to complain about their experiences in a local church, or their deep disappointments with people they have encountered there. I don't want to minimize anyone's experience or compound their pain by pretending that hurtful things don't happen. But sometimes it seems like people respond to bad experiences by behaving like the church is their own personal punching bag. It is human frailty that leads us to concentrate on the negative to the point of dismissing what is positive. It is nothing to brag about when we jealously hold on to memories of less than stellar experiences we may have endured in church and become increasingly critical or even bitter. By doing so we mirror worldly attitudes and do not reflect the heart of God.

Leslie Flynn, long time pastor and friend of Jews for Jesus wrote a book called Great Church Fights. It may be hard to imagine how fighting among God's people can be called great, but the book is subtitled "What the Bible Says About Controversy and How to Resolve It." If the Bible recognizes that there is conflict between God's people it should come as no shock to us. Sadly, we hear of vehement disagreements among people in churches, scandals that bring down church leaders, conflicts that result in churches splitting.

It's easy to fight about the church when we should be fighting for the church. The church truly represents something that is worth fighting for. In fact, Jesus thought the church was worth dying for, so I don't think it should surprise any of His followers that we may sometimes need to fight for and defend the bride of Christ, the body of believers He has gathered together on this planet. The church is the heaven-bound, yet earthly-displayed reflection of God's grace, and in the eyes of our Savior she is a beautiful bride that one day He will gift to Himself without spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27).

How do we fight for the church? By recognizing the value Y'shua placed on this flawed group of people, by treating the church as a whole with respect and dignity and by helping other believers to do likewise.

One of our younger leaders was accompanying me on my way to speak in a rather large church in the Midwest. As we chatted, he confided that he would rather spend two hours handing out gospel tracts on the street and speak to the unsaved than take the same amount of time to minister in a church. Handing out tracts and speaking to unbelievers is not easy, and it is a central focus of Jews for Jesus so, on one hand, I was grateful for his enthusiasm to evangelize. I've seen some missionaries start out eager to witness to Jewish people, but end up wanting to be more comfortably employed in talking to the church about witnessing to the Jewish people.

Thankfully, relating to the unsaved and the saved is not an either/or prospect for Jews for Jesus missionaries; it is crucial for us to prize opportunities to engage in both activities. So it was my duty to help my colleague develop a greater perspective on the significance of the body of Christ.

We Jews for Jesus have such amazing opportunities to gain a deep appreciation for the church as we are regularly invited into evangelical congregations from a wide range of cultural and theological perspectives. We see the church in all of her beautiful variety and are blessed to witness the diversity as well as the distinctive and striking unity of God's people from one church to another.

Some people point to denominations and other differences as evidence of disagreements and disunity in the church. I see these as emblems of grace—accommodations for the variety of characters and cultures that make up the body of Christ. It's God's way of allowing "different strokes for different folks." The apostle Peter does tell us we are a peculiar people.

I have had the thrill of singing choruses of praise to God while hearing brothers and sisters sing the same chorus simultaneously in Spanish, French, German, Russian, Portuguese, Chinese and Hebrew—same melodies, same words but in different languages. Where else but in the body of Christ does this happen? Not only that, but all over the world we gather around the same text of Holy Scripture to study and listen for the voice of the Lord, speaking to us and teaching us how to live out the gospel in our own contexts.

As I minister both near and far from home, I find people sharing the same commitments to God and the same commitments to one another. And I find them expressing the same love for the Jewish people and the same desire to see them come to Christ.

As a missionary to the Jewish people, I can only be grateful for the church, for my place in it and for our partnership with God's people to accomplish what He has called us to do.

Every year in Jews for Jesus we conduct what we call "Ingatherings," long weekends for Jewish believers in Jesus and their families. We usually go to a retreat center where we enjoy lots of food, fun and fellowship as well as time to worship God and study His Word together. Most who come are looking for people with whom they have certain things in common, in this case Jesus and Jewishness. We feel a certain kinship and community that is all the more precious because many of our fellow Jews who don't know Jesus reject us for embracing Him. Upholding one another's identity is an important and valuable component of our testimony as Jews for Jesus.

But as much as I value fellowship with other Jews who love Jesus, I also appreciate and embrace the bigger picture. I'm part of the family that all followers of Jesus belong to, the family of God. He has broken down the wall of partition and made us one in Him. Hallelujah!

We may have differences and even disagreements within the church, but we still share the same great destiny. Each day we are drawing that much closer to what is now only "a little taste of heaven." One day soon we will all be together, singing the same heavenly song to our Lord Jesus: "You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation" (Revelation 5:9).

Why don't the rabbis believe in Jesus? by David Brickner

2010-01-19T11:29:00.000-08:00

"Why don't the rabbis believe in Jesus?" Many Christians who ask me this assume that all rabbis are extremely knowledgeable about the Hebrew Scriptures. And, they figure, it stands to reason that anyone who is familiar with the many passages that point to Jesus would be persuaded to believe in Him too.

But in fact, it is simply not the case that all rabbis know and believe the Jewish Scriptures.

The Hebrew Bible is only one of the holy books in Judaism. Traditional rabbis are likely to spend far more time studying traditional interpretations and commentaries from the Talmud and other rabbinical texts than they are on the actual Scriptures. Liberal rabbis are likely to embrace a higher critical view of the Bible, seeing it more as a source for moral guidance than divine revelation.

But there is another reason why the rabbis don't believe in Jesus: once they do, they are no longer considered rabbis. Rabbis are expected to believe and teach a religion that does not accept a New Testament belief in Jesus. To inquire earnestly about whether Jesus might be the Messiah is to question the authority of traditional Jewish thought. It requires a willingness to be removed from one's chosen career and stripped of one's standing in the community. It should be no surprise that most rabbis will not allow themselves to openly consider the claims of Christ. In fact, even a public recognition of Jesus as a wise Jewish rabbi can be enough to jeopardize a rabbi's standing.

This was recently demonstrated by an outcry against Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, Chief Rabbi of the city of Efrat in Israel after he was video-taped discussing Jesus in a favorable light. Click here to see video.

Rabbi Riskin has been rubbing shoulders with evangelical Christians who support Israel. Apparently, he allowed this video to be made for his Christian friends in an effort to strengthen those relationships. In it, Riskin speaks of "Rabbi Jesus" in a Jewish context, and seeks to affirm common ground between Jews and Christians, especially in light of today's struggle against radical Islam.

Many Christians were so excited to hear this prominent rabbi speak favorably about Jesus that the video began to circulate widely on the Internet. I listened with interest to what Rabbi Riskin had to say, and frankly was not impressed. Rather than taking Jesus' Messianic claims seriously, he spoke of Jesus as a common rabbi who, like so many others over time, worked for the brotherhood of man and the unity of all, regardless of religious persuasion. I considered it faint praise to hear Jesus described as a kind of Jewish universalist—but apparently even that was enough to get Rabbi Riskin into some serious hot water.

One friend pointed out to me how similarly controversial it would be among Christians if a well-known pastor came out with a positive statement about Mohammed, the prophet of Islam. While I would never compare the life of Mohammed with that of the Lord Jesus, I got his point. For many Jewish people the comparison is apt, hence the visceral nature of the reaction.

I don't know what kind of a slap on the wrist Rabbi Riskin had to endure from his colleagues, but suffice it to say that within days, he taped a public apology for having made those remarks, claiming they were taken out of context.

This is but a mild example of the kind of disapprobation reserved for Jewish leaders who might show sympathies of any kind toward the man from Nazareth. Not too many years ago, reports circulated that a rabbi had interrupted a Christian prayer breakfast to announce that he had come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. I tracked down the story and found that it was true. Rabbi Harold Vallins from Melbourne, Australia had indeed become a follower of Jesus. It turned out that I knew his brother, who was also a believer and had volunteered with our Toronto branch.

Bob Mendelsohn, who leads our Jews for Jesus branch in Sydney, Australia quickly contacted Rabbi Vallins. Soon after, I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. His faith was genuine, and it cost him dearly. He suffered the loss of his position, but even more, he lost his relationships with his wife and children. Despite deep sorrow over the great losses he endured, Rabbi Vallins continued to have a strong testimony until he went home to be with the Lord a few years ago.

Back in the 1930's, well-known Jewish author Sholem Asch wrote a book entitled The Nazarene a sympathetic retelling of the life of Jesus. Despite the fact that he never once implied any conviction that Jesus was who He claimed to be, Asch was pilloried by the Jewish community leaders of his time, his reputation dragged through the mud. To this day, The Nazarene is seen as his greatest literary achievement, and as such it has indelibly tied his career to the controversy it provoked.

It should come as no surprise that the cost of following, or even being suspected of following Jesus is prohibitive, especially for rabbis or other prominent Jewish leaders who have a higher profile. Jesus warned that those who would follow Him should be prepared to "deny themselves." He observed somewhat darkly that He had not come to bring peace but a sword that would, "set a man against his father…" (Matt. 10:34-35). After Jesus' controversial healing of the man blind from birth, John's Gospel records the Jewish leadership agreeing, "that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue" (John 9:22). Two thousand years has not changed that reality one bit.

Back in the 1970's a popular rock group called the Doobie Brothers had a hit song titled, "Jesus is Just Alright." The understated lyrics reflect the way that many people try to view the Lord of glory—domesticating him to a cool companion who does not demand full allegiance and worship.* Certainly that sort of Jesus would be more palatable to a general audience.

Thankfully, the recent incident with Rabbi Riskin reminds us of how truly impossible it is to "downplay" Jesus, especially in the Jewish community. However people choose to present Him, or present their views of Him, Jesus is radical, controversial and will not be patronized by bland affirmations. He has no interest in winning popularity contests or being well regarded by those who have no intention of bowing before Him in humble worship, whatever the cost.

Jesus told a crowd of people who were looking for Him to provide their lunch, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). At that, most of the crowd decided to leave. Jesus turned to his disciples and asked if they were leaving as well. Peter's response must likewise be ours today: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).

* Admittedly, some sang that song in defiance of those who would mock Jesus; still, the casual nature of the lyrics does not reflect the role Jesus expects to have in the lives of His followers.

Hear My Cry, O God! The Mystery and Power of Prayer by Aaron Abramson

2010-01-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

Not long ago, the father of my friend passed away. The family had prayed for his salvation for years. At the end, he was physically unable to respond, leaving his family uncertain whether he had ever received the gospel.

Another friend prayed for his father, a Holocaust survivor, to also come to faith. He continued to pray over the years, and his father gradually became more open, eventually accepting Y'shua as his Messiah.

In both cases, years were spent in prayer, and yet the outcome was different. We may wonder about our own prayers. Do they matter? Are we praying according to God's will? Will it make a difference if we spend twice as much time praying? Are we praying with the right measure of faith? One professor summed up the confusion we sometimes experience in this way:

Expert advice on prayer abounds. At the Christian university where I teach, chapel speakers promote everything from praying directly from Scripture to "just being quiet and listening." Orthodox speakers recommend the "Jesus Prayer": "Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me, a sinner." Other speakers say prayer is simply a conversation with God, and I think, Simply?! Just a regular old conversation with someone I can't see, hear, or touch, and whose voice is so tricky to sort from others', especially from the voices of my own hopes and fears?¹

The fact is that there is mystery surrounding prayer. We might not always understand the nature of prayer or what God is doing behind the scenes. Yet prayer is central in the life of a believer, and I want to offer some words to orient us and encourage us as we come before the living God.

Prayer: Our Biblical Heritage

The Tanach is rich with prayer. Page after page we encounter men and women who diligently sought God in prayer. The patriarchs experienced powerful two-way communication with God. Moses spoke with God face-to-face; and he himself became God's answer to Israel's prayers for a redeemer. Judges, kings and prophets sought the Lord in prayer and saw him intervene in history to heal, provide, lead, speak and save.

The psalms are a particularly rich resource, a kind of "field guide" for understanding prayer. Martin Luther observed, "The Christian can learn to pray in the Psalter, for here he can hear how the saints talk with God."² When I was traveling through parts of India frequented by Israelis, I met several people who read the psalms every day. It's not hard to see why. The psalms provide a glimpse into authentic prayer. Sometimes they express anger towards God, or ask for retribution on enemies ("Rise up, O Lord, confront them, bring them down; rescue me from the wicked by your sword"—Psalm 17:13). At other times they testify of God's righteousness and love ("Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!"—Psalm 66:20). There are psalms that offer prayers of confession (Psalm 51:1-2), or that ask for God's guidance (Psalm 86:11) and protection (Psalm 60:5). There is even a psalm for unanswered prayer (Psalm 13:1-6).

The psalms focus our thoughts and help us process our interactions with God. They give direction in times of uncertainty and are a source of hope when we are discouraged. They help us relate to God about the things he finds important. And because the psalms contain so much about God's attributes, they can provide a platform for speaking with our people about who God is.

There are many other examples of prayer in the Tanach. Moses interceded for the people of Israel when they turned away from the Lord (Exodus 32:11-13). Elijah called on the name of the Lord while the prophets of Baal prayed to their own god (1 Kings 18:1-46). His offering was taken up in fire, God's people fell to their knees in worship, and God was able to display his power.

In the New Testament, the earliest followers of Jesus relied on prayer to lift one another up through their tribulations. Paul was a living example of this. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18, he wrote that we are to "pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Messiah Y'shua." In addition to encouraging his communities of believers to pray, Paul faithfully lifted them up in prayer.

The Power of Prayer

Prayer has the power to change things. Prayer movements have long been a catalyst for world change. The Moravians, one of the earliest Protestant missionary movements, experienced powerful revival after devoting themselves to 100 years of continuous prayer.³ Philip Milledoler and a handful of Jewish believers met for prayer in 1813, interceding for the salvation of Jewish people. By 1816, they had established the first missionary society to the Jewish people in the United States.⁴ Today, the International House of Prayer (IHOP) and similar movements continue to mobilize people around the world to pray.⁵

Another area where the power of prayer is shown is in healing. An Anglican professor of mine told of his experience in Africa where, as a white traveler, he was mistaken for a doctor. A paralyzed man had been brought before him and, not being a physician, he settled on praying for the man. To his surprise, he was immediately healed. The professor was then sought out by many others in need of healing and was able to share the gospel with them. He remarked that not much in his Anglican background had prepared him for that experience!

Yet not everyone who prays for healing receives it (not even Paul—see 2 Corinthians 12:7-10). That may be the part of the mystery of prayer; someone once said that God always answers prayer, but his answer can be "Yes," "No," or "Maybe"!

Prayer also has the power to change us. Through prayer, Scripture is opened to us, we find forgiveness and we are drawn into communion with the Lord. Writer Tim Stafford has said, "We do not pray to tell God what he does not know, nor to remind him of the things he has forgotten. He already cares for the things we pray about . . . He has simply been waiting for us to care about them with him."⁶ Prayer helps us get in step with where God is going.

The Ingredients of Effective Prayer

"Pray with kavannah—then your prayers will matter!" This is what I was taught in yeshiva. Kavannah—Hebrew for intent or heartfelt meaning—was a key ingredient for an effective prayer life. Students would set their alarm clocks for 3 or 4 a.m. to recite slichot, prayers for forgiveness, in preparation for the High Holidays. There was an unspoken assumption that the "sacrifice" of rising early put a person in a state of kavannah.

Adherents of other religions have their own emphases when it comes to prayer. Muslims pray five times a day, bowing their heads to the floor in an act of humility. For Buddhists, quantity of prayer is important: some will spin prayers to heaven on special Hindi-inscribed prayer wheels, while others will download these prayers to their hard-drives so that they spin out 5,400 prayers per minute!⁷

In the right context, kavannah is important for believers in Y'shua, too. Of course, we would also add aspects such as praying in faith, with thankfulness, in the name of Jesus, and so on. At bottom, effective prayer is less about what one says or how often one prays than it is a posture toward God that seeks his will and his glory.

The "ACTS" model of prayer has proven helpful for many people. ACTS is an acronym for a way to approach God in our prayers. Prayer begins with adoration of God, reminding us of God's power, love, and care as we thank him for who he is and what he can do in our lives. Next comes confession which allows us to "clear our slate" with the Lord and strengthen our relationship with him. This is where we ask for forgiveness and the ability to forgive others. Thanksgiving follows, prompting us to realize the ways in which God has already blessed us. Last is supplication,where we come before the Lord with our needs and desires.⁸

Prayer and Our People

From the inarticulate cries of Israel in Egypt (Exodus 2:23) to the evolved Jewish liturgy of the Kol Nidre service, Jewish people have prayed as a way of relating to God and to their fellow Jews. These prayers may concern anything from the blessing of a newborn to the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem, and they can be uttered in the synagogue or through Twittering prayers to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Traditional Jews still pray three times a day. Prayer creates continuity among the Jewish people no matter what country or century they live in.

Many Jewish people have active prayer lives. I have met some who claimed to spend hours seeking God each day. There are spiritual renewal movements in Judaism that emphasize prayer and meditation. Some pray through the psalms (tehillim) as a way of earning merit and growing closer to God.

How should we relate to these phenomena? Does God hear the prayers of Jewish people who do not believe in Y'shua? In 1980, Bailey Smith, then-president of the Southern Baptist Convention, made serious waves when he said, "God Almighty doesn't hear the prayer of a Jew."⁹ That kind of statement is not only difficult to substantiate, but it can alienate our audience from real interaction and discussion. Who are we to say that God cannot hear the prayer of a non-believer who is truly seeking him? God's answer to their prayer might be a stepping-stone on their way to faith. We should be careful about drawing unwarranted conclusions. Perhaps on some level we can learn from the kind of dedication many Jewish people show in praying to God.

As Jewish believers, we have a special obligation to pray for Israel. The Bible teaches us to remember Jerusalem in our prayers (Psalm 122:6). We naturally have a vested interest in our people coming to know Messiah. And non-Jewish believers will look to us for cues on how to best pray for Jewish people.

Finally, prayer and proclamation have long been closely associated in the Hebrew Bible. The Shema, from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, is a declaration of who God is and a proclamation of our allegiance to him. The psalms frequently begin with reflections on the attributes of God before moving toward proclaiming him to others: "It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night" (Psalm 92:1-2; see also Psalm 9:11). This should encourage us to labor in prayer for unbelieving family and friends. We may even be an answer to our own prayer for our unbelieving family, as God uses us to talk of his great love for them.

Our Biblical Heritage Again

Ultimately, we have the example of Y'shua himself. Y'shua demonstrated his complete dependence upon the Father. His ministry literally began and ended with prayer: at his baptism, he was anointed with the Holy Spirit as he prayed (Luke 3:21), while of the seven statements he made from the cross, three were prayers (Matthew 27:46; Luke 23:34, 46).

Jesus instructed us to ask "our Father in heaven." He modeled many kinds of prayer, communing with the Father, making requests in his time of need, interceding on behalf of his disciples and even his enemies. He faithfully prayed for the needs of those around him. Demons were cast out and multitudes were healed. Some of his prayers, such as for unity among his followers, were not immediately answered. But this never stopped Y'shua from carrying out the will of his Father. In fact, he himself was an answer to prayer and the vehicle God used to pour out his power upon those in need. And perhaps part of the mystery of prayer is that we become the ultimate answer to some of Y'shua's prayers.
_____

So do our prayers make any difference? I know they do, and that's a good reason to keep on praying. Sometimes our prayers will be immediately answered; at other times we will wait for a response with no discernable answer. Along the way, we will we grow closer to our Father in heaven, who "gives good gifts to those who ask him" (Matthew 7:11).

End Notes:

www.kyria.com/topics/spiritualformation/prayer/iwasafailureatprayer.html

As quoted by Ronald Barclay Allen, Praise! A Matter of Life and Breath (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1980), p. 24.

www.moravian.org/history

www.archive.org/stream/MN41741ucmf_0/MN41741ucmf_0_djvu.txt

http://www.ihop.org/; http://www.jhop.org/

Quoted in Philip Yancey, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? (Zondervan, 2006), p. 58. Stafford is the author of Knowing the Face of God.

www.dharma-haven.org/tibetan/digital-wheels.htm#Disk%20Drive

www.breakthroughprayer.com/howto/ACTS.html

www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/february/27.32.html

Green Forever

2010-01-05T09:57:00.000-08:00

by Paige Olson

I like green. It's the color of:

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream!
Money in the bank!
The clothes we wear on St. Paddy's Day!

But GREEN means even more…

Everywhere we turn we’re urged to “GO GREEN”!
We do this by remembering the 3Rs:
REDUCE; REUSE; RECYCLE.
All to keep our planet GREEN.
The NY Times Magazine even wrote about having a GREEN MIND!

But, have you ever thought about having a GREEN HEART?
(And I don’t mean being Irish!)
I mean the kind of GREEN the Hebrew Scriptures talk about in Jeremiah 17:7,

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
Whose confidence is in Him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
That sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when the heat comes; (AKA: GLOBAL WARMING?)
Its leaves are always GREEN.”
It has no worries in a year of drought
And never fails to bear fruit.

But let’s face it, like planet Earth our HEARTS can be choked by pollution, stripped of resources, and dried up.
This devastation comes from looking to our selves, other people or things as our source of life instead of GOD.

Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
Who depends on flesh for his strength
And whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He will be like a bush in the wastelands:
He will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
In a salt land where no one lives.”
Jeremiah 17:5-6

But GOD has 3Rs of His own to save you from this fate:

RETURN; REDEEM; RENEW!

He sent His Son, Yeshua, who says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener…Remain in me, and I will remain in you…If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit...” John 15:1, 4a, 5b.

He is the heavenly “alternative” life-source to make you GREEN FOREVER!

For tips on how you can be spiritually green,

Call, write or email
Paige Olson

Evolution: Fact or Theory?by Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld

2009-12-21T11:45:00.000-08:00

“There are so many flaws in Darwinism that one can wonder why it swept so completely through the scientific world, and why it is still endemic today.”
Sir Fred Hoyle¹

Back in 1987 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1981 Louisiana law which mandated a balanced treatment in teaching evolution and creation in the public schools. The court decided that the intent of the law “was clearly to advance the religious viewpoint that a supernatural being created humankind,”² and therefore violated the First Amendment’s prohibition on a government establishment of religion.

In speaking for the majority, Justice William J. Brennan wrote, “ . . . the Act’s primary purpose was to change the science curriculum of public schools in order to provide persuasive advantage to a particular religious doctrine that rejects the factual basis of evolution in its entirety.”³

It is surprising that no one on the Louisiana side informed the Justice that evolution is a theory, not a fact. It is important for us to do what the court failed to do: review the theory of evolution and determine exactly what are the facts.

First, what exactly is the theory of evolution? For the answer, we must go to the source: Charles Darwin’s famous book, On the Origin of Species, published in 1859. Darwin claimed that the thousands of different species of animals, insects and plants that exist on earth were not the works of a divine Creator who made each species in its present immutable form, as described in Genesis, but were the products of a very long natural process of development from simpler organic forms to more complex organic forms.

Thus, according to Darwin, species continue to change, or “evolve,” through a process of natural selection in which nature’s harsh conditions permit only the fittest to survive in more adaptable forms.

Moral Implications

Ronald Clark, in his biography of Darwin, writes, “While Darwin was proud of his theory of natural selection . . . he saw as one of its main virtues the fact that it provided a counterblow to the idea of creation.”⁴

Darwin also believed that all life originated from a single source—a kind of primeval slime in which the first living organisms formed spontaneously out of non-living matter through a random process. These organisms are supposed to have branched off into different forms—plants, insects and animals.

Evolutionists have worked out all sorts of fascinating genealogical diagrams purporting to show the descent and relationship of one species to another. But what they don’t tell the public is that all of the connections in these family trees are hypothesis rather than fact. Astronomer Fred Hoyle writes,

It has been through the device of presenting such diagrams with the presumed connections drawn in firm solid lines that the general scientific world has been bamboozled into believing that evolution has been proved. Nothing could be further from the truth. ... The absence from the fossil record of the intermediate forms required by the usual evolutionary theory shows that if terrestrial life-forms have evolved from a common stock, the major branchings must have developed very quickly. And the major branchings, if they occurred, were accompanied by genetic changes that were not small.⁵

No Missing Link

Probably the most controversial aspect of Darwin’s theory concerns man’s place in the evolutionary scheme. In his book, The Descent of Man, published in 1870, Darwin contended that man and ape were evolutionary cousins with a common ancestor. When it came to intelligence, the gap between man and the other animals, Darwin believed, was one of degree.

But the fossil record, revealing the different stages of man’s evolution from apelike creature to Homo sapiens, has not been found. Paleoanthropologists have hunted high and low for the missing link or links. Not only have they not found them, they are now pretty sure that such links do not exist. Renowned anthropologist and evolutionist Richard Leakey commented on Eugene Dubois’s 1891 discovery of Java Man:

Dubois was convinced that [Java Man’s] skull and thigh bone belonged to the long-sought-after “missing link” between modern humans and apes. Today we know that there is no such “link” between modern humans and modern apes but in the nineteenth century those that believed in human evolution thought that a direct link would be found.⁶

Instead of admitting defeat, the evolutionists have proclaimed victory! Harvard paleoanthropologist David Pilbeam stated, “We should no longer say that we are descended from apes; we are apes.”⁷ Evolutionary biologist and popular author Richard Dawkins echoed that thought. ⁸

Apparently, to some scientists, any hypothesis is preferable to accepting the possibility that a Creator had something to do with everything that exists.

For example, Nobel prize-winning biologist George Wald stated:

Most modern biologists, having reviewed with satisfaction the downfall of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, yet unwilling to accept the alternative belief in special creation, are left with nothing. I think a scientist has no choice but to approach the origin of life through a hypothesis of spontaneous generation.⁹

Life is No Accident

The simple fact is that no proof whatever has been found indicating that one species evolves into another. The fossil record is simply a series of still pictures of species that existed at one time. Transitional fossils have not been found. The fossil record shows new species appearing suddenly without any ancestors. Scientific investigation indicates that the species are immutable and that when mutations occur they do not become new species. For example, evolutionists have been experimenting with fruit flies for years in the hope of demonstrating evolution at work. But the fruit flies have stubbornly refused to develop into anything but more fruit flies, despite all kinds of stimuli, including radiation. Some mutations have occurred, but nothing to suggest the beginnings of a new species.

Even Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, a passionate defender of evolution, has written, “The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change.”¹⁰ As Darwin wrote:

[T]he geological record is extremely imperfect ... and (this fact) will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.¹¹

As for the theory that life originated by accident in some sort of chemical soup, Louis Pasteur proved that spontaneous generation is impossible. The spontaneous generation-of-life idea is just wishful thinking on the part of evolutionists. Dr. Fred Hoyle has calculated that such an accident had one chance in 10^40,000 of occurring. The DNA genetic code is so complex that the information content of a simple cell has been estimated at around six billion bits¹². In short, the more we learn about the complexity of life, the less is the likelihood that it all came about by accident, with no purpose, and no Creator.

Nevertheless, French biologist Jacques Monod said, “Man has to understand that he is a mere accident. Not only is man not the center of creation; he is not even the heir to a sort of predetermined evolution that would have produced either man or something very like him.”¹³ Note, incidentally, how similar Monod’s classification of man is to Darwin’s view that man should be brought down to the animal level where he belongs.

Consider this fact: there are two thousand complex enzymes required for a living organism¹⁴, but not a single one of them could have formed accidentally. As Fred Hoyle has put it, the chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this accidental way is comparable with the chance that “a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.”¹⁵

To sum it up: the fossil record does not support the idea of gradual evolution. Nor does it support the idea of a common ancestry or accidental source of all life.

When Myth Becomes Truth

The theory of evolution has been integrated as fact into our popular culture. For example, we read in the Standard Family Reference Encyclopedia:

Life probably first evolved from the primeval soup some 3000-4000 million years ago when the first organic chemicals were synthesized due to the effects of lightning. Primitive algae capable of synthesizing their own food material have been found in geological formations some 2000 million years old. Simple forms of animals and fungi then evolved. From that time there has been a slow evolution of multicellular organisms.¹⁶

Someday the average educated American will be able to read that paragraph and understand it for what it is: hypothesis presented as fact. In the first place, spontaneous generation is impossible even with such primitive forms as viruses. Second, because of the enormous complexity of living matter, the random, accidental self-creation of life is mathematically inconceivable. Third, there are no simple forms of animals and fungi; they are all pretty complex. The DNA of an amoeba is anything but simple. Indeed, this same encyclopedia's article on fungi indicates that they are quite complicated organisms. As for “slow evolution,” even some prominent evolutionists, like Gould and Niles Eldredge, don't believe in that. In order to explain the sudden appearance of species without ancestors, they now believe in “punctuated equilibrium,” the theory that the great majority of species originate in rare, rapid moments (punctuations), rather than through gradual transformation. And fourth, matter tends to go from order to disorder, which implies the existence of a creative force that could reverse that tendency.

But some of the world’s most intelligent people take Darwin's theory of evolution as fact. For example, former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett once said in an interview: “I believe there is good scientific evidence for evolution.”¹⁷ Similarly, George F. Will wrote in a recent column:

“Evolution is a fact, and its mechanism is natural selection.”¹⁸

If evolution is a “fact,” someone has yet to prove it! The problem with Mr. Will is that he is probably confusing evolution with breeding. Breeding, or variety of breeds within a species, is a function of genetics, not evolution.

Is the theory of evolution fact or theory? You be the judge.

After reading John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, Samuel L. Blumenfeld became convinced that Jesus Christ was indeed the Messiah, and that he had been sent to earth to extend the covenant to non-Jews in fulfillment of God's promise that through Abraham “all the nations shall be blessed in him” (Genesis 18:18). Blumenfeld is the author of ten books on education and literacy. His latest book, The Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection, presents a new view of the authorship controversy.

Editor's note: You might enjoy these quotes by some leading Jewish thinkers on the subjects of intelligent design and evolution.

END NOTES

Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space: A Theory of Cosmic Creationism (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1981), p. 133.

Justice Brennan, opinion of the Court, Supreme Court of the United States, 482 U.S. 578, Edwards v. Aguillard, June 19, 1987.

Ibid.

Ronald Clark, The Survival of Charles Darwin: A Biography of a Man and an Idea (New York, NY: Random House, 1984), p. 123.

Hoyle, op. cit., p. 87.

Richard E. Leakey, Human Origins (London: The Rainbird Publishing Group Limited, 1982), p. 48.

David Pilbeam, Discover, July 1983, p. 23.

Dawkins wrote, “We are not, then, merely like apes or descended from apes; we are apes.” Richard Dawkins, book review of Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution, in The New York Times, April 9, 1989.

George Wald, “Origin of Life,” Scientific American, August 1954, p. 46.

Stephen Jay Gould, “The Return of Hopeful Monsters,” Natural History, June-July 1977, pp. 22-25.

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, A Facsimile of the First Edition, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 341-342.

William Dembski, quoted in Joe Woodward, "Design or Darwin" Calgary Herald, August 28, 2005.

Jacques Monod, quoted in Horace Freeland Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979), p. 217.

“A Response to Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker,” Creation Ministries International, 2006.

Sir Fred Hoyle, “Hoyle on the Evolution,” Nature, November 12, 1981, p. 105.

Standard Family Reference Encyclopedia, 1977, p. 391.

Interview with William Bennett by John Lofton, The Washington Times, January 2, 1986, transcribed in the Congressional Record, March 7, 1986.

George F. Will, “How Congress Trumps Darwin,” The Washington Post, February 8, 2009.

What's the Matter with Intermarriage

2009-08-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

by Tuvya Zaretzsky

Actually, don't be misled by this title. This isn't an article against intermarriage. It is just that there are so many issues related to Jewish-Gentile couples in the news these days.

I just got back from Israel and have been catching up on my reading. I keep a Google search on issues related to Jewish-Gentile couples. July was an interesting month.

First, I was stunned to hear that Jewish demographer, Gary Tobin, died at the age of 59 in Florida. As a student of cultural anthropology, I appreciated his work at Brandeis University's Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and his unconventional voice as president of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco. Gary Tobin researched the growth of contemporary Judaism and he took a “big tent” view of the Jewish community and the question, "Who belongs as a Member of the Tribe?" That, of course, is a discussion in the realm of Jewish-Gentile couples. We continue to reference that question, especially in regard to the children of Jewish-Gentile couples.

Interestingly, the same line of questions came up with a movie premiere that same weekend. It was the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. A theme in that film was a case of art imitating life. In the realm of Harry Potter, wizards, possessing magical powers, were a minority in a world of ordinary or non-magical people. Please don't think that I'm trying to make a perfectly matching metaphor out of this imagery. I am in no way implying that Jewishness is akin to magical wizardry and Gentileness is not. However, the identities of the characters in this Harry Potter movie are evidently determined by whether one’s mother was a wizard and one's father was non-magical. In my mind, I could see similar implications for the children of mixed ethnicities in Jewish-Gentile couples. It was interesting to also read that Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who plays Harry Potter, identifies as a Jew, though only his mother was Jewish and his father was a "Protestant."

The same week, The Baltimore Sun featured a commentary by Rabbi Yaakov Menken, who is the director of Project Genesis, a Jewish cyber-outreach organization based in Maryland. He commented on an article from Julie Wiener's "In the Mix," a monthly column featured in The New York Jewish Week. Ms. Wiener is an intermarried Jew who comments on Jewish-Gentile couple issues. Recently, she grappled with her own discomfort at the thought that a Rabbi might intermarry. That is not to say a rabbi would perform weddings for Jewish-Gentile couples – Reform rabbi's already do that - but that a rabbi would take a Gentile as a spouse. Rabbi Menken actually assumes that it will happen within "Progressive" Judaism sooner or later, and most likely sooner. He predicted that the Hebrew Union College, Reform Judaism's rabbinical seminary, would ordain intermarried rabbis "within the next decade." Rabbi Menken concluded his observations with a question about the implications of Jewish-Gentile marriage for Judaism: "At what point will ’Progressive’ Judaism cease to be a religion practiced, in the majority, by Jews?"

Throughout these articles, the main issue was in the subtext: "Can American Jewry survive the welcoming embrace of intermarriage to Gentiles?" There are plenty of relevant matters to discuss in relation to intermarriage. They ought not be rooted in ethnic or racial bias. They can't all solve the multiplex dilemmas caused by interfaith disagreements. Nor is the preservation or survival of the Jewish people and their enduring values the only matter that counts.

At JewishGentileCouples.com, we take the perspective that the best approach to these issues is to ask God what He might have to say on the subject. Sociology has told us that Jewish-Gentile marriages have a risk of divorce that is twice as high as that of the highest divorce levels in either of the two homogamous marriage groups (Jewish plus Jewish or Gentile plus Gentile). That was reported again in a scientific paper from the Netherlands in July. Our own research found that the greatest threat to Jewish-Gentile marriage, dating couples, or cohabiting partners is the inability to find spiritual harmony. God has a lot to say on that subject matter if we will listen to Him. We would be glad to suggest some further summer reading on matters related to Jewish-Gentile couple relationships.

How can we serve you?

RICHARD NIXON, BILLY GRAHAM, AND JEWS FOR JESUS

2009-06-26T19:24:00.001-07:00

June 26, 2009

The Rev. Billy Graham informed Richard Nixon of the Jewish community's concern about Jews for Jesus in a private telephone conversation in February 1973. Graham represented the group as being "set up all over the country," at a time when the organization was in its fledgling stage, with just a handful of workers.

The 20-minute conversation, released on Tuesday as part of 154 hours of tape recordings from the Nixon White House, took place on February 21, 1973, the day Israeli jets fired on a Libyan passenger plane that violated its airspace, causing the plane to crash and killing 108 people on board. Nixon and Graham are concerned that this event will turn world opinion against Israel.

They are also troubled by statements by Jewish leaders, in particular the late Rabbi Marc Tannenbaum, then the director of Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Committee, denouncing Christian efforts to tell others, including Jews, about Jesus. They feel this may alienate the Christian community against the Jewish people.

Nixon and Graham were anticipating seeing Tannenbaum the following week at a dinner for Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. Nixon tells Graham: "You tell him he's making a terrible mistake, and they're going to get the darndest round of anti-Semitism here if they don't behave." Graham explains to Nixon the concern of Tannenbaum and other Jewish leaders:

"And one of the things they're terribly afraid of is so many of these Jewish young people are turning away from Judaism. They're not turning away from Jewishness. They say they're remaining Jews, but they're becoming followers of Jesus. Well, that's just scaring them to death."

Graham continues, "They've set up all over the country, these Jews for Jesus at the various universities . . . . And this is frightening Jewish leaders, and they're overreacting in this country. I'm talking about the rabbis."

Moishe Rosen, the founder of Jews for Jesus and the director of the organization at that time, explains why a handful of staff could appear to be "all over the country."

"Our traveling musical team, the Liberated Wailing Wall, set up a number of church meetings," recalls Rosen, "and during the day we would go to the campuses. The group had some meetings in Texas, then traveled to Washington, Boston, and back to our headquarters in San Francisco. We probably appeared on fifty campuses in a three-month period. We were seen by a lot of people, but it was the same group!"

Rosen and Graham traded correspondence beginning in late 1977 after Rabbi Tannenbaum made a speech in which he referred to Graham's "repudiation of proselytizing of Jewish people through the deceptive techniques of such movements as Jews for Jesus." An article in McCall's magazine in January 1978 made a similar claim that "Billy is particularly opposed to evangelical groups such as 'Jews for Jesus' who have made Jews the special target of their proselytizing efforts."

In a letter to Rosen dated January 24, 1978, Graham said, "I regret that alleged statements by me concerning your ministry have caused you one minute's embarrassment or grief. So many people have reported to me what a blessing you and your group have been to them . . . . I can never recall ever criticizing your group by name in public or private! . . . Sometimes texts are taken out of the context to mean something more or less than was meant."

In the same letter, Graham said, "I have never publicly supported special missions to Jews—I preach to people as people! But you will notice when I give an invitation in my Crusades to accept Christ I usually say 'whether you are Catholic, Protestant or Jew.'"

What will the children be?

2009-06-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

by Tuvya Zaretsky

These days the simcha (joy) of Jewish weddings is often tempered by angst. In North America, more than half of all Jews are now marrying Gentiles. As a result, the survival of the Jewish people is a natural concern. It is often voiced in the question, "What will the children be?"

For the participants of intermarriage, the experience can be a world of confusion. I recently received an email from one of my daughter's high school teachers. He wrote, "My wife and children are Jewish as is my stepmother. My dad's family members are Methodist and Baptist born-again Christians. My mother is a Catholic who converted to Buddhism. My sister is Lutheran, and my brother-in-law is Muslim."

How can we make sense of such a complex mixture of ethnicities and religions? How can any of that help us provide clarity and identity for Jewish-Gentile couples?

First, I separate ethnicity from religion. Ethnicity is derived from blood lineage, family DNA, and is sometimes called nationality. It has nothing to do with passports or legal citizenship. It is to be part of a people, and it comes from the bloodline of our parents.

Religion, on the other hand, is a component of culture. That is, it is learned from our family, social authorities, community and expressed through traditional practices. In an individual, ethnicity doesn't change. Religion can.

There are actually four relational stages through which a Jewish-Gentile couple will experience tensions and challenges as a result of their two different ethnicities and the many possibilities of religious cultural expressions in their lives. It all starts when they are dating.

During the romantic, courting phase of infatuation and intense feelings, a Jewish-Gentile couple will likely discover a variety of cultural differences that at first can appear humorous. "Do you really eat that stuff?" But it can get serious quickly upon discovering a difference in core values, "You just can't say that name in my parents' home! We are Jews and we speak about Jesus differently."

The next relational stage is when the couple plans their wedding. Will it take place in a synagogue, a church, a park, a country club, a catering hall, or…? Every symbol incorporated into the wedding ceremony becomes a potential cultural landmine.

And once the wedding ceremony is navigated, a Jewish-Gentile couple begins to discover their own household identity. "Are we intermarried or a mixed marriage?" "Are we both religions, neither, just yours or my alone?"

It can be challenging to preserve mutual respect, let alone romantic affection, when the ethnic heritage and possibly the religion of one partner is threatened. It is easier to tolerate spiritual differences during the romantic dating phase of a relationship than it is when that partnership is permanentized in matrimony. Differences in core values, that were so easily passed over during infatuation, now threaten to separate or alienate partners. Ethnicity is not necessarily a barrier to spiritual harmony, but the cultural component of religious beliefs can pose a significant threat.

Two people in a marriage can fend other influences, or compartmentalize and accommodate their differences of spiritual outlook. However, when children come along, everything changes.

The arrival of children raises the question of their future identity with what people and which belief system. The question, "What will the children be?" takes on deadly seriousness as conflicting core values come to the fore.

Children bear the genetic makeup of both parents. How they will spiritually identify may be determined by the way that they choose their religious cultural components.

Spiritual harmony in a family is possible. Family identity can incorporate the preservation and survival of Jewish ethnic identity, even when only one partner is Jewish. It is made easier when both partners each seek and know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In Him is the source of all life, the meaning of life and life as it was designed to be experienced. The key to a relationship with that God is through knowing His anointed Messiah of the Jewish people.

How might we serve you to find spiritual harmony as a Jewish-Gentile couple?

Where Will William Shatner Show Up Next?

2009-06-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

by Rich Robinson

I enjoyed screening the new Star Trek movie the other week. It was great seeing Spock, Kirk, Bones et al. in their more formative years, and wonderful to see Leonard Nimoy reprise his role as the "older" Spock.

Conspicuous by his absence, of course, was William Shatner. Which made me wonder … in the years since the original Gene Roddenberry Star Trek, William Shatner has shown up just about everywhere.

He was T. J. Hooker. He was (and is) the pitch guy for Priceline.com. He was (and is, if you count reruns and DVDs) Denny Crane on Boston Legal. He has his own interview show, William Shatner's Raw Nerve.

Which led me to the question, where will William Shatner show up next? Could he become a fifth face on Mount Rushmore? Or an icon on the Corn Flakes box? Will they make a "Wii William" game, or will "Shatner's Sautees" come to the Food Network?

As I thought about it, I wondered if William Shatner was like God. You know, omnipresent. Eternal. All that. Or did it just seem that way?

Then I got to thinking that maybe God is like William Shatner. After all, he runs a tight ship—it's just that it's the universe, not the U.S.S. Enterprise. (Cut to the Bible—"for He views the ends of the earth, and sees everything under the heavens."—Job 28:24)

He plans to interview us all some day, just not on TV. ("For we will all stand before God's judgment seat."—Romans 14:10)

And he can get us something of great value at an incredible price, only it's not a hotel deal, but, you know, eternal life. ("Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost."—Isaiah 55:1)

Or maybe it is a hotel, kind of – "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you."—John 14:2)

I got to thinking that God is eternal, but that not even William Shatner will be around forever. Someday, someone, somewhere, is going to say, "He's dead, Jim."

In fact, some day he'll show up in God's interview room: "Real—unscripted—intimate—my guest is William Shatner. He talks with me about his life."

Maybe William Shatner has shown up in so many places to point us to something better than this world—a strange new world, where no one has gone before (except for Jesus—you're reading this on the Jews for Jesus web site, what did you expect?). A world where God is the captain of our lives, our defense attorney, and the one who gets us an awesome "deal."

If you're tempted to say with Scotty, "I've never seen anything like it!" or with Bones, "Are you out of your mind!?" just beam me an email at rich.robinson@jewsforjesus.org.

Of Mothers and Fathers

2009-05-05T09:03:00.000-07:00

by Tuvya Zaretsky

Jewish survival is a dominant concern among Jewish-Gentile families. Will their children be Jews? Will the rest of the Jewish community consider them as Jews?

Social research has shown two key challenges that Jewish-Gentile families experience related to children.¹ Marital dissatisfaction includes challenges to family harmony in forms like: parental reluctance to accept an intermarried couple; conflict over cultural symbols or competition to define an interfaith family identity. It was also found significant discord over enculturating children: which ethnic heritage will they claim, or what religious faith will be passed on to them?

It is helpful to frame the question of Jewish survival in terms of two perspectives: first ethnic and second religious. Jewishness of children is more easily defined through ethnic criteria.

Mothers or Fathers?

Jewish scholars agree that historically Jewishness was determined through the line of the father. The Hebrew people were first identified via the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and his sons. Genealogical lineage throughout the Tanakh was marked by the familiar formula: so-in-so "the son of…" The first census of the Jewish nation in the Sinai wilderness was "by their families, by their fathers' households" (l'mishpehotam l'veit avotam) in Numbers 1:2.

Yet, we find biblical evidence that Gentile wives could mother and raise Jewish children. Rahab of the Canaanites and Ruth the Moabite were two classic examples. If that were not so then king David and his family would have been discounted from the Jewish line because of his great grandmother, Ruth.

So ethnicity in Bible times included Jewish heroes or kings who married Gentile women and produced Jewish offspring. Judah married a Caananite; Joseph took an Egyptian princess as his bride; Moses wed a Midianite and an Ethiopian; David married a Philistine, and Solomon's harem was a role call of the United Nations. Patrilineal lineage was the norm, but matrilineal descent was also accepted for ethnic continuity of Jewishness.

Who made the issue of matrilineal descent the dividing line for Jewish ethnicity and when did that happen? Evidently, it came from the traditional Jewish scholars of Judaism. Until 70 AD, and the destruction of the second temple, Jewish ethnicity was determined through the father - particularly for the cohenim.

Sometime during the First Century AD, matrilineal descent was adopted as the basis for determining Jewishness. Scholars believe that was to bring the growing body of Jewish tradition into line with laws of the Roman Empire. When the Talmud was finally codified in the fourth and fifth centuries, matrilineal descent became the law of Judaism.²

Traditional Judaism today is divided on the question of "Who is a Jew?" Orthodox and Conservative Judaism hold to matrilineal descent to define Jewish ethnicity. Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism adopted rulings for a patrilineal descent in the early 1980s.

However, with 63% of American Jewry is unaffiliated with traditional Judaism and Jewish-Gentile intermarriage has been the majority since 1985. Therefore, personal experience is trumping rabbinic authority. Couples are finding that the Bible pattern is still trustworthy.

In reality, Jewish survival has continued with the ethnicity of either father or mother. There are plenty of good examples today. However, we would like to point out that Jewish survival was guaranteed by something much more enduring than blood lineage.

Survival of the Jewish people depends on the unconditional faithfulness of God through His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The preservation of a Jewish nation depends on the faithfulness of God's word and character.³ That is a pretty safe bet!

And yet, the participation in Jewish identity depends on what children learn about that God. They need to know that God has a purpose in creating the Jewish people. They would be instrumental in delivering the Messianic Redeemer to fulfill Genesis 3:15. The person of Y'shua (Jesus) fulfills the Israelite mission. Jewish-Gentile children should learn that God ordained the Jewish people as a lamp through which He would reveal the light of His presence to all the nations. His covenant care for the Jewish people would teach that His character is dependable for all peoples.

Jewish mothers and/or fathers are essential for survival of the Jewish people. Family spiritual harmony depends on teaching all children about the God who created Jewish people to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.⁴ History, the Bible and the personal experience of Jewish-Gentile couples are showing that one Jewish parent, sharing one messianic faith with a Gentile partner can create spiritual harmony and shalom bayit (peace at home). Happy Mother's Day and Happy Father's Day to every Jewish-Gentile mom and dad!

ENDNOTES

1. Zaretsky, Tuvya. "The Challenges of Jewish-Gentile Couples: A Pre-Evangelistic Ethnographic Study: A Dissertation submitted to the faculty of Western Seminary. (Portland: Western Seminary) 2004, pages 67 and 97.

2. Kiddushin68b according to an interpretation of Deuteronomy 7:3-4

3. Jeremiah 31:35-37

4. Genesis 12:3

The Jesus Problem

2009-05-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

by Rich Robinson

"Do Jews Have a Jesus Problem?" asks Jay Michaelson in The Forward, commenting on Peter Schafer's recent book, Jesus in the Talmud. Schafer thinks the rabbis of the Talmud saw Jesus, and Jewish believers in him, as a threat. So they wrote what essentially was a "counter-story" to the gospels.

This is quite different, says Michaelson, from the conclusion of another Jewish Jesus-book, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus by David Klinghoffer. For Klinghoffer, the Jewish rejection of Jesus was not because of who Jesus was but because of who Jews were, and are: a chosen nation, not a people of universalism.

Michaelson's "Jesus problem" is not his alone. There are many people, not only Jews, trying to figure out what to do with Jesus and some of them write books. True, many Jews carry around the baggage of two thousand years of Christian anti-Semitism (though I was fortunate enough to have been spared that in my Reform Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn). But then there are Gentiles who tell us that they are carrying around the baggage of their "fundamentalist" upbringing. So between Jesus and the year 2009, there is a lot of water under the bridge. Jesus himself, though, still remains a hot and sellable topic of books, films and blogs.

Who then was Jesus? According to whomever you consult, he was the Son of God, a good teacher, a rabbi, a deceiver, a psychedelic mushroom, a mystic, an ascetic, a gnostic, the first Reform Jew, the first liberal Christian, a product of someone's imagination, a miracle-worker, a nice guy, a bad guy, an ascended master, a bad conscience, a conundrum wrapped up in a tallit.

Michaelson himself, in an earlier article with the tongue-in-cheek title of "How I Finally Learned to Accept Christ in my Heart," opts for a pantheistic, or panentheistic, view of Jesus: a "fully realized being" who knew he was God and that everything else is God, too. To Michaelson, this makes more sense than the strange if not nonsensical doctrines of the virgin birth, hell, original sin, atonement, etc.

Put aside for a moment the question of whether those sorts of ideas are really nonsensical and whether so many people in the world are really opting for idiocy. What Michaelson wants is to be able to learn from (and simultaneously differentiate himself from) Christian teachings. In the Forward article he says;

I want to understand Christ the way Christians do — not to become one of them, but in order to enrich my own religious life. I want to learn from them how to have a personal relationship with a personal, humanized, embodied God who cares, and who saves. I want to experience Jesus as a human being enlightened enough to see everyone as holy, even the impure, the leprous and the marginalized. And I want to follow his example, seeing all my fellow human beings and myself as sons and daughters of God.

There is a real question here whether Christians in fact view Jesus in this way. Historically, to Christians Jesus came to make us holy because we are in fact sinful rebels against God. He came to make us sons and daughters of God because we are prodigals who have wandered, sheep who have left the fold, usurpers of God and followers of ourselves, or of Baal, or (today on NPR) of Thor.

From where does Michaelson garner his picture of Jesus? The Jesus problem is not so much figuring out anti-Semitism or Jewish identity but figuring out Jesus. "And God created man in His own image" says Genesis. "And men created Jesus in their own image," comes the echoing answer, "a Jesus without sin, atonement, virgin birth, resurrection, deity, a Jesus who suits their religious sentiments." The question is, which is the real Jesus? And where is he to be found (one suggestion: read the New Testament)?

MEET THE NEW ATHEISTS... same as the Old Atheists

2009-03-03T09:55:00.000-08:00

by Matt Sieger

Move over Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche...

Make room for the new kids on the block—Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens! These "New Atheists" proclaim God's non-existence with great fervor. But they're not saying anything new.

Dawkins declares, "Faith is the great cop out." Where did we hear this before? Oh, yes, Marx: "Religion is the opium of the people."

Harris says belief in God is "a sign that something is seriously wrong with your mind." Not new. Freud said that to put faith in God is "patently infantile."

Hitchens states, "God did not make man in his own image. Evidently it was the other way about." Nietzsche said it already: "Is man one of God's blunders, or is God one of man's?"

The Bible (oops, sorry atheists) got it right: "There is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

So what's different about the New Atheists? They're just more "in your face." As Clark Pinnock notes:

These fellows such as Nietzsche and Freud thought more in depth about what atheism entails and could understand what might interest thoughtful people in religion. The new atheism in contrast is disinterested in fair-minded discussions about whether religion might actually have something to contribute to human knowledge. In the new atheism (and it is not really "new"), readers are not expected to understand religion or have any sympathy for it. Instead they are exhorted to detest faith.¹

But the New Atheists are actually wimps compared to the old atheists. When Nietzsche declared that God was dead, he understood that if there is no God, there are no morals. The New Atheists are afraid to go that far. They say we can have moral standards without God. But if there is a moral law, there must be a moral lawgiver. Where does our conscience come from, if not from God?

Perhaps the New Atheists are afraid of the anarchy that would result if people practiced atheism the way Nietzsche understood it. If there are no moral standards, then who is to say that Hitler did anything wrong? No one would need to deny the Holocaust. People could just say that the "Final Solution" was morally neutral.

In shying away from Nietzsche's logical conclusion, the New Atheists are intellectually dishonest. They want to create a moral universe without God. Whose morals will they choose? And why should others follow the morals they select?

The new and old atheists say that only a fool believes in God. But the Hebrew Scriptures say, "The fool says in his heart, "There is no God" (Psalm 14:1).

The atheists claim that only the ignorant believe in God. But the Scriptures say, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7).

In the late 1800s, Nietzsche predicted that the necessity to believe in God would fade away in the face of science and technological advancement. With God out of the way, we would make a better world. How have we done? Chris Hedges, foreign correspondent for The New York Times, has called the Christian right "fascists." But he's just as tough on the New Atheists and their faith in the human race. Here's his assessment on our progress:

"There is nothing in human nature or in human history that points to the idea that we are moving anywhere. Technology and science, though they are cumulative and have improved, in many ways, the lives of people within the industrialized nations, have also unleashed the most horrific forms of violence and death, and let's not forget, environmental degradation, in human history."²

Why is this? Because we have failed to account for the virus with which we are all infected: sin, our propensity to do wrong. Hedges says,

"Not believing in God is not dangerous. Not believing in sin is very dangerous."³

Sin is what separates us from God. It fouls up our relationships. It causes ugly thoughts. It weighs us down and burdens our conscience. The guilt we try to suppress or rationalize away persists. We feel that the God we say we don't believe in will punish us for our sins.

Unless sin is dealt with, we'll never be at peace with ourselves. The Scriptures declare that one man lived a perfect life, qualifying him to be our sin-bearer. He died in our place to pay the penalty, to declare us "not guilty" before God.

By individually acknowledging what Jesus of Nazareth has done for us, we can be reborn and experience internal peace and the security of knowing we will live forever in heaven.

If Nietzsche was right and we don't need God anymore, what are these New Atheists screaming about? If God is dead, why make such a fuss?

Maybe it's because they (and we) have an internal knowledge that God made us and "has planted eternity in the human heart" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Look up at the stars some night (even through the smog), or watch the sunset. Do you think this world is an accident?

If you do, are you willing to bet your life on it? If those of us who have believed in Jesus are wrong, and there is no life after death, we have lost nothing by believing. But if the new and old atheists are wrong, and there is an ultimate judgment, you have everything to lose by not accepting what Jesus has done for you.

If you believed the old atheists, don't get fooled again.

Where do you want to spend your eternity? With the New Atheists? Or with your Maker?

Clark Pinnock, "God And The New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, September 1, 2008, http://www.articlearchives.com/society-social-assistance-lifestyle/religion-spirituality/1895338-1.html

Chris Hedges, interviewed by Charly Wilder for Salon.com, "I Don't Believe in Atheists," March 13, 2008, http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/03/13/chris_hedges/index.html

Ibid.

Fifty Years On…. Herman Wouk's This Is My God Revisited

2009-02-09T09:52:00.001-08:00

by Rich Robinson

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Herman Wouk's classic précis of Orthodox Judaism and personal statement of his faith, This Is My God. I have just pulled my dog-eared copy, probably handed down by my grandfather or father, from the shelves, and over the past several days I have read, or possibly re-read, it. I have little recollection of having gone through it as a child, though I may well have done so.

As of this writing, Wouk is still living, having been honored by a lifetime achievement award in 2008 at age 93. There is also a follow-up volume, The Will to Live On, which saw the light of day in the year 2000, but I have not yet obtained a copy. It would be interesting to see how his views have or have not changed over the past forty years, the span of a biblical generation.

This Is My God is something of an American Jewish classic, depicting mid-20th-century orthodox Judaism as well as Wouk's own journey to orthodoxy. Always a writer, he was not always "religious," the term my Reform family tended to use of the orthodox. Wouk writes humbly and even self-effacingly, at his most engaging when explaining Jewish practices through remembrances of real-life moments. Part of the book's appeal, I suppose, lies in the fact that he is not a rabbi declaiming from a pulpit but a novelist sharing with us what his faith means to him.

By his own statements, before becoming observant, Wouk's life—which in those days included comedy writing—was incomplete, "thin," and lacking an important component: his own identity. As he tells it, his life "left out my grandfather, the most impressive man I ever knew." And his grandfather was classically orthodox. Wouk's move away from secularity was a way of acknowledging that it was important to be a Jew, and that "the classic way" was in fact the best way of doing that. (Wouk throughout refers to Reform and Conservative as "dissenters," making it clear where he thinks mainstream Judaism lies, or should lie.)

The reader will find no screeds in This Is My God, though Wouk does not mince words when it comes to the dangers of assimilation. Neither will he or she find dogmatic views on questions of metaphysical truth. Wouk's beliefs about weighty matters such as God and the afterlife follow on the heels of his observance—true to Judaism in which actions have generally, if not always, been more important than doctrines. (Medieval Judaism had its share of beliefs which to deny meant to be excluded from the world to come.) The "decision to experiment with one's life by taking up the laws of Jewry does not even now seem to me a steep or wild gamble . . . [but rather] a chance at rejoining a great mainstream of ideas and—this is the real stake—a hope for finding God" (p. 335 in my 1961 Doubleday edition.) Regarding the afterlife, Wouk's grandfather was of the opinion that "we can never be sure of the hereafter" (p. 174). Reflects Wouk: "Is my grandfather eating leviathan and drinking hidden wine in the world beyond? For all anybody can tell me, he is. I think that that is more likely, that that his spirit is dead to God."

Embracing one's Jewish identity and finding God—those twin beacons have undoubtedly guided many Jews, including the "dissenters" and those who have dissented even from them, JUBUs and Jewish Renewal folks and many more. I suppose if one starts from the Jewish people, it makes sense to embrace what the majority have embraced. One wants to connect—both with countless past generations as well as with the God of Israel himself.

It is possible too, to start from the God of Israel and then ask what it means to be Jewish, and how that affects one's daily existence. Most of us are not competent in abstruse philosophical arguments for God's existence or for the veracity of the Bible. It is easier, more natural perhaps, to work inductively, from the people to their God, rather than deductively, from grand First Principles downwards. (There, I have thrown in two terms from philosophy, and I cannot be sure that I am using them in quite the right way.)

Enter a disruption. Jews are only too well acquainted with disruption. Pogroms, expulsions, the Holocaust—what disruption have we not faced over thousands of years? The disruption I have in mind, though, is of a different kind. It is the entrance of Jesus of Nazareth onto the stage of Jewish (and ultimately world) history some 2,000 years ago. Born into a Jewish home, moving among Jewish people, monotheists at that (idolatry had been finally rooted out by the Babylonian Exile)—this Jew had the effrontery to claim Messiahship and a special relationship with God, to assert that his death would be the atonement for sin—a Yom Kippur to end all Yom Kippurs—followed by his rising from the dead—is that not reserved for the End?—and that through him—"this is the real stake"—we can find God.

No need for philosophers, though philosophy can be of enormous value. God himself, it was said, entered Jewish life in a thorough-going way, more deeply than the many times God appeared to his people in the Hebrew Bible, more deeply even than at Sinai when amidst clouds and lightning and fear, God delivered to Moses the Law whose observance would come to characterize classic Judaism.

In this way, I propose, God allowed us to start from himself and only then ask, since I am a Jew, what does it mean to be a Jew? Very possibly, if Jesus of Nazareth is all of what he said of himself, and what others said of him, the answer is bound up in him. This is not to denigrate those who observed Torah as they best knew. I too have fond memories of a grandfather. But it is to say, that something greater than the Torah may be here, and that this Way—so the first Jewish followers of Jesus referred to their faith—can teach us how to embrace both Jewish identity and the God of Israel.

Perhaps Herman Wouk will yet have something more to say. I for one would welcome his thoughts, a half-century out from This Is My God, on Jesus of Nazareth and his meaning—if he thinks there is one—for Jews today.

A 2004 video interview with Wouk can be found at here.

A brief biography is at Wikipedia, which should be used as a general orientation, not as a final authority.

2008-09-11T16:24:00.001-07:00

A Further Clarification from David Brickner

I want to thank those of you who have commented either here or in e-mails in response to the media furor over my remarks at Wasilla Bible Church on August 17th. The comments attributed to me were taken out of context. The notion that the terrorist, bulldozer attack in Jerusalem this summer was God’s judgment on Israel for not believing in Jesus, is absolutely not what I believe. In retrospect, I can see how my rhetoric might be misunderstood and I truly regret that.

Of course I never expected the kind of magnifying glass scrutiny on a message where I was speaking extemporaneously. Let me be clear. I don’t believe that any one event whether a terrorist attack or a natural disaster is a specific fulfillment of or manifestation of a Biblical prediction of judgment. I don’t believe that the newspaper should be used to interpret the Bible. The Bible interprets the Bible.

I love my Jewish people and the land of Israel. I stand with and support her against all efforts to harm her or her people in any way. Please feel free to read my further explanations, in my Realtime article and in the interviews I did with Christianity Today and NBC.

Sincerely,
David Brickner

One Day in Wasilla

2008-09-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

by David Brickner

Last month I had the privilege of speaking at a large church in the small town of Wasilla, Alaska. At the time, few people outside of Alaska had heard of Wasilla; now almost everyone in America knows that it is the hometown of Sarah Palin, John McCain's Vice Presidential running mate. She not only grew up in Wasilla; she served as its mayor before being elected governor of Alaska. The Palins now attend the church where I spoke; in fact, during the second service the entire family stood before the congregation as their newborn son was dedicated to the Lord.

My message that morning from Matthew 23: 37-39, titled, "The Jerusalem Dilemma," made reference to sin and judgment, and the need for all people, both Jews or Gentiles, to repent and seek forgiveness through Y'shua. I pointed to the many conflicts and tragedies that we hear about daily on the news, as evidence that the whole world is suffering the effects of sin and stands under God's judgment; that we all need the grace and forgiveness of God found only in Christ. These are no more or less than basic tenets of the Christian faith. Then I spoke of God's great love for Israel and for the world, and shared the encouraging news of how many Israelis are now open to hearing about Jesus.

Once Mrs. Palin's candidacy as vice-president was announced, my message became a matter of sudden public interest. A blogger on Politico.com quickly tore a small portion of the message out of context and twisted my words into something ugly and hurtful:

"Brickner also described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God's 'judgment of unbelief' of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity."

That is not what I said and it is certainly not my belief.

However, this misinterpretation of my beliefs became fodder for the media's reporting. Scores of news reports online, in print and on TV have repeated Politico's fabrication as fact without further scrutiny, sometimes even furthering the distortion. Typical of this was political pundit Rachel Maddow, as she criticized Sarah Palin in an exchange with Chris Matthews. The following was taken from NBC's national coverage of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Maddow: Jews for Jesus founder [was] speaking at her church while she was there two weeks ago making incredibly, incredibly out of line comments about Israel and Jewish people. Saying that's why Israel was subject to terrorist attacks. It was God's judgment for not believing in Christ.

Matthews: What's the source?

Maddow: Politico.com

Some reports have even mistaken me for Sarah Palin's pastor, further comparing me to Jeremiah Wright who was Barak Obama's pastor. Last Saturday yet another story has come out in "The New York Times." As a result, I was interviewed by MSNBC News the following day.

I recognize that I am not the real target of this scrutiny; Sarah Palin is. By the time you read this, the whole story may have blown over for me and for Jews for Jesus, with the media moving on in search of other issues that might color people's view of all four presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Nevertheless, here are a couple of my reflections on the events of the past few days.

First, it is amazing how ready people are to believe a false report. Numerous friends and colleagues wrote to ask me if these reports were true. I'm sure it never would have occurred to them to think I would think or say such things if they had not seen them in print. How much quicker will strangers be to assume the views attributed to me were truthful? This experience has confirmed the old adage: you can't always believe what you read in the press.

I am certainly grateful for the institution of free speech and a free press. Jews for Jesus has relied on those freedoms as we proclaim the gospel. But freedom of speech can also be abused with deathly cruelty. For example, Raymond Donovan, President Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of Labor, was the victim of a long campaign of rumors and innuendo, which led to criminal prosecution. After incurring legal bills in excess of a million dollars, Donovan was acquitted of all charges. When he emerged from the courtroom, reporters swarmed around him vying for his comment. In response, Donovan posed the poignant question, "Where do I go to get my reputation back?"

Proverbs 18:21 tells us, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit." How true! Words that roll off this two-ounce slab of muscle and mucous membrane have an inordinate capacity to affect lives. Consider for example, the speeches of Nazi miscreant Adolf Hitler, contrasted with those of statesman Winston Churchill, during the Second World War. Both were eloquent orators. Hitler, on one side of the Channel, used his words to lead a nation into devilish crimes against humanity. Winston Churchill, on the other side of the Channel, used his rhetorical skill to lead a nation to the highest and most noble sacrifice, to England's credit in her finest hour.

We need to be discerning about what we listen to and what we are quick to believe. The Talmud asks, "Why do human fingers resemble pegs?" and then answers, "So that if one hears something unseemly, one can plug one's fingers in one's ears" (Ketuvot 5b).

We need to be especially discerning when it comes to negative or critical remarks, because those are the ones that people love to repeat. Bertrand Russell once dryly observed that no one ever gossips about another's secret virtues.

Second, I am grateful that God can use almost anything to further His work and to get out the gospel. Case in point: the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is a wire service for the Jewish print world, much like the Associated Press is for secular publications. The JTA released an article titled, "McCain team: Palin rejects views of church's Jews for Jesus speaker" in which they repeated the distortions of my views. However, they also provided a link to my entire sermon, both the transcript and the audio version. Anyone who chooses to check the source by reading or listening to this message is going to hear the Good News.

I will never avoid the subject of sin and its consequences, but my message says more about God's love in Christ than it does about judgment. Here is one brief excerpt:

"And so all of the controversy that we see swirling in Jerusalem is really a mirror that the world looks into to see the controversy within. The Jerusalem Dilemma is the Wasilla Dilemma; it's the dilemma of the human heart. And so it's important for us to notice Jesus' response to this unbelief, this rejection.

"'How often I've longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.' And Jesus says 'Come under My wings, O Jerusalem. There's a place of grace that I want to establish for you in spite of your unbelief.'

"And so committed was Jesus to that place of grace that not many days after He said this, He stretched out His arms on a cruel cross and shed His blood to pay the penalty for your sin and for mine. But because of who He is—because He is the Messiah, the Anointed One of God—death could not hold Him, and the grave could not keep Him, and He rose again from the grave. And now that same resurrection power of God is available to be applied to the lives of all those who trust Him, in Jerusalem and around the world. That is the answer to the Jerusalem Dilemma, the dilemma of unbelief—the mercy and grace of God, this place of grace that whosoever will may come under and find God's forgiveness."

You can read or listen to the entire message at our website if you like. Please pray that many people, especially unbelievers, will do so. May this be God's way of getting His gospel message out far beyond Wasilla!

An UNCONVENTIONAL Truth

2008-08-29T16:00:00.000-07:00

Extra!! Extra!! New Discovery Challenges Beliefs About Jesus!! Read all about it!!

2008-07-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

by Rich Robinson

Got your attention, didn’t it? Some media announcements about archaeological discoveries paint them as shaking the very foundations of faith in Jesus. The latest such has been described on many blogs over the past month. In a nutshell, the media storm concerns a stone tablet that is said to date from the 1st century B.C. and which appears to describe a pre-Jesus messianic figure who dies and rises on the third day.

Well, maybe. Or maybe not. CNN has a helpful video summarizing the possible implications of “Gabriel’s tablet” (you may have to sit through an online ad before the actual video plays). The announcer intones that the tablet is “raising blood pressure in the world of biblical scholarship,” though I have yet to see any scholars turning beet-red over the find—certainly not the scholars interviewed by CNN. That’s because at worst, the tablet doesn’t say what it’s supposed to. And at best, rather than overturning faith in Jesus, it simply affirms the Jewishness of the gospels.

Take Stephen Cook’s blog, for instance. Dr. Cook is professor of Old Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary. He posted this on July 9:

I've received many emails asking me what I think about all the recent buzz on “The Vision of Gabriel,” the stone tablet from (purportedly) the first century BCE that appears (according to Dr. Israel Knohl) to speak of a dying and resurrecting messiah …. Knohl reconstructs lines 80-81 of the text to read: "By three days, live, I Gabriel, command you, prince of the princes.”

Cook continues:

First, the stone was not found as part of a scientific dig, so its authenticity may never be assured. Second, the text is very fragmentary, so the reconstruction of its meaning will be open to debate. Indeed, reading the text through quickly, it is not immediately obvious that it refers to a suffering and dying messiah.

…
when journalists now look at "Gabriel's Revelation" and ask, "What impact would a pre-Christian reference to suffering, death and resurrection have on Christian scholarship?" (MSNBC), the answer is clear: This would be another piece of evidence showing that the idea of Christianity is a meaningful and valid idea. I.e., there were relevant messianic expectations around for Jesus to fulfill.It is hardly any sort of challenge to Christianity that the idea of a resurrection after three-days was around before Christ.

Then move over to Ben Witherington’s blog. Witherington teaches New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary, and he is a man of judicious opinions. One point he makes:

…the real implication of this for Jesus' studies should not be missed. Most radical Jesus scholars have argued that the passion and resurrection predictions by Jesus found in the Gospels were not actually made by Jesus—they reflect the later notions and theologizing of the Evangelists. But now, if this stone is genuine there is no reason to argue this way. One can show that Jesus, just as well as the author of this stone, could have spoken about a dying and rising messiah.

For those interested, many more links can be found on Mark Goodacre’s blog. Meantime, if anything, this discovery should end up raising the blood pressure only of those who think that Jewishness and faith in Jesus have nothing in common.

THE MOST INCONVENIENT TRUTH

2008-07-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

by Carolyne Rohrig

Going green. It's everywhere. Slogans like "Composting is a 'berry' good idea!" and "'Lettuce' make an impact on our community" are hugging the sides of buses in California. Times Square is unveiling its first solar-powered billboard at the end of the year. Boeing is developing a new jet that burns less fuel and cuts carbon emissions. Green is in. It's trendy. It’s big business. And it's also very Jewish. Eco-friendly Jewish farmers are promoting the "going green" lifestyle with their free-range livestock, fairly-traded foods, and agricultural cooperatives.

Soon we’ll be replacing our SUVs with hydrogen-powered cars for those road trips to the green hills for an organic picnic lunch of fairly-traded quinoa and organic iced tea in recyclable paper cups.

But no matter how you slice it, going green is inconvenient. It requires that we change our lifestyles in order to protect the environment. Just when we thought we had enough to worry about, Al Gore in his film, An Inconvenient Truth, wants us to add the climate crisis to the list. That’s inconvenient for a lot of us. Many believe him, others think it's a myth. But whatever side we're on, one thing is for certain. Everybody likes a clean environment.

Keeping our planet green is a noble task. It reminds us of our original mandate. The first habitat for humanity, the Garden of Eden, was green the minute God created it and he pronounced it good. Everything in it was luxurious and convenient—the water, the air, the ground, the plants and the animals. God entrusted Adam and Eve to care for and nurture it.

But all of it was turned on its head when Eve fell into temptation and chose to question God's love for her. She bit into the forbidden fruit and shared the experience with Adam. The universe gasped. The man and woman stood ashamed. And God knew that a toxic poison had just been released into his world that would make living very inconvenient. Immediately sin began to deconstruct everything God had made.

The problem of saving our planet goes much deeper than anything Al Gore or any green solution can solve. The Bible tells us that sin is the deadliest pollutant in the universe, and the inconvenient truth is that it took a radical and costly solution to get rid of it. Y'shua (Jesus) bore the Ultimate Inconvenient Truth, because he died for you and me. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

There’s nothing more inconvenient for a Jewish person than following Jesus as God’s Messiah. Friends and family won’t like it. But if we care for the fate of our planet enough to make difficult choices, shouldn't we be just as concerned for the fate of our souls?

Not everybody will believe this, just like not everybody recycles. But those who place their faith in the Messiah become new people with a new life and a new future. And that is good for the planet:

“The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the Lord,
they will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit in old age,
They will stay fresh and green,
Proclaiming, ‘The Lord is upright;
He is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.’”

Psalm 92:12-15

"God as I understand him"

2008-07-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

by Ruth Rosen

I've been listening to the radio far more often since receiving my recent birthday present to myself: a compact table-top radio/cd/alarm clock. And so it was that I heard a personal essay deemed important enough, or deep enough or who-knows-what-enough to be read aloud on National Public radio.

"I do not want to be a God-fearing man," the slightly southern sounding drawl intoned. The man went on tell how the religious institution in which he'd been raised was ruled by fear. He used words like "sledgehammer" and "intimidation" to describe his experience. He recalled how he'd been "disfellowshipped" as a teen, after having premarital sex with his girlfriend. He'd been offered the following choice: announce to the congregation that the behavior was a sin, repent and be forgiven, or leave the church. He made his choice, and has since gone on to discover "God as I understand him."

As this man explained (I am paraphrasing but this is pretty close) "I talk to God as I understand him every day, and though he does not answer, I know that he is there. I am not afraid of him. He does not condemn me. He fills me with peace and joy. And so, rather than the God I was told I should believe in, I chose the God I could believe in."

While this man came from a "Christianized" background, I have heard or read testimonials by people who have left their synagogues for similar reasons. After all, the God whom many people don't understand, the God who actually wants to have a say about our personal lives, did not originate in what is commonly known as the New Testament. Everything we learn about him there is built upon and expanded from the Hebrew Scriptures.

"God as I understand him" is extremely popular, in part because he does not talk back to us. Just plain God who revealed himself in the Hebrew Scriptures (and has lots to say about things we might feel are none of his business) would probably not win an election on any conceivable ticket. But then he doesn't need to; he's God.

Many insist, "No one can know the truth about God," yet God claimed through the Jewish Scriptures, "And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13).

The catch to the "all your heart" part is the implied willingness to give up our favorite past times or prejudices, should they turn out to be, for reasons that we may or may not understand, contrary to or offensive to God.

God doesn't expect us to be perfect. But He can't forgive us if we think we've done nothing wrong, and we can't understand what's right or wrong if we treat God as the divine re-enforcer of our own choices.

"God as I understand him" has no actual power other than what we choose to impart from our own understanding. The real, all-powerful God whom we don't always understand says his ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:9) He is holy as well as merciful, righteous as well as compassionate. He is good and just and absolutely wonderful.

If you are interested in God as He understands Himself, why not pick up a Bible . . . and ask him to help you read it with an open mind.

Iron Man: The Stark Truth

2008-06-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

by Arielle Rothbard

SPOILER WARNING: if you have not seen this movie, the following may contain a spoiler.

“The man who has everything... and nothing.”
That is the paradox of Tony Stark.

Stark lives the American dream: wealth, intelligence, power, sex, and social status in excess.

Shaken from his pleasure-coated reality by three month’s captivity in Afghanistan, Stark rethinks his personal philosophy. An Afghani surgeon installs an electro-magnetic device in his chest to keep him alive, creating a stalemate between the shrapnel and his flesh the way Tony once hoped to keep order between countries. The surgeon urges Stark, “don’t waste your life.” The prideful, alcoholic, weapon-manufacturing millionaire, takes it to heart.

Upon returning to the states, Stark globally announces that he will no longer produce weapons. Ironically, his new vision is to perfect the armored suit he used to escape Afghanistan. The suit becomes the “bigger stick” Stark’s father insisted was necessary to achieve peace. Stark no longer builds weapons: he becomes one.

Tony Stark desperately wishes to impact society for good. Once he sees his good intentions have gone bad, his heart is changed. He finds purpose and motivation by creating a larger-than-life “iron man” suit to help him ensure justice and peace.

The problem: every issue Stark tackles is directly connected to him. His worldview remains within his personal circle of events.

In the process of making restitution for his actions, he jeopardizes the lives of others.

Iron Man must cope with his inadequacies. He constructs armor for himself, giving himself physical weight, prominence, and power, making himself unavoidable. Yet, he is vulnerable. Powerless, he relies on a self-made mechanism to supply power for his suit and keep metal shards from puncturing his heart. He lives moment by impulsive moment and by the time you calculate in his alcoholism, you have a man with substantial problems.

Iron Man’s plotline is strengthened—intentionally or not—by biblical parallels. The hero and villain fighting to the death, the hero grazing death, but emerging victorious—these and many other aspects of the plot are familiar to Bible-readers. It is no coincidence that Stan Lee, J.K. Rowling, the Wachowski brothers and other storytellers throughout history shaped their protagonist/antagonist climax from the Word of God.

Even Iron Man and Neo need reconciliation with God, our maker. The relationship that God wants to have with us, his most advanced creation, has been destroyed by a weapon more potent than the atom bomb: sin. Sin is anything that goes against God’s moral code: little, white lies to murder.

A true change of heart, a life devoted to serving others requires internal transformation. King David says in Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit in me.” The psalmist understood the importance of a repentant heart.

Creating weapons is a self-perpetuating cycle. No individual can alter that sequence, no matter the technology. Humanity’s only hope is God. Jesus, the ultimate hero, gave his life to reconcile us to God. The reunification process between creator and creation builds love and peace, radiating out to everyone.

Iron Man is a fictional character. His spiritual issues are hypothetical. Ours are not. The question we all face: what will I do about my heart?

Arielle Rothbard is a Jewish believer in Jesus who just finished her first year at the Fashion Insitute of Technology in Manhattan.

Why Jehoshaphat Wasn’t Jumpy

2008-06-11T11:41:00.000-07:00

by Matt Sieger

“And the kingdom of Jehoshaphat was at peace, for his God had given him rest on every side.” (II Chronicles 20:30)

One of the first issues Barack Obama had to tackle after clinching the Democratic presidential nomination last week was Israel’s security. In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Obama claimed that Bush administration policies on Iran and Iraq have made Israel less secure.

“Because of the war in Iraq,” said Obama, “Iran . . . is emboldened, and poses the greatest strategic challenge to the United States and Israel in the Middle East in a generation.”

Two days earlier, John McCain made the opposite argument to the AIPAC. He said that Obama’s plan for a phased U.S. pullout from Iraq would result in the formation of a “potential terrorist sanctuary” that would threaten Israel’s security and “invite further intervention from Iraq’s neighbors, including a very much emboldened Iran.”

Senator Joe Lieberman, McCain’s most prominent Jewish supporter, said that Obama is mistaken in blaming Iran’s resurgence on the Iraq war. “If Israel is in danger today,” he said, “it is not because of American foreign policy. It’s because Iran is a terrorist, expansionist state.”

When a Hamas official said in an April radio interview that the group would like to see Obama elected president, McCain seized on the opportunity to portray Obama as a Hamas-supported candidate. But when Obama issued a statement last week in which he called Israel’s security “sacrosanct” and promised to support an “undivided” Jerusalem, Hamas reversed itself and said it doesn’t want either McCain or Obama to win!

Will the Obama or McCain approach make Israel more secure? Both strategies can’t be right. Both could be wrong. Or insufficient.

It’s not as if this is the first time that Israel has been threatened. Around 850 B.C., the Moabites and Ammonites set out to attack Judah and Jerusalem. King Jehoshaphat called out to God in prayer, saying, “We have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you” (II Chronicles 20:12). Then God told Jehoshaphat through a prophet, “You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you” (II Chronicles 20:17). When the men of Judah went out to meet the enemy, God caused such confusion that the Moabites and Ammonites destroyed each other!

I know it’s not politically correct (or expedient) for candidates to admit that they don’t know what to do about the powder keg that is the Middle East today. But admitting that and looking to God worked for Jehoshaphat. I hope that our next president will be supportive of Israel and savvy about the situation - but in any case, Israel's survival will not be determined by Obama or McCain or whoever else may one day be in the White House.

Israel’s only real security is in the Almighty. As the psalmist said, “Where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip – he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:2-4).

I would welcome your comments about Israel’s security—or our own. Where do you look for your security?

My Thoughts on Rami Shapiro

2008-05-07T09:59:00.000-07:00

by Pseudo-Rooney

*Recently a cache of articles was found that sound remarkably like Andy Rooney. However, scientists have proven that Andy Rooney was not in fact the author of these articles; the unknown writer has been dubbed “Pseudo-Rooney” by scholars. Since no else has seen fit to publish his writings, we’ve decided to go ahead. Here is one of his recent pieces.

I just read an article in Tikkun magazine. I don’t normally take Tikkun, but a friend showed me a short article that caught my interest. It was called “Outgrowing Our Need for Promised Lands and Chosen Peoples” by someone named Rami Shapiro, and it was written in honor of Israel’s 60th birthday.

If Israel were a person instead of a country, I’m not sure how it would feel about Rabbi Shapiro’s piece. He starts out declaring his fondness for both Israel and Massachusetts, and that he counts both as nice places to visit. That’s a good beginning. I like Israel, and New York, and California; I’ve visited the first and lived in the second two. Never liked Boston much though. Too many of those roundabouts.

But then Rabbi Shapiro goes on to say that he doesn’t believe in a Promised Land, and doesn’t believe in a Chosen People—“silly,” he calls it—doesn’t believe in the supernatural, and lists out a couple of other things he doesn’t believe in either. Then he waxes positively philosophical. Who, he asks, has a “right” to land? Who has a right to exist, anyway? What does “exist” even mean? “There is no right to exist,” he says. All there is, he suggests, are defensive powerplays against the next guy.

That sounds pretty grim. It kind of reminds me of that old radio ad that was meant to get people to be better drivers. They had this guy with a husky, menacing voice, and he would get on the air and say, “Watch out…for the other guy.” It could have been a trailer for one of those slasher movies, and I don’t remember if there were fewer accidents after it ran. I think it probably made people more paranoid.

For Rabbi Shapiro there’s no God and no right to exist. Which brings me to his last sentence, which is that we need to recognize the “one Reality and one moral code: justice and compassion for all.”

Now, I like the idea of justice and compassion. Who doesn’t? I just don’t see how you get there if you don’t even believe in a right to exist, because that suggests that maybe it’s OK to kill the next guy. Somehow, Rabbi Shapiro seems to think that starting from a real God ends up “soaking sand in blood.”

Rabbi Shapiro wants to celebrate Israel’s 60th, her history, her future, her potential. I’m all for the celebrations, but if the good rabbi wants to relegate God to the invention of a couple of immature people, I’m not sure someone else won’t come along with a different idea of justice and compassion. Without God, how does Rabbi Shapiro know justice when he sees it, anyway? He has a right to his beliefs, of course. But I think that justice has to be rooted in a real God, or else all we are left with are people trying to crush one another out of existence. Can Rabbi Shapiro be an advocate for compassion and justice without believing in a built-in dignity to human beings that comes from God? Only time will tell if the rabbi’s “growth” is someone else’s stagnation.

Meantime—Happy 60th Birthday, Israel.

Expelled

2008-04-02T09:56:00.000-07:00

by Rich Robinson

To re-phrase Chaucer,

“When April with her sweet showers,

the drought of March has parched to the root,…

Then do folk get expelled…”

Yes, this April marks two expulsions, in a manner of speaking. Passover (beginning the night of April 19) is not really an expulsion like the bad ones when Jews were kicked out of Spain, Portugal, and other countries. It’s really about liberation, which came about when Pharaoh, having had it up to here with the plagues, essentially said, “Get out of here already!” His expelling us was God’s way of freeing us—a good expulsion.

The day before Passover, April 18, marks the release of Ben Stein’s film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, one of the latest in a series of advocacy films. Ben is talking about the expulsion that comes when proponents of Intelligent Design are “persecuted” in academic settings and denied the right of free inquiry, expelled from the academic establishment. In this case, expulsion is the opposite of freedom—a bad expulsion. (Check out the film’s web site, by the way, it is really quite funny and thought-provoking.)

There’s a third “expulsion” worth mentioning at this time of year. Jews who declare that they believe in Jesus are routinely “expelled” from among the Jewish people. I put “expelled” in quotes because there is really no authority that can expel or excommunicate Jews from the Jewish people. For every rabbi who might have excommunicated someone for something, one can find another rabbi who doesn’t agree with the first rabbi. Jewishness comes from God via parents, and one’s people are one’s people by virtue of a common history, culture, and destiny. A Jew can no more be expelled from the Jewish people than someone can be expelled from the human race because they believe the Creator is a frog from Neptune…or because they believe in Intelligent Design. But there are still some who would like to see such an expulsion, and good riddance to those pesky Jews for Jesus.

People can be expelled from countries, and they can be expelled from academia. This is a good time of year to contemplate what freedom means: freedom from slavery, freedom of inquiry, freedom of religion. I don’t know what your seder will be like this year, but at mine I am thinking of celebrating not only our redemption from Pharaoh, but the possibilities of redemption from suppression of thought of all kinds. Will anyone join me? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?