Christians without Christ

Every time someone starts talking about "Messianic Jews" (more commonly known a Jews for Jesus) all I want to say is "can a person be Christian without believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ and/or that they need to be 'saved' through Jesus"? For those of you who don't know, one of the biggest deal-breakers between Christianity and Judaism is the fact that the Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth is a divine being they refer to as the messiah through whom they can achieve salvation; Judaism, while being a messianic religion, neither believe that Jesus is the Messiah (Ha Moshiach) nor do they believe that Ha Moshiac is a divine being. No offense to my Christian friends, the whole Jesus as a divine being, triad of father, son and holy ghost and/or praying to saints seems downright antithetical to my very monotheistic yiddishe beliefs.

The reason I bring this up is because a little more than a week after my [now former] admin asked me if I had ever gone to services at a local "messianic synagogue" and I made it clear that I consider my religion a "no saviour" zone, she sent me the following email:

Hello, and almost happy Purim!

I hope you are enjoying this wonderful weather! I am.

I would like to invite you to something that is coming up. They are going to have a Passover Seder at my church on April 1st at 5:30pm, and it will be hosted and explained in light of "Jesus in the Passover Seder" by Jeffrey Miller of Messianic Minutes (the radio program). http://www.messianicminutes.com/ in case you are interested. I think Jeffrey Miller is the guy on the right. He was an athiest before coming to Jeshua as Messiah. I got an extra ticket, and I would love it if you would be my guest. I think you would find it, if nothing else, very informative. There will also be lots of food! :-) Food is ALWAYS good. My first Seder was when my friend [INSERT GENERIC JEWISH FIRST NAME]'s dad, Mr. [INSERT GENERIC JEWISH LAST NAME] was still alive. It was deeply moving and such a blessing for me to see how everything ties together. As you know, I am a student of the Tenach anyway, so to everything come together in all the typology was incredible.

Anyway, let me know if you are interested! :-)

If some devout Christians to be Christian because they don't believe [insert your favorite Christian bible version] bible as the complete and inerrant word of G-d and they will go to hell for not being "real Christians", how can Christians who refuse to admit they're Christian be in any better shape?

Frankly, like most Jews, I don't live my life in the hopes of some great afterlife. The only difference between the way I live my life now and how I would live my life if the existence of G-d were unequivocally disproven would be the fact I'd probably stop conversing with him. My belief in G-d is predicated on a belief that morality/justice/righteousness is not arbitrary and, therefor, neither is G-d. You can use the finest Cognac and truffles for your paté and call it foie gras but it's still chopped liver, and it still doesn't suit my palate.

Tags: religion; Christianity; Judaism; evangelism; jews for jesus

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