No.

They believe Jesus is the Messiah. The Messiah promised to Israel. The Messiah prophesied in the Tanakh.

You disagree with them. Just because you disagree with them that you can be Jewish and believe in Jesus as the Messiah doesn't make that deceptive.

Read the book of Acts in the New Testament. You would find that one of the big questions in the book is how Gentiles can believe in the Jewish Messiah.

They don't believe they are mutually exclusive categories, since they believe Jesus is the Messiah.

Belief in One God = Jewish
Belief in Christ = Christian

Mutually exclusive.

__________________
---Shosh

Christians believe in one God.

But before we go forward with this, I would ask what is the final arbiter of what is Jewish? I would state that since God set apart the Jewish people, He is the final arbiter.

According to Christians, Jesus is the messiah predicted by the Jews. They said it was going to happen, and it did. So, oy, what's da problem?

The "Messiah" is a concept invented by the Jews, which later became a sticking spot for all the believers in Christ, as they saw Jews as being stubborn and evil for not believing what they predicted. They rotten people for not being affected by the super-Jesus-love.

I find that hilarious!


This is what happens...

geoffrobinson, you are wrong. Certain so-called "christian" missionaries will use deception, misinformation, and frankly dishonest practices to try to convert others to the Christian religion. I am sure they are a very small percentage and they do not represent the vast majority of good Christian missionaries who do wonderful here and countries abroad.

Please read up a little on the 2,000 year history of the Christiandom's attempt to convert the Jewish people through intimidation, threats, violence and death. I found it interesting that during the Middle Ages in Europe, Jewish communities were forced to participate in degrading and humiliating "debates" that were rehersed and staged to make the Christians always the victors and the Rabbis defending Judaism always looking like fools and losers. In one city, the Rabbis refused to go along with this charade and actually won the debate. Of course, the Rabbis and their families were all killed, their synogogues destroyed, and the Jews were terrorized afterwards.

One more thing, certain Christian missionaries have engaged in such loathsome practices of deception in the mainly Buddhist country of Sri Lanka, that it became a problem of national concern. I am a Buddhist, and I was in Sri Lanka six, seven years ago. The newspapers were full of stories of how Christian missionaries were trying to bribe children with candy, sponsor "Buddhist" events, etc. It was so bad it reached the government and was debated nationally.

I adore and admire the Jewish people for holding steadfastly to their religion and not submitting to the aggressive attempts to prosletyze and convert them to Christianity!

__________________
"Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes." -- Walt Whitman, Leaves Of Grass

A superb book on the history of Jewish/Christian relations over the centuries is James Carroll's award-winning NY Times bestselling book "Constantine's Sword." Written by a former Roman Catholic Priest. I highly recommend it!

__________________
"Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes." -- Walt Whitman, Leaves Of Grass

Are you a bigot towards catholics?

Finally saw the actual flyer today. At the very top it specifically states "messianic congregation" and then goes on to invite people to Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur/Sukkot services. They also explain that they're located in a church. So I suppose that as long as people understand what "messianic" means, they're not being deceptive.

In the case at hand, you can't distinguish in your mind the difference between disagreement and deception. Even after it has been explained in this thread. So fundamental in your mind is the distinguishing of Jewishness and following Jesus, that you don't seem able to get your mind around the fact that others don't believe the same way you do. Jewishness and following Jesus aren't mutually exclusive.

I have. I went to Europe for a month to study the Holocaust in-depth, which involved a year or more study prior to the trip. I did a paper on the Lutheran Church's (of Germany) response to anti-semitism since the Holocaust.

Towards the end you mention, I would recommend reading the book "Anguish of the Jews." It is quite good for giving a recap of the history of anti-semitism prior to the Holocaust.

Christianity has a long record of false followers who have tarnished its name. There are also sadly instances of anti-Semitism of genuine followers of Jesus. Despite this, we must keep in mind this points to our inherent sin nature.

I remember mentioning to my Chasidic friend that there was Jewish persecution of Christians, esp. early on in the history of Christianity. He was quite surprised to hear about this. This persecution predates Christian persecution of Jews or Judaism. And I believe it caused later ill-will in the Christian community.

I don't condone in the least the lack of forgiveness in many segments of the Christian and their generalizations to all of the Jewish people about sins of the few. But, what I'm trying to say here is that Judaism is not false because Jews did bad things. Nor is Christianity false due to bad things done by Christians, especially when Christians explicitly contradicted the teaching of Jesus or the New Testament (read Romans 11 for example).

Any hard proof or just the reporting of newspapers?

This, at first blush, sounds like the allegations of people who don't like the fact that Christian evangelism was making inroads. Unless I got solid proof or verification, that's how I would treat those reports. And if I got solid proof, I would condemn such activities. I'd be curious as to who they were and how much support they got and from whom.

I did a Google search on some of the comments you made and the post I'm referring to now is the only pertinent entry I could find.

So stop it with the "certain so-called 'Christian' missionaries. Name names or stay quiet with charges you have no basis in relating.

That would be gossip at best. Slander at worst.

Engaging people today with a message they are free to consider, consider and reject, or not consider doesn't sound very aggressive to me.