ISRAELI E NEWS
Filed under Judaism, Christianity, Christian Zionism, Opinion Editorials, Missionising, Christian Fundamentalism -on Tuesday, April 01, 2008By: Taylor, Penina
Born Jewish, as a teenager Penina embraced Christianity. Having gone to Bible College and served in a variety of lay leadership positions within Christianity, Penina eventually made her way to “Messianic Judaism” where she served in as a leader in the Messianic movement. This became a catalyst for her to explore authentic Jewish literature and Torah observance; forcing her to confront some real challenges to her faith. Her search for answers was assisted by the Baltimore center of Jews for Judaism which helped her examine the scriptural bases for her faith and explore the spiritual beauty of Judaism. In July of 2000, after 17 years of involvement with Christianity, Penina made a complete return to Judaism.
Penina Taylor’s extensive experience in Christian and Messianic leadership as well as training in evangelism, outreach, and missions over 17 years has given her a unique perspective on missionary groups that target the Jewish Community. Since her return to Judaism, Penina has continually worked in the Jewish community to encourage Jewish people of all backgrounds to explore their own faith before looking to other religions.
Thursday, March 20, 2008, marked an interesting change in the dynamics between the Orthodox Jewish communities and the Evangelical Christian and “Messianic” communities in Israel. The event which sparked this change was the explosion of a package which severely injured the teenage son of a Messianic Pastor in Ariel, a city in Israel.
Despite the fact that the MO was typical of Palestinian terrorists, particularly since it was packed with shrapnel, and despite the fact that the Al Aksa Brigade is reported to have taken credit for it, according to the Ma’an news agency, and despite the fact that the Pastor has, for some time, had a fatwa on his head (a Muslim death threat) for having converted Muslims to Christianity, the family, messianic community and legal representation continue to look towards the religious Jewish community, whom they typically call “extremists” for the perpetrator(s) of the crime.
Although it has yet to be shown that the family has ever received an actual death threat from a religious Jew, and despite the fact that this does not fit the way even the most extreme religious Jews operate, it would seem that the Messianic community is using this event as a springboard for legal change in their status in this country. Citing past harassment by the religious Jewish community and annoying protests that have sometimes ended in fisticuffs, Caleb Meyers, legal council for the Messianic community and the Ortiz family is milking this for all its worth. When all is said and done, what we are really left with is the necessity to clearly define the terms, “harassment” and “freedom of religion”. The Messianic community has been very adamant that they have been harassed on a regular basis. But what is harassment?
According to the dictionary definition, harassment is “to irritate or torment persistently”. Certainly, the protests that have taken place in many Messianic communities, including Arad and Beer Sheva would qualify, but what about proselytizing? Doesn’t that qualify as harassment? If someone comes up to you and tells you about Jesus, and it is unsolicited, does that qualify as harassment? To some of us, it does. What about if that unsolicited event doesn’t stop? What if you tell the person that Jesus isn’t the messiah, so they continue on, pounding you with verse after verse, trying to prove that he is? Does this qualify as harassment? I would dare say it does. Don’t Jewish people living in a Jewish country have the right to exist without being harassed simply because they don’t believe what someone else does? Why doesn’t the cry of “harassment” go both ways?
And what about the claim that the messianic community is being persecuted? While I suppose that persecution is in the eye of the beholder, I would really like to see Christians in Israel prove that they are being persecuted when lined up side by side with Christians in places like Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka, and Laos, where being arrested, tortured and killed simply because of what they believe occurs on a regular basis. No, the Church in Israel is not being persecuted. At best it is being limited or restricted, but that is not the same as persecuted.
Freedom of religion is the freedom to believe whatever you want. It is not, however, the freedom to do or act however you want, even in the name of religion. No Christian in the United States, for example, would have a problem with restrictions concerning bigamy, incest, human sacrifice, or any other number of crimes which might be related to one’s religious beliefs. Look at the Mormon Church in Utah, the events that happened in Waco, Texas or the “Heaven’s Gate” cult suicides. In the United States freedom of religion does not mean freedom of behaviour, and neither should it in Israel.
The State of Israel has not said that people cannot believe in Jesus if they want to. What they have said, at certain times, is that those who believe in Jesus do not have the right to persuade others to come to that same belief. While Christians, who’s right to spread their beliefs goes unfettered in the United States, baulk at the idea that their ability to spread the Gospel might be restricted in what is supposed to be a democratic country, the truth is that this is not a right to which they are entitled. In Israel, we are free to be Jews, however we define that on an individual basis. However, freedom of religion ceases - as it should - to be such when freedom to believe crosses the line into freedom to behave.
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