Almost 50
What is almost 50? Almost 50 is the number of Messianic congregations and ministries that are affiliated with the Southern Baptist Messianic Fellowship (SBMF). Mind you, the SBMF does not even include all of the Southern Baptist Messianic congregations that currently exist!
But let's turn this over in our mind for a bit. Almost 50 organizations that present themselves as practicing Judaism when they are really practicing the Southern Baptist version of Christianity. Almost 50 groups that use Jewish symbols and prayers (many of which did not exist until long after Jesus death) to convince Jews to become Christians, in the guise of being a "Messianic Jew." Almost 50 outreaches to Jewish people claiming to practice "authentic Judaism" when their Judaism neither matches that of the current time nor of the time of Jesus.
Almost 50 organizations must involve a considerable investment of time and money. This is the part that baffles me. There are estimated to be around 13.5 Jews in the world yet the amount of money spent on converting Jews to Christianity is astronomical. To put it in perspective, Jews for Jesus, a group founded by a Baptist minister that runs independently from the Southern Baptist Convention, has roughly a $20 million annual budget. That is more than $1 for every Jew in the world! How much money must be spent for nearly 50 groups to be staffed and operational?
The Southern Baptist Convention's relationship with the Jewish people can best be summarized as "long on money, short on honesty."
But let's turn this over in our mind for a bit. Almost 50 organizations that present themselves as practicing Judaism when they are really practicing the Southern Baptist version of Christianity. Almost 50 groups that use Jewish symbols and prayers (many of which did not exist until long after Jesus death) to convince Jews to become Christians, in the guise of being a "Messianic Jew." Almost 50 outreaches to Jewish people claiming to practice "authentic Judaism" when their Judaism neither matches that of the current time nor of the time of Jesus.
Almost 50 organizations must involve a considerable investment of time and money. This is the part that baffles me. There are estimated to be around 13.5 Jews in the world yet the amount of money spent on converting Jews to Christianity is astronomical. To put it in perspective, Jews for Jesus, a group founded by a Baptist minister that runs independently from the Southern Baptist Convention, has roughly a $20 million annual budget. That is more than $1 for every Jew in the world! How much money must be spent for nearly 50 groups to be staffed and operational?
The Southern Baptist Convention's relationship with the Jewish people can best be summarized as "long on money, short on honesty."
posted by Jason Levinson | 8:40 PM
4 Comments:
Your math is off. Our congregation survived the first 3 years on $2000 a year. Also, the SBMF does not consume the entire SBC budget, but only a sliver. Third, most Messianic congregations light candles, say Shemah and read the Parsha in Hebrew each week, something not done in a standard SBC church. In short, your wild speculations have no basis in fact.
1. I never commented on the budget of your particular congregation but on the overall cost of time and money of the church planting to the SBC.
2. I never claimed that the SBMF consumes the entire SBC budget
3. Whether you do Jewish acts or not, SBMF congregations are by definition, Southern Baptist. Further, the Messianic theology is a Christian theology. Doing Jewish acts does not change this. Moreover, the entire Messianic movement originally comes from 1800's Christianity, not Judaism.
I'm sorry I got confused. You were talking about Jews for Jesus, a Christian missions organization started by a member of the Conservative Baptist Convention (not the SBC), and not a Messianic organization. You were the one who made the leap from talking about the operating costs of a missions organization and the staffing and operational costs of 50 Messianic congregations. Again, if our congregation is a model, 50x20k = $1M, and most of that to keep the lights on to teach Torah.
What happens in most Messianic congregations is consistent with the practices of a typical congregation within Judaism. The difference is the heavy emphasis on Torah, Tanakh, and being light to the nations. Their philosophies are not based on the writings of a 12th Century neo-Aristotelian philosopher (Maimonides).
50 Congregations...their total budget for housing, clergy, electricity plus the costs for church planters like the former head missionary Jim Sibley is most certainly above $1 million.
Moreover, Messianic "Judaism" is not well based in the Torah or Tanach. For instance, the Messianic movement (as all branches of Christianity) claims that Jesus' death is a sin sacrifice, in complete disagreement with the laws of sacrifice from Leviticus. I recently wrote a piece on this error: http://messianicjewish.blogspot.com/2011/10/temple-sacrifice-versus-jesus.html
Further, the Messianic movement claims that the only way to atonement is through blood sacrifice, which is also Biblically incorrect. Here are a few links to previous posts in which I list a few of the verses in the Bible which show the claim to be clearly false:
http://messianicjewish.blogspot.com/2010/08/verses-of-atonement-proverbs-166.html
http://messianicjewish.blogspot.com/2010/09/verses-of-atonement-isaiah-111-18.html
http://messianicjewish.blogspot.com/2010/09/verses-of-atonement-isaiah-557.html
http://messianicjewish.blogspot.com/2010/09/verses-of-atonement-jonah-3-4-10.html
Last but not least, the Messianic movement has never been a Jewish movement. It is an ethnic ministry concept from the Church of England which was adopted by other Christian denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention. It does not represent any form of Judaism that has ever been practiced at any point in time, including at the time of Jesus.
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