Signs of the Times - Growing Christian anti-Torah Hostility Comments may be sent to: A recent visitor to the YashaNet web site wrote the following to us:
One way to understand what this reader is talking about is to visit any Internet Christian "chat room" and start talking about the Torah. My own experience when doing this has been consistent with the above person's comments regarding the "Christian response." Upon making a few statements in the chat room, about Torah being God's will for the believer, I quickly become the center of attention. One Christian person after another starts quoting the standard verses about "not being under the law," or "having liberty in Christ," or "Jesus fulfilling the law." When I persist with arguments showing that these verses are being misused and counter with verses that promote Torah in the "New Testament," I am accused of "Judaizing," or "trying to bring people into bondage." If I have the opportunity to show how the teachings of Yeshua and the "New Testament" writers have been taken out of their Hebrew context and twisted by the "Church" for almost 1900 years, the hostility level goes through the roof. What is interesting is that this type of "community anger" does not surface when a person from any other point of view enters the chat room and "challenges" mainstream Christianity. Should a Mormon, Jehovah Witness, pagan or atheist start a dialogue, even in an aggressive fashion, Christians consistently react by taking the high road, calmly explaining to this person the error of their belief system, and why they believe that Christianity is God's chosen faith. Why the calm demeanor toward everyone, except those teaching that Torah should be part of the faith of anyone following God? A question to ask here is, "If something is not a threat, how do you treat it?" Christians views these other groups as people who not having realized, as they have, that Christianity is God's will for everyone. There is no "threat" in terms of someone telling them that they may be in major error in their understanding of what Scripture says. All of these teachings, in their view, either; a) came later as a perversion of true Christianity, or, b) have always existed as evil in the world. This is not the same regarding the person preaching Torah. This is indeed a threat, as in this case they are confronted with a teaching that predates Christian doctrine and claims to be the true faith of Yeshua and His first followers -- a teaching that claims to hold an interpretation of Scripture in its original (Hebrew) context, showing Christianity to be in grievous error. Internet chat rooms are not the only place where we see this anti-Torah hostility. Christian web sites are starting to feature articles, boldly speaking out against Torah and Torah-based faith in Yeshua. Some are going as far as saying that the movement to return people to Torah is the end-time heresy that Paul warned "Christians" to watch out for. An example of this is found on a web site for a Christian group called Endtimes Ministries. Here you will find an article called A Critique of the Hebrew Roots Movement (HRM) - The Judaizing of the Christian Church. This article makes the following statement:
The same article goes on to say:
The following point from the Endtimes Ministries' Statement of Faith clearly reveals where they are coming from. In typical Christian fashion, their interpretation of the "Old Testament" is based on how they first interpret the "New Testament":
Another web site, full of anti-Torah articles is, Watch Unto Prayer, which has an affiliation to The Trinity Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey. The level of anti-Jewishness on this site can be seen in one of their feature articles,
"The Six-Pointed Star - The Mark of the Beast." This article is posted
under a section called "The Messianic One World Religion." It is presented by PROPHETIC
RESEARCH GROUP - A Biblical Ministry to Women. The article associates the Jewish Star
of David, the Mogen David, with the "mark of the beast" from the book
of Revelation.
One of the foremost examples of modern Christian anti-Semitism is the Lamb's Heart Website, which features an article called: THE GREAT WHORE OF BABYLON: Israel and Old Pharisee Talmudic Judaism. This group's teaching is that the Judaism of Yeshua's time was a Satanic counterfeit of "true Judaism." It goes on to say that true Judaism today is "belief in Jesus," which is defined as the Torah of God being done away with as Jesus "has replaced that given to Moses." The article states:
This group also promotes the idea that the Star of David, is a Satanic symbol:
Though not all Christian groups hold to these specific teachings, the three shown above represent the logical conclusion of Christianity. Simply stated; With regard to Torah, Christianity and Torah-based faith in Yeshua (Nazarene Judaism) are mutually exclusive. If Christianity with its anti-Torah doctrine (i.e., "we're not under the Law"), is God's truth, then Nazarene Judaism is promoting a lie. Conversely, if Nazarene Judaism, with its teaching that Torah is God's will for the believer in Yeshua, is God's truth, then Christianity's position on Torah, is nothing less than that of the Whore of Babylon. Which one is the great apostasy predicted by the Jewish Messiah Yeshua and his talmidim? Comments on this article may be sent to . |