On one of the radio shows I was on this past week at Progressive Blitz.com a caller asked about a character who calls himself Rabbi Messer wondering if a Jewish Rabbi can be Dominionist. Well, yes, but they are as Jewish as the Christian Dominionists are Christian. I will turn this over to my partner in this research and writing about religious extremism, Alex Bird. Her answer follow…

“Personally, I think the two best resources I’ve seen (aimed at a Jewish audience) explaining how “Messianic Judaism” is not compatible with traditional Judaism and how “Messianic Judaism” is essentially “kosher NARasitism” are the following:

http://www.jewsforjudaism.org (A site aimed at persons re-entering the Jewish fold and working to prevent recruitment by “Messianics”)
http://www.jewsonfirst.org (probably the first explicitly Jewish group fighting religious nationalism, particularly Christian nationalism, and attempts to recruit Jewish people into dominionist movements).

Having grown up in an Assemblies church with a “Messianic temple” (probably the majority of “Messianic” groups are in fact de facto Assemblies of God missionary churches portraying themselves as “temples” or “synagogues”)–generally they will do all they can to explicitly NOT promote themselves as Christian, but rather as “completed Jews” or “Jews who also believe in Jesus as Mosaich” (and I’ve also seen the same thing done with Islam as well, based on both religions seeing Jesus/Isa/Yeshua as a leader and (in Islam) a prophet but not *divine* per se).  This includes bogus Seders, the de facto missionary-pastor referring to himself as “rabbi”, and the like.

Strip away the skin, though, and it becomes very obvious that it’s the same thing as those “Messianic Powwows” Mary Glazier throws–it’s all basically a form of gross cultural appropriation of an outer skin of cultural context whilst the actual theology is NARasitic pentecostalism (or, in the case of Jews for Jesus–actually an outlier as far as “Messianic” groups go–a particularly cultic version of Southern Baptist theology).

In the particular case of Simchat Torah, it becomes very obvious with the “bible” section (http://store.torah.tv/browse.cfm/adult-youth/2,8.html) what the “Jewish cultural wrapping” is hiding–very likely we’re dealing with a “kosher pentecostal” group, as they almost inevitably are using the NIV (a Bible translation preferred by the Assemblies of God and its “daughters” in particular), promotes “Jewish Bibles” with the New Testament and with Christian divisions of the books of the Torah and the Prophets (http://store.torah.tv/browse.cfm/complete-jewish-bible-paperback/4,17.html and it should be noted that Jewish religious scholars actually do different divisions of the Old Testament compared to Christians–in particular, the Torah, Psalms, books dealing with historical figures, and books of Biblical prophets are actually in separate “testaments”); promote a Bible with Septuagint text–a VERY clear-as-crystal sign we’re dealing with a dominionist “missionary church” (http://store.torah.tv/browse.cfm/interlinear-hebrew-greek-english-bible-a-literal/4,327.html); actually propogate the NIV translation errors (some very deliberate) by doing an English-to-Hebrew translation of the NIV designed to be used in Assemblies-linked NIV churches (http://store.torah.tv/browse.cfm/interlinear-hebrew-english-old-testament/4,883.html and yes, that right THERE is hard evidence that we’re dealing with an “Assemblies daughter”; even Jews for Jesus merely translates the New Testament).

Another thing I’d point out in regards to the attitude of dominionist churches versus mainline Christianity–especially since WW II, mainline Christian denominations (almost to a one) have generally taken a stand AGAINST targeting Jewish people for conversion, feeling that (theologically) Christian Gentiles and Jewish people have their own covenants with God.

Dominionist churches (and, to a one, it is explicitly dominionist churches and dominionist movements within mainline churches) instead promote the idea that Jewish people must be “completed” by conversion to Christianity–the largest groups promoting “Messianic” groups are the Southern Baptists post-steeplejack (with Jews for Jesus) and–largest by far–the Assemblies of God and its numerous “daughters” (in the form of non-J4J “Messianic Jewish” congregations–of which Simchat Torah is one).

In the case of the Assemblies and its daughters, the explicit and aggressive targeting of Jewish people for conversion actually plays very heavily into their end-time theology.  They teach that Israel must be restored in full to its historical boundaries at its height before Jesus can return (which explains their extremely heavy support of Zionist nationalism in the form of “Christian Zionism”); their endtime theology also preaches that eventually the world’s Jewish population will be herded back to Israel into a “mega-ghetto” after the Rapture, and that a final post-Rapture mid-Tribulation mass conversion to “Messianic Judaism” will take place after two people (the “Tribulation Saints”, two post-Rapture convertees to neopentecostalism) are martyred in Jerusalem.  (Roughly 3 1/2 years after THIS happens–they preach that the Tribulation will last seven years–all the people who were Raptured will descend back down to Earth with Jesus in a divine army with the Tribulation-era convertees and launch a massive genocidal war against the rest of humanity (including the world’s Jewish population who holds to Torah and Tanakh and DOESN’T convert to “kosher pentecostalism”) that makes Ragnarok look like a Sunday picnic in comparison.  THEN they get a new heaven and new earth and Jesus reigns for a thousand years.)

(This–among other factors–is why I have increasingly referred to the theology taught in NARasitised Assemblies churches in particular as “quasi-premillenial”; there are a lot of specific “end-points” that have to be reached before Jesus can return in their theology (almost all of which explicitly and heavily support Christian nationalism as an ultimate extension of “name it and claim it”); in addition, there is actually a post-Rapture segment of theology (effectively focusing on the world’s Jewish population as being pawns in a divine chess-game) which promotes aspects that fit in with “Christian nationalist” movements that are traditionally post-millenial.  And yes, there is a rather extensive and popular fictionalisation of this–the “Left Behind” series–that pretty much is this theology set to a sort of fictionalised veneer.)

IMHO, the best approach is to emphasise that these groups are not legitimately Jewish and that every denomination of Judaism, including Orthodox and Hasidim, Conservative, and Reform Judaism all point this out vehemently–rather, these groups are actually neopentecostal churches engaging in massive cultural appropriation of Jewish culture and traditions in an attempt to recruit persons of Jewish faith and heritage into NARasitic cults.  “Messianic Judaism” isn’t Jewish at all–it’s nothing more than “kosher pentecostalism”.

(Of particular note about the coerciveness of these groups–almost all “Messianic Jewish” groups are considered to be highly coercive by exit counselors, with “Jews for Jesus” (probably the most “mainstream” of “Messianic” groups–most are actually WORSE) almost universally considered a cult.  In fact, at least one exit counselor (Rick Ross) actually got into exit counseling thanks to “Messianic Jews” attempting to recruit an older relative when she was in a nursing home; to this day, Rick Ross Institute is probably the largest maintainer of info on coercive practices by “Messianic” groups and by NARasitised churches in general.)”

I hope this helps all of us understand that here, again, is another example of how these people function under the cloaks of religious labels that make it confusing for the majority to understand and in that process end up recruiting members into this Dominionist bible-based cult. Here is a lively 1 minute 15 second video that demonstrates the showmanship that we have become used to seeing with the Dominionist stage performances and the wrap up by Dominionist preacher Kenneth Copeland.