Having been involved in the Messianic movement in some form or another for my entire adult life, and even as an early teen, I have witnessed trends, or fashions if you will, in the Messianic movement’s theologies and teachings.
One particular trend I see emerging at the end of 2009 and into 2010, a trend that is lamentable and grievous to me: it has become trendy to trash independent Messianics.
One popular Messianic teacher recently wrote,
I was involved with a “Hebrew Roots” congregation that attempted to meet on Sabbath and festivals but without incorporating too much of traditional Judaism. I felt that it was a vacuous, shallow experience painfully disconnected from the apostolic world…
In another instance, I was attending one of the old Messianic congregations here in Minnesota a few weeks ago. Visiting the synagogue was a popular Messianic music artist, one I have quite a bit of respect for. During the performance, sadly, he called out those “independent groups that can’t get along with anybody.”
Ouch.
In another instance, one Messianic said,
[For] folks in the "independent messianic movement", I suspect that Jewish seekers are not the primary focus. So, perhaps [their] audience is best served with more contemporary Christian/Charismatic style worship.
Notice the usage of quotes to delegitimize independent Messianics, then a subtle yet stinging suggestion that the worship style of independent Messianics is not Jewish, and therefore ought to be relegated to Evangelical Christianity. (For folks who supposedly are opposed to “church bashing”, this criticism particularly reeks of hypocrisy.)
And recently, a popular Messianic blogger caricatured Messianic worship:
A[w]kwardly, these supposedly "spontaneous" forms of Messianic worship have developed into their own forms of predictable "liturgy." Who hasn't noticed the following pattern? It goes like this: two happy clappy songs, interrupted by the head singer's "transitioning" prayer (“oh Lord, just please keep us, just please, Lord, just…”), followed by three weepy sleepy songs ... at which point we're all supposed to feel that our spiritual tanks have been filled and we've been sufficiently prepared for the "meat" of the service, which is the rabbi's 45 minute thematic sermon.
While independent Messianics weren’t mentioned by name in that blogger’s criticism, it was a clear undertone.
There are some legitimate concerns in the criticisms. We could do better in a lot of areas: our lack of respect of tradition, in our criticisms of Christians, the deep hole of fundamentalism we’ve dug ourselves into, to name a few.
But there’s also a lot of I’m-better-than-you crap being peddled around. Attempts to paint others as outsiders, fringe groups, inauthentic in some way. Delegitimize. Isolate. Extinguish.
These folks are being dishonest: if they were to tell the truth, here’s what they’d say, “We need more theological purity in our movement. If the others don’t join us, isolate them so they’re not associated with us.”
Something fundamentally wrong about this attitude. Something very non-Messiah-like (non-Messianic?) about this attitude. With the next decade approaching, I hope this trend reverses in the coming years as Messianic Judaism becomes less elitist, less self-interested, and more pious. (Read: as we grow up.)