I've written before about Eitan Bar, the Israeli evangelist who was fired from his role at One for Israel for having a romantic relationship with an employee under him. Since that time, Bar has written books and posts that run against the grain of the Messianic world, particularly against Christian sexuality, Calvinism, the doctrine of hell as eternal torment, and even Messianic Judaism itself.
On Facebook today, Bar wrote about the Messianic movement and its negative view of Catholicism.
It spurred comments from Jews and Christians, including some well-known Israeli Messianic Jewish leaders like Ron Cantor and Dan Juster.
He starts off with,
When I was part of the Messianic movement, a highly fundamentalist form of Evangelicalism, the message about Catholics was clear: they were pagans, God despises them, and they would burn forever in hell. We were discouraged from associating with Catholics, and the few who did often found themselves marginalized or boycotted.
My parents were both part of the Catholic Church and left it before I was born, so this post piqued my interest. Are Messianics too negative on Catholics and other Christian groups?
I grew up in the Messianic movement and can confirm the movement has a general negative feeling towards Catholicism. I haven't personally heard the extremes of Catholics burning in hell forever. But the core is probably true: Messianic believers generally view Catholicism negatively.
There are reasons for that. Catholic faith requires believing in a co-redeemer, Mary, alongside Jesus. It requires the prayer to saints, not just to God. It requires affirming Papal ex cathedra rulings as infallible. Some of that is dangerously close to idolatry. I admire many Catholics and have Catholic friends and consider them brothers in faith. Some significant parts of their theology are foreign to the New Testament and the original Jewish followers of Jesus. I am convinced it will be foreign when Jesus returns to Jerusalem as the Jewish Messiah. But it doesn't preclude salvation or fellowship.
How should we in the Messianic movement look at groups outside of our own? I believe two very important measures for that are salvation and fellowship. I say those two measures because they are two issues addressed in the early church in the New Testament (e.g. Acts 15 and Romans 10). Salvation and fellowship are still relevant for today.
Salvation: when you die, will you be with God?
Fellowship: can we spend time with you in religious settings? Are we family in God?
For Catholics, I answer yes to both questions:
- Salvation: This is up to God, and not me, but the New Testament says, "If you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, and that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Catholics believe this; it's a core part of Catholic faith.
- Fellowship: Since Catholics are part of the family of God, they're fellow Christians and I can (and have!) learned from them. I could fellowship with them in religious settings, despite significant theological differences.
Even early Protestants, including Luther himself, did not advocate for a schism where Protestants could no longer fellowship with Catholics. That wall of division developed later through escalation, war, torture, and all sorts of horrible things committed by both sides in the last 600 years. I think that wall is a mistake.
I've long advocated for a big tent faith: expand your tent to allow many in. Better to have many with varying beliefs, than a tiny few with uniform beliefs. Yes, I think megachurches are superior to tiny, closed sectarian groups. Especially in light of the reality that every religious group is almost certainly wrong about something; no one has theology that perfectly aligns with heaven's reality. Better to love many, as love covers a multitude of sins.
But.
There's a limit to big tent theology.
I couldn't have a big tent with Hindus, for example. Hindus worship Krisna, Ganesh, and a plethora of false gods. The reason I can't welcome them into my tent of faith should be obvious: it would compromise core parts of my own faith. The Torah is
jam packed with prohibitions on idolatry, with explicit commandments to destroy idols, to avoid supporting or defending idolaters, even commandments to burn idolatrous cities in Israel. Embracing people who worship other gods is a tent too big. What unity can God's people have with people who reject the one true God or worship other gods?
One commenter on Bar's post said in support of Bar's newfound love for Catholics,
I was taught and believe, "If you love Jesus you are part of the family".
I responded, "That sounds nice, but it would mean we must consider Muslims part of the family. They love Jesus and consider him an important prophet."
I can't take Muslims into my big tent of faith. They fail the salvation test and the fellowship test:
- Salvation: Muslims don't believe Jesus is Lord, they believe him a prophet. They don't believe God raised Jesus from the dead; they believe Jesus wasn't crucified at all.
- Fellowship: Muslims believe Christians and Jews are to be subservient to Muslims and must pay a special tax in any Muslim-controlled land. Those Christians and Jews who resist this were (and still are, in some parts of the world) put to death.
Dan Juster, a leader in the Messianic Jewish movement, commented on Bar's post, suggesting that allegiance to Jesus is the most important matter:
There is a book by Matthew Bates, Salvation by Allegiance Alone. A great book argues that it does not matter what denomination one is part of, Catholic, Proestand, Orthodox, Messianic Jew, Pentecostal. In each stream allegiance is the central issue. Then we add, Jews who come to faith are the saved remnant of Israel, the sanctifying first fruits (Rom. 11:5, 11:16)
I replied to Juster, "Allegiance is important, but I wonder to what extent theology matters for salvation and fellowship. For example, Mormons hold allegiance to Jesus, but consider him one of many gods, alongside the Heavenly Mother, Satan and millions of others. Additionally, they are preaching a second gospel, the Book of Mormon."
Are Mormons saved? Can we have fellowship with them?
- Salvation: This is up to God, but I suspect God will save them because they believe Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead.
- Fellowship: Much murkier. I personally have no qualms hanging out with Mormons in a non-religious context; they tend to be morally upright and genuine people. But I couldn't fellowship with them in a religious context because of the idolatry in their faith. According to Joseph Smith, only Mormons are Christians. Mormons don't consider Christians to be true Christians. It's difficult to call them part of the family of God when they don't consider you the family of God.
Israeli Messianic leader Ron Cantor also chimed in, saying how he really has fought to maintain good relationships with Catholics and others outside of Messianic Judaism.
But all this newfound love and togetherness strikes me as false and shallow.
For years, Juster and others have issued papers and spoke at conferences and urged their followers to avoid fellowshipping with Messianics of slightly different stripes. One Law Messianics, Two House Messianics, Hebrew Roots folks and others were blacklisted from Messianic events. Musicians who performed at One Law congregations were blacklisted. I personally had a leading Messianic Jewish congregation in Minnesota tell his congregants not to associate with me because I adhered to a different ecclesiology as he did. I had one Messianic rabbi, who is not Jewish, telling the IAMCS Rabbis forum to avoid associating with me at a Messianic music event because he affiliated me as a Messianic with a different stripe.
Heck, just a few years ago, I
wrote about how one Messianic pastor in Israel labeled all forms of Torah observance as heresy. 🤪
I'm not bitter about that, and I forgive them and give it to the Lord. I only raise it to show that Messianic folks have likely been far too small-tent. I would welcome a change for big tent Messianic faith, even if it meant building bridges to Catholics and other Christian groups.
As for Eitan Bar, I don't know him or his situation personally. I've only read about it from him and from people tangential to the situation, so I could be misreading this. But it seems to me he's resentful of the Messianic movement because it called out his sexual sin. This is a game that has played out so many times in the Evangelical world Bar now rejects; there's even memes about it!
When an Evangelical pastor rebukes a member for adultery, pornography, homosexuality or other sexual sin, the member leaves and complains about church hurt. In reality, they're in denial about sin. I kind of wonder if that's playing a role in Bar's own distancing from the Evangelical and Messianic world. From my outside perspective, that's what it looks like. I suppose Bar knows the truth, as does the Lord.
Bar blasts Evangelical fundamentalism, but honestly, they're one of the few groups actually calling out sin. And calling out sin is a very Biblical thing to do.
Bar has one thing right, though: the Messianic movement has been too closed and too sectarian, too quickly condemning other Christians as unsaved and fit for hellfire. But Catholics are not going burn forever in eternal torment. That's just not what the original reformers had in mind, and frankly, contrary to the New Testament.
While Juster and Cantor and other Messianic Jewish leaders seem to agree and desire an more open Messianic Judaism, they need to start in their own camp: an openness to Messianic believers who have ever-so-slightly different ecclesiology, nomology, soteriology.
