The Short-Changing of the American Evangelical
Maybe the only Xians worth paying attention to?
We’re going to cut straight to the chase and say it out loud — southern evangelical Xianity represents perhaps the finest breeding ground for the Noahide movement as exists anywhere.
Why so?
Because southern evangelicals are the only Xians who actually believe in the Truth of THE BIBLE.
And by THE BIBLE we don’t mean the New Popsicle or anything that issues therefrom. We’re talking about the word of the Holy Living G-d of Israel.
Southern evangelicals actually believe that Adam and Eve existed.
And Noah.
And Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.
They believe that what’s written really was.
Like real, believing Jews — l'havdil.
Not, however, like the rest of the mainline Protestant churches or the RC church or even the Eastern varieties of Xianity, who see in the Tanach something more akin to myth and folklore, legends and cautionary tales — fictions, essentially, that were created to pass down a set of cultural values from one generation to the next.
Ask them, however, if Miriam actually sent Moshe adrift in the Nile and you'll be met with scoffing and guffaws.
They’re so much more modern than that.
Reform and Conservative Jews, by the way, take a similar approach, but hallevai they were as serious as even their Xian fraudster counterparts! They look to the Bible, rather, as a source of support for their modern western values (exclusively of the liberal variety, of course) and have very little need for ‘the text’, as they call it, for anything beyond that.
Oh, and while we’re at it — beware of any Jew who comes to you speaking earnestly of something called ‘the biblical narrative’, whether reform, conservative, reconstructionist or even orthodox. They’re peddling a new form of kfirah, and their end will be exquisitely yoshkean.
May we merit to see it with our own eyes.
But enough with digressions.
The southern evangelical does not suffer from any of the above-named delusions. He’s thrilled to find out that Noah was still alive when Avraham was born, or that Bilaam is a gilgul of Lavan, or that the Sanhedrin in the desert was composed of those Jewish ‘taskmasters’ who b’ahavat Yisrael took the whip for their brethren in Egypt.
He thrives on learning the details that only an authentic Torah education can offer.
Woe Betide and Alas…
And yet, at the same time, the southern evangelical has a problem.
A big one.
And in this he errs so thoroughly as to render all his belief a sham.
How so?
A bit of background on evangelical Xianity — particularly over the last century— will serve to enlighten.
And again, in the interest of brevity, we strike directly at the heart of the matter.
Hebrew Roots
A sort of awakening occurred among evangelicals in the 20th century that sent them in search of what they term their “Hebrew Roots”, while at the same time they began questioning the authenticity of the Yoshke tale.
Something smelled there, and those with good, honest sniffers knew it.
They also didn’t know what to do with the True and Holy Bible of the Jews, which at every turn proclaimed defiantly that the Jews were G-d’s chosen and would ever remain so.
What were they supposed to do with that?
Was this not the word of the Living G-d?
Of course it was.
So off they went desperately in search of some socket into which they could stick their Xianity plug in order to get some real current, some authentic Hebraic juice for their spirit — some old time, high voltage, Jewish relijun.
And where did they turn?
[And this is the disappointing part.]
They searched for that oh-so vital energy in what they’ve come to call “first century Xianity”, and then tried to sift through the ins and outs of THAT MAN’s fraudulence and bat-wacky charms and spell-craft to arrive at some sort of original "‘Jewish” form of Xian belief (as if there ever were such a thing).
In short, they ended up with a stunningly vacuous mix of yoshkeism and ‘mitzvot’ (l’havdil) that offers them precisely nothing.
Yup.
You can see it today in the shaatnez patch-work of avoda zara, sometimes dressed up in kipot and tzitzit (oh, the sight!), that keeps Shabbat and chagim (sort of) but still insists on lustily drinking the blood of that hateful apikoros who should have been summarily thrown from Azazel as a baby.
In other words, it’s a complete monstrosity.
But that’s where they are.
Simply because they plugged in to the wrong socket.
Had they pulled their amperage from Noah and not from that Second Temple mishmash, they would have been energized in an authentically spiritual way, wouldn’t be searching for roots in the desert wasteland of ‘early Xianity’ (or any other Xianity, for that matter) and might be living authentic, G-d-fearing lives today.
In short, they got gypped (as we used to say).
Sold a bill of goods.
And that’s sad.
So what can be done?
Well, in our experience, straight-shooting with these folk is always the best policy.
So, when the opportunity arises, it’s important to inform them —
That there’s nothing either Hebrew or rootsy about what they’re doing.
That their current path offers them absolutely no connection to the Al-mighty Living G-d of Israel — and that should be stated categorically. Anything less is a lie.
That their only means of finding bona fide spiritual satisfaction in this world (which is what they’re after), is by connecting through authentic Torah Judaism to the Noahide covenant, to which they’re already signatories — whether they know it or not.
And that the emptiness that currently pervades their spiritual life will only continue — despite all the Mr. Dress-up they’re playing — unless they succeed in making the connection outlined in #3.
This is a people adrift and searching, friends. But with some good instincts.
They feel absolutely no attachment to their English-speaking, European forebears, nor do they care to forage for meaning there. (We’ll take up the topic of Black evangelicals another time. Their issues are somewhat different.)
They just want to know where in THE BIBLE they can find themselves.
They want to know where, exactly, their root source lies.
They want to know where their story begins in the Torah.
And they want to partake of that connection fully.
Unfortunately, they got ripped-off.
By rank and file Xian pastors and tier-2 philosophers and B-grade, hand-me-down biblical scholars who stole their minds and rode them roughshod for money and the fleeting glory of an ecclesiastic pulpit.
Maybe we can help them get their money back…
Dean Maughvet