Heretical Avodat Yisrael Loses PC-USA Funding
World magazine reports briefly on a PC-USA cutting off money to a Messianic Jewish congreation because of criticism from Jewish groups. The PC-USA is the big, liberal presbyterian denomination (the PCA is the smaller, conservative one), and Messianic Jews are people who combine Jewish practices with Christianity.
Under fire from Jewish groups opposed to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s support of a Messianic Jewish congregation in Philadelphia, Avodat Yisrael, the denomination’s local regional unit severed financial ties to it. Officials said the congregation had failed to meet membership and attendance goals, an explanation its leaders rejected.
Here’s a Philadelphia Inquirer article on the congregation, Avodat Yisrael.
Geoff Robinson looked into this, and found that the Avodat Yisrael congregation seems to be heretically synergistic. The PCUSA denomination does not mind heresy, and this particular heresy blends well with the liberalism of the denomination, so it seems the congregation is not engaged in evangelism, the PC-USA’s big worry. He writes well. Here’s an excerpt:
Calvin so wisely noted that we cannot understand God fully unless we understand ourselves. And we can’t understand ourselves unless we understand God. What do we need to understand? God hates sin and will judge it. He is a burning fire. We are very sinful. Simple Biblical truth? Yes. But it oh so hard to get our minds around these truths. We look at ourselves. We are ugly but we look around at all the other ugly people and think ourselves as beauty queens or plain Janes at best. So we find it hard to actually believe that God judges sinners. But if there is a consistent message in Scripture it is that. Sinners will be judged. You better have a substitute. God provided a substitute in Jesus, but some people don’t want that substitute. Unfortunately, God’s gameplan doesn’t have a plan B.
While the apparent lack of evangelism at Avodat Yisrael is disheartening, it stems from bad underlying soteriology (beliefs about salvation). In other words, the people around Avodat Yisrael deny the necessity of belief in Jesus. If you aren’t sure whether people need to believe in Jesus, is your call to repentance and to faith in Jesus going to be there? Will it be modeled after Paul or Peter who declared “repent and believe”? What is the underlying reason for this deficiency? The doctrine of Total Depravity is also denied.