+Christ is in our midst!+
Talmid HaYarok said:
How do Orthodox groups officially view Messianic Jews?...If anybody has some hard info I'd be curious to know!
I don't know that I've ever heard any *official* position. Like brewmama, the advice that I've received from my priest is not favorable.
I have spent quite a bit of time talking with a messianic Jew on Texags.com, and I can only offer my synthesis of his position in relationship to my understanding of Orthodoxy (please feel free to correct me where I am wrong):
* (According to Bracy) Messianics believe that Christ's true teaching was perverted by His Apostles
---> This criteria, first of all, that the Church wasn;t established through the Aposltes and that their Gospels, Epistles, History, and Revelation are invalid is in oppostion to the very infrastructure of the Orthodox Church.
*Messianics belive that true followers of Christ are bound to follow Halacha
--> Even a cursory reading of St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians indicates that, while continued observance of Jewish custom/law in the Church at Jerusalem was permissable, it was by no means something about which to scandalize converts elsewhere. On a side note, Galatians is a wonderful guide on how to approach the different "flavors" of tradition among the various Orthodox Christian jurisdictions.
*Messianics give persons of the Jewish faith a pass because faithful Jews believe in the same Messiah that we do, just not who it is/was.
--> Because Christ's Incarnation is central to our understanding of salvation, it is hard to reconcile the rejection of the Incarnated Messiah and the transformed reality that He effects with our beliefs.
In these conversations, most of the arguments against Christianity that I have heard seem to be arguments against Western and modern perceptions of Christianity, and so the argument from history doesn't hold water. Another problem seems to be with a preference for the canon of scripture decided at the Council of Jamnia, which was a reaction against Christianity.
On the other hand, because Eastern Christianity has preserved the Liturgy so well over the last two millenia, we *do* share a good deal when it comes to the form and content of worship. A wonderful study on this is
Orthodox Worship: A Living Continuity With the Synagogue, the Temple, and the Early Church by Benjamin Williams and Harold Anstall.
God bless!