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Absolute Reformation


The Whittenberg Door was one of the centers
of the protestant reformation.


Looking for the Way Home... The Path of Messianic Judaism

Christianity is characterized by two kinds of diversity. We are diverse in the positive sense of many ethnic and cultural backgrounds finding expression within a common faith framework. This first kind of diversity is good. It speaks to the universal truth and inclusiveness of the faith. The second type of diversity is just the opposite. It is diversity in the negative sense of many splintered and fractured belief systems without a common faith framework. This kind of diversity is bad. It denies universal truth and it denies the inclusiveness of our faith.

Negative diversity is the average Christian experience. Within the faith, we find all manner of mutually exclusive and incompatible beliefs and practices. This troubles us because we believe that ultimately truth is absolute. If truth is derived from God, it must be absolute and not subject to aberration. Yet clearly, since we cannot agree on what the truth is, we do not possess absolute truth, but only splinters of it.

Did we, as a faith, ever possess absolute truth? We must affirm that we once did, for if we did not, then there is no basis for seeking continuity with the past or preserving ourselves in the future. If we never possessed truth, then our whole faith is only a sham. But on the other hand, if we did once possess absolute truth, where has it gone?

If we possess truth at all, anymore, surely it is to be found in what we share in common with one another, rather than in what separates us. This is the driving force behind the ecumenical movement. It is the desire to rise above our differences and discern one core faith, belief and truth that identifies us all as truly Christian. Finding that core, however, is tricky business.

In order to find the common core we all share, we must return to a point prior to our fracture. We must return to a place we all have in common. That place can only be found in the story of our common origin: the New Testament record of the Gospels and the inception of the First Century Church. If then, we are to find the core of absolute truth that can serve as a basis for our common brotherhood, we must return to our origins in the First Century Church.

The First Century Church is the home from which all the children came. If we are ever to find ourselves under one roof again, we must return to that same home. There, under that common roof we are free to express and celebrate our positive diversity in a positive sense while holding fast to the common absolute truth of our shared faith.

Undoubtedly, the core commonality of the First Century Church is the person of Jesus. But even this is not enough if Jesus is treated as an abstraction or a spiritual principal. Stripped of his mortal person and historical-scriptural context, Jesus became malleable in our hands. Thinkers, theologians and heretics were free to reshape Jesus into many forms. Even the author of our faith ceased to be the absolute by which we could define ourselves.

If we would find absolute truth, then, we must restore both Jesus and the Church to their original person and historical-scriptural context. This is the only way home. Only on the basis of the truths that the New Testament church professed and walked in can we hope to find commonality and, indeed, Absolute Truth. Only in the person of living and real Jesus, as revealed in the scriptural-historical context of the New Testament can we find Absolute Truth.

To put it directly, we must find the way back home, past centuries and centuries of wandering, we must find the way back to Jerusalem and the Church of the Bible.

Absolute Reformation, the Long Journey Home

At the end of the Middle Ages, an Austrian monk by the name of Martin Luther had a terrible realization. While studying the New Testament, he realized that the Church as he knew it was far, far removed from the Church of the New Testament. He realized that the Church as he knew it was saturated with unbiblical doctrines. He realized that the Church as he knew it had drifted far from the course laid by Jesus and his disciples.

In response to this terrible realization, Martin Luther set out to reform the Church and bring it back in line with the Biblical pattern. His efforts became known as the Reformation, and the rest is, of course, history.

But did Luther go far enough? Clearly the myriad daughters-denominations of the Protestant movement do not think so. Each Protestant movement has contributed its own distinctive set of further reforms. Ostensibly, each reform is an attempt to reach further back to the original, back to the First Century Church of Jesus and his disciples.

The effort to return home to the First Century Church is praiseworthy and noble. This effort springs from a desire to conform our lives and congregations to the authority of the Word of God. The motives of these reformers are pure and good. Their methodology, however, has been flawed.

What the various protestant reformers have failed to recognize about the First Century Church is that she was Jewish. She was a branch of Judaism, in no way distinct from Judaism. Jesus, the disciples, the first believers, the worship system, the Scriptures, the interpretation of the Scriptures, the teaching, the vernacular and even the very concept of faith and monotheism were all patently Jewish. The inclusion of Gentiles into the Church was also a Jewish concept, based upon Jewish ideas of conversion and inclusion.

An honest reading of the New Testament from a Jewish perspective makes it clear that the First Century Church never thought of herself as separate and excluded from Judaism. Rather, she considered herself as part of the whole of Israel. She never imagined herself as replacing Judaism, because she never considered herself separate from Judaism. She did conceive of herself as a reform within Judaism, but not as a separate entity.

So it is that any attempt to return to the First Century, New Testament Church will fall short as long as it refuses to acknowledge the Church's essential Jewishness. The historical fact of gross anti-Semitism within the Church has made such an acknowledgement impossible until very recently in our history. Only after the horror of the Holocaust has Christianity been willing to try to shake off her deep-rooted anti-Semitism, and only after Christians were removed from a climate of anti-Semitism have they been free to examine their Jewish origins.

Only now, almost 2000 years after her inception is the Church free to return home to her Jewish roots. Only now do we have the tools for Absolute Reformation.

Under One Roof

Absolute Reformation demands that Christians not only examine their Jewish roots, but return to them. This does not entail formal and individual conversions to Judaism. It does entail a spiritual and corporate conversion to Judaism. Absolute Reformation means that Christians must return to the form and structure of the faith of Jesus and the Apostles. That form and structure is Judaism.

For example, Absolute Reformation implies a return to the Synagogue. The First Century Church had its provincial locus within the Synagogue. Therefore, Absolute Reformation means returning to the ecclesiastical structure of the Synagogue. It necessitates a return to the models of worship, prayer and teaching of the Synagogue.

Does this mean that all churches should abandon their current worship modes and become Messianic synagogues? Of course not. But it does that mean that many questions of faith and observance should be re-opened. Priority should be assigned to those institutions which characterized the worship of the First Century believers. The public reading of scripture, the high priority of teaching and study, the discipline of regular and corporate prayer, the community focus on charity are all Synagogue institutions which should be normative for our churches.

Another example of Absolute Reformation is a return to the Biblical Holidays. The New Testament Church never issued directives regarding the weekly Shabbat or Biblical Holidays because those institutions were normative for all of Judaism. As a functioning part of First Century Judaism, the New Testament Church was already engaged in those institutions. Holy Days outside of Judaism and the Biblical sphere had not yet been introduced. There was no conflict between the Biblical mandate and Christian tradition because Christian tradition had not yet deviated from the Biblical. Thus Absolute Reformation necessitates a return to the Biblical Holidays.

These two examples are just the beginning. Absolute Reformation involves a complete re-thinking, restructuring and renewal of Christian form and observance. No theological premise can be above scrutiny. No deep-rooted tradition can be beyond review. Old prejudices should be re-examined. Old theologies of dispensationalism and supersessionism should be reviewed. More than just another reformation, Absolute Reformation is a revolution.

Absolute Reconstruction: Spiritual Archaeology

As an archaeologist begins to dig at an ancient city, he often uncovers layer after layer of civilizations that have occupied and built upon the same piece of earth. The first layers he uncovers are the most recent, sometimes the remains of streets and houses from only a few generations ago. The further he digs, the deeper the layers he uncovers. The deeper the layer, the older the civilization. The older, the closer to the authentic. At the bottom is the very last layer to be uncovered, the remains of the original city.

Returning to the First Century Church model is very much like a spiritual archaeological dig. There are layers upon layers to be sifted through. Hundreds of years of structures have been built over the top of the original Church. The amount of debris is enormous. Sorting through the rubble for authenticity is slow and painstaking work. Yet the result of clearing away the subsequent layers is the revelation of the original structure, the First Century Church.

This is the journey that the Messianic Jewish movement, wittingly or unwittingly, has embarked upon. By attempting to return Judaism to the Church, or better yet, return the Church to Judaism, the Messianic Jewish Movement began the process of digging at the original foundations. Layer after layer of debris must be removed before the foundations before the original Church will be fully exposed, but the work has been begun.

Absolute Reformation will not be content to merely pick at the foundations. Absolute Reformation is not even content to simply clear the original layer of debris for the purpose of study. Absolute Reformation intends to clear the old foundations in order to rebuild on top of them according to the original structures.

Absolute Reformation does not pretend that 2,000 years of Church history can be ignored or even disregarded. Rather, Absolute Reformation holds a debt of gratitude for bringing the faith through the generations. It is not the goal of Absolute Reformation to discard Christianity and return to Judaism. It is the goal of Absolute Reformation to restore the original shape of Christianity.

Kehilat Sar Shalom

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