Friday, December 28, 2007
Unlikely?...Unlikely!?
"Unlikely" is the term used by the NYTimes to describe Jews studying megachurches to learn how to do synagogue.
First, why the traditional wariness between Jews and Christians - which leads naturally to the second, is what they are learning here the right thing to invigorate synagogues, or the church for that matter?
The traditional wariness comes from centuries of Christians calling Jews "Christ-Killers" and keep them around conveniently as bankers based on the prohibitions against money lending in the New Testament. What is worthy of note is that such are political problems, not faith problems. They are the label without the logic. They are suspicion of "the other."
It is also the label without the logic that would lead to a conclusion that two distinctively different faiths could learn from the worship lives of the other. Inherent in this presumption is that the form of worship matters more than the object. Inherent in this presumption is that the how of worship matters more than the why. Inherent in this approach is the desire to have people attach to the institution that bears the label of the religion instead of to the source of the religion itself.
Now for Jews, that makes some sense. Their scripture provides for institutions and priesthood, while ours eliminates those things. From my perspective, the only lesson these rabbis should be coming away with is that what is missing from their worship life is Jesus. And if that is not what they are walking away with, then I wonder what is missing in the worship life at Saddleback.
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One Sunday morning in 1995, Ron Wolfson and Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman braked to a halt in an oddly enlightening traffic jam. The line of cars was creeping toward Saddleback Church in Southern California, whose services were drawing thousands of worshipers. As two Jews, Mr. Wolfson and Rabbi Hoffman had crossed the sectarian divide to try to figure out how and why.The article ostensibly is about the wary relationship between Jews and Christians and how this initiative is overcoming that, but I read something very different in it, surrounding two basic issues.
As they inched down the road, they spotted a sign marked “For First-Time Visitors.” It directed them to pull into a separate lane and put on emergency blinkers. Bypassing the backup, they soon reached a lot with spaces reserved for newcomers. When Mr. Wolfson and Rabbi Hoffman emerged from their car, an official Saddleback greeter led them into the church.
Those first moments on the perimeter of the church set into motion a dozen years of increasing interaction between a Jewish organization devoted to reinvigorating synagogues and one of the most successful evangelical megachurches in the nation, the Rev. Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.
This has not been a studiously balanced bit of ecumenicism. Synagogue 3000, the group led by Mr. Wolfson, an education professor, and Rabbi Hoffman, a scholar of liturgy, went to the church to figure out what evangelical Christians were doing right that Jews were doing wrong or not at all.
[...]
“The biggest challenge we have in transforming synagogue life,” Mr. Wolfson said recently, recalling the workshop, “is transforming the basic relationship of most Jews to most synagogues.” He added: “It’s a fee-for-service model. I’m going to write you a check, and you’re going to give me what I need — a rabbi on call, High Holy Days seats, a Hebrew school for my kids. It’s not deep.”
Mr. Hoffman said the most obvious exception in the Jewish world was the Chabad movement of the Lubavitcher Hasidim. Its success at what is called “inreach,” meaning proselytizing unobservant Jews, has become a source of fascination, envy and enmity. In a strange way, it may have been less controversial for Synagogue 3000 to emulate Christians who are total outsiders rather than a Hasidic sect that competes for the same pool of Jewish souls.
“Jews need to be more quote-unquote evangelical,” Mr. Wolfson said. “We need to do a better job of presenting Judaism to our own people. The story doesn’t get across that Judaism is a way to find meaning and purpose in your life. And that’s another lesson I’ve learned from the evangelical model.”
First, why the traditional wariness between Jews and Christians - which leads naturally to the second, is what they are learning here the right thing to invigorate synagogues, or the church for that matter?
The traditional wariness comes from centuries of Christians calling Jews "Christ-Killers" and keep them around conveniently as bankers based on the prohibitions against money lending in the New Testament. What is worthy of note is that such are political problems, not faith problems. They are the label without the logic. They are suspicion of "the other."
It is also the label without the logic that would lead to a conclusion that two distinctively different faiths could learn from the worship lives of the other. Inherent in this presumption is that the form of worship matters more than the object. Inherent in this presumption is that the how of worship matters more than the why. Inherent in this approach is the desire to have people attach to the institution that bears the label of the religion instead of to the source of the religion itself.
Now for Jews, that makes some sense. Their scripture provides for institutions and priesthood, while ours eliminates those things. From my perspective, the only lesson these rabbis should be coming away with is that what is missing from their worship life is Jesus. And if that is not what they are walking away with, then I wonder what is missing in the worship life at Saddleback.
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