Michael Brown and Mark Kinzer, Part 2

Dr. Michael Brown responded to my heated post denouncing his review of Dr. Mark Kinzer’s Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism. Please read Dr. Brown’s comment under the first post, “Michael Brown, Mark Kinzer, Judaism, and Yeshua.”

Let me summarize a few of Dr. Brown’s critiques of my blog post:

1. I am distressed by Derek’s tone (self-described as angry).
2. I am distressed by the judgments Derek makes against me.
3. There are no misunderstandings of traditional Judaism in Dr. Brown’s paper.
4. Dr. Brown is not at fault for preaching to the choir. Since the group that was gathered shares similar concerns, it is understood the speaker and audience would be in agreement.
5. Derek and others should take a more mature approach to criticism and consider whether there may be truth to it.

Dr. Brown made several other rebuttals, but mostly to others who posted comments on the blog and not to me directly. For example, I was not the one who mentioned Dr. Brown being brought in for a hatchet job.

Let me respond point by point to Dr. Brown’s rebuttals of my post. I will start with #1:
Dr. Brown, if you had simply written a theological paper refuting some of the claims of Dr. Kinzer, I would not have been angry. I frequently engage in theological debate. I consider refuting ideas a legitimate pursuit. There are, of course, many worthy points of theology in your paper. Unfortunately, these get lost behind three other kinds of rhetoric in your paper: presumption of motive, reductionism, and soapbox preaching.

Please allow me to give examples of both. Here is an example of Dr. Brown presuming to know the motives of Dr. Kinzer and us who think like Dr. Kinzer:

Not only, then, are some Messianic Jews deceiving themselves by thinking that they can openly maintain their New Covenant faith and at the same time be received by Orthodox rabbis, but they are deceiving themselves by thinking that Orthodox Judaism is fully valid in God’s sight.

The reader of Dr. Brown’s paper is led to believe that those who think like Dr. Kinzer are jealous for the acceptance of the Orthodox rabbis. Sure, he only says “some Messianic Jews,” but by implication it is Dr. Kinzer and those who think like him who have this problem. I, for one, am so tired of people telling me what my motives are. I accept that the motives of Jewish mission agencies are pure (though I can suggest potential corruption and conspiracy if you want me to). Can’t Dr. Brown simply accept that some of us legitimately believe God calls on Messianic Jews to be within Judaism and to follow the halakhah of Israel (even on some points where we disagree but which do not contradict God’s commandments)?

Reductionism:

On the other hand, in the midst of 300 pages of often nuanced and sophisticated arguments, it is somewhat shocking to arrive at two of the book’s main conclusions: first, that Jewish believers should embrace Orthodox Judaism…

I call this one reductionism because Dr. Brown takes a valid and complex idea and reduces it to something absurd and untrue. Dr. Kinzer, and those of us who think like him, do not embrace Orthodox Judaism. Thus is a reductio ab absurdum from a rather different idea: we should follow Torah as normative Judaism follows Torah. This conclusion is based on Matthew 23:1-3 as well as Deuteronomy 17. Dr. Brown is free to debate the exegesis of Matthew 23 or the theology of this concept. He is not free to reduce this idea to something ridiculous. I might engage in the same kind of slander by saying, “Dr. Brown commands all Jews to forfeit their identity and become charismatic Christians!” It is not true to Dr. Brown just as Dr. Brown is not true to Dr. Kinzer.

Dr. Brown engages in similar reductionism when he takes a complex point made by Dr. Kinzer, in fact the very point from which the book derives its name, and reduces it to something absurd. Dr. Kinzer calls for Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism, which means witnessing from within, not from without, and which also means coming to Jews with a position of respect for Judaism, not superiority to it. Dr. Brown reduces this to something absurd, suggesting that Dr. Kinzer need not have wasted his time writing a book merely calling on us to be “sensitive” in our witness.

Soapbox preaching — first, let me define what I mean by it and then I will give one example. A critical review of a theological book should be about ideas and not sermonizing to an audience to garner sympathy. I, for one, would not go to theological conferences if all I would hear were sermons of exhortation. Further, preaching to the choir is a tactic I do not admire in preachers, much less theologians. How about more substance and less battle cry? Here is an example:

  The rest of this paper will be devoted to articulating my response to Dr. Kinzer’s “postmissionary” proposal. For the moment, I want to add my own comments to the statements just quoted: “First, the Jewish ekklesia will realize that it must first receive the testimony borne by the wider Jewish community to the God of Israel before it is fit to bear its own witness.” Translation: Before we can share our faith, we who are commissioned by Yeshua and empowered by His Spirit to be His witnesses must first receive the testimony of a diverse Jewish community that continues to reject Jesus as Messiah and considers our belief in Him to be completely idolatrous. “It must hear before it can speak. It must learn before it can teach.” Translation: We must learn from those who, for the most part, have not spent a second meditating on the glorious truths of the New Covenant Scriptures and instead, for the most part, have spent their time immersed in the traditions of man. They, who Paul tells us are enemies of the gospel on our account, are now our teachers, and we their students. “What it receives, hears, and learns will affect the substance and not just the form of what it gives, says, and teaches.” Translation: As we listen carefully to the rabbinic authorities, we will learn that our view of the Messiah is not in harmony with the rabbinic view, that our view of the authority of the Torah is not in harmony with the rabbinic view, that our view of God is not in harmony with the rabbinic view, that our view of salvation and atonement is not in harmony with the rabbinic view, that our view of the inspiration of the New Testament is not in harmony with the rabbinic view, that our view of oneness with our Gentile brothers and sisters is not in harmony with the rabbinic view, and that if we do not submit ourselves fully to rabbinic authority we can make no real claim to legitimate Judaism. So, if we listen and learn well, we will no longer have our faith!

Dr. Brown, your interpretations of Dr. Kinzer’s words are absurd. If only he had been present to correct you and share with the audience what he meant by those words, it would have gone differently. In fact, you tend to take the most ridiculous interpretation possible of Dr. Kinzer’w words and then use them against him. I could go on and on, but your paper is a misrepresentation.

Now, and you probably forgot because I have gone on at length, I was going to refute five of Dr. Brown’s criticisms of my blog post. I have only refuted one so far, explaining that I was angry with Dr. Brown’s rhetoric and misrepresentations, not his ideas or his right to express them. Now I return to the other four (I will be exceedingly brief as I suspect you are getting bored, if you got this far at all):

2. I am distressed by the judgments Derek makes against me.
Dr. Brown, I accused you of failing to understand Judaism because you speak of it in this paper as a monolithic system of thought. Even Orthodox Judaism is far from being a unified system of theology. How can you classify Lurianic kabbalah, non-kabbalistic Orthodoxy, philosophical Judaism such as that of Maimonides, and many others as though they are one thing? If you understand that Judaism has no one theology and agrees on almost nothing, including the definition of God, then why does your paper lack evidence of such subtle understanding?

3. There are no misunderstandings of traditional Judaism in Dr. Brown’s paper.
See above on Dr. Brown’s alleged misunderstanding of Jewish theology.

4. Dr. Brown is not at fault for preaching to the choir. Since the group that was gathered shares similar concerns, it is understood the speaker and audience would be in agreement.
Yes, you are guilty for preaching to the choir. Just because those gathered share an anti-Torah Observant stance does not mean you have to make your paper more about emotional preaching than about a critical review of ideas. When you reduce your subject’s ideas to absurd parodies, when you call on common allegiances in the audience, and when you fail to deal with substantive issues in Dr. Kinzer’s book, then you are acting as a demagogue, not a theologian.

5. Derek and others should take a more mature approach to criticism and consider whether there may be truth to it.
I would be glad to isolate the theological points you make in your paper and engage them on a mature level. It will be a lot of work, however, as I will have to wade through 24 pages of rhetoric to find comparatively few theological ideas.

Believe me, Dr. Brown, I am aware that you are capable of theology. I have seen it. I read your paper with interest and was disappointed immediately that you did not choose to be a theologian, but a demagogue.

The Rabbi and the Businessman

This is a short story I wrote to use as a sermon. I don’t, as a rule, put sermons on the blog. But I thought since this one was a story, you might enjoy it.

The Rabbi and the Businessman
Derek Leman, Tikvat David Messianic Synagogue

This story is not completely original. I based it on a sermon by Frederick Buechner. It was the first sermon Buechner ever delivered, called “The Magnificent Defeat.” It can be found in collections such as SECRETS IN THE DARK (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).

A few passers by turned their heads as they passed, noting the odd pair, a rabbi and a businessman occupying the same park bench. Neither paid any attention to the other. The businessman’s nose was in his newspaper and the rabbi’s in a book.
They were an odd pair in several ways. The rabbi’s beard was a little unkempt and his clothes a little outdated. From a stainless steel thermos he sipped on chicken soup. A small piece of noodle clung to his beard, but he was oblivious.

The businessman was carefully groomed, sporting a sixty dollar haircut and a baby-clean shave. His shirt collar was perfect, as though it were made of ivory and not cotton. An $800 jacket rested on trousers of equal cloth ending in brown Italian loafers. In his left hand was a latte in a white cup, which he almost never drank from, but which seemed to be a prop or an extension of his hand.

When it happened it was sudden and unexpected. While standing in his quick manner, the businessman unexplainably lost his balance and his left hand shot out for a grip, the latte forgotten. Suddenly the rabbi was drenched in coffee and milk.
The businessman offered profuse apologies. He had only one napkin to dab at the liquid running from the rabbi’s beard. For his part, the rabbi was oddly calm. The latte had grown cool and when it struck, the rabbi was not hurt. He accepted his drenching without moving and his face displayed no anger.

Nearby a mother watching her children play came to the rescue of both men. She kept an ample supply of paper towels and wet-wipes in her bag. Soon the rabbi was presentable again.

For some reason the businessman felt drawn to sit down and talk to this man, so different from himself, that he had inconvenienced. “Rabbi, let me ask you a question.”

Though he said nothing, it was apparent the rabbi was not opposed. “I’ve always wondered what the religious life is like. It doesn’t make sense to me. I suppose what bothers me is all that being good. What is it all for?”

The rabbi thought for a second and said, “God’s commandments are God’s commandments.”

The businessman seemed disappointed but he pressed on. “I think I know what you mean. Your certainty that God is real drives you on. But how do we know? And after all, being good never seems to help the religious. Let me tell you what I mean. I am at the top of my business. At times the only thing that got me an opportunity was a lie. At times I have even used a sort of bribe, we all do it. Certain people expect it. I’ve had to have no compassion on certain people. I’ve watched people lose everything while I moved ahead. And I enjoy it. I can do what I want when I want to do it, most of the time. But if I had been religious, the type who actually does good things, where would I be? Several of my colleagues are religious, but they are more like me and less like you. For them religion is just about attending services. They’ve made the same decisions I have, to choose success and not to always try to be good. So, if the good way does not work, and if evil is what gets a man ahead in this world, why be religious? Why believe in God at all.”

At this the rabbi brightened up. “Let me tell you a story.” Now the businessman thought things might be going somewhere. “Let me tell you a story about our ancestor Jacob, also called Israel, from whom my people get their name.”
“Once Jacob was afraid and also hopeful. He was returning to the land of his childhood, where he had been exiled by his twin brother. The brother had vowed to kill him and Jacob knew he deserved it. But now after many years, Jacob was coming back. Would all things be forgotten? Or would the vow of death remain?”

“Jacob sent his family, servants, and herds ahead. He remained on the far side of the Jabbok river, on the edge of the land. He was afraid to move. He had devised plans to give gifts to his brother, but he still was not secure.”

“Suddenly, though the desert there is flat and clear, though there are no bushes to hide behind, suddenly and without warning a man came and wrestled with Jacob. They spoke no words. All through the night they wrestled. This man was strong beyond belief, but somehow Jacob was able to hold him and not be overcome.”

“As the sun came up, Jacob had the advantage. He was about to end the wrestling match. Unexpectedly, the strange man removed one arm from Jacob’s hold. He reached down to Jacob’s hip. He touched it lightly and Jacob gasped with pain beyond bearing. His hip was dislocated. He crumpled to the ground with no strength left in him.”

“But on his way down, Jacob struck out a hand and with a grasp like steel he grabbed onto the arm of the man. The man said to Jacob, ‘Let me go, for day has broken.’”

“Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’”

“The man said, ‘What is your name.’”

“Jacob answered.”

“The man said, ‘Your name is no longer Jacob. It will be Israel, one who strives with God, for you have striven with God and men and have prevailed.’”

“Jacob said, ‘Please tell me you name?’”

“The man said, ‘Why have you asked me my name?’ And then, as Jacob wept, the man blessed him.” After that, Jacob called the place Peniel, which means, ‘I have seen God.’”

“Later that day, Jacob met his brother and death did not come. Instead the brother said he loved Jacob. Jacob returned to the land of his childhood and was blessed all the rest of his days.”

The businessman listened with interest to the story. He had heard some stories from the Bible and this one was vaguely familiar. But he waited, as if there must be more.

The rabbi could see his student did not understand. He continued, “Jacob’s life was spent getting ahead by deception. He took his brother’s birthright with some stew. He deceived his aging father into giving him the blessing of the firstborn. Jacob’s brother had a right to hate him and want him dead.”

Now the rabbi looked into the businessman’s eyes, “It may surprise you, but the Bible shows us that you can be successful by deception. Bad things work. Crime does pay. Lies do profit. Jacob had wives and flocks and servants.”

The rabbi paused. The businessman grew uncomfortable. Was this rabbi really exonerating him for a life of dishonesty? Sure there had to be more. Finally he opened his mouth to speak, but the rabbi then continued, “I have a theory about what Jacob saw on the man’s face just as his hip was being put out of the socket.”

The businessman was now more curious than ever. What did this have to do with the story? He was just about to ask when the rabbi continued, “He saw love. The man looked on Jacob with understanding. Jacob knew in that moment this man knew everything he had ever done. He could not hide who he was. His being was stripped bare before the all-knowing of this one. And then, with love looking down on him, Jacob received great pain.”

Now the rabbi stopped and seemed to be finished. The businessman was fascinated, even emotional. It made too much sense. The rabbi seemed ready to leave and the businessman felt desperate. “Wait,” he said urgently, “what does it all mean?”

The rabbi looked at him and smiled. There was love in the smile. “Jacob had wealth and success. But he did not have everything. In spite of himself, and because of a covenant God made with Jacob’s grandfather, Jacob had been blessed at every turn. He would have been blessed if he had not cheated and lied. But the man who wrestled with him truly was God. There was one thing left for Jacob to learn and make his life complete.”

The rabbi paused again and the businessman felt the urgency coming back. Finally, the rabbi said, “Wealth and success come to the ones who work hardest to attain them and who value them above other things. But peace with yourself, joy in the future, and love for humankind, these come only from God.”

The rabbi got up and left. The businessman could not move.

Later, passers by noted something odd. A businessman in an expensive suit sat on a park bench. His eyes were red and he had obviously been crying. But it seemed he was no longer sad. No one dared stop and ask him.