Adat Shalom Dallas, TX 1/20/17 7:30 pm 60 people

A dialogue was started with this post, please see new post, "Atonement Theory, a pastor responds"

To the pastor and people of Adat Shalom.

Thank you for graciously welcoming me into the Shabbat service yesterday evening. Your service may be a large part of the inspiration to start this blog.

What was right about it, the people. What was wrong, a lot of everything else. 

I visited after a long day, so please grant me grace in that I may have been in a less than ideal state of mind while there. I struggled to stay awake during Pastor Robin's sermon. 

But a few things he said snapped me to attention, as he did push a few of my hot buttons. 

I thought it was great that he recognized me as a visitor and we chatted before the service began and I truly commend him for that. But then I was a bit horrified when he went to the podium and started calling out the visitors by name. While it didn't bother me personally at all now, I can think of a day, many years ago, when I would have been very uncomfortable with that. I cannot imagine Jesus doing that, especially here on Earth, where He operated in the same limited knowledge as all of us, with a combination of His own worldly knowledge and what was available to Him through the Holy Spirit. 

The next shock came when the musical worship time was conducted without asking the congregation to stand up. Now a few people did, but the congregation did not have the exuberance and enthusiasm that I usually encounter in Messianic churches, so that was a disappointment. 

The worship leader was named Kira, please forgive me if the spelling is wrong, and she led 3-4 songs that all included the word "Hallelujah" a whole lot. She led from her seat behind the keyboard while the Pastor's grown son accompanied on the cajon. 

Then after a bit of traditional prayer and ceremony that you would expect to find in a Messianic service, including facing east to proclaim the Shema in both Hebrew and English, Pastor Robin rose to speak.

In speaking, He revealed the usual errors found in many Messianic and Evangelical churches. They apparently subscribe to the substitutionary penal atonement theory of Jesus' death on the cross, and that is as damaging here as it is everywhere else. 

You see, atonement, like most words, stands on it's own. It means what it means and needs no modifiers. It means at-one-ment. From Wikipedia, my favorite secular source: The English word 'atonement' originally meant "at-one-ment", i.e. being "at one", in harmony, with someone.

Well, atonement still means what it says. Atonement is the reason for the incarnation, life, rejection, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. No modifiers necessary, He came that we might live, in Him. One of my favorite books that explains this well is The Shack Revisited: There Is More Going On Here than You Ever Dared to Dream by Baxter Kruger.

So this is an almost universally common theological error, as penal atonement is baked into most modern church theologies to the point where even non-believers are very familiar with the phrase, "Jesus died on the cross for our sins".

Jesus came to show us the Way, His Way. He had a humble birth, a humble life, and and an excruciatingly painful death. He did not spare Himself anything that we can experience here. He is at one with us because He was faithful to be like us in every way but sin. 

Because God, self evident in the Holy Trinity, is all about relationship. We can have a strong relationship with Jesus because He can truly relate to us, He has experienced our life and struggles as well as any one man can do. 

But the biggest criticism, I have for Pastor Robin (and he seems like we could become good friends if circumstances permit) is his approach to others with the good news that is the Gospel.

His sermon was about missional living, a great and necessary topic. But he said that his personal approach is one of fear, to warn those who do not call upon the name of Jesus of impending doom, that they must be covered by Jesus in order to face judgement. 

This is abhorrent to me. Our God is One, and He loves all people all the time, just as the Father and Son are forever in one another through the Holy Spirit. So to open a conver-sation (see the convert in there) with a fear based appeal is to do exactly the wrong thing. Jesus came as ultimate Love, so our duty is to spread His Love, not fear.

There were other theology problems as well, particularly Robin telling the congregation that we are all "ambassadors of Christ". How is someone who just called on the name of Jesus suddenly an ambassador the next day? Read all of 2 Corinthians for yourself and see if you can discover the answer to that riddle and then come back and comment.

After service there was a very nice buffet, and, being very hungry, I partook. There seemed to be about 50 people at the service with the age skewing a bit older and quite a few more women than men. There was a fair amount of ethnic diversity, which I feel is always good to see, since we are all one in the Lord. 

I did not put any money in the Tzedakah Box, which is unusual for me, as my desire is always to be generous with all that God has given me. I was frankly baffled as to why this church, with so many wonderful people, left me not feeling the love and hearing words from Christ. 

Trey