Posted on 12/14/2006 10:57:47 AM PST by mbarker12474
The Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church hired Jewish rabbi Joshua Martin Siegel to provide his spiritual and theological input to conference Christian Methodist affairs.
From the Baltimore-Washington Conference website (originally, it says, from the New York Jewish Times):
http://www.bwcumc.org/news_detail.asp?PKValue=2242
Rabbi carries on teaching tradition with Methodists
BY IRA RIFKIN Special to the UMConnection
It takes a certain chutzpah for a Jew to lecture believing Christians about the New Testament’s spiritual message; even more so when church officials are in attendance. Yet that’s the core of an experiment in spiritual cross-pollination involving one of the nation’s leading Protestant denominations and a Maryland rabbi with a long and unconventional career.
The rabbi is Joshua Martin Siegel, the recently hired "rabbinic adviser" to the Baltimore-Washington Conference of The United Methodist Church.
"This is significant," said Rabbi Siegel. "It’s an opportunity for people with a serious interest in religion, in a culture that’s becoming increasingly secular, to work together and learn from each other in an ongoing way instead of just being suspicious of each other."
Siegel’s ministry with the conference began officially in September, and aspects of his role are still being worked out.
In essence, however, his ministry is to provide the conference with what church officials admit is a much needed spiritual shot in the arm. Moreover, he has been asked to do it from an unabashedly Jewish perspective.
"We don’t want him to pull any punches," said the Rev. Roderick J. Miller, the conference’s Director of Connectional Ministry. "Much of what is American Methodism has become more cultural than anything else. We want to go beyond that. To be a Christian means to go deeper and wider in furthering our knowledge of God and in living it out.
"Rabbi Siegel can help us recover some of the spirituality that has been lost here."
Siegel’s hiring appears to be a first for The United Methodist Church, the nation’s second largest Protestant denomination with more than 8 million members, albeit one that has suffered decades of shrinking congregations and budgets. As near as can be determined, Siegel, 73, also represents a first for any leading American Christian denomination.
"I don’t know of any other situation where a rabbi or a Jewish layperson has been attached so formally to a prominent Christian body," said Rabbi A. James Rudin, senior inter-religious affairs advisor to the American Jewish Committee. "Plenty of Jews teach at Christian schools and universities. But this is different. So far as I know it’s a first and I’d even call it a breakthrough. It’s a pioneering effort."
Siegel will deliver talks and organize discussions for conference headquarters staff, for pastors, for youth groups and for others. Plans are also in the works for joint Methodist-Jewish community social action projects and other activities.
Every Thursday, Siegel leads lunch-hour Bible study sessions held at the conference center. The discussions begin with Siegel coaxing spiritual meaning from the church’s designated Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament in Christian parlance) and New Testament weekly readings.
One recent Thursday, Siegel linked teachings about humanity’s ability to advance spiritually through individual action from passages in the New Testament books James and Mark and the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Ruth. Along the way, he managed to quote Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
It was Miller who brought Siegel to the attention of Bishop John R. Schol. Miller said that some eight or nine years ago, while pastoring a local church, he began attending classes on spiritual healing led by Siegel at a Baltimore senior citizens center.
"What I heard from Rabbi Siegel were things I had not learned in the seminary," Miller said. "His ability to synthesize head knowledge with life experience and a depth of heart fed a hunger of mine."
About a year ago, Miller assumed his job with the Baltimore-Washington conference. Soon after, he mentioned Siegel to the bishop.
"Judaism and Christianity share deep commonalities, which takes on a particular importance in a world that wants to separate people," Bishop Schol replied when asked why he brought Siegel onboard. "Rabbi Siegel has a lot to offer to us in the richness of biblical understanding. We need to get that wherever it is available."
Siegel, ordained at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, began his career traditionally enough in the 1960s as the rabbi of the Reform congregation Temple Sinai of Long Island in Lawrence. He was, for a time, prominent in New York liberal rabbinic and political circles.
That all came to a sudden end in the early ‘70s with the release of "Amen: The Diary of Rabbi Martin Siegel."
The book was a best-seller. Following a diary format, it docu-mented a particularly difficult year in his life, personally as well as professionally. It read like a full-blown attack on the spiritual emptiness, rampant racism, selfish materialism and general insensitivity that he believed defined his congregants. Not surprisingly, he was fired.
His bridges burned in New York, the city of his birth, he moved to Maryland, where he led the unaffil-iated, progressive, and much smaller Columbia Jewish Congregation. He stayed there for nearly 30 years, retiring in 1998.
During those years he was active on homeless issues at the federal level in Washington and regionally in Maryland. After leaving the Columbia congregation he became a spiritual counselor at an inner-city Baltimore shelter for homeless ex-felons, drug addicts and the emotionally troubled, incorporating basic kabalistic principles into the self-help materials he wrote and distributed to clients.
His attraction to Kabbalah, and Jewish mysticism in general, prompted Siegel to begin visiting Mea Shearim, the haredi Jerusalem neighborhood, where he spent months at a time studying the teachings of the legendary early chasidic master Reb Nachman of Bratslavia. Back home in Columbia, he began sending Jews wanting a more traditional Orthodox lifestyle to local Chabad rabbis. Gradually, he also became ritually observant.
Today, the Rabbi sees himself as post-denominational. "I don’t really think of myself as being part of a specific category. I just try and go where HaShem (God) sends me," he said.
Few questions have been raised within the Baltimore-Washington Conference as to why the church would use a non-Christian as a spiritual mentor. But Siegel, Miller and Bishop Schol expect such murmurings to eventually surface.
"There are always some people who will complain, but I would say they would be a minority, a very small minority," said Bishop Schol. "Part of the challenge we face in our faith journey is that we tend to operate in isolation and only in terms of what we know and are comfortable with. This is an opportunity to go beyond that … And the last time I checked God was speaking through the Hebrew Bible to all people. … Rabbi Siegel knows more about the Hebrew Bible than anyone else on our staff. Why shouldn’t we take advantage of that?"
This story first appeared in the New York Jewish Times.
From the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church
http://www.bwcumc.org/news_detail.asp?PKValue=2242
Rabbi carries on teaching tradition with Methodists
BY IRA RIFKIN Special to the UMConnection
It takes a certain chutzpah for a Jew to lecture believing Christians about the New Testament’s spiritual message; even more so when church officials are in attendance. Yet that’s the core of an experiment in spiritual cross-pollination involving one of the nation’s leading Protestant denominations and a Maryland rabbi with a long and unconventional career.
The rabbi is Joshua Martin Siegel, the recently hired "rabbinic adviser" to the Baltimore-Washington Conference of The United Methodist Church.
"This is significant," said Rabbi Siegel. "It’s an opportunity for people with a serious interest in religion, in a culture that’s becoming increasingly secular, to work together and learn from each other in an ongoing way instead of just being suspicious of each other."
Siegel’s ministry with the conference began officially in September, and aspects of his role are still being worked out.
In essence, however, his ministry is to provide the conference with what church officials admit is a much needed spiritual shot in the arm. Moreover, he has been asked to do it from an unabashedly Jewish perspective.
"We don’t want him to pull any punches," said the Rev. Roderick J. Miller, the conference’s Director of Connectional Ministry. "Much of what is American Methodism has become more cultural than anything else. We want to go beyond that. To be a Christian means to go deeper and wider in furthering our knowledge of God and in living it out.
"Rabbi Siegel can help us recover some of the spirituality that has been lost here."
Siegel’s hiring appears to be a first for The United Methodist Church, the nation’s second largest Protestant denomination with more than 8 million members, albeit one that has suffered decades of shrinking congregations and budgets. As near as can be determined, Siegel, 73, also represents a first for any leading American Christian denomination.
"I don’t know of any other situation where a rabbi or a Jewish layperson has been attached so formally to a prominent Christian body," said Rabbi A. James Rudin, senior inter-religious affairs advisor to the American Jewish Committee. "Plenty of Jews teach at Christian schools and universities. But this is different. So far as I know it’s a first and I’d even call it a breakthrough. It’s a pioneering effort."
Siegel will deliver talks and organize discussions for conference headquarters staff, for pastors, for youth groups and for others. Plans are also in the works for joint Methodist-Jewish community social action projects and other activities.
Every Thursday, Siegel leads lunch-hour Bible study sessions held at the conference center. The discussions begin with Siegel coaxing spiritual meaning from the church’s designated Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament in Christian parlance) and New Testament weekly readings.
One recent Thursday, Siegel linked teachings about humanity’s ability to advance spiritually through individual action from passages in the New Testament books James and Mark and the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Ruth. Along the way, he managed to quote Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
It was Miller who brought Siegel to the attention of Bishop John R. Schol. Miller said that some eight or nine years ago, while pastoring a local church, he began attending classes on spiritual healing led by Siegel at a Baltimore senior citizens center.
"What I heard from Rabbi Siegel were things I had not learned in the seminary," Miller said. "His ability to synthesize head knowledge with life experience and a depth of heart fed a hunger of mine."
About a year ago, Miller assumed his job with the Baltimore-Washington conference. Soon after, he mentioned Siegel to the bishop.
"Judaism and Christianity share deep commonalities, which takes on a particular importance in a world that wants to separate people," Bishop Schol replied when asked why he brought Siegel onboard. "Rabbi Siegel has a lot to offer to us in the richness of biblical understanding. We need to get that wherever it is available."
Siegel, ordained at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, began his career traditionally enough in the 1960s as the rabbi of the Reform congregation Temple Sinai of Long Island in Lawrence. He was, for a time, prominent in New York liberal rabbinic and political circles.
That all came to a sudden end in the early ‘70s with the release of "Amen: The Diary of Rabbi Martin Siegel."
The book was a best-seller. Following a diary format, it docu-mented a particularly difficult year in his life, personally as well as professionally. It read like a full-blown attack on the spiritual emptiness, rampant racism, selfish materialism and general insensitivity that he believed defined his congregants. Not surprisingly, he was fired.
His bridges burned in New York, the city of his birth, he moved to Maryland, where he led the unaffil-iated, progressive, and much smaller Columbia Jewish Congregation. He stayed there for nearly 30 years, retiring in 1998.
During those years he was active on homeless issues at the federal level in Washington and regionally in Maryland. After leaving the Columbia congregation he became a spiritual counselor at an inner-city Baltimore shelter for homeless ex-felons, drug addicts and the emotionally troubled, incorporating basic kabalistic principles into the self-help materials he wrote and distributed to clients.
His attraction to Kabbalah, and Jewish mysticism in general, prompted Siegel to begin visiting Mea Shearim, the haredi Jerusalem neighborhood, where he spent months at a time studying the teachings of the legendary early chasidic master Reb Nachman of Bratslavia. Back home in Columbia, he began sending Jews wanting a more traditional Orthodox lifestyle to local Chabad rabbis. Gradually, he also became ritually observant.
Today, the Rabbi sees himself as post-denominational. "I don’t really think of myself as being part of a specific category. I just try and go where HaShem (God) sends me," he said.
Few questions have been raised within the Baltimore-Washington Conference as to why the church would use a non-Christian as a spiritual mentor. But Siegel, Miller and Bishop Schol expect such murmurings to eventually surface.
"There are always some people who will complain, but I would say they would be a minority, a very small minority," said Bishop Schol. "Part of the challenge we face in our faith journey is that we tend to operate in isolation and only in terms of what we know and are comfortable with. This is an opportunity to go beyond that … And the last time I checked God was speaking through the Hebrew Bible to all people. … Rabbi Siegel knows more about the Hebrew Bible than anyone else on our staff. Why shouldn’t we take advantage of that?"
This story first appeared in the New York Jewish Times.
I take it you have a problem with this? I used to attend a Baptist church and every year the pastor would bring this Jewish rabbi in to explain the importance of the Last Supper, what each thing meant, the number of cups, etc. He would also show up at other times during the year and all of his lessons were a blessing and a better understanding of God for me. As a Methodist now, I applaud the church for doing this. While I like their messages a lot better, I've missed the lessons on the Old Testament, the insight that the rabbi offered.
That is un.believe.able. I'm speechless.
The first Christians got their spiritual grounding from a Rabbi.
The Methodists (like many other mainline Protestant churches) are in deep trouble right now. Membership is dwindling and there is a growing divide between religious Christians who are Methodists and cultural Christians who "do church" as Methodists.
When the last of the religious Christians leave the denomination for a more distinctly Christian faith, the Methodists will become just another Sunday coffee club.
Charles Wesley must be spinning in his grave!
Which means there's little if any difference between the beliefs of the 'rabbi' and the beliefs of modern politically-correct Methodists!
If this "rabbi" really wants to help these people he'll tell them the truth: that chr*stianity is a false religion, displeasing to G-d, and that non-Jews are required to observe the Seven Noachide Laws as authoritatively interpreted by Rabbinic tradition. Otherwise he's just another liberal religious syncretist.
If he really does send searching Jews to CHaBa"D, then good for him. Let's see if he sends searching non-Jews there as well.
>> When the last of the religious Christians leave the denomination for a more distinctly Christian faith, the Methodists will become just another Sunday coffee club. <<
That has happened in o so many Episcopalian congregations.
"It takes a certain chutzpah for a Jew to lecture believing Christians about the New Testament’s spiritual message"
There is no indication that the Rabbi's message or purpose is to "lecture" anyone on the "New Testament's spiritual message".
Methodism has lost its spirituality and become a cultural philosophy.
The Rabbi left "conservative" Judaism for the same reason many people have left Methodism; loss of actually living a life of spiritual faith.
The Jews spent 3 to 4 thousand years renewing the purpose of walking with God and living the faith as a spiritual life, a spiritual walk with God.
The teachings and morals by which they maintained that walk, that convenant, over the centuries is spead throughout the old testament.
That message, of walking in spiritual faith with God, from the old testament perspective, can help Christians translate that perspective to their new convenant faith, because of the common roots they share with the Judaism from which Yeshua launched his mission.
I personally do not see Yeshua objecting one bit.
[If this "rabbi" really wants to help these people he'll tell them the truth: that chr*stianity is a false religion, displeasing to G-d, and that non-Jews are required to observe the Seven Noachide Laws as authoritatively interpreted by Rabbinic tradition. Otherwise he's just another liberal religious syncretist.]
LOL. I have to call you on that statement (even if no one else will). I believe you are wrong to call Christianity a "false religion". You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I strongly disagree.
You and I agree on something very important: that there is a true religion and that this liberal syncretistic ecumania in which everyone "whittles away" what he believes so that everyone can merge is absolute nonsense.
Genuine, sincere proselytization I understand (I did it in my last post). But this ecumenical Babylon where every religion hires a member of some other religion without intending to convert just so they can show how "open" and "liberal" they are is an abomination. It's ultmately tied in to the new age "united religions initiative."
Liberal ecumaniacal bartering is the very opposite of how one should stand for and defend G-d's Truth.
I think I understand where you're coming from and I actually agree. The blurring of the lines and the moral relativism have, and are, eroding the basic foundations of both Christianity and Judaism.
That being said, when the world's major religions lack understanding and respect for one another, it plays into and is utilized as a tool by the liberal, secular "humanists" as a way to advance their atheistic vision. It adds fuel to their fire that belief in God and religion in general is detrimental to a "more enlightened" view of man, that is independent of a creator.
When I wrote a Passover Haggadah, "The Simple Seder" (under my then married name) in 1994, it was a big seller among Methodist churches that wished to recreate the Last Supper. It was popular because it was relatively short and written in English and transliterated Hebrew, so no ability to read the Hebrew alef bet was required. It even had some pretty good recipes in it.
I should reissue it one day.
Oh, and I used to work with the author, Ira Rifkin, at the Daily News. I did have a slight crush on him, but that was almost 25 years ago. I doubt he would remember me at all.
Maven
Actually, the Noachide Laws are much more complex than most people think. I'm far, far from good in my observance of them yet, but at least I've begun the journey.
There's a movement afoot that insists that the Noachide Laws don't require anyone to leave their former religion, that in effect one can be a good chr*stian or good moslem and still be an observant Noachide. This is easy-going, liberal, ecumenical nonsense.
As for the wiccans, I don't think they're as liberal as the United Methodist Church!
I understand what you're saying, but I sort of come from the other direction. There's way too much "every religion is equally right!" out there, and unfortunately cooperation among religious conservatives of various religions can sort of reinforce that. Which is why I think it's good every so often for each of us to take just a moment to say to our good friends and partners in the conservative movement, "Now, hot-dangit-all, I love you'uns, but y'all jes' wrong!" And since I'm an old redneck country boy, I can put it that way!
It isn't unusual for Catholic FReepers to remind us that their church is "the one true church." Ditto for the Eastern Orthodox. And I assume our Fundamentalist Protestant brethren say the same things (though they get attacked for it when they do it because they're the "majority" religion and they don't get the slack cut for them that "minority" religions do). Since there are so many people who assume that Judaism is a relativistic religion that teaches that "'sall cool, bro'," I sometimes have to open my big fat mouth just to correct this impression. And being a Noachide rather than a Jew, I'm not as uncomfortable with doing so.
Also I've noticed that an un-fundamentalist civilizationism is growing more and more widespread even among fundamentalist religious conservatives. I don't attack any religion on the basis of the fact that "it is alien to Western Civilization," since that has nothing to do with whether or not a religion is true. Neither do I believe in promoting religion based solely on its being a traditional American or Western religion. All that matters if it's true or not. Period. End of discussion. In fact, some of the positions of islam are more correct than the positions of its critics (many conservative chr*stians are letting the muzzies turn them into liberals, just as Jews have allowed chr*stian persecution to do so to the great majority of them).
Furthermore, the "let's all respect each other" is never really consistently applied. Since 9/11 islam is attacked constantly on this board (and I have no problem with that), and there are people who will declare that mormonism is false and that they'd never vote for a mormon. If you're going to publicly attack mormonism as false, why stop there? To me it is illogical to attack islam or mormonism and then start playing "big tent." Better just to be a consistent fundie, which is what I am.
Anyway, I don't intend to stir up a hornet's nest with these comments. Hopefully my fellow religious fundamentalists, whatever their religion, will understand what I'm trying to say.
"A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit?"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.