http://joyfullygrowingingrace.wordpress.

com/2009/04/03/hebrew-roots-movement-
salesmanship-101/

TÉCNICAS BÁSICAS DE VENDA APLICADAS AO MOVIMENTO RAÍZES

HEBRAICAS

1) Identifique o alvo de mercado: A igreja moderna parece um bom mercado para

as seitas: Muitos movimentos largaram o cristianismo bíblico e estabeleceram
um padrão de crenças. Os interesses pesam mais que a doutrina. Os números
financeiros ou de pessoas pesam mais do que a graça bíblica, a verdade e a
maturidade. As programações são motivadas por “necessidades” culturais
percebidas em vez do mandamento de Cristo de amar a Deus e ao próximo.
Nossa mentalidade de comida rápida deixa pouco espaço para esperar em Deus
para mostrar às pessoas ou igrejas locais onde Ele quer que sirvam no seu
Corpo. O objetivo é ter um ministério bem sucedido (medido pela riqueza e
crescimento da igreja) em vez de um fundamento sólido doutrinário e obediência
a direção do Espírito Santo. Surge assim uma igreja anêmica, mais baseada na
cultura que na Palavra. Temos livrarias evangélicas cheias de livros, a Internet
abre dimensões de informação inimagináveis. O cristão pós-moderno está sobre
carregado de informação, e quando buscam a luz acabam encontrando a palavra
diluída, recebendo uma dieta espiritual rala em vez de refeições substanciosas
que deem oportunidade de um verdadeiro crescimento espiritual e maturidade.

Autodidatas e adoradores nas casas são também mais suscetíveis.

I’ve seen a growing trend of well-known pastors embracing and promoting teachings of
the HRM. These are pastors that are widely respected in the body of Christ for their
opinions, biblical interpretations, scholarship, and spiritual discernment. So I think the
church as a whole is at risk for being influenced by the HRM, because we tend to trust
and embrace the teachings of those we look up to for guidance. I want to say that house
churches are less susceptible to encountering false doctrine, but the truth is that even the
house churches of the New Testament had to deal with it, including the false teachings
of the Torah observant/HRM. The major lesson I learned in my experience with the
HRM is that the yeast of the Pharisees is still alive and well, and that the teachings
should be avoided, because a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Jesus’ warning to
avoid their teachings is relevant for all believers, whether they fellowship within larger
church settings or house churches. Since it only takes a little leaven to affect the whole
lump, we all have to stand firm against it and be on guard.

In addition to the above, homeschooling families are, in their quest for good curriculum,
exposed to Torah observant families on internet forums, support groups, and even
suppliers of curriculum. One such supplier is Heart of Wisdom, which stresses a
“Hebraic approach” to educating children vs. the “Greek approach”. While Heart of
Wisdom does have some good resources to offer, as with any entity offering false
spiritual teaching, where there is good, there is always that “little leaven”, as the writer
quoted above notes, that you need to look for and to stand firm against.
Heart of Wisdom is very subtle in its initial presentation of the “Hebraic mindset”, but
like anything, if you investigate the Heart of Wisdom website and ALL of its sister
websites and forum, it is clear that it promotes the “Hebrew Roots of our faith” through
and through. One book in particular that HOW Publishing offers to homeschoolers as
curriculum (and which has become very popular in the homeschooling community) is

“The Family Guide to Biblical Holidays.”

From one of the critical reviews of “The Family Guide to Biblical Holidays” at
Amazon:

I was extremely disappointed with this particular item. The cost of the book is not worth
it. The authors claim to make efforts to educate people on the biblical feasts, but have
included an immense amount of information that is rooted in cabala [Kabbalah] without
addressing it as such. As a parent who purchased this book in order to supplement the
teaching of Truth, I was dumbfounded by the authors lack of research concerning the
roots of certain celebration practices. My own elementary school children were able to
pick apart the errors in teaching and doctrinal half truths. This book should come with a
warning label. If you are pursuing information on practicing biblical feasts the Jewish
way: Buy. If you are interested in information on Biblical feasts: Walk! Just as there are
many pagan traditions in “Christian” holidays, there are just as many pagan traditions in
the “Jewish” holidays. Buyer be aware.

There is a subtle yet consistent undertone of the use of Kabbalah and its related practice
of Gematria in the Hebrew Roots Movement/Messianic Judaism as the reviewer refers
to above. [More can be learned about this connection at "Doublemindedness in the
Hebrew Roots Movement - The Use of Kabbalah and Gematria". Highly
Recommended.]

One mom relayed to me that in the homeschooling support group her family belongs to
her family is the only family who is not Torah observant. The families that have taken
on Torah observance all have the “Family Guide to Biblical Holidays” in common. The
really interesting thing is that these families bought the book as curriculum to learn
about Biblical Feasts and came away feeling commanded to keep not only the Feasts,
but to become completely Torah observant. There is no such command to the Body of
Christ to keep the Law or the Feasts.

Conclusions
The realities of the shortcomings in the Church today prime many for the “getting back
to the way early believers worshipped” and the “getting back to the Hebrew/Jewish
roots of our faith” that the HRM claims to offer. Teachers in the HRM systematically
dismantle elements of both the modern and traditional Church (not without justification
in some cases), replacing what they have torn down with a house of contradictions and
doctrine woven in such a way that it can be difficult to discern its error. Those in the
Church who are unsatisfied, immature in their faith, disgruntled, wounded, or rebellious
are bit by bit led from the error they may be experiencing in their current circumstance
into compounded error in the HRM which has been dressed up in the seeming
“authenticity” of Messianic Christianity.

NOTE:
I think the point needs to be made here that there are healthy churches out there! It
may take patient searching and lots of visiting, but they do exist! I can say this with
confidence, as our family is blessed to be in a healthy church. Whether one finds a
healthy church or home fellowship is partly determined by the attitude of one’s heart. If
you’re looking for the “perfect” church with “like-minded” believers, you’re setting
yourself up for disappointment and discontent. There is no such place, as the Church is
made up of imperfect believers – us. Look for a healthy church, not a perfect one.
Focus on the Gospel being of primary importance, along with the core, indisputable
matters of the faith. Measure any church or home fellowship by those standards and
by the commands of Jesus to love God and love others, and within those parameters you
will find a healthy place in which to gather, worship, and serve with fellow
Christians.

2) Establish the Need

In part, because of some real and deserved discontent in much of the modern Church
today, the Hebrew Roots Movement makes use of that discontent in such a way as
to establish something that has the appearance of authenticity. In effect, they validate
one’s discontent (and/or immaturity, woundedness, or rebellion – whether or not it is
justified) and provides a possible explanation for one’s unhappiness in Christianity –
that one is in fact being “drawn back to the Hebraic Roots of one’s faith”.

The HRM systematically tears down the orthodox (small ‘o’) tenets of biblical
Christianity as being “Hellenized” , then systematically rebuilds an entirely new
perspective on Scripture, based on “Hebraic” systems of thought, language, and
customs. [You can read more information about about the true influences of Hellenism
on both Judaism (both BCE and CE) and the early Church at "Hebrew Roots Movement
- The Issue of "Hellenization" here at JGIG. Highly Recommended.] The result of
HRM teachings regarding Hellenistic vs. Hebraic thought and perspective is the
significant minimizing of the Gospel and an inappropriate elevation of the Torah and
“Jewishness”. The simplicity of the Gospel for all tongues, tribes, and nations fades and
eventually disappears under the weight of the Laws and traditions required by the
“Hebraic mindset.”

The HRM establishes a further need for their belief system by framing the Church of
the last 2000 years as being rooted in paganism. No facet of the Church is exempt –
from Catholicism (which is indeed steeped in extra-biblical doctrine and practices)
to Protestantism to Evangelicism to Fundamentalism, etc. - all are indicted by the HRM
as at least being influenced by and at worst practicing paganism in one form or another
throughout the ages. In Sheep Wrecked’s Testimony, one portion in her story brought
tears to my eyes the first time I read it:

That first yesod class broke my heart. I truly believed that I “had missed it”. I
completely fell apart in the car on the way home, weeping non-stop for two days in
repentance for the “error” that I had been taught my whole life in “church/babylon”. I
totally believed I had found the “truth” I had been searching for. I was elated, but very
misled, as I immersed myself in a new life style and new theology which systematically
worked against me. It eventually became a burden and a yoke that I could not bear. I
was absorbing another Gospel and it weighed so heavily on me that I could physically
feel it. I did not comprehend then why there was an underlying feeling of weariness and
oppression that I could not shake.

A number of books feed into the Hebrew Roots Movement’s cycle of paranoia,
including “Fossilized Customs” by Lew White, “Come Out of Her My People” by CJ
Koster, “Too Long in the Sun” by Richard Rives, and the grand-daddy of them all, “The
Two Babylons”, by Alexander Hislop – the book which is the basis for many modern
books on paganism in the Church. While there is some truth to some of their charges,
the points on paganism found in these books and books like them are taken way too far
by the HRM. They inflate the influence of pagan practices and Hellenistic culture as
well as exercise poor scholarship in research [on purpose?], linking historical events
(where their historical accuracy is tenuous at best in many cases) to practices in the
Church that really have no basis in reality at all.
Some in the HRM leadership even see themselves as being the completion of the
Reformation! One Hebrew Roots leader wrote me an email (which I may post
someday, just for fun) part of which stated:

“What about those of us who see our Messianic faith as continuing the work of a John
Calvin or a John Wesley?”

My response:

“I would say that some serious re-evaluation of your belief system on your part is in
order. Calvin and Wesley sought to bring the Gospel back to the simplicity that God
intended for it to have. In my opinion, the HRM, wherever you place yourself on that
spectrum, seeks to complicate the Gospel, removing or minimizing the completed work
of the Cross and adding the works of man. Calvin and Wesley, I dare say, would not
approve.”

3) Fill that need

Once you establish a need, you need to fill that need, or provide a solution. Once
someone had been convinced that Christianity has been in error – indeed that it is a false
religion according to some in the HRM, false teachers can swoop in with their “secret
knowledge” and “hidden insight”. This goes for ALL false belief systems, by the way,
not just the Hebrew Roots Movement.

The Hebrew Roots/Messianic movement determines to fill that need with the efforts of
man to keep a Covenant we, in Christ, are no longer under. And Christians
who become convinced that they’ve been “doing it all wrong” for so long are perfect
targets. They feel a need to “make up” for their error. It’s a perfect set-up for
the introduction to a works-based belief system.

Yup, everything will fall into place when you start to keep Torah. Special insight,
hidden knowledge, fascinating culture and a systematic re-working of the doctrines that
that those in the HRM have convinced you are false, needing replacement from the
context of the “Hebraic mindset”.

There are some consistent, key ways that I’ve observed how the HRM pulls this off:

* They systematically tear down the cultural Church, not without some cause,
but deftly mix valid criticisms with invalid ones, bringing about the idea that the
entire Church has been in error for all but the first century. Not only that, but they will
try to convince you that the “true” religion of the early believers in Christ is a
perpetuation of the practice of Torah observance, and not “Christianity” at all! To pull
this off, they do one or all of three things:

1.) They will try to convince you that the belief system that you have been subjected to
since the first century has been “Hellenized”, stripping “true first century beliefs” from
their origins. They will tell you that you engage in pagan sun worship and idolatry, not
to mention blatant disobedience to God’s Law. For an in-depth study dealing with these
accusations by the HRM, refer to the post, “Hebrew Roots Movement – The Issue of
‘Hellenization’ “.
2.) They will re-define the New Covenant, changing it into a “renewed” Covenant,
which is clearly communicated in the New Testament to be a NEW Covenant. Refer to
the post, “Hebrew Roots Movement – New Covenant or ‘Renewed’ Covenant” for an
overview of the HRM position and an in-depth word study proving the
“renewed” position to be false.

3.) They will try to convince you that though a “New Covenant” exists, we are not yet
under that New Covenant, and as as such, we must still “keep” Old Covenant Law.
They will mis-use prophecy and the words of Jesus to support their position – always
taken out of context and/or will mis-use the original language of a text in effort to
support their error.

* They distort the biblical concept of repentance. For the redeemed believer in
Christ, when we repent, we turn away from our sin and to the Grace of God and the
completed work of the Cross for our salvation. To one in the HRM, repentance means
to turn away from their sin and toward the Law of God. The only use the Cross has for
them is that the work that Christ did there “saves” them from the “second death, the one
we all deserve”. For an article exploring this more, see “Hebrew Roots Movement –
The Perversion of Repentance”.

* Sanctification and the maintaining of their “salvation” is not in the hands of God,
but in their own hands, dependant on their keeping of the Laws of the Old Covenant.
Most in the HRM will try to deny this reality in their belief system, but if you
systematically take each of their beliefs and see where they take you, there is no
denying that their system of belief is upheld not by the Grace of God, but by the works
of man. I posed the following questions to some HRMers on a forum recently:

Under the Old Covenant, certain laws applied to certain people (encompassing all
Israelites, then sub-groups such as male, female, priests, for example). These laws were
not optional. If there were laws that applied to you, you had to do ALL of them. To not
do them was punishable by expulsion from the community of Israel or death, as was
called for in the Law.

Makes one wonder . . . most in the HRM say that keeping the Law is not required for
salvation and that we should keep the Law because we love God and want to please
Him . . . yet if Israel did not keep the Law, there was punishment – either expulsion
from Israel or death. In that context, does that mean that we can “lose” our salvation for
not obeying Mosaic Law? If we “become Israel”, and we fail to “keep” the Law are we
then expelled from the community of Israel or worse yet, is the second death re-imposed
on us as “law-breakers”? HRMers will say that “oh no, your salvation is not dependent
on keeping the Law”, yet the Law itself does not support that claim. You can’t have
Law without enforcement. The two go hand in hand.

One needs to first determine what law one is under before one determines to “do” it.

In the era after the completed work of Christ, are we under the Old Covenant, the Law
of Moses given at Sinai, or the New Covenant, the Law of Christ, the Law of Love,
forged in the blood of Christ?
4) Overcoming objections
The people I’ve come across that were once involved with but are now out of the
Hebrew Roots Movement/Messianic Judaism or its sects are not unintelligent people.
As a rule, I have found that their number one goal is to worship God in a manner
pleasing to Him, unencumbered by human traditions. (For an ironic twist regarding this
desire, see “Doublemindedness in the Hebrew Roots Movement – The Use of Kabbalah
and Gemetria”. )

Questions proselytes have had have been addressed with “special knowledge” and
“hidden insights” as those in the leadership and laity of the HRM rattle on about
linguistics, church history, and the re-working of pivotal doctrines. Following is a
glossary definition I put together to describe one method used by those in the HRM to
establish superiority as they endeavor to answer questions/objections:

Hebrew-isms – Okay, I made that one up. “Hebrew-isms” is a word I’m putting here to
describe how those in the Hebrew Roots Movement choose to speak and
communicate matters of faith. Using the Sacred Name(s) exclusively (YHWH/Yeshua),
would be one example, using the Hebrew “Ruach HaKodesh” instead of using English
to refer to the Holy Spirit, another.

Leadership will also use Hebrew instead of English when referencing Bible passages
from their own “translations” (see “Hebrew Roots Movement - Messin’ With the
Word”) as will laity when exposed long enough to their new paradigm. The book of
“Matthew” becomes “Matityahu”, “John” becomes “Jochanan”, etc. “Brit Hadashah” is
a big one, which means “Renewed Covenant”, not “New Covenant”. [Great article
detailing the language errors the HRM engages in to "prove" that the Covenant is
"renewed" not "new" can be found HERE.] “Renewed Covenant” has the sense of
going back to the Law, a renewing of the Old Covenant – not entering into the newness
of life that the New Covenant brings. The vernacular of the details of the Feasts is also
an element, not a bad thing in itself, as the Feasts paint a powerful picture of the reality
that is in Christ.

However, all that astute language usage becomes a platform of superiority on which
HRM leadership can stand upon above their “students” and on which HRM laity can
stand upon above their potential “converts” as they lead them into a Hebrew Roots
mindset. That platform delivers in a couple of ways:

1) It’s very impressive and gives one the air of superior knowledge and
wisdom, enticing the hearer to place unearned and untested respect and weight in the
speaker’s words.

2) It can be a diversionary tactic, distracting the hearer from the false doctrine
being delivered amidst the flurry of unfamiliar language.

There comes with Hebrew-isms’ platform of superiority the prospect that the speaker
does have special insight, secret knowledge, or hidden revelation, that before now, you,
Joe Christian, were not privy to in the Church (Body of Christ). Not only that, but the
“truth” was purposefully hidden from you by the Church, corrupted through the ages,
and you must rely on your new teachers to enlighten you.
And on all those “Hebrew-isms” they build their false doctrine. Straight answers are
hard to come by. Questions are met with questions. While they are not prepared with a
ready defense of what they believe, they are more often prepared to tear down what you
believe, and then replace it with their false doctrine, leaving you nothing but a pile of

rubble to look
back on if you question them again.

You end up becoming so busy looking at the doctrinal rubble that’s been spread on the
ground around you, and are so overwhelmed with the possibility that you’ve had it all
wrong for so long, that you are exhausted from it all and don’t have the energy to really
investigate where this “special knowledge” and “hidden insight” is truly coming from.
To the believer subjected to these techniques, they are unknowingly being beaten down,
only to be “rescued” by the lies of the Enemy.

5) Closing the “sale”

One person I know who came out of the Messianic Christian movement put it this way:
“Once you’re in ‘Messy’ “, as she affectionately calls it, “you become convinced that if
you don’t keep the Law, you’ll lose your salvation.”

That’s it. That is the close of the “sale”. Taking it beyond “If you love God, you’ll
keep His commandments”, the Hebrew Roots Movement is reduced to a fear-based
belief system: If you don’t hold up your end, you will die an eternal death. If you don’t
believe me, press those in the Hebrew Roots/Messianic movements on this issue. If
your salvation is not dependant on your keeping of the Law, then “keeping” the
Law would be optional. As conversation progresses, you’ll find that in their belief
system, the “keeping” of Old Covenant Law is not optional. And if it’s not optional,
where there is law, there must be enforcement and punishment.
It’s a pretty effective close