Mission realities: Denying the free will choice of the human

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

9 February 2010

The word mission is not only used in the spiritual sphere, today the militaries, economic, social, political systems all use the same word. Whereas all other kinds of mission projects are horizontalism, focussed only on solving human problems in this world, Christianity as a religion offers mission as a spiritual solution for the world to come as well. A very helpful book on the consideration of mission in three main religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity and Islam is the book written by a professor that this researcher has met personally the 13th of February 1991, professor Moshe Sharon. Professor Sharon gave this researcher a copy of his book Judaism Christianity and Islam: Interaction and Conflict (Johannesburg, South Africa: Snap Print (Pty) Ltd, 1989) which deals with comparisons between the three major religions. Although there are many forces today who is trying to integrate, creating hybrids of these major religions in order to avoid division, separatism and particularism among or between them, fundamentally there are realities that cannot be avoided. The fundamentalism of a religion is the closest a religion can come to its sacred text and this factor is more prone to differences than to comparisons. However, the modus operandi of some religions do compare at times. Professor Sharon was a bright scholar and a realist. His book is evidence of that. Adventism favors realism since deceptive misgivings have diluted the ideologies of people to accept a pseudo-realism as their religion and what is needed is a realism to return to clarity and soberness about the aspect of religion. Satan is a reality in Adventism, a strong force and personality against God's divine plan with humanity. God wants to save the human race and He does it with an salvation appeal and acceptance of His deed through the atonement on the cross of Christ in 31 CE. But, Satan becloud the mind and benumb the brain with false interpretations, sidetracking opinions, confused ideologies and self-creations that not only mislead people but also remove from individuals their free choice. It is a kind of religious dictatorship. Either it is no mission activity at all allowed or practiced or it is forced mission activity or forced conversions administrated. This is the deceived method of Satan and his agents. What we will do here, is to see what God's plan with Israel was in the Old and New Testament and what Judaism today is claiming in comparision with that destiny.

Judaism against missionary work

The essence of modern Judaism is defined more by the opinions expressed outside the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition (the Hebrew Old Tesament that is shared with the Christians). It is in their Talmudim, their Mishnah, their Hallakhic and Haggadic works as well as commentaries thereof. The later traditions of the ancestors is of more importance than the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition although they will kiss at times this text for the respect they have for it. This means, they treat as divine reverence the words of the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition, but their ears and eyes are geared or navigated to the logic coming from commentators outside that text, like rabbi so and so or source such and such.

Sharon explains that Judaism is a family religion, a religion only for ethnic Jews. "Thus, above anything else, Judaism is a set of rules which regulate the membership in a unique and closed circle of people" (Sharon 1989: 16).

Sharon continues "Judaism lacks the universal ambition to be a world religion, for it does not see its function as either to spread itself or to dispense Jewish ideas to the world" (Sharon 1989: 16). We must qualify what Sharon is saying here, since he means spiritual and theological ideas. Jews are very eager to promote their country and history to the world and that pays off indirectly.

Sharon also indicates that Jews are not eager to convert people: "To begin with, although Judaism did not encourage conversion, it had no rules whatsoever against accepting anybody who wished wholeheartedly to become a Jew, be he white, black or yellow. The only concern of the Jewish sages in the case of converts was to warn them about the difficulty of being a Jew and to make them understand the full consequences of their decision" (Sharon 1989: 17) and he cited the Babylonian Talmud, Gerim, I. E. Fleg, Anthology, 119-120 as example.

Sharon cites the words of the famous Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Levi who wrote in his book The Kuzari and answer to the king of the Khazars by a Jew about the status of the one who joins Judaism: "Yes, it is true, whoever joins us as an individual from the other nations enjoys the good which God bestows upon us, but he can never be (otherwise) identical with us" (Sharon 1989: 18).

Sharon then cites Deuteronomy 4:51 where God said through Moses: "Observe therefore and do them (Law, Torah = revelation); for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples that when they hear these statutes shall say: 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people" (Sharon 1989: 23). This is very important since the missionary objective is clearly spelled out by God to Moses for the covenant people of the Old Testament, covenant people just for the purpose of been His agency to reveal His character through His Torah or revelation.

The modern Jewish thinker, J. H. Hertz connected this verse with the mission of Israel:

"But the aggrandizement of Israel was not an end in itself: it was to demonstrate to the children of men the Divine in human history . . . The peoples would ask, what is the secret of Israel's greatness? and discovering that it rested upon fidelity to the Will of God, they might be induced to pay allegiance to the God of Israel. 'We have here in substance the idea of the missionary purpose of Israel's existence'" (Hertz 757 as cited by Sharon 1989: 24).

Bringing the observations of Sharon together with Hertz is what one can describe as modern Judaism and their concept of mission as spelled out in Deuteronomy. This ideal of "light of the nations" is kept alive in Judaism as an obligation "by getting involved in activities of a universal nature in the name of justice and equality, human rights and morality" (Sharon 1989: 24). It sounds very American, but here is the catch: "has very little to do with traditional Judaism". This is very important. Traditional Judaism for Sharon will be the way of the Haredic Jews or Rabbinic thoughts and their practices in the synagogue and so forth. Traditional Judaism for us is a newly defined Judaism as it was in the Old Testament represented by men like Moses, Samuel, David et al.

The Old Testament is a witness to God's revelation to man from Adam's times. Henoch was in line with God's divine plans and revelation and he was taken to heaven similarly to Moses later in 1411 BCE. Noah was a preacher for God in his days to all people to enter the ark and none wanted that way. Noah was evangelizing the people and proclaiming the news of God but no one was interested.

There is no difference in the difficulty to witness for God in our day and age as it was in the past. Noah could not convince anyone. Jonah went to evangelize Niniveh and when they turned to God he was angry. It is not the fable or myth of Jonah that is meant only for children entertainment in Jewish Literature, it is history and reality (thus the Adventist way).

Isaiah is pretty universal in his appeal from chapter 40 and it is not a second Isaiah that later simulated the first Isaiah who's work was then later attached to Isaiah. It is Isaiah writing at a later age in his life so that the style is somewhat different than when he was composing as a youth.

Moses was not saying that Israel must all try to be rich and wealthy and then nations will say, wow, how did you get so rich, is it your God? All but it. Deuteronomy 4:51 states that they had to observe the statutes of the Lord and follow His Torah in such a way that they also preached them to the nations. There is only one way in which the nations can "hear the statutes" (Deuteronomy 4:51) and that is when Israel were preaching them. Where must they witness the statutes of the Lord (His revelation or Torah)? "In the midst of the land where you go in to possess it" (Deuteronomy 4:51). Ownership is possession and owning a piece of land, whether it is Canaan or New York or Sydney or Cape Town, it is ownership and only by one speaking the statutes or preaching them or proclaiming them, can nations "hear" them. This was the whole issue of Paul with his fellow countrymen of his own day. He was asking how people will say Amen, when they do not hear the gospel and how can they hear the gospel if someone does not preach it. There is thus, in Adventist analysis, no reason for Judaism in any generation to claim that they "lacks the universal ambition to be a world religion" (Sharon 1989: 16). Of course, religion per se is not the goal of Moses here. If it is the true religion, operating with the principles from the consonantal text of the Masoretic Tradition (Hebrew text or Christian Old Testament) then it is right for that religion, aligned with this text in harmony, to have an ambition to be universal.

Sold out on the idea of ethnicity, Judaism has cut their opportunity to be used by God as agency for His glory. Instead of "let us all [all humanity] worship God" they have exchanged it for "let us [only ethnic Jews] worship our God [exclusively]". The nuance led to the New Testament lament of Christ over their approach and their decision.

Mission antagonism in modern Israel

This topic is born from a newsclip talking about German missionaries who walked in the neighborhood of the haredim (ultra orthodox Jews) and who were giving out pamphlets. They wore T-shirts reading "Your God is our God". A shuffle started between the two groups and the newspaper Arutz sheva reported on the incident. What is important about the newspaper clipping, is not only the viewpoint of the journalist, the comments of the haredim, but also the interesting blog information in the responses below the article. The journalist made a point that these missionaries keep saying they love Jews but, said the journalist, if all the ethnic Jews convert to Christianity, there will be no more Jews to love. The article appeared on June 28 in 2006 in the online Arutz sheva column. The article is by Hillel Fendel. One resident commented that missionary activity there is like waving a red flag to a bull. He was probably only referring to that particular neighborhood.

The comments of the people responding were:

Jews cannot be converted; best way to deal with missionaries; CAPAI against prozelytizing; it has to be illegal; get them out of here; soul snatchers; missionaries = replacement theology; missionaries would do better to convert to Judaism.

These comments above are only half of the comments. Nearly 40-50% of the people were ashamed by these actions. It is clear from the blog information that a large percentage of the population do not share this modus operandi against prozelytizing in Israel. It is known that Israel does not want prozelytizing in its country and the probably reason is that they think that Christian Jews will love their own nation and patriotism less.

When we get back to the view of God's dealing with men in the Old Testament, he gives everyone a free choice to worship Him or not, to change their religion or whatever they want to do. Freedom. One of the biggest signs of a problem religion or problem politics is heightened control. Ultra control and manipulation is well known in dictators' countries.

Judaism is both religious and political. Catholicism shares the same bipolar element and Islam also. What Judaism shares with Islam is their actions against prozelytizing. Mission-work in Muslim countries and in Israel is toned down to the minimum. Unless the missionaries say that they are not missionaries, or promise to be quiet about their religion and not to speak about it, they are not allowed in the country. There is no difference with this approach and that of Paul or Peter in their days.

The eschatology for Islam, says Sharon, is that "the world will become a Muslim world; namely, the Islamic divine law will be the only law of the universe". He continues to say that "the Muslim community has an obligation not only to keep the Muslim law, but also to spread its authority over as great a part of the world as possible" (Sharon 1989: 29).

Catholicism, as ecumenical as they are, as eclectic as they mirrored to be, as open as they profess to appear, actually claims to be the only true religion on earth that will carry through to the eschaton. All peoples will just transform into catholicism to become very similar if not the same.

Adventism does not claim that the whole world will become the Adventist church. What they do proclaim, is that the whole world will share the same truth of the Old and New Testaments and have a proper relationship with the same God Who revealed Himself in the Old and New Testaments. The key of salvation will then be for Adventists, when people love God earnestly and love their neighbors as themselves. Unselfish love to God and humans is embrased by God as His.

Prohibition to change religion is satanic methods. God, in the canonical biblical theology is a God who gives people their own free will and free choice, even to choose against Him. If someone wants to become an Adventist but then to choose otherwise, that is his/her free choice. No ethnic, political, economical, sociological or religious agenda can rob a person from his/her freedom to choose. Manipulation, coercion, controling, stalking, spying, persecuting against the right to choose is contrary to the express will of God in the Word of God. 

As Deuteronomy called the ancient Israelites to preach and teach God's character to the nations around, so we are to continue with that objective following the command of Moses and God who gave it to him, to bring the gospel into all the world.

Dear God

The world wants us to be quiet and so is Satan. They want us not to speak of your Love and so is the Great Deceiver. Helps us to speak though the heavens may fall. In Jesus Name, Amen.