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Assembly narrowly approves continued support for new Messianic congregations

RICHMOND — The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has refused to stop funding new Messianic congregations, even though some Presbyterians described such congregations as deeply offensive to Jews and said they would hurt Presbyterian efforts to provide a Christian witness in a religiously pluralistic world.

But others argued that funding for Messianic congregations should continue as part of the Presbyterian commitment to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ around the globe.


Continued funding for new Messianic congregations narrowly slipped through the Assembly Wednesday afternoon by vote of 260 to 233, a reflection of how divisive this issue has been.

The controversy started last year when Philadelphia Presbytery approved funding for a Messianic congregation, Congregation Avodat Yisrael, which also has been given financial support at the synod and General Assembly levels.

Debate over Avodat Yisrael, and over whether Presbyterians should be in the business of evangelizing Jews, has provoked intense debate in Philadelphia and has brought national publicity to the PC(USA). In response to an overture from Hudson River Presbytery, the PC(USA) agreed to direct some of PC(USA)’s national staff members to “reexamine and strengthen the relationship between Christians and Jews” and to consider the implications of that for evangelism and new church development — essentially, to do a study of Christian-Jewish relations and evangelistic efforts.

But it voted down a part of the overture that would have suspended funding for any new Messianic congregations while that study is underway.

Fahed Abu-Akel, a former General Assembly moderator, argued that the funding should not be cut off. Messianic congregations are being started all around the United States and are part of a broader emphasis on creating racial-ethnic congregations, Abu-Akel said. If Jews didn’t hear about Jesus, “then brother Peter and brother Paul will not write almost 60 percent of the New Testament,” he said. “To me the gospel is for everyone.”

But Susan Andrews, another former moderator, said Jewish leaders have been saddened and hurt by “the lack of clarity about Avodat Yisrael being a Christian congregation and the way in which sacred Jewish rituals and objects are being used.”

John Ames, a minister from Long Island Presbytery, said that to use the denomination’s limited new church development funds for Messianic congregations is “an insult to Jewish brothers and sisters and a very poor use of scarce resources for our church.”

But Drew Smith, a minister from Alabama, said Presbyterians have been involved in outreach to Jews going back to the 1930s in Chicago and the 1940s in Los Angeles. “It is our history, it is our polity” to make appropriate witness to Jesus Christ, Smith said.

And Walter Seigfried, an elder from Pittsburgh Presbytery, said a family from his church comes from the Jewish heritage, and they attend services at an Orthodox synagogue on Friday nights and worship at the Presbyterian church on Sundays. They would be thrilled to go to a Messianic congregation that would be “especially meaningful to them,” Seigfried said.

The Assembly also voted to approve continued funding from the PC(USA) to the National Council of Churches in Christ. Line

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