How can one allow culture to over rule the belief in the Son of God? One of my issues with Messianic Judaism is that it seems to draw more people away from Christ, especially Gentiles, than it does Jews to Christ.
In a way, this story is about that – at least it evolves to that point – but it is also about a horrible practice forced upon a people in the middle ages.
From here:
Like an increasing number of Latinos, Barkhausen believes her ancestors were Crypto Jews — people who outwardly professed another religion but kept Jewish tradition in secrecy.
Scholars have paid attention to the phenomenon for decades, but the public interest has skyrocketed more recently.
Houston’s Family Tree DNA now answers about 20 queries weekly from Hispanics about Jewish ancestry, founder Bennett Greenspan said. And Jewishgen.com, the leading Web site for Jewish genealogy, has seen the number of people searching online databases surge from 1 million to 9 million over the past 10 years.
Crypto-Judaism has a 500-year history. In 1492, Jews in Spain were ordered to convert to Catholicism. Some immigrated to Europe and the Arab world. They were called Sephardic Jews; Sefarad is the Hebrew word for Spain.
Others stayed in Spain — Jews in Portugal were affected as well — and converted. But some used Catholicism as a cover and kept Jewish tradition, said Stanley Hordes, author of To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto Jews of New Mexico. As the Spanish Inquisition became determined to root out Judaism, Crypto Jews were tortured or burned at the stake.
Other Jews fled to Mexico. The Garcias (Barkhausen’s maiden name) emigrated to Mexico from Spain in the early 1500s, for instance. Mexico later established its own tribunal to persecute Jews.
According to Hordes, Crypto Jews and their descendants also settled throughout the American Southwest, including Texas, New Mexico and southern Arizona. No one is sure how many descendants exist today.
The secret practices and daily traditions continued in homes for generations until many families no longer knew their origin. Eventually, many families’ religious history was lost.“Even though Grandma didn’t know it was kosher, that was what she was doing,” Barkhausen said.
(snip…)
She started to confide in Mason. One day, the two of them told each other they no longer believed Jesus was the son of God.
July 11th, 2009 2:35 pm
[...] July 11 tags: Denying Christ, Hebrew Roots Movement, The Falling Away, Warning by pjmiller (HT) This story reminded me of Barbara Richmond. For those who are not acquainted with her and her [...]
July 11th, 2009 4:27 pm
I had a friend in my college group who became a Jew through an interest in Messianic Judaism
July 11th, 2009 5:13 pm
Jeremiah, what then are to we to make of that movement that draws more people away from Christ than to Christ?