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Lutheran Ministry Seeks to Convert Jews

Rev. Kevin Parviz places ashes on his grandchildren Johnna Opheim 7 1/2 and infant Aubrey Smith during Ash Wednesday service on Wednesday, March 5, 2014, at Congregation Chai v’Shalom in Dogtown To the right is his wife Colleen.The service combined both Christian and Jewish liturgy. Photo by Laurie Skrivan, lskrivan@post-dispatch.com In a small storefront in Dogtown, a St. Louis neighborhood known for its celebration of the Christian missionary St. Patrick, sits a congregation dedicated to converting Jews. Congregation Chai v’ Shalom is tiny by most standards, with weekly attendance averaging somewhere between 30 and 40 members. But it has the backing of the 2-million member Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. And its mission fits squarely into the Synod’s controversial effort to preach the message that Jesus was the Messiah to Jews, in hope that they will become Christian and gain salvation. On a recent Sunday morning, a couple dozen gathered at Congregation Chai v’ Shalom, a makeshift space where stars of David, one with a cross placed in the middle, hang prominently on the walls, alongside what looks like a random collection of paintings. The vast majority of those who attend Chai v’ Shalom are not Jewish, but they are interested in reaching out to Jews. The service itself even caters to Jews, where the Shema, a central Jewish prayer, is recited and much of the lively singing is in Hebrew. But then a distinctly Christian message is delivered: “If you believe in Jesus Christ and trust in him, he takes your sins away.” To Rev. Kevin Parviz, of Chai v’ Shalom, the contrasts aren’t strange but intentional. “I wanted to identify what was Lutheran about the service and express that in Jewish ways,” said Parviz, 57, who was reared in an observant Jewish family but who converted to Christianity about 1991 after marrying a Lutheran. Some in the Jewish community find this kind of worship service offensive. Among them is Ruth Guggenheim, executive director of Jews for Judaism, an organization dedicated to preserving Jewish identity. She says melding Jewish and Christian practices can be misleading and confusing to those targeted for conversion. “It’s offensive to have spiritual predators out to get our people,” she said. “It doesn’t make any sense to have a Passover Seder with Jesus in it,” she said, referring to the Jewish feast that celebrates the freeing of the Israelites in Egypt from slavery. That kind of criticism doesn’t dampen Parviz’s enthusiasm. “The most anti-semitic thing we can do is withhold the love of Jesus to our Jewish people,” Parviz said. “The bottom line for me is if I truly believe what the Scriptures teach, and I do, then the worst thing I could do for my Jewish parents, my Jewish friends, my Jewish people is say ‘Oh just go to hell, and I’ll be quiet.’” THE SAME GOD The work of Congregation Chai v’ Shalom falls under the umbrella of Lutherans in Jewish Evangelism Inc. The organization is one of the Missouri Synod’s roughly 300 recognized service organizations, nonprofits independent of the church that are in harmony with the denomination’s mission. Lutherans in Jewish Evangelism, established in 1980, is now commonly known as Burning Bush Ministries, with its headquarters next to Congregation Chai v’ Shalom, at 6327 Clayton Avenue. In 1996, The Apple of His Eye Mission Society was established, a complementary ministry that is also based here in St. Louis. The Missouri Synod said it agrees with the ministries’ missions. “Christians do have a calling … it’s about proclaiming the Gospel to all people,” said Vicki Biggs, public relations director for the Synod. “That is part of what we do.” The ministries work in a few different ways. One is that they aim to set up congregations like Chai v’ Shalom, a church that offers a traditional Lutheran service with Jewish liturgy scattered throughout. Although there are other messianic congregations in St. Louis, such as the nondenominational Beit Tefilah, only Chai v’ Shalom is under The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Efforts are under way to set up other churches like Chai v’ Shalom in places such as Florida, Georgia and Detroit. Parviz said the long-term goal is to have a congregation in every city with a significant Jewish population. While Chai v’ Shalom concentrates on church building, Steve Cohen of The Apple of His Eye Mission Society says he travels to various congregations (about 1,800 so far, most of them members of Missouri Synod) to inspire members to take the message of Jesus Christ to Jews. Missionaries from Apple of His Eye also reach out directly by handing out religious tracts in cities such as Washington, Cleveland and Chicago. Cohen, previously a member of Jews for Jesus, one of the more prominent organizations focusing on Jewish conversion to Christianity, says he himself was shunned by his Jewish family when, in 1973, he accepted Jesus Christ as his savior, after learning from a Gentile that Jesus and his first followers were Jewish. “We don’t have a different God between the Old and New Testaments,” Cohen said in a sermon given last year in Germantown, Md., at Messiah Lutheran Church. “That same God showered his love upon Israel.” It’s unclear how successful Christian evangelizing efforts among Jews has been, but a study released last year by the Pew Research Center estimated that there are about 1.6 million Christians of Jewish heritage in the U.S. An additional 100,000 consider themselves both Jewish and Christian, though the majority of Jews polled said a person cannot be Jewish if he or she believes Jesus was the Messiah. REDEFINING JUDAISM Parviz can see why evangelizing to Jews, a population with a long history of persecution, is controversial. “The Jews have been hurt at the hands of human beings who purport to be acting in the name of God,” Parviz said. He said he himself was teased during childhood for being Jewish and nicknamed a “Christ killer.” But Parviz stands by his work. “I think what we go through right now in this place is far less painful than what we have to look forward to without Christ in the end,” he said. “That’s the thin line that Jewish missionaries have to walk.” There are, however, some lines Parviz won’t cross when evangelizing to Jews, such as preaching to children and handing out tracts in front of a synagogue during high holiday services. “You have to respect the culture and the traditions of our people,” he said. But to many in the Jewish community, such as Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz, founder of Jews for Judaism, the problem isn’t conversion but the methods used to reach that end. They’re “really trying to redefine what Judaism is and that’s an insult to Judaism,” said Kravitz, who maintains Judaism cannot be separated from its theology. Kravitz also argues that those evangelizing to Jews are missing a major historical development: Only a small number of Jews accepted Jesus as the Messiah. Christianity spread in earnest during the Roman Empire, mainly among Gentiles. Jews expected the Messiah would be a king, not divine. Philip A. Cunningham of The Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations, which is dedicated to enhancing mutual understanding between Jews and Christians, adds that most mainline churches understand that the ultimate destiny of Jews is not in the hands of Christians, but God.