WE Hold These Truths Strait Gate Ministries PO Box 14491 Scottsdale AZ 85267 480 947 3329
Dear Beatrice:
Thanks for the several letters you have sent over the last few weeks. I read to the bottom of one of them and found some things I may not have already explained in our many Pharisee Watch papers. A few of these are footnoted to help you and others who read this.
YOU WRITE:
"I cant concede in any way your theological views. Though your views are traditional in Christian Thinking, they divorce the Old Testament from the so-called New Testament. The New Testament flows very much from the Old Testament, and without a firm foundation in the true meaning of the Torah, the New Testament will just be a hand floating around without a body...not terribly useful, very misunderstood. You can make it say and do whatever you want without the Torah as its base...and it has been used that way, tragically. Respectfully, B.L.F. (Beatrice)" (address withheld, entire letter in endnotes)
WHTT ANSWERS:
You say you believe the New Testament flows from the old one and is the "hand" attached to the Old Testament "body", which you call the "Torah". I do not criticize you for saying this, because it is what I would expect from someone who does not believe Jesus is the Son of God. Nor do you seem to believe Jesus to be your Messiah, since it seems you consider yourself Jewish. I do not have a problem with atheists who say there never was a Jesus. Nor do I blame Talmudic Jewish students who repeat far worse statements they have read about Him. I would wish you to believe otherwise, but it's your privilege to believe as a Jew, Hindu, Satanist or whatever you choose.
To a follower of Christ you are and can only be a non-believer, whether you are some flavor of Jewish, a self-professed atheist, or any sect that does not believe Jesus was spiritually (not sexually) generated by God of a woman, and that "no one can come to the Father except through the Son," as Jesus put it.
Because Jesus said this over and over again, we who try our best to follow him have no option but to believe it. This makes you a pagan to true followers. And there is such a faith as "Christian-Zionism."
However, Jesus also says we are obligated to love you, even if you make yourself an enemy to us, for if I considered you an enemy I might not try to change you, and in Jesus' eye this is a sin. This is the wonderful and incomprehensible dilemma in following Him.
I understand you to be Jewish, and I cannot be sure you are not one of these assigned to watch and engage us. We have much experience in this area. We asked for your bio, but you did not send it. Regardless of who you are, though, you get the same answer from me, because there is only one answer.
Strangely enough, Beatrice, some 100 million Americans who call themselves Christian-Zionist share this same anti-Christ view of the Old and New Testaments. Strait Gate Ministries is organized to challenge this heresy among some 100 million professing Christians, including our President, who do not follow Jesus, and therefore do not really believe what he told us about himself: that he is the son of God, that he will judge each of us at God's right hand, and that we must follow him sacrificially.
Our group is all about changing these apostate Christians on the so-called "right" who allow themselves to be called Christian-Zionists. This, in itself, is just plain silly. As a faith, "Christian Zionism" should be laughed at as a farcical paradox instead of being taken seriously.
It is far easier for me to explain this to a non-believer like you than to a Christian-Zionist who thinks he or she is a Christian, because we can use logic that both of us understand without resorting to old books that must be taken on faith. It is much easier to talk to you than it is to talk to persons who have been erroneously trained to think they are following Christ, when they replace his words with something a "Reverend" has gleaned from the Old Testament.
This is the reigning heresy of Christian-Zionism. It is not only apostasy to put the old over and in front of the new; it is also foolish and illogical. Christian-Zionists must avoid or deny logic to maintain a false faith; they must lie, go to war, and fight to defend it.
We followers of Jesus should accept the self-evident logic that the new covenant took the place of the old one. It is the essence of Christianity.
Let us test the logic that is in law, medicine, science and literature. Does not your new auto insurance policy supersede the old one? The old premium is history. The coverage is what is in the new one that comes in your mailbox every year. The old is gone. So also, does not the new last will and testament take precedence over the old one, making it history? If you are left out of your uncle's latest will, you are probably out of luck.
The same is true for textbooks on physics or medicine. You rely on the latest, not the oldest. The same is true of the new phone book and the new deed to the old house you live in, the new driver's license, etc. The new always supercedes the old, in literature, science and law, and in everything else that follows the law of reason and logic. Beatrice, can you show me a single exception to this law?
Now God is the author of logic and intelligence; I know you can agree with me, if you believe there is a God. Then do not make God out to be a fool by saying he cannot understand logic and write a cogent paragraph. The Old Testament (to Christ followers) is a Jewish history with Jewish covenants. It has nothing to do with the New Testament and its new covenant for Christ followers to live by, except for its value as history.
To followers of Christ, your old Hebrew book (Torah) is history, valued only because it predicts the coming of Jesus. It provides no valid real estate claims, and Christ followers should ignore claims of racial favoritism. God has written a new last will and testament, called the New Testament. The old is history.
You, Beatrice, may believe the Old Testament is the New. But Christian Zionists find that the old book suits their apostate religion better, so they join you in denying the New. Those who call themselves by Christ's name should not do this. It is called "apostasy," or falling away. You have not fallen away, because you don't profess to be a Christian. You are not apostate like the others, because you have nothing to fall away from.
Do you understand why I don't get mad at you when you insult me, or even if you insult Christ himself? It is my job to convince you should look at what Jesus said in light of logic; if you believe him, you will subordinate the Old Testament to the New Testament, as the followers of Christ did.
So, a sincere thanks to you for giving me a chance to explain this, and I would be happy to send you a complete copy of the New Testament as a gift, if you would care to have one. Just tell me where to send it, even if it is in Israel. Then you will see what we followers of Christ believe and why we cannot and must not rely on the Torah as a superior law.
My best from an attempting follower of Christ, which path we call the Strait Gate,
Charles Carlson
Poster Comment:
Click the link for Beatrice's letter in its entirety.