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Rabbenu

A Discussion of Messianic Judaism, the Emerging Messianic Jewish Paradigm, and Related Leadership Issues from the Preoccupied Mind of Rabbi Stuart Dauermann, PhD.

All Contents ©2004-2007 Stuart Dauermann - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Do You Ask Questions?

Dr. Dauermann made a very strong final point in this week's sermon available here. I have included an excerpt as a highlight below:
Finally, I think that any conclusions we draw about people's eternal destinies need to be made with a heightened awareness of what we are talking about, rather than in the arid neo-Platonic realm of pure theological ideas. Eternal destiny should never be a subject for banter. I would want to sit down in a room with a bunch of us, and a group of right wing theologically conservative Messianic believers, and slowly review the lives of people like Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Chofetz Chaim, and Elie Wiesel for example, and then ask: "Does our theological system demand that we insist that these people will spend eternity in the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, in everlasting conscious torment? Does this comport with what we know of God?" Or do you sense that there may just be something wrong here?

I think it is better for us to embrace the rigors, uncertainties, and agonies of beseeching God for better answers, than to accept the closure that comes from acquiescence to a system of theological thought that gives us tidy answers but a terrible God.
Certainly, there are aspects of this that all of us can react to. The challenge is whether we are willing given that doing so may expose the iceberg of uncertainties under the surface.

Have you considered these questions with G-d previously?

posted by jon cline @ 7:50 PM   2 comments

Sunday, July 08, 2007

The Passion of Pinchas and God's Prophetic People

In the parsha sermon this week on Pinchas, Dr. Dauermann asked the question "What about me? What about you? What about us?"

With the example of Abraham Klausner's heroic effort to advocate for and reunite Jews after WWII, how might we find new ways to do what we can? How might we move beyond declaring injustice someone else's problem and just shrugging our shoulders?

posted by jon cline @ 8:22 PM   0 comments