We chose our name in response to St. Augustines witness doctrine concerning the Jews. While there is much to be thankful for and honor within our church history, In light of the 21st century, it is hard to see positive or redemptive perspectives that church history has had on the Jews. The soil of anti-semitism and the dehumanization of the Jews was firmly tilled through most of the early church father writings and it is no surprise that this culminated in tragedies like the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the Pogroms and eventually the Holocaust.

In Augustine’s Contra Faustum, he lays out the 4 parts of his witness doctrine concerning the Jews. Interestingly, even though his doctrine towards the Jews was generally disparaging, it offered some level of physical protection to the Jewish people. He saw them as a protected witness that were marked like Cain, to wander the earth. The church was Abel and the Jews were now Cain. Their “use” according to Augustine was to wander the earth as a witness to the truth of Christianity because wherever they wandered, they took their sacred Torah scrolls which pointed to the truth of Christianity. It also allowed the Christians to say, “even our enemies attest to the prophecies” to which our Christian faith rests. With this concept, the idea of their unwilling witness was born. As mere pawns of God.

As if he could find no other good reason to do it, Augustine used Psalm 58 as justification to protect the Jews from being murdered. In Psalm 58, God says to “slay them not”, concerning the Jews. It is unclear where “thou shalt not murder or love thy enemies” were in his thinking but we digress. Either way, this aspect of his contribution on the Jewish question offered the Jews physical protection for a period of time. This doctrine most likely saved many Jews. Augustines was so influential it is no small thing that this protection came from him.

Where we agree with Augustine is that the Jewish suffering is part of God’s inscrutable justice: but it is also somehow within the mysterious plans of God to make the Jews deaf and blind, for a time, so that the Gospel could spread. We believe that the hardening of Israel in Romans 11 was primarily strategic and not only punitive. And it is only temporary. As history rushes to its conclusion, and as the ‘full number’ of Gentiles comes to Christ, we believe God will cease hardening Israel. . . . And so all Israel will be saved.

Even more, we see God’s primary election of Israel as a love story. While there is certainly something instrumental in God’s promise to Abraham and the redemption arc for all of humanity, it is not only instrumental. There is something decidedly human about the experience of Israel. The redemption from slavery, the backsliding, the victories, defeats, national chaos, family dramas, murders, deceits, giant slaying, calling fire down on the prophet’s of Baal, the faith walk of all humanity is played out through this nation. The story of Israel is the story of humanity and it is the story of each individual on this earth. It Is a grand epic of success and failure and God’s guiding hand in all of it. We believe in the God who raises from the dead. We believe in the promises of Ezekiel 36, 37: that the dry bones of Israel will rise again, and the heart of stone will be given a heart of flesh. We believe that God will restore the Jewish people to the physical land of Israel in this consummating work of His redemption when He breathes His Spirit into their hearts and removes the hardness of their hearts. The Jewish people are a Present Witness to the faithfulness of God. We as the church can find much hope in God’s enduring promise to the Jewish people. It Is a love story of heroic proportions, not just for the sake of Israel or the Church, but for the sake of God’s character.

Unequivocally, yes. No one comes to the Father unless it is through the Son (John 14:6). It is our hearts desire to see Zechariah 12:10 come to fruition: “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look unto me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one who mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.” In this place of blindness being removed from their eyes, they will be given the corporate gift of national repentance.

We do not believe in soteriology duel covenantalism, meaning a different salvation covenant for Jew and Gentile. We believe in the One New Man. We do believe that unbelieving Israel is still covenantally connected to God in a calling that is outside the calling of the nations. We also recognize that according to Paul, there is some mystery connected to the current hardening of Israel’s heart. That this hardening is to the benefit of both the gospel and the gentiles. This prompts us to not take a disparaging or triumphalist perspective against the Jews, because who among us could see what the Lord has blinded us to see? In regards to this mystery, we also see the current remnant of believing Israel. There are 25,000 Jewish believers in Jesus living in Israel right now, many whom we consider good friends, and many more scattered through out the earth. We also recognize that Paul alludes to the possibility of the natural dead branches being grafted back into the live tree, and that this could foreshadow some mystery of God in how He reveals himself to the historically broken off branches of Israel. Finally, we recognize that if their temporary rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead (Romans 11:15)? So we yearn for our Jewish brothers and sisters to see the one with whom they have prophesied but in large part still do not see.

As cliche as it sounds, we harken back to the Tolkien idea that not all who wander are lost, which somehow seems appropriate for this question.

We have a love for much of the Orthodox and Catholic aspects of our Christian faith, although we confess there are some things that we still protest. We love the creeds and the confessional aspects of these traditions. We see the value in tradition but do not hold that tradition or church fathers are infallible. Especially on the Jewish question we sharply demur with some of the historical position of the church and are extremely grateful for the recent changes in Vatican II regarding the election of Israel and the Jewish people. It was a historically significant step.

We have deep appreciation for how our Messianic Jewish friends observe and the richness that comes out of the biblical rhythms, especially when this is combined with the understanding of Jesus. The significance can’t be missed in terms of its prophetic underpinnings. It is our belief that our expression of faith becomes deeper the better we understand the root system of the tree we are grafted into.

We also believe in some of the “weird Christianity”, that is the gifts and power of the Lord. Unfortunately, no amount of humanistic post modern culture can shake us from the belief that God still moves in might and power. Our hands have healed the blind and seen tumors disappear at the word of Jesus’s name. We cannot and will not forsake what our eyes have seen.

We have also spent much time in the halls of Southern Baptists and Non-Denominational Churches as well. We have close ties with many people in these circles and have a lot of respect for how these traditions were formed.

We are frequently asked if we are dispensational. We are not, but we also take sharp issue with covenant theology in specific places. This is not the place for it but we spend time evaluating these positions on our content work. We greatly appreciate how Dispensationalism has served as a moat against church antisemitism in the West and how it correctly (prophetically even) foresaw the establishment of the modern state of Israel. These two aspects give us much to appreciate about Dispensationalism even when we disagree with other aspects of it’s theology.

We have a rich appreciation for our collective church history. We can feel at home in just about any place where Jesus is the center.