A Profile of Jewish Believers in the UK Church

Jonathan Allen

Mar 2018 · Wipf and Stock Publishers

About this ebook

Given that mission agencies have been reporting for the last two hundred years or more the number of Jewish people coming to faith in Christ, this book asks the question: where are they and their descendants now? Using a multidisciplinary approach, covering social identity theory, social memory theory, and translation theory, this book constructs a profile of Jewish believers in the UK church based upon interviews carried out with church members and leaders who are Jewish or have experience working with Jewish believers. After examining both theory and data, the conclusion is that church is a hostile environment for Jewish identity. Unlike Chinese, Ghanaian, and Korean churches whose members are encouraged to retain their traditions as diaspora communities reaching out to their own people, the church has a strongly assimilationist policy toward Jewish believers, who are encouraged—even pressured—to forget their Jewish traditions, customs, and practices in favor of blending into Gentile church and disappearing. Jewish believers are at best an oxymoron; at worst, an anathema, not to be trusted or tolerated unless—as in the days of the early church from the third century onwards—they renounce their previous lives, families, and communities.

About the author

Jonathan Allen has recently completed his PhD at Trinity College, Bristol, researching the role of continuing Jewish identity among believers in the UK church. He has been teaching adult groups for more than twenty years. He is the author of a five-volume set of daily readings/devotional studies based on the Synagogue reading cycle, When You Lie Down and When You Rise Up (2011).