The primary pushback from the local Torah Club leadership has been that my recent six-hour seminar has taken the positions of the First Fruits of Zion organization out of context. While this charge falls flat when considering that I utilized 13 primary sources published by FFOZ consisting of 27 pages and 14,000+ words worth of quotations {About 1/10th of which is my commentary, the rest is verifiable quotes from the organization’s top leaders}, another way of demonstrating that the concern of our ministerium’s pastors is well grounded exists.
Why not list all the ways that FFOZ’s leadership describe the traditional/biblical/apostolic Gospel as accepted by Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians alike, and contrast the words they choose with the ways in which they describe their new ‘gospel.’ Let the descriptors they choose shed some light on this question. {FYI, the whole quotes are available, they were used in full in my seminar}. At a certain point, the very weight of the evidence makes its own point.
How FFOZ describes the Gospel that has been preached for the past 2,000 years:
Inauthentic, devoid of the kingdom, obscuring the kingdom, missing the very cornerstone of Jesus’ message, incomplete (3 times), partial, missing something, oversimplified distortion, temporary, watered down, simplified, a tiny sliver of an idea, dry and dead, bad news (4 times), pretty bleak, a little absurd, convoluted, repellent, and God’s hatred for Israel and mankind.
How FFOZ describes the new ‘gospel’ they have uncovered and are now selling:
Totally different, robust, broader, deeper, wider, original (2 times), green, plush, beautiful, unencumbered.
Can you see the difference? How much closer do we need to look to see, how much more do we need to listen to hear?
** Note, some of the pejoratives used by FFOZ are aimed not at the Gospel as it has been taught in Church History, but at the Straw Man they routinely utilize and which they accuse the Church of routinely teaching. This is either ignorance of what the true Gospel message is, or a deliberate choice to try to win converts by slandering the Church. In all my research I can’t recall any FFOZ publication saying, “Some in the Church have misunderstood the Gospel”, instead the Church is always painted as a failed monolith, all equally “missing something” in every generation of its history that only FFOZ can provide. **
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