Description:

The idea that the Messiah has already come is deeply antithetical to traditional Judaism. But it is the central theological claim of thousands of Messianic Jews who accept Jesus as their savior and actively practice their faith in America today. With intense curiosity, compassion, and a scholar's critical eye, Carol Harris-Shapiro, a Reconstructionist rabbi, ventured into a large Messianic Jewish community in Philadelphia to explore this fascinating movement and what it says about American Jewish identity, religious affiliation, and the emergence of hybrid faiths in a secular society. She brings us the first thorough portrait of Messianic Jews.Harris-Shapiro traces the history of Messianic Judaism from its roots in the late-nineteenth-century evangelical Christian missions and describes how the faith is organized and how it sustains itself and its adherents. She also listens carefully to the people who live as Messianic Jews, bringing us their voices as they recount their upbringing, everyday life in their community, and their struggle for legitimacy in the eyes of Jews and Christians alike. She finds that Messianic Jews have created a nurturing and self-contained world of people whose decision to live as they do is too risky simply to dismiss as the action of a cult. Sure to spark controversy, this book adds valuable new insight into the varieties of religious experience in America.