2.1.3 Internal Social-Structural Interaction

Even groups that appear considerably egalitarian have religious specialists. Some are simply missionaries, which is a four-letter word to most Jewish Israelis, a red rag to a bull (Beit-Hallahmi 1991: 210). Officially, Israel recognises one-thousand missionaries. Unofficial estimates speak of two-thousand more (8/95, 8/97). Due to the bad reputation missionaries have in Israel, it appeared to me that missionaries try to hide their status and foreign affiliation. Such missionaries and pastors had their Christian theological training abroad and are usually supported by one or more missions for their livelihood (2/95, 8/95, 9/95, 10/95, 29/97).

Others decisively chose the opposite way and entered a secular profession to earn a living by regular work (1/97, 3/95, 4/95, 4/97, 10/96, 14/95, 20/95, 32/97). These are often nevertheless fully capable pastors and counsellors. To some „tent makers” (J. D. Douglas 1980: 96-97), their secular profession is their first means to spread their spiritual conviction. To others it is their legitimation of a genuine Israeli belief in Jesus, without being a missionary. With excellent service and production they aspire to create a receptiveness for their testimony.

Some veterans of a type ℵ (aleph) congregation consciously chose not to enter the status of a pastor or even of a missionary under the wings of a Christian mission, because many Israelis deeply despise it for being paid by foreign missions. Since these veterans sometimes made considerable efforts and offers to obtain and maintain independence of missions, seeing epigones choosing the other way was difficult for them.

In one case an ambitious young member wanted to become a „full time minister” (2/95) in Israel. His „autocratic” leaders (21/97) refused him a Christian theological education abroad. Since he went anyway, he faced „discipline” by his leadership. In spite of that, a mission appreciated engaging such highly motivated young man, regardless the critique of native leaders. Today this creates the challenging situation that former leaders and former, excommunicated members meet on a wider level as formally equal leaders (4/97). It appeared to me that also the younger generation of leaders tends to having a decisive leadership style. Though some criticise the current leadership for being theologically very poorly educated (8/97), at least some full time or dominant leaders had some kind of theological training. They were abroad to consume several years of training, or got „discipled” in Israel by missionaries (4/97).

The laity in the congregations appeared as colourful as Israeli society itself. Any generation is present. Increasingly young people come to the congregations. Several converted during their first time in the army, as this may be a period of crisis for various individuals, which requires reorientation of values and life. Members, especially youth, get trained in regular and frequent Bible studies, not only to witness to their environment, but also to become themselves leaders. Seeing the next generation entering leadership responsibilities is a „great joy” to those who trained them (1/96), and falsifies Sobel's derogative depiction of the movement (Sobel 1974: 317-318).

The laity consists not merely of women, like in some evangelical groups. As far as I could compare the presence of both genders in meetings, they were almost equally present, women occasionally only a little more than men. Besides in music, women appear not in visible leadership roles. They can be the bookkeepers of a congregation, and teachers in special women's and children's meetings. If a congregation, home group or occasional conference allows for personal testimonies, presentations of encounters with the supernatural, women also speak publicly. Yet I found them nowhere permitted to teach publicly, though they may be well educated and talented.

One veteran of the movement regards this a serious social grievance. The practice to exclude women from public teaching gets usually underpinned by Paul's statements in 1 Timothy 2:12, Titus 2:4 and alike. The veteran counters such statements with the question if one should than reintroduce slavery to confirm to the New Testament, as Paul referred also to the relationship between slaves and masters (Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22, 1 Timothy 6:1, Titus 2:9, and others). He regards evangelical Christianity and the movement lacking behind the developments of the time and current society, as women participate virtually in every kind of profession and social position. They lecture at universities and hold top-line management positions (Demenint and Disselen 1992). The exclusion of women from core and decisive positions in the movement and its parts, he regards a waste of skill and potential that it cannot any longer afford and that will eventually backfire (J. D. Douglas 1980: 32, 396-398, 4/97).

As Israel has now about eight hundred thousand Russian Jews, they form also in various groups of the movement an obvious part of the laity, and entered leadership. Some groups concentrate on Russian immigrants. In one meeting, where the Bible lecture was translated sentence by sentence for Russians, they made up about one third of the audience. In this meeting entering a dispute with the preacher was possible while he spoke. Special literature and audio-cassettes in Russian are produced and offered for free, to express the Gospel in contemporary communication formats. Besides Russians, one finds also North Americans, Europeans and others. Non-Jewish guest workers from South East Europe and Asia, are also subject to evangelization efforts.

The relationship between religious specialists and laity appeared to me as predominantly hierarchically structured. Services of type ℵ (aleph) congregations usually appeared monologues from the front directed at the audience. I regard that as typical within Protestant churches' traditions. Only rarely they would shape a service as a dialogue (Woldring 1991: 55-60). Nevertheless, leaders seem aware of the importance of the laity, at least to pass on the supernatural „fire” to their environment. Leaders can take very seriously their responsibility for their flock and appear accordingly overprotective. Still, I observed also much human warmth and in both vertical directions, compassion and concern. Members need also material help at times. New immigrants find it increasingly hard to obtain even enough food and other basics of life. Evangelization and social engagement is surely participatory, as leaders are aware that they cannot handle it all alone. Accordingly, congregations have, besides their founders and pastors, also elders and deacons, as is typical for many Christian churches.

Individuals and groups of the non-charismatic ecclesiastical type, ℵ (aleph), relate to the charismatic ecclesiastical type in a tolerant to negative way. This depends apparently on the personal perception or experience of the founder of a group or its leaders. Some reject charismatic phenomena as outright demonic. They perceive it to cause only fragmentation of existing groups that they evaluate positively. The intrusion of charismatic phenomena in a group understandably causes tensions and unrest, as any new phenomenon would. Outside Israel I observed that the actual splitting of groups often only occurred after outspoken anti-charismatic elements entered the scene as a self-announced „fire brigade” (Kalab 1993). It appeared to me that some representatives of type ℵ (aleph) reject charismatic phenomena traditionally, all-inclusive, without profound cognitive or empirical argumentation, which gives such rejection at least a taste of presupposition.

The relating of type ℵ (aleph) to the synagogal type appears even more complex. If individuals and groups perceive by their theology that Jewish believers have to become Christians culturally, a consequent synagogal expression with all its cultural and social-structural consequences can appear even as a heretic deviation. Those who hold such opinion will accordingly despise or even resist and fight Messianic Jewish synagogal expressions. If they do not regard the New Testament's criticism on legalism as referring to ancient legalistic rabbinical deviations from the Mosaic law, but to Torah itself, they will regard religious Judaism at least as an „anachronism” (Weiner 1961: 114), if not an evil. Otherwise the synagogal expression of believing in Jesus becomes a tolerable option for Jewish believers in Jesus who insist on their Jewish identity. Accordingly, within type ℵ (aleph), the attitudes towards synagogal expressions range from outright rejection to toleration and sympathy. A thorough literature study of Israeli Messianic Jewish publications can shed more light on the cognitive argumentation of the various attitudes towards the other types.

Though I found no evidence, logically, type ℸ (daleth) could be an abhorrence to those who all-inclusively reject charismatic phenomena and synagogal expression. Yet within the Lausanne movement, also representatives of this type appear as valuable partners (Kjær-Hansen 1996, Juster 1996a, Juster 1996b).