A. James Bernstein - Surprised by Christ: My Journey From Judaism to Orthodox Christianity

SURPRISED BY CHRIST:

My Journey from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity

Copyright 2008 by A. James Bernstein

All rights reserved.

Published by Conciliar Press

A division of Conciliar Media Ministries

PO Box 748, Chesterton, IN 46304

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee and are used by permission.

On the front cover: Father James Bernsteins mother, Belle, is the young girl in the center of the old family photo.

ISBN 10: 1-888212-95-0

ISBN 13: 978-888212-95-2

This book is dedicated
to the greatest Jew,
Jesus Christ,
and to the greatest Jewess,
the Virgin Mary.
And also
to the people of their flesh,
the Jews.

He who does not love does not know God,
for God is Love. (1 John 4:8)

Foreword

Surprised By Christ is an autobiography, an intellectual history, and a conversion story, and more than these, conveys a spiritual and theological vision in a message that touches people from many different backgrounds. That vision is of the Living God revealed in Jesus Christ, who is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant, the life of the Faithful, the hope of the despairing, and the motivation for those who strive to preach the Gospel in all its integrity.

Fr. Jamess own life and struggle to know God led him from Judaism to Christianity, through the evangelical world, the Jews for Jesus movement, and the strivings of a community of evangelicals for the historic Christian Church. His experience bridges a fascinating spectrum of the cultural and religious trends of the last half of the twentieth century. Born in the shadow of the Holocaust, he grew up in New York, attended college in Queens, lived in Israel during the Six Day War, and experienced the Jesus Movement and hippie culture of the San Francisco Bay Area in the early seventies. He later became involved with the group springing from Campus Crusade that became the Evangelical Orthodox Church, which gradually discovered the Orthodox Tradition. He was received several years before that group into the Orthodox Church in America, and then entered St. Vladimirs Seminary. It was here, first in the Bay Area and then at St. Vladimirs, that our lives crossed. After seminary, he transferred to the Antiochian Archdiocese and was ordained in order to resume work with his old friends from the Evangelical Orthodox movement. He continues to work in that context as it has developed over the past twenty years.

More than an autobiography, though, Fr. James gives us an outline of his intellectual and spiritual development. His broad experience and education give this book a unique perspective. His Jewish heritage grounds his vision in the Semitic roots of Christianity and provides a contrast to the very Western Christian set of cultural presuppositions with which most of us were raised. This is revealed not only in the development of his thought regarding the prophecies of the Old Testament and the realization that Orthodox Christianity is truly the fulfillment of Orthodox Judaism; he also keeps the consciousness of the Old Covenant as it is fulfilled spiritually in Christ, the deep continuity and spiritual vision in the experience of the Living God who is revealed by Jesus Christ.

I know of no other book that deals so thoroughly with the intellectual and spiritual process of conversion from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity. This is significant not only for Jews who are considering Orthodoxy. It is also important for the many contemporary evangelicals who have a strong orientation either towards Judaism or towards Zionism. The point is that Orthodox Christianity is the fulfillment of Orthodox Judaism and thus its true successor, whereas a Judaizing of Protestantism does violence to both.

This book also contains an excellent presentation of the spiritual and intellectual movement from evangelicalism, with its cultural roots deep in the Western tradition, to Orthodox Christianity. Over and above the usual evangelical questions of liturgy, sacraments, saints, and the like, Fr. James deals with the underlying presuppositions of the cultural Christianity which is common to almost all Americans: the Augustinian and Anselmian ideas that differentiated, and later divided, the West from the broader Orthodox Catholic Church. These include the ideas of original sin, the atonement, and the concepts of salvation, as well as the nature of hell and divine punishmentthe divine fire of Gods love.

Theologically addressing these basic presuppositions, Fr. James shows that Orthodox Christianity has a vision of God and salvation radically different, and far more healthy, than the culturally conditioned presuppositions of American popular religion. To become an Orthodox Christian is not a matter of accepting a few additional doctrines, like the veneration of Mary and calling salvation theosis. Conversion demands a radical shift, not only in which church one attends, but in the very ways we think about God. How we think about God conditions our experience of Him. Conversion to Orthodox Christianity means that we have to change our basic presuppositions in order to open ourselves more fully to the great mystery of Gods Presence, love, and mercy. We have to discard the old ways of thinking about God and salvation, which, insofar as they are erroneous, block the experience of God and present obstacles on the path to salvation.

One of the strengths of this book is that this theological challenge is presented not so much in terms of polemics or apologetics (though these are not absent!), but primarily in terms of personal realizations along the path of intellectual and spiritual growth. Nevertheless, this book presents a strong challenge to us to examine our own theological and spiritual assumptions, and thus to tread the path of repentance, the renewal of our minds and hearts, in order that we may more faithfully ascend to the divine vision embraced by the uncreated fire of Gods love.

by His Eminence, Jonah,
Metropolitan of All America and Canada
(Orthodox Church in America)

Acknowledgements

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to those who first told me of the love of Christ, especially my brother Solomon and my childhood neighbors in Queens, New York, George Linkus and Tom Carrubba and his family; and to Moishe Rosen, who first challenged me to maintain Jewish identity as a Christian.

My deepest appreciation to those who introduced me to Orthodox Christianity while living in Berkeley, California, especially Deacon Jeremiah Crawford and Father Jack Sparks.

I am indebted to those who encouraged me to write this book and enabled it to happen: the editors Fr. Peter Gillquist, Mary Vaughn Armstrong, and Katherine Hyde; Carla Zell and all the members of the Conciliar Press book team; as well as Abbot Jonah Paffhausen, Gary McGinnis, and Peter Chopelas.

My fervent thanks to those who inspired me not to deny my Jewish heritage after becoming an Orthodox Christian: Fr. John Meyendorff (of blessed memory), Fr. Thomas Hopko, Professor Veselin Kesich, and His Eminence Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware).