The Faithful
Graciela Mochkofsky in The California Sunday Magazine writes on the members of a Columbian megachurch who converted to Orthodox Judaism. After a trip to Israel, Juan Carlos, founder and former pastor of Iglesia Cristiana para la Familia, wanted to lead his congregation from Christianity to Judaism. “His experience in Israel was all he could think about. What he had seen there felt closer to the truth. He slowly steered the Iglesia Cristiana para la Familia toward Messianism, changing the title of pastor to rabbi, persuading men to wear kippot and tzitzit, emphasizing the Jewishness of Jesus, the idea that Jesus had been a rabbi himself,” Mochkofsky writes. “The more he did this, though, the more he questioned the dogma of Jesus as the Messiah. If Jesus had been just a rabbi, then how could he be the son of God?”