The Jews have presented the strongest arguments against my Christian faith. Not philosophy professors, not evolutionary scientists, but Orthodox rabbis have almost persuaded me to abandon the New Testament and embrace their beliefs.

Here is the Jewish challenge in a nutshell:

When the promised Messiah comes, he will bring a kingdom of peace and justice on the earth (Is. 2:4). Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom of God had come with His arrival (Matt. 12:28; Lu. 4:21). But you just have to read your daily newspaper to know that Jesus could not possibly have been the messiah. The kingdom of God is not here. For 2,000 years since Jesus' coming, the genocides and rapes have not ended. Racism and poverty still flourish.

The above paragraph has put more doubt in my faith than anything Freud or Gould could produce. But there was a time when the Jewish challenge was not so compelling. In many ways, it is why I still believe.

That was when the Church saw itself as the primary proof that Jesus did indeed initiate God's kingdom on earth. The churches founded by Paul and Peter were then the "vanguard of God's new world" (Bosch, 169). These communities were "God's contrast-society" established amidst a world of prejudice, violence, and greed (Matt. 5:14-16; 1 Pet. 2:9; Eph. 2:15).

That was when the Church was degradingly nicknamed "the Third Race" (after the Jews and Romans) by the Roman elite. It was a "sociological impossibility" (Bosch, 48) that had been actualized: when the rich had become poor for the poor, when the masters had served their slaves, when Greeks and Jews fellowshipped together, when hospitals were established, when slaves were redeemed, and exposed babies were adopted (A. Harnack). All were one in Christ (Gal. 3:28).

The Church at that time left little doubt that Jesus had in fact begun the kingdom of God on earth. The Church was the deposit in the world guaranteeing what Jesus had started would be finished upon His return. Thus in the face of such a cloud of witnesses, the Jewish challenge to Jesus' messiahship appeared moot.

But today the Jewish argument against Jesus Christ has never been more compelling. Sunday has become the most segregated hour in America. Christians are more interested in Left-Behind books than addressing the most pressing social justice issues of their time, e.g., sexual exploitation and political repression. Rich Christians get richer as poor Christians get poorer. Sociological impossibility has become mere social club. Today's Church has become the primary proof against Jesus' claim of messiahship.

So why do I believe Jesus is the messiah? Not because of what the Church is today, but because of what the Church once was and can still be again.