A Former Evangelical Working in a Reform Synagogue

“I’m not Jewish.”

Those were the first words I said in my interview as a Director of Communications at a local Reform synagogue—well, after “Hello” and “How are you?” I figured I might as well be upfront.

I guess they were okay with this, because I was eventually offered the job.

Now, I’m about two months into my gig at one of the largest Reform congregations in northeast Ohio. Along the way, I’ve been pleasantly surprised, pleased, enriched, perplexed, confused, and overall, grateful.

How do you navigate life in a synagogue after spending a large part of your early life as an evangelical super-Christian in megachurches?

Here are some thoughts and observations I’ve had along the way.

Made in the Image of God

In evangelical Christianity, you’re taught from the beginning that you are inherently sinful and, essentially, evil, and it is only through the love of Christ that you can be forgiven and redeemed.

Writing about his upbringing in a fundamentalist church, the former megachurch pastor Kent Dobson explains in Bitten by a Camel, “The church I grew up in did tremendous damage to young people by telling them they’re a problem to God from their first breath. The church wounded people with its low view of human beings and its narrow view of God. … According to this worldview, our true essence is both sinful and unworthy of God.”

From what I’ve seen in Reform Judaism so far, there’s a lack of self-hatred. Humans are not viewed as horrible, disgusting creatures possessing evil natures. Instead, we are viewed as being made in the image of God. “The Jewish views of sin are different than those of Christians,” one of the rabbis explained to me. He told me about chet, the Hebrew word for sin.

“Judaism teaches that human beings are not basically sinful,” writes Rabbi Dr. Reuven Hammer in My Jewish Learning. “We come into the world neither carrying the burden of sin committed by our ancestors nor tainted by it. Rather, sin, chet, is the result of our human inclinations, the yetzer, which must be properly channeled.”

It’s All [Hebrew] to Me

My second week of work, one of the cantors came to tell me about one of their upcoming holidays. “Michelle,” she said, “S’lichot is coming up!”

“Slee—what?” I repeated.

“S’lichot.”

I tried to mimic the guttural “ch” sound. It got caught in my throat. Soon, though, I acclimated.

The first thing that struck me during my first month at the synagogue was all. The. Hebrew. There was so much Hebrew I couldn’t read, pronounce, or understand. It was typical for me to ask every day what this word or that phrase meant, and usually butcher it. In fact, it made me feel so insecure my first few weeks that I found myself thinking, Must speak foreign language, and lapsed into Spanish to overcompensate for my lack of Hebrew knowledge.

Upon attending Shabbat and minyan services, the same thing struck me: Everything is in Hebrew. Even with the translations of English below the Hebrew words, I still felt baffled and foreign. I tried mouthing the words when people were praying or singing out loud but was too shy to say anything.

I suppose this was probably how non-Catholics felt before Vatican II, when all services were in Latin. But still, this is something I took for granted in the evangelical world: that everything is in English (albeit “Christianese”).

Then I thought, perhaps there is something beautiful about this, to read and pray in the original language, much like reading the Quran and praying in Arabic. Perhaps there is something lost in translation.

The Torah Is Everything

“Why do you worship the Torah?” I asked one of the cantors recently.

“We don’t worship the Torah,” he corrected me. “We value and learn from it.”

I thought back to what I’d seen of the Torah thus far. Priceless handwritten scrolls with immaculate covers kept in an ark. A special celebration each year, Simchat Torah, to commemorate the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings and the immediate start of a new one. A special stick, the yad, used to read the Torah to prevent fingertips from smudging the writing.

Perhaps it wasn’t worshipped, per se, but definitely revered.

This surprised me because in evangelical Christianity, most books of the Bible are treated the same way—except, perhaps, the first four books of the New Testament, the Gospels, where all of Jesus’s words are sometimes printed in red. But that’s it.

In the Old Testament (as they refer to it), evangelical Christians treat the first Five Books of Moses no differently than, say, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Isaiah, or Lamentations. There are no scrolls. There is no yad. A book is just a book in the Great Book.

In Reform Judaism, however, the Torah holds great meaning. It contains God’s commandments for His people. It covers all facets of life and is viewed as God’s Word, handed down to and written by Moses.

A Country Club Instead of Apostolic

I was very surprised to learn that you have to pay membership dues to be part of a Reform synagogue and that Jews aren’t constantly trying to convert other people to Judaism.

At first glance, this was one of the stark differences I saw between Reform Judaism and evangelical Christianity. In the latter, it’s all about saving people and spreading the good news about Jesus. When I was in high school, my church constantly threw honey-trap events to attract non-Christians with the ultimate desire of converting them to Christianity. I would constantly feel pressured to invite my Hindu and Buddhist friends to church with me. Also feeling pressured, I went on missions trips over the summer and did skits and passed out literature door to door to spread the gospel.

Instead, I found that belonging to a Reform synagogue is akin to belonging to a country club. You pay a set fee every year to participate in the benefits of membership. That’s not to say that evangelical churches don’t want money—tithing is built right in. But it’s not as overt.

It’s Okay To Be Gay

When I first developed a crush on a girl on my soccer team when I was 15, I freaked out. I went to see my megachurch youth pastor, who told me the reason I was having “same-sex attractions” was that I was being attacked by demons because I had strayed from my faith. Over the next few years, I essentially went through conversion therapy to curb my (natural) desires. In my conversative Christian college, I signed a contract saying I would not engage in homosexual acts. I did everything I could not to be queer, including praying, fasting, and tons of good deeds, in hopes that God would look down on me and “cure” me.

In the evangelical world, being LGBTQ+ is viewed as heinous. “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Infamous Bible verses from Genesis, Leviticus, Romans, and 1 Corinthians are used to justify why you must either stay celibate or force yourself to be in a heterosexual relationship in order to be accepted by God.

Upon first entering the synagogue where I work for my interview, I couldn’t help but notice the rainbow flag sitting up front, right next to the American flag. I later learned that the temple had a Pride Shabbat and participated in the local Pride event in Cleveland. In Reform Judaism, falling in the LGBTQ+ umbrella is A-okay. In fact, it’s even celebrated.

Conclusion

In the end, Reform Judaism holds much in common with evangelical Christianity. There are important holidays, days of rest, common prayers, sermons, liturgy, the same God, and many of the same scriptures. But the religions, I’ve discovered, are also vastly different and distinct from one another. One offers freedom; the other offers a cage. One is membership-based; the other is apostolic.

As I keep working there, I imagine that I’ll continue comparing the two and coming away with more insights. But there’s one thing for certain: This former evangelical feels more accepted in a Reform synagogue than she ever did in a megachurch.

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By Michelle Philippon, Director of Communications, Congregation Mishkan Or.