Whose Website Is This?

Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I come from a Jewish background, I believe Jesus (aka Yeshua) is the Jewish Messiah, and like MOST Protestants and ALL Karaite Jews, I believe the Bible is the sole infallible source of authority for what I believe. I have absolutely no connection with the Karaite Jewish denomination, but like all Karaites, I believe the Bible “as it is written.” (Unlike the Karaites, I believe both Testaments are holy writ.)

I became a believer in my late 20s during the Jesus People movement of the early seventies, so just how Jewish am I?

I was born in Brooklyn Jewish Hospital to a Jewish father who didn’t go to synagogue and an Episcopalian mother who didn’t (at that time) attend church.

I spent my formative years in a mostly secular and almost completely Jewish neighborhood near Pleasantville, New York, that spent its formative years as a close-knit cooperative community. (It’s still close-knit, but it has been over half a century since it was a co-op.)

Growing up, half my family and almost all my friends were Jewish.

When I went off to college, I had to choose between “Jewish” or “Christian” on a pre-admission form. I checked the “Jewish” box only because I had to check a box by something. (I actually self-identified as half and half.)

Today I self-identify as 100% Jewish and 100% Christian.

I self-identify as Jewish because (like Karaite Jews and Messianic theologian Arnold Fruchtenbaum) I believe Jewishness is biblically inherited through a person’s father.

I self-identify as Christian because I am a water-baptized, born-again believer.

And although I am now in my eighties, I am still one of the pastors at Shalom Hebraic Christian Congregation.

Margot Serlin Armer