Rabbi Wine is nothing if not honest and consistent. He recognizes that it's pointless to pray to the King of Universe if you don't believe there is a king. So he doesn't, and neither do the adherents of what Wine calls Humanistic Judaism.

Harris Lenowitz, professor of Hebrew at the University of Utah, has researched early accounts of so-called Jewish messiahs. His book is worth adding to the library of ministers or teachers though the average reader may find the scholarship burdensome.

Anticipating attack, I geared myself up to read Messianic Judaism: A Rabbi's Journey Through Religious Change in America. Mentally, I steeled myself against what I thought was coming: a diatribe against the divinity of Messiah Y'shua, a lament over the loss of Jews to this "lie" called Messianic Judaism, or at the very least, criticism that would compel me to question what I believe and why I believe it. It was probably the last possibility that I feared the most.

In 1839 five Scottish clergymen set out on a "mission of discovery" that would have far-reaching consequences for Jewish evangelism. Among them were Andrew Bonar, the theologian and hymn-writer, and Robert Murray McCheyne, a young Hebrew scholar and preacher. Together they set off across the continent of Europe on a journey to Israel and back, traveling slowly by horse, carriage and on foot. Along the way they stopped to meet members of each Jewish community they encountered, discovering their conditions, offering them literature, and recording their findings.