c. 2007 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) Alan Cecil is one spiritual leader who actually gets excited when people lose their faith.
That’s because his little-known Noahide (pronounced No-AH-HIDE) movement specializes in ministering to serious God-seekers who no longer trust their religious authorities. And in an age marked by clergy scandals and hot-selling books that skewer organized religion, he and his colleagues believe their moment has finally arrived.
“It’s bad to destroy someone’s faith without having something to offer him,” says Cecil, a Noahide teacher and author of “The Noahide Code.” “We’re offering the original moral code that God gave to mankind.”
Like the flood that Noah famously endured in his ark, the Noahides’ offer of a world-saving moral code stretches to the ends of the Earth. The Noahide Nations, a network of believers and seekers connected through the Internet, recently scouted sites for its first international convention in 2008. Members hail from India, Australia, Ukraine and Latin America.
Noahide beliefs start with the concept of covenant. Like Christians and Jews, Noahides believe people rely on covenants, or agreements initiated by the God of the Bible, to enjoy the right relationship with the divine. But they reject the Christian belief that says through Jesus Christ, God reaches beyond his early covenant with the Jews to offer righteousness to all who accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Noahides doubt the veracity of the New Testament and instead go back to the beginning (Genesis 6-9), to a covenant they believe God made with all humanity _ not just Jews _ for all time. If Noah could escape God’s wrath and know peace by heeding seven basic laws, Noahides reason, so can all modern-day peoples.
“People that have migrated toward the Noachism (or Noahide way) are people that usually come from a fundamentalist background. They take their Bible seriously,” says J. David Davis, a former Baptist preacher and a founding figure of the Noahide revival movement that began in the 1980s.
When believers conclude, as Davis did in the early 1980s, that “Christianity cannot be defended,” he says some lose faith altogether, but others keep searching. Sometimes they join the hundreds who seek his pastoral guidance over e-mail. A couple dozen study with him at Emmanuel B’nai Noah Congregation in Athens, Tenn. Others study elsewhere, such as at Chabad at La Costa, a synagogue in Carlsbad, Calif.
Worldwide as many as 500,000 people might count themselves as Noahides, according to Noahide Nations Executive Director Ray Pettersen. But he notes the movement has no central authority for tracking or enforcement, so the estimate is a rough guess.
A loose organizational structure also fosters diversity of beliefs and practices under the Noahide label. Most agree that as gentiles they should learn spiritual lessons from Jews, studying the Talmud, an oral tradition of commentary on scriptures. But many differ on other practices, such as whether it’s important to light candles on the Sabbath, as observant Jews do. Even the question of whether Noahides should establish a physical community where practices can be perfected and showcased is a matter of debate.
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“It’s something that needs to be going on right now,” Cecil says, because actual communities will help the world see that Jewish insights on morality aren’t just for Jews. The Web site http://www.noahidenations.com offers various proposals, such as a call for 2,000 acres of productive farm and hunting land to allow for self-sufficiency in emergencies. Another vision foresees a futuristic network of silver domes interconnected by translucent walkways.
Davis, however, says Noahides are too independent to go for any such thing.
“People that wind up in places like that are people that need the security of an institution,” Davis says. “It’s not going to happen.”
Debates notwithstanding, Noahides and their promoters see a promising future, thanks in part to a cultural environment that’s supplying skeptics with fresh ammunition.
For example, the 2006 best seller “Misquoting Jesus” by evangelical-turned-agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman popularizes a longstanding Noahide concern that shoddy translations over the centuries render the New Testament hopelessly corrupted.
Noahides also point to the Discovery Channel documentary “The Jesus Family Tomb,” which suggests Jesus didn’t rise from the dead but was instead buried beside “wife” Mary Magdalene. They’ll be screening the documentary when several hundred gather in October for an annual meeting in Bruceville, Texas.
Noahide appeal, some say, is reaching beyond the ranks of former Protestant fundamentalists. New Age practitioners hungry for substance sometimes buy Noahide lectures on CDs and DVDs, according to Paul Weinberg, president of Alden Films, distributor of the lectures. Pettersen says some Roman Catholics, disillusioned by scandal-tarred priests, are also occasionally receptive. “They’re finding out that not only are these men not holy,” Pettersen says, “they’re also not knowledgeable, and they’re not even nice people.”
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Observers aren’t convinced the Noahides have found a winning formula. Noahides are excited that some Jews support their project, says cultural historian Jeffrey Kaplan, but the movement’s rank-and-file adherents have shown a tendency to stray.
“We’ve seen it all before,” says Kaplan, an associate professor of religion at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. “What you saw in terms of falling away (from the Noahides in the late 1990s) is typical of the cultic milieu. They find an answer. The answer satisfies them as individuals for a while. And then they get tired. The answer ceases to satisfy. And then they start looking anew and find another answer.”
Nevertheless, Noahides continue to disseminate heady presentations on such topics as “The Five Fundamental Flaws of Fundamentalism” and “Talmudic Thought.” And they’re ready for orders to start picking up any time now.
“Christianity is experimenting with all these different things,” Weinberg says, such as new interfaith approaches under Vatican II and relationships between evangelicals and Jews. “In that sort of environment, there’s always going to be somebody who’s searching for the real truth and asking, `What’s the real thing?”’
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THE SEVEN NOAHIDE LAWS
Noahides, who aim to abide by God’s covenant with Noah and count Abraham as one of their earliest practitioners, make the following seven laws the center of their moral code:
1. Do not commit blasphemy
2. Do not worship idols
3. Do not commit theft
4. Do not commit murder
5. Do not commit sexual immorality
6. Establish courts of justice
7. Do not eat the flesh of a living animal
Source: Noahide Nations
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Photos of J. David Davis and a Noahide study session are available via https://religionnews.com.
