The Refiner's Fire has been attacked by many so-called "Christians" over the years that, if we were to publish each and every e-mail, the end result would be a book larger than "War and Peace". Not all Christians were mean-spirited, and we've engaged in many profound and civil discussions.

However, there has been a great number of Christians who saw fit to give us "NT concussions" by repeating their NT philosophy over and over, without ever bothering to answer the questions we posed, or in any way trying to comprehend our assertions which would have enabled us to dialogue from a more informed perspective. After five years, we've decided we've had enough, and have placed all our challenges on one distinct page where we can send future harassers - those who want to shove their beliefs down our throats without bothering to first educate themselves about Messianic Judaism. Below, we've listed a small sampling of the types of "Christians" we've been forced to deal with over the years....

Irene Faulkes Ministry to the casual onlooker seems to be one of the more "normal" Christian websites. However, the elderly couple who runs that site ended up being "the straw that broke the camel's back" which caused us to create "Challenging New Testament Christianity". Why? Because this sweet old woman and her husband Peter are rabid anti-Messianics who came on like kittens and quickly turned into clawing tigers. It started when Peter initially (for reasons known only to himself) forwarded a conversation between his wife and one of her "disciples" in India, in which she called Messianic believers "arrogant" and then went on to push on him her personal, biased and uneducated ideas about Messianic Judaism.

Shortly after Peter's faux pas in copying us on that particular e-mail, Irene contacted us to apologize for her husband's actions, and to invite further correspondence. But immediately (and just as we suspected), she began to hammer us with NT philosophy sent in great wads of confusing, rambling "plain text", back-to-back e-mails that were clearly meant to support her etched-in-granite views about how "Jesus nailed it to the cross". We spent hours sorting the sentences and responding to her e-mails (which were oozing in a muck of condescending and patronizing tones that insisted we needed to heed the teachings of a 75-year-old believer who knew what she was talking about [as opposed to the Messianic dummies at The Refiner's Fire?]....).

But, when we demanded she stop skirting/ignoring OUR questions and comments and stop answering questions with questions, her husband wrote to tell us: Please do not respond ever again unless you can answer my wife’s questions to you. A mind set in cement is a mind set indeed. May the Lord continue to bring you guidance. This is Peter, so you know not to reply again. It seems you have experienced much of this so maybe it is time for you to really look at what others are saying.

The Faulkes used the typical "Christian" approach to lure us into an "exchange", but somehow (probably because of their overt arrogance), this one struck a nerve and we ended up viewing it as "the last straw". While we respect Irene's age, we also realize age doesn't equate to having a perfect grasp on God's Word. When it comes to the Bible, the open-minded person can learn something new every day. The moment they think they have the market cornered on Bible knowledge, they need to remember why THEY weren't the ones nailed to the cross....

By the way: In case you're curious about the questions Irene posed, they can be viewed on her website in an article entitled, New Testament questions and comments. When she discovered that she was mentioned on The Refiner's Fire, she demanded to know why we didn't post her comments. The answer is: We don't wish to be redundant or bore our readers to death with an endless e-mail battle. For those who are truly interested, all the answers can easily be found in the articles on our Challenging New Testament-Only Christianity page.

Seek God is another website that pretends to be open-minded and fair while hammering the beliefs of others without bothering to provide Biblical proofs. That Vicky (the webmaster) knows nothing about Messianic Judaism is evident in the fact that she lumps "The Pentecostal, Faith-Healing, Charismatic & Hebrew Movements" together. In an overt attempt to make all Jews sound demonic she features articles about Talmud and makes no bones about suggesting that Jews have something to do with the occult. Her introduction on the page which attempts to discredit Messianic Judaism includes the following verbiage:

"We do not wish to edit or criticize Judaism, but recognize it as distinct from our Christian beliefs, just as many in Judaism also see a distinction and separateness from our beliefs, and we jointly have mutual respect for our differences and each other."

The entire website belies that statement (thus breaking the Ninth Commandment). Efforts to communicate with Vicky were fruitless as she apparently has trouble responding unless she can borrow the writings of others....

Sam @ Bellsouth, Southern American Marketing, Inc. is a rabid New Testament-only "Christian" whose nonsensical tirades against countless people and ideologies are set on the backdrop of endless, boring, poorly-designed pages. Sam's initial, nonsesical dialogue with us ended after a long succession of e-mails which consisted mostly of him "laughing" at our explanations and attempts to explain our faith. Whenever challenged on his ridiculous assertions, Sam's main response has been (and we quote directly from one of his many hateful and childish e-mails):

"Hahhahahhahhahahehehhehehhehehheeeeeeeeeewhoooooooooooooey!" When we reminded Sam that Jesus was a Jew, he replied: "Hahahhahahahha - you have even made the creator into your image, a creature!"

And he thinks he's a "Christian"....

Harry Bethel is another self-proclaimed preacher/teacher who espouses personal opinions using twisted Scripture. When contacted and challenged about his many anti-Semitic comments, Bethel became extremely defensive and argumentive, insisting that "...To profess Jesus Christ while continuing to follow Jewish customs is an absurdity. The Christian faith does not look to Judaism, but Judaism looks to Christianity...."

No, Harry. What is absurd is that YOU don't seem to realize that "Christianity" was born out of Judaism because, without the JEWISH Messiah, YOU would be up the proverbial creek....

"Michael" aka "Menachem Korn insists Messianic believers are fruitcakes. He has been harassing The Refiner's Fire for years in various ways, including by copying us on ALL of his various correspondence. Whenever we've managed to block one of his e-mail addresses, he's simply used others. He's actually pretended to be other people/identities seeking our advice, and once that "person" gained our trust, Michael then very childishly and haughtily admitted, "Ha! Ha! I fooled you! It was Michael Korn all along!"

Michael is another one who insists he's a Christian, but apparently has no clue how a Christian is supposed to act.

With "Christians" such as the above, our question should be: Who needs enemies?

As you can see by the above (which is just a tiny fraction of the types of "Christians" we've had to deal with), the time was ripe for us to come up with a webpage designed to "lay it on the line". Facts are facts, and it's an undeniable fact (as indicated by the myriad Christian denominations and their various beliefs) that Christianity falls short of the mark.

This is bolstered by the fact that so many denominations (such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists and the like) have either added to, subtracted from, or simply twisted Scriptures in order to come up with their own ideas about who God is and how He is to be worshiped.

Everybody seems to be doing "their own thing". Some churches have decided that homosexuality needs to be accepted as "normal" - despite God's warning that He considers homosexuality an abomination. And one of the most recent shams falling under the umbrella of "Christianity" is that the Episcopal Convention condemned the Bible as being "Anti-Jewish" and the NT as being "anti-Semitic"....

The question remains: Doesn't ANYONE care about who God really is and what He desires? Or is that too "Old Testament" for today's modern thinking....