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We posted a video yesterday of a January 29th service at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church where Bishop Eddie Long was crowned a king by Ralph Messer — who claims to be a Rabbi bringing Torah truth to Christians.

“He’s no longer a commoner,” said Messer. “He’s not on the Earth! He’s raised from Earth into a Heavenly realm! He’s raised in a prophetic position…God has made a prophet out of you.”

During the ceremony Eddie Long was also wrapped in a sacred Torah scroll and carried upon a throne. Messer claimed the Torah scroll was 312 years old and “may still have the dust of Auschwitz and Birkenau,” referring to the Nazi extermination camps in Poland where millions of Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution spoke with several metro Atlanta Jewish leaders who found the ceremony offensive to Judaism, including Bill Nigut, Southeast Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League.

Rabbi Joshua Heller of Congregation B’nai Torah in Sandy Springs told the AJC that he would never wrap a Jewish person in a Torah scroll, saying he found the symbolism off-putting.

In a statement released through New Birth, Messer said critics misunderstood his intent.

“My message was about restoring a man and to encourage his walk in the Lord,” Messer said. “It was not to make Bishop Eddie L. Long a king.”

Messer added that Sunday’s ceremony “was simply a way of bringing honor to a man who had given his life to the Lord and had given so much to his church, the Atlanta metro area and throughout the world.”

Read the full story at the AJC.

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