New Torah Christian church opens in Campton Hills

A new church called Philadelphia Assemblies Fox Valley began June 15 in Campton Hills.

Known as Torah observant Christianity, they follow the entire Old Testament to the New Testament, said Jon Zaghloul, one of three elders who started the church in the Fox Valley.

“It’s a growing denomination,” Zaghloul said.

The Fox Valley group is a sister congregation to the Philadelphia Assemblies in Stonefort, Illinois. With about 10 members, they meet at 11 a.m. Saturdays at the Campton Township Community Center, 5N082 Old Lafox Road in Campton Hills.

“We do believe we honor the sabbath day on Saturday not Sunday. We do not eat pork, oysters or shrimp. We do not celebrate Christmas or Easter. We celebrate the feast days in Leviticus,” Zaghloul said.

Leviticus lists 15 feast days, which Jesus celebrated, he said.

The group does not follow all Old Testament directives such as stoning adulterers in Leviticus chapter 20.

“We don’t believe in stoning people,” Zaghloul said.

Jesus accepted the whole of the Old Testament known as the Torah, Zaghloul said.

The Torah contains the first five books of what Christians call the Old Testament and Jews call The Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

“Jesus did die and completed the law. He fulfilled it,” Zaghloul said. “He lived it out 100% and never sinned. ... We believe the law was never done away with. That is our bigger difference from a regular Christian church. ... Our belief is different from other churches and Torah Christians. Jesus, he is our messiah who died for us and is our high priest.”

The Philadelphia Assemblies do not believe in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or in communion, as most mainstream Christian denominations do.

They also do not believe in the cross, but that Jesus was crucified on a stake as translated from the Greek as starous.

They do not promote having birthday parties, voting, blood transfusions or organ transplants, either, but those things are for a person’s individual conscience, Zaghloul said. He said he personally stopped doing birthday parties, but does not condemn people who continue to celebrate them.

“If you vote in an election, that is your personal conviction. We don’t tell people not to or encourage it. That is their own choice,” Zaghloul said. “We don’t talk about it.”

Some of the rules of the Philadelphia Assembly are similar to other denominations, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who also believe that Jesus died on a stake and not a cross, and Seventh Day Adventists, who worship on Saturday.

“It just depends on how they read scriptures,” Zaghloul said.

The Philadelphia Assemblies Fox Valley does not have a pastor, but relies on the three elders – Zaghloul, Michael Stahulak and Rob Quast – to rotate sermon duties each week.

Zaghloul is from Aurora. Stauhlak and Quast are St. Charles residents.

Quast said he met Zaghloul through a Bible study and after a year he wanted to start up a physical location.

“At the end of the day, what is in the Bible and what is not in the Bible?” Quast said. “What does it say in the word and how it applies to us.”

More information is at pafoxvalley.org or on YouTube at www.youtube.com or email pafoxvalley@gmail.com.