Palin and the ‘Jews for Jesus’ Smear
Now that the rumor of Sarah Palin’s support of a Patrick J. Buchanan presidency has vanished into the febrile blog archives, there remains one aspect of her candidacy said to strike Jewish voters as eminently un-kosher (apart from her right-wing politics, that is).
The Wasilla Bible Church, of which Palin and her now fully recognizable family are low-key parishioners, last month allowed a man by the name of David Brickner to speak for half an hour. Brickner is the current executive director of Jews for Jesus, a bizarre but amusing marketing brand of evangelical Christianity, whose main purpose is to proselytize Team Chosen, most annoyingly when we’re on our way to work.
Taking the Nazarene to be the corporeal part of a triune God goes against one rigid admonition in Deuteronomy, and so any claim Jews for Jesus make on behalf of an authentic Judaism is laughable at best. The group was founded in 1973 in San Francisco by a Baptist minister named Martin Rosen, who was born Jewish (probably just for the jokes) but then converted to Christianity at the age of 17. Martin changed his name to Moishe (how’s that for authenticity?), founded his schismatic church, and proclaimed that anyone of Jewish heritage was eligible to hear the “good news.”
According their mission statement, Jews for Jesus wish to “make the Messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide,” which is sort of like saying Marx wanted to make capitalism an unavoidable issue to the international proletariat. Not that they wish you to forsake your Hebraic heritage. Jews for Jesus sprinkle their pamphlets — which they helpfully call “broadsides” — with Yiddish and Hebrew, they celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and they carry fun little animation sequences on their website that have nothing to do with any discernible form of salvation. “How cultured are you?,” asks one cartoon quiz. “I thought I was an Olympic superstar,” laments another. It’s the kind of spam your mom might forward you on a slow news day.
“Jews for Jesus” actually began as a hippie spiritualist slogan in the 60s, and there is something at least superficially lovey-dovey, as opposed to sulfuric, about their “outreach.” Or maybe that’s because no one who has encountered a genuine Jew for Jesus takes him terribly seriously. As with the Guardian Angels, the group is most famous for its eye-catching apparel: missionaries wear t-shirts bearing silly renderings of their logo, thus guaranteeing befuddled expressions on passersby in cities like New York and Miami, where they preach to young and old tribesmen alike. Poor, sheltered friends visiting from out of town often ask me if Jews for Jesus is the name of a punk band they should catch before quitting Manhattan.
In fact, the outfit does have a musical ensemble. It’s called The Liberated Wailing Wall, and Larry Kroon, the pastor at the Wasilla Bible Church, credits their transcendent rhythms with his entry into holy orders. Odd and incredible though that may seem, it’s not what bloggers found so disturbing about Brickner’s sermon before the Alaskan congregation. Amid the shalom-ing and doughy self-deprecation — to which the McCain camp has confirmed that Sarah Palin was a party, albeit an unreceptive one — Brickner suggested that a Palestinian who murdered dozens of people with a bulldozer acted out of divine “judgment” for the rampant faithlessness of Israeli Jews. This has long been the rote evangelical rationalization for bloodshed and misery in the holy land.
Hmm. Okay, Mr Weiss. So you have issues with Christians who want to convert Jews. And you have a problem with ‘Messianic Jews’ messing with authentic or true Judaism.
Hey, I got news for you. ‘True’ Judaism went out of the window once the Temple in Jerusalem was turned into rubble by the Romans. Can you still trace the line of Levi, from whom the priests and High Priests are to be selected? Do you still offer the various sin sacrifices and hold Yom Kippur involving the Temple? Do you still follow the Law as laid down in Leviticus? (answer: no, because you can no longer impose the death penalty, which even 1st Century Jews can do)
Are Christians trying to kill you off? Brand you and make you wear something that distinctively differentiates you from all others? Do Christians nowadays force you to become Christian or live as a marranos? Are there standing instructons that an unrepentent Jew is to be burnt at the stake, preferably robbed, tortured (and if a young woman, raped) first? Are either Orthodox, Conservative or Reform Jews, as a matter of course, and routinely, being mocked, spat upon or held in contempt by Christians (even Jews for Jesus) for not embracing Yeshua ha-Mashiah as YHWH Adonai? Do you even understand what is meant by anti-Semitism, you raca?
Your logic is flawed, and worse, your liberal anti-Christian attitude is showing. One of your links is actually named ‘The Jewish Jihad for Jesus’, for crying out loud, which suggests to be you know neither the meaning of Jewish (pertaining to the tribe of Judah), nor Jihad (‘holy war’) nor Jesus (Yehoshuah, ‘The L-rd is my Salvation’).
And while I would never want to force you to become a Christian, exactly what problem do you have anyway? Shema Israel, Elohim Adonai, Elohim Echod. I proudly say it as a Christian; Pentecostal, Evangelical, Mission-oriented. Do you deny that Jesus was a Jew, that His 1st 12 Apostles were Jews, that His early disciples were pretty much all Jews, and that His ministry was firstly to the Jews? Does His acts and miracles not correspond to what was written by the prophet Isaiah in the Tanakh? Do you deny His Davidic descent, something no other Jew today can prove about themselves, and hence no claim of Messianic authority can be verified? What’s wrong with telling Jews all of that?
Bah. Go educate yourself first.
This is balderdash. Palin has no connection with “Jews for Jesus.” Obama gets a pass for hanging out with the likes of Farrakhan for 20 years and some travelling screwball shows up in Palin’s church once and she is somehow connected to it. What is this “strike Jewish voters”? You mean “Democratic Jewish voters.” Here in Israel we apparently are the only one of 23 countries polled where McCain is favored and adding Palin hasn’t changed that one iota. Okay, so we don’t vote, but we have many relatives that do, and these are among the Jews who put Israel’s welfare high on their list. We have bigger problems than confessional circuses among Christians. Physical survival. Sooner if not later the nuclear installations in Iran have to be dealt with. We’ll do it no matter who is in power in Washington but it would sure be nice to have a cool experienced hand like McCain at the wheel rather than some nervous inexperienced novice like Obama, who the Iranians will mock just like they did Carter.
The Christian population of Israel is 2 per cent and they are concentrated in Nazareth and Arab villages, essentially invisible. Jews for Jesus are welcome to live here so long as they don’t cause trouble, which they alone among Christians sometimes do, and they are sometimes met with violence. These people are regarded as lunatics here and to associate them with the governor of Alaska is invidious.
I happen to be Jewish and a religious Jew at that and I can find nothing offensive as Jew coming from Sarah Palin. Indeed, I wish her and John McCain the best and I hope they are successful in winning the election. In fact, I fail to discern any animosity from most Christians. I have met and talked with Christians, decent and moral people, who wished to convert me to Christianity, as well as Jews for Jesus, who struck me as just decent people who were rather confused about Judaism and Christianity.
I have to break the news to you, but Judaism has nothing to either fear or hate in Christianity. Our Jewish Faith is the oldest, most logical, most charitable, most generous, and the greatest religion in the history of the world. Jewish learning and spirituality can more than hold it’s own with Christianity and it’s offspring, Jews for Jesus. Our prayers, liturgy, and ritual are the most meaningful, beautiful, and elevating beating anything Christianity can offer, and our Torah and our People’s history are so rich and varied that just to be a Torah Jew is an exciting adventure.
Our problem as Jews is not Sarah Palin or Christianity, rather it is Jews who support and lead the most immoral and athiestic movements, who support abortion(murder) on demand, homosexuality, who excuse evil and criminality by blaming it on society or a person’s upbringing, who express their immorality and cause damage to society and young people by supporting the most iniquitous and ugly pornography, visual and musical, produced by the modern entertainment industry.
My Jewish God will punish all these evildoers, Jewish and Christian, so long as they persist in their evil acts, but will forgive them the moment they turn aside and seek repentence. That by the way is largely what Judaism, and to a great extent Judaism’s offshoot, Christianity, is all about. Living a good, decent, charitable, and just life for Jews according to the Torah’s demands, and as the entire Torah and the New Testament demands from Christians, including repenting when one does wrong, begging for forgiveness, and turning aside from an evil path. In political terms, I am thus forced by my Torah and my conscience to support John McCain and Sarah Palin, and to oppose with all my being, as a Jew, Barack Obama and Joseph Biden
When a Muslim converts to Christianity, he gets a sentence of death. What happens when a Jew believes in Jesus? It’s okay to be a Marxist Jew, an atheist Jew, a New Age Jew… but a Jew for Jesus isn’t a Jew at all.
If I follow this reasoning, I’m forced to believe that Jesus of Nazarath was anti-Semitic, because He allegedly told people that He was “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” That seems to be defining anti-Semitism a bit too broadly.
I’m a Gentile Christian, the distant descendant of bloodthirsty Viking who ravaged northern Europe until they were overcome, not by force, but by courageous monks who brought good news to murderous barbarians. I can only hope that “Jews for Jesus” has the courage to spread that same news across Palestine.
As far as I can tell, the future of the Middle East is not looking bright. There are oil-rich theocrats seeking the ultimate weapon to bring down Israel, on the one side, and there is the State of Israel, preparing for nuclear Armageddon on the other.
I, for one, am rooting for the kids in funky T-shirts who are trying to bring peace to both sides by converting them to belief in the one Mohammed called “the Messiah, the greatest of all the prophets, the son of the Virgin.”
The Scripture is clear:
“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” Romans 1:16 (NIV)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (NIV)
Followers of Christ must act with gentleness and respect but all must be reached out to with the saving gospel of Christ!
Your completely tangential posting was more an advert for JFJ than anything else.
I could as well, having the surname Smith, take offense at the title of your blog, “Snarksmith”. Are you trying to imply that Smiths are all snarky? Of course you’re not.
Now, have a pleasant day and do honor the King of the Jews.
TO: All
RE: Seems Like….
….Mr. Weiss is having one of those Leftist conniptions over Governor Palin we’ve observed these last two weeks. The only difference is the avenue of attack; Jewish, religious, christian-hatred. And by that last one, he’s part of a group-think that says he is unwilling to listen to people who don’t agree with him. So much so that he attacks them in venues such as this.
I’m an evangelical christian. So, I suppose, out of hand, without knowing me personally, he’s already stereo-typing me as some form of Christian n-word.
However, let me ask all of you THIS analogous question….
….if you had discovered a simple cure for ALL forms of cancer….
….wouldn’t you get excited about it and tell EVERYONE you met about it?
Should they get upset at you for telling them?
It’s the same sort of think.
Mr. Weiss seems to think that you were the holder of such a great thing you should keep it to yourself.
And as for his dislike for Jews for Jesus, I’m reminded of how the homosexual community responds to reformed homosexuals when they tell THEIR story.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Don't tell me the truth, my mind is made up. -- Mr. Weiss]
Let’s see.. Jesus, Mary and Joseph were all? .. Jews! John the Baptist? Right again.. Jewish. St. Paul? Ok, I think you ought to be getting the hang of it by now. And what of the scriptures that Jesus taught? We’re they ‘Christian’? Well no, how could they have been? Christ was not Christ until He was sacrificed. Conveniently forgetting the Jewish roots of Christianity in the least, denouncing them at worst, (I think the Nazis cornered that ‘market’), is to forsake Christianity itself. Those Jewish roots include, for example, Moses and The Exodus from slavery when water turned to blood. Christ took that water and turned it into wine and made that blood His blood of the New Covenant for all people – especially for Jews like Him. He didn’t put any particular time limit on that invitation and it remains an open one 2000 years later.
1 Samuel 16
That would be the same Holy Spirit that was promised to the disciples and the church.
TO: Mike M, et al.
RE: Good Point
As that popular bumper sticker reads….
But these latter-day Pharisees hate hearing that.
Then again we have the prophetic statement from those famous Jewish writings we call the Psalms….
It’s interesting how that statement pops out of nowhere in that particular psalm. And, as is stated in the following sentence….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Jesus astonishes and overpowers sensual people. They cannot unite him to history, or reconcile him with themselves. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson]
I agree with many of the comments above and think this is the most offensive piece I have ever read on Pajamas.
While I will not debate you on the substance of your problems with what David Brickner said (However, I would point out, it is a common theme among Jewish theological literature that Israel’s troubles occur when God removes His protection of them for turning their backs on him), your commentary makes 1) great hay out of connecting Gov. Sarah Palin to Jews for Jesus and 2)somewhat less hay out of connecting Messianic Judaism to Jews for Jesus.
The fact is, Gov. Palin apparently has no connection to JfJ whatsoever (except having sat through a talk by their Exec. Dir.), and most of Messianic Judaism wants even less to do with JfJ than that, disapproving of their theology and methods.
Try checking your facts before smearing…
Israel, why must you be stiff necked like your ancestors who rebelled against the Lord and against Moses? What will it take for you to get it through your thick heads that the Messiah is God? Is it not enough that Isaiah called Him, “Immanuel (English- God with us)?” Is it not enough that Micah said his origins were “from of old, from everlasting?” Is it not enough that Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord in the desert and remarked that he had seen God and lived?
As a Southern Baptist, and in fulfillment of Christ’s Great Commission (See Matthew 28), I love to and must, share with others what He has done for me. It is my only duty to a lost world. It is not my job to coerce people into God’s Kingdom, but to share what it is IN it, and what it WILL BE like outside it. What they do with this information is between themselves and God. We Christians are not proselytising them, but are sharing the love of Christ, which hopefully is in our hearts. It is not a political issue at all, but the MSM and others seem bent on making it one. They have no shame.
Vocal ex-radicals who now thump Bibles or blog conservatively are not representative of anything but themselves. A sliver of Jews advocate conversion when it suits them; a sliver of Christians do the same. Most of both simply don’t. But somehow, in this column, the one is wildly exaggerated and the other treated as a perfectly reasonable activity. All metaphysical religious beliefs, from believing you’re exclusively chosen to believing salvation is exclusively tied to Christ, are irrational and rational in the same ways. To wield one while mocking the other, for whatever cause, is unpleasant.
TO: All
RE: [OT] Another Voice….
….espousing projection and ignorance.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[See tagline of previous post for additional insight.]
Mr. Weiss seems horrified that Christians would want to convert Jews!
Who woulda thunk?!? What’s wrong with Christians trying to convert Jews to Christianity? So since Judaism does allow non-Jews to be converted into Judaism – Is that then wrong?
Mr. Weiss needs to take a deep breath and remember that “spreading the faith” to everyone is part of Christianity. To Jews, Muslims, Buddhists etc.
You, G-d, and a book. Torah, New Testament, and Qur’an, arrogate yourself of one, if by chance you have not already been indoctrinated at birth.
I will tell you with 99% certainty what you believe if you tell me into which building of worhsip your grandfather was led at the age of 5. Faith? Try reproduction.
Keep on Babeling. G-d is listening to all his children in the Universe, even here on Terra, sometimes.
A very informative and entertainingly written essay by Weiss.
One might have a serious conversation about “Jews for Jesus” however emotions seem to run high among some of the responses I have read.
The political part of this is an non-sequiter. A matchstick next to a bonfire. It wont change a single vote, Jewish or otherwise.
I am Jewish, American, somewhat religious and well educated in my faith having been raised Orthodox with a yeshiva background as well as a secular degree from a respected State University in Judaic Studies.
Gregory can play with the wording of the She’ma all he wants but he couldn’t fool even the least educated 12 year old child preparing for her cool, fun, suburban Bat Mitzva.
Jews, if nothing else, have carefully preserved these words for many thousands of years, written long before Jesus and the foundation of the great religion of Christianity. We have tatooted them in our childrens memory.
Somehow she gets this message; If nothing else remember these words “Shema yisroel adonai eloheynu adonai echod”. Clear concise and deliberate. You cant substitute ‘elohim’ for ‘adonai’ and try and convince the Bat Mitzvah that she can get away with this on her big day.
My apologies for lack of ability to use hebrew script in an internet post, but Gregory knows full well the difference. (elohim is plural, adonai is singular. Both are used in TaNach in reference to G-d, but not in this case).
Most Jews view ‘Jews for Jesus’ with bemusement rather that alarm, as has been pointed out already here very well. We are not the same religion anymore. That is as it should be IMO. Judaism was never meant to be universal and we do not know what the almighty has in store.
“All of the righteous of the nations of the world have a place in the world to come”. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 105a).
Then again we Jews were never all that concerned about what happens after the moniters are shut off and the lights are dimmed in the ICU. We are mortal beings. Live, and bring what you can to it. After all there is too much to do when you are still breathing and none of us are really up to the task.
Bien sur, il me pardonnera; c’est son metier. — Heinrich Heine, 1856. …
(G-d will forgive me; that his business)
Spindok
This piece started out fine, but ended up totally off-topic. Sarah Palin’s relationship to JFJ wasn’t discussed in any meaningful way at all. I think you should either change the headline, or rewrite the article to talk about why or why not this is actually meaningfully connected to Palin.
There are plenty of other general exposes on JFJ out there, which are accurately titled.
Btw, since we’re talking about the candidates’ churches, are you aware that Michelle Obama has a cousin who’s a rabbi? He’s a Black Hebrew rabbi. Funny they don’t advertise that fact. Could it be that that would be embarrassing to her at TUCC?
http://www.forward.com/articles/14121/
As a religious Jew, I also find this article wrong on a few levels.
First, the connection between Sarah Palin and JfJ. It’s tenuous at best – and I think it’s reasonable to assume the best from someone who kept an Israeli flag in her office (appealing to a constituency of 15?).
Second, most serious Christians believe their religion is not only right (who doesn’t?), but that they are under an obligation to try to convert non-Christians.
Judaism is the rare religion that thinks there is a place in heaven for non-believers – if they are good people. We should appreciate this rarity and judge others by a different standard than how we behave.
Personally, I’m fine if someone respectfully tries to convert me (as long as they stay away from my kids). In fact, a friend tried to evangelize this summer while we were kayaking. He didn’t get very far, but we had a long, interesting conversation. And I honestly told him that his exemplary behavior as a person helps makes his serious commitment to Christianity more attractive.
With the very occasional exception (see Leo Frank, the Rosenbergs, etc.), Christians in this country have treated Jews well – and been a good model for how religious people (of any persuasion) should act. Who cares if some Christians believe we’re going to Hell, as long as they act justly on earth?
Listing your complaints about JfJ in a general internet forum doesn’t improve our relationship with Christians much or even help them understand what’s offensive in JfJ. And the ability of the article to attract random nutjobs to comment was almost guaranteed. Between the original article and the reactions to it, I doubt anyone on either side will learn to be more tolerant.
Gregory,
up yours you arrogant Christian pig. It’s hatefilled arrogant prigs like you that make me proud to be Jewish. If Judaism is obsolete, so are fossils like you. Call me a liberal too, so no one can mistake me for a total reactionarylike you.
idov,
Who said Obama was hanging out with Farrakhan?
If it’s okay to rake Reverend Wright and his black separatist nonsense to get at Obama, why then, unless you are a total hypocrite, is it not okay to examine Palin’s cracker Christian church and rake her reactionary snake handling pastor over the coals for his reactionary views. He also believes homosexuality is a sin and gays can be converted, but I guess trashing gays is okay here. After all, “we love the sinner but not the sin!”
Palin is a simple minded little reactionary and her redneck version of Christianity says it all, just like Trinity spoke volumes about Obama. After all, she converted to this church, so she must have agreed with the redneck pastor.
Did I miss something? I thought the point of this article was about why we shouldn’t pay any attention to the ridiculous rumor about Sarah Palin being all hep on Jews For Jesus. I thought it was meant to deal with the Obama camp making things up about S. Palin or turning them into some big deal when, in fact, it was no big deal.
How did the tone switch to reaming me, the reader and a Christian, a new bunghole? Thanks for the snide lecture Mr. Weiss.
TO: Mike
RE: Tolerance, Anyone?
It’s kind of difficult to be any MORE ‘tolerant’ or respectful of the Jewish people than remembering that He said…
Personally, I think Mr Weiss (1) lacks a certain degree of confidence in his faith and (2) has serious issues in the political realm to have published this item.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. -- John Adams]
@Javelin:
Well, aren’t we in a generous mood today! Does your attitude demonstrate the state of mind of the modern born-again Jew? Judaism appears to be unique in its desire to tell its friends and neighbours to piss off. I’m not complaining, mind you, because there’s fewer and fewer of you each year, but I do marvel at the ability of some Jews to be incredibly self-destructive. By the way, have you heard the good news yet?
TO: JJ Joseph
RE: Javelin
Javelin is, from what I’ve observed, either a rabid atheist of the Leftist persuasion or a Satanist. I suspect the former, but now and then I get a feeling of something darker about him.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
["Bother!" said Pooh as Satan laid his soul to waste.]
Yes, Christianity is a proselytizing religion. Christians are SUPPOSED to spread the Word to the world. (Not by the sword, by the way, but by reason and faith.)
However, did you know that Judaism was the FIRST GREAT MISSIONARY RELIGION. According to Rodney Stark, in his “Cities of God”, “Maimonides, the famous medieval Jewish scholar, put it plainly: “Moses our teacher was commanded by the Almighty to compel all the inhabitants of the world to accept the commandments.’”
Josephus, who lived in the 1st century CE reported one the widespread impact of Judaism of the Diaspora. It was common for Jews to invite Gentiles to attend services in the synagogues.
“The best estimate is that by the first century, Jews made up from 10 to 15 percent of the population of the Roman Empire, nearly 90 percent of them living in cities outside of Palestine.” (p 6.) Within this Yahwist community, the synagogue members who had not completely adopted Jewish ethnic practices were known to St Paul as “God fearers.” He began his serman IN THE SYNAGOGUE at Antioch with, “Men of Israel, and YOU THAT FEAR GOD, listen.” (Acts, chap 13, verse 16.)
OK. the American Jewish community is melting into secularism. Why don’t the Jewish communities become – again – evangelistic?
Yahweh and Moses always noted that the People of Israel were a stiff-necked bunch. Indeed.
Chuck -
Thanks for stepping up.
I think a lot of American Christians not only act well, but find a love for Israel and Jews specifically by taking their religion seriously. The line you quoted comes out of both of our Books.
Unfortunately, the internet amplifies animosities between people poisons real life. It’s not easy for Jews to clearly understand someone unexpectedly good (like Reverend Hagee) after uncovering the crazies on the net.
The tone of this article really gets things off on the wrong foot; and that is a terrible error in judgment when the topic is as charged as this one. Both Christian evangelism of Jews and the status among Jews of Jewish Christians are matters of urgent and serious attention. An article with snark and flippancy like this belongs in Slate.
Heather -
While I’m not familiar with the exact sources you quote, traditional Judaism is *slightly* evangelical. While we think there are lots of obligations on Jews, we also think there are a few that apply to all people (everyone is a descendant of Noah, so these seven laws are called the Noachide Laws). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah
If I remember a WSJ article from a few years ago correctly, Chabad (a Jewish group) assisted a Tennessee pastor who wanted their advice on following the Noachide Laws.
It’s Jews like you that give Judaism a bad name. He made several key points about the continuity of your religious practices, and you respond with a wild-eyed, emotional rant that doesn’t even come within 100 miles of attempting to take apart anything he said.
Anyone who knows a little about the Torah knows how important those points are.
TO: Mike T
RE: Cuidado
Javelin is just doing a drive-by shooting. He’s neither Jewish nor Christian.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Hatred stirreth up strifes -- Proverbs]
Mr Joseph
I am sorry you are so ignorant and self righteous that you have no idea what it’s like to be a Jew. Like being beaten up by 12 year old Nazi regalia wearing bullies when I was 6, like having people tell me that Hitler should have finished the job, people who don’t realize you are Jewish telling me how my people are the devil, perverts, traitors, sinners and cheats. Or when old fashioned Catholics, like my pinhead in-laws, regurgitate the hateful anti-Semitism they learned as kids to me.
But I guess the only people who are victims of discrimination these days are morally superior white christian men like you cause we little ones are all so envious of your moral superiority and worldly success.
Here is the Contard “They’re The Bigots” Catechism:
I’m not a racist, it’s the blacks that are racist.
I don’t hate those perverted sinning gays, it’s them that hate us heteros.
I don’t hate those liberal, Marxist, Christian hating Jews. I reallly like Dennis Prager. I just wish they were all like Prager.
Besides it’s only leftist like Nazis and Muslims who hate Jews. And it’s up to us to determine who the anti-Semites are. And if you say Ann Coulter or Mel Gibson are anti-semites, you are just being bigoted Christo-phobes.
I’m the new Black/Jew/Gay, cause all the liberals have us patriotic, righteous white Christian males in their sights and they have plans to put us all into camps cause they believe in evolution, so they must be Nazis.
Finally, here’s a hint, what you put out comes back at you. If you want to trumpet your cracker Christianity and condemn other people’s religion, don;t whine like little babies when other’s criticize your faith. personally, I don’t think Palin is anti-Semitic but I also am not impressed by her Pentecostal drivel either.
Mike anc Chuck
I have always despised the both of your points for your simple minded blogtardation. You can’t think out of the box cause you can’t think period, Gregory basically said that Judaism is obsolete and we are being stubborn and implying that we are subsersive:
This is what that arrogant little Christian bigot Gregory had to say about my religion:
“‘True’ Judaism went out of the window once the Temple in Jerusalem was turned into rubble by the Romans.”
Who the hell is this fundamentalist retard think he is defining Judaism? I am a Jew no matter what that bigot thinks. A standard tactic of many anti-Semites is to redefine Judaism to exclude Jews, then claim they don’t hate Judaism. I call that bigotry, and if Mike and Pelto think that is cool then they are bigots too. This is hardly a blog devoted to the fine points of religion and theology, in case you are too dense to notice.
Pelto, I am Jewish, & you are a right wing talk show moron. Come over to my house and get on your knees and I’ll show you. Hey, if it’s okay for simple minded bigots like you to attack Obama through Reverend Wright and Trinity, then why is is not okay to examine Palin’s religious beliefs, the ones she was so happy to trumpet when it suited her ambitions?
RobertoM,
Where did you come up with the nonsense about not allowing non Jews to convert, rrom your favorite reactionary religious blog?? That is a lie, sir. It’s not easy but it can be done.
I’ll take that as a good sign that you recognize the fact that the destruction of the entire temple system of worship has been a major blow to the continuity of Jewish religious practices these past ~1900 years.
No one is questioning whether you’re a Jew. It’s a matter of how badly Judaism was hurt by the destruction of the Temple system of worship.
A bigot is a bigot is a bigot and Mr. Weiss is a bigot.
The reason why the comments on this thread are an off-topic train wreck is that the article itself was off-topic. But since we’re here, let’s do a thought experiment:
Suppose you have two houses next door to each other, with a Jewish family living in one, and a Lutheran family living in another. A group of Jehovah’s witnesses come knocking on doors.
The Lutheran family informs them that they’re not interested, and are mildly annoyed. The Jewish family informs them that they’re not interested, and are seriously irritated.
Now, let’s imagine that the Jehovah’s witnesses have walked down the block, and now a group of Buddhists come knocking, trying to let people know about Buddhism (remember, this is a thought experiment). I submit that both families will be mildly annoyed.
Why the difference in the reaction of the Jewish family? Simple. It’s history. It has nothing whatsoever to do with current day Christians or Christianity; it has to do with 2000 years of history.
So to the Christians here, just remember that Jews are particularly sensitive to proselytization because of a lot of history that you may be only vaguley aware of.
To the Jews, remember that these Christians these days are not the inquisition. If you refuse firmly, that should be the end of that. Irritating? That’s your choice how to react.
TO: Mike
RE: Standing-Up for Your Friends
No problemo, compadre.
RE: REAL Christians
The real ones know enough of their heritage to recognize from whence their faith came. And, with all due respect to their faith’s founding fathers, they try, as children, to teach their ‘parents’ what they’ve learned.
But when we come across someone like Mr. Weiss, I think it’s fairly obvious to the casual observer that he is not following in his fathers’ ways. Hence, something of a reproach is in order.
Indeed. And there are a number of Books you have that I’d like to learn more about, as they contain information I need to better understand the newer part of the Book I read most often, e.g., the Babylonian Talmud and the one that has that line used by Charlton Heston in Cecil’s masterpiece The Ten Commandments: “And you shall see hail fall from a clear sky and burn upon the Earth.”
RE: Textual Communications Problems
Sarcasm doesn’t come across well either. Not that you’re being that, but I’ve been tripped up for not recognizing it in textual form. Unless someone puts a winking smiley after it.
Heck. Even a number of people who call themselves ‘Christians’ don’t appreciate most of what Hagee does. Let alone Robertson. Mostly because their opinions have been poisoned in the manner you allude to here.
Admittedly, I don’t watch either of them anymore, as I gave up on television 11 years ago.
The primary point is that things are getting ‘tight’. The Hebrews, especially those in Israel, are likely to get another bashing, at least as far as Christian prophecy indicates. [Note: If you care to see some discussion of that, click on my name and scroll down a tad. It also includes some discussion on better understanding of the older part of the Book I read most often, i.e., from whence the Great Flood story and something about a ‘smoking gun’.]
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[If you want to understand what is written in that Old Book better, look at what is written there through the eyes—and understanding—of the writers.]
TO: All
RE: The Javelin ‘Clock’
I’m reminded of that old adage about clocks….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Life imitates axioms. Or is it the other way around?]
TO: All
RE: The ‘Jew’ Javelin
As some Wag put it, around 2000 years ago….
I point out to a LOT of people who call themselves ‘christians’ that they don’t look or behave like such. The same applies to the likes of Javelin.
I know a good number of the children of Abraham and NONE OF THEM act like he does.
RE: Javelin
This is one of those times when I’m getting this ‘feeling’ about Javelin that I mentioned to JJ Joseph (above).
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be shewed before the whole congregation. -- Proverbs]
Chuck -
We’re obviously in agreement on a lot, but I’d disagree with you on Javelin. He’s a Jew and doesn’t get kicked out for having a bad day.
I doubt he’s normally offensive to Christians or anyone else – he just let himself get provoked and sunk to the wrong level. I agree sarcasm is pretty easy to misinterpret and I disagree with his choice for discussing such a heated area.
Javelin -
I’m not sure what I said to offend you. I’m not trying to paper over real differences with feelgoodism. I just don’t think it’s helpful to offend lots of other people while chasing after a random guy on the net.
For the record, I’m a Mormon of both Catholic and Jewish descent. I have relatives in all three of those religions and respect all of them greatly.
My religion isn’t as vigorously persecuted as it used to be, nor am I comparing its relatively short history of persecution to the millenia of Jewish persecution, exterminations, pogroms, and Holocausts. I am familiar with this horrifying history and my ancestors were on both sides of it. But I would like to point out that Mormons are also regularly pursued by various well-meaning Christian groups who think we will be persuaded to their side by telling us that we’re all a bunch of deluded, thick-headed magic-underwear-wearing false-prophet-following going-to-hell dunderheads. 150 years ago people like these were passing laws in Missouri making it legal to shoot Mormons on sight, so protesting outside our temples is an improvement. Like the Jews, we too have the choice to get outraged over it, or feel sorry for people so ill-trained in the art of persuasion that they think literally wiping their buttocks with our sacred symbols is going to convince us they are correct.
No one ever gets to decide what others are going to think about him or say about him or to him; all we get to decide is how we react. Why should this be any different with regard to religion? If the Jewish faith is logical (and it is), shouldn’t it stand on its own merits and not require that the arguments of others be shut down in its defense?
(Do me a favor, let’s stay on topic now and not turn this into a thread about how evil and satanic Mormons are, how they “falsely” claim to be Christians, etc.)
Well. Who would have thought that on such a reactionary blog like PJM you could find such cogent logic to make an airtight case for the impeachment of Sarah Palin as the VP candidate – that she is a evangelical Christian? This indeed shocking and an outrage. This is a very dangerous sect known to want to subvert governments and take over wolrd financial institutions. Inform yourselves!! It is all included here:
TO: All
RE: [OT] Looks Like….
….Wacky Hermit came in here ‘asking’ for trouble.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
jevelin:
This is the first time that I know that you are a Jew and I’m horrified by it!
All this time I saw your comments with bemusement and dismissed you as another troll and a deluded noombat. But to hear that you identify yourself as a Jew is heartbreaking to me. How in the world did our people fell so hard to have people such as you, Noam Chomsky, George Soros etc… in our midst? you are right. No one can take away from you the fact that you are a Jew, but how, pray tell,do you think you are being Jewish by youe actions?
You are not married to a Jewish woman (by your own words)therefore your kids are not Jewish. You support (with an unholy devotion) a candidate who not only support killing unborn babies (abortion is forbidden in Judaism unless there is a danger to the mother’s life) he supported killing born babies! He supports ‘alternative lifestyle’ i.e. homosexuality which is also forbidden in Judaism. He surrounds himself with people who hate the state of Israel with passion and has attented that anti-Semitic church (which, by the way claims that Jesus was black and that since Jews killed him hence the Jews are responsible for the oppression of the black people)and after defending him here in PJM (unsuccessfully, I might add)you dare lecturing other people about anti Semitism????? Dare I guess what is your opinion about Isreal and its plight? Unfortunaly, you are not the only one.
It is the curse of our people that every generation we have a few traitors who are determine to destruct our people from within by siding with our enemies. But we are Eternal and we will prevail and people like you will get their just reward from Him.
About this post: no argument, there are a lot of unresolved issues betweem Christians and Jews, but is it really the time and the place to bring it up? There is a lot of common ground and shared goals between us, especially regarding this election when there is so much at stake and there is no doubt that all (truly)faithful men, both Jews and Christiand, will vote for MacCain/Palin
P.S. Since it is my first post and I’m not a native English speaker please forgive any language mistakes I may have made…
TO: rebecca
RE: Javelin, a Jew???!?!?
Personally….
….I have serious doubts to the claim. As it is the first time I’ve seen it claim such status, I suspect it is a lie, as are most of its claims.
There is a test. But I’ll address that later, if necessary.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out.]
Rebecca, you did better at English than a lot of native Anglophones. Please, continue.
TO: rebecca
RE: Say WHAT!!!!?!?!
Sheesh! You’re reminding me of the lady who played the role against Heston in Ben Hur.
If I weren’t already married to a lady who reminds me of the female lead in Life Force……
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Life is a feast! Dig in. But be careful....]
The fact is that JFJ is an evil organization, since Christianity started off as a heretical Jewish sect lead by an evil man named Jesus. According to the Talmud, he is boiling in a hot tub if excrement for all eternity. The fact that there could be Jews who follow this idolatrous religion and then try to brainwash uneducated Jews into it is plenty reason for all Jews to be opposed to it. But I don’t see a reason to be alarmed if Sarah Palin is connected to it in some tangential way, since she is a Christian after all and today’s Christians aren’t evil like the ones in the middle ages and earlier.
By the way, to the poster who said that we are disappearing, this only applies to non-orthodox Jew. Orthodox Jews on the other hand are increasingly rapidly and Jews in general my friend will never disappear.
Pelto, rest assured I am a Jew. I don’t doubt you Christianity or tell you some trash that since you don’t practice it like the apostles or early Christians did, you are a fake one. You are such a patronizing little person. I once contemplated converting, but I am glad I didn’t. Since then, I have met so many professed Christians, with theit glut self righteous ignorance, who utterly turned me off.
Chuck,
I’m sure any Jew you know, who really knows you, has learned that you are a self righeous small minded bigot and despises or pities you for it. BTW:
1) We are called Jews, you pretensious prig, not sons of Abraham
2) If you respect Jews, then why try to convert them? Take a look at yourself for a change!
Regardless of your religion or lack of it, and you politics too, I have come to realize you are basically a clever fool who can’t express himself except in talk show, small minded cliches and memes. If you are so Christian, then why are you so nasty, paranoid and selfish? People of true faith and spirituality, regardless of religion, don’t fret about such things that occupy your mind. Are you that afraid of being killed or impoverished that you have to conjure up one doomsday scenario after another? Where is your faith? It’s all hate and fear to you, so you can’t be a very spiritual person.
Javelin,
I must admit you fooled me. I totally believed that you were a Jew, although an angry, deceitful, unpleasant, and vengeful one. And that is what you were trying to convey: that you really believe that Jews are entitled to be angry, deceitful, unpleasant, and vengeful toward non-Jews. I didn’t realize that you have a history as a prowling blog beast. How unfortunate for your fellow believers, to have you as a spokesman.
Thanks to all the posters who helped me see this troll for what he is!
…But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.
For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.
Romans 3:21-31
Read the whole thing.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%201-16;&version=50
rebecca said: “How in the world did our people fell so hard to have people such as you, Noam Chomsky, George Soros etc… in our midst?”
It’s called “grace” – or the lack thereof. Just watch the Obamaniacs going insane as God withdraws His grace from them. Btw, Rebecca, someone’s calling you:
“Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues [cf.Deut.28:21]; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.”(Rev.18:4-5)
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” – Jesus Christ (Matt.23:37-39)
“They are a nation without sense, there is no discernment in them. If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end will be!” – God (Deut.32:28-29)
For a child is born unto us, a son is given unto us; and the government is upon his shoulder; and his name is called Pele-joez-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom; (Isaiah 9:5 JPS)
Huh??
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor [The Holy Spirit], Mighty God [The Holy Trinity], Everlasting Father [The Father], Prince of Peace [The Son]. (NIV)
Oh – I was blind but now I see!
“This has long been the rote evangelical rationalization for bloodshed and misery in the holy land.”
In my previous post, the link did not show up. I referred to a new book coming out that will shock the world, about a vast worldwide conspiracy by this dangerous, subversive sect called the Christians. It is called, “The Protocols of the Elders of New Zion” by a Dr. Lumplevin.
As always, it is the Jewish members of this fanatical, dangerous sect, which started with a bunch of jews, that are the worst, like the JFJ, as Michael Weiss so brilliantly belabors to point out to the point of silliness. I guess the jewish problem still is with us. Sigh.
Uh, St. Paul, a Jewish person, (oops, give away-don’t bet on it) said that the Jews were left “out” but only for awhile by God just to give Gentils the opportunity to become close to God. Then God will bring all of the Jews home…meaning back to Him…go figure…anyway have said it before, but C’est dans l’air, a french televeision program, on Christmas eve 2007 (?) had a Jewish rabbi, a Muslim(not sure) and a Catholic(french for christian sigh) speaking about Jesus Christ…and this rabbi said that it was about time that the Jews re-took their prophet back in, that as J.C. was (IS) a Jewish person, that they as a cult needed to re discover His Jewisnness…come on quit being radical and sit down and use the brain you given to think honestly about the issue, instead of just jumping up and down when confronted with new ideas… However Mr Wiess this also applies to you too, you sound confused about life, takea good long look at where your views get you.
Right, I admit I made a mistake with the Shema. Indeed, were I a Jew, I’d be in much hot water. My apologies. Seeing as I know as much Hebrew as a two-y/o Jewish kid (and even probably less), and that the precise number of Jews is Malaysia is zero (barring the occasional tourist), I ask for forgiveness and understanding.
Indeed, ‘Elohim’ is plural. So, what’s wrong with the notion of a triune G-d? Is it not one way of looking at it? The L-rd is One, and yet the L-rd is mysteriously also Three. But I’m not gonna argue theology – there’s no point.
As for Javelin, the amount of hate, even if fake (troll-generated, I mean), must be amazing. Even on my best day I couldn’t troll endlessly like that. My congratulations, sir, on being able to tolerate the amount of poison in your system.
Oscar Goesto: My paternal grandfather? Buddhist temple. My maternal grandfather? Taoist Temple. So, what do I believe? You ignoramus.
To be sure, the Judaic system of worship did not always include the Temple. While the Israelites were nomads, it involved the tabernacle and the Ark. It was only during King Solomon’s day that the Temple was erected, after all.
I still maintain without the physical temple/tabernacle, where G-d meets with His people, and where G-d’s presence is, ‘true’ Judaism cannot be completely fulfilled. Without a High Priest to offer sin sacrifices, and to consecrate the people by laying their sins on the scapegoat, it is hard to carry out Jewish practices to the full. Without a country where the Levitical Law can be carried out in its entirety (including the death penalty for several offenses), you cannot say you obey the Law fully.
In Jesus, the Law is fulfilled. In Jesus, G-d meets with man and His Presence wholly indwells. In Jesus, not only a High Priest, but a Great High Priest. And one not of the Levitical order, but of the Melchizedek order, to whom even Abraham offered the tithe.
But, like I said, not gonna argue theology. If you don’t believe, you don’t believe. No skin off my nose, in a practical sense.
TO: All
RE: Projection, Anyone?
’nuff said.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Mr. Weiss,
Thanks for posting the link to the sermon by David Brickner of Jews for Jesus, so that your readers can hear what he said IN CONTEXT. Here is a direct quote from Brickner regarding his remarks at Sarah Palin’s church: “The comments attributed to me were taken out of context. The notion that the terrorist, bulldozer attack in Jerusalem this summer was God’s judgment on Israel for not believing in Jesus, is absolutely not what I believe. In retrospect, I can see how my rhetoric might be misunderstood and I truly regret that. Of course I never expected the kind of magnifying glass scrutiny on a message where I was speaking extemporaneously. Let me be clear. I don’t believe that any one event whether a terrorist attack or a natural disaster is a specific fulfillment of or manifestation of a Biblical prediction of judgment. I don’t believe that the newspaper should be used to interpret the Bible. The Bible interprets the Bible. I love my Jewish people and the land of Israel. I stand with and support her against all efforts to harm her or her people in any way. Please feel free to read my further explanations on the front page of our website, both in my article and in the interviews I did with Christianity Today and NBC.” The website is http://www.jewsforjesus.org
Religion and politics are topics famously (infamously?) to be avoided and the responses to Michael Weiss’s combination of the two in one post is ready proof. That said, let me jump right in and further roil the ether.
Christ is a poor Greek rendering of the Hebrew word, mashiach, transliterated into English as messiah. Literally, mashiach means anointed. Anointment with holy oil by the High Priest (Kohen Gadol) raised an ordinary man to the kingship.
The concept of a messiah predates Christianity. If Messiah translates to Christ, Christian translates to Messianist. It inevitably follows that all Jews are Christians and were long before any Gentile tumbled to such a notion. (Just an amusing point.)
At no time in Jewish history did Messiah ever translate to God.
Search the four anonymous documents called the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, John and Luke are fanciful names assigned to these writings by early churchmen) and you will find no reference to Joshua’s anointment. If he was the Messiah, King of the Jews, the Gospels present no evidence for it.
The role of Messiah as longed-for-savior begins during the Second Commonwealth. There were several Jewish claimants to the title, none of whom, including the tragic Joshua, ultimately succeeded.
The greatest of the Messiah-saviors was not Jewish but Etruscan. After their suffering under the Hellenized Assyrians, the conquering Roman General, Julius Caesar, was looked upon by all Jews as their savior.
Caesar freed the Jews from their oppressors and as First Dictator showered them with amazing favors and privileges. His affection for John Hyrcanus was genuine as was his regard and respect for the Jewish faith and Judean soldiery. Under Julius Caesar, the Jews were the most coddled ethnicity sheltering under the Roman Eagles.
How many Jews made Caesar an object of worship is impossible to know. Shakespeare makes no mention of it, but the contemporary Roman historian, Suetonius, records that after Caesar’s assassination, the inconsolable Jews of Rome gathered in mourning at the fallen Dictator’s bier day after day.
(The word Caesar is uncertainly ascribed to Caesar’s given name, Gaius. I have always suspected it is connected to the Hebrew word Kesser (crown) although which is derivative of which—if indeed they are connected—I can’t say. In any event, Jesus Christ was preceded by some seventy years by Julius Christ.)
Christians, for whom the story of Jesus is suffused in existential light, miss entirely the politics of that troubled period in Jewish history. In the rebellion against the Assyrians, the Davidic, Judean Kingship was usurped by the Hasmonean Levites. The Hasmoneans were notoriously greedy and corrupt. Ignorant and stumbling in their holy offices. And by Joshua’s time, Roman-Jewish relations had deeply deteriorated from what they were under Julius Caesar. Judea was under brutal military occupation. The ruling Hasmonean Priests were openly colluding with the Romans against the populace and were widely detested. If there is any scintilla of truth to the Gospel narratives, Joshua was a legitimate Judean pretender to the Davidic throne of Judah. By Jewish tradition, any Judean was more fit for the kinship than a Levite.
The myth of the virgin birth like most things Christian is derivative. In this instance from hideous Baal worship
The Gospel of “Matthew” opens with a genealogy demonstrating that Joseph is descended from the royal house of David hence Jesus is the true King of the Jews. But the divinely cuckolded Joseph is merely Jesus’s adoptive father. So why the genealogy? Because belief in the virgin birth of Jesus wasn’t established until after the writing of “Matthew”. The anonymous author of that document was a Jew who didn’t believe in Pagan Gods born of virgins.
In the original myth, long predating Christianity, the star that the Magi followed falls on Tyre in Carthage, not Bethlehem in Judea. Lord Baal (contemptuously elided by the Jews to Baal’Zevel (Lord of Shit) and elided again to Baal’Zevuv (Lord of the Flies or Beelzebub) is the Face of the Sun whose rays impregnate his virgin consort Ishtar (from which the word star is derived; AKA Astarius, Esther, Easter). The pregnant virgin descends to the Tyrene shore but isn’t able to birth her Godling because she can’t get it past her holy hymen. Seeing a sea bird on the beach, she transforms the bird into a rabbit. The bunny lays an egg and from the egg pops Dagon, Lord of the Harvest.
On Ishtar Sunday, the mothers of ancient Carthage would bring their babies to the altar of Ishtar to propitiate the Virgin for good harvest. The priests of Baal would slit the babies’ throats and ritually paint Ishtar eggs with their blood. At a single altar unearthed by archaeologists in modern day Lebanon, the remains of more than twenty-thousand sacrificial infants were discovered. As hardly needs mention, the worship of Ashter and Baal is specifically forbidden in Genesis.
The Christian obsession with existential Evil, the Devil and Hell mocks its loving pretensions. The Hebrew word Satan refers to the prosecutor in an imagined heavenly court. Beelzebub is an ancient Eastern Sun-God. Neither is the “Devil”. Objective examination of Jewish-Christian relation leaves no doubt which religion represents the crucified and which represents the crucifiers. The notion that Christianity is “loving” and Judaism is ‘hateful” is inverse and perverse.
Modern Christians forget that Christian theology has never been proven save by force of arms. Constantine, a Helios (Sun-God) worshiper, gathered the fractious Bishops in Nicaea, provided them with an instructive parable about his vision years earlier (though he mentioned it to no one at the time) of a cross against the sun and forced them to come up with an amalgam theology neatly melding Helios worship and Jesus worship.
The Roman solar calendar became the Christian calendar. Sabbath shifted from the seventh day of Genesis to Sunday. And forevermore, Christians celebrate Christmas which ostensibly took place on Passover, the Jewish Spring Holiday (Chag Ha’Aviv), in December. The notion that Christianity is the faith that conquered an empire is pure conceit. The Biblically rooted religion founded by St. Paul was subsumed by the Emperor Constantine.
Christian moralists are fond of suggesting that Rome was destroyed by sexual excess and licentiousness. Some blame lead in the Roman water pipes for the weakening of the Romans. An honest reading of late Roman history leaves no doubt that the Empire was rotted out by Christianity. The Christians in the cities of the Levant to which the Empire had retreated were disloyal to Rome, Caesar and the Legions (all of whom, including Constantine, remained Helios worshiping Hellenes to the end. The Christian Bishops were openly seditious. Christians in the cities celebrated when Caesar and the legions finally fell to the Barbarians. Their Bishops offered up public prayers of thanks. The Muslims eventually swept in to fill the vacuum left by the collapse and the descendents of the bishops and their followers worship Allah to this day.
I could go on for many more pages but I think my point is made. Deconstructing Christian fantasy and Myth is no challenge. But in centuries past, a murderous Church made certain no one dared. For near two millennia, Christians have spoken mainly to themselves. There is no Talmudic tradition of questioning and proof in Christianity and simplistic assumptions have gone unchallenged and calcified. (Aristotle would have suggested counting the number of disciples in the Gospels before assuming there were twelve, conveniently paralleling the number of Israelite tribes.)
Proselytizing religions are insecure religions. The need to have the next fellow join in believing myths that can’t be proven betrays the proselytizer’s own shaky faith. The enterprise leads inevitably to intellectual dishonesty and outright coercion. And you don’t have to go back to the Inquisition to demonstrate it. The grotesque attempt by Christian “scholars” to Christianize the Dead Sea Scrolls and bar access to them by Jews is a glaring example in our own time.
Where Christianity and Islam are inclusive religions Judaism has always been exclusive. Neither the Patriarchs nor their descendents forced others to believe as they did. Jewish law requires that someone who expresses interest in converting to Judaism be dissuaded.
That is a healthy attitude by an ancient and learned people and Christians would do well to emulate it. People know good news when they hear it. It doesn’t have to be sold.
Gregory:
… Can you still trace the line of Levi, from whom the priests and High Priests are to be selected…
Yes, as it happens. Extensive DNA testing on Jews around the world named Cohen, Khan, Kahana etc. reveals a common ancestor contemporaneous with Aharon the Priest for some ninety percent.
I don’t know your ethnics, Gregg, but I have a question or two. You probably have a forty or fifty word vocabulary in the language of my ancestors. Do you have so vast a vocabulary in the language of yours? My ancestors provided the greatest works in literature which you take a great interest in. Did your ancestors have a literature? Do you take equal interest in it? Have you any notion of what your ancestors worshiped two thousand years ago? Do you even care?
Why are you rooting around like a pig after truffles in my ancestral patch? Are any Jews rooting around in yours?
Get a life, buddy. No, not mine. One of your very own. And try to remember that a little knowledge is dangerous.
Yoni:
You’re an embarrassment and a disgrace. Do your fellow Jews a favor and convert. If the Christians will have you.
Michael Weiss:
Interesting and informative piece, as usual. But I doubt the Jews for Jesus smear changed a single vote.
TO: david levavi
RE: [OT] An Interesting Read….
….but despite your effort at scholarly discussion, followed by dropping into the gutter, your information is somewhat haphazard.
I was particularly intrigued by your idea that
I submit that those religions not reaching out to others are dying. It’s not about fools and myths. It’s about understanding. Something you strive for but don’t quite achieve.
Or, riddle me this…
….how is it that a man of the First Century AD, can name the place and describe a runaway nuclear reactor?
I too, could go on for pages on such as that. But I doubt if you’d be (1) able or (2) willing to intellectually grasp it.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Atheism is a non-prophet organization.]
P.S. The REALLY ‘insecure’ religions are the ones where people kill those who break their ‘faith’.
Ah, and should I continue to feed trolls? Meh, why not?
1. Yes, I do. I’m Chinese by descent, and know two dialects conversationally (Hakka, Hokkien), one dialect functionally (order food, get a cab, that sort of stuff in Cantonese), and some stock phrases in Pudonghua. Can I write in Mandarin? Not really, but then I can’t write in Hebrew or Russian either. I also know some few words in Nihongo, and am reasonably fluent in Malay/Indonesian.
2. Boy, what an insult? Did my ancestors have a literature? One that goes back all the way to Noah, you ignorant troll. Besides, what’s wrong with oral tradition? That’s how the Patriarchs handed down their institutional knowledge, at least part of the way. Chinese literature, despite the numerous attempts at destruction during our long, long history, still stands the test of time. Witness the frequent use of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War even now, in business, in the military, anywhere where strategies are of importance. Confucianism is still strong, The Way of the Tao, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Justice Pao and Judge Dee, – yes, I would say we have a literature. Am I interested in it? You betcha! IN the English translations, at least – but then again, I don’t read the Tanakh or the NT in Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek either.
3. Do I have a notion whom my ancestors worshipped 2000 years ago? Yes. Shang Ti, the God of Heaven, the same God I worship today. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God of Moses. The true God who made the heavens and the earth. The God who appeared in the form of Jesus to redeem His own.
[troll-mode]
And you need to read up on history before talking about it. Who built the Haga Sophia? And what faith did Belisarius espouse? You underinformed and illiterate primate! It was in Shanghai that some Jews found succour during WW2 and you denigrate my ancestry? Did I denigrate or insult yours? Or how about your insulting my faith? How two upstanding people of God’s Chosen managed to bring forth an acephalic baboon defies the imagination.
[/troll-mode]
Nah, I can’t do it. Even when I try my best, I just can’t spew forth the bile.
“The myth of the virgin birth like most things Christian is derivative. In this instance from hideous Baal worship”
13 Then he said, “Hear now, O house of David! Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
Isaiah 7
And while you’re at it read the rest of the book and tell me the Suffering Messiah was made up by the Christians. Go on. You can do it.
And don’t give me that “almah doesn’t mean virgin” bunk.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/622
This is a subject that, as a Jew, the son of parents who endured persecution from the Catholic Church, the Nazis and the Soviets, I would want to stay out of as it is futile to argue religion.
It is fair to say that everyone here will adhere to his faith, and will not be swayed either by insult or complement.
I do want to make one point to our Christian friends, and that is not my opinion, but that of the great sage Rambam (Maimonides).
In his code, the Mishnah Torah,On Sanhedrin, the laws of Kings, he explains the primary reason why Jews did not (and still don’t) accept Jesus as the Messiah.
Rambam states that the purpose of the Messiah’s coming is to save the Jewish people. All of the prophets who speak of the Messianic era are of one mind on this.
Since the birth and death of Jesus, the Jews have not acheived salvation; on the contrary, persecution of Jews intensified,and frequently in the name of Jesus.
Teh Temple was not rebuilt, and the exiles were not gathered.
To us Jews, it is clear that Jesus was not the one, nor will he ever be accepted by Jews who are well versed in their own religion.
I know this is disappointing to Christians, but we will just have to agree to disagree, and hopefully behave with kindness and charity to all of G-d’s children.
One final point; Only Christianity teaches that Reward and Punishment is dependent only on belief; one can be a wicked person, accept Jesus, and he will go to heaven, while a person who may have only done good his entire life will go to hell if he does not accept Jesus.
I know there are Christians who disassociate themselves from this paradigm, and further progress in this area will only serve to alleviate discord among people of varying faiths.
TO: Bigben
RE: Not the One
Apparently not was well versed as you would care to believe.
Even David wrote about Christs death on the Cross….
Looks to me like it’s a matter of ‘selective memory’. Or do you not reverence King David?
Hardly disappointing. We’ve encountered a lot of people who like to attempt to ‘disappoint’ us, but they never really do, except in their refusal to grasp what we are trying to explain to them. You know….people like YOU.
As far as Christians are concerned, accepting Jesus as the Christ, true. However, with respect to the idea of “Reward and Punishment is dependent only on belief”, I guess you haven’t heard about Islam.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.]
P.S. Where does that read that He didn’t walk the Earth before that ‘latter day’?
P.S. More on “Reward and Punishment is dependent only on belief”….
….when you suggest that merely believing will get you to ‘Heaven’. You’re right.
However, in your ignorance…or worse….you ‘forgot’ that EVERYONE is ‘judged’ at the Judgement. And we will each receive our just desserts for what we did in this venue. As it is written, “He who would be first in the Kingdom must be the servant of all.”
I’d point out that both sides here believe in the Golden Rule (for Jews, Leviticus commands “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”).
I doubt anyone on either side thinks there’s any risk of someone converting because they read someone’s argument on the internet. For Christians here, that means no chance of “helping” someone. For Jews here, that means no chance of someone needing your help in defending against “lies”.
The *only* effect of insulting Judaism or Christianity here is to demonstrate how ugly it is to have someone tell you your religion is wrong. I think both sides get it now.
Further, I’d guess that most people visiting Pajamas Media, Jewish or Christian, have many common views. Why create rancor with your friends?
David Levavi –
Very cool possible etymology on Caesar. It would be ironic if the Tsars were named after a Hebrew word, but stranger things have happened. I’ll have to dig deeper.
TO: Mike
RE: Indeed
It is not my place to ‘convert’ someone. That’s between them and God. However, it IS my place to explain things to anyone.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Neighbor, n., One we are required to love, but does his utmost to make us disobediant.]
Chuck Pelto:
…I submit that those religions not reaching out to others are dying…
Wishful thinking that exposes underlying malevolence. The Catholic Church has assumed Judaism is dying for the last fifteen hundred years. Judaism was older than Christianity is today when Christianity was founded. And for all the yearning of its hateful imitators, Judaism yet lives and thrives.
…The REALLY ‘insecure’ religions are the ones where people kill those who break their ‘faith’…
A reference, I suppose, to Muslims and their homicidal fatwahs. Catholics were equally vengeful toward those who broke the faith as late as the Nineteenth Century. There is, for example, the famous case of the Polish nobleman for whom some Polish Jews still recite the Mouner’s Kaddish on Tish’a B’Av every year. The Rabbis of Poland refused to convert him for fear of reprisals so he went to Protestant Holland and persuaded the rabbis there to accept him. On returning to Poland, he was arrested and burned alive at the stake.
Gregory:
You need some lessons in manners. Here in the West, we don’t spit on people we disagree with or call them trolls or a baboons.
Its nice to know you’re sufficiently grounded in local dialect to get around your neighborhood. I’m happy to know that some portion of your ancestry can be traced to the Chinese who produced a respectable literary canon. Which brings us back to my core question. Instead of trying to learn Hebrew and rooting around in my ancestral literature, why don’t you learn Chinese and study the literature of your ancestors? For all your noisy pride in your heritage, you still prefer mine. Why?
English translation of ancient Chinese literature is inevitably as flawed as English translation of ancient Hebrew Literature. A Chinese Scholar who is versed in everything Shakespeare wrote in Chinese translation can’t call himself a Shakespearean scholar.
Reading the Bible in English is like reading Shakespeare in Hebrew. The King James, which until recently was the best English translation of the Bible and is still the most elegant, is filled with errors. Even the tone is wrong. Read the King James and you can hear the organ and the choir in the background. As pretty and emotionally uplifting as an English Church service but entirely inauthentic. The Hebrew Bible is flat and laconic. Dry as dust.
I’m unfamiliar with Shang Ti but I’m quite confident he is not the “God” of Moses or Jesus. But assuming he is, why did you bother getting baptized? You seem to be saying that Shang Ti, the “God” of Moses and Jesus are equal but Jesus is more equal.
… It was in Shanghai that some Jews found succour during WW2…
Indeed they did. But their hosts were the Japanese not the Chinese. Specifically the Japanese High Command. The Chinese were occupied and had no say in the matter.
The Japanese admirals and generals felt indebted to the Jews for financing the building of their fleet. Jewish financiers, Jacob Schiff prominent among them, were angry at the Czar for inciting and supporting widespread pogroms in Russia. When the Japanese enemies of the Czar needed financing, the Jewish bankers opened their coffers wide. The result was the destruction of the Russian fleet at Port Arthur and the loss of Russian island territories to the Japanese.
The Japanese also respected Jewish ability and hoped they would serve as colonial surrogates in Japanese Manchuria. The more vehemently their Nazi allies demanded the Jewish refugees in Shanghai be turned over for extermination, the more the Japanese were convinced of the Jews’ worth.
Summoned before the Japanese high command to answer why the Germans were so fanatical in their hatred of the Jews, Rabbi Moses Shatzkes (the Amshenover Rebbe) referred the Japanese Generals to readily available Arian propaganda. “The hate us because we are Asians,” said Rabbi Shatzkes.
This unique confrontation between the two racist Axis allies exposed the deep fault line between them and offers a glimpse of the war of total racial annihilation between Asians and Caucasians that would have swept the world twenty-five to fifty years after an Axis victory.
Jeremy:
Like most Christians, you confuse Hebrew prophesy with Pagan augury. Your arrogant presumption that you understand Hebrew words like almah is just that—arrogant presumption. I know both Hebrew—modern and ancient— as well as Talmudic Aramaic as do my three American born children. (My oldest is an Ancient Middle East specialist qualified in eight languages, several long dead and teaches Biblical Hebrew at Harvard and Hebrew Bible at Harvard Divinity School.)
I wouldn’t presume to lecture you on Old French or Old German or Gaelic or Latin Or Greek or whatever your ancestral language is. Have the good manners not to lecture me on mine.
Bigben:
Maimonides is counted as the first modern rabbi and we are all beholden to him for his guidance. No Jew stands in opposition to the Rambam without deep trepidation. But the Rambam was a man of his relatively ignorant and primitive time. No one believes in spontaneous generation today as the court physician of the Egyptian Caliph once did.
As a Jew, I flatly reject the last three of articles of the Rambam’s Thirteen Articles of the Faith. I am an anti-Christ. I do not believe in an existential Messiah or an afterworld. These are Second Temple ideas born of desperation under brutal oppression. Forgive me, but I believe them heretical. If I had my druthers, we Jews would bequeath the Mashiach and Olam Ha’ba to the Christians with our blessing and, to borrow from Saul of Tarsus, put childish things behind us.
Chuck Pelto (responding to Bigben):
… do you not reverence King David…
King David was a usurper, a lecher, a murderer and a tyrant. His son Solomon was all that and worse. Characters in the Hebrew Bible unlike characters in the Gospels are nuanced and complex. They don’t wear halos or glow. Old Testament portraiture includes all the warts. It isn’t all black and white.
Your specious use of the Hebrew Psalms for proof of your belief in a Pagan divinity born of the union of a virgin and a God insults Hebrew literature and faith alike.
Mike:
You sound like a decent fellow. But “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” is not the original rendering of the Golden Rule. “Do not unto others what you would not have done unto you,” spoken by Hillel, is. The modification attributed to Jesus about a century later is, “Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself .”
The difference in the two phrasings is significant. The Jewish rendering is neutral. The Christian rendering is activist. Jews are exclusive and teach by example. Christians are inclusive and proselytize.
At the bottom line, both versions teach us to put ourselves in the other guy’s shoes. Were it that Islam would take up the Golden Rule. Muslims might yet learn to walk on their hind legs.
TO:
RE: Yeah….
….and yet….
….he had a heart for God.
So. You apparently aren’t much of a Hebrew after all. Why am I not surprised?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out.]
P.S. The only Guy I know of who was ‘perfect’ got nailed to a tree for His temerity.
David –
You surprised me twice in a row. I didn’t realize the Thirteen Articles of Faith were controversial. Any good books to read more (in English)?
Mike
Gregory:
“…99% certainty…”
Mike:
There is no controversy as far as I know. I was merely stating my own opinion.
I find it hard to believe that a strict Aristotalean rationalist who suggested sacrifices were an accommodation to popular superstition truly bought into the idea of an existential messiah and a world to come.
The Jews were under intense pressure from both Christians and Muslims in the Rambam’s day and the Rambam experienced that pressure first hand. Jewish hope was flagging and the Rambam, like his namesake who installed sacrificial practice, may have felt the need to accommodate the common people’s need to believe in something beyond their miserable earthly condition. If so, I respectfully believe he was, in this instance, shortsighted.
I’m playing fast and loose with the known facts, however, and I may be all wet. The Rambam was a brilliant and sophisticated man and second guessing his intentions is dangerous. Moreover, I am hardly an expert on the subject. There are fine scholars who have devoted their careers to studying the Rambam and might well reject my conjectures out of hand.
Given how many non-religious, fully-identified Jews there are, the idea that anyone believing in the teachings of the Christian church cannot remain a Jew strikes this non-Jew as backwards, cruel and absurd.
But apparently, this is just stricture is only in Reform Judaism. According to the main Wikipedia article on Judaism: “Traditional Judaism maintains that a Jew, whether by birth or conversion, is a Jew forever. Thus a Jew who claims to be an atheist or converts to another religion is still considered by traditional Judaism to be Jewish.”
If correct,this sounds much more sane and humane than the idea that Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky were Jews, but Bob Dylan isn’t. (Assuming Dylan still believes himself to be “The Property of Jesus.”)
I’m glad I don’t belong to an ethnic group with members that would kick me out of the tribe just for thinking certain wrong thoughts.
One other thing, when the subject of conversion comes up, both Jews and Muslims will go on and on about how Christianity is such an inately flawed religion. Muslims of course want Christians to swap one faith and tradition for another. But just what the hell do Jews recommend that righteous gentiles do? I’ve heard about the Noahide faith, and frankly, it seems like pretty slim pickings. No tradition, no litergy, no sacraments, no leadership, no historical or cultural context, no nothing. Religion is such an important part in the life of any society, do you really think a just God would have had the unchosen ones go off with just that small set of admonitions and NOTHING ELSE? Or are you willing to consider that perhaps there might have been other relevations for other chosen ones? And that perhaps these could include Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Yezidism whatever. Each with their own internal logic and truth, each a revelation from the one true God?
Markus -
Wikipedia is your friend. I think you answered your own question about this “cruel, absurd practice”. But even wikipedia can’t unravel Dylan.
I think you also answered your own question about why Jews tell you about Christianity’s flaws. When you bring up a pretty insulting question (“why don’t you see my religion as superior?”), it’s difficult to answer the question without repeating the original offense.
A friend tried to evangelize to me this summer (described above). Even though he was trying to be respectful, I had to tie myself in linguistic knots to avoid discussing at his level (“G-d is …” => “Jews believe G-d is …”, etc.).
—————
Outside the context of “why don’t you convert?”, I think you can find real answers to your questions. My take is that Judaism is fine with other religions, to the extent they follow the Noachide Laws. I think Islam is universally viewed as Noachide (although not very peaceable). I believe Jewish sources are conflicted about whether Christianity is idolatrous.
Personally, I feel Christianity ultimately brings its adherents closer to G-d. I find people like John Paul II and Reverend Hagee inspiring. And I think American Christianity is generally wonderful – for American Christians.
But this doesn’t mean I view all religions equally, either for Jews or for non-Jews. Human sacrifice has been practiced throughout the world – even in modern day America (example: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975730,00.html ). If only for this reason, sometimes you have to call something by its true name.
Thanks for your responses to my questions, Mike.
.Markus:
…the idea that anyone believing in the teachings of the Christian church cannot remain a Jew strikes this non-Jew as backwards, cruel and absurd…
A Jew born of a Jewish mother remains a Jew even if he believes the Elohim were aliens who arrived on earth in spacecraft and brought mankind the Torah. (Yes, I heard a lecture many years ago purporting exactly that.)
The ready acceptance of anyone who follows the Noahide laws as a moral equal far surpasses the notion that someone not of the faith is deserving of death (Islamic belief) or eternal damnation (until recently common Christian belief).
The Noahide strictures are minimal and someone who feels the need for more fulsome and robust religious expression may, indeed, find them wanting. There is no reason why someone in such a position can’t cherry pick among other Biblical commandments or follow them all without converting. Sabbath observance and other aspects of Judaism were commonly practiced by the Roman elites. The Second Temple included a Gentile Gate. There is finally the option for any Gentile to convert and be accepted as a Jew in equal standing with a child of Abraham. Converts play a prominent role throughout the Bible.
The Biblical Kenites—by Jewish tradition, the descendents of Jethro, the grey eminence whose influence on Moses and Judaism was enormous—greater, I suspect, than the Text overtly states—were non Israelite fellow travelers morally on par with the Israelites.
My general sense is that Judaism narrowed considerably in reaction to the rise of Christianity and Islam. Maimonides’s Thirteen Articles were such a reaction and to my mind, deeply unfortunate. Jews did very nicely without a creed until Maimonides introduced one.
The Lubavich Chasidim (Chabad) who believe that the son of the Ba’al Ha’tanya is the Messiah are the closest thing to the original Jewish Christians of two thousand years ago walking the earth today. Most Jews disagree with them vehemently, but their loving kindness is widely acknowledged and like Joshua and his disciples of old, they are Jews in equal standing and are as welcome in any synagogue as Joshua and his followers were in the Second Temple.
I agree wholeheartedly with Mike regarding American Christians, especially Evangelicals who study and genuinely revere the Old Testament. The better one knows the history of Jewish-Christian relations the more appreciative one is of the breathtaking civility and decency of American Christians. May the Lord Of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob bless them and keep them and all they hold dear.
@Bigben
“Since the birth and death of Jesus, the Jews have not acheived salvation …”
@david levavi:
“And for all the yearning of its hateful imitators, Judaism yet lives and thrives.”
I could be wrong, but Jews and Judaism appear to be thriving (even finding salvation) while sheltered in the arms of modern Christianity. I don’t think there’d be but a shadow of Judaism remaining without their Christian protectors.
TO: JJ Joseph
RE: Excellent Point….
….that.
Hitler was certainly doing his best to irradicate them. And the Christians from America and Britain and France, not to leave out some others, put an end to that effort.
I think the same applies to the way Americans have helped their state of Israel to continue to exist. After all, without the weaponry and munitions and political support, the Israelis would not have been able to stand up to the assault on Yon Kipper in ’73.
Now they’ve grown. Now they’ve the ability to manufacture one of the finest weapon systems on the face of the planet. It IS highly impressive what they’ve done. But without the initial help, the madmen of Arabian descent would have replicated what Hitler attempted.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Those who bless you, I shall bless. Those who curse you, I shall curse. -- God to Abraham]
JJ -
Almost all of my great-grandparents were murdered in Europe. I’m sure your comment was intended as a lighthearted jest, but please don’t push it.
TO: Mike
RE: JJ’s Comment
It is truly sad, to have lost family that way.
But I recall that thousands of American christians were killed by the Nazi forces within the first hours of the invasion of Europe in order to STOP such murders.
The problems back then was NO ONE took Hitler seriously when he seized the Rhineland and invaded the Sudetenland. [Note: A LOT like we're not taking Putin seriously about (1) what he did in Georgia and (2) what he's talking about doing in the Arctic.]
As for his comment being ‘light-hearted jest’….
….I don’t consider the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives TRYING to STOP HITLER from killing anymore of your relations, close or distant, ‘light-hearted jest’.
And, I think your trying to put down their sacrifice reason to suspect a degree of ingratitude that is unbecoming of you.
Regards,
Chuck
P.S. JJ doesn’t need to push it. I’LL push it. And if you care to engage….en gardé!
Mike:
You’re wasting words on deeply twisted haters.
Best wishes for a peaceful Sabbath and a happy New Year.
TO: david levavi
RE: Yeah….
….all those dead Americans REALLY hated the Jews.
You want to see a REAL ‘hater’. Look in the mirror…..
….and weep.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down his life for a friend. -- Some Wag, around 2000 years ago]
@Mike:
“Almost all of my great-grandparents were murdered in Europe.”
Mike, _ALL_ my grandparents, save one, died trying to save YOUR grandparents.
TO: JJ & Mike
RE: Time Factors
Interesting reports about great-grandparents, grandparents. I’ll chime in with my aspect.
My Father and all my uncles on his side of my family fought to save Mike’s great-grandparents….if Mike is talking about his great-grandparents dying in the 1930s and 1940s. My Father, God rest his soul, flew B26 Martin Marauders.
So….youngsters….
….putting thinks into perspective can be ‘interesting’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[If your parents never had children, odds are you won't either.]
Chuck -
I’m sorry I didn’t make myself clearer – JJ’s statement (Jews should be grateful to Christians for physically protecting them) was an exact inversion of reality and I reacted instead of explaining. Millions of Jews (including huge swaths of my family) were physically destroyed within living memory by Christian Europe. Christian values allowed millions to be swayed into the pagan death worship called Nazism.
On the other side, America acted as a tremendous force for good (as it has done throughout history). Many Americans were motivated by their Christianity. I’d even go so far as to say that this type of behavior is the ultimate expression of Christianity – not the side Jews have experienced through most of the past two millenia.
That said, it’s simply ahistorical to view Christianity as sheltering Jews. It’s as if I expected blacks to be grateful to America for freeing the slaves. Yes, we paid a terrible price in blood to end slavery, but it was an American problem to start with.
There’s no en garde here. I’m not looking to debate you on this (or any) subject. You’re simply not my enemy.
——————-
Gratitude is something freely given, not extracted.
If it hasn’t been clear from my previous writings, I’m deeply grateful to this country. My father came here as a ten year old refugee and surely would have been murdered if his parents were unable to escape Berlin.
Part of the reason why this country is such a beacon of liberty is because of the men whose valor and sacrifice enable the American way of life. I’m deeply appreciative of these people, including your dad and JJ’s grandparents. I’m also glad for whatever role Christianity had in their lives.
I’m equally grateful to the Jews I know who have displayed amazing courage in service to this country. I’m particularly thinking of my buddy I saw in synagogue this morning (Distinguished Flying Cross over Iraq) and a mild-mannered family friend (Silver Star Marine in Korea). Judaism has been important to both of them and has shaped them into the terrific people they are.
G-d has inspired many people from various backgrounds to come together to build this country and make it an enormous source of good in the world. Some of these people have been Jews. Some of these people professed no belief at all. And many were deeply Christian.
E Pluribus Unum.
IMHO Sarah Palin is totally unqualified to be either President or Vice-President of the United States. I can’t believe that any thinking person, be they Republican, Democrat, Leftist Centrist, Right Winger, Bible Belter, etc… thinks she is qualifed. I, for one am a William Buckley conservatives. I am appalled at McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for VP. I have come to believe that the Palin supporters I run into are being arrogant. Their arrogance seems to derive from a glee that the Palin nomination is so offensive to the Democrats.
If she does come to be President and there is a nuclear crisis, she just doesn’t have the skill, judgement, knowledge or judgement to be the commander in chief. But there she will be, with her finger on the nuclear button. This is a frightening prospect. This is violation of the other “right to life”. Where are my “right to life” friends now that I need them?
Thanks
@ Peter Gerard:
I agree with your comments, but I stumbled upon this today and it might be far worse than we think!
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1417423198/bctid1827891038
Let’s all pray for John McCain’s health if the Republicans win!
I just came upon this blog today, or I would have commented right away. I am a staff member with Jews for Jesus. Thank you for posting a link so that your readers can read the transcript of David Brickner’s entire message at Sarah Palin’s church and see those remarks in context. Please also take a look at Brickner’s comments concerning his message at Wasilla Bible Church, as well as interviews by Christianity Today and MSNBC with Brickner about this issue, at http://www.jewsforjesus.org/blog/20080912. Among other things, Brickner says, “The comments attributed to me were taken out of context. In retrospect, I can see how my rhetoric might be misunderstood and I truly regret that. Let me be clear. I don’t believe that any one event, whether a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, is a specific fulfillment of or manifestation of a biblical prediction of judgment. I love my Jewish people and the land of Israel. I stand with and support her against all efforts to harm her or her people in any way.”
Thank you, Matt, for coming onto this site to validate the information that is provided on your website. Mr. Weiss obviously has issues with Jews who have converted to Christianity. Two sentences into his article, his anger just protrudes off of the page! Very sad. It’s not about the religion. It’s about the relationship with Christ that this great group Jews for Jesus is trying to accomplish. And I applaud their efforts.