Christianity and Judaism

[bananabrain]

actually, bandit, i agree with you about people that complain about manger-displayage and other such things. that is most definitely not the sort of thing i am talking about. i think there's a big difference between being able to display the signs of one's religion in public and trying to convert people to it. i think it would be a lot easier if people were a lot clearer about this - people like "jews for jesus" blur the line in an intentionally misleading fashion in a way that public christmas celebrations don't. and that *is* my opinion!

b'shalom

bananabrain

b'

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

actually, bandit, i agree with you about people that complain about manger-displayage and other such things. that is most definitely not the sort of thing i am talking about. i think there's a big difference between being able to display the signs of one's religion in public and trying to convert people to it. i think it would be a lot easier if people were a lot clearer about this - people like "jews for jesus" blur the line in an intentionally misleading fashion in a way that public christmas celebrations don't. and that *is* my opinion!

b'shalom

bananabrain

b'

i dont know what jews for jesus teach but i am sure they do not have it all, just like the rest of us dont have it all. if they are throwing things in your face, then they should not be doing that.

now, taking away anything from someones beliefs (even a display) is just as bad as trying to force things on someone. IMO
you keep the menorah lit, (which i like to see by the way) & i will keep the manger scene lit. sounds like a fair deal to me.
what do you think?

[Vimalakirti]

i'm not calling *you* a heretic. i am simply outlining how a belief that jesus was the jewish messiah is a heretical belief for a *jew*.

b'shalom

bananabrain

Hi Banana. Hope all is cool with you.

I agree with you that aggressive or deceptive drives for conversion are not acceptable, and just downright nasty. On the other hand, as you might expect, I have reservations about the violence of your rhetoric. I think Bandit was right in calling you on the heresy issue, not from the point of view of whether you’re right or wrong based on some dictionary definition of the word, but because the idea of heresy itself is a genie – as Christians know only too well – better left in the bottle. There’s also the irony that the idea of heresy is really a fellow traveller to the tendency toward absolutism, and it’s absolutist ideas driving these kinds of conversion campaigns that create the problem in the first place. The result: war.

But this thread has also veered into the most radioactive territory imaginable: the holocaust and the survival of the Jewish people. It’s hardly possible even to evoke the word without an accompanying desire to weep. Even after Cambodia, East Timor, Rwanda, and many others, it remains the paradigm of premeditated evil. In that sense, it belongs to the history of everyone.

In a more restricted sense, of course, it more properly belongs to the historical consciousness of a given people, and there are severe limits to what an outsider can advise as proper responses to that history. It may even take a fool.

Enter the fool. The natural response of any victim is to arm himself in the interest of self-defence, and to the end that he will escape being a victim again. In the real world, this is inevitable, unavoidable, understandable & needs no apology. But there is the wider perspective – the perspective that you perhaps refer to when you talk about sacred history and Divine Will – on how all these things will reach ultimate resolution.

One dominant opinion is that there will be a Judgement Day (or some version of that idea) where the sheep & goats will all be sorted out and perfect justice delivered. I can’t share that opinion, or at least I can’t see justice in any ordinary sense of the word being done to adequately punish the criminals and compensate the victims, especially in the kinds of atrocities that have been mentioned. I think that if there were some ultimate justice, it would have to be justice in some quite other sense.

My opinion is rather more Buddhist in flavour, but with roots as well in Judeo-Christian tradition. It’s really a commonplace: that the only adequate response to past crimes in the end won’t be to answer violence with more violence or threats of violence but to undercut the conditions that produce violence in the first place, at the root. I take the “turning the other cheek” saying of Jesus in this more radical sense. It’s not about “let’s just be nice” – although usually that’s not a bad thing! It’s much more subversive than that. There’s nothing more deflating than to have someone not answer your abuse with abuse of his own. But this is well rooted in the Jewish tradition even before Jesus. Isn’t there a saying to the effect, Returning good for evil is like heaping hot coals on the head of your enemy?

Of course, we’ve been told innumerable times to apparently only modest effect that violence leads to violence. And, in the short term, we sometimes can’t avoid employing violence against violence. But on the ultimate level, which is where I assume a religious forum should be pitched, we know that violence can’t stop violence – like the tar baby, the more we struggle against it the more it bogs us down.

So as to present cases, I’m a fool but not quite foolish enough to offer opinions or critiques regarding current political realities for the Jewish people; I’m only saying that the long term survival of Jews and other minorities will depend more on the work of sincere practitioners like yourself, who are trying to reach across sectarian lines, than the presence or absence of certain military equipment and guys with guns. I believe the less violence you employ or condone – rhetorical or otherwise – the greater will be your contribution to your people.

“Turning the other cheek” to me is just a metaphor for the practice of outsmarting violence and the will to power that leads to violence. And for that we need the full engagement of our intelligence, because the will to power at the root of violence is a wily devil. And I think to outsmart that devil we have to admit to the existence of the power impulse itself, and in ourselves, and take notice every time we fall into its coils. We have to be able continually to pose the question:

Can we renounce the power that leads to and feeds violence? Can we transform this power? Can we at least put power into suspension? Can you? Can I? Can we renounce power?

[bananabrain]

dont know what jews for jesus teach

if you did, you would find it a lot easier to understad why i object to them and not to the vast majority of other flavours of christianity.

Originally Posted by Bandit

if they are throwing things in your face, then they should not be doing that. now, taking away anything from someones beliefs (even a display) is just as bad as trying to force things on someone.

nonsense. there are always degrees. if someone's beliefs lead them to put up adverts which tell me, as a jew to "think for myself" (ie disagree with judaism and agree with them instead) then i am entitled to object to their doing so. there is a *big* difference between that and a manger scene and, frankly, if you don't get the difference, i can't really explain it any more.

Originally Posted by Vimalakirti

I think Bandit was right in calling you on the heresy issue, not from the point of view of whether you’re right or wrong based on some dictionary definition of the word, but because the idea of heresy itself is a genie – as Christians know only too well – better left in the bottle.

i would accept that if it weren't for the fact that the history of heresy within christianity was associated with burnings, torturings and the like, whereas in judaism such "genies" have not been (despite more than enough opportunity) let out of the bottle - the worst sanction that one might apply to jews for jesus these days is exactly what we do right now - shun them, deconstruct their rhetoric and attempt to ban them from targeting their proselytising in jewish areas and at jewish people. it's not like i let the tyres down on their horrid little logo-crusted minivan when they leave it parked in my street (which happens often enough) - such people cannot be banned from the community that they do not belong to in the first place. calling it what it is is simply a way to point out how the adoption of their ideas would impact on a person who was considering them from within our already beleaguered demographic.

But this thread has also veered into the most radioactive territory imaginable: the holocaust and the survival of the Jewish people.

these are not things that i invoke lightly or often - you can check if you like. they are very definitely the "nuclear option". unfortunately, our community is now so small that whether violent or not, sustained and targeted campaigns which aim to remove jews from judaism are effectively attacks on our survival. that is regrettable, but it is nonetheless the case. it is also the senseless stupidity and crassness of it - i mean, it's not even malicious. it's just intellectual and spiritual dishonesty of the highest order - and it's VERY well-funded and organised. perhaps a contrast might be drawn with another group of whom i strongly disapprove, the so-called "kabbalah centre". again, intellectually and spiritually dishonest, similarly crass but highly-motivated, well-organised and funded. would i say they do some good in drawing in some jews to some form of jewish practice and belief who would otherwise remain resolutely uninvolved? probably, yes. would i call them heretics? probably not. would i nonetheless attempt to draw a line between them and the bona fide community? probably, yes. would i invoke the holocaust and the survival of the jewish people? absolutely not. would i miss an opportunity to excoriate them for their disreputable behaviour? not on your nelly.

therefore, to my perspective, your "fool's response", correct and admirable though it is, is not really relevant, except for this bit:

the only adequate response to past crimes in the end won’t be to answer violence with more violence or threats of violence but to undercut the conditions that produce violence in the first place, at the root. I take the “turning the other cheek” saying of Jesus in this more radical sense. It’s not about “let’s just be nice” – although usually that’s not a bad thing! It’s much more subversive than that. There’s nothing more deflating than to have someone not answer your abuse with abuse of his own.

i guess my response to this would be much like what i say to the sort of idiots that proudly proclaim "oh, i'd never buy a german car, fly on a german airline or visit germany" - that's *exactly* what hitler wanted, a judenrein germany. to me, the greatest way to refute him is not to run round kicking neo-nazis in the nadgers and so on, but by creating a vibrant, thriving, tolerant, out-and-proudly religious jewish community in germany itself. the same thing with arabs, muslims et al - the best refutation of antisemitism and hatred is cooperation and dialogue. the hardest people to talk to at the moment, though, frankly, are the european left wingers and the conspiracy-theory bush-haters. i don't really have much left to say to such people, which is sad because i don't think they understand the harm they're doing.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Vimalakirti]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

i guess my response to this would be much like what i say to the sort of idiots that proudly proclaim "oh, i'd never buy a german car, fly on a german airline or visit germany" - that's *exactly* what hitler wanted, a judenrein germany. to me, the greatest way to refute him is not to run round kicking neo-nazis in the nadgers and so on, but by creating a vibrant, thriving, tolerant, out-and-proudly religious jewish community in germany itself. the same thing with arabs, muslims et al - the best refutation of antisemitism and hatred is cooperation and dialogue. the hardest people to talk to at the moment, though, frankly, are the european left wingers and the conspiracy-theory bush-haters. i don't really have much left to say to such people, which is sad because i don't think they understand the harm they're doing.

b'shalom

bananabrain

Hi Banana. Thanks for coming back at me. I was afraid I'd just become to annoying for you. This may sound hand-wringing, but I do find it frequently hard to hit the right note - especially when we wander into the territory of this thread. And I do want to take back a little of what I said about "violent rhetoric". I think we probably do have a basic disagreement about the role of power in religion and in life - though on another level up (or down!) we may very well be in agreement. But I think I did overstate the "violence" of your style; on many occasions it's refreshing & direct, and certainly better than false piety. (BTW, you should provide us a glossary of some of your juicier vocabulary.)

I appreciate the details of your exasperation with these Jews for Jesus characters. Yes, that would drive any sane person up a tree.

But I wasn't sure if you were lumping me in in your last paragraph with "those idiots" who wouldn't buy German cars. I'm going to assume you weren't.

On the political stuff, I'm on the other side of the pond, geographically and maybe politically on some issues. I mean it's only natural to be more aggravated with the a**holes close by as opposed to far away because we know them better. In this whole Iraq business it's not like any country acted as paragons of virtue - it would be silly to expect them to; it's not the world that we know. This idea mostly only appears on Fox News, and is applied to only one country: the U.S.A. So you see the hypocrisy and b.s. of the Europeans up close; for me I just glean bits from afar on Web sites. What I see up close is the b.s. and corruption in my own neighborhood. On your side you may see anti-semitism and pulchritude concealed in platitudes and high style. Over here, I notice that to criticize any action of the Israeli government or even to investigate the merits of the Palestinian side is to be considered an anti-semite in some quarters. Of course, it's more complicated than that - but the point is that over here a fair, rational, comprehensive discussion of the whole conflict, from the Balfour Declartion on, is a near impossibility in any public forum. As for me, I couldn't hazard a real opinion, when so many passionate "experts" can give such mutally convincing and mutually diametrically opposed views. (BTW, if you can recommend any book or books that approaches the ideal of being fully fair & comprehensive, please pass that along.)

On Iraq, as on all wars, I think there's two perspectives to take. One, the moral. And there, I did not feel the U.S. was well-grounded. Let's forget about the blather about wmd's on the one hand and the belated lust for democracy on the other. And let's put aside, at least for the moment, the desire to remove their former client Hussein from power, i.e., to clean up the mess they contributed to in the first place (the only justification that really has weight for me). From the beginning, even a dope like me could see that the decision was strategic: to demonstrate American power - as outlined in their National Security Strategy - to knock sense into the Arab world by this display of power, and to secure needed bases, replacing those they would like to withdraw from Saudi Arabia. So the moral question: is the loss of life and inevitable suffering justifiable for these ends? My feeling remains that it was not.

The second perspective is purely strategic. In the short, medium and long term will this use of power do more good than harm in the region and in the world? This I thought was a crap shoot, and it remains a crap shoot. But like everyone else I was wrong about some things. I sort of expected that after an easy victory - and if the region didn't explode - there would be a honeymoon of relative calm and that only a bit later would the real sorting out take place between the communities and the real players emerge. Frankly I thought the Sunnis would just be fed up with the whole Baathist thing! Instead, what we had was a quick collapse immediately devolving into a civil war on slow burn, and only on slow burn because of the presence of foreign troops. So my feeling here is I don't know. I don't where this is going and how many more thousands will be killed. In fact, I think it's reached a point where we can't know what the world would have been like 50 years from now without this particular war. There are just too many variables. Defenders of the war will say well the sanctions, the oil-for-food, the status quo all sucked, so it was best to just blow the place up. But to me that's rough logic at best.

Thanks again for your reasoned replies.

Shanti.

[Blessed87]

Originally Posted by Amica

Jews belive in One God, Christians assume that God is a Trinity. On top of that, Christians claim Jesus to be 'a son of God' or having a divine origin, whereas Jews do not even recognize him as a Messiah.
A lot of the laws from the Old Testament do not seem to be followed today among the Jews to the fullest, and yet Christians mostly disregard them in whole.
I personally see them separate, because I do not believe Jews and Christians believe in the same God.

(sorry if this is out of order thread-wise!)
There are a few things I'd like us to consider on these points. First, Christians do believe in one God, the same God as the Jews, because the Bible includes originally Jewish books. The Trinity is God in His three roles, Father, Son, and Spirit, as the Bible calls Him.

Second, it is true that not all Jews follow every letter of the law. However, not all Christians disregard every letter of the law. If Christians didn't believe that the law has any significance, then why have it in the Bible? The difference with many Jews and Christians is that Christians view the law from more of a grace perspective. God knows we cannot follow every command every time, so even though He wishes for us to live accoring to His Word, He knows we are human and we that we fail. We can't achieve salvation, we can't make up for our sins, so through the blood of Jesus our sins are covered by the grace of God.
Romans 4:13-17
13It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, 15because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.
16Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. 17As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations."

The law had its part and still has its part. Even more, though, the fulfillment of the problems of the Law came through Jesus, the Lamb of God who forever has paid for our sins.

1 Corinthians 5:7 "Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."