This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
Discussion this morning with an incredibly inquisitive student from Fiji who hadn’t thought about her Christian religion except as a force for good in her life and the world. She was wearing a Cross – it didn’t look like a simple adornment – so I asked her if she was a Christian. She is. She told me how she reads the Old Testament on a regular basis to which I replied that her Old Testament was my Hebrew Bible. Calling it the Old Testament is a colonial statement.Full-stop.
My Fiji friend was quite surprised and asked me to elaborate. I then digressed into Christianity as a colonial imposition on the majority of the Christians in the world today – in previous times these Christians were conquered by the Gospel. In Fiji, as well, in one way or another, no doubt.
As part of the (un)civilized masses of the non-European world, I assume that Christianity was brought to Fiji as a civilizing force no matter the manner it was brought in. If it was brought in peacefully, the Christian colonial structures were ready to facilitate Christianity’s entry. With the arrival of colonial Christianity, indigenous Fiji life was derided in one way or another. It survives in remnants in the dark basements of the colonized self. That’s my hunch.
True of Jews to some extent as well. At least we had been treated by European Christians as their (un)deserving Other – though also as the ones who had given birth to them, an explosive combination as we know through history, the Holocaust included. In short, Jews were treated the same way within Europe as Third World peoples were treated by Christianity outside of Europe.
So we are bonded in history. But adopting the colonial model of Christianity – where else could she now turn for religion since the indigenous would be the reappearance of the uncivilized and where would that get her or them? – she now expropriates my scriptures for her use. The “Old” Testament is theft, Christian colonial style. It’s no different than expropriating land.
Internally, the “Old” Testament is a reenactment of a religious expropriation which occurs in the context of a wider political and economic expropriation. Expropriation comes in packages. Religion is only part of the whole. Yes, one part, but an internal invasion, everything of depth consumed and transformed into another religious constellation. It is the first and major step toward the modern, which destroys everything in its wake, except itself. Or including itself, since modernity is increasingly harder to find within the modern. Post-modern is simply another term for modernity devouring self- destruction and the destruction of others, except for those who continue to ride the modern crest of affluence and power. For how long, though, is the question of questions. We might call the Modern Question.
Jews as the quintessential survivors of Christian colonialism and now, understandably, have decided to join the Christian ranks – as Jews. Let’s just say that we are honorary Christians now, thus we are allowed to wield our power alongside the Christian powerful. Against the (un)civilized Muslims?
Not to let Islam off the hook, as yet another colonial missionary religion. Which is how Islam, like Christianity, went global. We don’t want to be left out in this scramble for survival and dominance so Jews are trying to go global too – minus, of course, the population numbers. Thinking of the billion or so Christians and the billion or so Muslims, our thirteen or so million Jews seem puny by the numbers game. But, oh, how our influence exceeds our numerical insignificance!
Israel’s global reach is only possible within Jewish global reach. Though – credit where credit is due – Jewish global reach occurs mainly through American global reach. American global reach secures Israel’s global reach. A triangular relationship with the important partnership of a chastened but still empowered or an empowered (disguised and chastened) post-Holocaust Christianity. Where would we be without the globally imperial Christianity that emanated in Europe and brought Jewish bodies to be burned in the death camps of a thoroughly Christianized Europe that is now our soul partner?
The Christian-Jewish buddy system – arrayed against the world. Wouldn’t you chose this partnership if you were underneath a violent Christianity for fifteen hundred years? Makes sense if history is only a cycle of violence and atrocity. Choosing to be on top rather than the bottom of history is the way to go even if that means others being on the bottom and even, making sure that you stay on top, you partner with your Still/Former enemy.
So many Still/Formers – it’s not just about Jews of Conscience and Jewish Israelis, all of whom are fleeing, among other things, this new partnership in crime.
The Jewish-Christian partnership is an empire enabling partnership – which excludes a good percentage of Jews and a huge percentage of Christians, all the while pretending to be the definitive act of civilized religion, culture, economics and politics. A universal, it claims, that excludes or dominates the many. This is how universality is typically defined, the particular defined as universal and the universal defined as in need of a new infusion of forced civilization.
Universality, the illusion. Whose specialty is uprooting. Root(s) debris all around. Marked by the Cross.
What is with this guy? Enough!
Why the big platform for this guy?
I find a lot of this offensive/off-putting at least.
What a condescending blow-hard – ‘rah rah Jews!’ – WTF?
i like his stuff, john, i truly do. i like the po-mo ambiguity of language. the broad, unsupported (or unsupportable) pronouncements. and i even agree with some of his conclusions. his weaknesses (or at least some of his weaknesses) are his continued resort to dodgy definitions, and stream of consciousness style, that style, like any other ‘art-form’, either being a success or an equivocal failure, the failures feeling like self-important babbling. but anyway, i do enjoy his contributions, though not always for the same reason.
Well it’s sort of fun….sorta…to follow this stream of consciousness ….like listening to a patient on the couch trying to sort out his feelings or thinking.
But there aren’t any answers in it.
So it’s frustrating.
“I find a lot of this offensive/off-putting at least.
What a condescending blow-hard – ‘rah rah Jews!’ – WTF?”
Since I suffer from (at the very least) ADD , I often have to read an article twice, skimming it once, and then reading it again for comprehension. Doesn’t work every time, but it helps.
“The “Old” Testament is theft, Christian colonial style. It’s no different than expropriating land.”
This is moronic. Only an “intellectual” would even think to say something so stupid.
I’ve found some of Ellis’s posts interesting and sure, there’s a lot that could be said about how Christianity uses the Hebrew scriptures, reinterpreting passages (starting in the NT) to fit its own needs and so on. Surely one could discuss this without the BS.
“The “Old” Testament is theft, Christian colonial style. It’s no different than expropriating land.”
This is . . . er . . . not intelligent
yes, this is one of those cases where a bit more support for his declarative is in order. and he seems to contradict himself here. he earlier stated his agreement with the ‘peace studies’ anti-metaphor that ‘the map is not the territory’, yet he equates the adoption of ‘the old testament’ by christians with territorial conquest. or maybe i misunderstand his point(s). (you have to reject jesus as the messiah to conclude that the old and new testaments aren’t a single narrative in any event, so that argument is unlikely to gain any traction outside of a small circle of thought. if that is his position, what is ellis’s impression of the recent public desecration of the new testament in israel? is rejection of the new testament an explicit expression of jewish territorial claims over christian holy sites?)
I’m sorry but I’m finding this series far too long-winded, self-indulgent and self-absorbed.
It may well have merits that I find elusive, but surely it’s out of place here on Mondoweiss?
I like what Mark has to say.
The Bible old and new testament written by Jewish men with an agenda.
Let me just say, I’m not religious but he does provide a good narrative for the “Jews of Conscience.” Maybe he overstates it with some loaded words, but he only means well, and it doesn’t do any good to chastise him.
“our thirteen or so million Jews seem puny by the numbers game.”
Thirteen or so million? Thirteen freakin million? I’m crushed! I thought it was closer to twenty! Hell, other religions have sects which have more people! Hmmm, maybe there would be more Jews if we had more sects?
And I feel like I haven’t done my part, at all. If I had any tribal feeling at all, I could have married, had children with and divorced at least three Jewish womem by now. But of course, it’s not me they’re lookin’ for.
Mooser you cannot use this site as a platform for your self-contempt. Im sure they would have ate you up
“Im sure they would have ate you up”
With a good chest freezer, they could be dining off my haunches for years!
“Mooser you cannot use this site as a platform for your self-contempt.”
Oh crap. I knew I was gonna get banned sooner or later! This is rank sects discrimination!
Slacking on the job Mooser!
No need for divorce, NOTHING in Judaism prevents polygamy. Didn’t Solomon have a thousand wives? All the big names in the Old Testament were fond of polygamy, which begs the question what did the average jew do, if the kings/judges kept all the females for themselves.
@Abuadam,
Reincarnated as Mormons?
Didn’t Solomon have a thousand wives?
The archeologists advise us that there were probably about a thousand inhabitants in Jerusalem during the 9th and 10th centuries BCE. It’s unlikely that they were all married to King Solomon.
“Didn’t Solomon have a thousand wives?”
I wish you hadn’t said that. I’m going to be hyperventilating and shaking for hours. One thousand wives? 1,000?
I’ve got one wife, and it seems like there’s several of her, coming at me from all sides.
Solomon must have been a real glutton for punishment. Who wants to live under marital law?
“I’m sorry but I’m finding this series far too long-winded, self-indulgent and self-absorbed.”
Amen.
I find the idea that Judaism is “colonial” offensive in the extreme. Mostly, though, I find the writing to be horrible.
“I find the idea that Judaism is “colonial” offensive in the extreme”
So, finally you will admit that Zionism is not a basic part of Judaism, not a longstanding, cherished desire, but just a ruse we picked up to use when we felt it to our advantage? Well it’s about time you did.
“– she now expropriates my scriptures for her use. The ‘Old’ Testament is theft, Christian colonial style. It’s no different than expropriating land.”
Unhistorical nonsense. The original Christians, as we all know, were Jews whose view of the religion differed from those around them and were forced out, by those very same Jews around them. Those who were expelled were under no obligation then to acquiesce to the claim by those who did the expulsions that the scriptures they were fighting over were the exclusive possession of those who did the expelling.
Fast forward 2000 years and the story remains the same. The Christians and Jews disagree on the nature, meaning and import of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. Neither side has any priority on the question because to do so would require resolving the very intractable and unresolvable dispute that is at the heart of the matter.
“Neither side has any priority on the question because to do so would require resolving the very intractable and unresolvable dispute that is at the heart of the matter.”
Yes, but after six months of fighting, my wife and I agreed never to talk about it again. And six weeks after that, my cast came off, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since, except I have one arm sorta bent funny.
Woody,
You write:
You bring up a good point that instead of being an ideology invented by foreigners outside the religious community that “colonized” the scriptures, Christianity was developed by a group inside of that community.
You bring up a good point when you write:
It makes sense that each side would naturally assert that their side is right and has priority. But you mean that a non-judgmental third party perspective wouldn’t assign priority to one side. That makes sense too, since both of the two sides came from the same community and share the same book.
My question to you, though, is this>/i>: Rabbinical law considers heretics (“min”) to still be Jews. So wouldn’t the Rabbinical viewpoint also disagree that the Yeshua and the Jewish Christians were “colonizing” their Bible with a religion coming from outside of Judaism when they declared Yeshua to be the Anointed one?
The claim that “The “Old” Testament is theft, Christian colonial style.” is historically shallow. The Christian term “Old Testament” is not an invention of the age of imperialism. It’s goes back to the origins of Christianity in the first and second century CE.
In its beginnings Christianity (before it was identified as “Christian”) was a Jewish sect. The followers of the Jewish hasidic rabbi know as Jesus link to fishingtheabyss.com were one of many Jewish sects (see the history of the Dead Sea scrolls) that grew up in reaction to the oppression of the Roman Empire. According to the New Testament, the early followers of Jesus, including the 12 disciples, were Jewish. A large part of what Christians call the New Testament is about whether Gentiles should be accepted into their sect and what Jesus meant by “Do not think that I have come to abolish the (Jewish) Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Matthew 5:17 New International Version
Of course, by the second century CE the sect came to be dominated by Gentiles who turned on the founders of their sect and used the Book of Revelation’s epithet of “a synagogue of Satan” as the basis of subsequent Antisemitism. An excellent book which discusses this complex history is Elaine Pagels recent “Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, & Politics in the Book of Revelation.”
A better case can be made for the imperial roots of fundamentalist Christianity if you know the history of the Scofield Reference Bible link to en.wikipedia.org Published by the Oxford University Press, a case can be made that this reference took the ancient text of Judaism and Christianity and connected them with the imperial struggle of the British Empire against the Ottoman Empire. See the history of the Scofield Reference Bible in the link above and follow the many links in the article to understand why I say this.
The Scofield Reference Bible took text that spanned almost one thousand years, and using footnotes and cross-references tied together prophecies which Biblical literalists take to be reading the mind of God. It is followed by millions and, in particular, became the basis for Christian Zionism.
If his lectures in Innsbruck and other places in Europe were similar, I am sure those students really had a ball making fun of him.
His complaints about the Lufthansa and Volkswagen in previous lectures were priceless, it seems he is still fighting the WWII, 65 years after its ended. Would not be time to put all that area to rest?
“Jewish global reach occurs mainly through American global reach” Similar things being said by Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei . Important piece up over at Race for Iran
““Jewish global reach occurs mainly through American global reach”
Well that’s been plain as the nose on our faces.
“Where would we be without the globally imperial Christianity that emanated in Europe and brought Jewish bodies to be burned in the death camps of a thoroughly Christianized Europe that is now our soul partner?”…m ellis
LOL…….better question…where you gonna be if you keep on blaming Christianity as a whole for what happened/happens to Jews?
What’s the end game in this eternal religious grudge you got going?
I’m not all religious or Christian, but I’d say you’re pushing your luck.
Actually though there’s an advantage in being part of a small group, a religious war wouldn’t be necessary, they could decide to just ignore you entirely.
“LOL…….better question…where you gonna be if you keep on blaming Christianity as a whole for what happened/happens to Jews?”
No, he’s saying you gotta take the bad with the good. Or, the good with the bad.
Or, more likely the good/bad with the bad/good.
@ Mooser
I think I need a translator for this stuff.
I’m not catching on to the ‘flow’ style of thoughts.
Calling it the “Old Testament” is colonialism, and using it is “theft”?
I call cow pats!
If it’s colonized, you cannot use it/study it as you wish, and if it’s theft, you no longer have it at all. And what about all those stories in the Hebrew Bible that have been incorporated from much older sources, but were rewritten/reimagined for the ancient Hebrews? Isn’t that theft and colonialism too?
“It’s no different than expropriating land.” Well that’s the whole damn dung heap! Land, expropriated, is out of the reach of the legitimate owner. Land cannot and does not multiply the way a text can by being written, printed and distributed. Hide your head in shame, man!
I’d hate to read your take on the rewritten stories in the Quran!
ME: “My Fiji friend was quite surprised and asked me to elaborate. I then digressed…”
At last a moment of self-honesty from the Distinguished Visiting Professor. He digressed. Indeed the Professor seems to make quite a habit of digressing. I thought at one point – quite a while back now – in this seemingly infinite series he was going to reach a significant insight into the Holocaust industry. But then he digressed into “Das Auto” then to Lufthansa and now to imagining he’s decolonizing the Fijians from the Old Testament.
I’m reminded how once in a while at a party one meets someone smart, educated and erudite. An interesting conversation starts up but then, as your new friend becomes increasingly animated and long-winded, it gradually dawns on you that something isn’t “quite right” with him. Too late, you realise you’ve become the latest victim to be bored senseless by their pet theories. Unfortunately they don’t take any polite hint that you’ve had enough and there’s no way to escape without making a scene. Even worse, people are starting to notice that you’ve been spending far to long nodding in sage agreement with this increasingly strident – if not swivel-eyed – eccentric. If you’re lucky, the person’s spouse finally arrives to rescue you from this embarrassing predicament. But sadly, in the worst cases there’s little hope of any spouse ever arriving.
“I’m reminded how once in a while at a party one meets someone smart, educated and erudite. An interesting conversation starts…/… in the worst cases there’s little hope of any spouse ever arriving.
Oh, that’s it, libra, tell the world about it! And now, thanks to you, nobody will ever talk to me at a gathering again. I’m still able to get somebody new or who hasn’t been warned, but I guess that’s over with. Thanks for nothing, pal.
Prof. Ellis,
You wrote:
I think it’s healthy to question whether one’s beliefs are right and have bad sides. Did she say that she had never questioned this herself?
Personally I have doubts about my religion’s correctness, because the miraculous is by definition so unusual for our normal experience. Furthermore, the idea of a merciful God punishing the wicked in the afterlife is troubling(eg. Isaiah 66:24). But my Church (eastern Christianity) teaches we do not really know how God judges. Which brings me to my next point: It is hard to define Christian religion broadly, because there are conflicting schools with conflicting ideas.
Narrowly defined, I too basically think Christianity is simply “a force for good” in my life and the world. Christianity simply means the belief that Jesus was the Messiah, or “Christ”, and the belief in His moral teachings. Like the Fiji girl, I think Jesus was the Messiah, and I think that moral ideologies like Christianity, socialism, racial equality, and democracy are themselves basically forces for good in the world.
That does not mean of course that Christian, Socialist, racially equal, or Democratic societies themselves are simply righteous. I will make an an interesting observation though: to the extent that a society actually does practice the good morality in its ideologies, it is itself a force for good. So for example, if the Christian missionaries in Fiji build hospitals, treat diseases, or send food packages, their community too would be a force for good. But if ideas about racial superiority are invented that don’t follow Christianity, like in the example of colonial Rwanda, then the Christian community isn’t being a force for good when it spreads and follows those racial ideas.
RE: “She told me how she reads the Old Testament on a regular basis to which I replied that her Old Testament was my Hebrew Bible. Calling it the Old Testament is a colonial statement. Full-stop.” ~ Marc Ellis
MY COMMENT: Good one!
Speaking of which, when are you going to take the plunge and “git washed in the blood”? Then you would be welcomed with open arms by people like Ken Starr and even at places like Baylor. It worked like a charm for Mahler.
You know that you want to! And you “sho” would be a prized catch.
• Blood Of The Lamb, Wilco & Billy Bragg (VIDEO, 04:16) – link to youtube.com
RE: “She told me how she reads the Old Testament on a regular basis to which I replied that her Old Testament was my Hebrew Bible. Calling it the Old Testament is a colonial statement. Full-stop. . . I then digressed into Christianity as a colonial imposition on the majority of the Christians in the world today – in previous times these Christians were conquered by the Gospel. In Fiji, as well, in one way or another, no doubt. ” ~ Marc Ellis
MY COMMENT: Good one!
Speaking of which, when are you going to ‘take the plunge’ and “git washed in the blood”? Then you would be welcomed with open arms at places like Baylor, even by people like Ken Starr.
It worked like a charm for Gustav Mahler!
You know that you want to! And you “sho” would be a ‘prized catch’.
• Blood Of The Lamb, Wilco & Billy Bragg (VIDEO, 04:16) – link to youtube.com
• Day Lewis gets baptized in “There will be blood” (VIDEO, 02:13) – link to youtube.com
• Spring in Norway ~ Gustav Mahler ~ Symphony No. 5: Adagietto (VIDEO, 09:45) – link to youtube.com
• Gustav Mahler – 5th Symphony conducted by Maazel. 4. Adagietto (VIDEO, 10:35) – link to youtube.com
• Mahler 5th Symphony; Adagietto; Zander (VIDEO, 8:38) – link to youtube.com
“Then you would be welcomed with open arms at places like Baylor, even by people like Ken Starr.”
Doubtful. He would still have to join Likud. See “Starr” on:
link to mondoweiss.net
link to groups.google.com
link to counterpunch.org
Try thinking of it this way, Dickerson.
Do the CZs “welcome with open arms” nonChristian Israeli nationalists?
Do the CZs “welcome with open arms” Christian opponents of Isr.State policy?
RE: “Do the CZs ‘welcome with open arms’ nonChristian Israeli nationalists?” ~ W.Jones
MY REPLY: Absolutely, in a nauseatingly obsequious/vacuous manner. But the “open arms” of the Christian Zionists (for the non-Christian Israeli nationalists) have daggers hidden up their sleeves so as to eventually knife the backs of their prey. After all, for the Christian Zionists, Israel is but a stepping stone to full spectrum Christian dominance.
Dickerson,
I believe you are largely mistaken when you write: But the “open arms” of the Christian Zionists (for the non-Christian Israeli nationalists) have daggers hidden up their sleeves so as to eventually knife the backs of their prey.
The C.Z. ideology, as I understand it, generally goes into the category of Dispensationalism or a certain kind of millenialism, which Tom Bishop discussed above. C.Z.s generally avoid evangelizing Jews, because in C.Z. ideology, they- not Christians- are 100% God’s people and are supposed to have an ethnic state in the Apocalypse. In the general CZ ideology God- not the C.Z.s- destroys them except for 144,000 who convert.
Still, I can see where you are coming from, because think there may be a hidden kind of hostility in the C.Z. embrace because C.Z.s generally believe you absolutely must be Christian to go to heaven. But anyway I don’t think the C.Z.s have “daggers”.
Alongside what I just said, I think you will find two more opposite strains among C.Z.s: the older “Restorationists” (as in “Restore nationalist Israel”) who I assume lean towards evangelization and a CZ part of the “Messianic” movement that doesn’t even believe it matters for your spiritual welfare if you are Christian, just if you are Christian or Jewish.
So while nationalists get embraced with open arms and there are no daggers in their ideology, you would be correct to note they are ironically the more intolerant wing of Christian movements.
RE: “there are no daggers in their ideology” ~ W.Jones
MY REPLY: Trust me, the Fundies can turn on a dime. One day they might be “best friends” with the Jews, and the next day some kooky preacher will revise his “interpretation” of the scriptures to declare that the Jews are (collectively) the Antichrist!
ALSO SEE: “Grace Halsell: De-bunker of Christian Zionist Doctrine”, by Stuart Littlewood, Palestine Chronicle, 8/11/12
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to palestinechronicle.com
Dickerson,
OK, now it seems you are admitting they don’t have daggers, but that they could change their ideology and get the daggers. OK, well you can say that about tons of things. It’s like saying “Even though group X is OK and our close friends now, they could change their beliefs and suddenly become dangerous. So that means they have daggers.” I mean, that kind of thinking can be applied to tons of stuff: Amish don’t use electricity, but now some changed and use electricity. See, they change, so maybe next they will start attacking random people.
I basically agree with your analysis about how CZ ideology doesn’t really match Christianity. But I still think that it’s as I described earlier: there is hidden hostility and since they are the more intolerant branch of Christianity, it’s ironic and perhaps dangerous. I just want to help you understand the complexity of it better, which I think you do factually.
By the way, one day a long time ago I heard a Protestant minister mention in his sermon about the different groups in 1st century Judea. Apparently there was a group of anti-Roman nationalists who really did use daggers up their sleeves.
RE: “He would still have to join Likud.” ~ W.Jones
MY REPLY: ‘Taking the plunge’ and “gitin’ washed in the blood” presupposes (at least honorary) Likud membership. In fact, there is virtually a certain type of reciprocity.* Likkudniks are (at least honorary) fundies, and fundies are (at least honorary) Likkudniks.
* SEE: “Pastor Strangelove”, by Sarah Posner, American Prospect, 05/21/06
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to prospect.org
ALSO SEE: Is the Red Heifer Here? – link to jesus-is-the-way.com
P.S. RE: “‘Taking the plunge’ and ‘gitin’ washed in the blood’ presupposes (at least honorary) Likud membership. In fact, there is virtually a certain type of reciprocity.” ~ me (above)
SEE: “‘Dual Covenant’ Christians”, by Jon Basil Utley, Antiwar.com, 08/02/06
• Christian Zionists and the strangest alliance in history
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to antiwar.com
Yes Dickerson, this is the kind of thing I was talking about in my post above about the different attitudes of CZs. One of the trends is that one need only to be christian or Jewish, while another trend is that God, not the CZs, will destroy everyone but the CZs and the converts.
In the traditional Christianity of Palestinians, the belief is that one cannot know exactly how God will judge each person. It isn’t that people know whether each person will go to hell or not based just on that person’s belief system.
Your article about the Red Heifer is interesting, but I disagree that ‘Taking the plunge’ and “gitin’ washed in the blood” presupposes (at least honorary) Likud membership.
Taking the plunge (full body immersion) and “getting washed in the blood”(having one’s soul cleaned of sin) are part of traditional Christianity of Palestinians for example.
In case you have in mind evangelical immersion baptism in particular, it isn’t true that evangelical churches are all C.Z.s. A group of evangelical pastors for example wrote a public letter disagreeing with Hagee’s beliefs about a single ethnic state etc. There are evan.groups with the same kind of democratic pluralist criticisms of the State as does M.W.
So while plunging and gitin washed are part of evangelical initiation in general, I think they are not really the specific criteria for acceptance by C.Z.s. like Hagee.
Do you understand what I mean?
Regards
I hope that the candidate red heifers continue to develop the odd white hair. I don’t think Zionism has its heart in reviving the Temple cult. The theory that the Bible sanctions a modern form of nationalism just like that of other Euro peoples has to distinguish itself from the idea that the Bible demands a full-scale revival of Kingdom and High Priesthood. Not even the issue of excavation on the Temple Mount is being forced at the moment as far as I know. Though perhaps it will be impossible in the end for a Jewish State to allow its principal monument to have a non-Jewish character.
RE: “Do you understand what I mean?” ~ A.Jones
MY REPLY: Yes, and I do not disagree. But when I refer to “Fundies”, I am essentially referring to the Christian Evangelical/Fundamentalists who are also Christian Zionists. The other ones don’t bother me quite as much (some are quite nice) as long as they are not murdering people who work at abortion clinics.
ALSO SEE: Inside CUFI’s 2011 Washington “Summit”, Special to JewsOnFirst.org, July 29, 2011
Our eyewitness report on Christians United For Israel’s annual Washington conference
ENTIRE REPORT – link to jewsonfirst.org
Dickerson,
It’s OK, don’t feel bad. I myself have mixed feelings about “fundies” and I think it depends on the context.
I think that they are basically more good than bad, and it’s good they have a moral code to follow, like Thomas Paine wrote about. On one hand you have some of them that approve of beating students in Texas schools. Plus, they came out of the Puritan “Calvinist” movement, and I could see some of them creating a similarly intolerant inquisitorial community. But then on the other hand there were very strong Puritan abolitionists, who saw racial supremacis and slavery as contradicting the fact that the slaves were Christians with human souls.
But actually- and I only want you to take this in a constructive way- I disagree that you had in mind only CZ fundies when you talked about “taking the plunge” when you wrote:
Mahler got baptized as a Catholic, not a CZ fundamentalist, so that’s not what you meant.
My impression is that Mahler sympathized with Christianity but didn’t accept all its main doctrines and converted for “professional” reasons as you suggested. Now apparently it didn’t really “work like a charm” for Mahler, since he didn’t conform 100% to people’s expectations. In a way that’s like the CZs’ expectations: evan. immersion might be enough to get “formal” membership in the evan club, not really enough to get the embrace. After all, wasn’t Clinton himself an evan.?
Take care, D.
“I think that they are basically more good than bad, and it’s good they have a moral code to follow, “
Well, if their “moral code” includes teenage and out-of-wedlock pregnancies, living in sin, domestic violence, and adultery, all I can say is, they’re following it. They have the highest rates of all those things
“After all, wasn’t Clinton himself an evan.?” Thanks for proving my point so neatly. There’s a guy who is President, his wife is First Lady, the whole country is watching his every move, and he still can’t keep it in his pants. He may have been a fairly good politician, but a “moral code”? He ain’t got one. Either that or he hated Hilary and wanted to humiliate her in front of the entire world, that’s all.
And why, W’Jones, are you beating around the bush? You know as well as I do that its baptism and Christianity which get you into heaven, and the heathens, like the Jews, (actually, we’re worse, having both refused, and possibly killed The Saviour) spend the eternal summer vacation at Camp Lake o’ Fire. You’re not doing anyone any good by not being plain and down-to-earth about it. It doesn’t work if you just spray us all with a hose and call it done to avoid arguments.
Regarding Clinton, Christianity recognizes people can sin and repent, as would apparently view Clinton. Fundies could choose to believe he was sincere in his views or that he was a “fake Christian”, and probably there are evans with both views. In any case, I think Clinton had a moral code, he just failed to follow it in that case. I prefer to think generally he follows his moral code, but I could be completely wrong.
Regarding hell, as I understand it we can follow general principles and decide what is best to do, but we actually do not know for sure whether each individual will go to hell. See for example this statement in the Sabeel Newsletter by Pierre Shantz:
I could look at it different ways, but we are talking about a metaphysical or supernatural phenomenon. So it is like asking what heaven will be like. I think you just have to find out the things about religion and be good. It is like going on a journey like in “The Holy Grail”. With some laughs along the way, hopefully.
Hey Mark what year is it? Is it 2012? When we say 2012, what do we mean?
I bet Ellis says it 5722 or whatever – cuz 2012 is oh so colonial. This is what occupies this guys mind?