Recently, a deranged white supremacist (yes, I know that is redundant) killed three people at a Jewish facility, all three victims being Christian. Memo to imbecile: Jews and Christians, you can’t tell us apart!
While vitriolic commentators and supremacists emphasize the religious divides, the folks of the real world (as was the case here) are blending in marriage, healthcare, and business. If a Jewish Nursing Home offers the best care around, that is where a Christian family will take their loved one, and vice versa. As we learned from the musical ‘South Pacific,’ it is not in a child’s nature to be prejudiced; should you want him/her to be biased or racist; you must teach it to them.
Late in life, I became a Christian (in modern terms, Jesus became my default setting). Coming from a liberal Unitarian home, I worried about facets of social Christianity. I had detected a supposed prejudice in generic Christianity against Jews, how they were implicated in Jesus’ death. I could not countenance adopting a bias as a requirement of my new faith. I studied. For the sake of brevity, I will consolidate my observations:
1.) From a purely doctrinal standpoint, the gospels should be included in the Old Testament; the New Testament beginning with the book of Acts. The gospels are a Jewish commentary, with Jesus reserving his words, and his tears, for the Jews.
2.) Yes, I know the book of John stated that ‘His own received him not.’ This referred to the people who opposed him, for political reasons, during his time on earth. It is not an indictment either of the Jews who believed and followed him at the time, nor of subsequent generations.
3.) If you want to implicate all modern Jews in Jesus’ crucifixion (which is phenomenally stupid: do we blame current natives of Maryland for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by a Maryland native?) where do we Christians get off holding onto a two thousand year old grudge about an occurrence that Peter tells us was divinely ordained and for which Jesus forgave its perpetrators? That is incredible presumption.
4.) For the first 1.5 millennia AD, Catholic doctrine held that moneylending was usury and Christians were prohibited from its practice. It fell to the Jews to be the bankers of the medieval Christian world (witness ‘Merchant of Venice’ by Shakespeare). Throughout history, Europe and Russia would routinely confiscate Jewish property, sometimes accompanied by expulsion or massacre. Thus, the gentile world created the ‘wandering Jew,’ a people with no homeland but with a genius for finance. Then we resent them for the hole we dug for them. Great. That makes as much sense as a woman getting angry with her fiancé for purchasing the engagement ring that she herself selected.
5.) In the early centuries of the Church in the Roman Empire, Christians were perceived as being merely ‘messianic Jews’; the remainder, perhaps waiting for Messiah and a better deal. Roman policy made no distinction.
6.) Doctrinally, Christianity grafts seamlessly onto Judaism. The current doctrinal gap persuades me that there is indeed a satanic presence in our world: Christian animus against Jews has nothing to do with doctrine; Jewish resistance to the Gospel message of Christ stems, not from doctrine, but from centuries of mistreatment at the hands of so-called Christians. Therefore, the people whose religion is the most preparatory for Jesus are the ones most reluctant to accept him because of human misbehavior.
7.) Hebrews 13:8 says “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.’ What was Jesus yesterday, here on earth? He was a Jew. If this verse be true, then he is still a Jew. His sacrifice makes Christians acceptable to the God of Israel and permits us to be called ‘children of God’ (John 1:12). Unless I am mistaken, that makes Jesus our divine brother. Hey, Christian, your divine Father is the God of Abraham and your divine brother is a nice Jewish boy! Sounds like yarmulke time to me…
8.) Replacement theology propounded that God broke the covenant He made with Abraham because of Jewish sin and faithlessness; then He transferred his love to Christians. Utter nonsense. If God broke the Abrahamic covenant because of Jewish sin and faithlessness, He could just as easily break the covenant made with Christians through the blood of Jesus; and for the very same reasons. God is faithful to His covenants, even if humans are not. God has not ‘unchosen’ the Jews.
That I cannot explain their role in the latter days (aside from the book of Revelations saying that 144,000 Jews will spread the Gospel message around the time of the tribulation), does not dismiss them. In fact, in order for Jesus to return, Israel must exist and it must be in the hands of the Jews. As recent events in the Ukraine demand, we Christians must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters against a prejudice that refuses to die.
I wonder at this second coming: will we stand together, the Jews saying ‘Messiah, welcome’; while the Christians say ‘Messiah, welcome back’? Humans…oy vey.
10.) A final reason that I am certain that Messiah must be Jewish: no one else would be capable of gaining us salvation with the God of Israel, and genius enough to get it for us ‘wholesale.’
– Dennis Garvin
