I’ve asked this of Christians myself, and the answers I got ranged from “Catholics are from Rome, and they killed Jesus” to “Catholics practice idolatry,” which I guess goes to their veneration of saints.
It’s mainly because “our parents said so” and they don’t want to risk God’s wrath by thinking any different. It all boils down to fear of something different.
Mormons are non-Trinitarian, so a special case. Joseph Smith had essentially a frontier, lay-person view of the Trinity which carried over into his works, so he thought that God has a real body, as does Christ, but the Holy Spirit is just sort of ether. He also made some sketchy promises regarding a process LDS calls ‘exaltation’ which essentially means that humans become co-equal with Christ (or at least can if they are good Mormons, or more accurately they perform certain rituals-called ordinances.) The Catholic Church (along with pretty much every other church that isn’t Mormon) feels that non-Trinitarian baptisms are invalid.
It’s actually something that mainlines have tried to hash out with the LDS church, but they are actually insistent that their baptism is different than ours in form and substance and acknowledge that our conception of Trinitarian baptism is an inherently different rite than theirs. The United Methodist Church had a long conference with LDS leadership in 1998 to resolve these differences and the conclusion reached by both sides is that the gap was not bridgeable.
He’s kind of murky in that his family was both ethnically Jewish and religiously Jewish until he turned 12, when his father renounced Judaism and had his family baptized into the Church of England. So I’d say he’s an ethnic Jew and religiously a Christian (and culturally English), but the definition of Jewish is less clear than that, as we see upthread.
I think what **Broomstick **is trying to say is that by definition, Jews who accept Christ as the Messiah remain Jews, because He’s the fulfillment of the Jewish prophecies foretelling the Messiah.
I think realistically those people would be the Messianic Jews mentioned upthread- they’re Jews who believe that Christ was the prophesied Messiah. But they still do all the normal Jewish stuff otherwise- Passover, High holy days, Purim, etc…
Now if they convert, and actually believe the Christian belief- the Trinity, Eucharist, Baptism, etc… then they’re NOT Jews any longer, at least religiously speaking.
Wow. No. That is the OPPOSITE of what I am saying. How in the hell did you get that from what I posted.
And most of the non-messianic Jews don’t consider them Jews any more in the religious sense though, of course, they are ethnically Jewish.
And yet… when I was being evangelized to by students from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago they’d go on and on about being Christian… until they found out I was half Jewish by descent, at which point they started directing me to Jews for Jesus, telling me Jews were “special” and that’s why converted Jews had separate worship from other Christians. It all struck me as very “separate but equal (but not really equal)”.
In other words - however much lip service they paid to respecting Jews in reality they were bigots and didn’t want Jews to be around them.
Ethnically, sure. In that sense Jesus and all the disciples and all or most of the apostles were Jewish also. But Disraeli clearly avoided most of the bigotry associated with being Jewish, and was treated as a Christian by the powers that be.
Except he didn’t fulfill the Messianic prophecies as written, not as retconned. But that’s neither here nor there. The proponents of various Messiah candidates in history stayed Jewish.
And I know nothing of the details of being a Messianic Jew, but wouldn’t they get baptized? That would seem to be a crucial milestone.
You surely cannot be so ignorant as to be unaware that “Jew” ALSO refers to an ethnicity. “Converted Jew” is precisely the same as “converted Indian.”
Speaking as someone who was born Jewish (thus culturally still Jewish), but early on stopped believing anything, I’d appreciate it if no one prays for me. I have a friend who is Buddhist, and he keeps telling me how he has chanted or wants to chant for me at various times. As he’s a friend, I just smile and say something like “you really don’t have to do that”.
That said, back in the 1970s, when I Was in High School, we had a discussion in a class about how one local church (Greek Orthodox I think, but I could be wrong?) still had in their doctrine and frequent sermons, explicitly blaming Jews for killing Christ. We had a big discussion about that in an English class (the subject had been brought up by someone who was Greek Orthodox, and the teacher who I Think was Roman Catholic (???) decided to make it a frequent topic of discussion whenever things were slow (this was in a very cosmopolitan/mixed area in Suburban NY). It was his attempt to teach tolerance. Personally, I’ve encountered much worse antisemitism and bigotry since then (especially when leaving NY state).
As a Jew, I’d rather people didn’t think I was heading to hell. But as someone who doesn’t believe in God or Hell, I’m somewhat indifferent to it if you don’t let that affect our relationship or how I’m treated (or nazi graffiti, which kept appearing in the mens room outside where I worked as kind of a token Jew/programmer analyst).
Mmm. Can’t really speak for the Moody students who were seeking to evangelise you, but I’m pretty sure what you took from this encounter was pretty much the opposite of what they intended you to take. Their position would be (a) Christianity stems from Judaism in a way that it does not stem from Islam, Buddhism, etc, and therefore (b) embracing Christianity does not require a repudiation of Judaism in the way that it does require a repudiation of Islam, Buddhism, etc. God is always faithful to his Covenant and therefore Jews who are already in a Covenant with God cannot be required to abandon that Covenant in order to attain salvation.
So they would have expected - or hoped, at any rate - that this would come as welcome news to you; you don’t have to choose between Judaism and Christianity. And they would have indignantly denied any suggestion that you were “separate but equal” or that they didn’t want you around; from their point of view you would have been entirely welcome at “regular” Christian service but if (as they expected) that didn’t sit well with your Judaism, well, that’s fine.
My (limited, anecdotal) experience is that Jews generally don’t react to this in the way that is hoped. There’s your reaction, and there’s also a reaction which sees the whole thing as a somewhat sinister attempt at proselytisation by dressing evangelical Protestantism up in the clothes of Judaism. And I get both of those reactions. But I think the whole enterprise is, subjectively, from the stance of those advancing it, supposed to be well-intentioned and not divisive.
Observant Jews - and I was never one - follow a set of laws and worship, all of which would be given up when converting. Christianity does away with all of that.
Most Christian churches I’ve been to welcome all sorts of people - but don’t expect visitors of other faiths to take communion or worship Jesus.
Well intentioned? Forcible conversion was well intentioned also.
And yeah, we don’t react the way they hoped. When the scammers from the Windows company call me, I don’t react the way they hope either.
To tie back to the theme of this thread, if these people believed it was okay for us to stay Jewish, they’d just not try to convince people otherwise.
Of course it was - I was supposed to accept their world view without question as part of the conversion.
Another amusing thing they did was assume that if you had read the Bible you’d understand and convert. They kept urging me to read the Bible. I said I had. Finally, one day I play a Bible trivia game with them. I toasted their butts not only over the Old Testament content but also one of the four gospels. I told them to shut up about me not reading the Bible since obviously I had. It was baffling to them that I was that familiar with it and had not converted.
Yeah, I get that. Of course, the fact that I am ethnically and not religiously Jewish, that I had never in fact ever practiced that religion, was lost on them.
No, that is NOT what they were about - there were really, really, really certain that I had to go over there with the other “converted Jews”. The invites to their churches stopped immediately when they found out I was half Jewish. Inquiries about attending a service at their church was met with “you’d be happier with these people”.
I don’t there was malice, I think they had been taught this form of bigotry from birth and couldn’t see it for what it was.
I remember on one occasion one of the women was going on and on about how she didn’t understand why I was offended, all of this was because the Jews were special. I pointed out that the Nazis thought the Jews were “special”, too, which gave her some pause at least.
The problem is, their stance is wrong and often offensive even if well-intentioned.
By which they meant converted Jews and Muslims.
I wouldn’t hold up Moody Bible Institute types as representative of Christianity as a whole- they’re pretty conservative and evangelical.
Second, Jews for Jesus = Messianic Jews. They seem to be a kind of weird group, in that they’re ethnic Jews who believe in Christ, yet believe themselves to also remain Jews. Despite that, Jews won’t have them, and a lot of Christian groups believe them to be some sort of Christians.
What I was trying to get at is what I think the Moody types were saying- if you’re a religious Jew who believes that Christ is the Jewish Messiah, that’s something different than merely converting to Christianity and renouncing the Jewish faith entirely- a third option, so to speak.
Really? Huh. Never heard of that. Was it so Methodists would accept Mormon baptisms or vice-versa? Cause I can’t for the life of me ever see the Mormon church considering any other Church’s baptism as valid for membership even for one second, and not because of any fancy “Trinitarian” conceits. One of Mormonism’s core beliefs is that it they are the ONLY true church, and that you’re basically starting from scratch when joining them.
Uh… no.
They were VERY clear that “converted Jews” needed to be with other “converted Jews” because Jews are special. Not a third option. I worked alongside these people for several years, I had plenty of opportunity to ask them to clarify their position.
That’s unusual- about all I’ve ever heard is that the Evangelicals tend to be very pro-Israel/pro-Jew, in some sort of reasoning along the lines of Jews were God’s original chosen people, and Jesus was a Jew, so they clearly are held in high esteem by God, so we should too.
I suppose maybe I was giving them the benefit of the doubt; I can see how there could be a theoretical third way where you’re an ethnic Jew, do all the usual Jewish religious stuff, and yet believe that Christ was the Messiah, without explicitly converting to Christianity and believing in the Trinity, taking communion, etc…
It’s all very weird and confusing- there are Messianic Jews, Hebrew Christians, as well as Jews who convert and just go to whatever denomination they choose. It appears that there’s no consensus on how all that works if you happen to be Jewish and believe in Jesus.
Yes, it was us accepting theirs. We accept nearly every Christian baptism as valid and wanted to see if we could extend that to them. Obviously didn’t happen.
Huh. Interesting. Was that because of the manner in which it is performed, or the belief system behind it? IIRC the mormon baptism only addresses the Trinity in an rather generic “in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost” trinitarian formula in the actual ceremony. Obviously their conception of the Trinity is different from say Catholics and most other Christian sects.
It’s a bit confusing in no small part because Judaism and Christianity are very different religions. Judaism the religion is more about ritual observance than faith. Christianity is more about faith than ritual observance. You can have a Jewish atheist who observes all the rituals, and sure, you can have a Jew that believes Christ was the promised Messiah who also follows all the rituals. In Christianity faith is a requirement and the rituals dispensable.
It’s also confusing because there is no one world authority on Judaism. Even in biblical times there were schisms (hence, the two nations of the Kingdom of Judea and Israel). Since the Diaspora there have been different Jewish groups with different languages and customs (although united by some common core holy texts and practices). On the other hand, the Catholic, Orthodox, and Russian Christian churches all have formal heads and hierarchies that dictate what is and isn’t permissible. In other words, there is no Jewish Pope. Post-Reformation things loosened up among the Christians but I find there is often a fundamental lack of understanding on the part of Christians in the US in regards to how other religions are structured.
Correct. We require a Trinitarian formula for baptism which they reject. There was never a press release as to the exact differences since we typically aren’t about bashing other faiths, so it’s hard to say exactly what went on behind closed doors during the discussions, but we reached out to them originally and in the words of our delegates ‘they were intentional in clarifying the differences in our doctrines’ and ‘explicitly (profess) distinction and separateness from the ecumenical community.’ So, in my imagination, it probably went like this:
UMC: “Hi, we are wanting to see where we have commonality and doctrinal sameness in order to reach an ecumenical agreement on our respective places within broader Christendom.” (Yeah, that’s really what we sound like.)
LDS: “Nah, in the words of our Prophet: ‘You are an abomination in God’s sight. Your professors are corrupt. Your complete apostasy will cause you to receive your portion with the devil and his angels.’”
UMC: “Ummm, OK, I guess we’re done here.”
Or they are the same religion that took very different paths. Our local rabbi gave a lecture at our church about how both Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity were reactions to the destruction of the Temple. Rabbinic Judaism decided that the spirit of the Temple could be kept alive through study of the Torah and so became migratory and concentrated on interpretation and memorization of the Torah. Christianity decided the Temple was embodied in Christ the Messiah, so the Temple was with us everywhere. So it was more like two branches from the same tree of Second Temple Judaism.