No.
Zev and Chaim choose to keep the Law out of love of God. The Gospels contain accounts of Pharisees who demanded others keep the Law, while casuistically interpreting it in ways that would not inconvenience themselves. Hence, “Jew” came to mean someone who was not only of the proper ethnic group but had a legalistic frame of mind. Therefore, because they keep the Law from love of Him, they are obliged to pick a new name? I think not.
Christian is a word that means different things. I am a Christian, and one thing that the word means is what I am. But that is not the only thing it means. Don’t confuse the Christians with Christ. Christ is not a Christian. Another good word for Christian, is sinner. Flawed, and limited, Christians are not worthy of worship; not Fred Phelps, not Polycarp, nor even Francis of Assisi.
But the meaning of Christian is my responsibility. By my every word, and deed the name of my Savior is judged. So by hating in His name, I smear my sin upon Him, for I am a Christian, and all the world knows it, even those who do not know Him. In this, as in all things, Christians such as I fall short, and do great harm to the image of our Lord.
Theologically, only Christ judges the meaning of Christian. But in the world in which we live, each Christian must bear the responsibility for his own example of what Christian means. That responsibility is owed to the Lord Himself.
“The Way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure.” ~ Lao-Tzu ~
I think it totally relevant that you include Zev and Chaim in this discussion. Hopefully one of them will come around to correct me if what I’m getting to is incorrect.
My interactions with IRL Jewish believers has been almost exclusively with Reformed believers. Reformed, Reconstructionist, Hassidic, Sephardi, Renewal and Orthodox believers practice their faith similarly but emphasize different aspects and place different importance on ritual and certain required beliefs. However, if I understand correctly, these groups recognize that the others are Jews.
I don’t know how accurate or widespread the belief is, but one Reform Jew told me that according to Judaism it really doesn’t matter to God what faith you believe as long you sincerely practice what you belief. It is in the search for God that you find him, not in believing a set dogma.
As has been pointed out before in this thread, some groups of Christians, especially the more fundamentalist, don’t recognize that the other Christian groups are even Christian. For instance, I grew up in Pentecostal and Assemblies of God churches. These groups denounce both the RCC and the Mormons especially and some of the mainline demoninations saying each is deceived and not truly Christian. The Evangelicals even fight amongst themselves. Just this morning on the radio I came across one evangelist (I believe it was Billy Graham but it might have been Oral Roberts) denouncing Kenneth Copeland as teaching a false doctrine and deceiving people.
The fragmentation of the Christian faith seems to detract from its effectiveness from reaching modern people. Few fundamentalist and only slightly more mainline Christians would accept that their faith is not the “One True Path”. However there are Christians who do accept the idea that all faiths are different paths up the same mountian. The fact that the common perception of Christianity, both by Christians and non-Christians, is that it claims to be the exclusive way to God.
This seems to be hindering the ability of, say, Christian UUs to convey their message of inclusion, tolerance and Love. I feel like the Agapists should distance themselves from the others. Not because they think God doesn’t Love the others, but because their own message cannot be heard above the din. People who have been hurt in the name of Christ, see the link in my OP, have a difficult time listening to Agapists when their opinion of the very term Christian is so poisoned by their experiences.
Perhaps, MEBuckner is right. We already have demonination nomenclature and nothing is added by trying to use the hypenated terms I was bringing to the discussion. But then the question becomes, should every one drop the “Christian” label and just identify their demonination? Those wacky non-demoninational churches will just have to choose one, or call themselves Charismatic.
**
Sorry for the lateness of my reply. I can no longer search by “Zev” (only four-letter words or longer) in the search engine. I only found out that this thread turned to Judaism from a thread in the Pizza Parlor.
**
For the most part correct. However, there are individuals that the Reform movement recognizes as Jews. Other Jews do not.
**
This needs some clarification. Your statement is, with some exceptions, true for non-Jews. Judaism is more than happy with a Christian being a devout Christian; with a Muslim being a devout Muslim, etc. For Jews, however, your statement is completely wrong.
Zev Steinhardt