A Crisis Of Faith

[Catholic777]

[quote]Judaism isn't defined by its rejection of Christ. The Jews do not believe that the Christ has come yet. They didn't look at Jesus and say, "Yes, this is the moshiach, but we are going to wilfully ignore him and pretend that he never arrived." Some Jews don't even believe in a specific messiah, but in a messianic age. This is why I dislike it when people try to transform the worldwide community of Jewish believers into a symbol that can be incorporated easily and conveniently into Christianity, because it often means redefining Jewish theology to suit our own purposes and claiming that Jews believe things that they don't.[/quote]

That's why I said that how it is defined "relative to Christianity" is by its rejection of Christ. In itself, it of course is not going to identify its theology as the lack of any beliefs, but rather as the presence of certain beliefs. But [i]relative to Christianity[/i]...the difference is Christ. In a way that isn't true for the pagans because Judaism and Christianity used to be one. They share a common heritage. And they split over Jesus Christ. There was this Old Testament religion, and both of us are a continuation of it. And the split happened over Christ. Any other differences that may exist today can be traced back to that stone that the builders rejected, that sign of contradiction. And that is very important in Christian scriptural symbolism. Very important for the Gospels and Epistles to establish in an age when the communities were still very close.

I'm not trying to transform the "worldwide community of Jewish believers" into a symbol nor redefine "Jewish theology". Again, you're looking at this too literally. Still thinking of the group as an actual group, when I speak of it as an eschatological principle, an abstraction. The Jews as a symbol are the Jews corporately as a symbol, and the worldwide community of actual Jews (not just the believing ones) are individuals. Of course as individuals they don't reject Christ maliciously, anymore than we as babies eat the fruit with Adam. The consequences are still there, of being outside the People of God (which they once were in), of not having the Truth.

Like the Church. Think of the Synagogue like we think of the Church. A corporate person. A typological symbol. That says nothing about the individuals making up the "worldwide community of Catholics" many of whom we know (like many Jews) aren't even that religious or are atheists. Still, we can typologically characterize "Christianity" even though we know there are heretics and there are many different shades.

A collection of individuals is different conceptually from a group...and too often we miss that nuance in our individualistic society. We've conflated the two, and that leads to problems like "hate crime" laws enshrining certain group identities as "protected"...when really, groups have no rights, [b]individuals[/b] have rights. A more communitarian or collectivist society, like the Medieval, understands the whole paradigm I'm describing better.

Look at the Old Testament...it's filled with many examples of using all sorts of pagan nations as symbols of evil, sin, and satan...from the Canaanites and Egyptians, to the Assyrians and Persians, right down to Babylon and Rome. Though a historical reality that Israel went to war with these, that history is given in Scripture for its symbolic value regarding spiritual warfare. In the New Testament the tides are turned and Israel takes the role of the ungrateful son and it is the Gentiles who then recieve the Gospel. In Revelation...it is "Babylon" which is evil. That doesnt mean that each individual babylonian (or Roman, as it more likely it stood for pagan Rome) is evil. It means the typological principle, what it represented symbolically by Babylon is evil.

Like a portrayal of Lady Liberty standing for America says little about each individual American, or the Queen acting as the visible embodiment of Britain doesnt mean all Britains agree with the Queen...we must regain this typological, this Iconographic communal consciousness of the world and history if we are to preserve tradition and the faith.

[quote]Have you never heard of the blood libel? The widespread belief that Jews kidnapped and ritually murdered Christian children every Passover in order to include Christian blood in their Passover matzah?[/quote]

Yes, of course I've heard of it. I'm not sure how widespread it was, for one reason because a lot of the information comes from Jewish "eternal persecution" and "victimhood" propoganda and we can't be sure how biased that is. But it certainly existed. To what degree or how often it cropped up, I don't know. Too often, obviously.

Yes, "they" have suffered a lot through history. But there they themselves are indentifying themselves with a group instead of as individuals. Individuals suffer. Groups don't suffer. One death is too many, but suffering isn't additive. You can't act as if millions of people dying is worse than one family dying. Worse for whom? No one individual experiences suffering beyond their own pain and perhaps sadness over those they knew. Millions of people may experience death at once, but just because a lot happen in the same general time span does not mean any person experiences a "million-death" as such a thing doesnt exist. Suffering isn't additive because suffering is absolutely subjective. One person suffering is too much...for that person. The fact that another person is suffering somewhere else, especially if it's unbeknownst to them...makes niether of their sufferings better or worse. Trying to "group" and "add" sufferings makes no sense. People call September 11th a tragedy, for example, and it was. But why is it moreso just because the deaths were "connected"? Everyday thousands of families tragically lose loved ones...just because on that day it happened all at once didn't make it any worse (nor better) for the individual family that lost an individual person. And yet the individual deaths every day are largely overlooked but the big connected "events"...are given more significance as if suffering is something additive, as if it's "worth more" when more people suffer. But it's not. It's incommunicable, unadditive, totally subjective and individual and personal.

[quote]The belief that was used to fan the flames of numerous pogroms?[/quote]

"Fan the flames"??? I think often it was used mainly to try to provide a justification. To veil the motives of the secular rulers.

Yes, in politics and war...government uses propoganda. And the sheep-like masses fall victim to it and can be made to do horrible things and feel terrible hatred. Remember the terrible British propoganda against the German "huns" in the World Wars? Saying they ate babies and such? But that's okay because they were the "bad guys," right??? Now, what some of the Nazis did [i]was[/i] as bad as eating babies, but the propoganda was intended to rile up feeling against "the Germans" in general without distinction, and to make it easier psychologically for British soldiers to kill individual German soldiers who may have just been drafted and not really been nazis at all (like our own pope). Those in Power will always try to paint their adversaries as indescrimantly evil and dehumanize them.

Yes, they took advantage, in some cases, of the previously existing Christian symbolism about the Jews...but if it hadn't previously existed...they simply would have invented it. Like, for example, they did with the totally unfounded story about Gypsies making the Cross or other such propoganda. That was never part of Christianity, but when they needed it...they invented it. Makes me suspect that if the Christian symbolism surrounding the Jews had not previously existed...they likewise would have stirred it up because they needed it. Like, as you point out, the did with the blood libels. That story finds no basis in Christianity and is only tangentially connected to religion. But was used as propoganda by leaders to pursue their own agenda.

In reality, then, you should not buy the explanation that Jews were persecuted "because of" Christianity's symbolism about them. They were persecuted because of their status as a highly visible and cohesize minority and thus made easy scapegoats and targets of suspicion. Christianity may have been used to veil it...but it certainly was NOT causative. Being a visible minority like that, they would have been persecuted regardless of whether Christianity had any symbolism about them...case in point the Gypsies.

[quote]That belief wasn't confined to just a few people. It was taken as fact by European Christians. [i]Fact[/i].[/quote]

By some. Others thought it was ridiculous. Many Americans today believe that the Chinese eat babies because some doctored photos and fake articles got circulated. But not most. If medieval Christians believed propoganda in greater numbers than we believe it today...it was because they were more stupid and gullible back then, not because they were Christians.

[quote]When the Second World War began, the same old myth was resuscitated in Eastern Europe, particularly in Hungary and Poland, as the Nazis knew that they could rely on the region's old prejudices to assist them in genocide. If you read the testimonies of Eastern European Holocaust survivors, the blood libel and poisonous myths like it resurface again and again. These weren't muttered in villages by uneducated peasants, but bandied about in drawing rooms by highly erudite Catholic doctors (see Eva Hoffman's [i]Lost in Translation[/i]) and preached from the pulpits of various Christian churches (see Bela Zsolt's [i]Nine Suitcases[/i]).[/quote]

I have no doubt. And new propoganda was created too. And likewise propoganda was created by the allies against the Germans. War and racism are twisted. But what does blood libel have to do with my explanation of the Christian symbolism?? Nothing. Again, guilt-by-association is a logical fallacy. I've never said anything about Jews eating the blood of Christian babies. Nor about the Gypsies. Nor did the Church ever. I dont really see the connection. Don't sully symbolism by trying to associate it with ridiculous libels. Libels apply to individuals and are bad.

[quote]I never said that the Church is guilty of the heinous anti-Judaic and anti-Semitic crimes committed by Catholics in the past. I [i]did[/i] say that the Church is in a unique position to clean up old wounds and stitch up the scars, not because we bear personal culpability for what happened before we were even born, but because we have been blessed with the sacraments - particularly the Eucharist. We have Jesus among us, now, working to heal. If we can't become doctors, who can? You don't have to be personally responsible for a situation in order to be able to redress it.[/quote]

The Church has always tried to protect Jews and to make sure people make the careful distinction between symbolism and real individuals. The ultimate redressing of all issues is, for the individual Jew, baptism...and for the Church and the Jews...their conversion at the end of time.

[quote]As for what you say about Jews 'liking' to keep themselves to themselves, were you aware that they were put in ghettos and forbidden by law to work in most professions? It's hard to see how local Christians were 'friendly and sociable' when their Jewish neighbours were kept in a separate part of the city and were usually locked in at night.[/quote]

Locked in sometimes as much for their own protection as for Christian hegemony. The laws about the Jews were diverse in diverse places. Usually they lived together in a town, just like the "neighborhoods" of immigrant America. In some places (like the papal states) this was required, in other places it was just assumed. Sometimes there were walls, sometimes not.

They were forbidden to be in many professions, but remember, this was [b]Christendom[/b]. And though, being non-baptized, the Church had no authority over them (like she does with baptized heretics)...society was organized in such a way that it was NOT indifferent to Christian vs. non-Christian status. Yes, Christians were favored, and it was designed to maintain Christian hegemony and purity. And that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Church also burnt heretics at the stake, remember. Christendom could NOT be religiously pluralistic!!! In a society where Believers and Unbelievers are civilly equal...you get indifferentism and secularism and you lack the social kingship of Christ. The Popes up to at least the turn of the 20th century were teaching this (in fact, with increasing frequency at the end of the 19th century as society turned secular). Christendom dealt with other groups to maintain that hegemony: heretics were prosecuted, Jews were contained (or sometimes expelled), Moslems were fought off at the borders.

[quote]Practically the only career left open to Jews was money-lending, which is how the stereotype of the greedy usurious Jew came about. They were forbidden to mix socially with Christians. And distinctive clothing did not begin with the Nazis and their yellow stars - Jews were being made to wear special yellow badges in the shape of two tablets to mark themselves out as Jews in medieval England.[/quote]

Again, religious hegemony. Christendom could not be pluralistic. Christians were to be reminded in this way of the stark difference between Belief and Unbelief. Society was to be founded on purity of Christianity. Other groups had to at least be contained and prevented from having too much influence (because ideological differences DO undermine societies like that). In this society, at least symbolically, the wheat was kept seperate from the chaff. Christians did have, individually, relationships with their local Jews as private individuals. But Publically, the two groups were seperate because they were, in fact, seperate and seperated by the most important thing: Christ. Societies that treat Belief and Unbelief with indifferent equality, which mix them thoroughly...turn pagan again. Ours has.

The Jews were told to treat pagans the same way in Old Testament Israel. With respect, but with difference and clear seperation. Some of the precepts of the old law symbolize this...such as not mixing two crops in the same field or not mixing two types of thread in the same garment. In fact, the Law in general was partially to make sure the Jews maintained internal hegemony and stood out as seperate from their neighbors. Christendom, which was to be the mystagogical successor to the temporal Kingdom of Israel...took a similar stand, and wisely so, when it came to religious homogeneity. Excesses and abuses were sadly present (as I'm sure they were in old testament Israel) but the principle of NOT being religiously pluralistic is very scriptural.

I, however, would do it differently. Instead of making the non-Christians wear anything...I'd have all Christians wear a special crucifix ring or something to identify one another, and if we were the minority (as we are today in this pagan world), then [i]we'd[/i] form the seperate community. But, when we were the majority...it was easier to identify the exception than the rule.

[quote]Your whole post seems to go on these lines: Protestants persecuted Jews, but Catholics never did. Muslims persecuted Jews, but Catholics never did. Secular governments disguised as Catholic governments persecuted Jews, but Catholics never did. Does this mean that you are going to attribute all the good achievements of those societies to secretly secular governments? Or do they suddenly turn Catholic when we start to discuss the positive contributions that they made?[/quote]

No, of course not. Catholics persecuted Jews, of course. My point was, it was rarely if ever the result of Christian teaching. Though often veiled by it, it was almost never causative. The Church and State were intertwined then, as you know. It was a Christian society, and made up of humans, sinners all. My point was, [u]Catholics[/u] definitely persecuted Jews, but [i]Catholicism[/i] never did. The same I dont believe can be said for Protestantism or Islam at this point. They have had, in some recensions, official stands against Jews even as individuals at various points. Look at the writings of Luther for example, or modern fatwas of fundamentalist mulsims.

[quote]To talk about poetic symbolism in the face of such history is worrying. I read your point about the Jews symbolising all sinners with interest, but then I reached the conclusion that such an interpretation is made redundant by the Mass anyway. When I attend Mass I am able to stand at the foot of the cross as a sinner in search of mercy, so why do I need a Jewish person who lived two thousand years ago to understudy for me? I am there myself.[/quote]

That's like saying that the Mass makes Calvary itself redundant. The re-presentation doesn't re-crucify Christ. That had to happen first historically before it could be re-presented at every Mass sacramentally.

If we throw out the Gospel's symbolism, we start to forget the true nature of sin. We don't like using the word "deicide" today...but then we forget the true gravity of our sins. Sin is deicidal by nature because sin kills Love in our hearts, kills Grace in our souls, kills God's life in us. And Christ's death on the cross was caused historically in a way that symbolized how it was caused eschatologically. In life, God is killed in our souls by His People (meaning you and me and ultimately going back to Adam) rejecting Him. So, when Christ came in history to save us from sin, he was killed by His People (typologically, the Jews) rejecting Him. It's the ultimate Icon, the ultimate Type and Symbol of what Sin really is. But through His death, from all our sins, He triumphs. He takes on the sin and dies for us, turns it into mercy and resurrection. If we take away the typological value of the crucifixion narrative...we can forget what was really happening that day and it's infinite effects on our own spiritual life. By denying the historical deicide of the Jews...soon enough we will deny our own personal deicide when we sin. If we try to deconstruct the symbolism of that narrative, we will likewise deconstruct what it stands for.

Edited March 3, 2008 by Catholic777

[MC IMaGiNaZUN]

[quote name='Catholic777' post='1472335' date='Mar 2 2008, 01:05 PM']If by "love of Judaism" you mean love of Old Testament Judaism, Hebrew culture, or Jews personally as individuals...that's very good.

If, however, you mean love of that religion which, relative to Christianity, is defined specifically by its rejection of Christ...this attitude is very dangerous indeed.[/quote]

dude dont get your panties in a bundle.

you wanna know about dangerous? Just follow Jesus Christ and the Gospel, thats dangerous.

besides i didnt think this was debate area.

shalom
bro mark

Edited March 3, 2008 by MC IMaGiNaZUN

[blovedwolfofgod]

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