From: strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom)
Subject: Re: Humanism (personal experience)
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 92 20:36:54 GMT
Organization: IBM Research

In article <62963@mimsy.umd.edu>, harwood@umiacs.umd.edu (David Harwood) writes:
|> In article <1992Dec19.001101.47679@watson.ibm.com|> strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:
|> |>In article <62896@mimsy.umd.edu|>, harwood@umiacs.umd.edu (David Harwood) writes:
|> |>||> In article <1go5l7INNrr4@hpsdl102.sdd.hp.com|> pauld@sdd.hp.com (Paul Dillinger) writes:
|> |>||> |>In article  <1992Dec07.231528.32107@watson.ibm.com|>,
|> |>||> |>             strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:
[responding to Laura Manninen's claim that the Tanach says a human can substitute for a sacrifice]
RS:
|> |>||> |>|> Of course there is no such passage.  Even if you believed
|> |>||> |>|> there were such a passage, it wouldn't yield the Messianic
|> |>||> |>|> position, which is, as far as I can tell, 100% identical
|> |>||> |>|> to the Christian position --- namely that,
|> |>||> |>|> (1) t'shuvah is not required
|> |>||> |>|> (2) belief in the God-hood of the human being who died is required
|> |>||> |>|>
|> |>||> |>|> Do you agree that (1) and (2) are the Messianic position?
|> |>||> |>|> And that they are also the Christian position?
|> |>||> \\\\\\\\\
|> |>||> 
...
DH:
|> |>||> So you are very mistaken about (1) - since you haven't bothered to read
|> |>||> the Gospels, even cursorily (except what little you learned about it
|> |>||> at Harvard and on TV or family disputes ;-)
|> |>||> 
|> |>
RS:
|> |>I am assuming that David Harwood's ad hominem is directed at me,
|> |>and not at Paul Dillinger.
|> |>
|> |>Don't assume what I have or haven't read.  Don't underestimate
|> |>the *vast* exposure to Christianity that every individual
|> |>in the US, and especially every educated individual in the US
|> |>is inevitably exposed to.
|> |>
|> |>I am the first to admit I'm not a Bible scholar.  But you can't get
|> |>through a Harvard religion course without touching on Christianity,
|> |>and you can't pass the course without reading the New Testament.
|> |>In the case of the course I took, you couldn't pass the course
|> |>without reading "Kerygma and Myth" :-( :-(  
|> \\\\\\\
DH:
|> My remark was perhaps sarcastic - not ad hominem, strictly speaking.
|> I realize that you very often do not know what you are talking about - eg
|> in the dispute at hand (re NT teaching about repentance/metanoia= turning
|> from sin to God) - simply because you are full of contentions (perhaps
|> because of your family's religious conflicts) but are too lazy to
|> even reread the NT (which you once studied in college).

RS:
Well it wasn't *argumentum ad hominem*, since it was rather short
on the argumentum.  You have changed the subject from whether
Christianity teaches that belief in Jesus guarantees salvation
without the need for t'shuvah to what the NT says about t'shuvah
to how often Rob Strom has read the NT.  

DH:
|> \\\\\\\\
|> I realize you must know something about Christianity, as a
|> matter of acquanitance, as well as from academic study. Certainly,
|> you are acquainted with Christian culture with its prejudices. (On the
|> other hand, I know that contemporary Jewish culture also inculcates
|> very similar prejudices - I know this for myself, and I have Jewish
|> friends (not MJ's or religious) who admit the same - even about
|> their very well-educated families - as well-educated as you.
|> (Almost all my friends and colleagues are very well educated -
|> at Harvard or some other excellent university; but note - they
|> do not know very much about the NT, or its history or ideology,
|> despite their undergraduate courses in Christianity and other religions;
|> neither have they carefully read the Bible (most of them).)
|> 

You have to distinguish between being knowledgeable in a subject
from being an insider.  While I've never claimed to be more knowledgeable
about Christianity than the average educated Westerner, I've never
concealed the fact that the belief system appears to me as alien
and exotic as the voodoo belief system would appear to someone
who has taken a few courses and has read "Mere Voodoo".  I could
be the most learned scholar of New Testament and Church History,
and still to most Christians, would appear to be totally deaf
the Christian message.


|> As for what you say about evangelical Christians - yes, they can
|> be obnoxious. But let me clarify that - the NT does explicitly call
|> for Christians to be 'evangelical' - to preach the Gospel to all the
|> world. It is one thing to tell somebody about the Gospel - it is
|> another to harrass or persecute others, who do not want to be bothered.
|> 

BTW, I didn't say that the evangelists at Harvard were obnoxious.
Young undergraduates love to talk and argue and question their
own faith and that of others, and I was just as eager to argue
with the evangelists then as they were to try to convert me.  We had
someone from the Harvard Christian Fellowship virtually living
with us for nearly a week before he finally left saying, "Well,
perhaps *for you* Christianity doesn't have any value".  I object
when evangelists target the young, the ignorant, and the vulnerable.
At Harvard, we were on an equal footing and we could and did
counter the arguments and give as good as we got.

But in your above paragraph you undercut your argument that
we can find what 'Christianity says' by looking at the deeper
meanings of the text and the Greek scholarship and so forth.
Because, unlike Judaism, Christianity is an evangelical religion,
for all practical purposes, 'Christianity says' whatever the
vast majority of the evangelists say.  And I have probably
listened to as many or more evangelists as you have.  And what
the evangelists say is that salvation is a "free gift" from
God/Jesus to those who choose to believe in him.  And, even
leaving out the Jesus part, that just isn't a Jewish idea.

|> But you cannot have faith in the Gospel message (about and of Christ)
|> without hearing it. You cannot have faith in something you are ignorant
|> of, or about which you have prejudices based on your background.
|> 

As you know from reading my postings, I am not interested in
having faith in the Gospel message.  I am interested in evaluating
claims by Messianics that the Gospel message is foreshadowed
in Jewish teachings.  I am interested in disputing claims
by Messianics that Christianity is consistent with "Biblical Judaism".

|> So I say - let everyone hear the Gospel -as it is written in the Bible
|> - not as some philosopher of religion teaches (who are not qualified
|> for Biblical scholarship, most often). That is enough - God may then
|> change our hearts and minds, if we sincerely (unconsciously) would
|> desire Christ, since only God (not even ourselves) knows our hearts.
|> 

But this is your real point, isn't it?  Not only is Rob Strom ignorant
of the NT, but so are Prof. Stanley Cavell and the Harvard Divinity
School, and the folks who wrote The Interpreters' Bible, because
they are not able to make me undergo the conversion experience
you had.

|> Ps. I have nothing against Billy Graham. He has changed somewhat over
|> the many years, but I respect very much his dedication to preaching
|> the Gospel all over the world. His message is pretty much the essential
|> message of the Gospel - to turn from sin to Christ,
|> 
|> I suppose you have listened his evangelical TV programs many times ;-)
|> 

Well, no.  I didn't own a TV when Graham was active, though I did
see him at Harvard.  I've listened to the evangelical programs
of his successor, Jerry Falwell, and I'm not impressed.

RS:
|> |>Perhaps your sect of Christianity doesn't think Christians
|> |>are required to believe Jesus is God.  And Laura has also
|> |>posted, that everyone has his/her own free will to believe
|> |>or not to believe.  (But why is she so eager to get me
|> |>to believe, then???  Perhaps I'm already saved!)
|> |>
|> \\\\\\\
DH:
|> Maybe so. Has God inpired you to be loving and truthful to others?

RS:
Yes.

DH:
|> To be "saved" means, in the New Testament, to be saved from sin
|> (destructive intention and acts) - which is called a "slavery to
|> sin." Paul says what is deficient about the Torah - is that it
|> tells us what is sin and its harmful consequence for us - but like
|> any other moral code - while it intellectually informs us, it cannot
|> by itself give us the intention and desire to follow it. Even the
|> same is true of the Gospel - it is one thing to hear it - but it
|> takes God's grace (one of the attributes of God revealed to Moses:
|> "I am - gracious...") to transform our hearts and intentions so that
|> we may live like Christ (who was full of God's love and truth.)

RS:
Most evangelists use the term "saved" to mean "saved from
death/hell", rather than your meaning of "sinless".  In fact
most evangelists claim both to be saved and to be sinners.

Few evangelists (except for some Judaizing Christians on
this newsgroup) claim to be doing t'shuvah in the sense
of a sincere attempt/desire to follow Torah.

...
DH:

|> 
|> When you are "saved" by God, you * will * live as Jesus does, and
|> intend and do what he does. (Paul says, "I live - but not I - for
|> it is Christ who lives in me.") These are "the works" of
|> righteousness, which God intends. They are therefore the consequence
|> of God's act of salvation.
|>

RS:
If living like Jesus did is an index of salvation, then I fear
few are saved.

DH:
|> 
|> Are there people who do what God intends, who do not profess to be
|> Christians? All I can say is - in my experience - the only people I know
|> who I am sure who are "saved" are those who live as Jesus does, as
|> portrayed in the Gospel. (They come from many backgrounds, but their
|> light shines forth to us all. They are not like most of my acquaintances
|> of colleagues at all, in how they live. For example, I have long-time
|> Christian friends, who founded a ranch in Texas for retarded adults (who
|> are among the most outcast of society, from whom most people would turn
|> away); others have unselfishly worked for decades against militarism
|> of economy and politics, against social injustice (American Indians,
|> Palestinians, black S. Africans), employment for the handicapped and
|> homeless - only because of their faith in Christ.
|> 

RS:
In the above, you are taking a "works righteousness" position which
is actually closer to my view, but different from the typical
Christian position espoused by evangelists or posted here by
such people as Bruce Tiffany and Bruce Benning.

You also seem to ignore the Jewish cultural commitment to
acts of charity and mercy. Remember the 3 Jewish civil rights
workers who were killed in the Deep South campaigning for
equal rights for blacks?  Remember the heavy Jewish involvement
in the labor movement at the turn of the century?  Jews have
always been over-proportionately represented in the labor,
civil rights, and peace movements.  These causes are often
either neglected or actively opposed by Christian evangelists
of the like of Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell.

In my high school and college years, I was active in education
for the blind:  developing software for blind programmers,
improving computerized text-to-Braille conversion, etc.

I don't at all think that commitment to help the less
fortunate is an exclusively Christian domain.  In fact,
I have heard more vitriol extolling militarism and
condemning peace activists from Christian pulpits and
TV-pulpits than from rabbis.



-- 
Rob Strom, strom@watson.ibm.com, (914) 784-7641
IBM Research, 30 Saw Mill River Road, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY  10598