From: hook@eagle.geog.ubc.ca (Chris Hook)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Irreconcilable Differences...
Date: 11 Dec 1992 22:26:47 GMT
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: eagle.geog.ubc.ca

In article <1gb15uINNquu@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, bc744@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mark Ira Kaufman) writes:
|> 
|>    There have been various recent efforts to link Christianity to 
|> Judaism.  These efforts range from the repeated use of the phrase   
|> "Judeo-Christian" to groups of evangelists refering to themselves
|> as 'Jews' for Jesus.  All of these efforts, calculated to convert 
|> Jews to Christianity, are doomed to failure.  These attempts show
|> that they know little or nothing about Judasim.
|>

I think you're lumping in a bit too much all at once here. I say this
as I find very many prominent Jewish scholars and leaders (if I can 
assume anything from the books they're writing at this time) to be 
quite interested (as are a number of more "enlightened" Christian 
leaders and scholars) in seriously pursuing Judeo-Christan ethics, 
values, and even common grounds of belief. There is NO thrust to 
convert any one to anything within this setting, rather there is more 
of a climate of reconciliation on many common grounds (while leaving
diversities as acceptable). 

Hence, the Christian must come to gripes with a rather wretched and
incorrect view of Judaism (especially issues concerning the Mosaic
Laws as found in the Torah). Also (at least from what I gather from
the Jewish Writer's perspective) the Christian needs to come to 
gripes with the overwhelming debt owed to Judaism that is inherrent 
to Christianity. Ultimately, this may even mean a very serious 
re-evaluation on at least some formerly dogmatic Christian platforms.

Consequently, I would not want to lump in the Judeo-Christian term as 
part of an overall Jews for Jesus spectrum.

(by the way, no offense to any one in any relgious setting, just trying
to clarify some terminology)
 
|>    To begin with, there is show much of Christian dogma that Jews
|> regard as idol-worship, that Christian worship is somewhat vulgar
|> from the Jewish point of view.  Jews actually do not have visions
|> of God.  God is regarded as beyond anything that we mortals could

What do you mean by visions of God? It would seem to me that a 
Christain vision "of" God would be unacceptable to the point of 
blasphemous deception. Sadly enough, (here's part of the "missing" 
debt to Judaism) a great deal of Christianity embraces the very pagan 
religions that it seeks to replace. These manifestations of Christianity 
"often" are accompanied with by a plethoria of so-called spiritual 
visions, manifestations and so on. Further, this is typical of church 
systems (from what I read from appearently scholarly writers) in third 
world countries where often the Old Testament (I hate that terminology,
i.e., Hebrew Bible) is practically thrown out in order to 
accomodate the pagan gods and rituals that were once practiced.


|> can never accept Christianity.  This is not to be regarded as any
|> sort of value judgement of Christianity, for it is not.  Consider
|> this simply a statement as to why Christianity cannot find common
|> ground with Judaism.  It hopefully will shed some light on why we
|> Jews find Christian proselytising so offensive.
|> 

Your view on this is not universal, among either prominent Christians
or Jews (unless they've all been writing deceptive make believe for
about the past 150 years). You should, in my opinion, make this clear.

(This is no value judgement on whether you are ultimately right or
wrong, just my attempt to make things a little more objective.)


Chris Hook
hook@geog.ubc.ca
 
p.s. - I hope that I've kept my column widths down to a reasonable
enough level so as to enable Jack Love (and other so aflicted readers)
to read this.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish