The Most Jewish Of All

Pastor,

I tried answering your statements, sorry if it is a bit angry, I just have had too much experience with racist Christians:

I think after just seeing 20 minutes of the movie "Passion of the Christ" that the critics are accurate, Gibson is quite a bigot to make such a thing when it clearly attacks what we identify as "jewish" looking people as Hitler did in the Shoah. Strangely depictions of Jesus always make him Northern European to assuage the real Christian who is actually a cover for white supremacy. Not at all in Latin America and Africa, but then again, the Catholics are there in droves more than the Right Wing Evangelicals… All that being said, Jesus was a circumcised Jew....and whether a bunch of women saw him or this was written almost 40 years after the man died who really knows if they are making it up or not…. And the death on the cross was really so terrible considering the massive torture of the Jewish people in Germany in the Holocaust little girls and boys raped and burned, experimented on? Or are you a Holocaust denied as well?

Wilbur 

Dear Wilbur,

You do a good job of being angry without being mean spirited. I appreciate that. Since this topic has come up a few times in our discussion, I’ll address it here. I realize that this is not your real problem, but I’ll take a short trip sideways and see what comes of it.

Jesus was Jewish to the core of his being. You’re right, he was circumcised. He did go to the temple when he was twelve. He did oppose the national and international leaders who stood against the people of God and their God himself. He represented his people in every phase of his life and in his death. His death followed the example of the Old Testament sacrificial system and took the guilt and judgment of the people’s sins on himself in his death. In all of this, he was preeminently Jewish. The Bible represents Jesus as the most Jewish person who ever lived on the face of the earth.

The same Bible that presents Jewishness also said there would be a messiah from God who would take away the enemy and lead his people to glory. It said he would be killed in the process of taking down the enemy, but would rise from the dead to live forever. This is pure Jewish. From the top to the bottom. From one side to the other. Jewish, Jewish, Jewish.

Not only was Jesus Jewish, but so were all of his initial followers. Peter, Andrew, John, both Jameses, Mathew, Mark, and all the rest. They were all Jewish to the core. All were circumcised. All were living in Israel. All were hating the Roman domination. And before Jesus came and freed them from their enemies (the enemy was sin, btw), they hated everyone who wasn’t Jewish. Talk about racism. The Jews were and continue to be just as racist as anyone else.

I don’t deny that there are a lot of Christians who were and are racist against Jews, blacks, browns, yellows, Yankees, Irish, and on and on. But this racism is sin. And God will not put up with it any more than he will put up with sex outside the commitment of marriage. He will not put up with it anymore than he will put up with adultery, envy, bearing false witness, and especially not giving him glory for what he has done and who he is. Racism is bad.

But, and I’m coming back around to what I’ve been saying all along, without the acknowledgement that the Bible is true in all it asserts, there is no reason to think anything is bad, or good, or to tell the truth, or to not sleep with whoever floats your boat. If God is not, there is no reason for morality or anything ethical. You should just do what you want. There is no point to anything. Conversing, loving, admiring, worshipping, hating, fearing, and being angry make no sense in a world where time and chance are acting on matter.

I hope this helps.