jar - On Christianity

By no means. An aesthete and a nihilist are the same creature.

Well, the Jews were wrong about his not being their Messiah. Jesus taught the right understanding of the Hebrew scriptures, and that He is the Messiah they were waiting for. He still is. Someday they will recognize him. Yes, but again "Christian" at first meant Jewish followers of the Jewish Messiah. Now it means all followers of the Jewish Messiah. This is the true fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures. It is the Jews who do not recognize him as Messiah who are in error about the meaning of their scriptures. Again, the Jewish tradition was and is in error, as Jesus taught over and over again as he encountered the Jewish leaders. The true meaning of the Law and their scriptures is embodied in him and understood by those who recognize him as the Messiah. Well the early Romans called it a Jewish sect.

Jar knows nothing about the tradition of which you speak.

I'd say that protestantism and roman catholicism are much closer to each other than christianity is to judaism.romans considered them a sect of judaism, yes. Do you?If so, how do you feel being the son of an inept father?
inept--your view that they screw up in not recognizing jesus as the messiahwouldn't you want to distance yourself from such a figure?but apparently by your definition of christian, well, you're still following a jew. if this is the standard definition, how do you feel about the history of blaming other jews for the death of this jew you follow?I still think the NT is christian. even by your definition--followers of the jewish messiah, it was written by those, which makes it technically "christian". not jewish.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

That's because Judaism has a wrong idea about the Hebrew scriptures and who the Messiah is. I carefully didn't use the word "Judaism." I said "Jewish sect." From the Roman point of view it was all a big vague Jewish thing they didn't understand one end of from the other.But "Judaism" is the false understanding of the Hebrew scriptures I'm talking about. Jesus specifically denounced the teachings of Judaism when he denounced the Pharisees.I said the New Testament is "Jewish." The Jews who recognized the Messiah or Christ were the true Jews. There were at least tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of them in the early days. It was a very Jewish movement -- but certainly not Judaism, because that is the teaching of the Pharisees. The Jews who understood their scriptures followed Christ. They are my fathers, not the ones who didn't follow Christ.

Faith: You're entitled to your opinion, of course. In mine, it's not a bad thing to use the original word as long as everyone knows what you are talking about. With it, you catch some of the flavors and connotations of the culture that produced the word. That's often worth having. It's the difference between an Italian aria in English and an Italian aria in Italian.Original flavors are especially valuable in the case of Yeshua. In a world where so many people claim to possess him it is useful to be reminded of the culture that produced him, the culture he lived and died within.Perspective can make all the difference. Would there have been so many pogroms in European history if the 'Jesus' people met in their churches had retained more of his identity as Yeshua the Rabbi, the man his first followers put down their nets to follow?It might be pedantic if someone did it 100% of the time regardless of whether others understand the reference or not. But a flexible approach with real communication as its goal is all to the good, IMO. Well, sure. That's what everybody likes about it. Qoheleth tells it like it is. Unforgettably.It really is an anachronism, though, to refer to this book or any other in the Tanakh as 'Christian writings.' No one who penned any of those books, no person described in those books, no person who originally gathered the books into the canon, had ever heard of Christianity. Scholars, even Christian scholars, do not refer to these books this way. It's just a misnomer.One can say the Hebrew Scriptures form part of the various Christian canons, of course. We can say that in this role they are often referred to as the 'Old Testament' by Christians. But they are not 'Christian writings.'Christian writings are products of Christian theology. The books of the New Testament qualify, obviously. So do the writings of Augustine, Hildegard, Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, Thomas Merton and similar figures. When scholars say 'Christian writings' this is the body of literature they mean.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Punctuation.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

which technically makes them christian--your definition
christian--those who follow the jewish messiah Jesushence, your "fathers" who followed christ were christians--jews followed either judaism or chritianity, as you claim.saying the NT is jewish then would leave it open to being either that of the christians or that of the pharisees.But the NT is not of the pharisees, it is of the christians.
again, the NT is christian.(really funny--you were admonishing Archer for using Yeshua (he wanted to be more accurate) because the translation remaings accurate. here, I am being accurate, and you are again admonishing it. is there something you have against accuracy?)

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

You want to start a new thread? We're getting pretty far afield here. But it's really just a semantic quibble at this point, probably nowhere to go with it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

no. it's not really that important. just a tiny nitpick I was wondering about--initially thinking you had mistyped, and meant to say that the OT (not the off-topic) was jewish. and then considered the possibilty you had meant to say that, asking questions why.so no, no new thread's needed for this.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

The problem is that you would lose 98% of your English-speaking audience by using the Hebrew term. But at that level it's an elite taste, not good for general communication to the average person. Christians who get good Biblical teaching with historical background pick up the cultural flavors that way. Well, the church in the Middle Ages had lost sight of a lot more than the Jewish culture of Jesus. Where to start? I'm one who doesn't like it. I have a better appreciation for it thanks to a good series my pastor did on it, but I dislike being reminded of the dull plodding fallen world just because it is too much with us. However, I do enjoy Robin's appreciation of it, because he contrasts it with the lies and whitewashes of sentimentalism, New Age pretenses and that sort of thing. Well, no, it is not. Or at least the misnomer contains a far more important truth. All those writings had Christ as their shadow meaning, His Kingdom as their fulfillment. They ALL point to Him and His ultimate reign. The name "Christianity" is utterly irrelevant. The Messianic hope was there in the heart of every Hebrew who had a true spiritual understanding of his scriptures, and that means those who penned them, those described in them, and those who gathered them into the canon. Simeon and Anna had that blessed hope, as did all the true Hebrews back to Abraham. And so do some modern Biblical scholars. Those who don't, well, what can I say. Yes, you are technically (pedantically) correct, but I was being radical to make another point that's more important, and really, more true. Yes, but it's good to be reminded once in a while that orthodox Bible-believing Christians treat the WHOLE Bible as the revelation of God, and that every part of it contributes to an understanding of the other parts; the OT is not just an ancient Jewish text.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Start today. Don't lose sight of it again. This is a statement of your beliefs.Many people who regard these books as authoritative, that revere them as sacred, that believe they come from God, do not share your beliefs. Many who do still see no reason to be inaccurate or misleading in their terminology just to make a dogmatic point. Apparently nothing, because you object to any language that includes them. Just correct. The authors of the books were not Christians. The people described in the books are not Christians. The culture that produced the books and that appears in the books is not Christian. Matters of content, culture, and authorship are not niggling little academic details. They go to the heart of why we describe a body of literature as we do.I have told you how most people, Christians and Jews, understand the term 'Christian writings.' Remember that 98% of the audience you're so concerned about?It makes sense to call the book of Mark, the writings of Eusebius, the visions of Hildegard of Bingen, and the sermons of Meister Eckhart 'Christian writings.' Everyone understands why.It is thus silly to call the five books of The Torah 'Christian writings.' This is not an accurate description of the literature. It is misleading to someone unfamiliar with the books. To people who are familiar with the books it just sounds ignorant, or dogmatic. Which 'whole Bible' do you mean? Which 'orthodox Christians'?There are three major Bibles recognized in Christendom alone.Do you believe 3 Maccabees is part of 'the whole Bible'? If you do not, the real Orthodox Christians (capital O) deny that you accept 'the whole Bible' as you claim.What if they decided to call your Bible 'Greek Orthodox Christian Scriptures-partial version'? What if they got everyone in your neighborhood to play along? And all the publishers?Would you feel they had obeyed the Golden Rule? Would you play? Your Orthodox colleagues have something to tell you about the book of Baruch. Its meaning for Christians was acknowledged when I said the Hebrew Scriptures form part of the Christian canon under the designation 'Old Testament.' That's an accurate way to describe the situation. Most people know this anyway.You just don't want to allow these texts to be Jewish at all. No one has misunderstood me here any time I have used Jesus' Hebrew name. Context makes this clear. And the Internet is my 'English-speaking audience.' The name Yeshua obviously bothers you, and it's not because the name has confused anyone here.You don't want to allow your Savior his Jewishness, either.Take another look at the top of this post.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Everything is a statement of beliefs. The opposing view is a statement of beliefs. A statement of beliefs is a statement about what is regarded to be the truth. You can't determine which statement of differing beliefs is the true one by declaring it a statement of beliefs. Do tell. Could you have come up with a more obvious point? ?? Neither do I nor anybody I know. In the truest meaning of the term Christian, which means a person who looks to the Messiah for salvation, they were all Christians, which was my point. Your point about the culture is trivial in this context. That's fine, but I'm not discussing culture and literature myself, I'm discussing the inner meaning of the term Christianity, to answer your insistence that the only important thing is the cultural designation. I'm saying that misses the most important thing. That's fine but I'm talking to you not the 98%. But you are insisting on it merely for the purpose of trying to disqualify my claim that the OT is intrinsic to the Christian mindset, and this I will not let you do. We recognize a spiritual brotherhood with the ancient Hebrews who share this basic mindset despite all the cultural differences. The differences are real enough and academically applicable but trivial in this context. It is silly in a way, but it gets across what I'm trying to get across. I'm not talking to people unfamiliar with the books, although I probably still wouldn't talk about them as you do but present them as part of the revelation that leads to Jesus Christ. I don't mind sounding ignorant or dogmatic to you.Then you go on into all the stuff about the apocrypha and other trivia. Such differences are unimportant. In a sense that is true, because that obscures their real meaning. On the other hand they are completely Jewish. And so is Christianity. It only bothers me because it's a conceit as you use it so I took a poke at your conceit. I use it myself when talking to Messianic Jews. Funny then that I'm the one who focused on his Jewishness in this discussion. My you're bossy.

I didn't answer that question at first because I wasn't sure it was appropriate. But as seen in Message 273, it may be more significant than I thought initially.There was a series of adult Sunday school classes I used to teach. They looked at the birth of the COE and a whole host of other issues and practices of the time relating theological events and decisions to the everyday life and technology of the time.When I first suggested the series I sat down with the Priest and outlined where I would go and some of the things that I thought he might object to. He asked me to give him a short outline to look over and that he would get back to me, which I promptly did. My expectation since it was a pretty conservative church in a very conservative area was that I'd get a polite "Thanks but no thanks" response.I got a call the first thing the next morning as I was going out the door to work. He was really excited about the course and how soon could I start and would it bother me if he sat in on it and could I come by after work and talk with him about it.To make a long story somewhat shorter, he and I decided that it should be a four week course, and so I laid out the material based on that. The first sunday came and I began the talk to the usual suspects, the parents who had kids in the childrens sunday school and lived too far away to make it worthwhile to drive home and come back. I explained at the beginning that I might say things folk disagreed with, asked that they wait until the end to just dismiss what I said, but that please, anytime that questions came up, ask them and I would stop and go into more detail.At the end of that first sunday it was obvious I had no chance of making it through the material in just four classes. We had covered less that a third of the material in the first class which really was just to set the stage for what was to follow.The priest then asked the folk there what they wanted to do, did they want to followup on this and expand it until we got to the end, or keep it as a four week schedule? Everyone there said let's work through this, and we decided on a format where I would present the next part in the first half hour then the second half hour of each class would be discussion.Two things stand out in relation to that class. First, every single week (and it eventually lasted about three months) there were more adults there. Second, at the end the priest asked if he could have copies of all of my notes and handouts for his files.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I haven't seen too much "healthy questioning" from Jar. What I have seen is a lot of politically correct ideas, learned apparently by rote, and pictures of baby birds and flowers.That's "religion" according to Jar.It's a far cry from what I know of the Anglican tradition. But I'm going by writers I have studied such as William Law, Samuel Johnson, and, in the 20th century, T. S. Eliot. These folks are rather severe.

Taking Eliot as an example, salvation "costs not less than everything."One suffers to be saved. One takes up one's cross. Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.