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The books ‘Why the Jews’ by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin; ‘The Anguish of the Jews’ by Edward Flannery; and ‘Our Hands are Stained with Blood’, by Dr Michael Brown, all target anti-semitism, and specifically Christian anti-semitism, are unequivocally the hardest books I have ever read! They should be mandatory for every Christian leader not only to read, but digest because of the horrible truths systematically laid out by their authors.
According to the Bible (1Jn1:9) there can be no repentance from sin…without acknowledgment of that sin; and just as important, turning away from the sin! Therefore, there can be no justification for the many atrocities committed against Jews in the Name of Christ! As Dr Brown so accurately reminds us in the title of chapter 10 of his work: “More Tears”; YES…it is true that…ONLY “More Tears” should be shed for the Jews who experienced ‘Christian’ persecution. Remember, the Jews that perished at the hands of “supposed Christians” will never return…they are gone forever! Although no acceptable excuses can ever be offered for the terrible fact that historically Christians persecuted Jews, I do find that Prager and Rabbi Telushkin have made some blaring errors in their judgments. I believe that because these two outstanding thinkers and writers use only their great intellects to deduce their conclusions logically, they do not fully understand the spiritual aspect of anti-semitism. I do believe that because these men rely almost exclusively on their ability to reason, and do not seek the revelation that comes only from the Holy Spirit--especially on something as intense as anti-semitism--they miss the only foundation of ALL anti-semitism---Satan!!! In addition, which I will elaborate more on in subsequent tidbits, Prager and Telushkin also miss a second critical point—and that is not all Christians who claim Christianity are Christians. In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus says in the day of judgment, not every person who calls Him LORD, LORD is saved, i.e.born again, i.e.a Christian, even though confessing Jesus as LORD is the only path to salvation(Rom10:9,10)! Jesus says, only those who do God’s will; not those who simply say, or claim Christianity…are Christians. On page 10 of ‘Why the Jews’, Prager and Telushkin write, “It takes infinitely more than economic tensions or racial prejudice to create the animosity that often has involved the torturing of children and the murdering of entire communities. Only a people representing a threat to the core values, allegiances, and beliefs of others could arouse such universal, deep, and lasting hatred.” Now, let’s examine the above quote by Prager and Telushkin. I agree that anti-semitism cannot be reduced only to “economic tensions or racial prejudice to create the animosity that…tortured” children and murdered entire communities—because economic tensions and racism are much too simplistic an explanation for such a complicated behavior as anti-semitism. Furthermore, at least for Christians…the last sentence of their paragraph: “Only a people (Jews) representing a threat to the core values, allegiances, and beliefs of others (Christians) could arouse such universal, deep, and lasting hatred”…should not be true!! Why? How can an authentic Christian*--- who holds the Tanakh, i.e.the Old Testament, as the inspired word of God; and who believes there is no discrepancy between the Old and New Testaments—which were all written by Jews; and who holds to Elelohe Israel i.e. the God of Israel--as THE only God; and most importantly, who holds to Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, as his Lord and Savior, find the Jews to be a threat to their “core values”, “allegiances”, and “beliefs” inspiring a “universal”, “deep”, and “lasting hatred”….when their “core values” are the same! Allow me to amplify my previous point. If both Jews and Christians have the same God, and the same Word from God, the values of Christians and Jews must be the same despite any differences in doctrine! For example, Have no other God before me (Ex20:3); do not steal(Ex20:15), do not kill(Ex20:13), Love God (Deut11:13; Mat22:37)etc., are all common values both Jews and Christians share. In fact, the greatest evidence for my “same values” point is a wonderful term that precisely describes these “same values”: ‘the Judaeo-Christian ethic’. While I’m uncertain of this famous term’s origin, I would be blind and dishonest not to see that it speaks volumes to the common values of these two theological systems. Remember, not one person has ever thought to create a Judaeo-Muslim ethic, or a Hindu-Christian ethic! The obvious reason is that only the ‘Judaeo-Christian ethic’ derives from the same God. Yet, what is also absolutely true, is that, because values drive beliefs---and the values of the Judaeo-Christian ethic are the same, how can small differences between the two groups rationally lead one group to sink to such an extreme as murder…and even worse: mass murder!??!!!??? And furthermore, what’s also in need of an answer is that, if it is true that the values of the Judaeo-Christian ethic are the same for both groups---and they are---how have Christians today using those same values moved from murdering Jews during the Dark Ages to recognizing the unique calling of God upon the Jew today?!!?! For emphasis, allow me once again to amplify my previous point: Today…authentic* Christians are the Jews best friends---if not their only friends!!!! Therefore, if the following statement of Prager and Telushkin is true: Only a people (Jews) representing a threat to the core values, allegiances, and beliefs of others (Christians) could arouse such universal, deep, and lasting hatred”(from Christians)---then where is the “lasting hatred” of Christians now?!?!? In other words, why are Christians not murdering Jews now? Furthermore again….if Prager and Telushkin’s statement is true, the “lasting hatred” should be… lasting; perhaps even lasting forever… depending on how much time one assigns to the word “lasting”. Yet, because the authentic Christian today is the Jew’s best friend…Prager and Telushkin must again appeal to their intellect and offer a rational explanation for: 1.the murder of Jews in antiquity by Christians verses 2.the contemporary love for Jews that Christians hold today Yet, they fail to do so! They simply dump all people who claim Christianity into the “Christians bowl”…and mix it up! On the other hand, the reason they believe all Christians who claim Christianity are Christians is because they do not have a revelation of authentic* Christianity! To be fair however, as Jews who practice Judaism, I cannot expect these two men to understand what comprises an authentic Christian, because if they did, they would convert to their Messiah! In conclusion, from the time of Jesus, there have always been pseudo-believers in Christ, for example, Judas. Yet, because authentic Christianity is obedient to the Word of God—from Genesis to Revelation—there have always been, and there will always be Christians who understand: 1.Hatred of the Jew is not just irrational, but demonic…because the Lord and Savior of the Christian is Jewish! 2.The unique Calling of God upon the Jew (Deut7:6-8; Deut14:2; 2Sam7:22-24)…and love and honor that Call. 3.Satan is THE inspiration for anti-semitism, i.e. Jew-hatred!!!** *See Matthew 7:21-23 for the definition of authentic and inauthentic Christianity. **Because Satan hates God, he hates anything or anyone whom God calls
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In this tidbit we will look at the third of the three most often quoted lies used by “supposed Christians” in Medieval Europe to murder Jews. In their book ‘Why the Jews’, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin list the three lies as:
1.Blood Libel or ‘Ritual Murder’. Jews draw blood from children and drink it during their celebrations, such as during Passover. 2.Jews poison Christians. 3.Jews kidnap the Communion wafer that is believed to be transubstantiated into the body of Jesus and then stick needles into it as a means of torturing Jesus. Once again, I will allow Prager and Telushkin to instruct us, on page 86, they write: “In 1215, the fourth Lateran council accepted the doctrine of transubstantiation as official church dogma. The dogma asserted that the wafer used at the Mass was miraculously transformed into the body of the Jesus; the wafer was to be regarded not as a symbolic representation of Jesus, but as his actual body. Just how literally Christians accepted this teaching is exemplified in the writings of a leading preacher of the thirteenth century, Berthold of Regensburg. He explained that Christ, though present in the wafer, does not allow himself to be seen in it, for “who would like to bite off the little head, or the little hands, or the little feet of a little child.” Antisemitic usage of the doctrine of transubstantiation soon led to the torture and murder of thousands of Jews. Since Jesus becomes present through the wafer, the reasoning went, would not the Jews who had once crucified him wish to kill him again? In 1243, only twenty-eight years after the Fourth Lateran Council, the first accusation of “Host Desecration” occurred in Berlitz, near Berlin. The city’s entire Jewish community was burned alive for allegedly torturing a wafer. Charges of “Host Desecration” spread throughout Europe. In Prague, in 1389, the Jewish community was collectively accused of attacking a monk carrying a wafer. Large mobs of Christians surrounded the Jewish neighborhood and offered the Jews the choice of baptism or death. Refusing to be baptized three thousand Jews were murdered. In Berlin, in 1510, twenty-six Jews were burned and two beheaded for reportedly “desecrating the host.” A charge of host desecration was reported as late as 1836 in Romania. The “Host Desecration” libel is among the clearest examples of the Christian perception of the Jews as devils. Clearly, no one, not even a Jew, tortures wafers. If a person does “torture” one, it could mean only one thing: he, too, recognizes that the wafer is the body of Jesus, and wishes to make him suffer. Who but the people of the Devil recognize the divinity of Jesus but wish to destroy him? In his book, “The Anguish of the Jews” Edward Flannery, records more on this libel. On page 107, he writes: “In Rottingen to 1298 word went about that Jews had desecrated a host. Rindfleisch, a noblemen, stirred up the mob and sent the entire community to the stake. Thence he and his Judenschchters (Jew-slaughterers) marched through Germany and Austria pillaging, burning, and murdering Jews as they went. Estimates place the murdered at 100,000, and the decimated communities at 140. The Emperor fined the cities where the atrocities occurred. The Rindfleisch massacres were, as Poliakov points out, the first attempt to hold all Jewry responsible for a crime—an aborted genocide.” Flannery continues with still more on page 157. “Charges of ritual murder (number 1 libel) and ‘Host Desecration’ continued in this land where they seemed to have found a natural habitat, and some popular uprisings resulted.” “It was not from within Poland, however, that finally came the “deluge” that submerged Polish Jewry and introduced into Jewish history perhaps its bloodiest decade (1648-58) since Biblical times. Again the Jews were caught in the cross-fire. In the Ukraine the Eastern Orthodox Cossacks hated not only the Polish Catholics who oppressed them but also their middlemen of alien faith, the Jews. In April of 1648, under Bogdan Chmielnicki, their hitman, they allied themselves with the Tartars and Zaporozhti and ravaged Poland in a most barbarous fashion, reserving their worst cruelties for the Jews. Margolis and Marx describe the happenings: “Estates were devastated, manor-houses reduced to ashes, and human beings barbarously done to death. The victims were flayed and burned alive, mutilated and left to the agony of a lingering death. Infants were slit like fish or slaughtered at the breasts of their mothers or cast alive into wells. Women were ripped open and then sewed up again with live cats thrust into their bowels; many, married or unmarried, were violated before their menfolk, and those that were comely were carried away. Thousands of Jews perished in the towns east of the Dnieper.” Can anything be worse!?!?! Once again, tears can be the only appropriate response! Quotebit Although we may not always be healthy, nor always prosperous, yet God is always good, and, therefore, there is always a sufficient argument for giving thanks. -Charles Spurgeon |
Derrick JacksonPastor, Author Archives
September 2024
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