That is the most... Nevermind.
Whew!
Posted on 03/06/2004 8:17:26 AM PST by Joblie
MEL GIBSON says that his film, The Passion of the Christ, is a faithful representation of the biblical story of Jesus' trial and execution. He also says the movie isn't anti-Semitic. He cannot be right on both counts.
The New Testament is, among other things, an anti-Semitic tract. It is the source of the anti-Semitism which has characterised Christianity for two millennia.
If the film isn't anti-Semitic, it's out of line with the Gospel. In face of complaints from US Jewish leaders, Gibson removed from the film's sub-titles - although not from the Aramaic sound-track - the response of the Jews to Pilate's hand-washing disavowal of blame for sending Jesus to be crucified: "His blood be upon us and our children."
But why? The quote is there in Matthew 27:25. Its meaning is clear and has been fulfilled in unspeakable ways down the ages.
Luke 23:28-29 gives the same point a more vicious twist, depicting Jesus telling weeping women he encounters on the Way of the Cross: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me but for yourselves and your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck!'"
Better for Jews that they'd never been born, then.
There's been no shortage of Christians ever since to ram this murderous message home to Jewish neighbours.
John's Gospel (8:44) has Jesus telling the Jews they are descended neither from God nor from Abraham but are children of the Devil.
The early Fathers of the Church took inspiration from the Bible as they preached hatred of the Jews.
In the works of Tertullian, Justin, John Chrysostom, etc., Jews are relentlessly libelled... the obscene Jew, the Satanic Jew, the murderer-of-God Jew, the whoremonger Jew, etc.
And so it continued. Pope after Pope, Council after Council, confirmed and codified the subhuman status of the Jews.
Every century is pock-marked by examples. (Council of Toledo, 694: Jews living in Spain declared slaves, possessions confiscated, all children removed from them at seven and prepared for marriage to Christians.)
Hitler didn't suck the idea of Jews wearing yellow badges out of his thumb. He took it from the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.
The Nazi persecution can be seen as a practical expression of traditional Christian attitudes to Jews.
"From the beginning until the end of Hitler's rule, the bishops never tired of admonishing the faithful to accept his government," Guenter Lewy recalled in "The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany."
Individual Catholic clerics who opposed the Nazis' anti-Semitism were a tiny minority, totally unrepresentative.
Catholic apologists concede now that the Vatican and the German bishops should have given stronger, more courageous leadership.
But this is dodging the issue. One of the reasons they didn't is that, by and large, they agreed with the Nazis.
From its beginning, Protestantism was as bad. The editor of the Nazi hate-sheet "Der Sturmer," Julius Streich, cited Martin Luther, reasonably, in a plea of justification at Nuremberg.
In his disgusting treatise "On the Jews and their Lies" in 1543, Luther had called for the fire-bombing of synagogues, the demolition of Jewish homes, the silencing of rabbis, the banning of Jews from public places, the confiscation of Jewish property and the enslavement of "all strong young Jews and Jewesses."
Christian hymns provided the theme music for the Holocaust.
Even after the gates were flung open on the horrors of Auschwitz, Christian teachers, in Ireland as elsewhere, continued to instruct infants that the scattering of the Jews and the persecutions they endured were punishment for the killing of the Christ.
Argument over Gibson's blockbuster gore-fest diverts attention from what's important.
If the film fuels anti-Semitism, it's to be condemned, irrespective of its merits as a movie.
But let's not allow a satisfying controversy obscure the fact that the founding text of Christianity is bloodily sodden with hatred of Jews.
And of course things were bad enough before they came into political power, but afterward it got pretty hairy!
Oh gee well I am pretty sure I declared myself on a couple of other threads.
That's it in a nutshell. How positively... hateful. Can you imagine exchanging the word "Muslim" for "Christian" in this article?
You are Catholic schooled? Really?
Then you should know to capitalize both Bible and Mass.
That is the most... Nevermind.
Whew!
Well I never!! How bout THIS! Tantum ergo sacramentum. Vene remur cher nui. Et antiqum documentum (okay the spelling is awful)...Or how about....Blessed be God, Blessed by His Holy Name, Blessed be Jesus Christ True God and True Man. And one more!! Let me see...Who made you? God made me. Why did God make you? God made me to know love and serve him on this earth and to be happy with him forever in heaven. Baltimore Catechism circa 1956. Shall I go on? :O>
He sure is. Now if certain extreme Christians would stop the paranoid delusions that Christianity is being SO persecuted that it is going to go belly up, POOF in our lifetime we might all be able to enjoy life together.
His own foul temper? I some modern examples antisemtism from official Catholicdom.:
1942-1945 Cardinal Adolf Bertram, Archbishop of Breslau and head of the German Bishops' Conference, opposes all public protest against the deportation and massacre of the Jews. He maintains a cordial relationship with Hitler, and in May 1945 he orders requiem masses for Hitler be offered in all his parishes
1943 At their annual meeting in Fulda, the German Catholic bishops debate whether to speak out about the Holocaust and confront Hitler with a direct accusation. They decide not to do so
1943 Slovakia's Catholic Bishops protest the deportation of Jews in a pastoral letter read in Latin from the pulpits. Many priests refuse to read it or insert their own negative comments
1945 Addressing the College of Cardinals after the end of the European war, Pope Pius XII speaks of the hundreds of priests and religious who died in Nazi concentration camps, but makes no mention of the Jews
Actually no. I comdem Luther's tract on the Jews and the Sabbatarians as would any modern Christian. However by leaving out Luther had just read the Babylonian Talmud and by not quoting from the Talmud speaks strongly to your agenda.
Well, I agree. On the other hand there are rich, well-supported mainstream organizations like the ACLU, People for the American Way, the ADL, and the Southern Poverty Law center whose main function in life is de-Christianizing the country whenever and wherever they can. There are no comparable Christian organizations trying to do that to Jews.
And yet the correct answer is still "his foul temper."
Gosh I am sorry that post was supposed to be lighthearted. Really.
I don't know what you mean by agenda. I guess it would be that I am trying to get people to say without embellishment or excuse that anti-semitism is real and Christians have enganged in it. One poster did that. Is is really so easy to do. And I am just asserting that American Christians are the most fortunate people on the face of the earth and the so-called persecutions against us are piddly compared to what happened to the Jews and other Christians in history and around the world. But heck I am not perfect. Who am I to preach? Sorry if I offened you.
Yes it is very pretty and also the perfect companion to the scent of frankincense.
Did you ever wish that John Wesley had been in charge of the Reformation? He was a much nicer guy. :O>
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