Beautiful! Let them do so, for the value of the faith will increase by leaps and bounds because of their actions.
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.
I was getting annoyed at all the others who pretty clearly believe the same thing but dance around admitting it.
This still has to be the most interesting outcome of Mel Gibson's movie. It is bringing the anti-Christians out of the woodwork. Imagine an article of this tone condeming Judaism, and you'd expect to find it published in Saudi Arabia.
Funny, but the only anti-semitism I see around is coming from the liberal, self loathing Jews who are taking the side of the Palestinians, and the secular God haters.
Personally, I believe it is the notion that we can achieve heaven on earth, or that if only we had a "Christian" government (i.e. a theocracy, as opposed to a secular government inhabited by Christians, which is something different) it would solve all our problems.
You know, some people would mistake your "they" to mean "Jews in general."
The Krauthammer thread has been a real eye-popper for me. It's a distressing hub-bub.
In last June's Los Angeles Times editorial piece, Mel's Passion, Rabbi Marvin Hier wrote:
"Globally, antisemitism is at its highest peak since the end of World War II. Synagogues and Jewish schools have been firebombed and Jews beaten on the streets of France and Belgium. According to some recent polls, 17% of Americans (up from 12% five years ago) hold to political and economic stereotypes about Jews; 37% hold Jews responsible for the death of Jesus. On the Internet as well as in print media around the world, the new demonization of Israelis as Nazi-like oppressors is fusing with the old libel of the Jews as "Christ killers." A cartoon in the Italian newspaper La Stampa (see above left) depicted an Israeli tank rolling up to a manger with little baby Jesus staring up in horror and crying out, 'Do you want to kill me once more?'" Source Simon Wiesenthal Center
In last June's Los Angeles Times editorial piece, Mel's Passion, Rabbi Marvin Hier wrote:
"Globally, antisemitism is at its highest peak since the end of World War II. Synagogues and Jewish schools have been firebombed and Jews beaten on the streets of France and Belgium. According to some recent polls, 17% of Americans (up from 12% five years ago) hold to political and economic stereotypes about Jews; 37% hold Jews responsible for the death of Jesus. On the Internet as well as in print media around the world, the new demonization of Israelis as Nazi-like oppressors is fusing with the old libel of the Jews as "Christ killers." A cartoon in the Italian newspaper La Stampa (see above left) depicted an Israeli tank rolling up to a manger with little baby Jesus staring up in horror and crying out, 'Do you want to kill me once more?'" Source Simon Wiesenthal Center
The real proof is in the pudding. Let's see a show of hands - how many Freepers here are Zionist Christians (Christians who believe that Israel has a right to exist)? Wow, look at the hands go up. And I'm a Gentile, I've got hard evidence in my lap to prove it (Please, Mr. Moderator, it is a gentle joke).
Beautiful! Let them do so, for the value of the faith will increase by leaps and bounds because of their actions.
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