[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

It is a simple fact that the Jews are a nation in exile, not a "religious denomination."

Isn't it both?

It is interesting to note that Jews for Jesus is offensive in only one direction. Anyone who truly understands Christian theology understands why that is. Christianity cannot be separated from its jewish roots. Christians who don't get that end up distorting Christianity. Jews who become Christians easily get it. Obviously it means they are renouncing Judiasm from the time of Christ's death and resurrection forward. Obviously. (Can I point out that from a Christian perspective the Judaism of the OT does not seem to be the same religion in many ways as the Judaism of today, except of course for the moral values part.) The theology of Jews for Jesus is pure Christian theology. The offense to religous Jews who do not believe Jesus is their Messiah is obvious, but the doctrine is also obvious. It's just one of those things that can't be resolved. It's not intended to be an offense but it unavoidably is and always has been. As long as it's only Gentiles, the offense is easier to overlook. But Christianity itself is really the offense. That's the bottom line,

That said, in the political world it doesn't matter. We are allies, and frankly I have grown to appreciate religious Jews more than some Christians, as Christians can sometimes commit the offense of using grace to transform God into an unholy, sin-friendly, mushy sort of diety who bows to man rather than the other way around.

[Convert from ECUSA]

"Christians, as Christians can sometimes commit the offense of using grace to transform God into an unholy, sin-friendly, mushy sort of diety who bows to man rather than the other way around."

[Zionist Conspirator]

Re your 236, as a former chr*stian Noachide I find myself somewhat in the middle between Jews who insist that the only way a Jew can betray his heritage is to become a chr*stian, and Fundamentalist Protestants who insist that a Jewish chr*stian is a "completed Jew." I reject both positions.

And the theology of Jews for J is not "pure chr*stian theology;" it is Protestant theology. Historical chr*stianity (as practiced in the ancient liturgical churches for fifteen hundred years) is just as much a legal/ritual system as Judaism ever was (only with different rituals, different holidays, etc.). Historical chr*stians have never been "saved" but have spent their lives praying for forgiveness, confessing their sins, doing penance, etc., while trying to walk a tightrope over Hell, and this was the way all chr*stianity operated until Martin Luther. That being the case, what was the point of a new religion when there already was one? It's no wonder that Jews who convert to chr*stianity convert to Fundamentalist Protestantism; in addition to a more philo-Semitic worldview the hypocrisy is less blatant (ie, attacking the "works" of the Torah but defending the works of the "new law"). I've long said that liturgical chr*stianity preaches Protestantism to the Jews and Judaism to the Protestants, but liturgical chr*stians seem incapable of seeing or understanding this.

Please understand that I know you will respond by saying that today's Fundamentalist Protestantism represents "true original chr*stianity" supposedly restored after centuries of being obscured by "baptized heathenism," but this is simply a historical fiction, however dogmatically Protestants must hold it. I used to believe as you do, so there's no way I can go back to an error I have already forever disabused myself of.

I suggest we "agree to disagree."