DISPENSATIONALIST "CHRISTIAN" ZIONISM -- Is there now "neither Jew nor Gentile", or not?

KennethGentry.Com, "Dispensational Distortions" ^ | 2004 | Kenneth Gentry (and OP)

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

A Young Fool encounters Foolishness

Once upon a time, I was but a wee child in Reformed Theology, taking my first baby-steps into the beautiful Cathedral of Calvinism as a young Debater for Jerry Falwell's world-beating Liberty Debate Team (Our Creed: "Defeat Harvard. Defeat Navy. Defeat American Catholic. Defeat everyone. Crush them all, every time, no exceptions. Win every single National Championship, every year.... because as long as we Calvinists keep winning, Jerry won't excommunicate us for being Calvinists!!".)

[Dr. Jerry Falwell personally thinks that Calvinism is Heresy. He also doesn't care, as long as we Win.]

Since a Debater is always expected to be able to immediately argue either side of any given question, I spent a lot of time in the local used book-store picking up various books on philosophy and theology and politics and economics... anything I could get my dirt-poor hands on for $2 or $3 dollars a copy. Anything to familiarize myself with multiple intellectual perspectives and multiple modes of argumentation.

Now, in the course of my researches, I happened across a little book entitled War Cycles, Peace Cycles by Richard Kelly Hoskins of Lynchburg, Virginia, regarding the short and long-term economic effects of Monetary Expansions and Contractions in the context of fractional-reserve lending. Hoskins was by no means an uneducated fellow (a capable Financial Advisor and Econometricist, some of his works are still occasionally cited today), but I was singularly disturbed by several passages in which he seemed to suggest a Racial component to Fractional-Reserve Lending (which he called "the Babylon System") versus his contrary suggestions for Joint-Venture Lending.

One passage which stood out in my mind read as follows:

Take Strong's Exhaustive Concordance and look up the word "Man". Then, turn to the Hebrew section in the back of the concordance to locate the word for "man" which is "Adam". You will find that the word "adam" (Man) is used hundreds of times throughout the Bible. Under "man" locate the verse "In the beginning God created man", or "adam", as an example. The word "adam" is not just another name like John or Bob. "Adam" is the Hebrew word meaning "to turn rosy", or "to blush red" (Strong's number 119). A better translation of the above verse "In the beginning God created man" would be - "In the beginning God created 'he who blushes red'... (The White Race)" ~~ Hoskins, "War Cycles, Peace Cycles", page 20-21 (bolded explanation mine)

The further I read, the more it was apparent to me that Hoskins regarded "Israel" as The White Race, the Adamic Race descended through Abraham, and that all Non-Whites were considered to him to be zuwr "strangers": Pagans at worst, "Samaritan" Christians at best... but never "Israel".

And so, being the young fool that I was, I did what any young fool would do... I looked Dick Hoskins up in the Lynchburg, Virginia phone book, and called him at his house.

I asked him what he would make of my spiritual position -- a Confessing Christian by Faith, mostly Prussian German by Ethnicity, but with a little 1/16 smidgen of Sioux Nation mixed in 3 or 4 generations back on my mother's side.

Hoskins informed me, quite cordially and without any rancor whatsoever, that God considered me to be a mixed-breed Bastard and that "A Bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD." (Deuteronomy 23:2) He advised me to marry "one of my own kind".

(I guess I have now violated the Law of God, a German-Sioux mixed-breed Bastard like me marrying a Pure Scottish White Woman.)

Well, I decided at that point (even before I knew him to be the godfather of the "Phinehas Priesthood", the most violent expression of the Christian Identity movement) that even if he was a good money-runner, Dick Hoskins' theology was a barrel full of wet, smelly, foolish Scheißdreck, with which I would have no truck whatsoever. The Christian Creed is this: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28, KJV).

Unfortunately, however, "Christian Identity" (derived not from pagan Nazism but rather from its bastard godfather, British Israelism) is not the only theology which Racially divides the Body of Christ into Jew and Gentile, "Israel" and "Not-Israel", Blood and Blood-lines.

Dispensational Zionist Foolishness

The future dispensational kingdom involves a racial prejudice favoring the Jews above even saved Gentiles during the millennium. As such it re-introduces the distinction between Jew and Gentile and replaces Faith with Race as a basis for divine favor. Consider the following citations from leading dispensationalists: (DISPENSATIONAL DISTORTIONS PART TWO, Redemptive History Distortions ~~ Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Th.D.)

• Ryrie: "Three groups of people will be related to the millennial government. Israel, regathered and turned to the Lord in salvation, will be exalted, blessed, and favored throughout the period."
• Pentecost: "The Gentiles will be Israel's servants during that age. . . . The Gentiles that are in the millennium will have experienced conversion prior to admission."
• Walvoord speaks of "Israel's restoration and exaltation in the millennial kingdom."
• Herman Hoyt (past president of Grace Theological Seminary) puts it quite starkly: "The redeemed living nation of Israel, regenerated and regathered to the land, will be head over all the nations of earth. . . . So he exalts them above the Gentile nations . . . . On the lowest level there are the saved, living, Gentile nations."
• Popular prophecy writer Dave Hunt comments: "The Messiah ruling the world from the throne of David and with national Israel restored to its place of supremacy over the nations."

However, with the establishment of the New Testament phase of the Church, the distinction between Jew and Gentile has been abolished. This was the whole point of Peter's vision of the sheet filled with unclean animals in Acts 10: "What God has called clean, let no man call unclean." Thus, there is no separate Jewish program exalting them over saved Gentiles. THE CHURCH, which includes Jew and Gentile in one body, is the fruition and culmination of God's promises to the Jews. In evidence of this, we should note that Christians are called by distinctively Jewish names in the New Testament. "He is a Jew, which is one inwardly" (Rom. 2:29). Christians are called "the circumcision" (Phil. 3:3), "the children" and "the seed of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7, 29), the "Jerusalem which is above" and the "children of the promise" (Gal. 4:24-29). In fact, Christians compose "the Israel of God" for we are a "new creature" regarding which "circumcision availeth nothing" (Gal. 6:16).

Comparing Foolishness with Foolishness

In closing, I ask only (according to the Hebrew logical-interpretive method of "how much the more?")... if the heretical British-Israel/Christian-Identity Racialists pervert True Christianity by dividing the People of God along Racial lines, then how much the more do Dispensationalists also pervert the Word of God and divide the People of God along equally Racialist lines?

Consider the following:

---

• Three groups of people will be related to the millennial government. The White Race, regathered and turned to the Lord in salvation, will be exalted, blessed, and favored throughout the period.
  
• The Non-Whites will be The White Race's servants during that age. . . . The Non-Whites that are in the millennium will have experienced conversion prior to admission.
  
• The White Race's restoration and exaltation in the millennial kingdom...
  
• The redeemed living nation of The White Race, regenerated and regathered to the land, will be head over all the nations of earth. . . . So he exalts them above the Non-White nations . . . . On the lowest level there are the saved, living, Non-White nations.
  
• The Messiah ruling the world from the throne of David and with The White Race restored to its place of supremacy over the nations.
  
• God will keep his original promises to the fathers and will one day convert and place The White Race as the head of the nations.

---

Those aren't Quotations from Richard Kelly Hoskins... granted, they may sound like Christian Identity quotations, but they aren't.

These are nothing less than direct quotations from the leading lights of Dispensationalism in America -- Ryrie, Pentecost, Walvoord, Hoyt, Hunt, Thomas Ice. (I could've quoted Hagee, I suppose, but the man is absolutely freakin' nutbar).

All that I did was to replace "Israel" with "The White Race", and replace "Gentiles" with "Non-Whites".
Does Dispensationalist "theology" destroy the Racial equality of the Body of Christ? What you see is what you get.

God Damn all Racial Theology.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. (Rom. 10:1-2) Your words, OP, serve absolutely no purpose but to puff yourself up and to put a barrier between the Jewish people and the Cross--and there is not a greater act of hatred than to do anything which might keep a man from Y'shua. You are putting stumbling blocks in the path of the blind (Lev. 19:14) in violation of the command not to do anything "whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak" (Rom. 14:21). In short, you are not doing the deeds or speaking the words of Christ.

Buggman, with respect, I challenged you to prove to me that Christ-Rejecting Jews do not Hate God.

In truth, I commissioned you with an impossible challenge. According to Psalms 2, it is impossible to Reject the Son and yet Love God. Ergo, it is Biblically-impossible to prove that Christ-Rejecting Jews do not Hate God. (You've been caught in a Catch-22).

You responded by telling me that Christ-Rejecting Jews were "zealous" for God; but Zealotry is not the same as Love. In fact, Apostle Saint Paul (or Rav Sha'ul, if you prefer unnecessary hebraisms) tells us in Acts 22:3-4 just how much his own "zealotry" counted for: the persecution, imprisonment, and murder of God's Israel (i.e., The Church), and all manner of things HATEFUL towards God.

I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day. And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.

So much for the notion that Jewish "Zealotry" counts as "Love" for God.

In fact, Jesus Himself tells us that it does not: you are either with Him, or against Him:

He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. (Matthew 12:30)

And to be Against Jesus, is (by definition) to be AGAINST GOD.

Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. (Psalm 2:12)

there is not a greater act of hatred than to do anything which might keep a man from Y'shua. You are putting stumbling blocks in the path of the blind (Lev. 19:14) in violation of the command not to do anything "whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak" (Rom. 14:21)

Christ-Rejecting Jews are not my "Brethren" in Christ. They are lost souls who must totally recant and repudiate their false, Christ-demeaning, Satanic religion of "Judaism" in order to be Saved -- and upon their Repentance and Conversion to racially-colorblind Christianity, then they become my Brethren in Christ.

Who is doing more to "put stumbling blocks in the path of the blind" -- me, when I maintain that an Unbelieving Jew must Repent and embrace Jesus in order to be Saved; or Dispensationalist mega-preacher John Hagee, when he hires a Christ-Rejecting Jew (David Brog) as Executive Director of "Christians United for Israel"? (Apparently, it's not "Christians United" for anything, because according to Hagee, you don't even have to be a Christian to be a member of "Christians United").

Sure, let's tell the Jews that it's perfectly A-OKay for them to reject Christ all the days of their life; they can reject the Messiah outright and still be elevated to the highest executive levels of purportedly "Christian" organizations! Why, that's the "loving" thing to do, isn't it?

Loving the Jews straight into Hell, I call it.

Best, OP

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

OP: The return you identify with the restoration of the Babylonian and Assyrian captivity occurs in the "later days" according to Hosea.

Actually, to be a bit more precise, the restoration occurs:

"Afterward shall the children of Israel return,"

And sequentially thereafter shall "seek David their King" (i.e., Jesus) in "the latter Days".

"and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days."

Remember, to an Amillennialist (which is to say, the Biblically-correct and Patristically-approved 2,000 year tradition of the Church), everything after the Resurrection is pretty much the "Latter Days".

Sorta like the World War in the Pacific after Midway, it may be a long and hard-fought battle -- but the tide is already turned, it's all "despoiling the strong man's house" from here on.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Worth repeating!

Thanks for understanding my point of view. Also see my #218:

What I am saying is: IF we took the statements made by Dispensationalists, and substituted ANY OTHER Ethnic Group within the context of their statements (the White Race, the Black Race, any Ethnic Group), every fair-minded and Biblically-minded Christian would IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZE such a Racially-Divisive Theology as a violation of Galatians 3:28 and would cry "FOUL"!... and with perfectly-good reason. In his Epistle to the Galatians, Saint Paul BIBLICALLY OUTLAWS all such Racial Theology.

Best, OP

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I see. I guess I somehow thought Orthodox P started the thread and the topic had something to do with Israel. Perhaps someone appointed you to be the judge over us. ~~ 1000 silverlings

That would be me. And I believe that OP has left the building. I have issued a bench warrant. ~~ P-Marlowe

OP spent one day away from FR to go back to work and earn money for his Family, and followed that with a day going to the zoo and a picnic with said, aforementioned, previously-introduced-into-evidence Family.

OP figured he could take a day or two off; but if P-Marlowe wishes to keep OP's schedule, OP has no objection to retaining an unpaid secretary.

Harrumph!!

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

The fact is, I am obeying the Logical forms of Analogical Reasoning exactly -- I have changed none of the Terms of the Equation, only the Variables. ~~ Balderdash. In terms of predicate calculus, neither "Israel" nor "The White Race" is a variable - they have been quantified. (In other words, they are constants.) Your argument is logically equivalent to: 7 > 23 is false. Therefore 35 > 11 is false. Clearly fallacious reasoning.

No. You have it all wrong. OF COURSE you can argue that "neither "Israel" nor "The White Race" is a variable - they have been quantified"...

...Though that contention itself is extremely debatable, hardly the mathematically Defined Set you so foolishly make it out to be (what defines "the White Race"? According to the Christian Identity folks, even 1 "mud-race" ancestor in 10 generations disaqualifies one from the "White Race. What defines "Ethnic Israel"? If A Half-Jew marries a Gentile in the Millenial Kingdom, are their children counted as Ethnic Jews, to be elevated to supremacy over all Non-Jews? What about an Octoroon-Jew? Or the children of an Octoroon-Jew?)

However, the point of the argument is NOT whether or not "Ethnic Jews" or "The White Race" can be mathematically quantified; the point is whether or not the following equation holds qualitatively true for either set:

Where [subset B] is segregated and elevated above the remainder of [Set A] (The non-elevated remainder of Set A being defined as [subset C]), the segregational elevation of Subset B over Subset C constitutes a segregation of Set A.

Ergo, Subset B and C are the Variables (Subset C being defined as all of Set A which is not Subset B), and it does not matter which Ethnic Group you plug into Subset B -- Jews, Whites, Blacks, whatever.

As long as Set A (Christians) are divided into "Elevated" Subset B (insert Ethnic Group here) and "Lower" Subset C (All "A"s which are not part of Subset B), the Theology in question is Racially Divisive and violates Galatians 3:28; i.e., the Theology in Question is AGAINST BIBLICAL LAW.

Best, OP

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I found what I was looking for. Supercessionism is a form of the old Marcionite heresy ~~ Mark Shea... A Jewish commenter makes the common mistake of confusing Marcionism with Catholic teaching. Not surprising since so many Catholics do too. Supersessionism and the idea that the Old Testament is somehow revoked by the New is a big no-no in Catholic teaching.

You're dead wrong, and "Mark Shea" (some amateur with a blog -- certainly not one of the front line of modern Roman Catholic apologists, whoever he is) doesn't have a fig-leaf of a clue what he's talking about.

Marcionism is the ancient and evil heresy which proposed "Two Gods", the "Predestinating God" of the Old Testament versus the "Free Will Jesus" of the New Testament ~~ "that the G-d of the New Testament was only only 'a God of love'; completely 'non-judgmental'; therefore totally different from the God of the Old Testament, which he called the god of the Jews.... He also completely rejected the early Assemblies teachings concerning the Doctrines of Predestination and Election as found in Ephesians 1:4-15; John 1:12,13; John 6:44; Acts 13:48. This was how Marcion ridded himself of the Doctrines of Election and Predestination which could not be denied from Old Testament Scripture.(http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/3511/marcion.html)

Personally, "bornacatholic", I would say that in your hatred for the doctrines of Absolute Predestination and your own willingness to allow for an Unbiblical division between the Old Testament Church (Israel) and the New Testament Church (God's Israel), you're far closer to the evil heresy of Marcionism than any Calvinist.

---

HERE IS THE TRUTH -- Courtesy of Robert A. Sungenis of Catholic Apologetics International, a REAL Catholic Scholar, not some pissant with a blog (like most modern front-line Catholic Apologists, Sungenis is an ex-Presbyterian -- i.e., he's not stupid):

St. John Chrysostom once said: “The man who sets a Judaizing Christian straight, wins a victory over godlessness” (Adversos Judaeos)....

Regarding the Fathers and the conversion of the Jews, the following points about their beliefs need to be made:

• (a) while there is evidence that a few Fathers anticipated a significant conversion of Jews in the distant future, none of these Fathers foresaw a physical restoration of the nation state of Israel;
• (b) none of the Fathers specify that the future spiritual conversion of Jews is en masse;
• (c) all of the Fathers interpreted the Old Testament prophecies about Israel as applicable exclusively to the Church, the new Israel; while those who anticipated a future conversion of Jews base it on one passage, Romans 11:25-26, although there never has been an official Catholic interpretation of that passage;
• (d) of the over one hundred Fathers of note in the patristic era, only a little over half a dozen speak about an anticipated conversion of Jews, and half of them apply it exclusively to the salvation of a remnant during the Church age; another portion see both a remnant saved in the Church age and a more significant portion in the distant future;
• (e) all of the Fathers emphasized the obstinate disbelief of the Jews and a hardness put upon them by God;
• (f) all of the Fathers held to the fact that the Old Covenant is formally and legally null and void and that the New Covenant has totally SUPERSEDED the Old, except that the New often appeals for precedence to the moral, civil and religious principles of the Old.

Full Article here: Judaizers in the Catholic Church, http://www.catholicintl.com/epologetics/articles/pastoral/judaizers.htm, Robert A. Sungenis.

---

So... Let me repeat that:

• all of the Fathers interpreted the Old Testament prophecies about Israel as applicable exclusively to the Church, the new Israel;
• all of the Fathers emphasized the obstinate disbelief of the Jews and a hardness put upon them by God;
• all of the Fathers held to the fact that the Old Covenant is formally and legally null and void and that the New Covenant has totally SUPERSEDED the Old, except that the New often appeals for precedence to the moral, civil and religious principles of the Old.

(Sigh). As usual, even "bornacatholic" Cradle Catholics are so woefully uneducated regarding the Faith Once For All Delivered To The Saints, you call it "worshipping a God of Hate" when a Calvinist simply defends the Traditional, Patristic Beliefs of the Universal Christian Church.

Oh, well. As Roman Catholics continue to drop the standards of Biblical, traditional, patristic Christian Belief and flee the battlefields, have no fear -- we Calvinists will take up the slack.

Of course, we're always expected to do so. But it's okay, we shan't complain.

Best, OP

[bornacatholic]

Personally, "bornacatholic", I would say that in your hatred for the doctrines of Absolute Predestination and your own willingness to allow for an Unbiblical division between the Old Testament Church (Israel) and the New Testament Church (God's Israel), you're far closer to the evil heresy of Marcionism than any Calvinist.

*If by that you mean I reject the too-many-to-catalog heresies of Jean Cauvin, absolutely?

Mr. Sungenesis is shunned by respectable Christians due to his venomous antisemitism. He has ben caught using direct quotes fom Nazi propagandists. He too thinks the Jews as a race are cursed. And, to top it all off, he is also a Geo-Centrist.

And, of course I absolutely reject your false accusation I do not seperate the Old and New Testament. But, lack of proof has never hindered you before :)

Personally, I think the God of Calvin is an insane, hateful lunatic.

And what is it with you and the way you format your posts?

In just a second I will post a link having to do with your boy, sugenesis.

[bornacatholic]

http://wquercus.com/sungenis/

[bornacatholic]

http://lidless-eye.blogspot.com/2003_03_01_lidless-eye_archive.html#91132908

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Mr. Sungenesis is shunned by respectable Christians due to his venomous antisemitism.

I wasn't aware that Robert Sungenis was a "venomous anti-semite".

I also wasn't aware that he was being "shunned by respectable Christians".

Has Mr. Sungenis been excommunicated from receipt of the Catholic Sacraments?

If he has not been excommunicated from receipt of the Catholic Sacraments... then are you not taking it upon yourself (as a Layman, acting upon your own autonomous personal opinion) to "shun" a Catholic Brother without any canonically-justified cause?

Maybe you've got some penance to do.

[bornacatholic]

I wasn't aware that Robert Sungenis was a "venomous anti-semite".

*Your ignorance isn't confined to just that specific issue

I also wasn't aware that he was being "shunned by respectable Christians".

*See prior comment

Has Mr. Sungenis been excommunicated from receipt of the Catholic Sacraments?

*Likely not.

If he has not been excommunicated from receipt of the Catholic Sacraments... then are you not taking it upon yourself (as a Layman, acting upon your own autonomous personal opinion) to "shun" a Catholic Brother without any canonically-justified cause?

*LOL You never learn do you? Please stick to Calvinism. Your knowledge of Catholicism is woefully inadequate.

Now I beseech you, brethren, to mark them who make dissensions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them.

Maybe you've got some penance to do.

*I do Penance, when apt.

*Now, I am about to post something else about Sungenesis, whom you so admire.

I think you will be in agreement with him on this one though. He thinks God has emotions...

[bornacatholic]

http://lidless-eye.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_lidless-eye_archive.html#110124592772385139

[bornacatholic]

HERE IS THE TRUTH -- Courtesy of Robert A. Sungenis of Catholic Apologetics International, a REAL Catholic Scholar, not some pissant with a blog (like most modern front-line Catholic Apologists, Sungenis is an ex-Presbyterian -- i.e., he's not stupid):

*As someone once said, "Maybe you've got some penance to do."

Next Sunday, consider Keeping Holy the Lord's Day by participating in the Eucharist Jesus established in the New Covenant Sacrifice and Meal as the Way to Worship God.

Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.

The Sunday Eucharist

2177 The Sunday celebration of the Lord's Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church's life. "Sunday is the day on which the paschal mystery is celebrated in light of the apostolic tradition and is to be observed as the foremost holy day of obligation in the universal Church."

"Also to be observed are the day of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Epiphany, the Ascension of Christ, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christi, the feast of Mary the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her Assumption, the feast of Saint Joseph, the feast of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul, and the feast of All Saints."

2178 This practice of the Christian assembly dates from the beginnings of the apostolic age.The Letter to the Hebrews reminds the faithful "not to neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but to encourage one another."

Tradition preserves the memory of an ever-timely exhortation: Come to Church early, approach the Lord, and confess your sins, repent in prayer. . . . Be present at the sacred and divine liturgy, conclude its prayer and do not leave before the dismissal. . . . We have often said: "This day is given to you for prayer and rest. This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it."

2179 "A parish is a definite community of the Christian faithful established on a stable basis within a particular church; the pastoral care of the parish is entrusted to a pastor as its own shepherd under the authority of the diocesan bishop."

It is the place where all the faithful can be gathered together for the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist. The parish initiates the Christian people into the ordinary expression of the liturgical life: it gathers them together in this celebration; it teaches Christ's saving doctrine; it practices the charity of the Lord in good works and brotherly love:

You cannot pray at home as at church, where there is a great multitude, where exclamations are cried out to God as from one great heart, and where there is something more: the union of minds, the accord of souls, the bond of charity, the prayers of the priests.

[1000 silverlings]

Actually, to be a bit more precise, the restoration occurs:

Jeremiah 16 ;14-16.

[1000 silverlings]

Romans 8:1

There is therefore no condemnation to those which are in Jesus Christ who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit

Paul himself was a citizen of Rome. Nations are beasts in the bible. We can't help belonging to them. We can pray, stay in the word, and trust to God for guidance. Then we can act, each according to his own conscience.

It appears that Paul was proud of being a Roman citizen, after all Rome was a great civilization, yet you know he could not condone what it did to Jews and Christians.

[Corin Stormhands]

No need for an afront bro. I'll order directly and pay the piper.

Lookin' forward to tryin' it.

[ladyinred]

Sorry, I shouldn't have said what I said.

[George W. Bush]

I found some interesting material among Rome's religious art starting in the eleventh century.

Ecclesia, Synagoga, and the Fallen Crown

Ecclesia and Synagoga were the names given to the symbolic personification in medieval Christian art of Christianity's triumph over Judaism. This early type of anti-Jewish propaganda, which first appeared in the 11th century, was common decoration in the sculptures, paintings and stained-glass windows of churches and cathedrals, and in the decorations and bindings of Bibles and prayer books.

A pair of female statues decorated many Gothic cathedrals and churches (usually outside the building) in Europe, especially in France, England and Germany. Ecclesia, representing the victorious, triumphant Church, takes the form of a proud, erect maiden, crowned and holding the cross. Synagoga, symbolizing the defeated Synagogue, is blindfolded (symbolizing blindness to the truth of the New Testament) and dejected, and her characteristic appurtenances are a broken staff, [1] broken tablets of the Law (symbolizing the Old Testament), and a fallen crown.

The best known statues of this type are on the exterior of the cathedrals of Strasbourg and Bamberg. They are also found in Rheims, Paris and Bordeaux. In England, they figure (generally in mutilated condition) in churches in Rochester, Lincoln, Salisbury and Winchester.

Ecclesia

Synagoga

You'll find additional references to the same or similar sculptures at Freiberg, Magdeburg, and at Notre Dame in Paris. The statues shown above are the ones in Bordeaux.

Book review: Confronting Supersessionism by Mary Boys

Given that Mary Boys is a Catholic woman (not a group of priests as some Prots might suspect) and writing for Catholics about Catholicism and Judaism, it seems she has written an entire book about Catholic supersessionism which you claim does not exist and has never existed. Strange, eh? Maybe you should write to her and tell her to withdraw her strange and anti-Catholic book from the market.

And you should travel to all those Catholic churches in Europe and destroy those statues that depict exactly that which you say Rome has never taught.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Given that Mary Boys is a Catholic woman (not a group of priests as some Prots might suspect)

You can't resist a good play on words, can you? ;-)

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Please do not use potty language or references to potty language on the Religion Forum.

My apologies.

I personally do not believe that any construction of sounds or letters are inherently "sinful" to speak or write, as I am unable to find any Scripture establishing such an idea; rather, I think usage determines moral value (i.e., if I said "You are a piece of sh**" to another FReeper, that word-usage would a sort of cursing against one of God's creations and therefore UnChristian, bad, and wrong).

However, my views are not shared by all Christians and I should be more circumspect not to give offense. Mea Culpa.