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Posted on 02/28/2008 4:40:37 PM PST by Alex Murphy
The term "works religion" is a non-Catholic term which frames the question in terms that Catholics find to be reductive and silly.
And the Catholic-Jewish interaction is far more complex than "rural illiterates" versus "urban sophisticates."
For the first few centuries - up to around 500 - both Judaism and Christianity were urban phenomena and in constant conflict with one another over imperial favor and urban real estate.
Catholicism didn't go from being a majority urban phenomenon to a majority rural phenomenon until the 700s.
During that period, Judaism became a smaller and smaller phenomenon in the West as the breakdown of imperial authority damaged the economy and the best opportunities in trade moved to the eastern Mediterranean.
It wasn't until after Charlemagne's reign that Judaism became anything more than something preachers mentioned in passing in rural Europe.
At that point, Europe's growing Jewish communities petitioned local bishops and princes for the right to live in their own communities governed by their own laws without having to have their community's internal matters adjudicated by church or royal courts.
The institution known as the "ghetto" emerged from this - and in a Europe that was so decentralized and practically tribal in many ways, Jews were perceived as a alien presence in the midst of the community.
And they were, since they weren't related to anyone by blood or marriage (the only personal ties that really mattered in medieval Europe) and they spoke different dialects that no one had ever heard, ate different food and followed a complicated set of laws that were different from the complicated set of laws that Christians followed.
Worsening estrangement even further, Jewish communities were dependent on the favor of the local magistrates for permission to make a living and follow their tradition - so these communities' natural attempts to stay on the good side of the prince were perceived as scheming by Christians, because some Christian or other was inevitably angered when Jews received some royal benefit he thought he deserved.
This whole history is radically different in its nature from anti-Catholicism in America. It wasn't about "I don't trust them Jews on account of all they fancy book-larnin'."
And that anti-rural stereotype is not the case in America, either.
The most bitterly anti-Catholic era in America before the current age was the mid-nineteenth century. At that time the most fiery anti-Catholics were Scots-Irish Nonconformists or conservative German Lutherans immigrants, while most American Catholics were Irish and Bavarian immigrants. Essentially the exact same people, divided purely by doctrine and not by ancestry, trade, class, etc.
None of the factors at play in medieval Christian-Jewish conflict really applied to this divide, and it occurred in an age when America was not particularly urban, and the worst anti-Catholic pogrom in American history (the anti-Catholic riots of 1844 in which parish churches were burned and Catholic clergy beaten and the local bishop forced into hiding) occurred in America's largest metropolis, Philadelphia.
John Hagee operates out of San Antonio, America's 7th largest city. Jack Chick operates out of suburban Los Angeles. Tony Alamo started his operation in Los Angeles. He now lives in AK, but he is despised by the locals and his biggest "ministries" in terms of number of cult followers are in Southern CA and the NYC metro area.
While we cannot totally know all the Bible has to say or while we, as imperfect people, try to divorce our selfishness from what is preached, yeah, I do think it is possible to preach the Bible without reading our opinions into it. It’s not always true, but we can at least try. I believe my pastor strives for Biblical accuracy as do other Christians I know.
I am a fundamentalist Baptist and I can tell you that this is just not true. Although widely pushed, it cannot be proved and is only speculation. Speculation is not Bible. Its a dangerous practice. I have my own theories on the whore of Revelation, but they are mine and will stay in my head. Never promoted.
That fat little troll of a preacher doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.
Dream on.
Cynicism does nothing for you.
I know, I know.. I love you TOO.. d;-) nyah..
I'm happy with it.
See ya around the FR.
And he sure couldn’t find it if he needed to.
***You expect people to buy your opinions so why not...***
No, no one has to pay good money for my opinion. But at least I know why the Temple in Jerusalem no longer stands.
Humor me. Why?
I’ll join you in that. Put downs because of one’s appearance is rather childish. God’s not particulary overjoyed when we criticize His anointed ones (believers).
Exactly!
How sad to hear you lowering yourself to that level, pissant.
The kneelers versus the hand-clappers yet again. Let me get out the popcorn.
Give him a break, maybe he meant "apostolic church" instead of "apostate church"...after all he, like President Bush, is a Texan and tends to get his words mixed.
I’ve heard the little troll on TV. He’s an idiot. Then again, I think that about 90% of televangelists.
Because it is absurd.
I am sad to hear this. Yet something else making voting (at all) in November more difficult.
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