***Very perceptive. The Christians are not Jews and do not claim to be; well, not the mainstream. The LDS are now claiming to be Christian. Very very interesting
I knew you’d understand the difference Mark.***
The theology of Christianity in this aspect is an ‘also’. We ‘also’ get to share in everlasting salvation, albeit as ‘adopted sons’ rather than as true sons. In this way, we differ from the LDS; the LDS claims to be the only way and that both Christians and Jews are lesser or not fully on the correct path. We Catholics look on the Jews as ‘elder brethren’ who knew God first, and we’re just the second string, or perhaps Act II. :)
That doesn't follow from Christian theology, Mark. How can Jews be saved if they rejected Christ?
And why are Christians "adopted sons?" Is God not their creator as well? Or were they made by someone else and had to be "adopted?"
Is Christian God not God of all people? Are not all humans his creation? If they are, how can they be "adopted?"
We Catholics look on the Jews as ‘elder brethren’ who knew God first, and we’re just the second string, or perhaps Act II.
That's good for Judeo-Christian relations, but I don't think I have ever heard a Jews refer to Christians as their "younger brothers." More like something they mention daily in their prayers by the name of minim, but can you blame them?!? Let's be honest, this "brotherhood" is a one-way affair, Mark.
And the Jews did know their God first and they say that we don't know their God at all. On the other hand, the One we call our God they say was an impostor.
We not only stole and then "adopted" their scripture and their God, but we even redefined their own vocabulary and concepts involved, including God. Comparing what we did to them and what the LDS did vis-a-vis Christianity is a joke.
And now we call them our elder brothers? Do you really think they see watered-down Judaism mixed with Platonism and Aristotelianism as something they can "relate" to, even consider it "adopted?"
Evangelicals go one step farther than that. Ann Coulter suggested that the Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians (so they, too, can be saved)!
So, how is that better than what the LDS say about us? How would you feel if the Mormons arrogated that we are their elder "brethren" and that there is "hope" for us if we get "perfected" by eventually morphing into one of them?