Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: BlackElk; Romulus
I will be back before too long to deal with the specifics

Perhaps I may be of some assistance with the following outline. You could begin with the following quotations from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

839 "Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways." [Lumen Gentium 16]

The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, [cf. Nostra aetate 4] "the first to hear the Word of God." [Roman Missal, Good Friday 13: General Intercessions, VI] The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ", [Rom 9:4-5] "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable." [Rom 11:29]

840 And when one considers the future, God's People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus.

In addition, there is this passage from Mit brennender Sorge:

16. Whoever wishes to see banished from church and school the Biblical history and the wise doctrines of the Old Testament, blasphemes the name of God, blasphemes the Almighty's plan of salvation, and makes limited and narrow human thought the judge of God's designs over the history of the world: he denies his faith in the true Christ, such as He appeared in the flesh, the Christ who took His human nature from a people that was to crucify Him; and he understands nothing of that universal tragedy of the Son of God who to His torturer's sacrilege opposed the divine and priestly sacrifice of His redeeming death, and made the new alliance the goal of the old alliance, its realization and its crown.

Finally, you might wish to discuss the absurdity of the notion that human actions, such as the production of a Red Heifer, or, even, the establishment of the modern state of Israel, could somehow "force God's hand," as it were, and cause Him bring about the End of the Age. The argument usually given in support of this notion relies on a Calvinist understanding of predestination. Philosophically, then, the concept denies causality. You may wish to use this as an example of defective theology actually resulting in harmful temporal as well as spiritual consequences, since it is presently being put forth as a justification for lighting the fuse on the powder keg which is the Holy Land. There is, of course, no guarantee that the looming violence will in fact be the Armageddon of Revelation and not just an enormous human tragedy, but the perpetrators will deny culpability, since they deny as well that they possess free will.

25 posted on 04/20/2002 7:45:11 PM PDT by neocon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies ]


To: neocon
the absurdity of the notion that human actions, such as the production of a Red Heifer, or, even, the establishment of the modern state of Israel, could somehow "force God's hand," as it were, and cause Him bring about the End of the Age.

You have everything exactly backwards. God is Sovereign over all. Bible believing Christians believe that GOD brought about the creation of the modern State of Israel (over the objections of mere men) in order to fulfill the prophesies of Revelation -- not the other way around, as you seem to be stating it.

God prophesied that Israel would go into slavery in Egypt, and then be brought out to a Promised Land. The Egyptians never wanted to give up their slaves, but what God promised, He brought about, regardless of what any Egyptian "Spiritual Leader" wanted, or thought was prudent. Same with the Babylonian captivity. God brought it about, but prophsied He would end it and bring the Jews back to their land, and He did.

God created the modern Israeli state. Not because men wanted it or purposed it, but because He prophesied in Revelation that in the end times Israel would be back in the land, and so they are. God's plan of Redemption unfolds regardless of the folly of mere men. What He wants to happen, happens.

27 posted on 04/20/2002 8:41:21 PM PDT by berned
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies ]

To: neocon; top quark; blackElk; berned; romulus
Today Christians and Jews decry the outrageous passages in the Koran. It would do well for us to consider the New Testament, it's connection to anti semitism and it's consequences.

"The children of the kingdom (referring to the Jews) shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt 8.12)

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold your house is left unto you desolate" (Matt 23.37,38)

"That upon you (Jews) may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias..." (Matt 23.35)

"Then answered all the people and said, his blood be on us, and on our children" (Matt 27.25).

"But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you to councils, and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten" (Mark 13.9)

"He that believeth not shall be damed" (Mark 16.16)

"Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. which of you convinceth me of sin? And I say the truth, why do you not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God" (John 8.43-47)

"Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so you do. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers" (Acts 7.51-53)

"It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you (Jews): but seeing you put it from you and judge yourself unworthy of everlasting life, we turn to the Gentiles" (Acts 13.45-51)

"For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake ... wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men, that turn from the truth". (Titus 1.10-14).

"The Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God and are contrary to all men: forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost". (i Thess 2..14-16)

"Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is an antichrist, that denieth the father and the son. Whoever denieth the son, the same hath not the father" (1 John 2.22,23)

These vicious and treacherous New Testament teachings, have given the impression that the Jews in the time of Jesus were degenerate and cruel and that they are a deicide race. They have been spread by the church for the last two millennia, and have not been rooted out of Christian thinking to the present day. Even those Christian lovers of Israel, only love the Jews in order to save them from the punishment awaiting them for not having accepted Jesus.

Remember, many learn all this in their Sunday school classes at young, impressionable ages [5-10 years old] and grow up with it. How can a Christian really like Jews when the anti-Jewish teachings of the Christian Bible are his or her first teachings at such an impressionable young age?

28 posted on 04/20/2002 9:37:23 PM PDT by HockeyPop
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson