Radio Replies Volume One: The Religion of the Jews

They were God's chosen people until the coming of Christ, and they could have been among His chosen people now, had they remained true to God. God did not change in His attitude to them; rather they changed in their attitude to Him. They had been taught to look forward to the Redeemer. But when He came they rejected Him because they wished Him to bring them temporal, not spiritual gifts.

Man has always had a religion taught by God. But this religion falls into four great divisions:—

1.—The religion of Adam, who was instructed immediately by God. This was the first stage, and is known as the religion of innocent man.

2.—After Adam's fall, Adam handed on to his children the truth about God, and the duty of worshipping Him. Thus Abel offered sacrifice. The traditions were transmitted by Adam's posterity, but memories faded. Still, conscience always dictated what was naturally right, and this period could be called the period of natural law. However, God gave occasional revelations to various individuals, such as the Patriarchs, over and above the natural law, and this stage is often called the period of the Patriarchal religion, or the period of pre-Mosaic unwritten law.

3.—The third stage came with Moses. After the re-multiplication of the human race from Noah, men again began to forget God, and God gave to Moses a clearer exposition of religious duties to be put into writing. This is known as the stage of the written law, or that of the Mosaic religion.

4.—Finally God sent His own Son to give the more perfect law—the Christian law—which the Catholic Church teaches today in its fullness, and will teach till the end of time.

Noah belonged to the second of these four stages, that of the Patriarchal unwritten law.

169. Why did God delay the sending of His Son with the perfection of the law?

The delay was adapted to mankind's natural methods of progress from the less perfect to the more perfect. It taught the human race its need of God from sad experience. It brought out the real dignity of Christ which could thus be heralded by a long series of prophets. God is not so impatient as man. He is quite content to wait for an acorn to become an oak tree, rather than create all oak trees immediately.

170. Christ was a Jew, and practiced the Jewish religion. Why would He establish another religion when the religion of God was already in existence?

As stated above, God gave the true religion to mankind gradually, so that men would be prepared by more simple doctrines for still more noble truths. Thus He sent Moses the lawgiver, and after him a series of prophets to explain the law and to predict the coming of the Messiah. Christ fulfilled these predictions and taught the perfect law of God. The religion known by the Jews before Christ was therefore but imperfect and preparatory. The religion of Christ was its perfect fulfillment, and the Jews should have recognized and accepted it. They did not, and then Christ sent his Apostles to preach it to the Gentiles. Christ did not therefore establish another religion. Christianity is the perfect development of the Jewish religion, just as the perfect tree is the perfect development of the seed from which it grew.

171. Can you show from Scripture that Christ intended this perfect development of the Mosaic religion to be distinct from the religion of the Synagogue?

Yes. Referring to the future, Christ said, "I will build my Church." The Synagogue was already established. Christ prescribed new doctrines, new modes of worship, and a new form of authority. He even predicted to His Apostles, "In the Synagogue you shall be beaten." Mk. XIII, 9. The intended distinction of His Church from the prefigurative Synagogue is most clear.

Christ retained all the basic laws of religion and morality contained in the progressively revealed Jewish preparation, abolishing only the particular rites and ceremonies which were purely figurative, and also the imperfections of the initial religion.

173. If Christianity is the true development of the Jewish religion, why is it not the religion of the Jews today? Why did not the Jews accept Christ?

Many individuals did. As a race the Jews did not. This was not because Christ did not sufficiently prove His mission, but because the leaders of religious thought, and the teachers of the people had lost the true religious spirit, had selfishly transferred their affections to a love of their own high places, and had substituted the idea of a magnificent temporal ruler for the idea of a spiritual Saviour. They wanted deliverance from the tyranny of the Romans, and help to trample upon them in turn. Since Christ did not fit in with their earthly notions and ambitions, the leaders rejected Him. The majority of the people, dependent upon the Scribes and Pharisees for religious direction, obeyed these leaders, their own fears, and their national pride. The first members of the Christian Church were individual Jews chosen by Christ to spread His doctrines among the Gentiles; and this, in accordance with Christ's own prediction in the parable of the great supper, where those first invited would not come. Indeed an earlier warning had been given to the Jews that their birthright would pass to the Gentiles if they did not overcome their attachment to earthly ideals in the incident of Esau's selling his birthright to Jacob. Although Christianity should be the religion of the Jews, therefore, it is not, through their own fault as a race. The modern Jew takes his religion for granted, without inquiring deeply into the question.

174. God treated the Jews unfairly. It must have been difficult to comprehend the teachings of Christ, and He offered them no material benefits.

God did not treat the Jews unfairly. They had every opportunity given them to recognize the truth. Christ offered them the evidence of many miracles in the material order and before their eyes. They could not deny these miracles, but in their bad will ascribed them to the devil. Christ, as promised, came to offer eternal spiritual benefits, the only lasting ones and the only ones which the grave cannot take from us. Had He not offered such benefits, the Jews would have been justified in rejecting Him. But that He did not offer the material benefits He did not come to give, can never justify the Jews in their rejection of Him.

175. If the miracles were so evident, I don't see how the Jews could refuse to accept Christianity?

Many a man knows what he ought to do, but to do it is another thing altogether. The Jews could not honestly deny that Christ was of God, and that His religious teaching should be accepted. Some did accept it; others did not. Even God would not compel these to accept the true religion, and Christ warned them of the guilt in their bad will when He said, "He who does not believe shall be condemned."

Rev. Dr. Leslie Rumble, M.S.C.

"I was brought up as a Protestant, probably with more inherited prejudices than most non-Catholics of these days. My parents were Anglican and taught me the Angelican faith. My 'broad-minded' protestant teachers taught me to dislike the Catholic Church intensely. I later tried Protestantism in various other forms, and it is some thirty years since, in God's providence, I became a Catholic. As for the 'open, free, sincere worship' of a Protestant Church, I tasted it, but for me it proved in the end to be not only open, but empty; it was altogether too free from God's prescriptions."

Eventually, Leslie became a priest of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.

In 1928, Fr. Rumble began a one-hour 'Question Box' program on 2SM Sydney, N.S.W. radio on Sunday evenings that was heard all over Australia and New Zealand. For five years he answered questions on every subject imaginable that had been written to him from all over that part of the globe. His first show began with a classic introduction:

"Good evening, listeners all. For some time I have been promising to give a session dealing with questions of religion and morality, in which the listeners themselves should decide what is of interest to them. Such a session will commence next Sunday evening, and I invite you to send in any questions you wish on these subjects . . . So now I invite you, non-Catholics above all, to send in any questions you wish on religion, or morality, or the Catholic Church, and I shall explain exactly the Catholic position, and give the reasons for it. In fact I almost demand those questions. Many hard things have been said, and are still being said, about the Catholic Church, though no criminal, has been so abused, that she has a right to be heard. I do not ask that you give your name and address. A nom de plume will do. Call yourself Voltaire, Confucius, X.Y.Z., what you like, so long as you give indication enough to recognize your answer."

"By the summer of 1937, the first edition of Radio Replies was already in print in Australia, financed by Rt. Rev. Monsignor James Meany, P.P. - the director of Station 2SM of whom I am greatly indebted."

"I have often been mistaken, as most men at times. And it is precisely to make sure that I will not be mistaken in the supremely important matter of religion that I cling to a Church which cannot be mistaken, but must be right where I might be wrong. God knew that so many sincere men would make mistakes that He deliberately established an infallible Church to preserve them from error where it was most important that they should not go wrong."

Rev. Charles Mortimer Carty

I broadcast my radio program, the Catholic Radio Hour, from St. Paul, Minnesota.

I was also carrying on as a Catholic Campaigner for Christ, the Apostolate to the man in the street through the medium of my trailer and loud-speaking system. In the distribution of pamphlets and books on the Catholic Faith, Radio Replies proved the most talked of book carried in my trailer display of Catholic literature. As many of us street preachers have learned, it is not so much what you say over the microphone in answer to questions from open air listeners, but what you get into their hands to read. The questions Fr. Rumble had to answer on the other side of the planet are same the questions I had to answer before friendly and hostile audiences throughout my summer campaign."

I realized that this priest in Australia was doing exactly the same work I was doing here in St. Paul. Because of the success of his book, plus the delay in getting copies from Sydney and the prohibitive cost of the book on this side of the universe, I got in contact with him to publish a cheap American edition.

It doesn't take long for the imagination to start thinking about how much we could actually do. We began the Radio Replies Press Society Publishing Company, finished the American edition of what was to be the first volume of Radio Replies, recieved the necessary imprimatur, and Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen agreed to write a preface. About a year after the publication of the first edition in Australia, we had the American edition out and in people's hands.

The book turned into a phenomena. Letters began pouring into my office from every corner of the United States; Protestant Publishing Houses are requesting copies for distribution to Protestant Seminaries; a few Catholic Seminaries have adopted it as an official textbook - and I had still never met Dr. Rumble in person.

To keep a long story short, we finally got a chance to meet, published volumes two and three of Radio Replies, printed a set of ten booklets on subjects people most often asked about, and a few other pamphlets on subjects of interest to us.

Fr. Carty died on May 22, 1964 in Connecticut.

"Firstly, since God is the Author of all truth, nothing that is definitely true can every really contradict anything else that is definitely true. Secondly, the Catholic Church is definitely true. It therefore follows that no objection or difficulty, whether drawn from history, Scripture, science, or philosophy, can provide a valid argument against the truth of the Catholic religion."

Biographies compiled from the introductions to Radio Replies, volumes 1, 2 and 3.

Source: www.catholicauthors.com

This line of pernicious thought is called Replacement Theology and has been challenged time and time again as being gravely in error. First and foremost it supposes that God is willing to break his Covenants. And that would deny the value and meaning of a Covenant in the first place. In Deuteronomy, it was cast that the Jews would proceed into error after error and pain and suffering through the ages. This list of blessings and curses is weighted heavily on the curse side, but this is all in accord with God's will.

So to claim that God would break his Covenant and forsake those who he nurtured to bring his faith to the world is bizarre. Worse, the concept of grafting Christianity onto the root of Judiasm as opposed to the tree makes no difference to the issue that if the root were to ever disappear, then the grafted limbs would die as well.

Instead, Christianity developed to provide a path where non-Jews might reach out and learn and practice the way of God's will.

These scholars don't suppose that Jews have fallen from God's grace out of animus per se, but rather out of ignorance. For any person may become a Jew, but it takes a lifetime and the commitment is binding not just to that individual but on the generations that follow and God, happily accepts Christians just the same, as he does all of the Righteous. For Jew or not, we are all equal in his sight. Jews know this and they are commanded to treat the stranger as well or better than any member of the community.

Nevertheless, words like these are used to justify that Jews are lesser people and hated by God and those who take this evil into their hearts pass it along and ultimately, must pay the price for the horror that is created.

Gonzo, you say you don't necessarily agree with this but feel obliged to post it. Fine, but a lie repeated is often worse than the lie itself. Consider only repeating the truth, this is much more valuable.

It should be clear from 173, that God did not break the Covenants, the Jews did, by rejecting Christ.

Dear friend, if you look at the text of the Covenant between God and the Jews it in no place mentions accepting a Jewish Carpenter as their Messiah. In fact, in no place inside of the cannon of the Torah is a Messiah mentioned in any form.

Believe me, this path only leads to disillusionment for Christians. Replacement Theology is pernicious and evil. This is not God's way.

In fact, lets listen to Jesus of Nazareth's words on this subject.

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that [Jesus] answered them well, he asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?"

Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'

The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

Then the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that 'he is one, and besides him there is no other'; and 'to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,' and 'to love one’s neighbor as oneself,'—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."

This is the core of Jewish faith and the wall that bars us from ever accepting an intermediary, for this is a promise each Jew makes at the foot of Mt. Sinai for themselves directly to God in his presence. Jews may fall or falter, but God willing these are the last words on our lips, Shema Israel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad.

Build as you would like on this foundation but you can not build anything unless this foundation stands.

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The Religion of the Jews

Rev. Dr. Leslie Rumble, M.S.C.

Rev. Charles Mortimer Carty

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The Radio Replies Series: Volume One

Chapter One: God

Chapter Two: Man

Chapter Three: Religion

Chapter Four: The Religion of the Bible

Chapter Five: The Christian Faith