The One Sided Nature of Jewish and Christian Dialog

reply to post by sk0rpi0n


to start off, in generalities, not all Christians adhere to the TP.

Secondly, as a Christian, I do believe that the restoration of Israel was prophecy fulfilled. However, it doesn't mean we think everything is dandy. The prophecy tells us that Jews would return to their land. Prophecy also says essentially they its going to be a secular nation.

The more alarming thing is the rebuilding of the Temple and re-instigation of the old Jewish customs of sacrificial law. This doesn't happen today, and so although prophecy was fulfilled, it is not complete.

reply to post by FaceLikeTheSun

. . . as a Christian, I do believe that the restoration of Israel was prophecy fulfilled . . .

I am not awair of there being anything in the New Testament that would lead me to the belief that this is in fact prophesied, so I don't see how you take this belief as being a natural consequence of being a Christian.
Also I don't see this as being a fulfillment of anything regarding "Israel", since I would have to see all the tribes being represented, when we see basically one, namely Judah.

"Christian" Scholars Group

In 1969 the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches sponsored a study group on Christian-Jewish relations. The Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops co-sponsored the group. This became the Christian Scholars Group.

The National Council of Churches and the Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations soon realized that they could no longer support the group. The Group was subsequently funded by the National Council of Christians and Jews and the Sisters of Sion.
Source

The "Statement to Our Fellow Christians" was issued in 1973. I'll quote a few select passages:

1
The Church of Christ is rooted in the life of the People Israel...The ministry of Jesus and the life of the early Christian community were thoroughly rooted in the Judaism of their day, particularly in the teachings of the Pharisees. The Christian Church is still sustained by the living faith of the patriarchs and prophets, kings and priests, scribes and rabbis, and the people whom God chose for his own.
2
Christians can also enrich themselves by a careful study of post-biblical Judaism to the present day...
3
...For our spiritual legacy and for all that the Jews have done for the whole human race we Christians are grateful to God and to the people whom God has chosen as a special instrument of his kindness.
4
...The continuity of contemporary Judaism with ancient Israel demonstrates the abiding validity of Jewish worship and life as authentic forms of service to the true God.
6
A major source of friction in contemporary Christian-Jewish relations is Christian hostility and indifference to the State of Israel...
7
The validity of the State of Israel rests on moral and juridical grounds...that modern Israel is the homeland of a people whose political identity is sustained by the faith that God has blessed them with a covenant.
9
...As a result of its military triumphs in the Six-Day War, the charge is sometimes made that Israel is belligerently expansionistic... Christians must refrain from the type of criticism that would use Israel's failures, real or imagined, to live up to the highest moral standards as an excuse to deny its right to exist. Such a view would be a double standard, one not applied to any other nation on earth.
11
...an underground antisemitism surfaces from time to time in various forms and disguises. New Left literature has excoriated the Jews not as Jews but as "Zionists." Antisemitism, however, is a difficult virus to counteract.
13
...Christians...ready and willing to stifle rumors about the Jews and to build up an atmosphere of brotherly understanding in Christian-Jewish relations.

This statement sounds very much like official hasbara. What is being taught is Dual Covenant.

Dual-covenant theology is a Liberal Christian view that holds that Jews may simply keep the Law of Moses, because of the "everlasting covenant" (Genesis 17:13) between Abraham and God expressed in the Hebrew Bible, whereas Gentiles (those not Jews or Jewish proselytes) must convert to Christianity or alternatively accept the Seven Laws of Noah.

Many forms of Christianity, especially Conservative Protestants, consider this view to be heresy. Alternative Christian views are that the Law of Moses has been superseded or abrogated. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1967, "The Law of the Gospel "fulfills," refines, surpasses, and leads the Old Law to its perfection."

Number 2) of the "Statement to Our Fellow Christians" of 1973 states "Christians can also enrich themselves by a careful study of post-biblical Judaism to the present day.." But once you read the Talmud, you will realize that a very central element of Christianity, saying "Jesus is Lord" violates the Noahide Law, therefore Christianity must be abandoned, in accordance with the statements of Maimonides.

Is it any wonder then that the National Council of Churches found it necessary to de-sponsor the Christian Scholars Group?!!

Whereas the "Christian" Scholars Group statement was chock full of praise for "God's Chosen People" and "the people whom God has chosen as a special instrument of his kindness", the National Council of Churches' statement is very much different.

Message on Honoring the Sacredness of Religious Others:
Reaffirming our Commitment to Positive Interfaith Relations
Adopted by the General Assembly, November 10, 2010

We believe that the Church, as the body of Christ, is to be a transformative presence for building peaceable communities in the world. This calling makes it imperative to demonstrate respect for all people. Every person is created in the image and likeness of God and, therefore, possesses the inherent dignity and worth that comes from being God’s child.

Hopefully, people can see the vast difference between the two statements.

I know some Jewish people and the ones I know are good regular people. I am not really friends with them because we run in different circles. I don't know much of the Israel Leaders either, I suppose they are like the leaders of other countries with a lot of power. I just don't think the Jewish people are going to stand up and fight against Satan if he shows up. Sorry but unless there are some other Jewish people around I can't see it happening. Maybe the Jews have flying saucers stashed somewhere or Devil blasting technology that we haven't seen. The Jewish people I know don't even like fighting.

reply to post by rickymouse

I know some Jewish people and the ones I know are good regular people.

You said it, "good regular people". People have an amazing way of actually being better than their religions or cultural upbringing would have them be. Yaaay people

As for fighting Satan (whoever that may be, usually regarded as anti-people), by being people like any other people, they are fighting "Satan". That's my opinion.

The Oxford University Connection

Oxford University, located in Oxford, UK, is the second oldest surviving university in the World, very prestigious, to put it mildly. It is also host to the top academic Jewish Studies center in Europe.

Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies

The Centre is the leading academic Jewish studies centre in Europe and provides most of the Hebrew and Jewish studies tuition at the University of Oxford.

The Centre receives no funding from the government or from the University. That means that both existing and expanding programmes depend on funds we raise from generous individuals, trusts and foundations.

...The Centre’s financial strategy is fully to fund the existing Fellows’ positions and also to fund new posts in core areas in Jewish studies.

The Centre offers a unique resource as an academic centre of excellence and as a global hub for new Jewish thinking.

The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies is a Registered Charity No. 309720

The American Friends of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies is a tax-deductible organization within the United States

So not only are the student tuitions mostly paid for through this center, but also the Fellows' positions. An academic "fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded fellowship to work together as peers in the pursuit of knowledge or practice." (wikipedia-fellow).

Also, at Oxford is the Robert Maxwell Fellowship in Politics "founded in 1965 by I. Robert Maxwell, MC." (Balliol College, Oxford University Calendar entry, 2003-2004)

You can read all about I. Robert Maxwell, (MC) in Wikipedia

On 5 November 1991, at the age of 68, Maxwell was presumed to have fallen overboard from his luxury yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, which was cruising off the Canary Islands, and his body was subsequently found floating in the Atlantic Ocean. He was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
. . .
Shortly before Maxwell's death, a former Mossad officer named Ari Ben-Menashe had approached a number of news organisations in Britain and the United States with the allegation that Maxwell and the Daily Mirror's foreign editor, Nick Davies, were both long-time agents for the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad. Ben-Menashe also claimed that in 1986 Maxwell had tipped off the Israeli Embassy in London that Mordechai Vanunu had given information about Israel's nuclear capability to the Sunday Times, then to the Daily Mirror. Vanunu was subsequently lured from London to Rome by Mossad, where he was kidnapped and smuggled to Israel, convicted of treason and imprisoned for 18 years.
. . .
Maxwell was given a funeral in Israel better befitting a head of state than a publisher, as described by author Gordon Thomas:

On 10 November 1991, Maxwell’s funeral took place on the Mount of Olives Har Zeitim in Jerusalem, across from the Temple Mount. It had all the trappings of a state occasion,... No fewer than six serving and former heads of the Israeli intelligence community listened as Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized: "He has done more for Israel than can today be said" (Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, St. Martin's Press, 1999).

Now back to A. Roy Eckardt, charter member of, and driving force in The Christian Scholars Group, until his death in 1998. In a previous post, he was mentioned as the man responsible for the idea that the New Testament was directly responsible for the Holocaust.

Here's what can be learned from his obituary:

Roy Eckardt, 79, a Pioneer In Christian-Jewish Relations
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Published: May 09, 1998

Roy Eckardt, a leading scholar of Christian-Jewish relations and chairman emeritus of religion studies at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa....

Dr. Eckardt, a clergyman in the United Methodist Church...

In frequent letters to newspaper opinion pages, Dr. Eckardt spoke out against Christian teachings that he found anti-Semitic,...

In 1979 President Jimmy Carter named Dr. Eckardt a special consultant to the President's Commission on the Holocaust and from 1981 to 1986 he served on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council as special adviser to the chairman, Elie Wiesel.
. . .
...He was a senior associate fellow of the Center for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies and a Maxwell Fellow at Oxford University.

As mentioned by various posters on this thread, when Jewish foundation money and Israeli agent money goes to pay Christian clergy, something not quite Kosher can be suspected.

I think that it would only be fair, since Dr. Eckardt blamed the Apostle Paul for the Holocaust, that the Apostle Paul should have a chance to say a little something.

This was because of the false brothers secretly brought in, who stole in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage; Galatians 2: 4 WEB

reply to post by pthena

I went ahead and read the Wikipedia article on Maxwell and find it quite frightening how apparently Zionist agents are propelled ahead of their competitors to become successful in order to be in positions of influence to effect events in favor of Israel. You can be sure there are many other examples that will not become clear until other future deaths of these people, when they will be out'd.

In 1979 President Jimmy Carter named Dr. Eckardt a special consultant to the President's Commission on the Holocaust and from 1981 to 1986 he served on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council as special adviser to the chairman, Elie Wiesel.

First of all, why should there be such a thing as a "President's Commission on the Holocaust"?
Second, Elie Wiesel is a very unsavory character who Diana Spingola had a couple shows on where he claims to be a Holocaust survivor but has been proven to be a complete fraud who stole someone else's story and said it was him.

reply to post by jmdewey60

quite frightening how apparently Zionist agents are propelled ahead of their competitors to become successful in order to be in positions of influence to effect events in favor of Israel.

That's rather apparent.

First of all, why should there be such a thing as a "President's Commission on the Holocaust"?

Remember when the Americans rounded up all those people during WWII and put them in camps based on their nationality? And . . . Oh! No that was the Japanese.

Well remember when the white Americans almost succeeded in wiping out all of the indigenous people in North America? I guess there isn't as much political will and capital investment behind remembering that. Maybe if some one could make a link between that and "the existential plight of Israel" . . . but no, that could only raise sympathy for Palestinians. Woops. "Better to just not remember it then"

Elie Wiesel is a very unsavory character who Diana Spingola had a couple shows on where he claims to be a Holocaust survivor but has been proven to be a complete fraud who stole someone else's story and said it was him.

You do realize how extremely helpful it would be if you could actually cite something to support that? As far as claiming some one else's identity, all that I can find is Wiesel's glowing endorsement of The Painted Bird

Wiesel also played a role in the initial success of The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski by endorsing it prior to revelations that the book was fiction and, in the sense that it was presented as all Kosinski's true experience, a hoax.
en.wikipedia.org...

The Armenian Holocaust is a very good example of politicizing and weaponizing history. Sometimes Israel is in favor of remembering it (when they want to punish Turkey), and sometimes they favor forgetting all about it (when they want something from Turkey) here's an example:

Conversely, he withdrew from his role as chair of the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, and made efforts to abort the conference, in deference to Israeli objection to the inclusion of sessions on the Armenian genocide.[15][16]

[15] Finkelstein, Norman G. (September 2003). The Holocaust Industry. Verso. p. 69. ISBN 185984488X. (2nd edition)
[16] Novick, Peter (1999). The Holocaust in American Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0395840090.
en.wikipedia.org...

There's an interview of Gilad Atzmon, author of The Wandering Who,
on Gnostic media.
part 1.
www.gnosticmedia.com...
part 2.
www.gnosticmedia.com...

At 45 min. into part 2, he says because we are a democracy, we are all complicit if we do not speak out against the wars our countries are engaged in that killed people in the millions that have been going on over the last ten years.

I just bought and downloaded the book because now all-of-a-sudden it is available in Kindle format.

reply to post by jmdewey60

Thanks, I would have missed that completely.

I'm already thinking of another thread I might start, maybe call it, "Is Pathological Narcissism Terminal?: Examination of Tribal Religious Choice"