Pro-Jesus Jews paid Rick Santorum

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So some Jews who converted to Christianity support Rick Santorum. Uh, who cares?

People convert to other religions. Big deal.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Religious freedom includes the freedom to embrace, abandon or change religion. It also includes the right to share your faith with anyone willing to listen.

The notion that if you are ethnically Askenazi then you should or ought practise Judaism [or be an atheist] is nonsense. Religious freedom includes the freedom of persons of Askenazi descent to embrace any religion, including the belief in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Part of the religious freedom of Christians is the freedom to share their faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ to any person whom is willing to listen, including people of Askenazi descent.

Askenazi folk whom have exercised their religious freedom by embracing Jesus Christ don't forfeit their right to organize fellow believers, host conferences or hire speakers. What is being suggested is here is utterly outrageous. The alternative is demanding that Christians shun these people. While some Jews may shun such folks for theological reasons, it makes no theological sense for a Christian to shun another human being for embracing Jesus Christ.

They have every right to do all of that. And the rest of the Jews have every right to dislike them. And evey politician has to understand that by getting closely identified with them, he antagonizes other Jews.

Sure they have the "right" to, just as people have the right to vote against Jewish politicians for that reason or hate Obama and vote against him because he's black. That doesn't make it any less morally repugnant.

So some Jews who converted to Christianity support Rick Santorum. Uh, who cares?

Jews for Jesus are not...typical converts.  They still pray in Hebrew, refer to Jesus as "Yeshua," use an Old Testament-heavy liturgy, and sometimes even still keep Kosher or the Sabbath.  It's...a very weird movement, and a lot of Jews accuse Jews for Jesus of being primarily a kind of conversion plot to trick Jews into thinking that they can accept Jesus and still be Jewish.  "Messianic Jews" would respond by saying that they aren't "Christian" at all, but rather Jews who accept the coming of the Jewish Messiah, and that he was Jesus of Nazareth.

 

This, they really are a conversion plot.  I doubt Santorum would like it if a group people calling themselves Catholics formed a group called Christians for Mohammed and started actively coordinating with Muslim religious organizations to convert Christians to de facto Islam.  Actually...wow...I am trying to imagine the rage that would come from the Christian right if such a group became active all across the U.S.  lol

That's not really a good analogy, since in embracing Islamic doctrines on Jesus they'd be going against the Nicene Creed and Christianity and would cease being Christian. And would obviously not be Catholic since they'd hold views entirely against the Vatican's teachings and papal edicts. A better analogy is some group that would go around preaching that to truly follow Jesus you'd have to convert to Islam and accept Islam teachings on Jesus, since this is kind of what mainstream Islam actually preaches I wouldn't find it anymore "offensive" than standard attempts to convert Christians to Islam.

The fact that Messianic Jews keep Jewish traditions and all doesn't strike me as very important. So basically people are saying it's OK for Jews to convert to Christianity as long as they abandon all Jewish traditions in the process but not if they do it and keep them? That's really quite odd. I should note that it's quite common for people to keep traditions from their old church if they convert, for example people raised in churches that put a big emphasis on Lent might still put a lot of focus on it even if they convert to a church that doesn't, or do the Sign of the Cross if raised that way even if converting to a church that doesn't, and that isn't controversial at all.

And really the only real controversy I see in the Messianic Jewish doctrine is that if they accept all the teachings about Jesus they'd have to accept the New Testament which makes it pretty hard to argue as well that all the Old Testament kosher laws and whatnot are still in effect. But really that's their business not mine, nor do I see it as a reason to vote against any politician supported by them (not that there aren't hordes of other reasons to vote against Santorum.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If you want a Christian analogy, one that might work is those groups that incorporate a lot of Eastern Religion and New Age type practices and still claim to be Christian. I'm sure many evangelicals would dispute that they are Christian, but I doubt someone who converts from a "standard" Christian denomination to one of them would rile any more controversy with anyone that someone who flat out converts from a Christian denomination to Buddhism or some other type of Eastern religion.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I agree that Jews For Jesus are not actual Jews and a somewhat shady group, though ultimately harmless. My real issue is that the type of people that is being speculated this would hurt Santorum of wouldn't respond much better to simple "normal" conversions to Christianity. Someone born in Borough Park who ignored the "Messianic Judaism" nonsense and just became a Presbyterian or Catholic or evangelical or whatever likely would still be ostracized by that community. The idea of "hereditary religion" REALLY offends me, this is kind of a personal issue that hits close to home so I shouldn't go into the details, let me just say it's largely affected by the (admittedly more mild but still there) attitudes in some Catholic communities (not all or even most Catholics fall into this I'll admit, including the ones from my family, but hearing about the attitudes some take like that woman in the hospital who dealt with Nathan's Buddhist relative often quite hits a nerve.) But this isn't the place for that.

And as not even being a Republican it's really none of my business and how it'd affect my vote doesn't matter, sure. And yeah they have the right to think that way, just as people have the right to vote against anyone for being Jewish or vote against Obama for being black. My point is more that people who adhere to this type of thinking are more morally repugnant than Santorum, and that's saying A LOT.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD, I think the thing that really offends Jews is the trade name "infringement" as it were. If the Messianic Jews called themselves something other than Jews, or Jews for Jesus, it would be less of an issue. But it is a free country, and Jews don't have the exclusive legal right to the name, so that is that. It is complicated by the term Jews referring to both a religion and an ethnicity/tribe in common parlance.

Back in the 16th and 17th century, probably many Catholics would have preferred Protestants calling themselves something other than Christian, for that matter.

"Heretics" just are not that popular.

As someone who frequently has to argue about misuse of the word "emo", I can empathize somewhat. Like I said, I agree Jews for Jesus are not actual Jews except in an "ethnic" sense, though they are relatively harmless in comparison to the other right wing evangelical groups with actual influence, like the people who tend to be supporting Santorum, and I'd still consider them more harmless than the Kahanist political machine that supposedly might be offended by it. But I think the question as to how the Hebrew word for "apostates" would be treated is a pretty valid one and kind of begs the question as to if Santorum is better off without these people anyway just like asking if it would be worth it for Hillary to attempt to appeal to racists, or if people in Texas who wanted to oust the former Jewish House speaker would be better off without the people who were clearly opposed to having a Jew in such a position, like that guy who said he got into politics to elect Christians to office (mind you I don't think this is a big issue to them, they didn't seem to mind Sarah Palin.)

I agree that Jews For Jesus are not actual Jews and a somewhat shady group, though ultimately harmless. My real issue is that the type of people that is being speculated this would hurt Santorum of wouldn't respond much better to simple "normal" conversions to Christianity. Someone born in Borough Park who ignored the "Messianic Judaism" nonsense and just became a Presbyterian or Catholic or evangelical or whatever likely would still be ostracized by that community. The idea of "hereditary religion" REALLY offends me, this is kind of a personal issue that hits close to home so I shouldn't go into the details, let me just say it's largely affected by the (admittedly more mild but still there) attitudes in some Catholic communities (not all or even most Catholics fall into this I'll admit, including the ones from my family, but hearing about the attitudes some take like that woman in the hospital who dealt with Nathan's Buddhist relative often quite hits a nerve.) But this isn't the place for that.

And as not even being a Republican it's really none of my business and how it'd affect my vote doesn't matter, sure. And yeah they have the right to think that way, just as people have the right to vote against anyone for being Jewish or vote against Obama for being black. My point is more that people who adhere to this type of thinking are more morally repugnant than Santorum, and that's saying A LOT.

BRTD, your own experience, such as it is, is kind of a ridiculous comparison.  Throughout its history, Judaism and the Jewish people have been pushed to extinction. To start  even at a later period in its history, you could look at the forced diaspora after the destruction of the Second Temple, the forced conversions during the Spanish Inquisition, the hundreds of pogroms or the Holocaust and you will see why the Jewish people are correctly hostile to attempts at conversion. It is a matter of survival.  When there are continual attempts to extinguish your religion or culture, people tend to hold these traditions and heritage even more dear.  It is not just doing a easy flip between a congregation or even sect of Christianity because you disagree with an aspect of a church's teaching.

There's a huge difference between attempting to annihilate one culture and someone from that culture simply abandoning it. You don't strike me as the type to be screaming about heretics from Irish families who abandon Catholicism even in a cultural sense, and you obviously can go on quite a bit about oppression of Catholics in Ireland and discrimination against the church. The fact that some Irish apparently would (for example I'm thinking of some of the things Supersoulty said about his family) is part of what caused that massive distaste for Catholicism I'm known for, or my mom mentioning that she had several (but all dead now) relatives who were quite bothered by her getting married in a Protestant church, or the story I heard from an old DFL State Rep speaking against the gay marriage amendment by pointing out that not only were interracial marriages illegal in about half the states the year he was married (and the same year Barack Obama's parents were married), but that many members of his Catholic family refused to attend his wedding to his Lutheran wife that was held in a LCMS church. I'm sure you find this as distasteful as I do.

And I doubt anyone in the west would defend the parties in India that want to ban religious conversion despite the fact that Hindus had to suffer under colonialism and a lot of harsh evangelism as well. Or the law in Malaysia that prohibits Muslims from converting to anything else (religious is a legal status of someone in Malaysia and is noted on their state ID card. All other religions are allowed to apply to change it, Muslims can not. And no this isn't just an insignificant thing on an ID card, since Muslims in Malaysia are not permitted to buy alcohol, and Islamic marriage laws would still apply so a woman would not be allowed to marry a non-Muslim.)

One of the pastors at my church is from a Buddhist family of Vietnamese immigrants and she became a Christian in college. Buddhists in Vietnam certainly weren't treated too nicely under Ngo Diem, or the communists for that matter, and it's often a big part of many groups' heritage. I've never heard her talk about it, but it's not a stretch to assume that many in her family were quite offended. If that's true, then I find that repulsive. Most people would. Now if she were from a Jewish family and went through the same background, how would that be any different?

Above all that, there's the fact that the groups in question wouldn't be any more tolerant about "one of them" joining a liberal Jewish movement, as NY Jew's posts have shown.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I suppose you just have to consider this is from the perspective of someone that everyone knows is quite drawn to counter-culture, a bit of a "religion hopper" and has always disliked any type of "tradition" in that sense, and finds few things more offensive than the idea that if your parents are something and they raise you similarly then you have to be that for the rest of your life and that's it. Looking at the vote results of those amazingly still Democratic areas in odd places has sometimes made think "It's cool they vote that way, but it's also quite awful in a way." I should probably note the last name of Aaron and Michael Weiss from mewithoutYou (my favorite Christian hardcore band of all time), you can probably figure out their background from that.

Luckily I was raised in a family that never had any strong attachments to any religion, political party, geographic location, profession, etc. and was simply encouraged to do what you want. But this also means that I have to think from the perspective of someone with a similar mindset born into not so favorable circumstances. And one has to consider to take this to its logical conclusion that to "respect" this churches would have to refuse conversions and refuse to baptize people raised in a Jewish background. That might make Martin Luther happy and be what he advocated, but I don't think that's one position of his that would be too popular today and with good reason. If Santorum instead took the opposite position and said that he believed the Vatican should ban accepting converts from Judaism there'd be as much outcry as if he proposed banning accepting blacks as members.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm not talking about abusive evangelism here (and I can see how J4J would be considered that), but rather the mindset that it's never OK for anyone from a Jewish background to become a Christian (or anything other than Jewish). "It's OK for you to go to that "hipster" church because you were raised Lutheran. But it's not OK for my kids who were raised Jewish."

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I don't have any problem with Jews who decide to convert to another religion (or simply decide they want to be atheists or agnostics).  I have always hated the idea that if you are born a certain religion, than you have to be that religion.

Ah, well then we agree. That was my main concern here, since I doubt the hasids being discussed here agree with us on this. I do agree Jews for Jesus shouldn't call themselves Jews, but I also think Mormons shouldn't call themselves Christians, so it's pretty obvious that I'm not going to get what I want in regards to this stuff.