God Squad Review LXXXIX (Jews for Jesus)
May 24, 2004 | 4 Comments
The God Squad is a priest-and-rabbi team devoted to downplaying the differences between Christians and Jews. Strange, then, that this week’s column declares that the one impossible religion is the Jews for Jesus:
This is impossible since Jews are people who do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
If you are a Jew, you cannot be a Christian. It’s like trying to be a duck and an onion at the same time.
Ducks are good and onion are good, but you just can’t be a flying onion.
* * *
Despite what the Jews for Jesus or Messianic Jews or whatever they call themselves want to say, the truth is that in this world, you have to choose to be a duck or an onion.
Some choices are just basic and real and true. This is one of them.
The Squad has apparently never seen this recipe for Braised Duck with Onion. As I’ve noted before, there’s no inherent logical contradiction in a Jew believing in Jesus. Judaism isn’t defined by the rejection of Jesus or any other Messiah, and the Old Testament specifically foretells that a Messiah will come. There’s nothing particularly difficult about observing old Jewish traditions while worshipping Christ. The Squad would do better to explore the real contradictions between the divine attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, etc., that plague every religion, than to pretend there’s some sort of metaphysical roadblock to wearing both a yarmulke and a crucifix.
Oddly, the Squad abandons its logical objections when it comes to other divisions within Judaism. People who challenge the matriarchal definition of Judaism don’t get hit with duck-and-onion analogies:
Jewish identity comes from your mother. There are other Jewish views that say that if your father was Jewish, you can be Jewish if you are raised to be a Jew and taught in a synagogue, however, that’s just the opinion of some Jews and is not the general teaching of Judaism.
It’s the opinion of some Jews? Seems to me that if Jewish identity depends on the religion of the mother, it could be just the opinion of some Catholic or Hindu or Muslim who just doesn’t understand the rules. As it turns out, the Squad’s real problem with the Jews for Jesus rests upon other considerations:
People who call themselves Messianic Jews are simply Christians who want to convert Jews to Christianity.
We do not believe in proselytizing other people, but we do accept and bless those who have chosen to convert to Judaism or Christianity.
So the legitimacy of a religion depends, it seems, on its adherents’ willingness to refrain from convincing anyone else that it’s true. Unless they’ve already done so over a period of thousands of years through crusades and inquisitions. Whatever the case, it’s hard to understand which conversions the Squad would bless. If Messianic Jews are Christians, presumably they would bless a conversion to Jews for Jesusism.
* * *
The Squad applies a similar brand of logic in response to a mother whose son can’t receive Communion because he has celiac disease, which prevents him from eating wheat or gluten in any form. After specifically explaining that “[t]he wine becomes the blood of Christ in the Mass and the bread becomes Christ’s body,” the Squad explains advises her that (1) and wine is BOTH blood and body, (2) grape juice is wine, and (3) drinking just blood is enough:
What both you and your son should have been told long ago is that taking the wine counts as if you took both the wine and the bread. The blood counts as if it were also the body. This means you can take Communion by just taking the wine.
When your young son is ready for his first communion, if you do not want him to drink the wine, have the priest consecrate some grape juice for him.
God never intended any Catholic to be prevented from taking Holy Communion just because of a chronic disease.
The blood of Christ will be enough for you and your son to feel and to know the salvation of Jesus Christ.
The Squad doesn’t say what to do if you if you have celiac AND a grape allergy. Maybe there’s some crazy cult you can join that lets you worship Jesus without taking Communion.
May 24th, 2004 @ 11:21 am
HAHA thats funny!
Now if only there were an allergy or disease that prevented one from consuming KOSHER food!
May 24th, 2004 @ 1:22 pm
I’m sorry, I agree with the Squad on this one. Jews universally believe it is blasphemy to worship a human or to claim God-hood for a human. “Jews for Jesus” don’t just accept Jesus as Messiah, they also worship him as God. In doing so, they are violating the biggest Jewish belief of all: only one God, in heaven, not human.
May 25th, 2004 @ 3:37 am
I think anon has a point. Is anyone else still participating here, or not? lol
May 26th, 2004 @ 1:33 pm
All seems a little moot for me, so you beleive in the sky fairy, the sky fairy and his human son / manifestation or a little bit of both, who cares? its all crap anyhow. All it does is show how pathetically misguided these lemming are.