cms@gatech.edu (01/16/91)
[I'm allowing more extensive quotations from the original than I normally would because it wasn't originally posted to this group. --clh] I'm shifting this over to soc.religion.christian because I think more people here are interested in the discussion that people in soc.culture.jewish. In article <1991Jan10.161256.18659@slate.mines.colorado.edu>, japplega@slate.mines.colorado.edu (Joe Applegate) writes: | Though this document will seem to be a list of differances let me say at | the outset that there are numerous agreements between Judaic and Gentile | Christianity. If time and space allows I will go into those at the end. | | 1. Rejection of pagan influances of Gentile Christianity | Messianics totally reject the idolotry which is so prevelant | (particularlly in the Roman Catholic version) in Gentile | Christianity... there are no idols of Mary or even of Jesus | found in our homes and places of worship. There are no idols of Mary or even of Jesus in my Church, either; nor are there any idols of Mary or even of Jesus in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Church wherein I grew up, nor in any other Catholic church, Roman or Anglican, that I'm aware of. There are numerous statues of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, and other saints, including a lovely statue of Saint Francis at my Episcopal Church, but no idols. An idol is a god. We do not worship idols. Idolatry is not prevalent in Roman Catholic or Anglican Catholic Churches, therefore you will have to search for other reasons to reject Catholicism. | 2. Return to the worship practices of the first century believers | Which are by and large very Jewish... the main differance being | the inclusion of a New Covenant reading after the reading | of the Torah... (my standard joke is why isn't the NC reading | in greek...) In both the Roman and Anglican Churches, we first read from the Old Covenant, followed by a second reading chosen from either the Old Covenant or the New Covenant, followed by a reading from the Gospel. I'm glad to see that the Messianic Jews have also returned to the practices of the Ancient Catholic Church by also incorporating such readings in their liturgy. | 3. Return to the feasts that were instituted by G-d | We generally do not celebrate Christmas, Holloween, and other | pagan feasts... we do keep a form of Easter timed to Pesach | (unlike the Catholic easter which is quite pagan), but in | general we keep the same feasts as any other Jew... but perhaps | with a differant understanding. For to us as the angel of death | passed over our fathers homes when he saw the sign of blood upon | the door, so death has passed over us at the sign of the blood | of the Lamb of G-d, the perfect and total sacrifice. | To us the first fruit of the Meshiach's sacrifice is the giving | by G-d of Roch Kodesh to guide us and be one with us. | To us the blowing of the Shofar is the symbol of the coming gathering | of all who claim Y'shua as L-rd, and the time of the redemption | of Israel. | To us Yom Kippur is but a symbol of the final atonement before | G-d by the blood of his S-n, and the final judgement of the world | And to us Succoth is a symbol of the coming dwelling place that | even now Y'shua says he is preparing in his Father's house. | We also believe that with the return of Y'shua, all the world will | keep these feasts... both Jew and Gentile Why you do not celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I do not understand, however, we celebrate Passover every time we celebrate the Holy Eucharist. Easter is a special time when we celebrate the events in the life of Jesus leading up to His Exodus in Jerusalem, that is to say, His Crucifixion and Death, followed by His Resurrection from the Dead. Catholic Easter is Protestant Easter, by every calculation I've ever seen. At any rate, I attended a worship service at our local Messianic Jewish synagogue, and they celebrated Christmas. This particular Messianic Jewish synagogue as the grace (of God, presumably :-)) to celebrate traditional Jewish and the fullness of Judaism Christian holidays in complete harmony. In other words, they don't disassociate the holidays, as you seem to do, one Jewish one Gentile; in this synagogue, both are regarded as Christian, since in Jesus there is no Jew or Gentile, but rather all are one in Christ Jesus. | 4. Recognition that the Gospel is to the Jew first and then to the Gentile | As Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well: Salvation is of | the Jews! | While many Gentile Christians believe that the Church is now | G-d's Israel, we believe with Rav Sh'aul (Paul) that: even so | Israel shall be saved. Therefore we endevor to preach Y'shua | as Meshiach of the WHOLE WORLD... both Jew and Greek... and since | they concentrate so heavily on the rest of the world, we tend | to concentrate on our brothers. This seems to be the first of our agreements. Following are your agreements. | Agreements: | | 1. Y'shua is the S-n of G-d, that G-d, who is an infinate being, allowed a | part of himself to become flesh, dwelt amongst men, and paid the penalty | for sin, though He, Himself, by his nature was without sin, and thus | secured atonement for all men. Now, here we don't agree at all. you say that God allowed "a part of himself" to become flesh. We Catholics (and Protestants, too, I think) believe that Jesus Christ is _fully_ God and _fully_ human. | 2. That slavation is a free gift of G-d, requiring no ritual, no sacrifice, | no bondage to any law... only accepting the free gift of G-d, through | the sacrifice of Y'shua upon the cross of Calvary. Catholics are in complete agreement here. Protestants, as I understand it, believe that the gift of salvation in Baptism must be accepted to be considered valid; in other words, an action on the part of the believer (acceptance) is required for the Baptism to be valid. Catholics believe that Baptism is an absolutely free and unconditional gift of love from God. That's sort of a twist on the faith/works issue wherein Protestants usually take the opposite stance. | 3. That one must be born again... True Christianity can not be born into... | it requires the rationalization that one is a sinner, that no matter how | good one is, it is still as filthy rags... and that the only hope of | redemption lies in the covering that G-d has promised and provided in | Meshiach benDavid. The acceptance of that fact causes one to be born | again... not according to the flesh, which is corrupt, but according to | the Spirit which is incorruptable. | | 4. That the whole of the law is to Love G-d with all your heart, and Love | your neighbor as yourself. | | 5. That Y'shua will return to set up his earthly kingdom in Yerushalaiyim | (though not all "Christians" agree on this one... I have my doubts that | those who reject it are Christian... but that is another topic) | | A larger questiion is: Is Messianic Judaism for Gentiles? | | The first real dispute in the Christian Church was over whether Gentile | believers must convert to Judaism first before becoming Christian. Paul | settled the issue by teaching that a Jew is not one who is outwardly | Circumcised but one that is inwardly Circumcised. In other words, those | who follow G-d and His word are His children! | | So no, I and most Messianics do not believe gentile believers need to worship | in the same manner as us... but I and others do love to teach them the Jewish | roots of Christianity... for true Christianity is very Jewish, because Jesus | and his followers were Jews! | | However, Messianic Judaism is far more palatable for Jews who have accepted | Y'shua as Meshiach in that it isolates them from the pagan trappings brough | into Gentile Christianity by the Romans. My only major dispute with the Messianic Jewish Synagogue I visited was that they exhibited much the same anti-Catholicism as you, Joe. When I told them I was Catholic, they said to me, "Oh, many Catholics have come to our Church and become Christians," a denial, in my mind, of the absolutely free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ given to us in baptism. But, then, many Protestants have similar feelings, so they're not exactly alone, I wouldn't single them out in that area. Much of the problem is misunderstanding and ignorance of Catholicism as well as of the teachings of Yeshua; the most important thing I learned there was that the accent of Yeshua is on the second syllable. | - Joe Applegate - -- Sincerely, Cindy Smith _///_ // SPAWN OF A JEWISH _///_ // _///_ // <`)= _<< CARPENTER _///_ //<`)= _<< <`)= _<< _///_ // \\\ \\ \\ _\\\_ <`)= _<< \\\ \\ \\\ \\ <`)= _<< >IXOYE=('> \\\ \\ \\\ \\_///_ // // /// _///_ // _///_ // emory!dragon!cms <`)= _<< _///_ // <`)= _<< <`)= _<< \\\ \\<`)= _<< \\\ \\ \\\ \\ GO AGAINST THE FLOW! \\\ \\ A Real Live Catholic in Georgia Although not a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court, I am: A Real Live Southern Catholic in the Anglican Communion.