In a message dated 2/4/2004 11:27:49 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Are you saying that Jews (All Jews? Perhaps not.) conflate Christianity > (the system of beliefs based on the life, death and resurrection of > Jesus) with the people who profess that faith. > > Christians come with the same variety as Jews. Some of us are really > fine people who seek to live as Jesus taught and demonstrated. Some of > us are really rotten people who think that our faith is an excuse to > condemn others. Please use whatever influence you may have among your > Jewish friends to debunk the myth that all Christians are Jew-haters. > > We are not. > > I really hate stereotypes. I spend more time than I'd like explaining > that I am a Christian, but not the vile stereotype of a > condemning "God > Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It" cardboard cut-out. But here is the problem. In the past "christianity" was the the state as well as the religion. In most of europe throughout the past 1500 hundred years the state and the religion persecuted and murdered jews from time to time (leaving them alone at other times went it suited their needs). Read some of the great christian thinkers. people like augustine. they are frankly anti-semitic. Augustine was against killing the jews only because he wanted them alive and miserable as a lesson to christians. In the 19th century a jewish child was kidnapped by his catholic nanny and baptised; the pope refused to return him to his parents. Pope Pious stood by while European jews were slaugthered and Italian jews were marched off to concentration camps in front of the Vatican. Jews were murdered and then kicked out of Spain kicked out of England. Starving jews were offered bread if they would convert by franciscan friers etc etc etc etc. Dreyfus was convicted of trumped up charges and the french military did not admit this until 1990 or so. These were the actions of the church and of christian states. Even now the lack of symnpathy for Israel in Europe is hard to swallow especilly when sprinkled with anti-semitic statements. Face it. The Jews have been persecuted by Christians, not all but far to many and by christian institutions. We have earned the right to be nervous about things like passion plays.
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