The State Religion of the 50s and being marginalized.....

[Ivy]

Melanie's thread on the "Lord's Prayer" reminded me I wanted to mention this. When I was growing up, and perhaps others here too,
I now realize we actually did have an unofficial "state religion" of protestantism in my area of the south. Not sure if it was different from other places at the time, but the public schools actually did have children say the lord's prayer, have religious program themes for holidays, etc. Choirs would sing Christian religious songs. As a cofc child I often felt a bit ashamed (now we'd say "marginalized") because we weren't supposed to participate in those denominational activities nor were we to fraternize with denominational people while doing them, lest someone be led astray. Then there were the JW and Catholic kids.....the Jewish kids I'm sure were totally underground during all of this, as would have been anyone of a totally non-Christian faith. If they were there, they were extremely quiet about it.

Edited to say that it was Grace's thread, not Melanie's. My apologies to Grace and Melanie for the error.

[agricola]

Same experience here. Maybe I was especially clueless, but until I was in my mid-teens, I did not actually KNOW that there were still Jews in the world at all (I certainly didn't think about it much I guess). I had the distinct impression from church that 'the Jews' pretty much disappeared from history around - oh, maybe about 70 or so? In the first century at least. All the good ones were Christians anyway, right? I had a profound disconnect, by the way, between what was real history in church, versus what was 'history' in school. I do know that. I was totally astounded when I discovered the trivial information that 'Damascus' was an actual real city that people could go to and see, with an airport and everything. In my head, it existed solely as Paul's destination, a dusty middle eastern city of stone and dust.

That shook the foundations of my world: at that time, I suddenly realized consciously that I had put 'church history' into some kind of insulated box, separated from actual world history. Suddenly, my two worlds collided in the existence of Damascus as an actual place. I don't think I ever truly recovered, although I suppressed it for several more years.

Anyway -
People who are in a majority faith in an area and who have never been challenged about it, though, don't understand how pervasive their 'religious' lives are in the lives of the entire community, and how hard it is to exist and survive when that dominant religious tradition is defined as 'normal'. It automatically defines every faith or non-faith outside that as 'abnormal' almost by definition. I think the JW's have it rough especially, but their kids get the same kind of church-first training we got (maybe even more) with a real 'us against the world' attitude.

Around here it's LDS though, with a dollop of Roman Catholic. But certainly in the South I grew up in (50's and 60's Tennessee) the clear winner in the religion realm was Protestant Christianity.

[Ivy]

But certainly in the South I grew up in (50's and 60's Tennessee) the clear winner in the religion realm was Protestant Christianity.

Thank you agri. Yes it was.

Looking back helps to reinforce, for me, the need for clear boundaries between church / religion and state. People should be free to engage in their religious tradition/s without feeling worried about government intrusion.

[Lev]

Thanks, Ivy, for your post. One thing it points out to me, in addition to the hegemony of protestantism in the American South, is the ecumenism of the majority of protestant denominations. The COC, of course, takes a pass on all this ecumenism. To me that's one of the biggest failures of the COC--the unwillingness to associate with other Christians as brothers and sisters. So much rich dialogue can (and does) happen when Christians of various denominations communicate with one another as equals. That dialogue is happening now and it's rich. The COC just chooses to sit out.

Agri, did you ever visit Damascus?

Lev

[agricola]

Never did. I was invited to a wedding once that was held in Lebanon, but I wasn't able to go. I've been on 'the road to Damascus' (which is currently a nice paved highway) but only in the Israeli section of it.

Right now is not a good time to be touring in Syria, though.

[williamray123]

We said the Lord's prayer before lunch in public kindergarten. (1975)

Regarding the comment that agricola said about not knowing the Jews were still alive - I have heard from CoC preachers that none of the Jews alive today are "real" Jews - they are ashkanazi (sp?) Jews from eastern Europe - just converts. I actually owe them because the sermons I heard about "God is done with Israel and the church is Israel now" made me study the actual word and find out the prophecies of Israel from 2500-3000 years ago are coming true in our time. The restoration of physical Israel and Jerusalem is one of the most common themes of the old testament. The CoC loves to read the verses about Israel being destroyed and scattered, but conveniently ignores the verses about their regathering and restoration, and the verses that say Israel will never be destroyed fully or cease being a nation to God.

[KLP]

Deciding who is and isn't a real Jew or recognized as a Jew may not be a new idea. The Jews did it themselves both between the Northern tribes and Southern tribes and after they were conquered. Did the Jews considered the northern tribes remnants in Samaria to be Jewish? The ones who returned sort of gave the stink eye to those who had remained. After the Jews returned I thought they had to establish bona fides for temple stuff?

I think the point is that to be a like a Jew of the OT one would/could trace their lineage since being a Jew was based on birth. Does that even matter? So what if there is difficulty proving a physical connection to Abraham? So what if one cannot trace back to Aaron or Levi?

Certainly people claim and identify as Jews today and they suffer as Jews and have a certain culture recognized as Jewish and follow as they can the Jewish religion. It no longer is so much about a provable tracing to Abraham it would seem... but it is assumed their is a connection and identification as such since they are of the recognized culture of Jews. What makes one a "real" Jew? Is it the birth connection or the way of life connection?

[williamray123]

Deciding who is and isn't a real Jew or recognized as a Jew may not be a new idea. The Jews did it themselves both between the Northern tribes and Southern tribes and after they were conquered. Did the Jews considered the northern tribes remnants in Samaria to be Jewish? The ones who returned sort of gave the stink eye to those who had remained. After the Jews returned I thought they had to establish bona fides for temple stuff?

I think the point is that to be a like a Jew of the OT one would/could trace their lineage since being a Jew was based on birth. Does that even matter? So what if there is difficulty proving a physical connection to Abraham? So what if one cannot trace back to Aaron or Levi?

Certainly people claim and identify as Jews today and they suffer as Jews and have a certain culture recognized as Jewish and follow as they can the Jewish religion. It no longer is so much about a provable tracing to Abraham it would seem... but it is assumed their is a connection and identification as such since they are of the recognized culture of Jews. What makes one a "real" Jew? Is it the birth connection or the way of life connection?

That is another line of discussion ... but the point I heard the CoC preacher make is that NONE of the current Jews are actually Jews. Claimed the inhabitants of Israel are not really descendants of Abraham and therefore, had no claim to the land.

[agricola]

I've heard that argument. Genetic studies disprove that, by the way. Most 'ashkenaz' Jews can reliably be proven to originate in the middle east, and share much of the same dna as other near and middle eastern peoples - despite centuries of residence in European lands. Were there converts from the surrounding European people into the Jewish communities? Sure. Just like there were conversions from the Jewish communities into the broader European population over time.

Judaism is the faith expression of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people are an ethno-cultural group which is not 'closed': that is, it accepts newcomers into the people and they become part of it. Anybody who self-identifies as a Jew and can show EITHER personal conversion OR line of descent, is considered Jewish. Such a person may or may not 'practice' the faith. (We've recently had a thread about whether a Jew by birth who positively converts to a different religion can be considered to be still a 'Jew' or not. Generally speaking, yes but a 'bad' one. Legally speaking (for the nation of Israel, the current political entity) conversion to Christianity (and only to Christianity so far) is enough to put such a person outside the fence.)

Most people who pull the 'ashkenazi Jews aren't 'real' Jews because they are all of them converts' are a) lying, purposefully or out of ignorance and b) spreading an antisemitic canard to the public.

It's also silly - for one, it can be shown to be wrong (DNA doesn't lie) and it ignores all the Jews of the Sephardic (Islamic -ruled areas) world, who ALSO exist and who make up at least half the Jewish population of Israel - and what about the Jews who never LEFT Israel in the first place, but can show through existing legal documents and family tradition that they've basically been there all along? There ARE some, actually - not a huge percentage of the population, but they do exist.

(P.S., since the Sephardic Jewish world fully accepts the Ashkenazi Jews as legitimate Jews - doesn't their opinion have some weight? The two communities have intermarried relatively often over the centuries, and have always kept in touch.)

[KLP]

I would assume that it is fairly safe to say the bulk of those identifying as Jew are probably descended from Jews. I am not aware of any that can show what tribe they came from. Is it not the case that the Northern tribes split off and were not exactly warmly embraced by the Jews who came back from captivity? I would assume these folks also have DNA that shows them to be "middle east" but that in no way means they are Jews or were accepted as Jews by the returning Jews. My point being as it was before, that among the Jews there was (and still is) a habit of saying who is and isn't a "real" Jew. This notion is not a recent CofC invention.