Last night at Rosh Chodesh we did something odd for a bunch of Jews. We talked about Jesus. Don’t worry — I’m not converting, but it was a really interesting conversation. I have a weird relationship with Christianity, and since I’m married to a Christian — that’s not really comfortable for me. The problem is mainly that I feel like Christianity is shoved down my throat on a daily basis, and that the majority of the Christians I meet who are religious or have a strong faith — think I’m wrong about, well, everything.
My reaction may not be fare. It’s based on not only my personal encounters, but frankly the group that calls themselves “Jews for Jesus” or “Messianic Jews.” I realize that they are only a small amount of the Christian population. My other experiences come primarily from the media. So far as I can tell faithful Christians, especially evangelicals, pretty much want me to accept Jesus or die trying. My faith, my experiences, my history, my culture, and my encounters with God are worthless meaningless and frankly wrong — according to them. Needless to say, this puts me more than a bit on the offensive. I do have a couple of Christian blogs that I’ve been reading for a while. They are progressive Christians, who I seem to share a lot in common with. Different roads, but the run parallel from time-to-time.
So back to last night’s conversation. One of the things I realized is that I can read Buddhist teachings, Muslim teachings, Hindu teachings, and all manner of Pagan teachings with dispassion and learn from them. I’m not converting to any of those faiths or practices, but I can see them all and appreciate their value to those that are called to walk that path. I can’t do that with the Gospels, and that pisses me off.
Now, here’s where things get a little weird. For some reason this morning, I decided to type in an old college friend’s name into Flickr. This is someone I have seen or spoken to since about 1993. We spoke once after I graduated, but still it’s been around 12 years since I’ve had any contact whatsoever with this guy. Now, to be entirely honest, this guy was my college crush. So imagine my surprise when I actually did find him on Flickr. Then comes the fun part of that experience — following the connections. I clicked on some links and found his blog. Well, my old college crush who I have spoken to in 12 years is a an evangelical Christian seminary. How odd that another person from my small program in college should have had a calling to faith and he’s a blogger. Not just someone who occasionally posts something, but a blogger who shares his story to engage in conversation.
I started reading his blog (no, I’m not sharing the link) and a few that he comments on and found some beautiful voices of Christianity that I could actually have a conversation with. hhhmmmm……. I believe that the Divine works in VERY mysterious ways.
She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy is every one that hold her fast.
עץ חיים היא למחזיקים בה ותמכיה מאשר
Proverbs 3:18
These subtle connections that tie everything together — that’s God. Seeing and working with those connections — that’s magick.
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I’m a Jewish/Christian. I say Jewish because it’s my bloodline. I wasn’t raised as one. As a consequence, I feel as though part of my identity has been denied to me. No, I won’t convert. I refuse to be a hypocrite about it.
Anyway, my point is, I agree with you a 100%. I belonged to a Southern Baptist church many long years ago and they nearly destroyed me. I now worship at home. I can’t stand “religion” being shoved down my throat. The gag reflex takes over.
I’m glad you were able to track down your former crush. I’m also glad you were able to find people you could communicate with through his site.
P.S. I wasn’t sure about my Jewish heritage until about 10 years ago. All I had to do was look at pictures and my own mother and youngest brother.
Not only that, her older brother was a POW during WWII. Had he been circumcised, the Germans were going to kill him.
I had a difficult time dealing with the Christian theology that I grew up with, and part of my moving away from it was to actively and mentally rebel against it. After a while, this became a hindrance rather than a help. I now look at the entire set of scriptures as a set of stories, rather than an absolute guidebook for my life. Because, see, it just didn’t fulfill the “guidebook” niche in my life. My life did not fit the proscriptions, either. The fact that the prophecies had been misquoted and/or in some cases assigned double meanings to fit into Jesus’ life — that didn’t help me to deal with it. But I started out trying to combine it with other things, and then proceeded to try to refute it. None of this was very natural. It was a very artificial process of trying to quantify my religion in some way and take out elements that weren’t reacting in the right way or something. Eventually, I got to the point where I can wear my mustard seed cross with my pentacle. Because if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can move mountains. Or so Jesus is recorded as saying.
Having a dialog with Christians can be difficult but I think it’s easiest when you do what you’ve done — have a relationship with an actual Christian not trying to deal with Christian theology in general. I’ve never been able to crack that nut unless it’s involved with some fairly radical perspectives (for Christians) like Matthew Fox’s Creation spirituality.
As always, I appreciate the responses. I have to say, I’m really enjoying the pomomusings.com site. The writing is very interesting and insightful. I’ve even been joining in the conversations and it inspired a post for me!