Happy New Year

Days of Awe

I wish to extend the warmest greetings to those of my friends who are observing the Holy Days of Leviticus 23, the Fall days start tomorrow. Some of my friends who are celebrating these days are Jews, but most of those that I know that are celebrating these days are members of my religious tradition, the Church of God. Tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah, or as I would call it, the Day of Trumpets. In Jewish tradition this begins a period of introspection until the Day of Atonement. For anyone interested in a period of introspection, Pam Dewey has done a study for these "Days of Awe," as they are called, from a Christian perspective. Click here if interested. 

Late next week, I am beginning a series about the Holy Days of Leviticus 23, so there will be less politics, economics and whimsy for the next few weeks, Fear not, the Positive Dennis you all know and "love" will return soon. 

Is It True What They Say About Ann?

Is Ann Coulter Anti-Semitic?

A few years ago, Ann Coulter shocked (what a surprise!) her interviewer, TV host Donny Deutsch. She suggested that Jews should become Christian, that to do so was to perfect themselves. Deutsch was not at all pleased and accused Coulter of being an Anti-Semite.

For the full details follow the link--

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301216,00.html

The whole point of the New Testament is that “Jesus is the way.”

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Thus for a Christian, there is no access to God apart from Jesus. How can pointing that out be such a terrible thing? My guess is that Deutsch may not understand the exclusive claims made by Jesus and the New Testament. Why wouldn't a follower of a religion advocate that religion?

Most religions make mutually exclusive statements. If Christianity is "true" then Buddhism cannot be. I think one thing that may be going on has to do with the “afterlife.” If, as most Christians claim to believe, when non-Christians die they go immediately to be tortured forever in an ever-burning Hell, then one could see that this exclusiveness is a bit of a problem—logically speaking. But if the dead sleep until the Judgment, and that Judgment implies an opportunity for salvation, then it looks a little different.

Pam Dewey in her blog, nondante, discusses this issue with reference to the ultimate fate of Ann Frank. 

Pam has also written an ebook on hell. Is it true what they say about Hell?

Hell no, Ann is not Anti-Semitic.

Anti-Semitism and John Hagee

On a forum I frequent there was a discussion about televangelist John Hagee. I decided to watch him for a period to see for myself what the fuss was about. When he did so, he has made some rather odd statements, and I'll paraphrase them as I did not write down the exact words: "Jesus died on the Cross for Gentiles"; "The Jews did not reject Jesus as Messiah"; and "Jesus did not come the first time to be the Messiah." Maybe Hagee was just being inexact in his wording and did not mean what these statements seem to say! It seemed to me obvious and easy to demonstrate that these statements are wrong.

 John 3:16 tells us who Jesus died for?

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Did the Jews reject Jesus? Romans 9 tells us:

³⁰ What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; ³¹ but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. ³² Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. ³³ As it is written:

   “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble 
   and a rock that makes them fall, 
   and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

Did Jesus claim to be the Messiah? Matt. 16:15-17 tells us

¹⁵ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

 ¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

 ¹⁷ Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 

But perhaps the most disturbing comment by Hagee was this:

"If you criticize the Jew across the street, that is Anti-semitism, and that will send you to Hell."

Yes I see no reason to criticize my Jewish neighbor, for being Jewish, but a blanket inability to criticize someone because they are of a particular ethnic group? That makes no sense. Is Hagee saying that one should not evangelize a Jew? 

It seems to me that if we are hypersensitive on this issue, public discourse is impossible. As an observer of the Seven Day Sabbath and the Holy Days of Leviticus 23 (which many consider to be "Jewish" Holy Days) I am sure that most would classify me as a Judeophile, yet some of the very things that make me a Christian (i.e. Jesus is Lord) are regarded by some as Anti-semitic, as we will see in a future blog post.

If Julie Andrews Married Michael Jackson

We had the DVD Mary Poppins in the mail when we returned from Russia. It’s our last DVD from Netflix at least for a while because of their new pricing. Glynnis Johns had a fun song relating to woman's suffrage—her excuse for abandoning her children to a nanny. The lyrics went something like this: "We love men individually, but as a group they are rather stupid." 

Very funny, and quite true. But not exactly in the way the movie intended. When we humans get together in groups we often lose all sense of morality. In a group we will do things that we never would do as individuals.  I doubt that many of us have a great desire to drop bombs on strangers from 10,000 feet. Or evict widows from their homes. But when we have the state as our master, we do what we are told. 

I do not want to leave you too depressed on this happy Sunday, so I will answer musically the question I pose in the title of this blog post. If Julie Andrews Married Michael Jackson the result might be something like this: