Hello there
Because of replacement theology everything with even moderate Jewish connections has been changed in the church.
That's not true. For two reasons. First, what has changed is that the church, Jew and Gentile, is not under the Old Covenant Law of Moses which God made solely with the nation of Israel but the church, Jew and Gentile, is under the New Covenant Law of Christ that God has made with all nations, including the redeemed of Israel. The church did not make that change, God did.
God never intended to save the world and convert them to follow Moses. He intended for the Law of Moses to be a means of consecrating and making holy a people through whom He would bring salvation and convert the world to follow Christ.
But second, and on a more worldly aspect, it wasn't the church which literally broke ties with it's Jewish roots, it was the Jewish Pharisaic leaders who officially broke ties with the Christians. There was a lot of anger toward the Christians of Jerusalem and Judaea who refused to take part in the war against Rome and fled Jerusalem to the wilderness city of Pella to escape the siege and its attendant horrors and the final destruction of the city. The Jewish sages who survived the war gathered at Jamnia and officially reconstituted the Sanhedrin first under R. Johanan and then under the partriach Rabban Gamaliel II. The newly reconstituted Sanhedrin began the attempt to salvage the Jewish religion, minus its temple and sacrifical system. Their first decision was to adopt the Pharisaic school of Bet Hillel which would be practiced as "halacha" (Law). They instituted a system of prayers (the Eighteen Benedictions) that would replace the lost ritual of the Temple and which now become the ritual of the synagogue.
Another important decision made at Jamnia was to close the synagogues to all Christians, including Jewish Christians, and bar them from participation in the newly defined Jewish ritual life. In addition, the Sanhedrin introduced among it's Eighteen Benedictions that all Jews were required to recite each weekday three times a day, a curse, or anathem directed against Judaeo Christians and Jewish "heretics," composed by Samuel ha-Katan at the direction of Rabban Gamaliel II. ( Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 2, pages 841-842, Article: AMIDAH; Ibid. Volume 14, pages 815-816, Article: SAMUEL HA-KATAN)
This was the effective "break" between Christianity and Judaism when even Jewish Christians were no longer allowed to attend the synagogue or participate in Jewish life. When Christians refused to participate in the two following Jewish revolts against Rome, the animosity became even worse and with the Christian rejection of "Bar Kochba," who was proclaimed by the Jewish leaders as the "messiah," the break between Christianity and what had now evolved into Rabbinic Judaism was complete.
However, Christianity has ALWAYS recognized and included it's Hebrew roots in the faith, just as it has ALWAYS included the Hebrew Scriptures right alongside the Christian Scriptures as the whole Word of God. And study of the Old Testament Law and the Prophets has been of equal import to Christians from the very beginning. So to claim that Christianity has in any way denied or rejected or broken away from its Jewish roots is patently false. The term "Judaeo-Christian" faith gives full recognition to our roots. What Christianity does reject and has no agreement with is Rabbinic Judaism, the false interpretation and teaching on the Old Testament contained in the body of Talmudic writings that leads men away from the saving truth that Jesus is the Messiah that Moses and the Prophets foretold. But believing as we do that conversion to Christ is only accomplished out of a sincere heart, forced conversions are meaningless acts of violence that any true Christian condemns and rejects and would never sanction or practice.
So while it may serve anti-Christian forces with fodder for their attacks on Christianity to blame "the church" for the break between Christianity and Judaism, the truth is it was that same generation of Pharisaic Jewish leaders that rejected Jesus and waged war against Rome in an attempt to establish by force of arms the messianic kingdom of their own blind imagination that officially broke all ties with Christianity.
There are none so evil as wicked men who gain religious power, whether they be Jew or Christian.
Some people now even say openly that Jesus was not a Jew.
Those same misguided individuals also claim that the New Testament Scripture itself is anti-Semitic. Do you buy that too? Why on earth would you look around and seek out some nut job or cult with perverted doctrines and hold them up as some kind of example of "Christian" bias or hate? I can understand why an unbeliever would do so, it helps to bolster their accusations, but why would a Christian fall for such an obviously biased and unfair assessment? No "Christian" would ever deny that Jesus is a Jew! The Son of David. Of the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, born of the circumcision, a child of the Covenant God made with the fathers, the root of Jesse, the Lion of Judah, the Messiah of Israel ...
There has been so much persecution of Jews in Western Judeo-Christian society that we have a specific name for it, anti-Semitism. From Constantine down through many of the popes, Catholic monarchs, they have made anti-Jewish irrational outbursts.
The term "anti-Semitism" was coined by the German political writer Wilhelm Marr in his book "The Victory of Judaism over Germanicism" (1879) in which Marr advocated the secular racist ideas of Arthur de Gobineau's "An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races" (1853), a very popular book among the German people and the seed of the Nazi supremacy movement. "Anti-Semitism" refers to simple racial hatred without regard to religion, which is why even Jews who were secular, Christian Jews, and even Muslim Jews were still targeted by the Nazis as well, not just Rabbinic Jews, while those of other races who had converted to and were practicing Judaism were not targeted. Anti-Semitism is racial, not religious.
The church, on the other hand, has always stood in opposition to Rabbinic Judaism based on religious grounds and is therefore anti-Rabbinism, meaning opposed to the teachings and practice of Rabbinic Judaism, not anti-Semitic. That is evident even in the periods of persecution such as the Inquisition when not only Jews, but Muslims too were persecuted, and even Christian "heretics" were burned at the stake. The persecution was not limited to Jews (so it was not anti-Semitic) but Jews, Muslims, pagans, and even Christian "heretics" were targeted so the basis was religious, not racial. Had it been anti-Semitic, even Jews who had converted to Christianity would have been persecuted, but they weren't.
But even so, to make such a broad and sweeping condemation of "the church" as being guilty of anti-Semitism is not accurate. There were wicked men who gained positions of power within certain church organizations who used their power for evil purposes, not just the persecution of Jews, but of other religions and even other Christians as well. And there have always been cultic fringe groups who advocate all manner of hatred and perversion of doctrine. That by no means can be taken as a blanket condemnation of "the church," the whole body of believing Christians. Indeed, there were many Christians who opposed the persecutions and helped Jews, Muslims and fellow Christians, even at risk to their own lives. Even in the Catholic Church there were Popes who tried to protect Jews, such as Pope Innocent IV.
To make such a broad and sweeping judgment of all Christians by accusing "the church" of anti-Semitism is just as grossly unfair and hateful as making the broad and sweeping judgment that "the Jews" are guilty of deicide, a charge that is grossly false and equally hateful. It is people with shallow minds who cannot make the distinction between wicked leaders who do wicked things and those countless innocents whose hands are not stained with the wicked deeds of their leaders. And in modern Christendom, the Jewish people and nation of Israel has no better friend or more fierce defender than the American Protestant Evangelical Christian. Reality is never so simple that you can just willy nilly tar an entire religion or race or nation with the same brush. Practice a little of the rational thinking and simple discernment that God has given you and don't make such broad and sweeping statements, and reject the views of those people who do.
As a Christian we should always temper our comments to only condemn those members of church or religious organizations or sub-gropus within the larger whole that are actually guilty of hatred and violence and not become a tool of the anti-Christian propaganda that unjudiciously condemns "the church" as a whole. Haven't we learned that lesson from history? The Jewish people were not responsible for the death of Jesus, multitudes mourned and wept and lamented as they lined the way that led their Messiah to that bloody hill. It was the Jewish religious leaders on whose heads the blood of Jesus rested because they loved their positions of power more than God. But when the Jews revolted against the Romans those same Jewish authorities paid the price for their evil and were every single one slain by the people themselves for the traitors and sell-outs that they were.
Perhaps we shouldnt judge people for what dates they celebrate things on, however we should admit why these things are so.
"Admit why these things are so" based on what evidence? Your say-so? I'm sorry, but your say-so cannot refute Scripture, history, and 2000 years of Christian belief and practice.
In Christ,
Pilgrimer
