Replacement Theology and Anti-Semitism

[muffler dragon]

I wanted to open a thread to discuss the nature of Replacement Theology, and how it plays a role in anti-Semitism. I shall give a definition of said doctrine, and then demonstrate how it leads into anti-Semitism.

I make one request: in the attempts to rebut my statements and sources, I ask that you utilize BOTH statements AND sources. We are not here to discuss opinions ONLY. If you refuse to follow my one request, then you can expect silence.

Replacement Theology is also called Supersessionism. It is a "New" Testament doctrinal belief that has no support in the Tanakh (i.e. "Old" Testament).

Here are some definitions of Replacement Theology:

http://www.familybible.org/Articles/Jewish-ChristianRelations/ReplTheo.htm

For those who are not familiar with the term “Replacement Theology,” it is the heretical teaching that God, Who cannot lie and Who never changes, has arbitrarily cancelled the “everlasting covenants” that He made with Avraham, Yitzhak, and Ya`akov, and with “their descendants forever,” and has transferred those promises to the Gentile “church.”

http://www.therefinersfire.org/replacement_theology.htm

Replacement Theology was introduced to the Church shortly after Gentile leadership took over from Jewish leadership. What are its premises?

Israel (the Jewish people and the land) has been replaced by the Christian Church in the purposes of God, or, more precisely, the Church is the historic continuation of Israel to the exclusion of the former.


The Jewish people are now no longer a "chosen people." In fact, they are no different from any other group, such as the English, Spanish, or Africans.


Apart from repentance, the new birth, and incorporation into the Church, the Jewish people have no future, no hope, and no calling in the plan of God. The same is true for every other nation and group.


Since Pentecost of Acts 2, the term "Israel," as found in the Bible, now refers to the Church.


The promises, covenants and blessings ascribed to Israel in the Bible have been taken away from the Jews and given to the Church, which has superseded them. However, the Jews are subject to the curses found in the Bible, as a result of their rejection of Christ.

And finally, from wikipedia, because everyone loves wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replacement_theology

Supersessionism is the traditional Christian belief that Christianity is the fulfillment of Biblical Judaism, and therefore that Jews who deny that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah fall short of their calling as God's Chosen people.

Thus, according to supersessionism, the Jews are either no longer considered to be God's Chosen people, or their proper calling is frustrated pending their acceptance of Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah.

I am inclined to believe that it is obvious from this small amount of information that Replacement Theology is anti-Semitic. I realize that this is simply an opinion. So, the next section will be sources that share this opinion.

According to www.m-w.com, anti-semitic has the following definition:

: hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group

hostility is defined as:

1 a : deep-seated usually mutual ill will b (1) : hostile action (2) plural : overt acts of warfare : WAR
2 : conflict, opposition, or resistance in thought or principle
synonym see ENMITY

*of which I will be utilizing number 2.

and discrimination is defined as:

1 a : the act of discriminating b : the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently
2 : the quality or power of finely distinguishing
3 a : the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually b : prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment <racial discrimination>

*of which I will be utilizing number 3.

I will go in reverse order this time, and start with wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semitism

Anti-Judaism in the New Testament
Christian theological anti-Semitism was stimulated by the New Testament's replacement theology (or supersessionism), which taught that with the coming of Jesus a new covenant has rendered obsolete and has superseded the religion of Judaism.

I also would like to show how this situation has been continuous throughout the last 2000 years.

All Western Christian sects and denominations have held some version of this belief, which has served not only as the explanation for why believers in Christ should not become Jews, but is also the rationale for attempting the conversion of Jews to Christianity.

http://www.yashanet.com/library/antisem.htm

Jews could convert to Christianity, and were encouraged to do so. However, Christians were forbidden to convert to Judaism.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_pers1.htm

722: Leo III outlawed Judaism. Jews were baptized against their will.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/luther-jews.html

What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blaspemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must pratice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengenance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:


First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly - and I myself was unaware of it - will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.


Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.


Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. (remainder omitted)


Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuternomy 17 [:10 ff.]) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although Moses clearly adds: "what they teach you in accord with the law of the Lord." Thoses villains ignore that. They wantonly employ the poor people's obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew 16 {:18], "You are Peter," etc, inducing us to believe all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he forfeited the righ to teach.


Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let they stay at home. (...remainder omitted).


Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God's blessing in a good and worthy cause.


Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]}. For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm

Hitler's anti-Semitism grew out of his Christian education. Christian Austria and Germany in his time took for granted the belief that Jews held an inferior status to Aryan Christians. Jewish hatred did not spring from Hitler, it came from the preaching of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers throughout Germany for hundreds of years. The Protestant leader, Martin Luther, himself, held a livid hatred for Jews and their Jewish religion. In his book, "On the Jews and their Lies," Luther set the standard for Jewish hatred in Protestant Germany up until World War II. Hitler expressed a great admiration for Martin Luther.

http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_AHitler.htm

....the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 11, precisely echoing Martin Luther's teachings]

http://www.sympatya.co.il/holocas5.htm

A doctrine going back to the early Church fathers, suppressed after the Holocaust, had been revived under the influence of the Middle East conflict. This doctrine is called replacement theology. In essence, it says that the Jews have been replaced by the Christians in God's favour, and so all God's promises to the Jews, including the land of Israel, have been inherited by Christianity.

To the majority who have absorbed replacement theology, Zionism is racism and the Jewish state is illegitimate.

The hostility to Israel within the Church is rooted in a dislike of the Jews.

Church newspaper editors say that they are intimidated by the overwhelming hostility to Israel and to the Jews from influential Christian figures, which makes balanced coverage of the Middle East impossible. Clerics and lay people alike are saying openly that Israel should never have been founded at all. One Church source said that what he was hearing was a 'throwback to the visceral anti-Judaism of the Middle Ages'.

A number of prominent Christians agree that a line is being crossed into anti-Jewish hatred. This is manifested by ascribing to every Israeli action malevolent motives, while dismissing Palestinian terrorism and anti-Jewish diatribes; by the belief that Jews should be denied the right to self-determination and their state dismantled; by the conflation of Zionism and a 'Jewish conspiracy' of vested interests; and by the disproportionate venom of the attacks.

Christian revisionism has revived replacement theology. 'This doctrine was key in fanning the flames of the Holocaust, which could not have happened without 2,000 years of anti-Jewish polemic,' he says. After the Holocaust the Vatican officially buried the doctrine, the current Pope affirming the integrity of the Jewish people and recognising the state of Israel. But, according to Andrew White, the doctrine is 'still vibrant' within Roman Catholic and Anglican pews. 'Almost all the Churches hold to replacement theology,' he says.

The Bishop of Guildford, who is consistently hostile to Israel, shares the view that the Jews have no particular claim to the Promised Land. Christianity and Islam, he says, can lay equal claim. And although he says that Israel's existence is a reality, his ideal is very different. A separate Palestinian state would be merely a 'first step'.

Stephen Sizer, vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water is a leading crusader against Christian Zionism. He believes that God' s promises to the Jews have been inherited by Christianity, including the land of Israel. 'A return to Jewish nationalism,' he has written, 'would seem incompatible with this New Testament perspective of the international community of Jesus.'

In this post, I have shown the basic tenets of Replacement Theology. I have shown through out the centuries of Christendom that this belief still exists, and that it promulgates anti-semitism.

m.d.

 

[brightlights]

Jeremiah 31:31-34

 

[muffler dragon]

Jeremiah 31:31-34

and?

present something besides a Scripture verse or at least with it, like an opinion

 

[ObbiQuiet]

Very interesting. I really have nothing else to add, other than mentioning that I'm currently testing the effects of large amounts of taurine.

 

[muffler dragon]

Very interesting. I really have nothing else to add, other than mentioning that I'm currently testing the effects of large amounts of taurine.

Obbi:

I'm disappointed. I was honored to have you come and visit my post, and then you deride it as "bull".

Any chance you'd come back and tell me why you feel that way with some substance?

 

[ObbiQuiet]

Obbi:

I'm disappointed. I was honored to have you come and visit my post, and then you deride it as "bull".

Any chance you'd come back and tell me why you feel that way with some substance?

Uh... what?

I found the idea that replacement theology promoted anti-semitism to be interesting. I didn't think it was bull.

 

[muffler dragon]

Uh... what?

I found the idea that replacement theology promoted anti-semitism to be interesting. I didn't think it was bull.

OH!

My mistake.

I looked up taurine at www.m-w.com:

: of or relating to a bull : BOVINE

I thought you playing with words, and calling my post bull.

Where's that sheepish smiley when you need it.

Sorry.

 

[ObbiQuiet]

Ah, no. Taurine is the main ingredient in energy drinks.

 

[muffler dragon]

Ah, no. Taurine is the main ingredient in energy drinks.

Cool. Thanks for the clarification.

Hence, the difference between an adjective and a noun...

Which www.m-w.com also has if I had looked under "noun"

: a colorless crystalline cysteine derivative C2H7NO3S of neutral reaction found in the juices of muscle especially in invertebrates, nerve tissue, and bile

 

[vajradhara]

Namaste M.D.


thank you for the post.

that was well researched and sourced.. good job.

i suspect, however, that you will find a paucity of responses.

in my point of view, Replacement Theology makes as much sense as milking the horn on a cow.

 

[brightlights]

and?

present something besides a Scripture verse or at least with it, like an opinion

Well you say that God will never abolish his covenant and make a new one, right? God says in Jeremiah that he will, though. How do you take that verse?

 

[muffler dragon]

Namaste M.D.


thank you for the post.

that was well researched and sourced.. good job.

Namaste V (btw, what does namaste translate to?)

i suspect, however, that you will find a paucity of responses.

That may very well be true; however, I caused quite a stink on another thread regarding this very topic. So I'm waiting to see if those other individuals involved will bring their arguments here.

in my point of view, Replacement Theology makes as much sense as milking the horn on a cow.

LOL!

 

[brightlights]

Namaste V (btw, what does namaste translate to?)

It roughly translates to: "The perfection in me bows to the perfection in you".

 

[muffler dragon]

Well you say that God will never abolish his covenant and make a new one, right? God says in Jeremiah that he will, though. How do you take that verse?

I wasn't sure if this was the direction you were going to take or not. That's why a few comments are helpful.

Jeremiah 31 talks about the reNEWing of the Mosaic covenant with G-d and Israel. As you note: the Torah (Law) remains the criteria of the covenant.

One point of interest: chadosha is the word used for "new" in the Jeremiah passage. This is the exact same root word for the word new that is used in "New" Moon. Therefore, I ask: "Does the Moon recreate itself from scratch every 28 days?" The answer is, "No". Therefore, what is the similarity? The similarity is that just as the Moon renews (or refreshes) it's orbit every 28 days; so will the covenant between G-d and Israel will be renewed. Same moon (same Torah): different cycle (different time). Do you understand?

 

[muffler dragon]

It roughly translates to: "The perfection in me bows to the perfection in you".

Wow! I don't think I'm worthy to make that statement. Not a whole lot of perfection going on here.

 

[vajradhara]

Namaste MD,

thank you for the post.

Namaste V (btw, what does namaste translate to?)

its' an ancient Nepalese greeting made with the palms pressed together, held in front of the chest. it's a bit difficult to translate into English.. the best that i've seen is thus:

i bow to the divine in you. when you are in that place in you and i am in that place in me, there is but one of us.

That may very well be true; however, I caused quite a stink on another thread regarding this very topic. So I'm waiting to see if those other individuals involved will bring their arguments here.

ah... didn't realize that this was an expounding of another thread topic. as such, perhaps it will generate the interest that it deserves. however... this is going to be a rather difficult thread, i suspect. in a very real sense.. if someone is upholding the RT view, they are implicitly admiting their anti-semetism. few beings enjoy being called a bigot.. even when that is a correct lable to apply.

 

[brightlights]

I wasn't sure if this was the direction you were going to take or not. That's why a few comments are helpful.

Jeremiah 31 talks about the reNEWing of the Mosaic covenant with G-d and Israel. As you note: the Torah (Law) remains the criteria of the covenant.

One point of interest: chadosha is the word used for "new" in the Jeremiah passage. This is the exact same root word for the word new that is used in "New" Moon. Therefore, I ask: "Does the Moon recreate itself from scratch every 28 days?" The answer is, "No". Therefore, what is the similarity? The similarity is that just as the Moon renews (or refreshes) it's orbit every 28 days; so will the covenant between G-d and Israel will be renewed. Same moon (same Torah): different cycle (different time). Do you understand?

I get what you're saying, but obviously I don't accept it . When was this renewal of Mosaic law fulfilled? Unless you can prove me wrong using hebrew, it seems to be saying that God will "make" a new covenant. The word usage for "new" doesn't bother me that much. What is being said in the "make" part? Is it really talking about renewal of an old covenant. A "new moon" is like the last "new moon", is it not? God says in Jeremiah that the new covenant will not be like the old covenant.

 

[muffler dragon]

Namaste MD,

thank you for the post.



its' an ancient Nepalese greeting made with the palms pressed together, held in front of the chest. it's a bit difficult to translate into English.. the best that i've seen is thus:

i bow to the divine in you. when you are in that place in you and i am in that place in me, there is but one of us.

Namaste. (What more needs to be said?)

ah... didn't realize that this was an expounding of another thread topic. as such, perhaps it will generate the interest that it deserves. however... this is going to be a rather difficult thread, i suspect. in a very real sense.. if someone is upholding the RT view, they are implicitly admiting their anti-semetism. few beings enjoy being called a bigot.. even when that is a correct lable to apply.

Alas, you speak of the fire it caused (as though you were there). I realize that this is a rather incendiary topic; however, I wanted to address it openly and with substantiation. I am not going to label anyone as an anti-semite. I am simply showing what this doctrine breeds and has bred for 2000 years.

 

[muffler dragon]

I get what you're saying, but obviously I don't accept it .

As would be expected.

When was this renewal of Mosaic law fulfilled?

Does it appear that the Torah is written on the hearts of men? It will be fulfilled when the criteria are met. This is a big reason as to why Jesus crucifixion has no bearing on the "New" Covenant. The criteria are not fulfilled.

Unless you can prove me wrong using hebrew, it seems to be saying that God will "make" a new covenant. The word usage for "new" doesn't bother me that much. What is being said in the "make" part? Is it really talking about renewal of an old covenant. A "new moon" is like the last "new moon", is it not? God says in Jeremiah that the new covenant will not be like the old covenant.

It won't be like the Old Covenant in how it was disobeyed.

 

[brightlights]

Does it appear that the Torah is written on the hearts of men? It will be fulfilled when the criteria are met. This is a big reason as to why Jesus crucifixion has no bearing on the "New" Covenant. The criteria are not fulfilled.

I actually learned a very cool truth in Romans chapter 7 that may be of interest to you:

1. The Nation of Israel had a relationship with God much like a marriage in OT times. It is actually compared to a marriage in many places in the OT. In Jeremiah, God is constantly telling Israel that by worshiping false idols they are committing adultery against God.
2. Two ways to void the contract of marriage biblically are:
   • If one party commits adultery
   • If one party dies
3. The traditional punishment for adultery laid out by God was death.
4. From my perception and interpretation, it seems that God allowed divorce so that the punishment of death could be overlooked. This, I believe, is perhaps symbollic of Israel's adultery against God. God had mercy and never destroyed Israel completely for their sin. Perhaps this was God's divorce?
5. In Romans 7, Paul tells us that we were once in bondage to sin (he is referring to times pre-new covenant). He compares it to the contract of marriage.
6. Paul also says that we died in Christ. We were crucified with Christ. He equates this to marriage as well. This death serves as freeing us from our former contract -- bondage to sin.
7. We now are able to establish a new contract with God since we are free from enslavement to sin. Paul tells us that under this new contract we are slaves to righteousness.

Now, I'm still figuring this out. It might not make any sense, so forgive me if I'm talking crazy.