I just want to scream. Because Elizabeth, I desperately want to have faith. To believe in something. I feel like I am missing something vital like an arm because the spiritual is completely divorced from my life. [...] It's like I've been poisoned and I don't know how to heal. Man, I am really digressing here.
*hugs you*
I wish I could plop you into First Church Somerville UCC or something. I'll try to think of some books I can recommend to you.
So many people I encounter in various progressive/liberal Christian contexts come from repressive religious backgrounds, and while obviously I've heard about such traditions before (at a cultural level, I think all of America is aware of the phenomenon of repressive Christianity) it still feels foreign to me. The church I grew up in wasn't great, but it didn't drill real negativity or misinformation into me, and then once I started actively engaging with church I was mostly dealing with progressive/liberal churches. The church I grew up in tended to be fairly apolitical, and the pastor's sermons put me to sleep, so I mostly just absorbed stuff by osmosis (Sunday School was blandly superficial), and since my mom's into meditation and Julian of Norwich and stuff and my dad's an armchair economist/scientist and an atheist/agnostic, there wasn't anything in my homelife discouraging me from asking questions or being skeptical or going off to find my own path.
It's definitely important for me to be reminded that not everyone who grew up Christian had the same sort of religious upbringing that I did.
I still think that even Christianity that is ecumenical and welcoming of the Jewish faith has still appropriated Jewish sacred text. Because even though the Jews were waiting for a Messiah, Jesus wasn't him. Does that make sense? If the OT is largely to be retconned in light of Jesus, doesn't that negate the original purpose?
I think my problem with the language of "appropriation" is that it implies outsiders coming in and taking stuff from a culture that isn't their own -- which, yes, is in some ways what happened as the Jesus Movement spread to the Gentiles, but the NT writers were Jews, and they understood Jesus in a Jewish context.
I don't think "retcon" is entirely appropriate -- because the NT writers don't say, "No, the OT didn't actually say thus-and-such," it's more like they're saying, "We have received new revelations -- through Jesus -- that change our understanding of some of the OT and supersedes some of it." Paul talks about Jesus as being the "telos" of the law, which one can translate as either "end" or "fulfillment." (Though yes, there are some OT prophecies which were arguably specific to a specific historical moment which the Jesus Movement co-opted as Messianic prophecies.)
And yes, Christianity is inherently saying, "The Jews had it right, but they should have gotten on board with this Jesus fellow when he showed up." Since I am Christian I'm inclined to think that Christianity has a fuller understanding of The Truth than any other religion/tradition, though I don't think Christianity entirely understands The Truth, nor do I think that we Christians don't have anything to learn from other religions/traditions. And I can definitely see how that can be offensive to any non-Christian, particularly a Jew. It just frustrates me because it shouldn't be anywhere near as offensive as it so often is.
I'm not sure any of what I said was helpful or clarifying, but definitely feel free to keep asking me stuff or saying more about where you're coming from or what you understand certain problematics to be or whatever.
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Date: 2009-03-26 04:21 pm (UTC)*hugs you*
I wish I could plop you into First Church Somerville UCC or something. I'll try to think of some books I can recommend to you.
So many people I encounter in various progressive/liberal Christian contexts come from repressive religious backgrounds, and while obviously I've heard about such traditions before (at a cultural level, I think all of America is aware of the phenomenon of repressive Christianity) it still feels foreign to me. The church I grew up in wasn't great, but it didn't drill real negativity or misinformation into me, and then once I started actively engaging with church I was mostly dealing with progressive/liberal churches. The church I grew up in tended to be fairly apolitical, and the pastor's sermons put me to sleep, so I mostly just absorbed stuff by osmosis (Sunday School was blandly superficial), and since my mom's into meditation and Julian of Norwich and stuff and my dad's an armchair economist/scientist and an atheist/agnostic, there wasn't anything in my homelife discouraging me from asking questions or being skeptical or going off to find my own path.
It's definitely important for me to be reminded that not everyone who grew up Christian had the same sort of religious upbringing that I did.
I still think that even Christianity that is ecumenical and welcoming of the Jewish faith has still appropriated Jewish sacred text. Because even though the Jews were waiting for a Messiah, Jesus wasn't him. Does that make sense? If the OT is largely to be retconned in light of Jesus, doesn't that negate the original purpose?
I think my problem with the language of "appropriation" is that it implies outsiders coming in and taking stuff from a culture that isn't their own -- which, yes, is in some ways what happened as the Jesus Movement spread to the Gentiles, but the NT writers were Jews, and they understood Jesus in a Jewish context.
I don't think "retcon" is entirely appropriate -- because the NT writers don't say, "No, the OT didn't actually say thus-and-such," it's more like they're saying, "We have received new revelations -- through Jesus -- that change our understanding of some of the OT and supersedes some of it." Paul talks about Jesus as being the "telos" of the law, which one can translate as either "end" or "fulfillment." (Though yes, there are some OT prophecies which were arguably specific to a specific historical moment which the Jesus Movement co-opted as Messianic prophecies.)
And yes, Christianity is inherently saying, "The Jews had it right, but they should have gotten on board with this Jesus fellow when he showed up." Since I am Christian I'm inclined to think that Christianity has a fuller understanding of The Truth than any other religion/tradition, though I don't think Christianity entirely understands The Truth, nor do I think that we Christians don't have anything to learn from other religions/traditions. And I can definitely see how that can be offensive to any non-Christian, particularly a Jew. It just frustrates me because it shouldn't be anywhere near as offensive as it so often is.
I'm not sure any of what I said was helpful or clarifying, but definitely feel free to keep asking me stuff or saying more about where you're coming from or what you understand certain problematics to be or whatever.