Survey SAYS!...

An open letter to My followers, by Jesus Christ

Hey everyone, Jesus here. I know I don't usually communicate with you this way, but after I read USA TODAY this week, I knew it was time for me to just come out and put some stuff to you as plainly as possible. I'm usually happy to let you simply analyze My teachings and come up with your own conclusions about what I want from My followers, but, well, let's just say I'm rethinking the wisdom of that whole approach, given how things have gone for the past 2,000 or so years since I left.

People, I'm going to come straight to the point and say that some of you are simply not cutting it as My followers. If you keep it up I'm going to have to sue for defamation of character, or unauthorized use of My name, or some such. Seriously, people, have you seen this recent survey? This thing was conducted by LifeWay Research (Biblical Solutions for Life)- not exactly the kind of outfit with a hidden agenda to defame Christians. Yet it's right there in their findings:

"A full 72 percent of the people interviewed said they think the church ‘is full of hypocrites,’" Stetzer said. "At the same time, however, 71 percent of the respondents said they believe Jesus ‘makes a positive difference in a person’s life’ and 78 percent said they would ‘be willing to listen’ to someone who wanted to share what they believed about Christianity."

Um, excuse me? Seventy-two percent of those polled think the church is full of hypocrites?! Now, I didn't actually author the gospels myself or anything like that, but don't they tend to describe hypocrites as, like, the type of people I completely could not stand? Yeah, I think they do, and yet here American poll respondents are telling YOU, certain members of My American flock, that somehow the guy who despised hypocrisy more than any other guy in, like, all of history, is worshiped by none other than a bunch of hypocrites. Great job, people. Thanks. I'm sure My message of peace, compassion, love and forgiveness- oh, and that other part about don't be a hypocrite- will be really well received by people who think My messengers are a bunch of hypocrites.

Oh, and could you be any more clueless about yourselves? "What is it about the faith we live that causes our culture to like Jesus but reject the church?" asks LifeWay Research Director Ed Stetzer. Try this on for size, jefe: maybe people have a favorable impression of me, Jesus Christ, because I'm, you know, the all-forgiving Prince of Peace, while you and your church are the ones running around separating My Dad's world between those who are "churched" and "unchurched". I mean, duh! I look in the dictionary for the definition of obnoxious, I see a picture of some evangelical "Christian" pounding his version of My message into some poor guy's face. Yeah, what is it about preachy evangelical Christianity that people are completely sick of and fed up with? Yeah, I wonder.

Look, I apologize for being harsh and a little sarcastic. It happens when I lose My temper, but still, My bad. Thing is, though, My message is as important to Me today as it was to Me when I first preached it over 2,000 years ago. I mean, I was flogged and crucified for that message, and don't go thinking that 2,000 years is enough time to ever forget about THAT. Point is, I love you all, I really do, but I have to tell you, you need to find another way. The world has some huge problems, my message was intended to provide a way for people to solve problems though acts of love, forgiveness and selflessness, and yet you're clearly falling down on the job. I mean, the United States is teetering on the brink of recession, for one thing. Think that might have an impact on the quality of life for people around the world? Yeah, so do I, especially poor people. And working overtime to convert non-Christians helps to address this problem how, exactly? Oh, and thousands of people are leaving their homes and streaming into the United States every week in search of a better life. They're called illegal immigrants. Maybe you've heard about this problem? I thought so. Now, flash quiz: ever hear of the Corporal Works of Mercy? Good, then maybe you know the one about Welcoming the Stranger. OK, I know, it doesn't say Welcome the Stranger in there, not word-for-word, but still. How you doing with that one, America?

OK, now I'm rambling. Look, I know that there are four pretty lengthy gospels that you use to read about My teachings. On top of that, if you ever took the time to look you'd find that there are even other versions where I do and say a whole bunch of other stuff they don't tell you about at church every Sunday. For all that has been written, though, I don't think it's real hard to boil My message down to its essence. Someone once asked Me, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" I replied, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

OK, so, to recap: Love God with all your heart and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. The message is simple, but I never said that living it would be. That goes especially for those of you (you know who you are) who think that all you have to do is "get saved" by Me, and then you are basically scott-free from any responsibility for your actions for the rest of your life. Seriously, that is the most obnoxious cop-out and the world's lamest excuse to be a self-righteous load I ever heard of. Talk is cheap, and what I am really interested in seeing are love, forgiveness, and compassion in action. I didn't live and die the way I did in order for people to talk about loving one another. I was hoping to motivate them to actually do it. Oh, and newsflash: when you're running around trying to convert non-Christians, this can actually get in the way of actually loving and relating to them as one human being to another. I don't need you all working to make everyone else a true believer: I need you to work together WITH EVERYONE to make the world a better place FOR EVERYONE.

This week's survey findings and my little op-ed will hopefully serve as a wake-up call for y'all. You know I'm here to help. Just lay off of the conversion angle. Believe it or not, I love everyone, and no, I don't just mean Christian believers. And yes, just so you know, the same goes for my Dad. Lay off of the obnoxious proselytizing and just focus on the core of my message: love God, love your neighbor as your love yourself. You get that down, the rest ought to become a lot clearer.

Peace, love and happiness,

Jesus Christ

(PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This piece not actually written by Jesus Christ.)

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:

Survey: Non-attendees find faith outside church (USA TODAY, January 10, 2008)

Is Christian Proselytizing Linked to Religious Hate Crimes? (ReligiousTolderance.org)

Ex-Jews for Jesus

Maryknoll: The U.S. Catholic Mission Movement

The Squandering of America, by Robert Kuttner

Peace Corps

AmeriCorps

Idealist.org (Action Without Borders)

A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

And so, this is Christmas.
And what have we done?
Another year over,
A new one just begun.

A very Merry Christmas,
And a Happy New Year.
Let's hope it's a good one,
Without any fear.

- John Lennon

Here comes 2008! Of course, as a part of the annual New Year's festivities we'll be inundated by retrospective analyses of the past year. Some such reporting will focus on pop culture and other superficial aspects of daily life, while other programs and commentary will be reserved for the political and cultural events that have had an impact on the daily lives of millions of people around the world.

Looking backwards, of course, is just a part of the process of looking ahead: to best know where you're going you need to be aware of where you're coming from, where you've been. By that standard, it might be fair to say that 2008 has the potential to be a rough year. Instability and division continue to plague communities and societies around the world. The United States is highly polarized around the issues of politics and religious affiliation. Sadly, this seems to be the case elsewhere around the globe.

• The Iraq Surge may have brought some measure of stability to Baghdad, but the divisions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims there have pretty much ensured that the new found calm will not be put to any productive use. The Iraq war will enter its sixth year this coming March.
  
• The Bush Administration's refusal to engage the Iranian government in constructive diplomatic negotiations appears to have led the Iranians to seek comradeship from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Putin's government is now arming the Iranians, apparently as a means to reigniting Cold War animosities with the West.
• Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated earlier this month, martyred for the cause of Pakistani modernity and democracy. With her death, the hope for stability and democracy in Pakistan grows dim, while Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda remain at large and the Taliban regains strength in neighboring Afghanistan. U.S. forces have been in Afghanistan since November 2002.

This is but a mere sampling of the growing threats to peace and stability in our world today. Heck, these are just a few of the examples from one part of our world! Never mind what's happening right here in the U.S. of A. with wages stagnating, millions of Americans who lack medical insurance, and a higher rate of HIV and AIDS infection in Washington, DC, than in some Third World capitals.

Of course, if you only look for stories that are sad and depressing, you will likely experience a 100% rate of success. Thankfully, the same goes for looking for those stories that provide hope. We'll need a good deal of that as we begin 2008. Hope is the motivator to continue to strive for peace and justice when times are hard and the outcome is uncertain. In this year of violence and instability, let's remember that the following things also happened:

• 190 nations agreed to a the terms of the framework under which international policies will be developed and implemented to combat the growing threat of global warming. These will be negotiated during an agreed-upon two-year timetable. (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Bali, December 3 – 14, 2007)
• North Korea and South Korea pledged to work together to forge a lasting peace between the two nations. North Korea also agreed to dismantle its nuclear weapons program by December 31, 2007.
• After three decades of bloody armed conflict and vicious sectarian strife, Catholics and Protestants joined forces to inaugurate the first power-sharing government in Northern Ireland's history as a member of the British Commonwealth.
  

I find that in order to shed the emotional weight that bad news brings, and to soak in the hope that glad tidings bring, it is good to find a quiet place to be still, to contemplate, to listen. It probably doesn't hurt to have a good prayer or two handy to help center my thoughts, to keep me focused. So, as we prepare to leave 2007 behind and begin 2008, I offer you the following prayers to take with you to your own quiet place. Before 2008 ramps up and is off and running, take a few moments to look these over, to think about what you are doing to contribute to peace, love and happiness right where you are. If 2007 is any indication, 2008 is going to need every bit you've got to offer. And, if 2007 is any indication, your efforts can definitely pay off. Happy New Year to you and yours from Unkosher Jesus. Peace be with you.

- Doug L.

Hindu Peace Prayer
Oh God, lead us from the unreal to the Real.
Oh God, lead us from darkness to light.
Oh God, lead us from death to immortality.
Shanti, Shanti, Shanti unto all.
Oh Lord God almighty, may there be peace in celestial regions.
May there be peace on Earth.
May the waters be appeasing.
May herbs be wholesome, and may trees plants bring peace to all. May all beneficent
beings bring peace to us.
May all things be a source of peace to us.
And may thy peace itself, bestow peace on all and may that peace come to me also.

Jewish Prayer for Peace
Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, that we may walk the paths of the Most High. And we shall beat our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation - neither shall they learn war any more. And none shall be afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of Hosts has spoken.

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.

Islamic Prayer for Peace
In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful.
Praise be to the Lord of the Universe who has created us and made us into tribes and nations, that we may know each other, not that we may despise each other. If the enemy incline towards peace, do thou also incline towards peace, and trust in God, for the Lord is the one that heareth and knoweth all things. And the servants of God, Most Gracious are those who walk on the Earth in humility, and when we address them, we say "Peace."

Happy Xmas (War Is Over), by John Lennon (Karaoke Version)


FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:

A Human Approach to World Peace (DalaiLama.com)

Prayers of the Day: Peace (BeliefNet.com)

The Peace Abbey Multifaith Retreat Center (Sherborn, MA)

Community Dialogue (Northern Ireland)

Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (George Mason University, Fairfax, VA)

Mediate.com: Solutions for Conflict

Amnesty International

John Lennon.com

Catholic Church Declares War on Sanity

SATAN, I mean War on Satan. My bad. Anyhow, "Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan," reads Saturday's headline in the Daily Mail. I just don't know what to even say about this one, other than that it has truly been a red letter year for Pope Benedict XVI. First, he reinstates the Latin Mass. Then, he declares that the Catholic Church is the only TRUE Church. Now he's ordering Catholic bishops worldwide to line up "exorcist squads" because, according to head Vatican exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth, "Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist." This need to "hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist" is apparently tagged to a supposed increase in worldwide occult activity, which in turn has been blamed by the Vatican on those who have lost faith in the Church. In its efforts to continue obliterating the legacy of Pope John XXIII, the father of the Modern Church and leader of the Second Vatican Council, the Church is reinstating a particular prayer that had been discontinued as a result of the Vatican II liturgical reforms:


St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

I guess just mark me down under Skeptical on this one. For one thing, the actual need for an exorcist to actually expel a demonic presence is a rare thing indeed. The majority of cases that diocesan exorcists are asked to investigate are ruled to be something other than demonic possession of a human being (and are typically mental-health related behavioral issues). For another thing, unless the Church can put up some hard numeric evidence to prove it, I highly doubt that people are leaving the Church in droves and fleeing into the waiting arms of Satanic occultism. Now, don't get me wrong, people are leaving the Church, but for reasons such as the clergy sex abuse scandal, and for its increasingly conservative positions on social issues such as abortion, gay rights, and female clergy.

Yes, we make house calls.

At any rate, if the pope wants to initiate his own surge against the forces of evil, that's certainly his prerogative. In the meantime, while he is busy making important decisions about Latin liturgy, who is and isn't a Church, and deputizing a whole slew of Catholic GhostBusters, social issues that the Church used to confront head-on continue to plague people and societies across the world. Poverty, the expenditure of tax dollars on exorbitant defense budgets, and the stagnation of wages for working people are but a few of the issues with a direct impact on peace and prosperity that were once of great concern to the Church.

So, the list of Church priorities continues to expand in favor of a narrowing scope of beneficiaries (e.g., liturgical fetishists and the demonically possessed). In the meantime, the peace and justice issues of our times, and those that Jesus spoke most often and most passionately about, are left to others to sort out. Perhaps Jesus' condemnation of his Pharisaic contemporaries applies to today's Church leaders as well:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. (But) these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.

- Doug L.

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE (UPDATED, January 1, 2008):

Pope calls gays a threat to world peace (365Gay.com, January 1, 2008)

A Return to Tradition (U.S. News and World Report, December 13, 2007)

How Exorcism Works (HowStuffWorks.com)

NETWORK: National Catholic Social Justice Lobby

Voice of the Faithful: Keep the Faith, Change the Church

SocialAction.com: An Online Jewish Resource for Repairing the World

Rerum Novarum: The Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor (Pope Leo XIII, May 15, 1891)

The Exorcist (WarnerBros.com)

Ghostbusters (Sony Pictures.com)

Tough As Nails, Dumb As a Bag of Hammers

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Who is the candy-ass who came up with THIS stuff?? Oh, right. Jesus Christ. What a hell of a guy. Those are great sentiments, really sentimental and touchy-feely. Good thing he ain't peddling that hippie peace, love and happiness crap here in the modern-day U. S. of A., though, bub. I mean, it was nice of Jesus to (supposedly) start a whole new religion and all and comments like these certainly had relevance in the pre-9/11 era. But I believe it was George W. Bush who said it best when he commented, "I think we agree, the past is over."

He-Man vs. Jesus Christ? No contest, dude!

Some modern American Christians may be interested in winning your heartfelt conversion, but only after having first administered a down-home, Old Testament-style ass-kicking. Take the GodMen ("Where Faith Gets Dangerous"), the heir apparent to that creepy stadium movement of the 1990s, the Promise Keepers. GodMen "creates an environment familiar with and conducive to the way men are made comfortable and the unique way men interact." Now, there are lots of ways to possibly interpret this, including:

• GodMen is about groups of men gathering together to watch ESPN and soft-core porn as a means to promoting a male-centric brand of spirituality;

• GodMen is about groups of men gathering together to prepare and consume a huge steak dinner, complete with brandy snifters, Cuban cigars, and the dank residue of English Leather heavy in the air; or

• GodMen is a homo-erotic, Jesus-centric version of Fight Club.

Whatever the hell GodMen is, it AIN'T got anything to do with establishing a community of believers whose daily lives are modeled on the teachings of Jesus Christ. You know, with these guys peddling this fabricated macho, Iron John spirituality as a form of Christian fellowship, I think that instead of GodMen what you have are MadMen: "What you are, what you want, what you love doesn't matter. It's all about how you sell it."

GodMen may want to kick each other's asses in the name of Jesus, and possibly yours too, you heathen scum. Not to be outdone, however, Justin Fatica wants you to kick HIS ass- in the name of Jesus.



Um.... OK. Clearly Justin is an evangelist in the mold of the lesser Baldwin brother, Stephen, aka "psycho for Jesus": "I represent the new breed of Christians, baby, that are gettin' ready to kick ass in the name of the Kingdom." So, if you follow Brother Justin or Brother Stephen, kids, looks like you'll be trading in your Jesus sandals for some steel-toe shit-kickers. I'm sure it's all right there in black and white in at least one of the Gospels...

I don't know where these lunatics get off promoting this hyper-aggressive brand of physicality as a form of Christian worship and fellowship, but I don't like it. What good can come of it? I mean, if this keeps up, the next thing you know Jesus' own birthplace in Bethlehem will be the staging ground for a mano-a-mano gang brawl between priests. Oh, snap!

- Doug L.

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:

Justin Fatica, Hard As Nails Ministry (ABC News Nightline, December 17, 2007)

Brad Stine's 'GodMen': Promise Keepers on steroids (MediaTransparency.org, December 24, 2007)

Dude, Where's My Cross? (Salon.com, October 19, 2006)

There's No Way I'm Saving that Guy, by Jesus Christ (The Onion, June 28, 2006)

Cuernavaca Center For International Dialogue and Development (CCIDD)

The Catholic Worker

The Complete Bushisms (Slate.com, edited by Jacob Weisberg)

Arthur Blecher and The New American Judaism

DID YOU KNOW?...

• The American Jewish community is in imminent danger of extinction?
• Judaism, as it is practiced today, is a religious faith tradition that extends back 4,000 years?
• The shtetl of Old World Europe was an idyllic Jewish utopia of shared faith practices, community values and ethnic pride?
• The Jewish people and Judaism as a faith tradition have never entertained any supernatural notions such as angels, demons, Heaven and Hell the way that Christians and others do.
• American Jewish denominations are authoritative forms of Judaism?
• Rabbis are the official leaders of Jewish congregations, as they have been throughout Jewish history?

If you know or otherwise believe these statements, it is likely that you are an American Jew, and even more likely that you are an observant American Jew who is a member in good standing of an Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or Reconstructionist synagogue. If you know or otherwise believe these statements, it is less likely, but still possible, that you are a non-Jew who is still familiar with these statements and accept them as fact. Both of you have one thing in common: you have been on the receiving end of an intensive campaign conceived of and executed by the mainstream Jewish denominations to motivate American Jews to strictly adhere to traditional Jewish practices. Oh, and you have one other thing in common: you're both wrong to believe that any of these six statements is a truthful representation of fact.

This is the central premise of Rabbi Arthur Blecher's new book, The New American Judaism: The Way Forward on Challenging Issues from Intermarriage to Jewish Identity. His book is an revolutionary thunderbolt, issued as a direct challenge to the authority of American denominational Judaism, for it strives to expand the ways in which Jewish identity can be expressed and seeks to bestow full Jewish status upon intermarried and other apostate Jews.

As a rabbi and psychotherapist, Rabbi Blecher (aka, "The Unorthodox Rabbi") has had the opportunity to interact with and counsel many interfaith couples in Washington, DC over the past twenty-five years. Because the choice to marry a non-Jew is actively discouraged by denominational Judaism, Rabbi Blecher has also been called upon to provide counsel to Jewish parents whose children had chosen a non-Jewish spouse and for which they were experience intense emotions of conflict and guilt. He relates one such interaction with distraught parents whose rabbi had recently delivered a sermon excoriating the choice to intermarry:

"There is nothing unusual about a rabbi using guilt and fear to promote attendance at services and classes. Clerics do this sort of thing all the time, and so have I. But when a rabbi invokes the Holocaust- that is pulling out the heavy artillery. Here in my office was the same pattern I have seen in almost everything I have read in English about the Jewish religion. We were talking about Judaism in terms of continuity, authenticity and survival. As I looked at the faces and postures of this couple, as I listened to the intonations of their voices, I instinctively knew that something is amiss with how my colleagues and I go about our jobs as religious leaders. How can a community thrive based upon a discourse of anxiety and guilt and on members who feel defeated and hopeless?"

This insight sparked Rabbi Blecher's journey to re-examine what he himself had once considered to be true about American Judaism and to re-evaluate these beliefs in light of the fact that the American Jewish population is far more diverse than the mainstream denominations are willing to allow or even acknowledge. Blecher sees an American Jewish community that has organized itself around principles that applied to the trauma of displacement experienced by Jewish immigrant communities of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but which no longer have any utility for modern American Jews. The organizing principles of Authenticity, Continuity and Survival became the cornerstones of American Judaism, and have remained firmly entrenched within the community's organizational bedrock, unchallenged by anyone in a position of leadership.

Until now. Rabbi Blecher's empathy for intermarried Jews and the anguish they experience has spurred him to examine and directly challenge what he labels as the one Great Myth of American Judaism: "intermarriage is an enemy destroying the Jewish people." The Great Myth of the Evil of Intermarriage has grown out of six separate myths, which he meticulously deconstructs. A cursory synopsis of this deconstruction is provided below:

Myth #1: American Judaism is Teetering On Extinction
"The myth that Judaism and Jewish identity are endangered in America was born from the trauma of cultural dislocation a century ago. The myth lives on in part because Jewish institutions believe they are essential to the preservation of Judaism in America; and the greater the peril, the more important their role."

In this one sentence, Blecher takes direct aim at scare-mongering as a self-serving tactic used on a daily basis by denominational Judaism. It is a tactic that does not hold up under close scrutiny. Using select statistics, as represented by the National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS), denominational leaders can certainly give the impression that Jewish numbers are declining in America. The 2000-2001 NJPS Report put the American Jewish population at 5.2 million, a decline from its 1990 finding of 5.5 million.

Myth-Buster: Rabbi Blecher counters that the NJPS under-counts Jewish Americans by relying exclusively upon denominational affiliation and a rigid definition of who "counts" as Jewish. As Blecher states, "Jewishness is happening in new places that do not fit the old categories." These include partial Jews raised in interfaith households, people who still claim a Jewish identity even if the American Jewish denominations will not claim them. It also includes virtual online Jewish communities and information centers such as:

• Ladino Komunita

• The Jewish Encyclopedia

• A Torah Infertility Medium of Exchange (ATIME.org)

Myth #2: Judaism is a 4,000 Year-Old Religion
American Rabbis worked to reassure immigrant Jews that the forms and practices of American Judaism are grounded in those stretching back to the dawn of Jewish civilization. Such reassurances enabled and enables the American rabbinate to offer a liturgical product that provides both Continuity and Authenticity, the cornerstones of the Jewish fortress of Survival.

Myth-Buster: Not quite, says Rabbi Blecher. Throughout its history, Judaism and its practice has gone through important transformations from within, oftentimes in response to influences from outside the Jewish community. For starters, he is able to delineate the epochal events that would transform the Judaism that followed each of these:

• The first Kingdom until the Babylonian conquest of Judea in 586 BCE: practices such as shabbat dinner and lighting candles came into existence during the exile period.
• The return from exile and the second kingdom through the year 70 of the Common Era.
• The era of rabbinic academies (rabbinic Judaism), which lasted until the Middle Ages.
• Diaspora Judaism, which was centered primarily in Eastern Europe, and which lasted until the era of Denominational Judaism, which commenced in the twentieth century United States.
  

Jewish civilization has seen many different iterations of itself throughout its 4,000 year history. The Judaism that is practiced today is not the Judaism of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Hebrew Prophets. And that's OK.

Myth #3: The Shtetl = Jewish Paradise Lost
Twentieth century America Jewish leaders have mythologized the Old World village known affectionately as the shtetl. At least it is known affectionately by those who have never had to live in a shtetl. The word shtetl is innocuous enough: it means "town" in Yiddish. As a word, though, it carries a great deal of symbolic and nostalgic weight among Jews who idealize what it represents. In the popular literature on the subject, the shtetl is held up as an idyllic, timeless community of Jews who live in perfect harmony, each knowing his or her role in the community, all bonded by their adherence to Orthodox Jewish rituals and practices. Blecher quotes from The Earth is the Lord's: The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe, written in 1949 by theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel:

But the Jews all sang: the student over the Talmud, the tailor while sewing a pair of trousers, the cobbler while mending tattered shoes, and the preacher while delivering a sermon... The stomachs were empty, the houses were barren, but the minds were crammed with the riches of Torah... Mothers at the cradle crooned: "My little child, close your eyes; if God will, you'll be a rabbi"... (p. 77).

Tevye sings "Tradition" (Fiddler on the Roof)


Myth-Buster: "Writers who idealize the shtetl are highly selective in what they talk about. Their descriptions of the devout husbands and their devoted, long-suffering wives are amplified by intense nostalgia, in contrast to their silence about the other Jews who lived in the shtetl (p. 83)." These "other Jews" included adults who did not marry, married adults without children or who had divorced, homosexual members of the community, and others who lives did not conform with the rigid expectations of Orthodoxy in an enclosed community (which, by the way, was not always so enclosed or even small). The propagation of this myth causes American Jews to idealize and pine for a community that did not actually exist. This in turn gives rise to the unreasonable expectation that such a community could and should exist here in the United States.

Myth #4: Jews Have Always Been a Reasonable, Rational People, Traits That Have Always Been Reflected in Judaism
Modern Judaism does not teach the belief in Heaven or Hell, or in supernatural beings such as angels and demons, or even a Devil. However, modern Jews are led to believe that it was ever thus, as this notion of historic Judaism was in keeping with the rationalist bent of the founders of denominational Judaism. In order for rationality and reason to be accepted as contributing to Continuity and Authenticity, it became necessary to whitewash certain supernatural elements from Jewish history.

Myth-Buster: The need to "protect" American Jews from the fact that their forebears held supernatural beliefs does not exist now, if it ever did. Rabbi Blecher proposes a four-step plan to shed this habit and set the record straight by simply explaining that:

• Jews used to believe in Heaven and Hell, but they no longer do.
• Jews used to believe in Satan, but they no longer do.
• Jews used to believe in magic and divination, but they no longer do.
• American Judaism prefers to understand the world rationally and scientifically. (p. 117)
  

Myth #5: American Jewish Denominations are Authoritative Forms of Judaism
The four American Jewish denominations- Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist- are the authoritative versions of Jewish practice. Smaller, independent communities and fellowships such as minyans, havurot, the Society for Humanistic Judaism and others are merely offshoots of the main four branches.

Myth-Buster: While it is in the best interests of the four principal denominations to be seen and thought of as Judaism's authoritative forms, the fact is that all four of these do not meet the needs of partial/duel-identity Jews and intermarried Jews. For starters, none of the denominations will acknowledge the Jewish identity of any such congregant (and will simultaneously decry the "shrinking" Jewish population). Congregants who are partial/duel-identity Jews and those who are married to a non-Jewish spouse are provided with limited services and status at best. The "purity" model of denominational Judaism does not work in a world where more and more Jews are marrying non-Jews and/or pursuing an interest in other faith traditions in addition to his or her original Jewish heritage. It is not realistic. And those who need Judaic forms that are realistic are looking elsewhere.

Myth #6: Rabbis are the Official Leaders of Jewish Congregations
"Today every Jewish denomination assumes that each of its member congregations is led by one of the denomination's rabbis, and conversely, Americans assume that every rabbi has a congregation. Thus denominational congregations are 'rabbi-centric.'" (p. 149)

Myth-Buster: "This is a radical departure from Old World Jewish practice where the rabbi was not necessarily associated with a congregation, and not every synagogue had a rabbi. The functions of the synagogue and the duties of the rabbi were independent of each other; communities had their rabbis, and communities had their synagogues." (p. 149)

Again, each denominational organization controls their member synagogues to the extent that each rabbi who is considered for a position must be capable of demonstrating fealty to all of the teachings of the denomination- he or she is not an independent actor, as had been the case for rabbis during the centuries leading up to denominational Judaism. This, Blecher contends, is harmful to Jewish congregants, and thus harmful to Judaism itself:

"The harm is that when rabbis- whether by intention or by instinct- make inaccurate claims about the historical facts of Jewish civilization, we undermine our own position in the community. Our ability to serve new generations of American Jews requires us to give up our claims to ancient authority and to accept the fact that our professional role is a modern American creation." (pp. 160-161)

Having exhaustively researched and deconstructed these myths, Blecher's work sets its sights upon building a new American Judaism. Intermarriage is the one important issue at the heart of this goal, as Blecher sees Judaism's response to this phenomenon as critical to the success of any such endeavor. Currently, in order for an intermarried couple to be recognized by their denomination, the non-Jewish partner must at least agree to help raise the couple's children in an exclusively Jewish home, if not convert to Judaism outright. But Blecher cites data that show that at least 30 percent of intermarried couples do in fact raise their children exclusively as Jews, sometimes regardless of whether the non-Jewish spouse convert to Judaism or not.

However, his larger point is that it is completely good and valid to acknowledge the Jewish identity of any Jewish child being raised under different circumstances, in homes that are not exclusively Jewish. American Jewish denominations are completely closing the door on couples and their children for choices that are made today, thus forever forfeiting the benefits they might have accrued from decisions made later in life- for a duel-identity Jew to fully identify as Jewish, for a non-Jewish spouse to convert. The current denominational modus operandi denigrates the choices made by people with mixed-Jewish ancestry. To the extent that they choose to identify as Jewish, Blecher contends that the denominations should encourage this decision rather than cast someone out of the community for being less than 100 percent Jewish.

I have written on the topic of interfaith and duel identity issues here, here and here. In one of the posts I wrote, "It is no irreverence or betrayal to participate fully in the rituals and sacraments of faith traditions different than one's own. Quite to the contrary, Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh sees this as a means to deepening and strengthening one's own spirituality. Exploring the truths taught by many faiths and partaking of the rituals and teachings of other faith traditions s a way of honoring the best values of one's own faith tradition." As such, I truly value Rabbi Blecher's message of expanding the meaning of identity and appreciate the courage it took for him to publish a book that directly challenges the foundational assumptions of the majority of his Jewish contemporaries. The New American Judaism is a rich resource for both the Jewish and the interfaith community, and reverberates with a message of hope and optimism for interfaith couples and other non-traditional Jews.

His work will likely be received with hostility and suspicion by American Jews who remain deeply invested in the perpetuation of the myths he outlines in his book. For those with an open mind, though, The New American Judaism could and should be viewed as a work of creative destruction, an opportunity for American Jews to re-examine those beliefs they hold to be near and true as a means to enriching and strengthening Jewish civilization, to expanding the meaning of identity and community:

"Disassembling myths removes their power to generate apprehension and despair. At the same time, myths endow life with meaning. I believe that recognizing myths for what they are does not diminish their power to capture the imagination or enliven the soul; rather, it provides a way forward. I have written this book with the firm conviction that clearing away myths will reveal a new American Jewish religion whose vitality and diversity far exceed the ability of any institution to contain or any rabbi to define. I offer these pages in the hope they will serve as the beginning of a conversation." So, let's talk. Shalom.

- Doug L.

FOR FURTHER REFERENCE:

Question What You Know about Judaism


The New American Judaism (Amazon.com)

Intermarry and be merry, by Rabbi Arthur Blecher (The Baltimore Sun, December 12, 2007)

"Noah More!" by Ed Case (InterfaithFamily.com, August 9, 2007)

A Positive Response to Intermarriage (Rabbi Mark Goldsmith, Liberal Judaism.org, October 2004)

Jewcy.com

The Half-Jewish Network

Am I a Person or Am I a Jew? (Jewish Atheist blog, July 30, 2007)

Jew vs. Jew (SamuelFreedman.com)

"The Social Disability of the Jew," by Edwin J. Kuh (The Atlantic Monthly, April 1908, TheAtlantic.com)

I-Heart-Shiksas t-shirt (BustedTees.com)