#jewish christians

[madintersexmermaid]

Academia lifestyle coining idea: Nazarene Academia

Tonight I had an idea for a subcategory of dark academia and punk academia: Nazarene academia! Here are the ethos, values and characteristics of it:

A intersecting category of dark academia and punk academia, but a lifestyle and alternative subculture for believers in Christ and with the Christian and Jewish faith, values and spirituality at the forefront.

Also centers restoring, acknowledging and adhering to the Jewish origins and foundations of the faith, and the rich Jewish values, principles, history, ethos and spirituality at the heart of the faith and thus simultaneously honoring the history of the intersecting connections between Christians and Jews.

URGENTLY IMPORTANT: also very crucial to this is acknowledging, respecting, restoring and adhering to the values of acknowledging and honoring the intersecting Jewish and Palestinian Indigenous roots of the faith, and the Biblical, theological, spiritual, scriptural and historical connections between Jews and Palestinians, as the Bible acknowledges in Matthew 2:1 and Matthew 2:22-23 that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea and then, upon being commanded by God to do so, his mother Mary and earthly father Joseph took Jesus to Egypt as refuge from King Herod; then after God struck King Herod down, Mary and Joseph returned to Judea for a brief time until discovering that Herod's eldest son Archaelus had inherited the throne which made Judea unsafe. So Joseph and Mary then went with Jesus to Galilee which is in the town of Nazareth; and Galilee and Nazareth are both in Palestine and the Palestinian territories. So not only did Jesus walk through these territories, he grew up and was raised there, which also fufilled the heavenly divine prophecy that God foretold through His prophets that Jesus would be called a Nazarene. And historical atlas' show that Nazareth and Galilee are located in Palestine. Thus, the Bible affirms that Jesus is Jewish and Palestinian. And Nazarene is the proper Biblical identity for believers in Christ and especially Jewish believers in Christ, as Nazarene is the word scripturally and historically used in reference to Jewish believers, followers and disciples of Christ.

Thus, we as believers in Christ claiming the word Nazarene is honoring the Biblical, scriptural, spiritual, theological, moral, ethical, historical and foundational roots of the faith, the example that Jesus set and continues to set for us, the historical connection between our Jewish and Palestinian ancestors and the much needed solidarity between Jews and Palestinians as well as an act of countercultural resistance against eurowestern right wing conservative capitalist and colonial whitewashing, exploitation, desecration, commodification, watering down and appropriation of the Christian faith, against zionism's capitalist and colonial whitewashing, exploitation, desecration, commodification, watering down and appropriation of the Jewish faith, against these fascist parties' tokenizing of Jews at the expense of perpetuating racist and xenophobic disrespect, erasure and dehumanization of Palestinians along with conservatives' own hypocritical right wing antisemitism, and against extreme liberals' tokenizing of Palestinians at the expense of perpetuating antisemitic bigotry, disrespect, erasure and dehumanization of Jews, erasure and invalidation of Jewish believers in Christ and religious discrimination of Christians.

The following Nazarene academic lifestyle practices and activities: consistently reading the Bible, the Torah, the Talmud, various literature--particularly religious themed literature i.e. such as Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno, The Scarlet Letter, anything by C.S. Lewis, etc.--Jewish literature, Palestinian literature, books on anarcho-Christian studies, etc., taking walks in the park, writing poetry, listening to music and especially Christian music (traditional Christian hymns or modern Christian music artists) and Jewish music (traditional Jewish hymns or modern Jewish artists), visiting libraries and bookstores, visiting Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, journaling, writing down prayers to God, studying, researching and actively practicing earth based Christian and Jewish spiritual rituals (i.e. essential Biblical and scriptural herbs for Christian and Jewish rituals of healing, cleansing, medicinal purposes, reading and practicing traditional Jewish prayers in Hebrew and English, Christian chants and prayers, reading books on Ashkenazi Jewish and Sephardic Jewish spirituality and medicine, learning and understanding Jewish holidays, etc.), collecting religious Christian and Jewish + Palestinian and Palestinian Christian art and iconography, and wearing Christian and Jewish religious symbols such as the Cross and the star of David + the Arabic symbol for Nazarenes, practicing Christian and Jewish veiling, spending time walking in forests or any place where there's nature in order to spend quiet time with God, watching old Hollywood black and white movies and indie arthouse movies, especially movies with faith based messages, etc.

Note: Also, remember that wearing the Arabic symbol for Nazarene is in accordance with the ethos of claiming the word Nazarene for ourselves and to respectfully acknowledge, remember and pray for our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Christ who are caught in the middle of the ongoing crisis in Palestine and are being ignored by the mainstream media and are being persecuted, genocided and martyred by the zionist regime and who died during the Nakba, and to respectfully acknowledge, pray for and remember our brothers and sisters in Christ in Israel, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Syria and other parts of the MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) and SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) regions that are being targeted, persecuted, genocided and martyred by terrorist groups like ISIS, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Any form of antisemitism, antisemitic bigotry, anti Palestinian racism, anti Palestinian xenophobia, or any form of racial discrimination, or gender discrimination, is NOT ok and will not be allowed.

A safe space for believers in Christ--gentile believers in Christ, Jewish believers in Christ and Palestinian believers in Christ.

Remember that this is a lifestyle and a way of living. Christianity is a lifestyle, and a relationship and a way of life that should be taken seriously and done with humility, consistently and with obedience to God. Everything else with whatever hobbies and activities you do, whatever clothes you wear, etc., as part of the academia lifestyle is just a complimentary bonus and even then should be done as unto God. Judaism is also a lifestyle with a rich heritage and foundational backbone for Christianity that must be acknowledged and respected.

[santmat]

According to the Gospel of the Ebionites, Jesus rejected the Passover meal: “I have no desire to eat the flesh of this Paschal Lamb with you.”

“Sacrifices were invented by men to be a pretext for eating flesh.” (Clement of Alexandria)

Jesus Stopping Animal Sacrifice in the Temple

“Go and find out what is meant by the scripture that says: ‘It is kindness that I want, not animal sacrifices.’” (Jesus, Gospel of Matthew 9:13, Good News translation)

Furthermore, in the Ebionite scriptures Jesus condemned animal sacrifice in the temple of Jerusalem and sought to forever bring that practice to an end. The Ebionite or Hebrew Gospel quotes Jesus as saying, “I have come to abolish the sacrifices, and if you cease not from sacrificing, my wrath will not cease from you.” (Panarion 30.16.5)

The Ebionite or Hebrew Gospel quotes Jesus as saying, “I have come to abolish the sacrifices, and if you cease not from sacrificing, my wrath will not cease from you.” (Panarion 30.16.5)

“When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the Temple, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said: ‘Get out of here.’ (John 2:13–16)

The best book on the vegetarianism of the original Jesus movement is, Disciples, by Keith Akers (see Amazon).

[dynamicity-keysmash]

'Tis the season to unpack some stuff about Christmas from a minority perspective:

Christmas is a Christian holiday. The fact that many celebrate it in an irreligious way (which is valid!) does not change its origins, connotations, symbolism, nor what it has historically meant for religious minorities.

The idea that Christmas is "secular" (read: neutral) is a product of Christian hegemony and the blindness of many in Christian countries to the permeation of Christianity as "default" culture.

When someone says they don't celebrate Christmas since it's a Christian holiday, it is not actually reassuring or helpful to say something along the lines of "oh well it's just a secular day of family & presents for everyone! So you can celebrate it too!"

Though the above statement is usually well-intentioned, it is often distressing to hear because it is untrue and is erasing our lived experiences. The reflexive effort to make Christmas universal is a cultural reverberation of the millennia-old evangelizing effort to make Christianity universal, and as such, can be very uncomfortable for religious minorities.

[whereserpentswalk]

The nazis that you see in movies are as much a historical fantasy as vikings with horned helmets and samurai cutting people in half.

The nazis were not some vague evil that wanted to hurt people for the sake of hurting them. They had specific goals which furthered a far right agenda, and they wanted to do harm to very specific groups, (largely slavs, jews, Romani, queer people, communists/leftists, and disabled people.)

The nazis didn't use soldiers in creepy gas masks as their main imagery that they sold to the german people, they used blond haired blue eyed families. Nor did they stand up on podiums saying that would wage an endless and brutal war, they gave speeches about protecting white Christian society from degenerates just like how conservatives do today.

Nazis weren't atheists or pagans. They were deeply Christian and Christianity was part of their ideology just like it is for modern conservatives. They spoke at lengths about defending their Christian nation from godless leftism. The ones who hated the catholic church hated it for protestant reasons. Nazi occultism was fringe within the party and never expected to become mainstream, and those occultists were still Christian, none of them ever claimed to be Satanists or Asatru.

Nazis were also not queer or disabled. They killed those groups, before they had a chance to kill almost anyone else actually. Despite the amount of disabled nazis or queer/queer coded nazis you'll see in movies and on TV, in reality they were very cishet and very able bodied. There was one high ranking nazi early on who was gay and the other nazis killed him for that. Saying the nazis were gay or disabled makes about as much sense as saying they were Jewish.

The nazis weren't mentally ill. As previously mentioned they hated disabled people, and this unquestionably included anyone neurodivergent. When the surviving nazi war criminals were given psychological tests after the war, they were shown to be some of the most neurotypical people out there.

The nazis weren't socialists. Full stop. They hated socialists. They got elected on hating socialists. They killed socialists. Hating all forms of lefitsm was a big part of their ideology, and especially a big part of how they sold themselves.

The nazis were not the supervillians you see on screen, not because they didn't do horrible things in real life, they most certainly did, but because they weren't that vague apolitical evil that exists for white American action heros to fight. They did horrible things because they had a right wing authoritarian political ideology, an ideology that is fundamentally the same as what most of the modern right wing believes.

[kurtbennett]

On Being All Things to All People for Jesus--Acts 21:17-26

God Running is a place for anyone who wants to (or even anyone who wants to want to) love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants us to. Continue reading On Being All Things to All People for Jesus–Acts 21:17-26

[koshercosplay]

alrighty folks buckle up for the fifth year of menorabilia ratings! I've scoured the internet (and my eyeballs) so get ready for the best and worst chanukah merchandise of the year

okay first I just need to get these fuckin gnomes out of the way. ideally permanently. this guy's hat has so much going on I don't know where to begin. the menorah? not kosher. also wrong. the dreidels? certainly have,,, something written on them. everyone knows reindeer love chanukah, the lighting fires holiday. 5/10 at least it's got SOMEWHAT of a cuteness factor

turning old CDs into fake sufganiyot is certainly creative bc that's the only explanation for those monstrosities that I'll accept. please don't spin your spontaneous combustion menorahs on top of your dreidels. it won't bring the next season any faster. 4/10 I'll put up with a lot if you're offering to pay for my netflix account

they are Setting That Torah On Fire. is that why there's an oil jug next to a candle menorah. 6/10 the פ instead of a ש‎ on the dreidel is because the miracle is just the torah not bursting into flames

this really puts the messy in messianic. it's got the wrong amount of branches. why is the shamash just two stacked cups. the cross looks like an airplane. oh god it also has the jesus fish. -76162802492/10 never knew a single image could contain so much No.

some of these menorahs are kosher and some are not which really spices things up. what a fun little game of I spy for me. I enjoy the addition of various happy animals celebrating chanukah but were the santa hats really necessary? 7/10 that bottom dreidel has two נ‎s. none dreidel with left coins.

I can acknowledge that it's an attempt to jewish-ize a christmas thing but tinsel is, unfortunately, occasionally, pretty. weird choice to have all the menorahs have נ‎s but sure. what's that? those are dreidels? wrong. take a look at the helpful next image of this item.

do you see it yet? here let me help.

clearly those are menorahs. we light them on fire and spin them as fast as we can. first one to die loses. 5/10 google is your friend

move over fiddler on the roof chassidim with bottle balancing skills, here come some cats with impressive candle dexterity. this may not be a kosher menorah but their TAILS are the BRANCHES. 7/10 I am easily won over by the presence of cats okay

canon jewish representation, a spinning dreidel, a kosher menorah, some chocolate gelt, and they're eating fresh latkes. I needed these yesterday. 10/10 rugrats my beloved never lets me down

(previous years 1, 2, 3, 4)

[awakefor48hours]

I saw a post about this so now I'm curious

New poll with more options if you want there

please consider reblogging for a larger sample size unless you're planning to say something that's anti-theistic

[emperorsfoot]

I just recalled a random memory this morning from when I was in scouts. I had a friend who’s mom was a devout catholic, but we were good friends through scouts. One year my friend wanted to give me a gift for Chanukah so their mom took us to Toys R Us together so I could pick out what I wanted. The mom handed my friend cash at the register so my friend could say they bought it and they paid a little extra for wrapping.

As we were leaving the mom said that I couldn’t open it until Christmas.

But my friend specifically said they were giving it to me for Chanukah. Chanukah that year was a week or two before Christmas (I don’t remember exactly) and the mom said that if I opened it before Christmas “Jesus would know”. I cannot stress enough that my friend wanted it to be a CHANUKAH present.

I’m dropped off at home and my friends mom tells my parents that I can’t open my present until Christmas, meanwhile my friend is in the back seat frustrated and almost shouting “Mom [Renkon] is Jewish!”

My dad just nods and says he understands. He’ll make sure I don’t open it until “the appropriate time”.

First night of Chanukah rolls around and my dad hands me the present and tells me to open it but don’t say anything to my friend until he has a chance to talk to their mother.

So I get to enjoy my toy FOR CHANUKAH like my friend intended.

Anyway, Christmas come and goes. Then new years, then on January 3rd my dad calls the mom and asks “what day does your holiday fall on this year? [Renkon] would like to open their present.”

[kdmiller55]

Slip Sliding Away

1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4 while God also bore…

[jessicalprice]

how can you be so controversial and yet so brave

(reposted from Twitter)

Hey so, have I ever told you about the time I was at an interfaith event (my rabbi, who was on the panel, didn't want to be the only Jew there), and there was a panel with representatives of 7 different traditions, from Baha'i to Zoroastrian?

The setup was each panelist got asked the same question by the moderator, had 3 minutes to respond, and then they moved on to the next panelist.

The Christian dude talked for 8 minutes and kept waving off the poor, flustered, terminally polite Unitarian moderator.

The next panelist was a Hindu lady, who just said drily, "I'll try to keep my answer to under a minute so everyone else still has a chance to answer." (I, incidentally, am at a table with I think the only other non-Christian audience members, a handful of Muslims and a Zorastrian.)

So then we get to the audience questions part. No one's asking any questions, so finally I decide to get things rolling, and raise my hand and the very polite moderator comes over and gives me the mic.

I briefly explain Stendahl's concept of "holy envy" and ask what each of theirs is.

(If you're not familiar, Stendahl had 3 tenets for learning about other traditions, and one was leave room for "holy envy," being able to say, I am happy in my tradition and don't desire to convert, but this is something about another tradition that I admire and wish we had.)

The answers were lovely. My rabbi said she admired the Buddhist comfort with silence and wished we could learn to have that spaciousness in our practice. The Hindu said she admired the Jewish and Muslim commitment to social justice & changing, rather than accepting, the status quo.

The Christian dude said he envied that everyone else on the panel had the opportunity to newly accept Jesus.

I shit you not.

Dead silence. The Buddhist and Baha'i panelists are resolutely holding poker faces. The Hindu lady has placed her hands on the table and folded them and seems to be holding them very tightly. Over on the middle eastern end of the table, the rabbi, the imam, and the Zoroastrian lady are all leaning away from the Christian at identical angles with identical expressions of disgust. The terminally polite Unitarian moderator is literally wringing his hands in distress.

A Christian lady at the table next to me, somehow unable to pick up on the emotional currents in the room, sighs happily and says to her fellow church lady, "What a beautiful answer."

anyway I love my rabbi to death and would do anything for her

except attend another interfaith event

[gay-jewish-bucky]

Friendly reminder that interfaith families with a Jewish partner and a Christian partner exist (as do many other configurations of mixed family structures), any holiday decor or greetings cards you see combining Christmas and Hanukkah is more likely than not intended for that specific audience. You don't have to like seeing the two combined, but when you go out of your way to make snide comments the only people getting hurt are people in interfaith families, not the companies making the products.

[chanaleah]

It's interesting to me that growing up Jewish seems to have given me a fundamentally different understanding of religion from my Christian friends. For me, I think that your religion (or ethnicity, since Judaism is an ethnicity) is not something you can get rid of. You can convert to another religion, but I never understood friends of mine who said that they weren't Christian, but Atheist.

"But you celebrate Christmas, right?" I asked them.

"Well, yeah," they said, "but we don't celebrate Christian Christmas. I'm atheist."

That didn't make any sense to me. Sure, maybe the version of Christmas they celebrated in their house looked more like treats and presents and less like nativity scenes and prayers, but it was still the same holiday.

So, I came up with the concept of the difference between "Not Christian" and "non-Christian". Which of course my "not christian" friends didn't understand. But my idea was that there are people who are "not christian" - mainly culturally christian atheists - and people who are "non-christian", like Jews, Hindus, Muslims, or others.

Because while both groups generally don't identify as Christian, we have different experiences. As a Jew, my experience as a religious minority is not the same as that of a culturally Christian atheist. They're not Christian, and I'm not Christian, but in different ways.

note (11/27/23)— I don’t entirely stand by the contents of this post anymore, specifically the part where I said that religion isn’t something you can get rid of. I have changed my mind and as of now do believe that atheism fully separate from Christianity is something that can be achieved, and while I’m not apologizing to many of those in my notes who despite their avowed atheism have continued to uphold Christian hegemony— I do apologize to atheists who have taken steps to distance themselves from Christianity and be careful not to uphold Christian hegemony.

[alostwanderernotfound]

Do you think maybe that there’s a chance you are REALLY, REALLY behind on current events & the statue is the beast? I mean literally. Like the statue sits there until the apocalypse & then it turns out it’s an actual robot that a consciousness can switch into when they decide it’s the right day. I’m sorry to be scary, but It is. It’s not just a warning. This is really happening, just like all those other signs you see are also there. It’s there because it’s supposed to be hidden in plain sight to then be switched on, just like other things/statues/etc hidden in plain sight. You’ve been warned many, many times, but each time until the end there’s always a chance to change the future. It’s never hopeless, but you have to come to terms with the fact this has been right in front of you for a very long time. Do you want to take it seriously or do you want to ignore it till it’s too late? The decision is always in your hands.

[thejewitches]

This post is meant to serve as a jumping off point. Those citations exist for a reason and we encourage you to read further. This post can only address so much.

There was so much that simply couldn’t be covered in such a short post; not to mention a breadth of research that feels like it should be must read material for this topic.

A huge thank you to willatheewisps and a.hearth.witch (on instagram) for going over this prior to posting.

Let us know in the comments if you’re interested in a post going over the origins of the Christian Zionist movement, as well as how it inspired Jewish Zionism.

Did you know that it was a “proto-Christian Zionist” Church of Scotland clergyman & author Alexander Keith who coined the phrase, “land without a people and a people without a land” in his 1843 book?

[whereserpentswalk]

Thing I made.

[tertu-m]

okay sorry to vague about this but saying "why'd you talk about judaism if you're not jewish" in response to me saying "jews do not believe Jesus is the son of God or a prophet" is just fucking absurd. this is a basic fact about judaism