the Christians think you're Jewish and the Jewish folk think you're Christian. Not a lot of understanding from the general population.
It's worse than that with most Christians as I'm viewed as a
Judaizer, and it's usually spit out as an epithet from the Armenian camp. "Filthy legalistic salvation-through-works monster, how dare you even
read Torah and mention sin!" Even got a bit of that in this thread. Never mind that I make no bones about the way being faith-based and a salvation only by His grace situation, that there are no works we can do to save ourselves, though I cannot ignore the issue of free-will and its interplay with things and the need for walking in the faith daily. But then, I get in trouble with decent guys like Jim555 here who's a hard-line Calvinist and tries to be a staunch defender of the faith, because somehow the belief in free-will
also makes me a works-based legalistic heretic despite the fact that I readily admit that the way is a faith-based and a salvation only by His grace situation, and that there are no works we can do to save ourselves. That said, I suspect if the two of us just spent an hour face-to-face about how I view free-will as being involved in the bigger picture, we would both grow in understanding, encounter a lot more common ground, and find far less difference in our understanding than the limits of the English vocabulary cause... but that's nothing more than optimistic conjecture at this point.
I've even had a friendly sit-down with a Conservative Jewish Rabbi a few month back that I've known for years, and she admitted to me that she's very well versed on the New Covenant, and that my understanding and practice of my faith reflected and echoed heavily on first-century proto-Christianity and Paul's teachings, and looks nothing like either modern Christianity or modern Rabbinic Judaism. She also mentioned during that conversation that modern Rabbinic Judiasm is works-based in that so long as you go through the motions of practicing Torah, it doesn't matter if you actually believe to gain salvation. I appreciated the candor, but at the time didn't have the heart to mention that Abraham came to faith
before doing... just like what she said Paul taught. It had been such a pleasant and fluid conversation, and it just didn't seem like the right time given our schedules and the need for more time than we had to discuss that particular point without causing needless antagonism.
But here we can all be allies in the war on Christmas ;-)
I appreciate the sentiment and empathy, but it's worth noting that I have no stake in this particular culture war. I'm not here to take Christmas away from anyone, no matter how much I think the world would be a better place without it.
Though it is getting impossible to deny the bitter fruits of maturity from observing the Winter Solstice culturally by whatever label(s) we slap on it, and it breaks my heart to see those temporal and materialistic values so applied and ingrained that its mere cultural existence needlessly amplifies parents like Iowajes's grief in the loss of their children and gives them no hope;
that it drives poor adolescents to steal in order to not feel left out and feel somehow selfish because they aren't materially rich enough to express their love in the "appropriately social way" to those they care about during "the season"; no matter how much its practice only fuels injustice and selfishness... even still, so long as its practice by others doesn't cross the line of blaspheming our Creator or devolve into ritual sacrifice of humans, I'm gonna let it slide so long as I don't get roped into it. Have your short-sighted fun. Doesn't mean I won't be an empathetic ear to others that suffer from it and point out why it's so awful and offer a better way, but HaShem judges the nations, not me.
And though I may share Carrie's mother's sentiments, I've apparently never been quite so hard-lined on the application as she was. The first thing that comes to my mind with others who claim to be a brother and sister who celebrate Christmas isn't, "Filthy idolator, leave me at once and never come around me again!" I instead try to speak the truth in love the best I can, and point out that it has nothing to do with the message that Yeshua/Jesus taught and that we're supposed to be professing. I don't believe all Christians who have celebrated Christmas are bound for the fires of Ghenna because they wanted to celebrate the dwelling of G-d among us, but I don't envy their teachers who perpetuate this nonsense and blindly ignore Sukkot in favor of an ancient Babylonian sun festival as an appropriate locus of that desire, either. We're called to encourage one another in righteousness and justice
within our own community. We can't do that if we can't call a spade a spade. I've been there, I've done this hokey-pokey, got the t-shirt, and saw it turns yourself around to eternal death. What kind of brother in the faith am I if I stay silent on that point?
Hate the sin, not the sinner, and all that.
My apologies, but I felt like I really needed to get that out. Hope you all don't mind. May it be of benefit and encouragement to someone, anyone.