Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!caen!uwm.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: credmond@watmath.waterloo.edu (Chris Redmond) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Passover for Christians Message-ID: Date: 9 Apr 91 07:58:21 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Waterloo Lines: 57 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article ta00est@unccvax.uncc.edu (elizabeth s tallant) writes: >This past Maudy Thursday, I went to a bi-weekly regular meeting of a campus >Christian group. I was surprised to find a Passover meal set a every place. >I was rather upset, and wondered how a Christian group could condone having >a Jew lead us in a religious-related event, espcially on Maudy Thursday, >when we gather to honor Jesus. After all, Jews don't believe in Jesus, >except for Messianic Jews, who are actually Christians (welcome to the family). >Almost everyone >around me was participating, but I stopped on the first page because the >stuff sounded really weird to me - it did not sound like church literature >and was deviod of praising Jesus. >I felt nausiated. I was participating in another religion's ceremony. I might >as well be yelling "praise Mohammed." I could not stand it. I left the >room. In my view you are quite right to leave a religious ceremony if it upsets your conscience -- or, within reasonable limits, your taste. (There is something to be said for forcing yourself to sit through an event that makes you uncomfortable, for the sake of learning something. On the other hand, there is something to be said for leaving if they're playing Bach and you prefer guitars, or vice versa.) However, again in my view, you are wrong in thinking that a seder is contrary to Christianity, and especially wrong in equating it with praise of Muhammad. Muhammad was a human being -- to Muslims he rates as a prophet, to Christians he rates as a fraud, but to neither group does he equate to God. Jewish prayer, on the other hand, including the prayers at the seder, is addressed exclusively to Almighty God. Unless you can find a prayer you disagree with (they're praying for rain and you want sunshine, or something), I do not see why you should object, or indeed why you should wish not to participate. Now it is true that the Jewish concept of God corresponds more closely to what a Christian would call "God the Father" than to all three persons of the Trinity. Fine. Do you have any objection to praying, for an hour or to, exclusively to God the Father? There are plenty of Christians -- not me, by the way -- who see nothing wrong with addressing virtually all their prayers to God the Son! You may think that over an extended period of your spiritual life, you would want to devote a balance of attention to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Fair enough, but I do not think that's an argument against using Jewish-written prayers for one evening to address God the Father. And I think you ought to think carefully about whether you have insulted both Jews and some other Christians (I won't say, also insulted God!) by suggesting that the God who is addressed by Jews is not the true God in whom we live and move and have our being. CAR credmond@watmath