From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ucbcad:tektronix!tekmdp!dadla!dadla-b!hutch
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: Same God
Article-I.D.: dadla-b.412
Posted: Tue Apr  5 10:53:09 1983
Received: Thu Apr  7 00:56:01 1983
References: hou5e.339

Mark (Duck of DeNet) Terribile quoted the (in)famous incident where a
TV preacher made the absurd claim that God does not listen to Jews.
Clearly the man is wrong.  If he were to read in his Bible, he would
see that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, a Jew, is now our intercessor
and High Priest, praying and interceding for us.  If God did not hear the
prayers of a Jew, then He would not hear the prayers of His own Son.

The place where I usually see these so-called evangelists justifying their
arrogant and racist claim is from the assertion that God is allowing the
Gentiles to be reconciled to Him, and that this is possible because of the
hard-heartedness (read hard-headedness in more modern language) of the Jews
in not accepting Jesus as the Messiah and their Saviour.

An interesting but not directly relevant point that refers to the concept of
the afterlife:
	C.S. Lewis made the point to Sheldon Vanaucken ("A Severe Mercy")
	that the afterlife was a relatively recent concept, that the early
	Hebrews had no such developed concept.  The analogy was made that
	it would have been a most unseemly combination of bribe and threat
	to come to the Chosen People and present them with heaven and hell
	before they had an understanding of who God really is, but that
	after they knew, and accepted Him as their God, that this new thing
	was a gift of great value.

-Hutch