The Zeitgeist of the Christian Pussy

The ancient and unvarying Christian teaching that the New Covenant supercedes the Old --an assertion repeated in every Mass--is now vilified as "supersessionism," so that, post-Holocaust, Jews are to be exempted from this irritant to their dignity. This idea, if adopted earlier, would certainly have put the kaibosh on, well, the whole Christian thing, which originated with converted Jews.

And even more oddly, it would have made Jesus' mission puzzling, since it was entirely focussed on other Jews, too. His interactions with Gentiles were almost always initiated by them and always limited to healing and exorcism. (Except when he met Pilate, of course.) He never responded to these cross-cultural encounters by inviting them to join him.

Along with the crypto-Constantinian liberal fakery of "building the Kingdom*," the notion that Jesus' table-fellowship was "universally inclusive" has no basis in the facts. He did eat with all kinds of sinners, but these were Jewish sinners. If he were breaking this fundamental Judaic barrier and eating with Gentiles, the Pharisees would most certainly have noticed and complained, but while he and they clashed over all sorts of things, this issue never came up.

So, to reference Flannery O'Connor's attitude toward another diluted-down doctrine, if the Church is not meant to supercede Israel, then "the hell with it."

Are the Jews now to start apologizing to the Canaanites for all that invasion, conquest and marginalization and genocides stuff in the Old Testament?

As part of the ecumenical trance, it's now considered rude for Roman Catholics to direct their truth claims and invitations to convert to other Christian churches..."sheep stealing", it's called...although Evangelicals and Mormons, etc --who actually believe in their own doctrines--seem not to have gotten the memo about reciprocating this new politesse.

And of course, the Muslims stay out of this silliness altogether. They'll go on and on about how they honor Jesus, but always within the context of asserting Islam's superiority and finality and trying to con you into thinking you can become the best kind of Christian by apostasizing into Mohammedanism. Can you imagine the hue and cry if Christians tried that technique --We honor Moses as a prophet, too!--to convert the now-exempt Jews?

Beneath all this is my characterological sensitivity to people who try to snooker me into thinking well of them --or who want to think well of themselves--by their not being who they really are. That's a bit of Jung (and Aristotle/Aquinas) that has stuck with me. Things have a natural shape, a nature, and shape-shifting is not a virtue.

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*The word build before the phrase the Kingdom of God never appears in the Scripture. Not once. In all his talk about the Kingdom of God, Jesus never implied it was something you could build.