Episcopal Church mulls changes to Holy Week readings seen as antisemitic

[yankeedoodle]

The more "anti-semitism" the jew create, the more Christians capitulate.   

Episcopal Church mulls changes to Holy Week readings seen as antisemitic
https://religionnews.com/2022/04/14/episcopal-church-mulls-changes-to-holy-week-readings-seen-as-antisemitic/

When the Cathedral Church of St. Mark in Salt Lake City hosted dialogues last year on the Episcopal Church's Sacred Ground curriculum, wrestling with issues of race and white privilege in the United States, it didn't entirely resonate for Daniela Lee.

Lee, a student at Bexley Seabury Seminary at the University of Chicago, had been born and raised in Romania. What she needed to reckon with, she said, was her country's history of antisemitism.

So Lee picked up a copy of the book "Jesus Wasn't Killed by the Jews: Reflections for Christians in Lent," edited by Jon M. Sweeney, and organized a series of conversations about it at the church.

"There's just no easy fix to centuries and centuries of antisemitism," Lee said.

Lent, a season of fasting and contemplation observed by many liturgical denominations, culminates in Holy Week, when Christians remember Jesus' last days and crucifixion before celebrating his resurrection on Easter Sunday. There is a long history of Christians interpreting the week's Scripture readings as blaming Jewish people for the death of Jesus, a belief that has often been at the root of violence against Jewish communities.

"You can't deny that the church has misunderstood the message of Good Friday and engaged in the very thing that they're shown not to do. So there's a reckoning that's taking place," said the Very Rev. Tyler B. Doherty, dean and rector of St. Mark's.

The Lenten conversations at St. Mark's are happening within a broader reevaluation by the Episcopal Church as it mulls changes to the Holy Week lectionary readings heard in its churches across the country — especially as world leaders have decried a resurgence of antisemitism.

In February, the Episcopal Church's Prayer Book, Liturgy & Music Committee heard testimony online for a resolution to address the antisemitic impact of the lectionary readings for Holy Week. The committee will consider the resolution at the denomination's General Convention, scheduled for this summer in Baltimore.

The resolution started in and was approved by the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, where it was submitted by the Rev. Michele Morgan and members of her congregation at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.

Morgan pointed to recent statistics showing an uptick in antisemitism in the United States, including antisemitic symbols and sentiments captured during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Words matter, she said.

"When we hear this in the holiest of our times, does it change the way that we view our siblings?" Morgan said.

The resolution, which if approved by the committee could then be voted on by the General Convention, would direct the Episcopal Church's Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to recommend revisions to the lectionary readings for Holy Week to "remedy passages that use language that has been interpreted as antisemitic while maintaining the meaning and intent of the original Greek texts," it reads. It also would encourage the Episcopal Church to advocate for other denominations using the Revised Common Lectionary to consider similar changes.

Concern that some of the liturgies and familiar Gospel passages read each year during Holy Week — and particularly on Good Friday, when Christians remember Jesus' crucifixion and death — can be interpreted as antisemitic or anti-Jewish isn't new.

An organization called Opus sacerdotale Amici Israel pushed the Vatican to make changes to the Catholic Church's Good Friday liturgy — which described Jewish people as "perfidious" — as far back as 1928, according to Rabbi Abraham Skorka's foreword to "Jesus Wasn't Killed by the Jews."

"The problem gets raised by parishioners and priests every year, and I know this because they write to me," said Amy-Jill Levine, Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.

Levine, who is Jewish, was a witness at the February hearing and noted the most egregious text pointed out in the resolution is the reading for Good Friday from the 18th and 19th chapters of the Gospel of John.

John's Gospel merges different Jewish groups — Pharisees, high priests, the people — into "the Jews," Levine explained. That leads to passages like John 18:36, rendered in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible used by many Episcopalians: "Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.'"

Rather than debate whether the text is antisemitic, Levine told Religion News Service in an email, "I think it best that Christians acknowledge the text has been interpreted in that way, and then do something to prevent such impressions."

At the hearing, she suggested the denomination consider not only changing its Scripture readings for Holy Week, but for the entire liturgical year. She's encountered readings during the season of Lent that she said "undercut the value of Torah" and readings during the season of Easter, which stretches 50 days beyond the holiday, in which the Apostle Paul, who was Jewish, writes to his Jewish readers, "You killed the Author of life."

Another witness suggested changing the word rendered "Jew" in many translations of John's Gospel, including the NRSV, to "Judean."

Others have encouraged denominations to create guidelines for clergy to help them unpack the context of the readings in sermons, bulletins and newsletters. This is something the Episcopal Church already has done: The General Convention, which convenes every three years, directed the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to do this at every denominational meeting between 2006 and 2015.

But guidelines don't work, Levine said. People don't always read newsletters. And changing "Jews" to "Judeans" erases Jewish people from the New Testament — neo-Nazis and KKK members do that, too, she said.

"Changing the lectionary is the wisest move; it is also the most complicated given that lectionaries unite churches across the globe," she said. "However, if we can move flags and statues from public display to museums, then perhaps the time has come to move certain lectionary readings from liturgical proclamation to Bible studies."

In the meantime, at least one Episcopal diocese has approved the trial use of an alternate Good Friday liturgy.

"I think Good Friday is actually a moment where we want to be especially careful about how we talk about the Jewish people," said the Rev. Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, who helped create the liturgy.

The liturgy still includes readings from the Gospel of John but substitutes "Judeans" for "Jews" (Joslyn-Siemiatkoski affirmed Levine's concern about this change, but argued there's a difference between doing so during one historically problematic church service and doing so in an entire translation of the Bible). It also adds a prayer affirming the Jewish people's "eternal covenant with the Lord" and repenting of the harm Christians have done to Jews.

For the Episcopal Church as a whole, though, Joslyn-Siemiatkoski acknowledged it's not that easy. Change doesn't come that quickly to the mainline denomination.

Neither St. Mark's — in Salt Lake City and in Washington, D.C. — will be among the churches using the alternate liturgy for Good Friday this week.

The lectionary, after all, still calls for the readings from John's Gospel.

Doherty will do what he's always done: unpack the readings in his sermon, explaining that Good Friday is about recognizing one's own complicity in the crucifixion, not "making it someone else's problem." That is its own crucifixion, he said.

Morgan draws the line at saying the words "for fear of the Jews" aloud, though she said it still will appear in the readings printed in the church bulletin.

"Until General Convention gives us new appointed lectionaries, I think people need to see what it is, but I think that they get to hear something else, and, in that space, I think that's when the questioning starts happening," she said.

[yankeedoodle]

Two more stories about Easter capitulation to jews from Christians for Truth https://christiansfortruth.com/ :

Jews Want Polish Children Charged with 'Hate Crimes' For Beating Judas Effigy During Easter Celebration
https://christiansfortruth.com/jews-want-polish-children-charged-with-hate-crimes-committed-against-stuffed-doll/

At the behest of powerful Jewish groups, the attorney general in the Polish province of Jaroslaw has reportedly opened a criminal investigation into an traditional ritual enacted over the Easter holiday that involved an effigy of Judas represented by a stereotypical Jew being hanged, beaten and set alight:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/poland-opens-hate-crime-probe-into-beating-of-jewish-effigy/

Residents, among them children, took sticks to the effigy in Pruchnik, a small town in southeast Poland, on Good Friday and then burned it. The figure depicted with a hooked nose, black hat and sidecurls typical of ultra-Orthodox Jews, represented Judas, the disciple of Christ who betrayed him according to the New Testament.

"Based on the videos I've seen, I decided there is basis to open an investigation on suspicion that a hate crime occurred there," Agnieszka Kaczorowska told Israel's public broadcaster Kan on Tuesday.

Kaczorowska said prosecutors were gathering evidence from the videos of the ritual uploaded online, and were working to identify those involved. She said her office would also investigate the children's role, and whether their parents instructed them to beat the doll.

The Easter ritual known as "Judgment over Judas" dates back to the 18th century and continued to be regularly performed until the Second World War.

The tradition had been largely abandoned, with only a couple of villages continuing it. Even Pruchnik had appeared to stop in recent years, according to the Polish news portal oko.press.

The ritual drew widespread condemnation including from the Polish government and Catholic Church.

So not only can "hate crimes" be committed against real people, but we now are learning that "hate crimes" can also committed against large stuffed dolls and other inanimate objects like cemetery headstones.

Of course, it doesn't matter if Poles and many other Christians traditionally believe that Judas Iscariot was a Jew, nor does it matter that there is evidence in the Bible to support this fact.

As a Christian, you are not allowed to be angry at a Jew for either betraying Christ or for having him murdered out right — if this act of treachery bothers you, chance are you're an antisemite and you need to seek absolution at the feet of the nearest rabbi.

Children are free to hunt for pagan Easter eggs, but they are not free to actually re-enact the passion of Christ and identify those who murdered him.

At Vatican II, when the Jews convinced the Catholics to let the Jews off the hook for the murder of Christ, not all Christians went along with that reversal of fortunes.

The Jews should feel lucky that Christians are content with beating effigies of Judas on Easter instead of engaging in full-blown pogroms, but Jews never stop when they are ahead, and they have to ruin it for themselves and everyone else.




Jews Force Newspaper To Publicly Apologize And Grovel For Printing 'Antisemitic' Easter Poem
https://christiansfortruth.com/jews-force-newspaper-to-publicly-apologize-and-grovel-for-printing-antisemitic-easter-poem/

The Sacramento Bee daily newspaper was forced to apologize for running an Easter poem as a two-page paid advertisement that jewish groups claimed contained 'antisemitic' language even though it didn't mention Jews by name:

https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/sacramento-daily-apologizes-for-running-easter-ad-it-says-was-anti-semitic

The ad appeared on April 10 and 12, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and featured a poem signed by a person named Robert Forest, the Jewish News of Northern California reported.

"The 'religious' folks who ran the show, didn't like him [Jesus] stealing their thunder (and putting the 'sheep' in the know), so they watched and waited hatching evil schemes unabated, looking to kill the man who brought God's love, planning to slaughter the holy man they hated," the poem read. It prompted many complaints from Jews and others, the Jewish paper reported.

On April 14, the Bee's editor and president, Lauren Gustus, wrote "An apology: Ad with anti-Semitic language is unacceptable."

In her 10-paragraph [apology] item, Gustus wrote that the ad "celebrating Easter included anti-Semitic language. We deeply regret publishing it."

She said the language was "offensive and unacceptable, a violation of our principles as a news organization and did not meet our standards as a member of your community."

Gustus said the Bee will make a contribution to Sacramento's Unity Center, a pro-diversity institution that is housed inside the California Museum, that matches the cost of Frost's ad. The paper will not accept further ads from Frost, she said, and will be improving its review process for ads to prevent a recurrence.

Ironically, the author of the poem probably didn't mention the Jews by name so that his poem would be accepted for publication — and he was right — it was.

While the entire text of the poem seems to have been scrubbed from the Bee's website, the section of it that pertains to the Jews is in the photo below, and if this is what now passes for 'antisemitic', the Jews have set the bar to a new low.

It's doubtful that even 50% of the readers of this poem even knew that it was referring to the Jews at all, but the Jews sure knew.

After all, it's been 2,000 years since the Jews demanded that Christ be murdered, and despite their best efforts to rewrite history and exonerate themselves of that crime, the truth continues to follow them until the end of the world.

According to the ADL, to claim that Jews control the press or that they have inordinate political power are antisemitic 'canards', but all it took was a few phone calls to this newspaper, and they immediately received a lengthy written apology, along with a generous cash 'donation' to a jewish-backed charity.

Perhaps those 'canards' aren't so inaccurate after all.

And one of the ways that Jew are using that 'non-existent' power they have is pressuring Bible publishing companies to remove all the passages in the New Testament that are directly critical of the Jews, which means about 50% of it.

The resurrection of Christ is a rebuke of the Jews, so just like Christmas it will have to eventually be cancelled.