The Myth of "Judeo-Christian Values"

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Monday, 12 April 2010

The Myth of "Judeo-Christian Values"

  By Paul E. Gottfried  

Reading Larry Auster's website over the years, I find there is much in his spirited commentaries that I agree with. Larry's attacks on liberals and neoconservatives, his stress on the enormous overlap between these two only minimally different groups, his focus on the immigration issue, and his critical examination of the government's war on traditional social relations and religious morals are invariably of high quality. Larry dares to say things that one would rarely see in mainstream liberal and neoconservative publications, and therefore we on the real right owe him a debt of gratitude for these efforts.

An issue, however, that he and I strongly disagree about is his conception of a Judeo-Christian war against Islam. First, I have never shared Larry's fierce revulsion for all Muslims as bearers of violence and hatred. I have known practicing Muslims for most of my life, and among them I have numbered personal friends. I have also never perceived any signs of violence or malice in dealing with these Muslims. Last Sunday my wife and I were with a young Turkish couple in a Turkish restaurant in Allentown, PA; and I found nothing off-putting about the Muslims I saw coming in to eat Halal food. They looked, acted, and ate like the Orthodox Jews whom I have known, and I felt much safer in their company than I would have felt among the inner-city minorities, who may be Pentecostal Christians. Such non-Muslims, in any case, were doing drug deals outside the restaurant in which we were dining.

Although I agree with Larry about the need for a moratorium on immigration, particularly from Latin America, and although I share his view that decadent, childless Europeans are committing physical and demographic suicide by repopulating their countries with lower-class Muslims, who often incline toward Islamic Fundamentalism, I strongly dissent from his unqualified generalizations about adherents of Islam.

Moreover, I think that there is something other than a sense of emergency that has fueled Larry's call for a Judeo-Christian front against Muslims as a collective enemy. To be very blunt (and I may be in view of the fact that Larry has scolded me more than once as a self-hating Jew), my friend may be addressing a personal problem when he grasps for conceptual straws, as a Jew who converted to Christianity. In order to bridge the poles in his hyphenated existence, he appeals to a desirable but (alas) fictitious unity. To say that Christians and Jews are both being targeted by Islamic Fundamentalists does not mean that they share a close friendship based on common religious convictions.

Larry may wish that such a community of belief in fact existed. And so do the Christian Zionists and the Christian employees of the neoconservatives, who share Larry's rhetorical habit when they refer to "Judeo-Christians." Admittedly one could describe Jesus, Peter, and Paul as Judeo-Christians but they may have been the last Jews who would answer to that description. In the first century total war broke out between two rival Jewish sects, the Pharisees and the Jewish Christians. While the Jews had the upper hand, which they didn't for very long, they went after the Christians, and from the High Middle Ages on, the Church paid back the Jews in a more devastating way, from a greater position of strength.

Significantly, the issues Jews had and still have with Christians are theological and cultural, as well as the result of persecutions inflicted on Jews by some European societies in the past. The central Christian beliefs, that God became man in Christ and atoned on the cross for human sins, are utter blasphemy from a Jewish or Muslim perspective. And the Rabbinic attacks on Jesus that are found in the Talmud are directed against the founder of Christianity as a blasphemer. David Gordon revisits all these facts in detail in a review of George Weigel's Faith, Reason, and the War against Jihadism. But let me add other facts. The Rabbinic attacks against Christian beliefs were not a response to Christian persecution since they were produced in Babylonia, in what was then a predominantly Zoroastrian society. The only Christians whom the authors of the Talmud were likely to have encountered were Monophysites, who rejected the Trinitarian statement formulated at Chalcedon and who were living in Babylonia as a powerless minority.

Second, Muslims have never represented for Jews the religious problem posed by Christianity because the theological and ritual differences between Jews and Muslims are far less significant. As Maimonides pointed out in the 13th century, Jews may pray to Allah because the Muslim and Jewish conceptions of the Deity are the same. The Muslim dietary and ritual laws and the strict separation of the sexes also resemble their Jewish equivalent, although Muslims are less strict than Orthodox Jews in dietary matters. Unlike Orthodox Jews, observant Muslims will eat meat slaughtered by a Jewish ritual slaughterer, but Orthodox Jews will not return the favor by eating Halal meat. While some Jews fled from the Catholic Inquisition by going to Calvinist Holland and Dutch New Amsterdam, far more Jews left for the Ottoman Empire, where they were allowed to live for centuries in peace.

Until the eruption of hostilities between Jews and Muslims over Israel, Jews in the West continued to speak far more favorably about Muslims than they did about Christians. I myself noticed this difference in my youthful contacts with Jewish institutions, which always treated the Muslim world in a far kinder way than the Christian West. My students, who have read the historical writings of Bernard Lewis, noticed the same characteristic in this Jewish author. Whenever he compares the two universal religions, Christianity and Islam, Lewis favors the Muslims at the expense of the Christians. A distinguished Jewish historian already in his 70s, he reflects traditional Jewish attitudes toward the core religious beliefs of the two religions in question.

Until the mid-1980s when the neoconservatives started building an alliance with the Christian Zionists, Commentary featured scathing invectives against the Christian belief system as well as the "crucifixion myth" as the source of the Holocaust. Larry might wish that Jews thought differently about Christian believers since he himself is one, but alas most of them don't. Jewish organizations here and in Europe view Christians as people whose exaggerated guilt over the Holocaust can be channeled into support for the Israeli government. Prominent Jewish groups, such as the World Jewish Congress, the Canadian Jewish Congress, and the Anti-Defamation League, show nothing but indifference or hostility to the continued existence of Christian institutions in what used to be Christian countries.

Such behavior is not restricted to countries in which established Christian churches once persecuted Jews. It is equally present in predominantly Protestant countries, which have no significant histories of anti-Semitism. Why do most American Jews loathe the Philo-Semitic Christian Right, a religious force that only a lunatic would mistake for the anti-Jewish Russian Orthodox Church of the 19th century? In surveys about religious intolerance in America, as Norman Podhoretz rightly notes, Jews seem inordinately upset about Evangelical Christians, a group whose ethical positions are the same as those taught by Hebrew Scripture and who adore Israel almost as much as Larry.

My explanation, which Larry may not want to hear, is that Jewish distaste for Christianity is so deep-seated that it can not be written off as a legacy of Christian anti-Semitism. This unfortunate hostility actually seems to grow in intensity or expressiveness as Christians try to reach out to Jews. Christophobia may be weakest among Jews in Muslim countries, who have only minimal dealings with Christians, or among Israelis, who view Christians as a distant ally. But these Jews would not be likely go about celebrating Larry's "Judeo-Christian" values, although they might use and have used Christian Zionists as a link to Republican administrations, when the occasion presents itself.

I must also dissent from Larry's tendency to blame Jewish thinking about Christians on the effects of liberalism. Jews helped create and propagate this particular ideology largely as a protective device against an older Christian civilization. There might well be problems with the liberal ideas that Jews have supported until now, but it is simply wrong to pretend that Jewish liberals act from liberal motives that have nothing to do with their Jewish fears and hostilities. I've never met a Jewish liberal whose leftist politics was not in some way connected to his self-identity as a Jew. Larry might believe (and I wouldn't dispute his judgment) that this typically Jewish ideological stance is inappropriate for Bible-believers or incompatible with long-range Zionist interests. But it is the way that Jews have responded to their anxieties in the Christian West.  And mixed with this anxiety at some level is a sense of marginality grounded in theological difference. Here we come back to Larry's existential problem, which is his need to avoid confronting the Judeo-Muslim rejection of core Christian teachings.

These remarks are not intended to minimize the gravity of certain differences. Needless to say, I'd be delighted if Jews thought differently about the Christian world, which might end their tiresome attachment to what has become the cultural Marxist Left. But expressing this pious wish may be like wishing that elephants could fly. What seems unlikely, however, is that one could bring about an alternative reality by demonizing all Muslims. Indeed it is no longer even possible to be a crusading anti-Muslim, as the two Richards point out, without having to consort with Christopher Hitchens-secularists, feminists, and pro-gay rights liberals. Larry's holy crusade is certainly not going forth as a Christian, or "Judeo-Christian," enterprise. It has turned into a tacit alliance with the very people he professes to despise.
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         Chris Moore   [Moderator] 9 hours ago

      --Jewish Zionists in Israel are as anti- "white," anti-Christian and anti-Western civilization as are liberal Jews and most Jewish Zionists (either openly or subversively) in America. Most believe (or profess to believe) that whites and Christians are to blame for the Holocaust, the pogroms, European anti-Semitism, etc. (I believe organized Jewry has overstated all of these claims for purposes of Jewish unification and cohesiveness, just as they have overstated the extent to which Jewish Zionists in Israel are the "victims" and Palestinians the "aggressors.")

      --Western Jews that have any intention of assimilating have done so by now, or are in the process of doing so, and so aren't tenacious Zionists. The most tenacious of Zionists have no intention of ever coming to any kinds of reconciliation or "live and let live" accord with Christians, despite their poses otherwise. The recent push by "conservative" American Jews to pass off Jewish lesbian and multi-culturalism advocate Elena Kagan as herself "conservative" and install her in the last remaining Protestant seat in the Supreme Court proves as much.

      --Gentile neocons and "Christian" Zionists are NOT reliable advocates of Western civilization. They view Western civilization as did Rumsfeld -- as anti-Semitic "old Europe." They are more interested in money and warmongering (as demonstrated by their war profiteering with Israel as the linchpin in stirring up American wars in the Middle East) and some kind of fantastical, brave new "Judeo-Christian" Americana Empire, which is really a Frankenstein monster of Empire, authoritarian Statism and foreign policy social-engineering mindful of Soviet Communism (which itself originated as yet another Jewish (Bolshevik) authoritarian scheme.)

      Warmongers, war profiteers, Jewish authoritarian collaborators and Statism-pushers are not reliable Christians; Jewish Zionists who hate Western civilization are not reliable advocates of the West.
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         Guest   [Moderator] 9 hours ago
      2 people liked this.
      Related story:

      Devious Jew Commies Out to Destroy Tea Party

      There's a scene in the movie "Dr. Zhivago" where the Commie half-brother (Alec Guinness) slips into the marching Czarist army in the early days of WWI, specifically to undermine and subvert fellow Russian soldiers later on.

      Folks, this is precisely the kind of thing insidious Jews so admire and love.

      http://incogman.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/deviou...
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         Chuck   [Moderator] 21 hours ago
      I think it's time to resolve the Jewish question. To do this it is necessary to understand the question. It really has two parts-- There is the Christians Jewish-question and the Europeans Jewish-Question.

      1. Christians are spiritual universalists and Jews are something other than that. The Christian Jewish-question deal with how to come to terms with Jews, knowing that they will not embrace Christ as their savior.

      2. European are ethnic particularists and Jews are ethnic particularists. The European Jewish-question deals with how to come to terms with Jews, knowing that they have their own independent, though overlapping, ethnoidentity.

      Jews, or course, see this as the Christian-European Question. Now, none of the solutions to date have been pretty. And we should see Christian Zionism, and the idea of JudeoChristianity, for what it is -- from the Christian perspective, it is a trying to fit Jews, religiously understood, into the spiritual universalist system, given philosemitism. Now for the Alternative right, we have another problem in addition to the Jewish problem. And this is something we must not shy away from, as some are inclined to. That is the Christian problem, Liberally understood. What I am suggesting here is that this additional problem suggests a way forward for us: Europeans need to have a sense of self-consciousness, which is independent of Jewish identity and not contingent on a Christian identity. Leave to us, as Europeans, was is Caesar's doubly understood.

      For Christians qua Christians we offer a steady supply of Europeans that they can try to convert — and acknowledge that we would be happy to convert too, as Christianity represents a large part of our ethnocultural heritage and is, therefore consonant, with it, if they can produce a compelling view that stays true to our unique ethnic identity, as Indo-Europeans, which we feel is a demonstration of the truthfulness of any religion, since ethnic identity is the very grounds for a people to have a religion. If Christianity is incapable of ministering to us as a people, then, insofar as we are not Liberal, in the sense of post-group, it most surely is a false religion, and should be treated as such.

      For Jews we offer them the option to identify as part of the West which was always more than Christianity, but would note that the existence of the West, as an immanent Idea, in contingent on Indo-Europeans, making the later's persistence a necessary priority.
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         Bogolyubski   [Moderator] 19 hours ago in reply to Chuck
      I agree that we need a discussion of the both questions. Christianity has been taken over from within by the Body-Snatchers - who are busy at work turning those who occupy the pews into legume pods. Christianity was not always so, despite the presence of universalist strains in its doctrines. Alexander Solzhenitsyn gives a more traditional view:

          "The disappearance of nations would impoverish us no less than if all men became alike with one nature and one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colors and bears within itself a special facet of God's design."

      To my knowledge, this view is not practiced in any western church - Catholic or Protestant. It may still exist in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, but even that is questionable.

      Apart from the small Orthodox and similar groups, Judaism in the west appears to preach the same Body-Snatcher ideology, though it is not suicidal in the same way to Jews as a people. (There is considerable angst among some Jews about the very high rate of intermarriage in the USA, however.) This immunity is partly due to Jews' position as the largest single ethnic group represented in the ruling elite of the west - the USA in particular. There are other, cultural factors in play also, of course.
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         Chuck   [Moderator] 19 hours ago in reply to Bogolyubski
      You said: "To my knowledge, this view is not practiced in any western church - Catholic or Protestant. It may still exist in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, but even that is questionable."

      It's a part of the Catholic Church, or it was
      "Every country, rich or poor, has a cultural tradition handed down from past generations. This tradition includes institutions required by life in the world, and higher manifestations— artistic, intellectual and religious—of the life of the spirit. When the latter embody truly human values, it would be a great mistake to sacrifice them for the sake of the former. Any group of people who would consent to let this happen, would be giving up the better portion of their heritage; in order to live, they would be giving up their reason for living. Christ's question is directed to nations also: "What does it profit a man, if he gain the whole world but suffer the loss of his own soul?"
      http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyc...

      With regards to nations as conceived as ethnic peoples that's developed here:
      http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Identity-Conversat...

      You said: "though it is not suicidal in the same way to Jews as a people."

      No, Jews began preaching that for ethnic reasons. And it;s not fatal to their sense because they tell themselves that they are being consistent in preaching universalism and in being particular. This ideas is a a well accepted Jewish idea:
      "The universalistic dream of a transformation and healing of
      the world, that belief that peace and justice are not meant for heaven
      but are this-worldly necessities that must be fought for, is the
      particularistic cultural and religious tradition of the Jews."

      Making Jews choose to be authentic Jewish particularists or authentic post-Jewish universalists, must be part of our solution.

      As for Christianity, the solution is simple. Look, in this day in age, If you have 10 kids and are reduced to sub affluence because of that, your leftists Christians will help you out, and buy bikes for all your kids, without meditating on the fact that having the 10 kids was a choice and considering that the reason your are materially poor is because you just made a rather large familiar/genetic investment. They are just like liberals, since they don't think in terms of groups, they can't calculate group net benefits. It's like the 'ooohh, poor Blacks' 1.3 children whites who haven't taken to notice that the population of Black double every 45 years from .5 million to 40 million with negligible outside immigration.

      So with ethnicity, we just have to frame it the same way. Being indoEuropean, being groupish, is who we are; it's an essential, uncompromisable, part of our identity. It is genocidal to suggest or force us to do otherwise. You either minister to my group, as a group, or you don't. Once that is established, then the church will accept this as how it is.
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         CompassionateFascist   [Moderator] 1 day ago
      1 person liked this.
      Auster, Ilana Mercer, and most other Jewish paleocons are birds of a father. Good on almost every issue....except the care and feeding of Israel. Then they mutate into neo-cons, blathering about "judeo-christian values".....when it's just the same old kosher tribalism. Paul Gottfried is the only consistent Jewish paleocon I know of and, though he understates the intensity of the hatred and contempt organized Jewry feels for Christians and Christianity, this is an excellent essay. Why the hatred? Christ was a renegade Jew (probably the conflicted offspring of a union between a Jewess and a Roman soldier) who told Jews to "give it up, it's a bad job." No wonder they lynched Him, and continue to this day to hate those who worship Him.
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         JawboneCritic   [Moderator] 17 hours ago in reply to CompassionateFascist
      1 person liked this.
      I disagree. Mercer and Auster have every right to defend Israel on rightist and nationalist grounds. Jewish support of Israel hasn't been the main problem for white Americans. Indeed, Zionism turned many Jews to the Right, a good thing.

      The problem is most American Jews are liberal or leftist, pushing anti-white and anti-Western policies in the US while supporting Jewish nationalism in Israel.
      If most American Jews were like Mercer or Auster--pro-white and pro-Israel--, where would be the problem in supporting Israel? It would be a case of give-and-take. We would gives Jews support, and Jews--rich and powerful--would give us support. Good for both sides.

      The problem is we give Jews total support while most Jews give us crap.
      Even neocons are not the real problem. If most Jews were like neocons, even that wouldn't be so bad. Neocons may not be as conservative on some issues, but they are still preferable to liberals.

      No, Mercer and Auster are not being neo-con-ish in supporting Israel. Mercer supports Jews in Israel for the same reason she's supported whites in South Africa. She has defended Western peoples, civilization, and culture whereever they exist. Her Zionism and pan-Western 'nationalism' are of one piece.

      Also, Mercer never supported the neocon foreign policy of trying to turn the Muslim Middle East into an oasis of democracy. If Mercer is a neocon simply for supporting Israel, then whites who support Afrikaners in South Africa are also neocons.
      Supporting Israel in and of itself doesn't make one a neocon. Though some neocons are more or less genuine conservatives, that term has also come to represent centrists or even liberal Jews who masquerade as conservatives only to manipulate Christian Americans to support Israel and American foreign interventionism.
      If one's conservatism is genuine, then one's Zionism is not neocon-ish. One can be a genuine American patriot and a genuine Jewish patriot, just like one can love White America and White South Africa.
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         Tanstaafl   [Moderator] 1 day ago
      1 person liked this.
      Two "Conservative" Jews, Same "Liberal" Dissembling
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         Chuck   [Moderator] 20 hours ago in reply to Tanstaafl
      I don't see how it's consistent with our perspective to expect Jews to defend European ethnic interest at the expense of their own. I would say that Dr. Gottfried has gone out of his way to defend indoeuropeans. And this is all the more so, the more you consider him alien to the West., as you seem to.
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         Joseph_de_Maistre   [Moderator] 1 day ago
      Good pic
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         Kilroy Montgomery   [Moderator] 1 day ago
      1 person liked this.
      Professor,

      I am surprised at your cavalier attitude in referring to Auster in such a familiar manner as "Larry". Is he your son or nephew? or the gas-station attendant's younger cousin perhaps... Please: displaying a little manners and class will make your pretentions as a voice for traditional conservatism more believable.

      I say this not because I wish to offend you, but because I am offended that somebody whose work I have had a great deal of respect for in the past (i.e. yourself) can be so disrespectful towards another person whose work is similarly held in high regard (i.e. Auster). You do yourself no credit, and as a consequence, you belittle your image in the mind of those who think highly of you. Please correct your attitude and stop this silliness.
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         Guest   [Moderator] 1 day ago in reply to Kilroy Montgomery
      1 person liked this.
      BTW this shows how much respect Larry has for others:

      The idiocy of Kevin MacDonald
      http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/012769.html

      Tribal double standard, as usual.
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         Guest   [Moderator] 1 day ago in reply to Kilroy Montgomery
      1 person liked this.
      What a prissy, shrill, annoying Jew that Larry must be.
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         Caspar   [Moderator] 13 hours ago in reply to Guest
      1 person liked this.
      Auster's site is highly edited: the comments are highly edited, his exchanges with other people are highly edited, he posts selected parts of private conversation when and how he feels like it. He picks and chooses to paint the picture that he wants. And when you know, as I do, the real facts behind, before the manipulation of the image by Auster. When you, as I, have seen him lie and distort so consistently. Then you just cannot take him seriously anymore. All these other stories where he depict himself as the poor little righteous man under vicious attack from wicked people, why should they be believed since he so systematically lies and manipulates?
      ...
      when I turned a stone that he saw as threatening to his cult (about his mentor Jim Kalb, who is an Islam apologist), he went berserk; systematically lied, created a lot of high volume diversion noise by throwing piles of adjectives upon me, and wrote several sloppy things in defence of Islam (in addition to typical liberal tricks, such as describing me as someone who wants to kill all Muslims).

      His interest is in his cult, not in the search for truth.

      conswede.blogspot.com/.../austers-tone-deaf-attacks-on-spencer.html
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         Caspar   [Moderator] 1 day ago in reply to Kilroy Montgomery
      2 people liked this.
      As many regular visitors here probably know, Lawrence Auster has been writing for years about an idea he calls "The First Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society". Auster obviously formulated his law with muslims and blacks in mind, not Jews. He and his supporters want to exclude muslims and blacks (and "anti-semites") from "our" society, but not Jews. At the root of this double-talk is Auster's dissembling. So, he's NOT held in high regard!
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         Guest   [Moderator] 1 day ago
      3 people liked this.
      There is no Judeo-Christian morality. Christian morality is universal and principled. Jewish morality is dual, tribal and opportunistic: is it good for the Jews?
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         Caspar   [Moderator] 1 day ago
      1 person liked this.
      "In a traditionalist America, Muslims would not be allowed to immigrate or be naturalized."
      www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/006866.html

      I guess that Larry would have been in favor of slavery; that was once the law of the land. I guess that he would have also been in favor of segregation; it was the law of the land. His ilk come and go...
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         Bigmo   [Moderator] 1 day ago
      The reality is Judaism is Pharisiac Paganism.

      Christianity is Trinitarian Roman paganism.

      Islam is a sectarian Arab paganism.

      Torah, Gospel and Quran is from God. Talmud, Trinity and Hadith is from man.

      Who do you trust?

      None of those religions follow the scriptures. They follow man made traditions. Christianity is closer to the scripture since it only has no other revelation like Islam or Judaism. But they made that doctrinal intrusion, the Trinity, a center piece of their religion. You figure.
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         JawboneCritic   [Moderator] 1 day ago
      4 people liked this.
      Gottfried's article offers fresh perspectives on Jewish-Christian relations. The term 'Judeo-Christian' has become part of the political, cultural, and spiritual lexicon in the Western World. Both Jews and Christians have reasons for embracing the term. Jews, vastly outnumbered by Christians, use the term to remind the majority that their religion is an outgrowth of the Jewish religion. Given the history of the persecution of Jews–blamed for the murder of Jesus–at the hands of Christians, it's useful to persuade Christians that Judaism and Christianity are cultural-spiritual relatives. 'Judeo-Christian' reminds Christians with latent antisemitic feelings that Christianity is the spiritual offshoot of Judaism.


      But the term is useful to Christians too. In the 20th century, especially after the Holocaust, it's been argued that the Nazi genocide of the Jews was the culmination of Christian antisemitism. Christians are eager to demonstrate that Godless neo-paganism was to blame and that Christians, despite their stained history, really appreciate and love Jews and Jewish tradition. By embracing the concept of Judeo-Christian values, Christians seek to distance themselves from the horrors of extreme antisemitism.
      There is another reason why Christians embrace 'Judeo-Christian'. Jews are immensely wealthy, powerful, and influential(and immune to criticism thanks to a clever playing of the Holocaust card), and therefore Christians want to ingratiate themselves with the Jews. If Christians were filled with sympathy for Jews after WWII, they are now filled with fear and guilt–by the 60s, Jews not only accused Germans but all gentile whites, directly or indirectly, for the Holocaust. Fearing and trembling before Jewish power, Christians are desperate to win Jewish approval and love by Hannukazing Christmas and being even more blindly pro-Zionist than most American Jews are.


      Paul Gottfried makes a good point about how relatively recent the phenomenon of Jewish-Christian collaboration is, especially when it comes to a shared revulsion for the Muslim world. Many Christians think mutual respect between Jews and Christians has a long pedigree when the two communities had been marked more by enmity than amity.
      Of course, Jews know better, not least because your average Jew is likely to be better read, educated, and knowledgeable than your average Guns-and-God white Christian. Though there are opportunists on both sides, a greater number of Christians than Jews have a simple-minded notion that Jews and Christians are natural allies against the Muslims–when in fact, Jews are only using white Christians to fight anti-Zionist Muslim enemies in the Middle East. If it weren't for Israel and the resultant hostility between Jews and Muslims, most Jews would surely be using Muslims and Arabs as another 'people of color' victim group against the 'racist' and 'neo-imperialist' West–just as Jews have played that card using Latin Americans against Gringos for decades.


      Even so, the dynamics of shifting alliances and allegiances between Jews and Christians is nothing new or extraordinary. It's a common theme throughout history. When France was powerful, Anglos and Germans were 'natural' allies. When Germany became the premier European power, Britain and France became 'natural' allies. When Japan was the first East Asian nation to modernize, Americans favorably viewed Japanese influence in Asia as a Westernizing and modernizing force. US didn't protest Japan's occupation of Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria, and other parts of China. It's only when Japan became overly ambitious that US leaned closer to China and grew wary of Japan.
      During WWII, Americans and Chinese were supposedly great friends and allies while the Japanese were a nation of degenerate imperialist monkeys. But after the war and especially when the communists conquered China, Japan became the democratic and peace-loving friend of the US while China suddenly became evil and totalitarian Empire of the Blue Ants.
      So, perceptions of other peoples evolve along with the political climate. Friends can suddenly become enemies, enemies can suddenly become friends. France had long been regarded as a friend of the US, from the Revolutionary War through World War II. But there has been bad blood too. French have been prone to see America as an Anglo-dominated superpower, an monstrous perversion of British power. The French aided the American colonials against it arch enemy, the British Empire, but United States eventually became another Anglo-dominated superpower whose relation with Britain, in the long run, proved deeper than one with France. Besides, there's the lingering feeling that both the Anglo-British and Anglo-Americans stole Canada from the French. Though US is now a nation ruled by the Jewish Power Elite, French are still likely to associate the US with Anglo-power.


      Throughout the world and history, some peoples and nations are more likely to be friends or enemies. This is due to geography, race, religion, or ideology. The ideology of communism at one time forged an alliance between the Russia-dominated USSR and China, but age-old differences and tensions eventually revived ancient hostilities. The West and the Near East often clashed for cultural, racial, and religious–Christianity vs Islam–reasons. The relations between US and Canada–both settled largely by Anglos–have been smoother and more stable than between the US and Mexico, a mestizo majority nation with a white Hispanic elite.


      Alliances and allegiances shift back and forth. Extraordinary and exceptional–in the aftermath of WWII–is the fact that most whites have become blindly and mindlessly pro-Jewish and pro-Zionist no matter what the Jews do. This isn't the case in Eastern Europe where people readily express hostility against the Jews IF Jews are perceived to be harmful to their interests. But, the rise of Holocaustianity–essentially a secular substitute for Christianity whereby Anne Frank is the new Virgin Mary and Jews are the new Jesus(or Jewsus)–, there is an irrational slavishness toward Jews on the part of many white gentiles.
      Just as the ancient Hebrews were commanded to bow down before God at all times and never question His authority, there is a kind of deification of the Jew or Judeification in the West.
      It's sinful to even ask if Jews and their agendas may be evil or harmful to the West. Though whites are still allowed to oppose the agendas of the liberal and neocon Jews–about 95% of the Jewish community–, they are not allowed, at least in mainstream circles, to point out 'JEWS ARE DOING THIS TO US.'


      So, the shifts of alliances/allegiances per se among Christians and Jew are not out of order. For the sake of Israel, it's only natural for Jews to forge an alliance with the Christian Right. And there are certain advantages for Christians too, though far less.
      What is really odd is that white gentiles–Christians or otherwise–have pledged not only a political but also a spiritual allegiance to the Jews–even to secular Jews. Political allegiances can be broken depending on changing political climate. US and USSR were partners during WWII but then enemies during the Cold War. No white American thought he must love Russians NO MATTER WHAT. Similarly, Germany was an enemy during WWII but a friend during the Cold War.
      Spiritual allegiances, on the other hand, are irrational and impervious to reality. The problem is Western whites are now devoted to Jews in the way ancient Hebrews were devoted to Yahweh.


      Even so, the concept of 'Judeo-Christian values' is not without merit, especially in the context of secular modern world. 'Judeo-Christian' doesn't necessarily refer to religion or spirituality. It also has a cultural and moral meaning. For instance, secular liberals, socialists, and communists can argue that they too are part of the Judeo-Christian cultural legacy since universalism and egalitarianism have roots in Christianity which has roots in Judaism. No Judaism, no Christianity. No Christianity, no Western universalism and egalitarianism. So, when 'Judeo-Christian' is used morally, philosophically, and culturally than religiously or historically, it's not without validity.


      When Christians were devoutly Christian and Jews were dogmatically Jewish, there was indeed much distrust and hostility between two groups. Jews saw themselves as the chosen children of God and regarded Jesus as a heretic. Christians saw Jews as the spiritually stingy killers of Jesus
      blind to the everlasting truth of Jesus. It was the Eternal Jew vs the Everlasting Christian. Jews and Christians who were mentally and emotionally confined within their religious dogmas were less likely to see the moral and philosophical connection between the two faiths–similar to the one between Hinduism and Buddhism.
      It was only with the decline of religious authority among both Christians and Jews–especially following Emancipation–that the connections between Judaism and Christianity became more apparent. With the rise of Reason and Science, both secularized Jews and Christians began to approach the Old Texts–Jewish and Christian–more as history, literature, and culture than literally as religion.


      Even so, one could make a religious case for the 'Judeo-Christian' concept as well. Though Jews rejected Jesus as Christ or the Messiah, they had long had a prophetic tradition in Judaism awaiting the arrival of such figure. And even though Jews maintained their tribal ways and customs, their concept of the ONE AND ONLY GOD over all mankind was bound to lead to a universalized form of Judaism, which eventually became Christianity.
      Indeed, prior to the coming of Jesus, some Jews had tried to convert gentiles to Judaism. Jews, however, demanded that converts not only accept the creed of the Jews but also dress, eat, and live like Jews. And men were expected to be circumcised. It wasn't easy to be a Jew and not much fun.
      Christianity was a real breakthrough because, like Buddhism, it set aside all the mumbo jumbo tribal cultural stuff and emphasized the spirit and creed. Though Christianity revolutionized certain precepts in Judaism and soon set itself against the older religion, there's no question that Christianity is the intellectual, spiritual, and historical descendant of Judaism. A son may hate his father, but he is still the son. God came to hate His creation of Man, but there was affection and pride too.
      Similarly, Lenin and Mao may have deviated from orthodox Marxism, but they too were the children of Marx.


      There was a great contradiction within Judaism, one that cried out to be resolved. The spiritual crisis became more acute as Jewish consciousness evolved from the mythic to the historical. As the thoughts and dealings of the Jews became more worldly and political–and better documented–, Jews felt a growing distance between themselves and God. Worse, Jews were under pressure from both Greco-Roman militarism and cosmopolitanism. They were threatened with the stick and tempted with the carrot. If pagan peoples accommodated themselves under Pax Romana, the religion of the Jews made this more difficult. Pagan peoples respected the gods of mightier peoples since their concept of godly power was measured in materialistic terms. If the Romans were powerful, their gods must be powerful too–indeed more powerful than one's own gods. But Jews had a different way of measuring spiritual power. Their God was the one and only true god while all the rest were false idols. Romans had problems with this spiritual intransigence just as American troops have problems with the Taliban in Afghanistan. (In the modern world, secular Jews worship their own brilliance, wit, and genius as godly, and thus cannot accommodate themselves to the world of the gentiles. Rather, the gentiles must embrace the TRUTH ACCORDING TO THE JEWS.)


      Judaism is nothing without profound contradictions. It has been, at once, fiercely tribal and profoundly universal, doggedly conservative and fervently revolutionary. There was ONE GOD but God favored a particular people. But through his chosen people, all the peoples of the world would be blessed. There was a great emphasis on love, justice, and wisdom. There was also a great deal of advice on opportunism and power-lust–essentially on how to deal with filthy and stupid goyim. Judaism taught Jews to respect and live with gentiles. It also taught Jews to look upon gentiles as dogs unfit for Kosher food.
      The contradiction within Judaism–between its universalist concept of God and its tribal laws/ particularist customs–was somewhat similar to the contradiction in American history between the Constitution and white racism. The Constitution guaranteed freedom and equal political rights to all men, but whites still practiced slavery in the South until the end of the Civil War. Even after the end of slavery, American government, society, and culture favored whites–especially Northern European whites–over others though the Constitution banned such things.
      Just as the contradiction in American History was bound to produce the Civil Rights movement and the rise of men like Michael King–aka Martin Luther King Jr–, Judaism was bound to produce someone like Jesus, especially a time of major crisis.


      To the extent that Jesus, his disciples, early followers, and men like Paul were Jews, Christianity was indeed a direct outgrowth of Judaism. Christianity was not created by gentiles who 'stole' from Judaism and distorted matters for their own purposes. Christianity was created by Jews themselves, and as such, even though most Jews rejected Christianity, it has a direct connection to Judaism, not only spiritually and culturally but ethnically. Christianity was later adopted by pagan gentiles who came to define and dominate the movement, but it genuinely and authentically grew out of Jewish traditions and from Jews themselves. It is crucial that Jesus and his followers were mostly Jewish.


      Though Christianity was sufficiently different from Judaism, it was morally and intellectually a 'logical' progression from the earlier religion. Christianity successfully resolved the contradiction between universalist God and particularist tribalism. For God to belong to all men, the emphasis had to be placed on the meaning and love of God, not on what Jews did with their food or dicks. Though Christianity required converts to reject their pagan ways, there were–notwithstanding the elaborate ritualism of some Christian sects or denominations–very limited rules on diet, dress, rituals, and etc if any. Christian advice on food was moral–"don't be a glutton"–than cultural–"don't eat lobsters.".
      So, given the direct link between Judaism and Christianity, one can speak of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Jews created Christianity, and Christianity successfully and 'logically' resolved the Judaic contradictions. That they became bitter enemies still doesn't disprove this fundamental fact. After all, the notion of Earth revolving around the Sun grew out of the idea of Sun revolving around the Earth. Even if the earlier belief had been wrong, it still paved the way for the Copernican model by conceptualizing Earth and Sun as spherical heavenly bodies whereby one revolved around the other. Galileo and Copernicus couldn't have arrived at the correct observation without there having been an earlier theory proposing that the Sun revolved around the Earth.
      This isn't to imply that Christianity is superior to Judaism but only to point out that Christianity was morally a more satisfying religion given the nature of God in the Old Testament. If there is only one God and if He offers the way for the redemption of all mankind, then there was a need for a religion with a bigger scope than Judaism.


      However, the element of Son-of-God business must have been pagan in origin since there's nothing in the Old Testament that would indicate God would give birth to flesh-and-blood Man as Zeus or Odin did in pagan mythologies. Perhaps, Christianity would have been more appealing to Jews if not for this quasi-pagan element. It's also possible that it was more appealing to pagans precisely because pagan myths were rife with stories of gods having sex with women who then gave birth to half-god/half-man folks.


      On that element, Judaism is indeed closer to Islam than to Christianity. Both Judaism and Islam find the idea of Son of God ridiculous. And one could argue it is the weakest part of Christianity. Perhaps it would have made more sense if Jesus was said to have been an angel sent by God to live and die as man.
      Even so, one cannot speak of a Judeo-Islamic tradition in the way we can speak of a Judeo-Christian tradition. Nor can we speak of a Judeo-Christo-Islamic tradition.
      Christianity really grew out of Judaism. It was the creation of Jews dealing specifically with contradictions within Judaism itself. Christianity began as a Jewish thing and then spread out to non-Jews.
      Islam, in contrast, didn't sprout from Jews or Judaism nor from Christians or Christianity. Muhammad was neither a Jew nor a Christian. If Christianity organically evolved out of Judaism–like the polar bear evolved from a brown bear–, Islam has no organic roots in either Judaism and Christianity. Muhammad clearly came in contact with Jews and Jewish ideas and Christians and Christian ideas, but he remained a man apart. Islam wasn't so much like the polar bear that evolved out of a brown bear but more like a tiger that donned the hides of both brown and polar bears.


      Christians worshiped the New Testament, but they didn't alter nor tamper with the Old Testament. Both Testaments were respected as sacred texts. The New may have been a revolutionary departure from the Old, but it directly sprang from the latter.
      Muhammad did something far more radical. He denigrated both the Old and New Testaments as corrupted and flawed texts and rewrote the whole thing based on his visions or delusions. If the New Testament was a sequel to the Old Testament–like Godfather II is to Godfather I–, the Koran is a complete remake. It is based on elements in the Old and New Testaments, but it is not a continuation of those traditions.


      The fact that for most of their history Jews had an easier time with Muslims than with Christians may suggest that Jews have more in common with Muslims than Christians, but the truth is far more deceptive.
      Paradoxically, one could argue Jews had an easier time with Muslims precisely because Jews had less in common with Muslims than with Christians. For Muslims, Jews were simply the People of the Book who were as yet too benighted to accept the ultimate truth of the Koran. Jews could be tolerated as such.
      In contrast, Christians had a much deeper emotional investment–both positive and negative–in the Jews. Jews were the killers of the Christ, yes. But, Jews were also the people through which mankind would gain salvation, redemption, and the return of Christ. Muslims hoped that Jews would convert to Islam but didn't care much beyond that. Christians, on the other hand, had a much deeper emotional commitment in the fate of Jews. Conversion of the Jews was seen as necessary not only for Jews but for Christians since the salvation of the entire world depended on Jewish redemption. This love/hate for the Jews marked all of Christian history. Consider Martin Luther who had placed great hopes in the Jews, only to bitterly turn against them when Jews proved to be stubbornly Jewish. Familiarity breeds contempt. The most powerful passions–good and bad–exist within the family. A husband and wife or a father and son are capable of greater love or hatred of one another than a worker and a co-worker. Christians accepted the direct connection between the Old and the New Testaments, and therefore insisted that the Jews get with the program. Only the New could redeem the Old, and only the conversion of the Old could redeem the New. Muslims, on the other hand, were blithely confident in the superiority of the Koran over both the Old and the New Testaments.
      Christians, in accepting the sacredness of the Old Testament, wanted Jews to accept the sacredness of the New Testament. (Something perversely similar exists in today's politics. If old-time Christians wanted Jews to respect New Testament universalism in exchange for Christian respect for Old Testament particularism, today's Christian Right wants Jews to support white nationalist particularism in exchange for the Right's recognition of Jews as universal saints.) Muslims don't much care what Jews or Christians think. Their Koran is the only truly holy book, and it's only a matter of time before the world is converted to Islam.


      Islam and Judaism may superficially seem similar on the outside, but Judaism has deeper connections to Christianity. It's like English uses a lot of French words but it is really a Germanic language. It's true that Muslims adopted a lot of superficial customs from the Jewish religion. A hairy rabbi looks more like a hairy iman than like a well-shaven and crisp looking Christian priest. And, it's true that both Jews and Muslims go for circumcision and dietary laws.
      But, we must keep in mind that Islam also incorporated a lot of local Arab customs that were alien to the Jews. And before Muhammad reformulated Allah into the monotheistic God of Ibrahim, Allah had been one of the indigenous Arab gods. Allah, in this sense, isn't an Arab version of Yahweh/Jehovah but a remaking of an indigenous Arab deity into an imitation of the Judeo-Christian God.


      Furthermore, Islam failed to resolve the contradictions within Judaism but only compounded their problems. And it certainly was no improvement on Christianity. The only possibly superior thing about Islam over Christianity is the greater honesty about power. 'Turn the other cheek' stuff just doesn't work in this world, and indeed, even the West gained dominance through aggression and violence. For this reason, Muslims are incapable of the kind of suicidal self-loathing that has overtaken the West rooted in Christian conscience. Muslims don't lose sleep over all the wars they've fought, lands they conquered, peoples they've forcibly converted, or the slaves that they've owned.
      The greater emphasis on individual conscience and collective morality has made it possible for the West to make greater social and political progress, but an excess of that stuff is now leading white folks to their ruin.


      Nevertheless, Islam wasn't much of an improvement on Judaism or Christianity. If Christianity really did resolve a troubling contradiction within Judaism and formulated a universal faith, what original contribution did Islam make to spirituality? If anything, Islam is a muddled mess. It is both painstakingly particularist and painfully universalist. It insists that Allah is for all peoples and all cultures but then demands that all cultures and all peoples live like Arab tribes of the 7th century.
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Paul Gottfried has spent the last thirty years writing books and generating hostility among authorized media-approved conservatives. His most recent work is his autobiography Encounters; and he is currently preparing a long study of Leo Strauss and his disciples. His works sell better in Rumanian, Spanish,Russian and German translations than they do in the original English, and particularly in the Beltway. Until his retirement two years hence, he will continue to be Raffensperger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, PA.

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