My original intent in invoking the term judeo-christian, erroneously or not, was to point out the propaganda that has been in place in some form or another well before this or that terminology came into being. We've seen it everywhere from mainstream news media to children's books. This is the propaganda, today, that is used as a justification for bombing the shit out of Iraq. That said, it was certainly a propaganda in place to justify U.S. terror prior to whenever above-mentioned term was coined (and the narnia books, which came into existence at about that time as well!). I guess I was pointing to something broader than the terminology I used.
That said, with so much blood being spilled right now in the name of "freedom", it matters little in my mind when certain words were first uttered, or for what reason. And it matters little whether it's a "tradition being of much substance for intellectuals or rabbinic Jews... in the post-modern world." It's probably of most substance right now to mourning Iraqi mothers whose kids have been killed-- that is my point. "Collateral damage" is a term that has fallen into disuse as well, but that doesn't mean it, and the propaganda to justify it, isn't happening anymore. Though perhaps I'm just having a different conversation than the rest of you.
On a side note, I'd point out that Christians certainly don't have a monopoly on shame and guilt, which also have become hallmark strategies of contemporary US "leftism." Thanks, adx --- John Bizwas <bizwas at lycos.com> wrote:
> CC writes:
>
> >>Michael, you are in the wrong context.
> "Judeo-Christian" AS A TERM does not exist in
> English until late in the 20th century. What you are
> talking about here is the enormous influence of the
> OT on 16th/17th century Protestant theology. This
> has been discussed off and on for a long time. One
> Milton scholar spent his life trying to prove that
> Milton had read a number of Rabbinic commentaries --
> not generally accepted now.>>
>
> Could Carrol or Max give us a definitive quote
> showing where the term comes into existence? It
> seems far more likely to have been coined by either
> a Mormon in the 19th century, or a Jewish immigrant
> leader trying to get the Protestants off his
> people's collective backs in the late 19th or early
> 20th century. Now, as for affinities with things
> 'Hebrew' in American history, the Puritans had an
> inclination for this, because they wanted to connect
> quite explicitly the Old Testament with the New
> Testament (CONTINUITY you see) and they also wanted
> to get back to the untranslated GOD/WORD/LOGOS
> (though they were sadly mistaken on that account,
> linguistically speaking, since it doesn't seem
> either Moses or Jesus spoke Hebrew). Deist weirdos
> (not monotheists hellbent on revelation) in US
> foundational mythology, like Jefferson, had 'Hebrew'
> affinities because of their interests in ancient
> civilisations and languages, and their belief in the
> idea that right reason was in direct contact!
> with LOGOS and did not need prophets or angels.
>
> Also, Carrol anachronistically begs the question. If
> there is and has been a Judeo-Christian 'tradition'
> (or Abrahamic, to bring in Islam), it wouldn't
> matter when the hyphenated term was coined for it to
> refer to that tradition (even if Carrol has good
> reasons for doubting the reality of the concept). I
> have doubts about the tradition being of much
> substance for intellectuals or rabbinic Jews (now
> mostly secular and/or zionist) in the post-modern
> world, but surely surely Cold War ideologues weren't
> the first to see connections across Christian,
> Jewish and Islamic religions that were obvious
> enough to warrant the idea that they formed some
> sort of 'tradition'. Why did English speaking people
> in Milton's time see the Koran as an elaborate
> forgery? Perhaps because its parallels to their own
> text-based religion were close enough to scare them
> but different enough that they couldn't assimilate
> them.
>
> Some suggested reading below, excerpts and urls.
> Some of it is pretty scary, especially the Mormon
> and Townhall stuff. F
>
> -----------
>
> http://www.facsnet.org/issues/faith/goff.php
>
> >>In the 1950s, Judaism became more accepted in the
> mainstream, largely because of the Cold War, and the
> struggle against an atheistic ideology, Goff said.
>
> gYou had to present a united front against godless
> communism,h he said. gAnd popular culture helped
> mainstream Judaism through movies like "The Ten
> Commandments."... What began as Protestant
> pluralism, over time becomes Christian pluralism, to
> eJudeo-Christian.fh
>
> The balance further tilted further away from the old
> Protestant order with the Immigration Act of 1965,
> which opened the country to a more diverse group of
> new Americans than ever, especially Asians and
> Hispanics.>>
>
>
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4803.htm
>
> >>The Myth of a Judeo-Christian Tradition
>
> The following article from New Dawn Magazine No.23
> Feb-March 1994.
>
> This is an age in which news has been superseded by
> propaganda, and education by brain-washing and
> indoctrination. From the advertising used to sell
> poor quality goods, to the classes in schools
> designed to make children into conditioned robots of
> the State, the art of persuasion has displaced the
> simple virtue of truth.
>
> Since the end of the Second World War we have been
> bombarded from all sides with references to the
> Western world's "Judeo-Christian religion," and "our
> Judeo-Christian heritage." We are told by both
> church leaders and scholars that our society is
> based on a supposed "Judeo-Christian tradition".>>
>
>
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=188
>
> >>Third, the civil sense of the term has an inner
> contradiction. The New England Puritans and their
> putative heirs have to draw on the "Judeo"- side,
> since it is the law of Moses that provides scripts
> for their theocratic intentions (intentions that
> survive in much "Judeo-Christian" talk today). The
> "-Christian" side of the hyphen, which would draw on
> the New Testament, is not of much help in defining
> laws for civil society. The New Testament is too
> eschatological to display many values for a
> Christian society; its writers are preoccupied with
> life in a cosmos not of their making, not to be made
> by them, and ruled by "principalities and powers,
> Caesars and the Antichrist. What the Hebrew
> Scriptures set up theocratically, the New Testament
> knocks down eschatologically. >>
>
>
http://freebooks.entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/221a_47e.htm
>
http://freebooks.entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/gnjt.pdf
> A study of the theology of Judaism that shows why
> some Jews have denied that there has ever been a
> Judeo-Christian tradition. They argue that this idea
> came out of American Protestant liberalism, not out
> of the facts of European history. This book takes
> seriously this claim. It reveals the permanent
> dividing lines between orthodox Christianity and
> Orthodox Judaism regarding the proper interpretation
> of the Old Testament.
>
>
>
http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5572&abbr=cs_
>
> >>When speakers at this event talked about
> "Christians" exercising dominion or rebuilding
> America, it was clear the reference was to
> ultra-conservative, fundamentalist Christians. No
> lip service was given to "Judeo-Christian" values.
> This crowd wanted exclusively Christian values, and
> only a certain type of Christian values
> fundamentalist ones.
>
> The idea that the Bible speaks to all areas of life
> and is infallible in what it addresses was the
> companion theme of the event. Bob Cornuke, a
> would-be archaeologist who describes himself as a
> type of Christian Indiana Jones, regaled the crowd
> with tales of his efforts to find Noah's Ark and the
> real location of Mt. Sinai in the Holy Land. Cornuke
> insisted that the Bible can be read like a history
> book and an archaeology text, remarking, "The Bible
> is always historically accurate always. It is never
> proven to be wrong."
>
> Conference organizers also believe the Bible is a
> science book. While no speakers addressed evolution
> specifically during the Pearland meeting, other
> Worldview events have featured Ken Ham, a prominent
> "young Earth" creationist. A number of
> anti-evolution books were available for sale in the
> church lobby which was pressed into service as an
> exhibit hall and during breaks in the meeting a
> cartoon of Charles Darwin's head on a monkey's body
> appeared frequently on two huge screens behind the
> pulpit. The caption read, "Is this Charles Darwin's
> ancestor? Evolutionists think so!">>
>
>
http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/basic/bom/biblical_culture_eom.htm
>
> >>In five important ways, the Book of Mormon seems
> to some who are not members of the Church to
> strengthen the authority of Holy Scripture. First in
> importance is the volume's affirmation that the
> Christian religion is grounded upon both the Old and
> New Testaments. The book affirms what recent
> biblical scholarship is now making plain: the
> continuity of the theology, ethics, and spirituality
> that the two Testaments proclaimed. In the Book of
> Mormon, Jesus is the Lord who gave the law to Moses,
> and the risen Christ is identical to the prophet
> Isaiah's messiah. He delivers exactly the same
> message of redemption, faith, and a new life of
> righteousness through the Holy Spirit that the New
> Testament attributes to him.
>
> Second, the Book of Mormon reinforces the unifying
> vision of biblical religion, grounding it in the
> conviction of a common humanity that the stories of
> creation declared, God's promise to Abraham implied,
> and Jesus affirmed. Puritan millenarianism may have
> inspired an ethnocentric view of Anglo-Saxon
> destiny, but the image of the future in the Book of
> Mormon is a wholly opposite one. It envisions a
> worldwide conversion of believers and their final
> gathering into the kingdom of God. This begins where
> John Wesley's "world parish" leaves off.
>
> Third, the biblical bond linking holiness to hope
> for salvation, both individual and social, also
> finds confirmation in the Book of Mormon. Certainly,
> Methodists had no corner on that linkage, for
> Baptist preachers, Charles G. Finney's
> Congregationalists, Alexander Campbell's Disciples
> of Christ, and Unitarians like William E. Channing
> affirmed it. Ancient Nephites heeded the word of
> their prophets and looked forward to the second
> coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of Righteousness.
> When he appeared to their descendants in the New
> World, Jesus repeated even more understandably the
> words of the Sermon on the Mount that he had
> proclaimed in the Old.
>
> Fourth, Joseph Smith's translation of an ancient
> sacred book helped bring to fruition another
> movement, long growing among Puritans, Pietists,
> Quakers, and Methodists, to restore to Christian
> doctrine the idea of the presence of the Holy Spirit
> in the lives of believers. Charles G. Finney came
> eventually to believe, for example, that the baptism
> of the Holy Spirit, or the experience of entire
> sanctification, would remedy the inadequacies of
> righteousness and love that he saw in his converts.
> So, of course, did almost all Methodists. Observers
> from both inside and outside the restored Church
> testified that in the early years something akin to
> modern Pentecostal phenomena took place among at
> least the inner circle of the Saints. By the 1830s,
> evangelicals in several traditions were greatly
> expanding their use of the example of the Day of
> Pentecost to declare that God's power is at work in
> the world.
>
> Fifth, the Book of Mormon shared in the restoration
> of some Christian expectations that in the last days
> biblical prophecies will be literally fulfilled.
> Those who by faith and baptism become Saints will be
> included among God's people, chosen in "the eleventh
> hour." They, too, should gather in Zion, a New
> Jerusalem for the New World, and a restored
> Jerusalem in the Old; and Christ will indeed
> return.>>
>
>
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/dp20040330.shtml
>
> >>But what does "Judeo-Christian" mean? We need to
> know. Along with the belief in liberty -- as opposed
> to, for example, the European belief in equality,
> the Muslim belief in theocracy, and the Eastern
> belief in social conformity -- Judeo-Christian
> values are what distinguish America from all other
> countries. That is why American coins feature these
> two messages: "In God we trust" and "Liberty.">>
>
> >>The significance of this belief in American
> chosenness cannot be overstated. It accounts for the
> mission that Americans have uniquely felt called to
> -- to spread liberty in the world.
>
> This sense of mission is why more Americans have
> died for the liberty of others than any other
> nation's soldiers.>>
>
> >>That is why those who most affirm Judeo-Christian
> values believe that war, while always tragic, is on
> more than a few occasions a moral duty. Nothing
> "Judeo" ever sanctioned pacifism. Of course, the
> Hebrew Prophet Isaiah yearned for the day that
> nations will beat their swords into plowshares. But
> another Hebrew Prophet, Joel, who is never cited by
> those who wish to read the secular value of pacifism
> into the Bible, said precisely the opposite: "Beat
> your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks
> into spears. Let the weakling say, 'I am strong!'">>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
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